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Ask Blizzard Employees About Things That Matter
In just a few days, some of us will be making the trek to this year's Blizzcon event in Anaheim, CA. In addition to the interesting announcements, sneak peeks, and other distractions, we will be sitting down with several Blizzard employees to answer any questions you might have. So far we have scheduled some time with Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II; Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft; Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer on Diablo III; and Paul Sams, Blizzard COO. Please address your questions to one (or several) of these candidates and try to keep them civil and on topic. Questions about Diablo III's art style will most likely be omitted since we have limited time and that dead horse has already been beaten into submission. The usual Slashdot interview rules apply, but beyond that, the sky is the limit.
To Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft: How does your team balance class, race & profession specific traits? I have seen the new trees for the expansion & I naturally have some concerns. But how do you measure when something is 'unfair?' Do you measure in game reports, analyze logs, play them yourselves? What is your strategy?
To Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II: How do you balance races, units, health, damage, effects, et cetera?
My work here is dung.
Owned by an evil company?
To Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft: Do you feel that Blizzard's dominance hurts other MMORPGs? Do you see yourself in direct competition with the other studios & products? Do you ever play these games to see what has been reused or what is new? Do you ever feel like another MMO has extended from World of Warcraft? Do you owe any credit to previous MMOs that have influenced your creations?
My work here is dung.
To Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft: What has been the most disastrous or disheartening experience in your time as game director for World of Warcraft? Duping, gold, farmers, MMOGlider, barrens chat, server failures, what?
My work here is dung.
To Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II: We discussed Warcraft III being played on a table top a while ago. Do you see this technology taking off in the near future? Are you planning to do any testing with your manipulation of units to see if this will be a possibility for gamers? Do you think this will ever be commonplace?
My work here is dung.
To Paul Sams, Blizzard COO: What is the hardest thing in managing the operations of what is arguably the largest MMO? At 10,000,000 subscribers, what are your number one concerns? What challenges do you face in an average day?
My work here is dung.
To Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II: Are you planning on a population cap in Starcraft II? I assume this is true and it has been something that annoyed me, even if it is a soft cap. I understand that building the perfect army is more desirable than meat grinding a thousand of the same unit but what is the function of a population cap? I understand machines used to have severely limited resources so it was necessary but what about now?
My work here is dung.
To Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer on Diablo III: How do you determine the enclosing size of a world or level/map for a game? I have played many games and those that have an 'open' feel to the world seem to possess more possibilities for me. Games where I could go out and get completely lost were much more exciting than a game like Warcraft or Diablo II. How do you determine whether you go with a 'closed and finite world' vs an 'open seemingly boundless world?'
Are there any books or resources you recommend that discuss/explain game world design?
My work here is dung.
This will never happen, but I'd like to see the first Warcraft Open Sourced. I'm referring to the DOS warcraft I from 1994.
Is there any possibility of there being an official port of StarCraft 1 to StarCraft 2's game engine?
There is ample proof of WOW working (somewhat) in WINE, so why not work with the Linux community?
Note that I am not asking for Linux "support" as that is much more expensive a proposition. Just a supported or acknowledged linux community...
To: Paul Sams, Blizzard COO.
br Are you intentions to keep battle.net free for Diablo and Starcraft? If so, thank you, if not, what will you be offering that would justify the expense?
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To Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft: I notice that in a lot of ways the next expansion is almost throwing out the old WoW systems and replacing them with something radically (for WoW) new (much of the class balance, getting rid of the CC/DPS distinction, gear consolidation, etc). What's it like to commit to making such a big change when you've got a hard deadline to meet and millions of fans who'll hunt you down :) if you wreck the game? How do you evaluate whether it's going to be a good thing or not before committing however many resources it takes to redo (and then test) things?
With PC gaming dying (Netcraft confirms it)[1], what is Blizzard's take on consoles?
While a game like StarCraft wouldn't work on a traditional console, the argument can be made that Diablo and World of WarCraft could be made to. (There exist crappy little "chat" keyboard controller addons which answers the "keyboard question." Plus all three next-gen consoles support USB keyboards.)
Any thoughts on porting existing games to consoles? Or developing a console-only game?
[1] That's a joke for anyone that missed it. There's an (old) troll about how BSD is dying based on Netcraft's figures. So, no, I don't think PC gaming is really dying.
To Jeffrey Kaplan,
Why is there such a negative attitude towards bots and the makers of botting software. The usual arguments of gold farming don't cut it - if everyone has the ability to bot then the value of outside gold sellers automatically deflates.
I don't buy the negative effect on other players argument either; It creates an equal advantage or disadvantage if regulated instead of taking a total prohibition to botting.
It would not be unreasonable to think that botting can coexist inside of MMO's. In fact, I think it could enhance the experience much in the same way that autopilot enhances flying: It didn't replace the pilot, it just allows the pilot to take a more managerial role when needed.
http://www.accelerateglobalwarming.com
Can you explain how loading a copy of your software into memory infringes on your copyright? If I load a million copies of your software into my computers memory have I infringed your copyright a million times? Can you estimate the damages I would need to pay you for loading a copy of World of Warcraft into my computers memory a million times using an unauthorized method?
Thanks.
Will Starcraft 2 have DRM or any kind of home calling "feature"? If yes, do you honestly believe that it is going to solve the piracy problem beside just annoying legitimate users?
From what I have learned about Diablo III is that you decided to do away with the classic potion system. No more stacking potions and using them rapidly when your health is drained by some (tough/horde of) enemies. I can understand that you wish to abolish the "inventory obsession" that sometimes plagued D2(haven't played D1). The problem is that the potions were a reaction to rapid health loss by a player. This is all too common in a D2 because of the hordes of enemies and relative high speed of the game.
My question is: Now that you have abolished the potion system in favour of the "health(or mana) orb" system, aren't you afraid that this will affect the speed of the game? The fact that you lose a lot of health was part of the exciting rush in the game resulting in the player always being alert to any danger. Will that Diablo feel persist or will this be a real breaking point in the Diablo series?
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
To all:
We've all seen the fallout from EA's decision to put heavy-handed DRM into Spore. What is your position on DRM and its place in gaming? Do you think it is fair that a single-player game require an internet connection in order to phone-home for anti-piracy reasons?
Thanks.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
To all:
What is your position on cross-platform computer gaming? Is there a viable market for MacOS and Linux gaming in your view?
Thanks
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
There's no doubt you guys could be successful forever by continuing to make games in the warcraft/starcraft/diablo universes, but have there been any discussions about doing something totally new?
I ask because I spent over 3000 hours grinding characters with my brother on a LAN, and still don't have any sort of reliable (lag-free) internet connection at home.
Will there at least be some sort of Open Battle.net on which we can use mods and/or play single player characters?
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
I recently downloaded Starcraft directly from the Blizzard store because I lost my old discs for the game and some friends and I had the urge to play it. So, my question is, since you opened up the new store and offered digital downloads of your older games, are there any plans to use this to distribute your new games (Such as Diablo III or Wrath of the Lich King) through this avenue?
Are you concerned about the arena becoming the pvp equivalent of raiding? That is to say, the one blessed path to endgame progression, and anyone who doesn't enjoy it be damned?
I will admit my bias: I canceled my account three days ago over just this issue, after playing for over four years. I spent a long time being frustrated by getting only second-rate pve content because I wasn't interested in raiding; I would have canceled long ago, but I found and began enjoying pvp. Now I'm seeing pvp deteriorate in the same way: the same monomania on one very small corner of it, to the detriment of everything else.
The raiding/pve issue has never been solved to this day, so I'm afraid I see little hope that the arena/pvp issue will be. Or can you offer us any assurances that it might someday be possible to pursue these broad facets of the game without needing participate in the extremely narrow subset of them that have been deemed endgame-worthy?