Slashdot Mirror
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 Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer on Diablo III: Where do you find inspiration for designing Diablo III? Even though I was young, I was always impressed with the darkness and feel to Diablo I & II. Do you turn to novels? Fantasy artwork? Your own imagination? What are your influences?
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.
For Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer on Diablo III: what mice do those at Blizzard use for Diablo III? Some industrial, made of titanium, super-reliable mouse with smooth right and left clicking action? Or do you run through mice like an Amazon through Tal Rasha's Tomb?
Will Diablo III introduce any new mousing techniques, like perhaps middle clicking, or triple left clicking? How about support for right and left mouse wheel clicking available on logitech and microsoft mice?
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
42 dancing gnomes
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.
Throw it away, no studio takes suggestions like that and not just because of legal issues (fear of being sued for doing anything similar to the idea even if they've thought it up independently, for example).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
And to follow up that question, how does it feel to bask in the glory of your defeated enemies, drinking their blood as they futility attempt to dethrone your empire, unsuccessfully and without any hope? Do you ever break out into song, perhaps in Orcish or Gutterspeak, to said victories, uncontrollably -- or have you become numbed by the whole experience?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Is there any possibility of there being an official port of StarCraft 1 to StarCraft 2's game engine?
To Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II: What is the current targeted minimum requirements for a computer that should be able to run Starcraft II, and what data are you working with that makes you comfortable with using that as a minimum for Starcraft II?
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?
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
Do you guys plan on answering the rest of the interview questions (make this one first) like the last interview we were given at Blizzard?
Just want to know now so I can tune out of the rest of the questions if the answer is "yes". Thanks for the help Blizzard!
...in bed
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
Chris Sigaty: Are there plans to support simultanmultiple displays in StarCraft II? (like how supreme commander supports 2 monitors)
I would build a PC with 4 cards and 8 monitors if SC2 supported it!
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.
To Chris Sigaty, lead producer on StarCraft II: Will it ever be a fourth race in StarCraft II? And why didn't you kept all the units from StarCraft I?
2+2=5 for really big values of 2!
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.
That would certainly explain why the MMO genre is so diverse: they don't copy each other's ideas.
To any of the interviewees: do you ever get tired of being so awesome and kicking so much ass?
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Is Diablo 3 going to use any of the Warden rootkit technology to police online play?
I find being offended by me offensive.
There is more gamers using linux on PC hardware
then Macs gamers. Give them quality games and they will play it on linux.
Why Blizzard can't see this growing market?
-Bob
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.
To Jeffrey Kaplan (aka Tigole), game director for World of Warcraft: Now that you've prevailed against the published of the Glider software and (via precedent) earned strange new powers to control the software your customers can and cannot run, are your users enraged or merely apathetic?
Further, how much has this activity hindered the gold sellers your product is lousy with? Zero percent? Five percent (MoE +/- .05)?
Yahoo! Pipes are awesome. How awesome? http://pipes.yahoo.com/jesdynf/slashdot
Is it cold in your office?
Go go Gadget Nailgun!
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?
As a Six Sigma, and LEAN, Green Belt I would probably say that making a good MMORPG is more of an art than a science. Six Sigma is purely scientific. You could develop and operate an MMORPG and be within the threshold of Six Sigma for all possible technical factors and yet the game could be absolutely horrible. This is because Six Sigma is poor at measuring the key factor of an MMORPG: fun.
You could use Six Sigma to support business functions and to identify problematic areas in places like project flow, server uptime, and programming, but in the end it's only really just support for the artistic vision that is the real backbone of the MMORPG.
And let's face it, plenty of MMORPGs are successful without needing Six Sigma uptime or coding defect rates, etc.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
What specifically will this entail? Will these be limited to the Bioware [Good/Evil/Mercenary] decisions, or opt for the VTMB/The Witcher system of [no right choice/moral grays]?
Also, how much impact can we have on the world if the dialogs are optional?
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
Is there a warcraft 4 coming?
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
42 dancing gnomes
How many gnomes must an orc mow down? 42.
Hmmm....
More to the point, how do you handle the approach of MBA's? Do you just stand off and send in the pet, or drop a snake trap and wait for their approach? Can they be soloed? And why are the only tameable Auditors caster-stat?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Can I get a response from blue? No, I'm asking about anything important, that couldn't be answered by reading the thousands of existing answers to it. But I just want to hear from blue! Blue! Blue!
Where exactly is the USB key with the "Sword of a Thousand Truths" right now?? and exactly how is it guarded??
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Don't underestimate the complexity of DotA though. I'm almost certain it would take far longer than a week or two, especially since people would need to learn the new language in the SCII map editor. And Icefrog has said before that he's not sure when/whether he'll move to SCII, so I doubt he would change his mind right after SCII came out, and I don't think there are many people who know the intricacies of DotA as well as Icefrog, although I don't know what happened to the original mapmakers (Eul, Guinsoo, etc.)
All your base are belong to Wii.
That's 10 million+ active accounts, not subscribers.
Many hardcore players have at least 2 accounts...
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?
To Jeffrey Kaplan (World Of Warcraft):
Given that tunnelling tests (lowerping, internode) have shown conclusively that Australian players experience an artifical ~200ms latency increase due to the network in the US,
are Oceanic players ever likely to see servers actually in the Oceanic region?
Would blizzard consider forcing an across-the-board latency for all PVP encounters?
ie, a US team against an Oceanic team in Arena would have their latency artificially increased to match the Oceanic team
To Leonard Boyarsky, lead world designer on Diablo III.
I've been playing Diablo 2 (and d2x in particular) for a long time and have been very much enjoying that game. But I've seen a very disturbing trend with d2x:
* Hell difficulty in single player is close to impossible, except with a few characters and very, very high-end equipment;
* some very good items are realm-only;
* some drops are way too rare, and the only chance you get to complete a BotD for instance (Breath of the Dying, VexHelElEldZodEth) is either to accumulate a four-digit-hours play time, use "item libraries" and edit your character, OR trade online.
The problem is, I don't play online, I don't WANT to play online, I'm not interested AT ALL in playing online, and I don't have 1000+ hours to spare, even for d2x. So, guess which solution I chose.
So, I'd like to know whether this trend will continue with Diablo 3, or if, at the opposite, there will be close to no difference in playability and good drops should you choose to play single or not.