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Ask Blizzard About Starcraft2, Diablo III, WoW, or Battle.net
Well, Blizzcon 2009 is about to get underway (look for the big news from the keynote in a few hours) and given how fast it sold out I'm sure there are still many rabid fans interested in what Blizzard might have to say that don't want to shell out the $40 for Pay-Per-View access. So, to that end we have interviews scheduled tomorrow with the teams from Starcraft2, Diablo III, World of Warcraft, and Battle.net. If there is anything you wish to know about the progress or juicy details from any of these teams please leave it in the comments below. We'll try to parse through for the best questions and get you answers during our interview slots tomorrow. The usual Slashdot interview rules apply.
To the World of Warcraft team, I have been playing the expansion but largely left the World of Warcraft in search of something else after frustration from reduced effort to level. This isn't a new trend, I recall experience received from quests being increased for certain level ranges. This is, of course, a tactic to entice new players. But it has by and large been a very negative turn for the game. I feel that your recruit a friend program is also quite negative to existing players as I have coworkers who can mill out two level sixties in two or three weekends if they can borrow another person's account.
Have you seen any other negative feedback about this? Has anyone complained? You sit as the largest online game, is growth really so important that game mecahnics need to be changed to entice new players?
In my honest opinion, you are selling yourselves short. The players see less quest content now because of increased experience. While they get to end content faster, they pass up a lot of areas and beautiful terrain just purely because they don't have to go there. What does the future hold as you strive to cut out content? The ability to start at level (current expansion cap - 20)?
My work here is dung.
Why, why why why is there no LAN play?
I understand the desire to have a method of preventing piracy. But, if I get a group of 10 buddies in a room, and we want to go nuts with this game, ALL of us using the Internet to access a server is just plain dumb.
It's great if we want to setup a 'virtual LAN' party. But REAL face to face ones suffer as a result.
Why not make it require AUTH to open LAN play, then everything else is local? Anything is better than forcing everyone to use battleNet.
There's been talk that Starcraft II would not support LAN. The reason I am a fan of Starcraft and want to buy Starcraft II is I spent many many hours playing it in LAN cafes. People will be doing LAN with pirated version anyway, they'll just run their own battle.net server locally and the only thing you'll achieve is piss off other consummers with a crippled product. Why oh why?
\u262D = \u5350
There's no way to set "able to play X hours per week" or "able to play Y hours per weekday, Z hours per weekend".
Have you tried a girlfriend?
Dear Bilzzard, how do your computer games help America's children prepare to help acquire the skills needed to fight the war against terrorism and for freedom? Do any of your games have educational content? What about a game that encourages learning terrorist languages like Arabic or Mandarin Chinese? Everyone in America needs to do their part, are you doing yours?
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Obligatory question: Did you change your mind about Linux support for any of your existing or announced games? Are new, upcoming games going to be playable on Linux natively?
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To the World of Warcraft team: your work is censored in China. Is this negative or an unavoidable necessity? Does it ever bother you on a personal level that you slave over skeletons and zombies and stories involving them only to have 1/5 of the world relegated to some modified version of your work? Would you rather error on the side of cultural sensitivity? I had heard rumors that panda-like characters will never be in World of Warcraft due to them being a cherished icon of China. Is it true that real world politics play a role in what you do and don't do in your game? Do you ever feel restricted or cautious because of this? Do you ever find yourself musing on how great a scenario or character would be but then reject it because so-and-so would have a field day in court with it?
My work here is dung.
WRT Battle.net and StarCraft II, would you be making it so multiplayer play is possible with zero configuration on the firewall/router? If I invite 10 of my friends for a get-together, and we want to play StarCraft II, will that be possible without having to reconfigure my router? Or to do this, will it require using technologies like UPnP so SC II can open ports for each player?
Why is there no provision for offline play? Considering the way Blizzard games run so nicely on low-end hardware, if my friends and I are stuck at the airport waiting for a connection, it means we can't just setup an ad-hoc network and play SC II (especially since many airports charge $$$ per minute of Internet) to pass the time. Or even at low end motels/hotels where WiFi isn't necessarily available (or is costly)? (To be honest, I've seen even high-end hotels charge for Internet access, too, but it seems a waste that we all have to pay good money to get access to Battle.net so we can all play together).
What about offline play for single player? Or will single player also require battle.net?
As a company with a history of working hard to please its customers (the return of Raynor's original voice actor being a great example), are you paying attention to the petition to bring back LAN support at http://www.petitiononline.com/LANSC2/petition.html? I ask because the petition brings forth a number of valid points, chief among them the fact that pirate battle.net servers will be created no matter what precautions you take. This is a point that has been proven time and time again by other companies seeking to use DRM. Take Spore for example: Spore arguably had the most powerful and restrictive DRM available and was intended to be "un-pirateable", yet it went down as the most largely pirated game in history and the pirated version was even available before the game had officially been released.
In regards to server and mechanics development: What are the biggest deficiencies you see in new hires and college grads? Are there any paradigms in the game development professional world that game and graphics courses in college don't seem to cover? When a new developer starts, what are the basic things you teach them first? Do you ever have to take time unlearning things that are pervasive in say, web development? Are there any patterns or architectural paradigms that hold importance above all else in online games?
In regards to the artists of graphics and world design and modeling: What are the biggest deficiencies you see in new hires and college grads? Is the "art" aspects of your games something that can be learned or do you have a few talented visionaries driving the group? I've been impressed with the mood in Diablo and the beautiful scenery in certain areas of World of Warcraft. Is that a single person at work or a large group adding a little brush stroke to the whole painting?
My work here is dung.
I love playing games with friends in person, have a few people over and play.
Online, this has less draw for me. In a FPS I get my ass kicked. In WoW I gave up, I was spending more time LFG than actually going through dungeons. When my ideal gaming session is less than an hour, upper levels just got impossible if I didn't want to grind slowly through random encounters and skip quests.
Diablo 3 seems to have a heavy focus on the multi-player, Starcraft 2 campaigns look great, but all eyes (and in fact the release date) seem to be set on how Battle.net is doing.
Is single player dead? or at least dead at blizzard.
paul reinheimer
In Diablo II, gold was a worthless commodity. Because the only way to get quality items was from either monster drops or gambling (which would often costs millions of gold to find something salable), the standard unit of economic trade became a unique ring.
This was bad for the economy in general: unlike World of Warcraft's Auction House, it was impossible for players who weren't competitive traders to participate in the economy. In addition, the design of the game in general made trading difficult (having to start a game to initiate a trade, muling, etc.)
What changes are you making to Diablo in order to make the economy of Diablo III more vibrant and accessible?