Gamespot Warcraft Anniversary Interview, WoW for $5, Chronicles of Leeroy 8

Gamespot Warcraft Anniversary Interview

The anniversary interviews keep rolling in, this time it's Gamespot who had a chance to talk with Jeffrey Kaplan and Rob Pardo, two members of vanilla WoW's design team. This isn't the typical question and answer interview -- Gamespot added some editorial flavor to it -- so I've quoted a few interesting bits and will let you check out the rest for yourself.

"During Starcraft development, there was a whole host of us playing that were playing Ultima Online. There was a bunch of us that saw that being a fun genre…It was definitely during Warcraft III development that a lot of us started playing EverQuest…It was during that EverQuest era that we realized Ultima Online wasn't a fluke, and it was going to turn into a full-fledged genre. And we really saw what was amazing about that genre, and felt like we had an opportunity to do our own spin on it."

Pardo said that one moment that stood out to him was realizing each of the 30-odd avatars standing around at a crafting forge in Ultima Online were controlled by an actual person. These sentiments were affirmed when EverQuest came along and added a deeper connection between players, Pardo said. The game designer should know, considering he led one of the preeminent guilds in EverQuest--Legacy of Steel--during the early 2000s.

Blizzard lead designer Jeff Kaplan assumed control of Pardo's guild after the Blizzard executive retired from EverQuest to focus his efforts wrapping up development on Warcraft III. In 2002, he was brought on to aid in development of the original WOW, and he said that it was no easy task adapting the franchise from its RTS roots to a more RPG setting.

"It required a huge shift," Kaplan said. "You do a lot of things in an RTS for very different reasons than you would do things in an MMO. As it relates to story, if you look at the ending of the original Warcraft III, you've got the Humans, Orcs, and Night Elves all united to overcome Archimonde at the World Tree. That didn't work for the structure of the MMO at all, we knew that we wanted to have Horde and Alliance pitted against each other. We had to re-create the rift that went all the way to the original Orcs and Humans."

"It's also hard to deal with the psychology of the dev team," he continued. "We would often feel obliged to do things exactly how they were done in the RTS, which isn't always right for the gameplay of an MMO. An example is, we wanted to give an ability called Death Coil to warlocks, because we thought it was really fitting. In Warcraft III, Death Coil was a Death Knight-only ability, and not only did it do damage, but it healed. People had a rough time coming to terms with the fact that it was OK to make changes and do what was right for the gameplay of WOW, even if that somehow contradicted what people saw in Warcraft III."

Of course, the scope of a MMORPG is substantially than that of an RTS. That difference of scale was reflected in Blizzard's initial plans for what it wanted to include with the original WOW when it shipped in November 2004. In fact, according to Kaplan, Blizzard initially intended to include the areas from The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and much of Cataclysm with the original launch.

"We planned it out extremely far in advance," he said. "To put it into perspective, Outland and Northrend and a lot of the ideas in Cataclysm were all part of the original shipping plan of the game…Every so often we'll have those moments from a project management and planning standpoint where we'll really go, well, what are we actually get in and where should we actually be at. But part of what gets us there is scoping the project out for years and years to come and always having an idea of where we want to go, and that's what lets us steer the ship and eventually get there."

Regarding Purchasing WoW from Resellers

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)

We are beginning a special three-day sale of World of Warcraft on November 27 – 29, where the price of the original game will be only $5.00! Digital copies of the game, including an authentication key, will be available for purchase through our online store at this low rate as well. For more details on this special sale, please visit: http://us.blizzard.com/store/

It’s possible that in some locations copies of the game which were purchased during this sale could be returned and be resold at full normal price. These resold copies may have already been used which would result in an invalidated authentication key unable to be used to create a World of Warcraft account. While we will try to prevent these situations, we recommend you purchase the game through the official Blizzard Online Store, or by ensuring you’re only purchasing an unused copy from a reputable brick-and-mortar retail location.

The Chronicles of Leeroy - Episode 8

The latest live action Warcraft short in the Chronicles of Leeroy series is now available. Check it out here.

We've just finished making our 8th live-action Warcraft movie, The Chronicles of Leeroy Episode 8 - Two Copper Coins

This episode sees Celeste (Level 1 Alliance mage) finally receiving her reward for questing. Also Leeroy, Maxius and Arathaya bump into a Holy Paladin in Stranglethorn Vale. Think we can all probably guess what;s gonna happen

Here's the direct link to the movie http://www.herculeanproductions.com/movie.php?mid=14
You can find all the other episodes at http://www.herculeanproductions.com

Tell us what you think and if you have any ideas for future Leeroy episodes let us know.
Hope you like it!

Carl aka Maxius
Aka Vikkar, undead priest, Kor?Gall

Share On:     

Patch 3.3 - Guilds to Watch: North America

Patch 3.3 - Guilds to Watch: North America

There are always mainstays amongst the top guilds in the world; everyone will always expect Premonition or Ensidia to be the first. However, there are a lot more knowledgeable players in the raiding game now than there were five years ago, so I wanted to point out some guilds you may not think of keeping tabs on when Icecrown Citadel progression kicks into full gear. While there have been the typical guilds at the top, there are always the sleepers that manage to make some noise at one point or another, and it makes following guild progress a lot more fun than the same guild accomplishing everything.

So, this article is for those of you who enjoy following the top guilds and what they do. Hopefully it'll point you in the direction of a guild you may not have thought about following before.

Juggernaut (Recruitment)

Juggernaut as a guild has been around since World of Warcraft's open beta way back in 2004 but only recently began surfacing as one of the top guilds in the world. They've had a strong presence in North America for a while now, but Trial of the Grand Crusade really allowed Juggernaut to stand out and cement themselves at the top, one definitely worthy of keeping an eye on. Going into Icecrown Citadel the guild is ranked 3rd in the world, and it's no doubt they will continue their successful raiding.

vodka (Recruitment)

vodka's success pre-dates Wrath of the Lich King, including a world 4th Kil'jaeden defeat. However, after a strong showing in Ulduar, vodka struggled with recruitment woes and key members leaving the game or the guild. Since then though they've shored up their roster with quite a few skilled players and it showed near the end of Trial of the Grand Crusade, where the guild once again saw itself rise into the top 20 ranking in the world.

vodka is easily one of the more well-known guilds in this list, and they're certainly one to keep an eye on in Icecrown Citadel.

Blood Legion (Recruitment)

Blood Legion has been around forever; long before World of Warcraft's existence. They've also been at the forefront of World of Warcraft raiding for some time now with strong showings in both Ulduar and Trial of the Grand Crusade, so it's no doubt that they'll continue to make noise once Icecrown Citadel ships. If you've been looking for a good guild to follow aside from those already in the limelight, Blood Legion is certainly one of them.

Might (Recruitment)

After a world second Tribute to Immortality along with a strong showing overall in Trial of the Grand Crusade, Might is poised to have a strong presence amongst the top guilds when Icecrown Citadel kicks into full gear. Though they were outside of the top 20 in Ulduar rankings, Trial of the Grand Crusade -- especially near the end with Mad Skill and Insanity -- truly showed Might is capable of competing with the best. With that in mind, you can probably expect them to be a top guild in patch 3.3 as well.

Exodus (Recruitment)

While Exodus has fallen a bit since their exploits in Ulduar and a rocky departure of some members of the guild, they look to be back on their feet after a recruiting drive that included several members of the now-retired Conquest guild, all of whom will no doubt bring a level of skill that will be a shot in the arm to Exodus as they begin their treck through Icecrown Citadel. It's been an interesting 2009 for the guild, but it looks like they should finish it in strong standing and are definitely worth keeping an eye on.

That's it for now. I'll be putting together a list of European guilds later this week for those interested, but feel free to share the guilds you enjoy following in the comments!

Share On:     

World of Warcraft Twitter Sweepstakes

World of Warcraft Twitter Sweepstakes

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)

In our continuing celebration of World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary, we’re in the mood to give away some fantastic prizes to a lucky selection of those following us on Twitter. Our offices are brimming with spare World of Warcraft loot codes and we feel it’s time to give back to those who have made this gaming community so great. Are you a pet collector who has yet to get your hands on a Robotic Homing Chicken, Baby Hippogryph, Ethereal Plunderer, or Baby Monkey pet? Have you ever wanted to cruise Northrend on an Area 51 Rocket, a Riding Turtle, Spectral Tiger, or Rooster mount? Well here’s your chance to win these and other extremely rare loot codes!

All you have to do is join the tens of thousands of people already following us at www.twitter.com/warcraft; and hey, if you’re already a follower, you may already have a chance to win. Between November 30 and December 11, 2009 we’ll be selecting random winners daily from our growing list of followers, so start following our feed today!

Official Warcraft Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/warcraft
Official contest rules coming soon

Share On: