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A day in the life of Blizzard Historian Sean Copeland
If you've spent any time at all on the Timeless Isle, you may have noted and even completed the daily lore quiz from NPC Senior Historian Evelyna, a member of the Timewalkers who is accompanied by Historian Llore and Historian Ju'pa. What you may not have known is that these NPCs represent three invaluable members of the Blizzard Creative Development team: Senior Historian Evelyn Fredericksen, Historian Justin Parker, and Historian Sean Copeland. Together, the three represent a powerhouse of encyclopedic knowledge from each of Blizzard's franchises. That's all well and good, but what exactly does a Historian at Blizzard do with their day? What does being a Historian entail, and what do they do with all that knowledge they've crammed in their brains? The folks over at Blizzard Entertainment were kind enough to let us find out. Read on as we pick the brain of Historian Sean Copeland about lore, historians, and the unusual job of keeping track of all things Blizzard.
New Blizzard forum personality to focus on lore and story
Last night, Bashiok had the grand duty of announcing that the newest addition to the official World of Warcraft forums team was not a community manager but rather Blizzard story development employee Nyorloth. The decision to bring on a lore-specific representative onto the forums shows a marked change in community communication for Blizzard. Instead of having CDev Q&A sessions and sporadic lore discussion, Nyorloth will be on hand to focus the story discussion, answer questions, pose topics, and more. Nyorloth has even gleefully accepted the role of resident scapegoat, so be sure to be nice, kids. Creative development has rarely had a presence on the forums, and I can't wait to see the discussions Nyorloth gets to participate in. Bashiok's original introduction of Nyorloth is so good that you need to hit the jump to read it, as well as Nyorloth's own interpretation of his new job and function. Let's all give Nyorloth a big WoW Insider welcome.
Round 2 of Ask CDev questions answered
Ask Creative Development is the developer series that gives WoW lore buffs answers to their most pressing questions. The answers for this particular Ask CDev session took a pretty long time, but they're finally ready for primetime. We've got some pretty good answers this time around, and the questions range from serious and heavy lore discussion to some of the more fun or interesting, like, "where do the Forsaken get their ships?" Some key things to take away are that the "there must always be a Lich King" mantra is specifically talking about how the scourge would run rampant otherwise; that death knight characters have an addiction to causing others pain, and that Elune is definitely not a naaru (to the night elves, at least). Super lore nerds might take particular interest in the fact that Blizzard does not consider all of the expanded universe and the RPG books canon. Hit the jump for the full set of questions and answers. Ask CDev Round 2 questions answered The moon recently sent some irate emails to our Creative Development team, threatening to vacate Earth's orbit if we didn't divulge the answers to the "Ask CDev #2" thread soon. Rather than calling the moon's bluff, the CDev team stepped up its timetable and is now ready to present the answers to your questions! In an effort to efficiently disseminate as much information as possible, many of these questions are amalgamations of several slight variations asked by the US, EU, Korean, and Chinese player bases. In addition, a few unanswered questions from "Ask CDev #1" are included as well. Enjoy! source
