shane-dabiri
Latest
New anniversary interviews in Blizzcast 12 and on the minisite
Blizzard continues to update their minisite -- the latest newness is the posting of a new Blizzcast, in two parts. In part one, Karune of the Starcraft community team interviews Chris Metzen, Rob Pardo, and Samwise Didier about the history of Warcraft as a whole (it's celebrating the 15th anniversary as well this year), and part two has our friend Nethaera talking to J. Allen Brack, Tom Chilton, and Jeff Kaplan about the game itself. As is usual with the official podcast, there's not much new information here (especially if you've already read through some retrospective press), but both interviews are worth a listen (and/or a read through the transcript) if only to hear these guys all in a room together, joking around about old times. Elsewhere on the site, they've started posting written interviews as well. The first one is with Shane Dabiri, former lead producer on the game, and there are faded-out spots for J. Allen Brack, Tom Chilton, and Jeff Kaplan as well. The other spots aren't revealed yet, but they're supposed to be interviews from the "community," so it'll be interesting to see who those turn out to be. Blizzard, anytime you want to chat with me about the history of World of Warcraft, just drop an email!
Blizzard: Developing World of Warcraft clones 'not the right move'
Say what you will about MMO market dominator Blizzard Entertainment, but it truly cares about the well-being of its competitors. In a recent interview with gaming magazine PC Zone, Blizzard's Shane Dabiri offered some helpful advice for his fellow MMO developers: "There are a lot of people that try to emulate World of Warcraft - and as flattering as that is our end it's definitely not the right move." Dabiri posits that the MMORPG-playing community -- particularly those who've already sunk months into WoW -- want "to try something completely new and different" in their online games. This is terrible, terrible news for Snowstorm Interactive, whose fantasy-themed MMO Planet of ConflictMaking is due out next month. Time for some originality, guys. Ooh, we know! A superhero game! No, wait, a space simulator! Better yet, an interactive forum for sexual deviants! Brilliant!
Blizzard celebrates the WoW anniversary
The good folks at the Orange County Register got invited to Blizzard's official WoW anniversary party that took place last Thursday on their Irvine campus, and their report is now posted. It sounds like quite the event -- lots of free food and beer, head honchos regaling employees with their tales of the early days, and Rob Pardo suggesting that just like geek culture helped define this game, this game might help define geek culture going forward. The picture gallery included with the piece is a good browse, too -- you can see all of the Blizzard heavyweights hanging out together, and the great spread set up on the campus. The Register's also been asking Blizzard about their memories of the game -- they've got more memories from Samwise, launch day stories from Shane Dabiri, and some thoughts from Pardo and Frank Pearce (who, strangely enough, at first didn't believe that Blizzard belonged in a hardcore niche market like MMO gaming -- he didn't want to make "a game that never ended," he says). All good stuff. Congrats once again to Blizzard on five years, good to see they celebrated in style.
The masterminds of WoW on gaming
Have you ever wondered what the names and faces behind WoW do in their off time? In the recent interview 1up had with Shane Dabiri, Rob Pardo, Jeff Kaplan, and Tom Chilton, we get to find out a bit about that -- at least in regards to some of the games that they're playing right now. Two of them were really no surprise to me: Guitar Hero II and God of War. Those two have been all over the gaming media and are a lot of fun to play, so it makes total sense. The two titles that caught me off guard were several mentions of Viva Pinata and Rob saying that he plays the PopCap game, Peggle. They also covered some great background information from their gaming roots, to some ways they think WoW has changed the genre. Check it out!
Happy second anniversary, WoW Europe!
Shane Dabiri is a bit wordy about it -- talking about the arena system opening up on the 16th, the future opening of the Black Temple where players will encounter Illidan, and the growth of the European community -- I think his basic message can be summed up as follows:Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday WoW Europeeee... Happy birthday to you!And I think that's a sentiment we can all agree with. Congrats, Europe, for making it through two WoW-filled years. Try not to have too much fun celebrating your big day.
Battleplan Vol. 3
It's been months since the second edition of the World of Warcraft Battleplan had been released, so it was certainly time for an update. Here, lead producer Shane Dabiri gives us a look into the future of World of Warcraft's technical development path. So what's in store for the future of our favorite MMO? More servers and migrations to keep the population evenly dispersed, hardware upgrades for older servers (in order to handle increased load from the expansion), paid character transfers (some time this summer), continued performance improvements across all realms ("we feel its unacceptable when even one player cant enter the game, gets unexpectedly disconnected at a key moment, or experiences any other interruptions while playing"), an improved authentication (login) platform, and improvements to the hardware and software running the website and the forums. There's nothing here about in-game development here - but I expect to hear a lot about that at E3 very shortly.
