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Blizzard developers to speak at GDC 2010
Following the pattern held in previous years, Blizzard will again be loaning out some of their top developers for panels at this year's Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, CA. WoW's former Lead Producer Jeff Kaplan, a.k.a. Tigole, presented the keynote speech at last year's GDC, and this year two top developers will be on tap to give horribly esoteric panels. Brian Schwab, Blizzard's Senior AI/Gameplay Engineer, will be presenting a lecture on AI architecture ... "AI programmers rarely use a pure architecture such as a State Machine, Planner, or Behavior Tree in isolation. Rather, several symbiotic architectures are mashed together, resulting in an overall architecture that is unique and powerful in its own way. This lecture is designed as a series of three mini-lectures where you will hear about several mashed up AI architectures along with intriguing lessons and insights." ... and Erin Catto, Blizzard's Principle Software Engineer, will be presenting a workshop on physics engines. "This one-day tutorial continues the 10-year tradition of the Math for Programmers and Physics for Programmers tutorials by bringing together some of the best presenters in gaming physics. Over the course of a day they will get programmers up to speed in the latest techniques and deepen their knowledge in the topic of physical simulation." More information, including panel times and availability, can be seen on BlizzPlanet's writeup of the announcement. This is basically total nerd talk -- it's very unlikely that we'll have any new WoW-related info from these panels, unlike Kaplan's keynote, but anything is possible. We'll keep you posted.
BlizzCon Flashback: The Panels of BlizzCon 2008
Tickets are sold out for the day, and most of us are probably a little angry, but don't forget! There's another day of ticket sales on the 30th! If you haven't made your decision on whether you want to go or not yet, you're running out of time and it's probably a good time to look back on the BlizzCon that was. BlizzCon 2008 lacked any major World of Warcraft announcements, Blizzard's other franchises stole the spotlight last year, but that doesn't mean WoW wasn't there in spades. Let's take a moment to look back on that, shall we? The Opening CeremoniesBlizzCon 2008 kicked off with the opening ceremonies, hosted by Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. Morhaime delivered many facts and figures about the World of Warcraft at the time (if WoW were a country, it would be the 75th largest in the world), and announced a new class for Diablo III: The Wizard.
Kaplan on being the "Cruise Director of Azeroth" at GDC '09
Jeffrey "Tigole" Kaplan, former WoW Lead Designer who just recently headed off to work on Blizzard's new MMO, held a panel at the Game Developer's Conference earlier this week in San Fransisco called "Cruise Directior of Azeroth," in which he talked about some of the design decisions behind World of Warcraft, where Blizzard got their inspiration for a lot of the gameplay now made famous by the game, and even some of the mistakes they made in putting the world's most popular MMO together.WoW Insider had correspondents there on the site, and they sent back audio of Kaplan's speech. We've paraphrased the salient points, and you can find them all after the break. There's some really interesting stuff in there, including the fact that in the past two years, 80 billion quests have been completed in North America's Azeroth alone, and just who is behind the frustration that is The Green Hills of Stranglethorn (hint: it's Kaplan himself).Hit the link below to see what Kaplan told the crowd at GDC.%Gallery-48658%
WoW Moviewatch: Dude, Where's My Mount? Episode 9
Warning: Not safe for work, due to vulgar language and sexual innuendo.Apt T Productions has released the new installment of the DWMM series: Dude Where's My Mount? -- Episode 9. Ah, good ol' DWMM. This is one of my favorite WoW machinima series, but also the one I'm almost starting to fear seeing each time.The production quality of DWMM is absolutely perfect for its scope. DWMM is basically a long series of gags, one liners, and sitcom-like comedy. It really is damned funny. In the opening of Episode 9, there's a boat floating in lava. It's a quick sight gag, but I laughed. And then one of the characters is shown fleeing a pack of squirrels, screaming "They're like furry raptors!" Funny stuff. The voice actors now do a great job, and I can't imagine changing anything about that.But, having said that, some of the jokes are making me wince more and more. This episode takes place, largely, in a strip club called "Tigole Bitties." I thought that kind of thing was funny once, I guess, but not so much nowadays. The racial jokes, the boob jokes, and the whole objectification angle kind of makes this whole episode a guilty pleasure, at best. Now, I'm not trying to get into a rant about this stuff, because there's nothing I can say that would convince anyone of anything they don't already believe. But I will say, wincing over and over did detract from my enjoyment of the series, and I feel like that's happening more each episode.If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.Previously on Moviewatch ..
The Queue: How do you make that weird U thing?
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Adam called yesterday's edition of The Queue 'the Extreme edition,' but I'm of the opinion he didn't quite follow through. So I'm posting something extreme to make up for it, which you can see in the video above. Extreme. If you don't feel it's extreme enough, feel free to post your extreme links in the comments below with your usual questions, as long as the links are safe for work (and sanity.)Eternauta asked... I have a question, too. I know it's pretty stupid and obvious, but here I go: Why is everybody DPS and why is it so hard to find healers or tanks?
The Digital Continuum: It won't be World of Warcraft 2
I love Blizzard, and not just for creating World of Warcraft. I've loved them since they were called Silicon & Synapse and created Rock 'n Roll Racing. But if there's one thing I've learned about the developer, it's that when making games they prefer to improve upon established models more than anything else. That statement may seem to run counter to my title, but stay with me here.When Jeff Kaplan announced his move to the company's next-gen MMO, I didn't wonder if World of Warcraft would suffer. I also didn't ponder why Blizzard and Jeff made that choice and if it would mean their second massively multiplayer online entry was going to effective be a sequel to their first. All I considered was which MMOs they were going to pluck ideas from this time, and how cleverly they'd could be implemented.
Jeff Kaplan leaving World of Warcraft
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/WoW_s_Game_Director_leaves_for_unannounced_Blizzard_MMO'; In a surprise announcement this afternoon, World of Warcraft's Game Director Jeff Kaplan (whom you may know from the forums as "Tigole," and whom those of you with a longer memory may remember as the guild leader of Legacy of Steel back in the EverQuest days) is leaving the WoW team to work on a their unannounced MMO. (What this means for how far along that project is it's hard to say -- are they perhaps bringing in a solid game designer because they're just now getting things started? Or to polish off the finishing touches?) Says Kaplan of his time with the World of Warcraft team:I wanted to take a moment to let the community know that I've switched roles here at Blizzard to work on our upcoming, unannounced MMO. World of Warcraft has been such a central part of my life these past six and a half years, and it's success would not have been possible without the tremendous community around it, so I wanted to say thank you to all our players who've shared this amazing experience with us so far. World of Warcraft isn't going anywhere, however, as the rest of the team is remaining in place, including Kaplan's "partners in crime" Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack.Mr. Kaplan, while we haven't always agreed with you, we'll certainly miss having you around. And, since you're going, we have to ask... can we have your stuff?
Blizzcast episode 7 released
Episode 7 of Blizzcast, Blizzard's official podcast, came out this afternoon; it's been a couple of months since the last episode. This time, they did a little bit of a "WotLK Wrap-Up" with J. Allen Brack and Jeff Kaplan, as well as some chatting with Chris Metzen, the creative head, about what's been going on in various aspects of the story. Here are the parts I found most interesting: When the development on the original WoW was getting wrapped up, Outland and Northrend were both in the running for the first expansion. They decided the timing was better to do Outland first. There were three front runners for the hero class to appear in LK: Necromancer, a ranged caster with corpse explode and such. Some of this ended up getting incorporated into Death Knight Rune master: "think rogue or monk type character" And, of course, Death Knight. JAB thinks "the first month has really validated that decision" to go with 10- and 25-man raiding.
Kaplan to speak at the Game Developers Conference
Jeffrey Kaplan (also known as Tigole) is scheduled to speak at this years Game Developers Conference, which should prove to be really, really interesting for us WoW players. The conference is aimed at sharing knowledge among game developers, and Kaplan's panel is aimed at discussing World of Warcraft's questing system, as well as how gameplay has an effect on lore and story.As someone who regularly geeks out about the lore of Warcraft, it disappoints me that I can't be there to listen to it in person. Gameplay always has a really large effect on how the lore of a video game world is allowed to play out (especially in MMOs) but a lot of those constraints have been overcome with the advances made in Wrath of the Lich King. The things they've done to overcome those issues largely come from Tigole's team of developers.I very much hope that transcripts of GDC's panels find their way to the web shortly after the conference. One of my favorite parts of BlizzCon and BlizzCast is the somewhat behind the scenes look into the process, and the philosophy that goes into how and why Blizzard does what they do. This pretty much sounds right up my alley, and I know a lot of you have expressed the same sentiment each time a new BlizzCast has gone live. I'll definitely be watching for any transcripts that pop up.
Champion of the Frozen Wastes bugged
Many people are starting to notice that as they're completing 10-man raiding they're not getting the achievement "Champion of the Frozen Wastes." This is a known bug and will be fixed in an upcoming patch.The achievement calls for you to kill all of the 10-man bosses and all heroic bosses present in Wrath of the Lich King at launch. The bug is in the fact that while Malygos isn't listed as a required boss kill, it really is. If you kill Maylgos, along with having killed every other 10-man and 5-man boss, you'll get the achievement.Tigole originally announced this bug back on November 3rd, but it really hasn't been coming into play until now. We've received a few tips and complaints about it, and thought it worthy to bring to your attention.We're expecting this to be fixed in patch 3.0.4. While no official announcement has been made, with the numerous announcements of 3.0.4 changes last week we're expecting the PTR for patch 3.0.4 to drop soon – if not this week.
A Simple Re-Quest bugged
I know you'll never believe this, but Blizzard has identified a bug in tracking one of the achievements. On the Achievements forum Tigole noted that zoning into a battleground will sometimes cause the counter to reset for "A Simple Re-Quest." For this achievement you must complete five dailies in a row. The known issue will be fixed in the upcoming patch 3.0.3 but Tigole recommends that if you are keen on earning this achievement in the meantime you may want to avoid entering the battlegrounds. It will be easy to complete 5 dailies after the patch, so it's not a huge deal. I am concerned that Blizzard isn't getting to the heart of the bug, though. There seems to be more to it than battlegrounds. Though I haven't done any battlegrounds since the patch was released and have completed several dailies each day, I have not been awarded this achievement. I've been too busy doing dailies, heroics, and daily heroics.This was followed by one of many apologies made by Blizzard in recent weeks. When asked the simple request for a 3.0.3 release date, Tigole gave the entirely unexpected answer: Soonish. We'll see it when it's ready.
The plague is gone, zombies dropping like flies
Just as Tigole said, the plague has indeed gone away. The crates are still there, but you can't contract the plague anymore. The zombies haven't been wiped out yet, but they'll eventually just wear themselves down, they can't spread the infection. No ceremony, no big events or explosions, the plague just stopped being effective. A little disappointing, really.However, there is a rumor, a rumor, that at 4 PM PST there will be stuff goin' down in Azeroth. Supposedly it will be 'epic.' What is it? I don't know. It's entirely a rumor, but man do we love us some rumors. You do too, don't you? I thought so! Well, if anything actually does happen, we'll be right here to let you know!Edit: Well, a whole lot of nothin' happened. Rumors are a fickle mistress! A few readers have reported that the necopoli outside of major cities are hovering lower in the sky, but it's difficult to tell. That's all we've seen or heard so far.
The Undead Plague ends today
We have good news and bad news. The good news is, if you hated dealing with zombies and the plague, it's going away in just a few hours. The bad news is, if you loved dealing with zombies and the plague, it's going away in just a few hours. Tigole confirmed it in a thread on the General forums, and also mentions that this isn't all that they have planned for the pre-Wrath umm... festivities, I guess?He doesn't go into specifics about what will be happening next, but the plague is going away. The special bosses and the necropoli wil be around for awhile yet, a week for the former, a few days for the latter, but the zombies will be no more as of noon PST. Tigole also assures us that this had nothing to do with the whining. This part of the story had simply run its course. We have no idea what's next, but whatever it is, I can't wait to see it.
Guild Achievements may be incoming to WoW in the future
For those of you who group, raid, and otherwise hang out with your guild, here's some pretty cool news for you. Tigole has said over on the Beta Suggestion Forms that the dev team is very interested in the idea of guild achievements, and does plan to visit them in the future. It's a small tidbit, but it's enough to get the old wheels turning. The most obvious achievements will probably revolve around dungeons and raids. Get X% of your guild through a certain dungeon, perhaps, or finish the dungeon in an all-guild group. We might also see accomplishments for getting a certain amount of guild members their tier sets or legendary weapons.
Who's who at BlizzCon: WoW Insider's guide to the staff of Blizzard
Everyone going to BlizzCon this year will get to roam around the convention hall with some of the very people who bring you World of Warcraft and other Blizzard games. While many World of Warcraft fans might be familiar with the online pseudonyms such as "Drysc" and "Tigole," very few probably know what they actually look like.We've searched the internet high and low for pictures of these folks and have compiled them into a nice and handy gallery complete with some biographical information. The pictures are small and mobile enough that they can be saved to an iPhone or other mobile device that can be brought into the convention hall.If you happen to be going to BlizzCon be sure to stop and say hello to these Blizzard people. And if you aren't going, check out WoW Insider during the convention for the latest and greatest reporting right from the floor.%Gallery-33827%
The best of WoW Insider: September 30-October 7, 2008
BlizzCon is almost upon us -- this weekend, thousands will descend on Anaheim to celebrate Blizzard and its games, and Blizzard developers will share their wisdom with us about Wrath of the Lich King, Diablo 3, and Starcraft II. And WoW Insider will be there: if you're going, make sure to come by our big reader meetup on Thursday night at The Lost Bar, and if you're not going, stay tuned to the site all weekend long for live-on-the-scene coverage. News Raids rebalanced for patch 3.0.2Even Burning Crusade raids are getting a facelift, considering how much is changing in the upcoming expansion. Patch 3.0.2 release date revealed (probably)Set your calendars for October 14th -- that's when you'll get to try out all the new talents and skills. BlizzCon schedule and interactive mapBlizzard announces what's going down at their third BlizzCon event in Anaheim, CA. Blizzard wins $6 million in court case against GliderThe botting company loses big time in the ongoing lawsuit. Tigole confirms dual specs are still in the worksPlayers are still begging for a way to switch specs more easily, and we might just get it. Features Tips for new Death Knights from a fellow melee, part 1Trying out the new Death Knight class? Here's a quick review on how to stab things. Don't Panic: Paladin changes in beta build 9014Pally developments in the latest Wrath of the Lich King beta build. Ask a Beta Tester: Soundtracks, trinkets and travelOne of our beta testers answers all your questions about what's going down in the beta version of Northrend. Tenacious D discovered Northrend firstThink the frozen wastes came from the mind of Chris Metzen? There's a secret to be told. Spiritual Guidance: Everything you ever wanted to know about raid healing at level 80And then some -- our priest blogger Matticus lays down the facts on what's up in the Wrath raids.
Tigole: Blizz wants to bring BGs back, baby
Reader Thomas pointed us to this forum post by Tigole, which contains some fun news for battleground fans, even if it is a little early in the design process to really expect anything yet. Tiggy basically says that while Arenas have gained some station in the world of PvP, the focus will eventually shift back to battlegrounds -- Blizzard would like to make BG content that "could be of higher quality with a higher degree of accessibility." They're still working on that competitive BG idea, and they want the focus to go back to the solid Horde vs. Alliance idea that's at the foundation of Warcraft.Additionally, they're planning to let us queue up for the BGs from anywhere in the world (which, no doubt, would increase participation from both factions), and Tigole also suggests that eventually they may offer XP through battlegrounds, giving players yet another way to level up (twinks may not like that suggestion, but these changes are a long way off anyway).This last change there -- offering players a way to level up with PvP -- is seen by many forumgoers as a direct stab at Warhammer Online. That game makes a big deal out of offering battleground-style PvP, and letting players choose it as a way to completely avoid PvE and earn XP and levels. So it may be that Blizzard saw their launch, and plans to turn back in that direction to compete. Which isn't a bad thing for us anyway -- as good as WoW is, some slightly-more-serious competition will only make it better. Being as I'm a BG fan, Tigole's hints that BGs are coming back is music to my ears.
Breakfast Topic: Which two specs will you be choosing?
When we heard back in June at BlizzCon International that players will be able to switch between two specs easily in the expansion I thought to myself "no brainer." Not just the concept, but I knew which specs I was going to choose. Being a Feral druid, I could already tank and DPS. I just needed to choose Restoration and I'm covered.Flash forward almost four months later and Tigole confirms the functionality is coming in a patch shortly after the expansion. But suddenly I'm not so sure about my choices. Come Patch 3.0.2 major class changes are a coming. I switched from Restoration to Feral during TBC and learned to enjoy tanking, but I fell in love with cat form. Now Blizzard is buffing cat DPS in a big way. Unfortunately, it's at the cost of tanking talents. So do I go cat and bear for my two specs or cat and tree? And the Moonkin DPS got a good kick in the feathered ass as well. The choices! Given how the classes are changing and many more specs are becoming viable, which two specs are you considering for your main?
Tigole confirms dual specs are still in the works
Many people have been wondering about when the promised dual specs will appear in the beta. For those that don't remember, back at the World Wide Invitational the developers said that they would be rolling out the ability for players to switch easily and quickly between multiple specs. At the time one of the main points was that these quick changes between specs would not require gold.Tigole confirmed last night that dual specs are currently being worked on. They are figuring out all the details internally still (which is a good thing). When a poster asked "I imagine by this stage we wouldn't see it until a patch after release?" Tigole replied "Most likely in a patch but it's not too far off." Now you can interpret that different ways. Perhaps he means in a beta patch or a patch immediately following Wrath's release. Either way the fact that these dual specs will eventually be here will make many people quite happy.Last night I was talking to some guild mates about it and the word that was thrown around was "game changing" for Protection Warriors and other low DPS specs. Since the Protection Warrior would just be able to flip into a DPS spec for farming, he would no longer need a farming alt – significantly changing the way the game is played.
Mage class not being removed at this time
In a startling announcement, European CM Vaneras has confirmed that Blizzard has no plans to remove the Mage class from the game. "Current plans," the CM later clarified. "Please remember that the expansion is still in the middle of extensive beta testing, and many aspects of the game are being balanced. If we find that a crappy talent or class is not working, we will remove it."The statement was met with mixed reactions among the playerbase, as many have agitated for an existing class to be cannibalized and its sweet innards redistributed in order to preserve raid balance in Wrath of the Lich King. Other, less pointless ranged DPS classes saw much debate concerning the issue. While Hunters could regrettably not be reached for comment as it was dinnertime and Mom was calling, the Warlock community, found at their collective den of iniquity, replied, "Nerfing us is not the answer. Buff other classes." When asked about Mages, they thought for a moment and said, "Classes worth buffing."WoW Insider has thus far been unable to confirm with a developer that Mages will indeed remain in the game through patch 3.02. Reached at his office late Tuesday afternoon, Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan responded, "The what class?"Disclaimer: the author of this post may possibly be bored and prone to making things up about expansion hysteria.
