Posts with tag Alex-Afrasiabi

"I think people are blown away. I'm blown away, and I'm so jaded at this point." If you're looking for the big quote from this interview G4's Feedback did with Alex Afrasiabi (WoW's lead world designer) and Tom Chilton (its lead designer), then look no further, my friends. Discussion topics include whether Blizzard is going to take over Harmonix (all signs seem to point to no), the attempt at parity between goblin and worgen starting zones, how it feels to step into these new zones as a player once you've taken off your designer hat, and the battle between design intent and scheduling.

If you're interested in hearing from the horse's mouth what Blizzard was thinking when it implemented Kezan or redesigned your favorite zone, here's your chance.

---

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

---

---

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from brand new races to revamped quests and zones. Visit our Cataclysm news category for the most recent posts having to do with the Cataclysm expansion.

---

---

BlizzCon 2010 is over! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. You'll find our liveblogs of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!

---

Please note: The rest of this article contains heavy Cataclysm spoilers. If you wish to avoid any content reveals, veer away now!

There are a lot of questions that come up from the WoW community at events like BlizzCon. Will we ever have player or guild housing? Why doesn't Blink work right? Where's my moose? One question that keeps coming up is will we ever see the Emerald Dream or its corrupted version, the Emerald Nightmare?

While there is no announcement for an exact date or even which expansion it will appear, Alex "Valnoth" Afrasiabi (lead world designer for World of Warcraft) has finally answered this for us, and that answer is yes. The problem comes down to a matter of finding the right place to fit it in. This might mean something in patch 4.2 or all the way in patch 6.2. It really comes down to when it will fit in the game storyline.

At least we now know that it is something they will do.

---

BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!

---

We are quickly approaching the fifth anniversary of World of Warcraft's release (my calendar has it on the 23rd of November), and G4 has gotten a head start on celebrating -- they sent Morgan Webb over to Blizzard headquarters to talk to the team, including Tom Chilton, Alex Afrasiabi, and Jeff Kaplan, about what things have been like in the last five years since WoW's launch. There's nothing super groundbreaking in here, but there is lots of reminiscing about the game's early thinking -- Chilton talks about how dual specs were never even considered as an idea (until they, you know, were) and what things were like in the early post-launch days. Pretty stressful, sounds like.

Afrasiabi talks about how the quest team puts together and tracks all of the game's quests (he mentions both Metzen and the game's historian as the "lorekeepers" of the game), and the fact that they've put together "millions of words" of story and background lore for the game at large. He specifically talks about Cataclysm and replacing questlines, and says that if something does get removed from the game, they're hoping to replace it with something better, but most "fan favorites" will stay. And finally, Jeff Kaplan looks back on the early game itself, from unfinished zones to broken balance to launch day exhaustion. G4 teases something about the next MMO project, but all he says is that he can't talk about it. Oh well -- if we can't look forward, at least we get a nice look back from the folks at Blizzard who've been there since the beginning. You can see all four of the videos after the break.

Tyllendel's friend had an interesting reaction to the game when he first played it: he felt that all of the quest text was unbearable, and that he wanted to play the game rather than reading what NPCs told him. We've talked a little bit about this before -- obviously, when Blizzard kicked off WoW nearly five years ago, quest text was just the way quests were done, and while Blizzard has expanded the concept a bit since, it's still mostly the way MMOs work: you go to a character, talk to them, and they tell you where to go and what to do.

But I can see Tyl's friend's point: games are much less about telling these days and more about showing. You might understand how, if you've never played an MMO before, reading the quest text can take you right out of the game, rather than running off with an NPC or having the game show you rather than just tell you what to do. And Blizzard is getting there: later in the thread Slorkuz points out the recent Afrasiabi interview, and talks about how Alex mentions new ways of doing quests. For example, the quest team is trying to do a quest with no text, or direct players' attention without actually telling them, "look here." Text is the easiest and most basic way to help players accomplish goals, but as the game moves on, even the developers realize it's not the most elegant or immersive way to do it.

Blizzard has just released a Q&A on the Crusaders' Coliseum and the Isle of Conquest.

The Q&A is done with Tom Chilton (Game Directory), Scott Mercer (Lead Encounter Designer), and Alex Afrasiabi (Lead World Designer). The Q&A is a long one and has a lot of good information throughout on both of these major upcoming features in Patch 3.2.

Some of the highlights include:

• All dungeons can be called the Crusaders' Coliseum. 5-man normal and heroics are called the Trial of the Champion. 10 and 25 man normal raids are called the Trial of the Crusader. 10 and 25 man hard mode raids are called the Trial of the Grand Crusader.
• 5-man version on par with current Wrath dungeons.
• "There will be no 310%-speed mount offered through a meta-achievement reward, as the current 310%-speed mount offered will not be removed when path 3.2 is released." And later on... "For those working through a tribute run, there might also just be a surprise or two in the chest at the end... if you have what it takes to master this run."
• Possibly a new twist to the conflict between Horde and Alliance in the next expansion? "Right now both sides are honing their skills through the Argent Crusade's tests. Should they take the fight to the Lich King and succeed while animosity between the Horde and Alliance continues to build, there's no telling what lies in store for the denizens of Azeroth."
• Average Isle of Conquest match to last around 20 minutes.
• There is some concern over graveyard camping in the Isle of Conquest.
• Once again, the dedicated World of Warcraft players are screwed out of pony. I was promised one, and I want it. This is a slap in the face. Where's my gin? Where's my coffee? Quick! Someone write an angry letter about Ghostcrawler, he's the worst thing that happened to WoW since...since...forever! Nerd rage!
  

Don't forget to check out WoW.com's Guide to Patch 3.2 for more information on the Crusaders' Coliseum and the Isle of Conquest. The full Q&A is after the break.

Reader Dbandith sent us this little gem-- it's Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan's old EQ guild page from back in 2002. Back before Blizzard really got started with World of Warcraft, they raided (pun intended) the biggest guilds in a few other MMOs, most notably EverQuest, for developers, and some of those folks became the Blues that we know and love today. I know both Tigole and Alex "Furor" Afrasiabi came from EQ guilds (and in fact, their old guilds still play WoW, and it's gotten them in trouble at least once), and Rob Pardo originally ran Legacy of Steel, the guild that Tigole came from.

But this little flashback is extremely interesting, not only for the post at the top of the page-- it's very cool to see a fresh-faced Tigole, one excited about breaking the MMO mold and not a guy concerned with balancing Arena Ratings and an expansion beta schedule-- but also for the expletive-filled post at the bottom. "Fix your goddamn buggy bull**** half-assed encounters," rages Tigole at the EQ staff. And he sounds just like the same folks raging on the forums about Blizzard's current problems, even if their language isn't quite as strong as his.

Now don't get me wrong-- Kaplan and Blizzard have done an amazing job, and created one of the best games in history. Fighting over Brewfest bugs (or even one tree of one class in the game) is 1000% better than fighting over the entire act of playing the game itself-- there's no question in my mind that Kaplan and all of the other raiders brought on board at Blizzard pushed the MMO genre light years ahead of where it was back in their raiding time. But it is an interesting sight to see Blizzard devs on the other side of the message board posting button, raging against mistakes in implementation just as so many on Blizzard's forums are today.

Thanks, Dbandith!