Posts with tag rob-pardo

Beckett's July-August issues of Massive Online Gamer magazine (which went on sale yesterday) names what they think are the 20 most influential names in the MMORPG business today, and as you might expect, a World of Warcraft figure topped the list, namely Rob Pardo, Senior VP of Game Design for Blizzard Entertainment.

Interestingly enough, Rob Pardo is the only current Blizzard figure that appears on the list. It seems to me, at the least, that Tom Chilton (If only for the Esports thing) or Jeff Kaplan should have been considered for the list as well, and I'm sure most of my fellow old school gamers are noticing the glaring absence of Lum The Mad, the grandfather of all MMO critics.

Still, most of us can agree, I'm sure, that Pardo deserves the top spot. It's hard to argue with the success of Blizzard's games, especially WoW, and it doesn't look like it's going to flag anytime soon with WoTLK on the way. You can check out the complete list here, and see how much you agree with it.

[Via Massively]

Blizzard's Rob Pardo, Senior Vice President of Game Design, has been recruited to keynote the Paris GDC this summer, which will take place on June 23rd and 24th at the at the Coeur Défense Convention Centre in Paris. He'll participate in a Q&A session in which he will discuss his inspirations and challenges, as well as Blizzard's future plans.

The official press release should appear soon on the Paris GDC site.

The Paris GDC will be taking place a few days before Blizzard's World Wide Invitational in the same city. We're expecting a lot of choice WoTLK news to drop there, but certainly, Pardo may say something juicy ahead of time at the Paris GDC, and we'll be sure to find out if he does.

The OC Register (Blizzard's HQ -- I'm pretty sure that's where it's at, as they're not exactly open with their location info -- is located right down near them in Southern California) has a blog post up featuring 11 "innovation lessons" other companies can learn from the folks behind World of Warcraft. While the lessons aren't exactly innovative themselves (I think there are lots of companies that do this stuff, and none of them have a ten million player game), the post does provide a good look inside Blizzard's process and the thinking behind what they do.

Blizzard is pretty stubbornly committed to quality -- not only do they notoriously release things "when they're done," but if something doesn't work they apparently are happy to trash it completely (see Starcraft: Ghost). It is amusing, too, that Rob Pardo says he and Frank Pearce are trying to make "great entertainment projects, not perfect ones." WoW has its bugs, sure, but when you look at Blizzard's catalog: Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft, you have to wonder what a "perfect" game looks like in Pardo's mind. Those are about as perfect as they come.

And they "eat their own dog food," too: J. Allen Brack apparently spends four hours a night (up to 15 hours a week) playing the game on his own time at home. Seems like it would be tough for other companies to pull these strategies into their own plan (Blizzard really releases one-of-a-kind products), but as consumers, it's neat to get another look into the way they work.

[Via Slashdot]

This week's round up of WoW-related posts on our sister site Massively covers many different angles of the MMO universe dominated by World of Warcraft. The Game Developers Conference 08 coverage took up much of last week with many people comparing their efforts to WoW's success. You can click on the links below or subscribe to a special WoW-only Massively feed.

The Daily Grind: When will you be done with WoW?
Akela Talamasca wants know what is it that will end the WoW-affair?



GDC08: Massively is Live at the Future of MMOs panel
Rob Pardo, VP of Game Design at Blizzard was on a panel at GDC last week debating the Future of MMOs. Massively's Michael Zenke was there to liveblog it.


Ask Massively: Show me the MMOney!
What will it take to overcome WoW? Massively lays out the battle plan.

V'Ming - who thinks that gnome warlocks are travesties of nature and need to be KOSed - shares thoughts and ideas on becoming deadlier at the Arenas. He also dabbles in the dark arts in Blood Pact.

Looking at some of the upcoming class changes in patch 2.4, I can't help but feel that many of them are driven by PvP - particularly Arena - issues. Blizzard is undoubtedly trying to level the playing field for the classes before the 3v3 Arena Tournament, tentatively set to begin in April. That's a very short time to iron out problems and further imbalances that the patch will bring.

A design philosophy that Blizzard has insisted on from the beginning is that each class should play similarly in both PvP and PvP. Tom Chilton (Lead Designer, or Kalgan) said at last year's Blizzcon that the game "shouldn't have significantly different rules for spells in PvP vs PvE."

"Slower" water in Arenas is the latest change that depart from this philosophy, in addition to PvP-only diminishing returns, and PvP-oriented stats like Resilience and Spell Penetration. However, since many class changes apply to both PvP and PvE, PvE players seem to be "dragged" along by changes meant to tune their classes' PvP performance. Shamans and druids seem to be most affected this patch with changes to Nature's Swiftness, Elemental Mastery, Call of Thunder for shamans, and Lifebloom for druids.

This afternoon gaming luminaries Rob Pardo (Blizzard), Min Kim (Nexon), Ray Muzyka (Bioware), Jack Emmert (Cryptic), and Matt Miller (NCsoft) got together at GDC to exchange their thoughts on the future of the industry. Sister site Massively was there live, no doubt typing furiously in order to catch every crumb of information. Want to know what's going to happen to your favorite game (or games!) in 10 or 20 years? Check out Massively's live coverage.

Rob Pardo, Blizzard's Senior Vice President of Game Design, is speaking at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco this afternoon and WoW Insider is here live to catch it all. Though the auditorium is just filling up, Pardo should be out in a few minutes to tell us all about Blizzard's approach to multiplayer game design. Catch the full details after the break.

The 2008 Game Developers Conference is underway in San Francisco right now, and this means there should be quite a bit of gaming news and juicy bites to report on in the next few days. Blizzard's own Rob Pardo is there as a featured speaker, participating in a panel on the future of MMORPGs and giving a talk on Blizzard's approach to multiplayer gaming design. Hopefully that means we might even get a few pieces of new information about Warcraft and the expansion, or even beyond.

Our colleagues at Massively will be watching the whole conference closely, as will we, and we'll be sure to keep you up to date if Blizzard drops any bombshells of the Lich King variety or otherwise.

And speaking of conference news, Gamespot's posted more video coverage of the DICE 08 Summit, including Blizzard's presentation, which you can watch here.

From guild bank robberies to Italian painters recast as Tauren Druids, this week's round up of WoW-related posts on our sister site Massively covers many different angles of the MMO universe dominated by World of Warcraft. You can click on the links below or subscribe to a special WoW-only Massively feed.

Rumor: Blizzard working on a cell application for World of Warcraft?
Word at the Mobile Games Forum event last week is that Blizzard has plans for porting some part of WoW for cell phone use. Michael Zenke runs down the rumor.


How would a Starcraft MMO work?
Akela Talamasca explores how Blizzard could transform Starcraft into their next MMO using World of Warcraft as a model. Player vs Player vs Player anyone?


The Battle of San Romano ... FOR THE HORDE
Works of classical art updated for the digital age? Who knew a Late Gothic painter would be playing a Tauren Druid?