Interview: 'World of Warcraft' production director J. Allen Brack
BY HEATHER NEWMAN • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • NOVEMBER 11, 2008
World of Warcraft" rules America's online world.

Never before has a paid online world game attracted so much attention and so many subscribers in this country. With its second expansion, "Wrath of the Lich King," due to go on sale Thursday morning at 12:01 a.m., maker Blizzard Entertainment is reveling in its ever-expanding subscriber base -- and its competitors are trying to figure out its success.

The Free Press talked with production director J. Allen Brack about everything from the reasons for the game's success since it first released four years ago, to what new technology people will be able to see in "Lich King" this week.

QUESTION: What has drawn people to "Warcraft" so strongly?

ANSWER: If there was an easy answer, there'd be a lot more successful massively multiplayer online games. We have a very clean interface -- we try and keep everything very simple. We continue to spend a lot of time on it, and we throw a lot of work away. We like to say that the game is easy to learn, difficult to master. There are also lots of rewards: There's always one more dungeon, one more gear upgrade, one more level.

It was also a case of good timing. "EverQuest" had been out for many years.

Q: How do you design the game, knowing you have such a broad audience with different interests?

A: We like to say that players fall into five buckets. We try to satisfy each player. The leveling-up player quests, enjoys the game and levels up. Everyone is in this bucket at one time or another. There's the five-person dungeon player. There's the 10-person dungeon bucket, which has a huge jump in gear and loot. There's the 25-person raid player. And then there is player versus player, with battlegrounds and arenas. Even within the groups, there are more stratifications.

Q: Were you surprised by any aspect of the last expansion, "Warcraft: The Burning Crusade"?

A: We were really surprised by how popular (10-man dungeon) Karazhan was. Ten-man content was a big deal that kind of caught us by surprise. Karazhan was our most successful piece of content ever.

Q: Is that why there's such an emphasis on 10 man dungeons in "Lich King"? Every 25-man dungeon has a 10-man version as well.

A: A lot of players haven't ever gotten to see Illidan (the end boss of "Burning Crusade's" Black Temple 25-man dungeon). The idea that we would create this content and that such a small percentage of the population would get to see it... Naxxramas, in the original "Warcraft," was like that. Much less than 2% of the population got to see it. It was also devastatingly hard. [Naxxramas is now the entry-level dungeon for "Lich King" players.]

Q: Talk about the new "phasing" technology, which changes the way the game world looks depending on what stage of a quest you're in.

A: We've used that technology liberally. You can see other people who are in the same phase, and group with them, but others who aren't in that phase aren't visible. It's used in the attack on Undercity quest, the Death Knight starting experience, the Icecrown zone and some other areas people haven't seen.

Q: Arthas is a major villain in "Lich King," and is present in more quests and more areas than Illidan was in "Burning Crusade." Is that by design?

A: We spent lots of time on Illidan, but most players never got to see him. He's in the starting cinematic, saying "You are not prepared!", and for most people, that's the last they see of him. Arthas is there from the beginning. As a death knight, your first quest comes from him. He makes guest appearances in five-man dungeons.

Q: Discuss the new "achievements" system, which awards points for accomplishing certain things, both significant and fun, in game. Why shouldn't we accuse you of shamelessly ripping off Xbox Live?

A: If I were you, I'd accuse us of shamelessly ripping off Xbox Live. (laughs) We love it. That was definitely the inspiration. We see what they did and we made improvements. Hidden achievements are not fun. We like the way some achievements progress -- catching 1 fish, 25 fish, 50 fish, all in the same box. It's not ambiguous. Achievements were late to get into beta testing, but we've been talking about them for 18 months to two years. We plan to release achievements with every patch from here on out.

Q: Some of the achievements ask you to complete a certain number of quests in a zone. Is there ever going to be a way to check what quests you have and have not done?

A: There are some technical and bandwidth problems with making that available in game.

Q: But what if it were outside the game -- say on the Web, as part of the Warcraft Armory?

A: (chuckles) Stay tuned.

Q: Who plays Warcraft? The impression you get from being in game is that it's not always the typical young males.

A: It's very difficult to get accurate numbers for demographics. You would be surprised how many people lie on the Internet. But anecdotally, it runs the spectrum. I've been in the game industry for 14 years. WoW is the first game my dad ever played.

Q: One of the things that developers have said repeatedly is that they're going to overlap some of the capabilities of the different classes in Warcraft, so that a shadow priest or a mage or a paladin, for example, could bring the same buff to a group. How much of a worry is it that the classes will become too much alike, degrading into "ranged damage" or "melee damage" or "heals" or "tanks"?

A: It's a fine edge. I don't want to be forced to bring the assassination spec'ed rogue for this one particular fight (for example). I want to bring Shawn, because I enjoy playing with him. The classes are a little bit more homogenized. But I think there's enough differences.

Q: There has been discussion about allowing players to choose two different specifications for their characters, so they could switch between them for a particular encounter. A paladin might be damage-oriented for one fight and healing-oriented for another. What is that going to look like?

A: We haven't figured out exactly how it'll work. We talked about it just yesterday. We still don't know. Part of it is that the way people play in the beta tests is not the same way they play in the live game.

Q: Are you surprised by any player reactions to Lich King you've seen in the beta test?

A: We underestimated how cool the vehicle and siege weapon technology would be. We ended up using the vehicle technology all over in quests. One of my favorite quests is the escape from a Worgen village, where you're on the back of a horse controlled by a (computer-controlled character). The bombing runs in "Burning Crusade" felt heroic; that was definitely the model for the types of new technology we wanted to include in "Lich King."


Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20081111/ENT06/811110395/1044/ENT06


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