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.
Akela Talamasca wants know what is it that will end the WoW-affair?
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.
What will it take to overcome WoW? Massively lays out the battle plan.Continue reading Last Week on Massively: WoW-related stories
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.
Continue reading Blood Sport: Is WoW turning into a PvP game?
Gallery: GDC08: Blizzard's approach to MMOs
Continue reading GDC08: Live from Rob Pardo talks about Blizzard's approach to MMOs
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. 
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.
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?
Works of classical art updated for the digital age? Who knew a Late Gothic painter would be playing a Tauren Druid?Continue reading Last Week on Massively: WoW-related stories
| Event | Date |
|---|---|
| WoW Insider Arena Tournament | FRI nights |
| WSG weekend | 5/16 - 5/19 |
| Stranglethorn Fishing Extravaganza | SUN 2p - 4p |
| Midsummer Fire Festival | 6/21 - 7/5 |
| Worldwide Invitational in Paris | 6/28 - 6/29 |
| BlizzCon 2008 in Anaheim, CA | 10/11 - 10/12 |
machinima Blizzard screenshots Ptr PvP Sunwell wow-moviewatch shaman Patch-2.4 screenshot raiding isle-of-queldanas sunwell-plateau wotlk Arena Gear gallery around-azeroth wrath-of-the-lich-king shattered-sun-offensive daily-quests aroundazeroth dailies paladin warrior
| # | Blogger | Posts | Cmts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mike Schramm | 99 | 9 |
| 2 | Adam Holisky | 58 | 41 |
| 3 | Daniel Whitcomb | 52 | 48 |
| 4 | Amanda Dean | 40 | 0 |
| 5 | Moo Money | 32 | 28 |
| 6 | Elizabeth Wachowski | 31 | 3 |
| 7 | Eliah Hecht | 30 | 21 |
| 8 | Zach Yonzon | 26 | 0 |
| 9 | Alex Ziebart | 24 | 2 |
| 10 | Robin Torres | 22 | 20 |
| 11 | Matthew Rossi | 20 | 90 |
| 12 | Sean Forsgren | 13 | 0 |
| 13 | Lisa Poisso | 12 | 4 |
| 14 | Amanda Miller | 10 | 0 |
| 15 | Jennie Lees | 7 | 8 |
| 16 | David Bowers | 7 | 12 |
| 17 | Shelbi Roach | 5 | 1 |
| 18 | V'Ming Chew | 4 | 0 |
| 19 | Matt Low | 4 | 0 |
| 20 | Scott Andrews | 4 | 0 |
More game info on GameDaily: GameDaily Biz, Fast & Free Game Downloads, Video Game Trailers, Video Game Cheats, Video Game Reviews, Video Game Screenshots,
All contents copyright © 2003-2008, Weblogs, Inc. All rights reserved
WOW Insider is a member of the Weblogs, Inc. Network. Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, Notify AOL
Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in:
Subscribe
