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...what would you want to know?
One question I'd ask is if you have any tips for keeping your cool when constantly dealing with people. |
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I assume nobody ever is saying anything with actual malice unless they're using specific words or intent to indicate so. So in my head everything I read is just super passionate. I don't look at it as "dealing with people" but more so interacting with them.
Sweet Tea!
Seen them play a few times. Not a particular fan but they're a solid group and I'll watch if they're playing anything I'm at.
I'd say I'm still pretty up there. Hopefully I get back into Cutting Edge with Battle for Azeroth. I think I have my guild lined up now so I'll actually have a set team instead of just tagging along with friends. I'm like 962 now on my main and that's with playing pretty casually.
42
Pancakes, or fluffy waffles.
Where else would dead pixels go? Don't you know they all go to heaven.
I have! Wasn't very good at it.
Paladins are the master class. This is an indisputable fact.
I'll happily spend extra time explaining what our Game Masters do and why because they work hard and will always advocate for the player regardless of who they are. I might be biased because I was one but I think that is an advantage in knowing how that whole side of the company operates. Did you know? That we have an internal program called CS4ADAY. Which allows people that don't work in CS the opportunity to hang out with a Game Master and learn how it looks on that side of the player experience. It's actually part of the Blizzard orientation and most people at the company make sure to sign up and do it once a year. Yes that also means that there are people out there in the world that have had Mike Morhaime answer your ticket, but you would have no way to ever truly know.
It's a struggle... some days I make it, some days I have to just try again tomorrow. |
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This times 100 honestly. I love sharing my story of how I got to Blizzard because I never once expected or even planned to work here but somehow my life ended up this way. I just always made sure I was prepared for any opportunity and the stars just happened to align. My only advice that works across the board is just that and to never be discouraged, you're gonna fail and that's okay. Most people don't get in on their first try but you never know. Start now. Not tomorrow. Now. Samwise Didier posts a phrase on everything he does, ABC, Always Be Creating. That doesn't apply to only art.
I've never watched a soccer game in full until Yesterday. I'm on the Croatia train. |
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Sorry for the delay as I had to run off earlier when I was responding but I still wanted to answer stuff here. Have a nice weekend everyone! Good luck on finishing all your things before Tuesday!
<3
I obviously have my opinions and weigh in when I'm asked but I'm not a designer so I don't weigh in on what I think a solution should be. If Ion asks me, I know I can tell him what I think about the game and not be worried at all. That's at least from my own criticisms and opinions about about the game.
Experience. I've been wrong in learning the process. Still don't get it right every time but you get better.
It's been talked about and I know we always do them but I don't know any specifics beyond that. I'll ask when we're back in the office on Monday and we'll communicate that when/if we're still doing one.
Yith-i-sens
Darth Malgus
semi-clicker, wasd, mouse, 14 button mouse (12 on the thumb)
Weren't you more comfortable the entire expansion?
I feel like you could google a better answer I could give because I dropped out of college twice. Once for a previous career, second time to come work at Blizzard. Strange how that works sometimes right? Stay in school kids. I lucked out.
Technically someone in the organizational level above me does play a Gnome. So I guess yeah.
Mists of Pandaria or TBC with the other a close second. I go back and forth on which one is my favorite. The game-play was great in MoP but I had the most fun overall experience wise in TBC because of the personal memories of the expansion. Legion or Wrath is probably third. It's honestly hard to pick sometimes between those. |
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excuse me?
I did them on my Paladin and that was enough Mage Tower for me. I will be sad I didn't get glowey cat and Were-bear though.
Someone made a pretty great Seagull one. I'ma pick that.
Oh man if you're a Star Wars fan their trailers are just pure fan service from an overall theme level. Don't we all just want full cinematic lightsaber fights with environmental destruction, and some that are just pure betrayal and rage. 10/10 would watch again along with the "Sacrifice" trailer.
I would love to be able to read every thread but it is physically impossible to do so. There's nothing requiring us to do it either, we just try to. I've gotten really good at skimming surprisingly over the last year and a half. I wonder how that happened?
That game truly had an amazing single player experience. Highly recommend it because the leveling experience is 100% a Bioware game. The Inquisitor and Warrior stories were really good. I ended up not playing it much outside of that though.
He's the cutest celestial pet.
Favorite mount at the moment is Thunder Onyx Cloud Serpent. Battle pet is definitely Zao, but I actually don't own Zao. I've gotta step up my battle pet game because I feel like I should own him.
This video sums up my stance on this topic.
Spartacus is one of the best TV series.
I am of the stance that if the meat needs sauce then that's bad meat. |
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Lady Liadrin. I'll follow the Matriarch to the end of Azeroth.
This is an insanely hard question because there are so many ways you can break out boss fights into categories. Heroic Putricide blew my mind. Lich King was just a great time. Killing Siegecrafter Blackfuse before the first round of tuning was the most gratifying. Lei Shen was so cool. See what I mean? I could go on for hours.
Yep! I'm from a quiet little area known as Texoma.
None of those options.
Is that one that we missed? I'll pass that on. There was a lot of AP Tokens they went through.
I prefer the full title Pokemon games. Couldn't get into Pokemon Go. I think I choose Mystic though.
I'm getting Zandalari and Dark Iron which is what I've always wanted.
The continuation and refinement of Mythic+. It's come a long way since the start of Legion and I want to see where it goes now within it's second expansion. |
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This has actually been pretty fun to keep coming back to. I'm honestly surprised it's still going.
Does a Hunter always pull extra trash?
I got out of bed today. So I mean, I gave up a lot.
Tirion was my favorite, until yeah. Liadrin literally wielded her suffering as a weapon. Her arc is just fascinating to me; Priestess to swearing off the light and emerging as a Warrior, then becoming the first Blood Knight. She is the embodied form of Retribution.
It has the potential to keep going forever to be honest and as long as people keep playing there's no reason to ever stop. I mean Warcraft itself has spanned 24 years now, why shouldn't it somehow last 50 years?
puppies.
Isn't that the real mystery?
A firm acknowledgement. Please see the Ron Swanson rules of a handshake.
That's actually how new CM's come into power. You have to highlander them for their power. What you didn't see was Ornyx standing on a mountain in the distance laughing as the lightning cracked as I usurped the chai...I mean throne.
Any movie, replace all actors with Jim Carrey, or Robin Williams. Either of those would probably be entertaining to watch. My mind immediately went to Inglorious Bastards but Robin Williams plays everyone.
I don't think remade maybe and I'd rather just see new items, some of the older iconic pieces mean something to certain players. Remaking it can make those players feel slighted as it affects what they associate as their memory of those items and the adventure they had. This probably didn't make any sense at all but I think if older items are remade both the new and old version should still be around. I don't mind and would rather see them updated personally but to some players that matters. (This is by no means intention to do so just my opinion on the overall idea of it).
I would accept but probably drink Dr. Pepper or water as I don't drink coffee. |
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Since I had a free moment I came back to this thread to answer some more!
We wanted to test your dedication. It's a complicated relationship we have but we want all of the attention.
Of course he didn't do anything wrong.
I could yak about 5 hays.
OH MY GOD THAT'S SO COOL. I'm printing this out and hanging it up at my desk.
Having leveled a bunch of times I understand, but at the same time a character should feel like a journey. MMO's have always had a time investment factor and while its great to have quick, accessible content, there should be a balance. Compared to other MMOs in my experience at least WoW is still one of the fastest to get into and do "end-game content". Not using that as a cop out but just pointing it out. We do still read the feedback you guys post about it so I promise it's not unheard. I think we as a whole were spoiled because it was so easy for a while there, so the change feels very dramatic in comparison. I don't think anyone really intended for the ability for someone to go from level 1 to 100 in 2 hours so I like the leveling changes personally. Feedback is always appreciated on it though.
Maybe this is what Chen was talking about when he asked "why do we fight?". I thought it was because of pineapple on pizza.
He was actually the first person at Blizzard I ever met. I met him at Medieval times and was introduced to him and the person who referred me into Blizzard. I then met him again once I was a Game Master. Then I ran into him again after I became a CM. Kinda weird but I seem to cross his path shortly after every major milestone in my life related to Blizzard. He might be the coffee bird of fate.
TBC Nagrad. I was enamored with it when I saw the environment change as I ran into it from Zangarmarsh. The color palette is just so satisfying there. It's a Nesingwary zone so the usual quests come with it now that we know and love. It's just a place in the world that is just so pretty to just quest peacefully in. It's the only zone I go out of my way to do every time I level a character. I'd rather slow down and enjoy it. I do read them, favorite is Arthas. It was the first one that I read of our novels so it has a special place in my heart. I still need to read Before the Storm but there's too many games to play! I'm gonna try and fit it in before the expac launch :) |
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Breaking this into its own post because I just sent my favorite email to date to figure this out. This math is being done by me so there is a chance it's probably wrong somewhere so I'm being as detailed as possible. Okay so thankfully a lot of math was done by this gentleman here on r/AskEngineers so I'm using a lot of these numbers. So for context WoW is handled by a LOT of servers so I'm using a low ballpark number but its a lot more to be honest. Here is the Data Let's use the "growing kitten- 4 pounds" as a baseline of 275 calories per day per 4 pounds. Kittens have a high energy level; not sure if it's similar to a hamster, but just to be safe let's say hamsters are twice as active as a kitten (just to give high-side numbers). So that's 550 calories per 4 pounds, or 137.5 calories per pound*. Now lets be nice and assume there are hamster labor laws and they have families they need to go home to and take care of, so we'll assume they work 8 hours a shift. Which averaged is .0093 kw/h per hamster per day. I don't know the specifics of how our server design is so I'm borrowing some math that was done for a similar joke on the EVE subreddit(Again its not exact just rough bar napkin estimates): Now, in 2015 CCP updated their server hardware to accompany 6 Chassis, each loaded with 14 node bays. EACH. So, that is 84 node bays. Assuming the average of a node bay power consumption one source here, not including fans at the bottom of the chasis, they consume around 500 watts, or around 1700 BTU PER HOUR. This means that a single server(what they call nodes) would take approximately 1296 hamsters a day ((.5*24)/.0093). If you apply that math to our estimate of servers total that we use(again we're low-balling this here), this would mean that you need approximately 7,776,000 hamsters to power World of Warcraft, running each for 8 hours a day. Assuming giant hungry hyperactive hamsters, and a low speculation of hardware power consumption. And that's just a rough estimate of what the nodes use, and an overestimate of the hamsters ability to convert calories. |
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You're welcome.
I like to think my answers have substance. Also that's kind of the point of this thread. I'm answering some stuff but of course some of the questions in here I'm not going to answer. Not every question is guaranteed a reply.
That question was more so if I were to disagree with something internally, which of course there would be things that I dislike. Not every person plays WoW the same way or has the same experience so its understandable not everyone is going to like every change. Even us Blizzard folks are no exception, doesn't change my love for the world or the game itself. I'm a very old fashioned player so I disliked the change away from attunements. It makes sense from a design standpoint to change it because its not a good user experience for some players, but I loved the world building a guild building it had around it. I actually liked spending some nights just messing around getting guildies their keys or attunements. The game overall I think is better without them, but I still miss it.
So this is good but its a bit hyperbolic. You're not wrong but you're also not right. Of course feedback is listened to and things are changed. Every hotfix or change that we implement we actually can see, so we can follow essentially everything that is happening between QA and Dev. There were hundreds and hundreds of changes(I'm using this as a blanket term here to include everything class related, even bugs) Class Design wise just in the alpha alone. There will always be problems, WoW is a huge behemoth of a project to work on that is so incredibly complex that its hard to get down, even we get it wrong sometimes. Just because something doesn't get a response also doesn't mean it was ignored. It could be a number of reasons as to why it wasn't changed to whatever you think it should be. Changing one thing can create a domino effect that has ramifications that we don't for-see. There's an issue right now for example where Inquisition doesn't work correctly with T21 and Divine Purpose, because those two things have not existed on live realms together, but once we fixed that it now causes Inquisition to do something else that is equally unexpected. This is all taking place on the development realms for example so you won't see it in the live game. I know its a pretty niche one-off example but I'm using it because it just came across my inbox. There are also times where the Dev team disagrees with the feedback or its because of something else that we can't change it, but I do think where we disagree we should have at least a philosophy somewhere whether its in a Q&A or a blue post somewhere, we at least try to do this. It also doesn't exactly feel very good if you suggest something and we just respond with "No." So it's a complicated thing sometimes.
If I did, do you think I would I tell you? I didn't have something witty to say here but I figured if I didn't answer it people might infer that I would actually play a gnome. ...just kidding I do actually have a Gnome Warrior that has the best name ever, and its not Woodspath.
I don't know anything concrete yet, I'm more focused on prepatch and launch. Once we're post launch then I'm more concerned with that. That's not a dig at class design but more so professionally what I'm focused on because I'm supposed to be. I always want to know those things and ask though for what its worth.
Please see previous response about class design but replace "Class Design" with "PvP Design" and times the difficulty by like 10. (Probably not an accurate number but seems like it to me)
I wouldn't put it past designers, they have a tendency to do crazy things. Just say you want hats on them and Muffinus might make it happen. (It's not a pug though so he might be reluctant)
I understand the want to post that in a thread you see me active in but please don't do things like this. People always jump into threads saying "You respond to this but not this?". Trust me I've read the thread and honestly If something has 100+ posts it's pretty hard to not see it. I appreciate your concern though and it has been seen and read. Also I raised the cap on it since its almost at 23 pages.
This was answered already here. |
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I don't know the exact number but its quite a bit! The WoW team has some crazy tenure and most of the folks in change have been working on the game for more than a decade. On a side note, not sure if it's been asked before.. but how do you pronounce your name? I answered it earlier but I should probably find a phonetic pronunciation for it.
There is a ceremony you go through to acquire your avatar. I would love to tell you but only when they believe you are ready do you go through the trial. Once complete you are blessed with you avatar animated and your text blued.
I am an equal opportunity Reeses connoisseur.
My response.
There's lots of resources out there on how to get into game development if you're wanting to become a designer. If you talk to any designer the first thing they will tell you is to just start creating, literally just start doing it, create clunky little designs, games, or stories. You'll be terrible at first, but once you're bad and learn how to be better from your own trials and errors, as well as shared learnings from other designers, you get better. Everyone starts from nothing and there's no right path. Everyone has a different journey into it and come from various aspects. The Warcraft team for example has folks that were previously lawyers, accountants, data scientists, quality assurance, customer service, etc. Follow designers(Twitter, YouTube, deviant-art, etc) that you like or people who create the projects you like on everything to see how they talk about what they do. They love sharing their thoughts and process as well as collaborating on ideas and approaches. I follow people who work on development teams because I just love hearing them talk about how they make things. The best advice I can give is to just start, if you like it... immerse yourself in it. Never stop learning and remember the ABCs, Always Be Creating.
A lot.
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