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Making WoW - Excerpts from The WoW Diary and AMA with Author John Staats
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Publicado
04/12/2019 a las 21:37
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perculia
Last year, John Staats published The WoW Diary, a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of vanilla Warcraft. With Classic WoW now launched, we thought it was the perfect time to check back in with Staats and highlight the book again!
We're excited to announce that every week or so, we'll be publishing an essay about vanilla WoW by John Staats. This week's essay is
The Ugly of Unfinished Games
, discussing the first time John Staats saw WoW...and it was
very
unpolished. Basically a naked human running around.
If you find this essay interesting, consider purchasing The WoW Diary on Amazon:
WoW Diary Book on Amazon - $39.99
Special Boxed Edition on Amazon - $149.99
Have any questions on the essay or vanilla WoW development in general? He'll be checking out the comments section and answering them, so you may learn something new!
A million years ago, I designed and built half of the dungeons in vanilla WoW. If you have any questions about making the game, I’m happy to answer, here on Wowhead. - John Staats
I absorbed much the first day on the job. One of the first things I learned was how unimpressive games look in their early stages. After someone escorted me to my desk, I looked around the area to see hints of what kind of game Team 2 was making. Game designer Eric Dodds approached me and asked, “Has anyone told you what we’re working on yet?” I’d seen some Warcraft characters on the wall and fantasy concept art, but that could have been something to do with other projects, as Blizzard was decorated with remnants of old titles.
“Nope,” I answered. “But I think it might be a Warcraft version of EverQuest.” I purposely didn’t sound too hopeful in case that wasn’t what we were working on.
Noncommittally, and with an excited chuckle, he replied, “Come with me. This way!” Eric led me to his desk, sat down, and launched an application. After a couple of crashes the screen flickered to a blond man standing on grassy terrain; he was wearing a loincloth and carrying a short sword. The only interface was a health bar and a bag icon. Eric looked up at me expectantly as I studied the screen. He could tell I didn’t know how to react, so he showed the character running around. The character ran past some trees and a small ditch with a wooden bridge over it. Eric looked up at me again with a triumphant countenance, as if he were holding a winning lottery ticket. I was very underwhelmed. To appreciate my disappointment, you must realize I’d abandoned my career, friends, and apartment in NYC for this project, and all my previous experience in level design was modding finished games. I decided I better say something, and “Wow” was all I could muster. A blond dude in his underwear wasn’t particularly interesting, but I tried to look impressed.
Eric interpreted my exclamation as a sign that I’d already figured out the anagram for the game’s name. He perked up. “Did you get it?! It’s WoW! Right?” I had no idea what he was talking about. He gestured to the screen. “Look at how cool that is!” Underwear Man approached an ogre frozen in a standing posture. It didn’t move a muscle. The character hit the monster with his sword, but it didn’t react. There were no combat sounds, only ambient noises of birds chirping. Then the human knelt at the motionless ogre’s feet. “Look! I’m looting its corpse…although there aren’t any death animations, this is what looting will look like when looting is real.” I looked blankly at the screen of the man kneeling at the feet of the still-standing ogre statue. Eric explained, “There’s nothing in the loot table, of course, because the loot system isn’t in place yet.”
“Can you run across the bridge?” I asked.
“No. I mean, I can, but I’ll just run through it. There’s no collision on doodads yet.” It was the first time I’d heard the term “doodad” and assumed (correctly) he was referring to the art assets (props) that decorated the environment. Eric continued. “And that is going to be a river”—he pointed to the ditch—“but our water probably won’t be in for a long time.” I’d never worked on an unfinished game before, and it started to dawn on me how lackluster unfinished games were.
Eric gave me a brief history of the game engine, and I learned that when core navigation (running through forests, etc.) felt solid enough, the designers would prioritize things such as combat, items, user interface, and the basics of gameplay. That would be months in the future because the game was only playable in the sense that characters could cross the terrain mesh; they couldn’t jump or collide with trees or bridges, and there certainly wasn’t anything like combat, but they could climb hills and see the horizon. Eric showed me concept sketches for the zones, and those began to capture my interest. They were bold concepts (I had not yet learned that the word “epic” was the team’s target adjective). We paged through pictures of monsters and war machines, and for the first time I felt that this game could be very cool.
If you enjoyed this excerpt, check out The WoW Diary (book) on Amazon, it’s PDF, or signed box edition.
WoW Diary Book on Amazon - $39.99
Special Boxed Edition on Amazon - $149.99
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