Is there any chance of the hard copy book coming out in the UK? I backed the kickstarter for the e-book but customs are ridiculous here for items shipped from the US so I skipped on the physical copy.
Yeah, the trick is to order is on Amazon.com, not Amazon.uk or Amazon.eu.
I had purchased his book, and read it all last week. I found it fascinating. And gives me much empathy for the creators. This window into the creative and structural design is something I would recommend.
Maybe this has already been answered as I haven't read the book, but IIRC ive read somewhere that the team was lovingly crafting the Alliance cities and quests when they realized they were wasting too much time and rushed to get the horde caught up. In Vanilla the horde have waaaay more quests and arguably better transportation and much better quest hub locations(horde camp in the middle of feralas name escapes me im not quite to that zone in classic yet, as an alliance player what were you thinking? lol)Also why do so many dungeons while leveling have so few bosses and so little loot. Ive also noticed much of the lower level dungeons 1-45 have very little in the way of agility leather items and an overabundance of tanking gear. Was this to encourage people to play classes/roles that might be perceived as "boring" like warrior/tank for a new player? Thanks!I found not much point to doing the Stockades more than once and alot of the dungeon quests require traveling to 9 different locations to get the quests. Yesterday I finished RFK(great dungeon, good flow and pacing, and great bosses compared to what comes before) for the first time and decided to run to Thalanar to get the FP since I was so close. I found the dead dwarf beneath the lift, and took his book to the Thalanar, and got the quest to kill Charlga, which I had just killed, needless to say I was pretty annoyed as my group disbanded. Either way I'm having a fantastic time with Classic, I started playing WoW in 06' right before BC so I missed almost all of the charm. Thanks for taking the time to write the book and do this AMA!
Hey John, Forgive me if this has been asked elsewhere and/or is out of scope but can you reveal some technical information on the game engine?Some questions that immediately spring to mind- It has long been rumoured the engine was based off a modified engine of Warcraft 3? Was this the case and, if so, at game launch how much of the WC3 design approach and/or code was left?- Was the engine in development throughout the entire classic wow (5 years from various accounts) life cycle? Or did it reach a set of stable API's at some early ish juncture and then only get tweaked/added to when a feature turned out to be required?- What language(s) was it written in?- How long did it take to build?- What was the workflow for pushing changes? Was there any kind of continuous integration or code reviews?- Did the engine have a test suite? And if so how long did it take to run?- What (major) libraries did the engine depend on? How many of these were open source?- How many people worked on the engine?- Were there any major disagreements that took some time to be resolved about the technical design approach to the engine? What won and why?- Was there any consideration given to multi core cpus or dual graphic card setups?- Was any kind of bench marking suite used or written internally?- Do you have any knowledge on how much the engine has changed since classic launch to modern day BFA, both internally and API wise? And if so, whether this tends to be continuous development or glacial periods of very small changes followed by major engine increments?Forgive me if that is far to many questions or again not something you can answer, but it's a topic that is absolutely fascinating to me given the longevity and reach of the game. Regardless, love your work and openness.Cheers. Dan.
Hey John,I have some questions about the engine and a sugestion- The colision detector aways were flawed. We get stuck on every stick or stone in the way. Are there any intention to make it more smooth?- The jumping system is tricky. Specially if you are standing still and try to jump ahead or behind. Are there any intention to make jumping more reliable?- When will pathfinder be eliminated for good?The three questions are related to the early patch sensation of a wheelchair simulator. Sugestion:- Implement a climbing functionality. Even better if its automatic. If you cant move forward you just start moving up in half speed until free from impairment. A little automatic backward movement to prevent getting stuck would be great. Sorry for the questions, but I have a very strong feeling about that handicap feeling before flight.Best regards,Jonas
Hey Dan, I spilled a lot of ink answering every single one of these questions in my book. I have a chapter about the early days of wow and a chapter on programming. These excerpts are like 1-2% of the book. I hope you don't think it's rude, but I'll refer to my book for some of the longer answers. I've been typing all day and my fingers are sore. ;)
Just wanted to come back and say thank you since Wowhead doesn't have a messaging system(come on wowhead XD). Vanilla wow got me through some tough times as a single soldier in '06 and BC really helped me relax when I was able to play it while deployed. I think game developers are done an extreme disservice. Actors and Actresses get tons of fans, fanmail, publicity, perks, you name it they are well aware how successful their efforts were and how people were impacted. You guys were the ones behind the scenes, doing the work to give those of us dealing with life an escape. That might have been an hour of forgetting about your divorce or recently deceased family member, or the joy of relaxing at the end of a hard days work. Referring to your stockades comment Its nice to see a dev admit something sucks candidly, im sure not working at Blizzard probably helps too.I'm sure you've been asked this before and if its in the book please disregard. Two questions regarding karazhan; which twisted individual(kidding) created the "Upside Down Sinners" part of kara crypts with the bodies chained and floating to the surface. Was this meant to be an encounter area, was it just environmental decoration or did it have some other purpose, and if so why was it discarded in the actual raid during BC? Thanks again for doing the AMA!Edit:
I've been waiting for another game to come out. The studio decided to write their own engine and guess what? They've been at it not the 3 years forecast.. but 5 years haha. Hopefully they'll have it perfected soon.
Hi John!I'm interested in the process used when creating vanilla WoW dungeons. Specifically, in which order the various aspects of a dungeon are created. From your writings and other various sources I've gotten the idea that it goes something like this:1 - Chris Metzen presents dungeon concept, maybe with some pieces of concept art2 - Dungeon environment is created.3 - Mobs and bosses are created.4 - Mobs and bosses are placed in the dungeon.5 - Dungeon quests are designed.6 - Loot items are added.7 - The dungeon is connected to the lore.Iterate until perfected or deadline sufficiently exceeded.Is this even close to reality, or am I way off?And one more question. In Felwood there's a huge microdungeon called Shadow Hold with a unique design. Did you make that one?Finally, thanks for all the content I'm currently enjoying in Classic!
Hi John,I'm a Game's Art student currently writing a case study about the technological advancements of World of Warcraft from vanilla to Battle for Azeroth. This Q&A could not have come in a better time!1. What software did you guys use to create assets like 3D models and textures?2. What general game engine improvements have been made to make World of Warcraft look better as the years went by? And what were they called? (e.g vertex shading)