Game Development Giant

Chapter 811: Which sales volume is higher,

In the original history, after joining Blizzard, Rob Pardo's first solo project was the development and production of "StarCraft: Brood War". At that time, he was the chief designer of the game.

He joined Blizzard in 1996 and has been working on the "StarCraft" design team.

Because of his outstanding performance, he was promoted to be the chief designer of "Brood War" when designing the expansion pack of "StarCraft", and then designed it to make "StarCraft" truly come to the altar and establish Blizzard's foundation. It is the beginning of the miraculous expansion pack. Before "Brood War", the industry's view of the expansion pack was just a supplement to the original version.

Before "Brood War", no one had ever thought that an expansion pack would have such a huge impact on a game. This was simply unbelievable at the time.

Especially for those in the industry.

Later, Rob Pardo served as one of the three chief designers of "World of Warcraft", the chief designer of "Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos" and "Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne".

Blizzard calls it the best one.

In 2006, he was selected as one of Time Magazine's most influential people of the year because he created a world where hundreds of people can live - "World of Warcraft".

He was born to design RTS games, so this time, after Blizzard handed over "StarCraft" to the other party, he immediately talked to the other party about adding hero units to "Warcraft 3", and in the RTS game because of Unexpectedly, the idea of ​​RPG elements immediately received Pardo’s full support. He felt that this very creative idea had great potential.

Jester's idea was like opening a new door for Pardo.

Of course, the news that Pardo will become the chief designer of "Warcraft 3" will not be announced for some time, but Jester's previous cryptic words on the forum have also been unearthed by interested people to have many meanings, such as That is to say, Jester is alluding that the reason why there are many things that you think are inconsistent with the common sense of Mars Entertainment is that the designers of these two games are originally the same person.

Moreover, it is still a completely different game in nature.

There may be many players who like both games at the same time, but most of them only like one of them. SC is certainly good enough, but this game is too difficult. This is the characteristic of RTS games. If it is done too well, it will cause an inevitable problem, that is, it will be very unfriendly for novices to get started.

And this time. Regarding "Warcraft 3", both Jester and Pardo himself have many ideas.

In fact, Jester felt that the method of continuously updating the story campaign that Blizzard later adopted in the last expansion pack of "StarCraft 2", "Legacy of the Void", was very good. I don't know why it was not included in "WAR3" use. Maybe it's because the idea didn't exist at the time.

Regarding the issue of additional plots for "Legacy of the Void", at the carnival, Blizzard said that "Legacy of the Void" is the end of the story in the StarCraft world. Some players asked whether there will be no more plots - but Blizzard replied that , there will be some surrounding plots, such as about Nova, which we will continue to introduce through plot battles.

When Jester saw the news, the first thing he thought of was WAR3. It would be great if WAR3 had this.

Of course, there was no Battle.net system at that time. So it is not that easy and convenient to do so.

In fact, Jester still has a lot of feelings about Blizzard, although for his own reasons, in this world, this company that originally had a very significant impact on the entire video game in his timeline did not appears, but Jester is still the perfect successor to the legacy of this great gaming company.

Whether it’s their groundbreaking design for ARPGs or their monumental works for RTS games.

Or maybe in the future, he will definitely make the greatest game in the history of MMORPG.

In fact, Blizzard as a whole has grown from its creation to the point where it has become the best with WOW. After merging with Activision to become the largest game company in the industry, the idea of ​​designing games has changed again and again.

From the beginning, Blizzard was a studio composed of a group of players who love games. They absorbed nutrients from other games and then added their own ideas and brainstorms. It becomes your own game, so you will find a lot of tributes in Blizzard's games, but this is also Blizzard's tradition of learning from others' success. Then make yourself more successful.

This is a tradition that started with the first generation of Warcraft.

Including "World of Warcraft" and later "Overwatch", all have this design idea.

Of course, this kind of thinking also has its own transformation process. For example, Blizzard's most successful game "World of Warcraft", this game was originally even the first two expansion packs "The Burning Crusade" and "Wrath of the Lich King". "The evaluation of "Warcraft" is very high, but after the third expansion pack "Cataclysm", the evaluation seems to have plummeted. Although it contains the most attractive plot characters and the finale of the "Warcraft" series in the eyes of players, it also has A complete change in development thinking.

If you have to summarize it in one sentence, it would be homogeneity. If you want to explain it in detail, it would be a long discussion.

In fact, this change did not start with "Cataclysm", but began to take shape from the last two versions of "Wrath of the Lich King".

In the development process of "World of Warcraft", perhaps the most important personnel adjustment for this landmark game was the appointment of Crab in the late 3.13.

Crab finally replaced the earliest goblin Flor - that is, the quest item of the sixty-level warrior epic sword Quel'Sala - the Flor of "Flor's Dragon-Slaying Technique Compendium" and became "Warcraft" The chief designer of "The World", and the first thing he did when he took office was to abolish the goblin set naming method in 3.22, restore it to the t1-t6 naming mode, and divide the progress.

At that time, the Silver Crusade daily and daily championship trials catered to the needs of casual players, the ordinary 10-h10toc catered to the needs of ordinary players, the 25toc-H25toc catered to the needs of high-end players who were tortured by uld, and the madman achievements catered to It met the needs of top players and pleased a large number of players at the time. The brand at that time (Triumph Emblem) could be directly exchanged for the same version of the set. Everyone from novices to advanced players know that if they spend enough time online and earn enough Triumph Crests, they can get equipment that matches the current version, so everyone has the motivation to go online.

This is indeed a very good design.

Especially after experiencing a huge decline in the number of players in Ulduar - relying on the TOC that was like flushing the toilet, the number of players finally exploded again.

and. The biggest reason why Crab was able to rise to the top is because of Flor's failure on Ulduar - this does not mean that the design of this dungeon failed, but that the players did not understand this situation. Duer is undoubtedly the best designer in the entire history of WOW and has the most imagination. The most perfect mode and the most epic copy.

That is really the pinnacle of all MMORPG copy design, even NAXX has not reached this height.

However, due to the difficulty issue, even if it is not playing the difficulty mode, ordinary players are not willing to accept it, because it is really difficult.

Later, when analyzing this problem, Jester once complained about why players declined in such an excellent version of Ulduar. In TOC, this version with no technical content will be liked by so many players.

As a result, one of his friends answered him this way.

"Which one do you think has higher sales volume of the "Wushuang" series or "Ninja Dragon"?"

Jester is naturally familiar with this kind of sales problem. He immediately answered: "Of course the sales of "Wushuang" are high. No need to ask, "Ninja Dragon" is just a niche game..."

Before he could finish speaking, Jester's friend immediately asked: "Then do you think the design of "Wushuang" is outstanding or the design of "Ninja Dragon" is outstanding?"

"Does this need to be said? A game like "Wushuang" is a mindless game. You can cut grass casually. It feels like a piece of paper. How can it be compared with the artwork of an ACT game like "Ninja Dragon"? It's not on the same level. .Better than..." When he said this, Jester suddenly couldn't speak anymore, because he understood the reason why his friend asked him this, because this question was complaining to him about why players don't like Ulduar. The reasons are so similar.

That is. The vast majority of players, or a considerable number of players, lack the basic ability to judge the quality of a game, whether domestic or foreign, it is the same.

Including later Jester learned that since Crab came to power, a large number of Flor's designs were discarded. I feel sad for these designs.

Let’s first talk about the copy of ICC, which is called a classic by countless players.

This copy may be the most successful copy of Crab Design, but if you knew what Flore’s original design was, you might not think so. When Flore was interviewed, he mentioned What kind of dungeon is the ICC? Or to put it another way - this will be a dungeon group - just like Blackstone Mountain in the 1960s. There will be at least four team dungeons to form the final ICC.

The final number of BOSS will be fifty.

Of course there will not be NC difficulty settings like normal or heroic, there will only be one difficulty, but some BOSS like Uldua will have a difficulty mode and will drop better items, and there are more What's good is not just mindless and violent additions, but truly completely different equipment.

In Flor's vision, the entire ICC copy process is like this.

First of all, the gate of ICC is the Iron Wall Dam. You enter from Crystalsong Forest. On the way, you pass through the Iron Wall Canyon where corpses are strewn in the fields, the fierce bombing of the war plains, the cold and deep Tomb of Sindragosa, and the path intertwined with secrets. Alebron, passed by the smelly slaughterhouse, passed by the dark and cold spider kingdom, passed by the ice cap underground full of sleepless people, passed by the gate of death, Modressa, passed by the gate of desolation, Ordusa, After passing through the Gate of Terror, Koressa, don’t panic, we’ve just arrived at the main entrance...

Understand, the so-called Crab's ICC is just a selection of the last part from Flor's epic vision.

If you knew that Flor's ICC was like this, would you still think Crab's ICC was epic?

To use a comparison, Flor's ICC is Homer's epic, while Crab's ICC is at best a Grimm's fairy tale, and it is not an adult version, but a children's version.

The reason for such a change is because when Blizzard was faced with whether the sales volume of "Wusou" or "Ninja Dragon" was higher, they chose the "Wusou" with higher sales volume from the perspective of a businessman, instead of being called "Wusou". "Ninlong" is a masterpiece.

Many people may not know that there was originally a copy of Troll between Ulduar and ICC, but because the production of Ulduar took too much time, and the players did not appreciate it, in the end, this The idea was abandoned. Maybe many people saw a very scary giant snake tail under the bridge when they were fighting the five-man Ben Zul'Dark. In fact, this was an Easter egg left for this troll Ben. This is The tail of a wind serpent.

The reason why there is a troll team version is not only because there is a hole in the plot that has not been filled, but more importantly, the Chinese language staff of WOW once mentioned this matter, that is, it was originally planned Zul'Drak was translated into Zul'Drak, but because they were told that there would be a troll version if nothing else happened, the Chinese team left the name Zul'Drak to the troll team version that would come in the future.

But no matter what, because of Uldua, almost all of Flor's design ideas were abandoned, including the troll version.

Of course, part of it is that there is not enough time to perfect the Troll copy, and we can only launch a convenient TOC as a transition. This is a kind of sadness that cannot be ignored, and a kind of sadness that changes in game development thinking.

Great design will continue only if players can recognize great design. If great design is not recognized, how can great design continue?

Lunchboxes are not what the WOW development team wants, but what the players want.

When developers no longer design games to make them great, then the decline of this game is inevitable. Many people say that WOW started to decline from CTM. In fact, those who truly understand the whole situation, this kind of The change in design thinking has already bought the foreshadowing in the era of ICC with the most players - the ultimate reason for this foreshadowing.

Still such a problem.

Which one has higher sales volume, "Wushuang" or "Ninja Dragon"?

Players keep saying that "Ninja Dragon" is good, "Ninja Dragon" is wonderful, and "Ninja Dragon" is awesome, but why are the sales of "Ninja Dragon" so small? (~^~)

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