Personal and Professional Practice 3: 'Research' Studio Brief - Blizzcon 2014 Interviews Part 1

Below is the first half of the interviews that were presented at Blizzcon 2014, they were all so exciting and unique and I gain a lot of information from each of them, making it definitely worth while to watch them all. 

As I knew I wanted to look more into gaming for my PPP project this year I thought watching Blizzcon 2014 was a really good opportunity. I got a virtual ticket as I was unable to go all the way to California to see it live, but this was just as good, if not better. I could very easily pick and choose what I wanted to watch from the streamed videos that were uploading, and will remain uploaded for a week or so, so I can go back and watch them whenever I want to. I am a huge fan of Blizzard and for years played World or Warcraft and more recently Diablo III, so I was super excited to be able to see the convention from the comfort of my own bed for the next few days and I was definitely not disappointed.

Interview with Mike MorhaimeMike Morhaime is the President of Blizzard Entertainment and he started the interview processes off today, straight away after coming from the Opening Ceremony, which briefly highlighted everything that was going to be happening over the next two days, which made me super giddy. He started by talking about Overwatch, Blizzards brand new game coming out next year and this is something he is particularly proud of. They wanted to use this very over the top, stylized, hero based game where players could jump into a 6v6 death match. It seems like a great idea and it seems to be for skilled players who are able to take the concept of an easy character and jump into a difficult game. You can take risks to get out into the world, which is based on Earth, unlike all their other games, or you can be quiet and reserved and play that way.

They are very much focusing on the PC aspect of this game at the moment and not thinking about other platforms at this time, which is understandable. They are trying to create a diverse set of characters with complete back stories where players can get deeply involved in the game play and then read up on the lore and stories if they wish. At the same time they are still developing hearthstone that came out this year and have noticed that it is a very accessible game, as it is now out on iPad as well as PC, and is set to be also coming out on Android later on.

At this current time, their pipeline of games has never been stronger and Overwatch is the first game that isn't linked to the others that they have brought. It has its own lore and will be independent at the start and they will think about any crossovers later when they start to get the feedback on it, once the beta is released next year.

Interview with Jason Chayes
Jason Chayes is currently working on Hearthstone and the brand new expansion pack that is coming out called Goblins and Gnomes. This is a really big expansion, and an early one as well as the base game only came out in March, but promises to be full of mechs, robots and explosions. There are going to lots of lovely new animations that are coming to the game and its going to be a big change, introducing over 120 new cards and packs that you get throughout the game. The game only came out in March and has amazing success already. They are looking ahead to the next year for expansions as well but ensuring that they still keep this social content so that they can continue with their tournaments. 

They are not releasing the game as a paid expansion, everyone will automatically get it, but you will need to purchase the cards and packs from the shop for real money or you can earn the money through playing matches and unlock the cards that way, or through winning in the arena. At the moment as well they want Hearthstone to be a stand-alone game and not link with the others at the moment. 

At this current time they are also holding Fireside Gathering event that take place all around the world and these feature Hearthstone players that can get together and play in places that can connect to the internet. The players can meet in small groups or they can meet in larger groups and have tournaments where they play for money. 

Interview with Chris Sigaty
Chris Sigaty is currently working on Starcraft 2 and the next expansion that is going to be coming out, which is also a stand-alone game, Legacy of the Void. You can start with this game straight away as it is separate from the other ones made and you do not have to have the previous expansions to play this, but if you do, you can continue into this game as well. They had a lot of initial ideas for this expansion that ended up being changed a lot since the original plan and this was all based off the mass of feedback that they got some developers, testers and the general public.

Interview with Chris Sigaty 2

We then went back to another interview with Chris Sigaty as he is also working on Heroes of the Storm and he came back to talk about this in more detail. They are currently working on the addition of the Lost Vikings into the game who are going to be very fun to play as. Blizzard are trying to be different with Heroes and again make this game completely different from previous ones and eventually make it more of a brawler then anything. 

But the Lost Vikings are going to be a very interesting addition. They can be controlled separately or together by flicking through the number hotkeys 1-4 to take control of each of them or all. When one dies you can still play as the other two while you wait for his to respawn which is a very nice touch. They are still continuing to add in more and more content into their games in order to make them better and ensure they have enough for the release of the Beta in January. 

Interview with Chris Hardwick

There was then a very short interview with Chris Hardwick talking about the Blizzcon costume contest which was going to be talking place later on that day, which did look very exciting. He also went into a little bit of details about the Warcraft film and spoke about how they really wanted to ensure that they are making it true for the fans to ensure that they don’t let anyone down. 

Interview with Hamilton Chu
The next interview that I watched was by Hamilton Chu who is currently working on Hearthstone and again this was just giving more information about the new expansion that is coming out and how they have set up the stage for the tournament and how it brings out the charm and fun of the entire game. It’s a very social game and you can play it with its of different people over different platforms. This game has really caught on quickly and there are so many people now streaming it on sites like YouTube and Twitch. They tried with the base game and the upcoming expansion to make it individual for each and every player, offering them a game where they can play it just the way they want. He then went into a little bit more detail about the Fireside Gatherings that they are holding and how they are being more and more frequent and how they are so easy to start up, Blizzard hold them but you can just get a group of people together and get going yourself with a smaller group of people. 

Interview with Brian Holinka
This was an interview that I was very excited to see, as it was Brian Holinka who is currently working on all things World of Warcraft.  He was here today to talk about the upcoming expansion Warlords of Draenor. They have introduce a new PvP island where you can go and have huge 200v200 death matches between the Allience and the Horde and this is based on the language your in and your level cap to make the fight fair. They wanted to have these huge battles that are on going and you can join in at any time. 

You don’t just get put into this huge island though if your new to PvP, they introduce you slowly and give you a number of quests first if you need them, which introduce you to what you have to find and how to go about it and then you can join the battle, or just jump straight in and work it out along the way. It’s a really nice way to introduce people to take that step into PvP without being thrown in at the deep end. There going to be bringing back a lot of the older gameplay from some of the earlier game like the 40v40 raids and death matches as well. 

They have also improved the honour rewards and conquests as well and you can now get loot from rares and elites that are around the outskirts of this big island. This is an opportunity to get journal to improve your particular class and spell books that will be able to summon ancient creatures to help you. 

Interview with Ion Hazzikostas
Again this was another World of Warcraft video and he was mainly here to talk about the changes to the raids that were going to be happening. Thy wanted to change the raid size to make them more flexible for the raider leaders to organise and help them to ensure that everyone is getting the fair share of loot. There is now different loot modes that can be activated that means people can pick the items, they get handed out or it’s a free for all, which will be very interesting to see in action. They have then also changed the size of the raids and have made them 20 people raids. This is so that they can balance the enemies and ensure the difficultly is good all the way through and that 10 people aren’t going up again a raid that is designed for 40, something that I think will work very well averaged out.