Hot Off The Press . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Thursday, April 18, 2002 --  tigole

If You Want Something Done Right. . .

This week I accepted a position as Associate Game Designer with Blizzard Entertainment.  Specifically, I will be designing quests for World of Warcraft, Blizzard's MMORPG based on the popular Warcraft series.  In addition to my duties as Quest Designer, I will also be expected to contribute to helping design the end game content for World of Warcraft.  The reason I am sharing this information (besides the fact that I have a masochistic love of reading rants and flames about myself) is because I know that the fans of this site are hardcore MMORPG players.  The readers of this site have also come to know my personal opinions on what constitutes a fun gaming experience versus what feels like a complete waste of time or poorly designed encounter.

You've all read my opinions on such things as tedious key camps, obvious time sinks devoid of any story or linear narrative, quests which reward the lucky over the skilled and quest rewards which are out of synch with the amount of time and effort required to complete them.  I hope that my association with World of Warcraft will serve to comfort MMORPG fans that "one of us" is on the other side of the fence, looking out for the interests of the player.

The collective vision behind World of Warcraft is what really won me over.  The folks working on the game are focused on making the world of Azeroth fun for all kinds of players, ranging from the casual gamer to hardcore people like you and me.  To put it bluntly, they don't want you reading a book or watching TV while playing their game at the same time.  The game is captivating enough where other distractions aren't necessary.

Blizzard's desire to provide well designed high-end content will prove to be a breath of fresh air for the readers of this site.  Unfortunately, I cannot go into much detail at this time but I can say that there are ideas being discussed for the hardcore, end-game player which are nothing short of groundbreaking.  You guys, the fans of this site, know how discerning I am when it comes to "uber" content in a game.  Trust me, you have much to look forward to.

And to top it all off, the game simply looks amazing.  I was blown away by what I saw.  MMORPG fans have some very exciting things dawning on the horizon.

So with all that is going on with me, you'll have to excuse any lapses in updates to the site here.  I will try my hardest to give you slackers something to read while you should be working.  But in the meantime, there's a whole world of NPC's that need to learn the words "cacksugger" and "mo faka" and the like. . .although something tells me I'm already in trouble with the boss.

--Tig