The State of Blizzard's Union

Gamasutra has an extensive interview with Senior Vice President Frank Pearce (one of the company's original founders), and Starcraft II producer Chris Sigaty. They discuss some elements of the the company's future. They discuss their expectations for Starcraft II, some hints of what's to come in World of Warcraft, and word that 50 people are working on the mysterious 'Team 3' game. "Pearce: Our global headcount is like, 2700. Most of that is customer service for World of Warcraft. I mean in terms of development staff... it's probably around 350. For all of Blizzard. World of Warcraft development team is about 135 people...40 for you [indicates Chris' Starcraft 2 team], 50 for ... Team 3 ... Gamasutra: Team 3? What's Team 3 working on? Pearce: Team 3 is working on something really awesome. I will totally tell you, it's really awesome ... Nope, can't give you any hints. Gamasutra: Well, as long as it's awesome."

Diablo 3

[Nasarius]

One assumes that's the Team 3 project, since it's been more or less confirmed [diablo3.com].

Re:like, totally, like, awesome

[Alaria Phrozen]

I glanced over the interview after you made your post, and I have mixed feelings about how to respond. In summary it's worst on page 4 but he's literally telling a story about his family trip, it's hardly a prepared statement.

The following is my criteria for measuring word counts:
totally - any use, although it includes good (i.e. meaning "completely") and bad (i.e. saying "totally awesome") uses.
like (good) - means the same as any of the following: such that, such as, for example, as if, around, in the neighborhood of, etc..
like (bad) - the use indicates a pause in speech "..uhm.."

Some examples/excerpts from the interview:

• "I think it was more like, they said "oh God, white barbarians have invaded!" - page 4
• "We're like the NFL Commissioner or something." -- example of "good" use of the word like; they aren't literally the NFL Commisioner.
• "I will totally tell you, it's really awesome." -- page 5

Lameness filter is giving me a hard time with formatting and I suck at this. Here's my attempt:

1,2,3,4,5 - page number
-----------------------
0,0,3,3,1 - totally
1,4,4,7,3 - like(good)
0,4,2,8,1 - like(bad)

So I think you totally overblew the "totally" issue, but like you said the use of "like" is likely to be bad in these personal interviews.

Hydra

[Adair]

Some speculation over at wowinsider.com that Blizzard's Third Project [wowinsider.com] is internally called "Hydra".

Re:Couldn't ... care ... less

[MeanderingMind]

5 - Store characters on a server that will last longer than 90 days AND are non hackable.

Two words, Open Battle.net. Additionally, how many characters did you have that it was impossible to commit to playing them each for one hour in a three month timespan? Lastly, I have my doubts that Bnetd or anything related to it was hack-proof. Speaking of which...

 

4 - Allow/disallow Maphack at MY choosing. (Maphack is not a hacking tool, it is a UI improvement)

Case in point.

Once again, Open Battle.net. Also, that's not a bug, it's a feature.

 

3 - Choose who can join my server. (No Spambots, just my friends + their friends)

I don't see how this is even an issue unless you enjoyed hanging out in the chat channels. Spambots didn't join anything but the main channels, mostly the trade channels, and couldn't join your game if you gave it a password.

 

1 - Mod support. All of the really great games were that way because of the Modding community.

I'm unimpressed by your ability to skip #2, rather than just spend 15 seconds to go back and properly number your countdown.

Two words, and I repeat, Open Battle.net. I made my own mods, and played them with friends in this manner.

In short, the only thing Bnetd provided that Blizzard hadn't already given you the ability to do was play games without buying them.