You would know the ins and outs of making a game better than I would, but it seems to me that revamping the whole way the game works would be a big deal.A feature such as free form combat would not cause an entire production to shut down. That is a fluff, that is not a "feature". Yes it needs coding and AI to work with but it is not this GREAT feature that people make it out to be, it can be great if you program the AI right, or it can be a lazy feature. Either way no way would that shut down a production. That is like a week of work.
Art Story and Pacing, now that is the life blood. And that is something that gets worked on YEARS before anyone even sees the game and usually with only a handful of people coming up with stuff. Concept art, Concept story, Concept game design.
But then the production team ramps up FAST.
You would know the ins and outs of making a game better than I would, but it seems to me that revamping the whole way the game works would be a big deal.
So Blizzard has said earliest 2016. That means late 2017 if it's on normal Blizzard terms. I really felt that this years Blizzcon was predicated on the announcement of the next great MMO from Blizzard. I felt like they were going to at least let us know what it was, but maybe be vague on some of the details. I don't think a new WoW or Diablo expansion will be enough at this point. The fan base has been dropping rapidly and Blizzard needs to do something to stay competitive.
I think that's what Hearthstone is supposed to do. lol I was at PAX East when they announced. Half the room LITERALLY left the event.
This is GREAT new for WildStar! An old high school buddy of mine is the Cinematic Supervisor at Blizzard, I'll give him a shout and see if he's got any more info.
Steeg Haskell and if he tells me anything I'll be sure to ask if it's okay to disseminate it first.
Awesome! Hit him up on FB if you haven't already. He's a good guy.
Very true. I don't think (or at least I would hope) that he wouldn't divulge anything that would jeopardize his job and I wouldn't prod him to do that anyhow. I respect his candor when it comes to things like that so I tend to just ask general questions and see what comes out of it.
What did you do at Blizzard?
I still rewatch some of the old cinematics from time to time. I really liked the BC era ones- Black Temple release and so forth.I was a cinematic artist. I directed a large portion of in-game cinematics and the south park episode of make love not warcraft.