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The RPGvault has talked to Blizzard's VP Bill Roper about his company's up and coming RPG flavored strategy game Warcraft III. It's pretty lengthy and spread out across a full five pages.
Here's the 1st one (not page - question):Maximus: When Warcraft III was initially announced, we understood it would have more RPG-type content than the previous games, but it's only fairly recently that we've been hearing about RPG elements again. To set the story straight, how has the RPG layer in the game evolved during the development process?
Bill Roper: Really, we never got rid of the RPG elements, the only thing we ever changed was the camera angle which went from an open shoulder camera which I think you see much more in World of Warcraft for example, but made it really hard to make it a strategy game. We always wanted Warcraft to be a strategy game with RPG elements, and I think when we changed the camera angle, everyone thought we got rid of all the RPG elements, which we never did. In fact, the only two changes we ever made from the initial launch design presentation were the camera angle and requiring the game camera to be attached from the hero. Because it made it really hard to play a strategy game if you always had to have one guy that had to be everywhere.
Past that, the RPG elements that have always been there are still there, like legendary heroes that gain items and abilities. One of the reasons we are talking a lot about it now is just that there was so much focus on the multiplayer aspect of the beta launch and now that people have played the beta for a while, they're comfortable with the way that element of the game mechanics works in terms of fewer more powerful units using their abilities and we've really been trying to get the message out about what RPG elements are there, and the single-player storyline is really where I think you see it shine.
Now, we have all the things that legendary heroes bring to the table, but also the in-game cinematic sequences and the very rich storyline, and not only the main quest that you're going through but the side quests and sub-plots. It's really been a delight to actually be testing them. Especially when I get to talk to people who don't know anything about the story and we're starting to see one of the goals we had realized, that half the time when I talk to people, they're not talking to me about the great strategy they used or the awesome battle they had but they're talking about the story elements. Like they didn't think "A" would happen or character would use "B" or that kind of thing, and that's been really great because we have wanted to bring that sense of life and emotion into a strategy game. |
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Warcraft 3: Interview @ RPGvault
