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Archive for the 'Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft' Category

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WoW players raise $1.1 million for Make-A-Wish

February 17th, 2010, 12:02 am by

When Blizzard Entertainment asked gamers inside the World of Warcraft to help the Make-A-Wish Foundation, players responded.

By the thousands.

On Tuesday, Blizzard president Mike Morhaime handed a $1.11 million check to the charity that grants wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions.

“We’re very happy with the amount,” said Mike Morhaime, president of the Irvine game developer.

Was he surprised?

“We stopped making predictions about WoW a long time ago.”

The proceeds came from the sale of a Pandaren Monk, a virtual pet for the game. The creature sold for $10 between Nov. 4 and Dec. 31. Half the price was donated to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. That means 222,000 players bought the pet.

“I was shocked. That’s a lot of virtual pets,” said Frank Pearce, the game’s executive director.

Morhaime believes players wanted to help out the charity and not just score another virtual pet.

“If you read a lot of the comments in the forums, they indicated that people were really excited about Make-a-Wish and having the proceeds benefit the foundation,” Morhaime said.

In fact, Blizzard released two other virtual pets at the same time that weren’t as big sellers.

“People were definitely drawn to the Pandaren,” Pearce said.

The company has granted eight or nine wishes, including that of Ezra Chatterton, whose tale I documented starting with his May 2007 visit to Blizzard’s headquarters. Chatterton had brain cancer and played WoW with his father as an escape. His story inspired hundreds of readers and WoW players to write in and wish him the best. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • • • • • • • | 11 Comments »

Today’s ‘World of Warcraft’ isn’t the game it was in 2004

November 23rd, 2009, 7:47 am by

Joe Simmons, Orange County RegisterJoe Simmons, a World of Warcraft player and editor here at The Orange County Register, reflects on the massively multi-player game from Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment from a player’s perspective. Simmons previously wrote on the Register’s Blizzard Blog.

“World of Warcraft” turns 5 today. On Nov. 23, 2004, game-maker Blizzard’s servers were turned on and players began romping through the lands of Azeroth. In those five years, we’ve seen the scope of the game expand to include another continent, another world and a host of fan-favorite characters.

World of Warcraft turns 5 on Nov. 23, 2009.
Exclusive: Birthday stories, see photos: ocregister.com/blizzard

But in one sense, the age of “World of Warcraft” is entirely meaningless. Its designers have truly embraced the Internet age’s mantra of constant change; the Warcraft we play today isn’t the same one introduced in 2004.

We could just as easily be talking about the first birthday of the “Wrath of the Lich King” expansion, released about this time last year. There’s more innovation, updates and streamlining in this game’s add-on content than many other franchises see between sequels.

When the game was first released, reviews breathlessly trumpeted the seamless transition from area to area (previous massively multiplayer games, such as “EverQuest,” had lengthy loading screens); the clean, intuitive user interface; the simple, flexible power of the game’s character customization options. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • WoW • • | 6 Comments »

WoW memories from a designer and a co-founder

November 22nd, 2009, 9:25 am by
View WoW slide shows
Blizzard Entertainment celebrate WoW's 5th anniversary a few days early on Nov. 19, 2009. Exclusive: Employees celebrate 5 years of WoW

World of Warcraft through the years: A slide show archive

WoW through the years

This is part of a series of stories about the World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer game built by Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment. The game celebrates its five-year anniversary on Nov. 23, 2009. Catch the earlier stories at ocregister.com/blizzard.

The Designer

As Blizzard’s executive vice president of game design, Rob Pardo oversees 800 or so developers with cofounder Frank Pearce. He sees everything coming and going. But what touches him most is watching how people interact with the game.

Like his 10-year-old daughter. She started playing at age 4 when the beta test period began.

“When she started, she didn’t want to be in zones where you get attacked by monsters. She really liked to attack critters, like rabbits. What she really liked was jumping off the building. It baffled me why she liked doing that over and over and over,” he said.

“As she got older, she still didn’t like player-to-player combat. Then one day, I noticed that she was waking up on her own and playing on the battleground. She’s now 10,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »

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Blizzard’s lead producer remembers the eve of WoW

November 22nd, 2009, 8:23 am by

This is part of a series of stories about the World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer game built by Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment. The game celebrates its five-year anniversary on Nov. 23, 2009. Catch the earlier stories at ocregister.com/blizzard.
Shane Dabiri, Blizzard's lead producer for World of Warcraft.

The Producer

Shane Dabiri, lead producer who joined Blizzard 15 years ago next month, remembers the eve before WoW went on sale.

Members of the development team were going to Fry’s Electronics in Fountain Valley to sign copies at midnight. Even with the success of past Blizzard games, Dabiri had his doubts.

“We were so worried that no one was going to be there and it was just going to be us 16 developers,” he said

As it turned out, fans began lining up just after noon. By midnight, the line looped around the building and parking lot twice before spilling out into the street. Read the rest of this entry »

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Samwise reflects on WoW, the Panda race, more

November 22nd, 2009, 7:26 am by
View WoW slide shows
Blizzard Entertainment celebrate WoW's 5th anniversary a few days early on Nov. 19, 2009. Exclusive: Employees celebrate 5 years of WoW

World of Warcraft through the years: A slide show archive

WoW through the years

This is part of a series of stories about the World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer game built by Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment. The game celebrates its five-year anniversary on Nov. 23, 2009. Catch the earlier stories at ocregister.com/blizzard.

Even if you’ve never played the game, you’ve probably heard about WoW or the original Warcraft series, which itself celebrates 15 years this year.

There are hundreds of fan sites that track every little Blizzard burp. There are professional game competitions for Warcraft. There are college courses and art shows inspired by WoW. A Hollywood movie is in the works.

But it’s the people who built the game that we don’t hear about much.

Like Sam “Samwise” Didier, one of the more recognized names.

The Artist

Didier saw an ad in The Orange County Register and joined the startup six months after it launched in 1991. His previous job? An usher at a local movie theater. Read the rest of this entry »

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Memories of Warcraft from the people who built it

November 22nd, 2009, 5:49 am by

This is part of a series of stories about the World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer game built by Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment. The game celebrates its five-year anniversary on Nov. 23, 2009. See ocregister.com/blizzard for the complete series.

View slide shows

Blizzard Entertainment celebrate WoW's 5th anniversary a few days early on Nov. 19, 2009.

Exclusive: Employees celebrate 5 years of WoW

World of Warcraft through the years: A slide show archive

WoW through the years

If you were on the second floor of the Anaheim Convention Center staring down at thousands of fans of a computer game you worked on, what would you do?

“I yelled, ‘For the Horde!’” recalls Sam “Samwise” Didier, senior art director with Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment, makers of the World of Warcraft. Yes, that game.

That game, nicknamed WoW, celebrates its fifth anniversary Monday.

In five years, this multiplayer online fantasy game has attracted millions of players around the world, added two major upgrades with a third in the works, and touched millions of lives — uniting couples, separating others and even distracting a kid named Ezra Chatterton, who played the game with his dad before brain cancer took his young life.

Accomplishment was what Didier felt on that October 2005 day, when Blizzard said thanks to fans with its first BlizzCon convention.

“They shouted back, ‘For the Horde!’ And if you know the game, the other faction is the Alliance; so in the background you heard people saying ‘For the Alliance,’” Didier said in a squeaky little voice. “And all you could hear was ‘Boos.’ And then ‘For the Horde,” and ‘For the Alliance,” and more boos. … That’s when I knew we had made it kind of big.”

On Thursday, the company held a beer and BBQ fest on its Irvine campus to commemorate the occasion. Plenty of WoW birthday cake to go around. The company employs more than 1,200 employees in the U.S. and 3,000 worldwide. In the year before WoW, Blizzard employed 220.

“One of our goals was to stay small. That’s one of the goals we failed at,” said Mike Morhaime, Blizzard’s president and co-founder. “All these games we made in the last 15 years wouldn’t be what they are without the people who created them.”

More to come so keep checking back today and this week. Stories in the series will be/are linked below.

>> Visit the Blizzard Blog for the complete list of stories and photos, at ocregister.com/blizzard.

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Happy Birthday, World of Warcraft! Blizzard celebrates

November 22nd, 2009, 1:01 am by

This is the first in a series of short profiles of the people behind World of Warcraft, which celebrates its five-year anniversary on Monday, Nov. 23, 2009. More in the series: ocregister.com/blizzard

World of Warcraft turns 5Few outsiders got the chance to observe Blizzard Entertainment’s special celebration for World of Warcraft, on Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009. I guess they like me.

Anyone would have been in awe whether they know what WoW is or not. The company invited the whole Irvine campus — more than 1,000 employees — to the outdoor gathering. A stage was set up in front of the 12-foot orc statue and all the big bosses were there. And as you can see from our exclusive photos (by Register photographer Jebb Harris), there was plenty of free beer, BBQ and cake.

But the best part about the whole birthday extravaganza was the stories. Several old timers got a chance to say a few words, in this order:

  • Frank Pearce, co-founder and executive vice president of product development
  • J. Allen Brack, game director for World of Warcraft
  • Shane Dabiri, lead producer
  • Bob Fitch, lead software engineer for StarCraft 2
  • Rob Pardo, executive vice president of game design
  • Chris Metzen, executive vice president of creative development
  • Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder

Pearce talked about reuniting with old high-school friends online, plus the company’s earliest days of offering multiplayer gaming. And, of course, he mentioned that he initially thought taking Warcraft to the massively multiplayer game genre was just too niche. More on that later.

Brack remembers playing Warcraft on a null modem and Usenet, which he called “a horrible version of the Internet.” His WoW memory? Signing game boxes at Fry’s Electronics in Fountain Valley five years ago only to be tapped on the shoulder and told, “Someone is wrecking the game in Europe.” Yes, those cheeky Europeans had already figured out how to hack the game. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • WoW • • • • • | 3 Comments »

Missing BlizzCon? DirecTV’s happy to sell you access

August 21st, 2009, 3:38 am by

Big day today. Fans of Irvine game company Blizzard Entertainment are converging in Anaheim for the annual BlizzCon fan fest. I’ll be covering the two-day event but posting updates over our  Blizzard Blog (ya, did you know we had that?) so there won’t be much on Gadgetress. But check the sidebar for lots of good stuff.

For readers who have heard of Blizzard or perhaps one of its computer games — World of Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo — there is big news expected today. Joe Simmons, lead Blizzard blogger, is betting on more details of the upcoming Diablo III, future updates to Warcraft and lots of StarCraft II news since the game is coming out next year.

 But a major announcement could be a completely new game: A mysterious new massively multiplayer game was quietly confirmed some months back. That’s all the world  knows.

It should be the biggest BlizzCon to date. Some 20,000 tickets were sold within 10 minutes. And that’s not counting media, professional gamers, staff and everyone else. I’ll be getting more details as the con progresses so stay tuned — and check for updates on the Blizzard Blog.

Anyway, this being a TV blog, I thought I’d better point out that DirecTV is once again broadcasting BlizzCon as a pay-per-view show for $39.95. It’s not competely minute-by-minute action, but the package will include 18 hours of HD coverage, plus an exclusive in-game pet, Grunty the Murloc Marine. Additionally, subscribers will get free access to the Internet stream. The event will be on channels 122 and 121. More details are at directv.com/blizzcon.

For more BlizzCon coverage, visit our Blizzard Blog. Recent headlines:

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