Posts with tag chris-metzen

Last week, we reported that the Warcraft movie may be on its way. Previously there had been speculation that the film's development would be pushed back, since director Sam Raimi was tied up by problems with Spider-Man 4. Raimi then unexpectedly walked away from Spider-Man 4, citing creative reasons, and it suddenly looked hopeful that he might soon be turning his attention to the Warcraft film.

So now, in preparation for more news on the film, we will be bringing you up to date on what we currently know about the Warcraft movie.

Blizzard continues to update their minisite -- the latest newness is the posting of a new Blizzcast, in two parts. In part one, Karune of the Starcraft community team interviews Chris Metzen, Rob Pardo, and Samwise Didier about the history of Warcraft as a whole (it's celebrating the 15th anniversary as well this year), and part two has our friend Nethaera talking to J. Allen Brack, Tom Chilton, and Jeff Kaplan about the game itself. As is usual with the official podcast, there's not much new information here (especially if you've already read through some retrospective press), but both interviews are worth a listen (and/or a read through the transcript) if only to hear these guys all in a room together, joking around about old times.

Elsewhere on the site, they've started posting written interviews as well. The first one is with Shane Dabiri, former lead producer on the game, and there are faded-out spots for J. Allen Brack, Tom Chilton, and Jeff Kaplan as well. The other spots aren't revealed yet, but they're supposed to be interviews from the "community," so it'll be interesting to see who those turn out to be. Blizzard, anytime you want to chat with me about the history of World of Warcraft, just drop an email!

The good folks at the Orange County Register got invited to Blizzard's official WoW anniversary party that took place last Thursday on their Irvine campus, and their report is now posted. It sounds like quite the event -- lots of free food and beer, head honchos regaling employees with their tales of the early days, and Rob Pardo suggesting that just like geek culture helped define this game, this game might help define geek culture going forward.

The picture gallery included with the piece is a good browse, too -- you can see all of the Blizzard heavyweights hanging out together, and the great spread set up on the campus. The Register's also been asking Blizzard about their memories of the game -- they've got more memories from Samwise, launch day stories from Shane Dabiri, and some thoughts from Pardo and Frank Pearce (who, strangely enough, at first didn't believe that Blizzard belonged in a hardcore niche market like MMO gaming -- he didn't want to make "a game that never ended," he says). All good stuff. Congrats once again to Blizzard on five years, good to see they celebrated in style.

A few tipsters have alerted us to the fact that the Warcraft movie now has a subtitle on the Internet Movie Database -- instead of "Warcraft," it's now called "Warcraft: Rise of the Lich King." Though keep in mind what we've said before: almost anyone can edit those IMDb entries, which means this is less than even a rumor. It could be that some IMDb editor saw the title of the book somewhere and confused it for the movie's new title, or it could just be that an overzealous fan threw in a title of their own. Especially this early in a movie's pre-production, nothing is guaranteed.

Two other things to note here: back at the BlizzCon panel a few years ago, Chris Metzen did tell us that the movie wouldn't focus on Arthas anyway, so calling the movie "Rise of the Lich King" seems like it would go directly against that plan. Then again, we do know that when Sam Raimi became attached to the project, he brought his own set of ideas, so maybe he's convinced Blizzard to tell the story of Arthas yet again. Secondly, the IDMb crew page has been updated: apparently the Aaron Sims Company has been contracted to do some early character work for the movie. Unfortunately, their work is all over the map -- he's worked on Evil Dead II (great), Men in Black (pretty good), and Doom (whoops -- one of the worst videogame-based movies around). It's early though -- we do know Blizzard won't let Uwe Boll touch the movie, so hopefully they've chosen worthy talent here already.

New around here? WoW Rookie points WoW's newest players to the basics of a good start in the World of Warcraft. Send us a note to suggest a WoW Rookie topic, and be sure to visit the WoW.com WoW Rookie Guide for links to all our tips, tricks and how-to's.

Even if you're not a roleplayer, it's almost impossible not to find yourself swept up by some aspect of the hundreds of compelling stories tucked into the World of Warcraft. The question is, how can you dig deeper? Where do you find more? The answer: Books ... Manga ... Comics ... RPGs .... Page after page after page of glorious lore. Blizzard approves the storylines and lore included in the Warcraft and World of Warcraft line of novels, although you won't find a straight and clear progression across the whole line. Not every story and character crosses over from books to game (and vice versa).

Besides the Warcraft novels, WoW-starved readers can chew through enough manga, roleplaying game books and gaming guides to sate any lore feeding frenzy. The best part? You enjoy +Lore bonuses to your online play experience. Even the RPG books add color to the overall picture. Follow us beyond the break for a basic reading outline to escort you down Warcraft's path of lore.

When I found out that my friend Joe Gilbert AKA Kyliaar from the U.S. realm Destromath was attending the Laguna Art Museum VIP dinner on the eve of BlizzCon, I said "Get pictures and ask questions!" Happily, he did both.

For those of you who don't know, Blizzard held a benefit dinner for the Laguna Art Museum, which is also currently hosting a WoW art exhibit. Attendees got to choose a Blizzard personality to speak with at their table, bid on Blizzard art and hang out with the biggest Blizzard names. Following is an excerpt from my chat with Joe about the event (I've tried to edit out most of the fangirl swooning), as well as a gallery of his photographs.

So close... and yet so far. As you can see, our BlizzCon bingo didn't quite win this year -- even if you count Chris Metzen's regular glasses as non-sunglasses, and even if you just plain assume that the "coffee" in Ghostcrawler's cup on Saturday morning was actually gin (I saw him drinking whiskey, but not gin, unfortunately -- not sure why I didn't just buy the guy a drink), our BlizzCon card didn't score again ths year. There was no actor announced for the WoW movie (though if Tricia Helfer does get a part, we might call that one even), Diablo III trilogy plans weren't announced, and we didn't hear anything at all about another iPhone app or the new MMO. Sad trumpet indeed.

But there's always next year. Thanks for playing. If you did actually get a bingo this year, let us know exactly how (I don't remember any devs ever saying "soon, TM," but I was away from the panels a lot this year). Maybe next year we won't make the bingo card quite so heroic, but then again, who doesn't love a good challenge? We won't nerf something we're just doing for fun.

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Today I did something a little different for our questions and I went to Twitter. My first day really back on the job since BlizzCon, I was in the mood for some quick and easy questions. On a completely related note, yes, I did have Hawaiian Pizza at BlizzCon. How could I not?

LOLNAIDERS asked...

"Do you think Worgen racials are as stupidly overpowered as everyone's complaining about?"

I'm going to argue semantics a little bit. Yes, I think the racials are very cool and exciting, probably more fun than any of the other racials currently in game. I don't think they're overpowered. Well, the various speed boosts might be pretty wild in the arena, but we already have some crazy PvP racials in the game. I'm quite fond of Every Man.

They did mention at BlizzCon that they want racials to be a little more fun, so I think most races will end up with things on par with what the Worgen/Goblins have in the end. That's my hope, anyway.

During Day One of BlizzCon this past weekend, I was given the opportunity to sit down and talk with author/novelist Christie Golden, the woman behind the best selling Warcraft novel Arthas and the upcoming Cataclysm novel(s) which we learned about in this very interview. I asked her questions about her personal background in Warcraft, her writing process, and what it's like to work with Blizzard's worlds.

WoW.com: If you don't mind, we'll kick things off with a question I pretty much ask everyone... Horde or Alliance?

Christie Golden: Yes.

WoW.com: Good answer!

Golden: Seriously, I play both, and I love them both. I have characters on both sides, I don't prefer one over the other.

WoW.com: That definitely comes through in what you've written in the universe, starting with Horde material and then moving onto Arthas. When you say you've played both, how far? Are any of them level 80?

Golden: I've been so busy with all of the writing I've been doing lately that I haven't been able to hit 80, I haven't seen as much of Northrend as I've wanted to. Around 70 is where I'm stuck for now.

They taunted, they teased, they insinuated and then, just as the ceremony was about to end, Chris Metzen finally dropped the bombshell and announced World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Yeah we knew it was coming, we were -- to misquote Illidan -- prepared. Now, in the aftermath, we've had time to ruminate and digest all the information: Deathwing, the raised level cap, the guild leveling, heroic versions of Shadowfang Keep and Deadmines, a new secondary profession in the form of Archeology, two new races and seven new zones, a new (and broken) Azeroth and the ability to fly in the old world. Phew, that's a lot to digest. Even more information seems to be dripping out in panels and post-opening ceremony interviews.

So readers, we want to know what you think of Cataclysm. Are you pleased? Which bit excited you the most? Is it the new races or the promise of facing another insane Dragon Aspect? Are you scared by the drastic and irreversible changes that will befall Azeroth? Were you hoping for the Emerald Dream or a fully Maelstrom-centric expansion and feel like the Lost Isles and Vashj'ir are half measures? Tell us in the usual manner by dropping your thoughts and meditations in the comment box below.

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BlizzCon 2009 is here! WoW.com has continuing coverage, bringing you the latest in Cataclysm news, live blogs, galleries, and reports right from the convention floor. Check out WoW.com's Guide to BlizzCon for the latest!

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It's that time of year again: BlizzCon is almost here, and WoW.com is proud to present our annual game of BlizzCon Bingo. The rules are simple: just print out this year's bingo card, bring it along with you to the show, and then when you see something printed on the card (like Chris Metzen with his sunglasses off, or Ghostcrawler drinking a liquid that may or may not contain gin), mark it off. Observe five in a row (you can have the welfare epics in the middle for free), and you win!

You'll notice that the options run the gamut, from an expansion named Cataclysm (a pretty safe bet) to seeing Ozzy play a Blizzard game (not so likely). Almost all of this stuff is probably available somewhere on the convention floor, though you'll have to really look to find everything.

And if you do win, make sure to find one of us from WoW.com at the show and show off your finished bingo card. We might just have a nice prize for you, from a pat on the back to something even better.

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BlizzCon 2009 is coming up on August 21st and 22nd! We've got all the latest news and information. At BlizzCon you can play the latest games, meet your guildmates, and ask the developers your questions. Plus, there's some great looking costumes.

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This isn't the biggest news in the world, but for those of you that really dig World of Warcraft's extended universe, it might be pretty exciting. Medievaldragon over at BlizzPlanet has an incredibly hi-res picture of the artwork that will grace the cover of the upcoming novel Stormrage, courtesy of Pocket Books.

I can't help but notice Malfurion's rather feral appearance there. Despite how much Blizzard loves the whole "falling from grace" thing for their characters, I somewhat doubt they will take that road with Malfurion, even with everything going on in the Emerald Dream.* Is he stalking some prey? Is he running from whatever gave him those scars? Is he pissed that Tyrande went Shadow and made him respec Resto, hence the foliage? Who knows, but I'm curious to find out, even if my least favorite Warcraft novelist is tackling this one. Maybe we'll get an excerpt to read in our swag bags at BlizzCon? We can hope, right?

*If they do, I assume it will be temporary. Chris Metzen seems awfully attached to Malfurion when he talks about him, so I don't expect they'll kill the poor guy off.

Eurogamer has a nice long look at the early days of World of Warcraft, way before Northrend and Outland and even Molten Core, back when the question wasn't just how big the game would get, but whether Blizzard, a company known for their polish rather than their size, could pull off an entry in this new MMO genre. They've interviewed some of Blizzard's luminaries, and the piece offers a really good look at what it was like at Blizzard even before WoW's release, when they were hashing out some of the ideas and mechanics that have now set the bar with World of Warcraft: the stylistic Warcraft look, and questing as storytelling (originally, they thought they'd only do quests through the starting levels, and then have the game move to a grinding, monster-killing stage towards the end, but players said the game was boring without quests).

There are all kinds of great little tidbits in here: originally, Warcraft III was planned with the over-the-shoulder look that WoW now has, and that's one of the reasons they wanted to create a more straightforward RPG game. Tom Chilton showed up on the team about a year before WoW's release, and to his surprise, the game was almost completely unfinished -- the level cap was only 15, the talent system wasn't implemented, the AH or mail systems weren't in, PvP wasn't in at all (of course, even at release it was pretty barebones), and endgame raiding was nonexistent. Most of the things we think of as intrinsic to the World of Warcraft -- even things like the Horde and Alliance not speaking to each other -- were debated and almost not in at all as they moved towards release.

There's a rumor going around that Australian actor David Wenham (who you'll probably know as Faramir in Lord of the Rings, though he was also in 300 and Van Helsing) is supposed to play Arthas in the upcoming Sam Raimi-directed Warcraft movie -- but not so fast. The whole thing appears to stem from a listing over on the Internet Movie Database's listing for Warcraft (which, by the way, seems to have a working title -- a few days ago, it was just called "Untitled Sam Raimi Project"), where Wenham's name was inserted as rumored to play Arthas. That in and of itself means nothing at all -- the IMDb can be updated and edited by almost anyone that comes to the site, and while it could be that Wenham's agent is trying to get his name out there for a certain part, it's just as likely that some overzealous Lord of the Rings fan is trying to do some casting of their own. Wenham's name under there as "rumored" has about as much validity as a mention on Wikipedia: not much.

Oh, and there's one more issue -- as discussed in this forum post, Arthas himself probably won't even be in the Warcraft movie, if what Blizzard told us at BlizzCon a little while back is to be believed. Back at the BlizzCon 2007 movie panel, we were told by the panel (including Chris Metzen) that the movie is supposed to start a year before WoW begins, which means Arthas is sitting up in Icecrown doing a whole lot of nothing. When fans specifically asked about Arthas, we were told that while the movie would certainly reference him, it likely wouldn't focus on him at all. So while Wenham (or his fans) may be angling for the part of Arthas, even if he got it, he probably wouldn't get much screen time anyway.

Of course, that's assuming that what we were told two years ago still holds. Gary Whitta, who worked on a screenplay for the film, says that Sam Raimi has his own ideas about the movie, so, as BlizzPlanet points out, maybe he wants Arthas front and center. But for now, the David Wenham rumor is still just a made-up rumor, and a really thin one at that.

The Sons of the Storm is a kind of artists' collective connected with Blizzard -- they're responsible for the majority of the concept and game art coming out of Blizzard, from the Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo series. They count Samwise Didier and Chris Metzen in their ranks, along with many of Blizzard's most popular artists. And apparently their ranks are growing -- on their latest website update, they have posted a new group picture, along with a mysterious "eighth son" that they say they will introduce sometime later, possibly months after BlizzCon. From left on the picture above, you can see Samwise Dider, Chris Metzen, René Koiter, Travis Thammer, Glenn Rane, Peter Lee, Mark Gibbons, and the Eighth Son, who a commenter over at Blizzplanet speculates may be Wei Wang.

Speaking of BlizzCon, the Sons site also says that all of the seven current sons will be signing at the convention, so be sure to bring your TCG cards, Warcraft novels, art books and anything else these guys may have worked on. We're sure there'll be a line, but if you're willing to brave the wait, you might get to meet some of the most creative minds behind Blizzard's beloved universes.