Blizzard's Rob Pardo Talks Five Years of Warcraft

John Funk

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Dec 20, 2005
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Blizzard's Rob Pardo Talks Five Years of Warcraft



World of Warcraft turns five this month, and we sat down with Blizzard VP of Game Design Rob Pardo to chat about the biggest triumphs and biggest mistakes of the mega-MMORPG, and why he's not worried that their new MMOG will kill it.

It feels hard to believe, but in just over a week on November 23rd, World of Warcraft will have been live for half of a decade. Love it or hate it, WoW is one of the most important and influential games in recent memory - but five years ago, nobody could have foreseen just how big it would become, including the man at the helm of the project:

"I certainly did not expect it to have such a transformational effect on our company and the industry as a whole ... we thought that WoW would be able to expand [the MMO genre], but I figured that... if any game would ever pass the 10 million subscriber mark, it would be in many years, many generations of MMOs, many different evolutions of the genre," Rob Pardo, Blizzard's Executive Vice President of Game Design (and one of TIME's People of the Year in 2006 [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1187331,00.html]), told The Escapist.

With twelve million active subscribers around the globe - and a total subscriber count "easily more than double - maybe closer to triple" the current base, WoW smashed all previous records to become a dominant force in the industry. Though some point to WoW's prominence in the MMOG space as a stranglehold that makes it more difficult for newer games to succeed, Pardo disagrees - in fact, he thinks that WoW's success helps other games by introducing more people to the MMOG genre. People who would never have otherwise tried an MMOG beforehand picked up WoW, "(a)nd then when they were done, they decided to go, 'Hey, I'll give Lord of the Rings Online a chance, or Dungeons and Dragons Online a chance.' The genre benefited from the growing of the market."

On the other hand, anyone who tries to take the throne from WoW has "a huge hill to climb," because it would be up against a full decade of game design - the five years before Warcraft launched as well as the five years of post-launch development.

Of course, Pardo and Blizzard recognize that WoW won't last forever - which is why he isn't too worried that Blizzard's unannounced "next-gen MMOG" will cannibalize the WoW playerbase, leaving the company doing twice the work for the same amount of people. "Obviously, we want to compete with ourselves, and create something bigger than WoW ... We know that someone is going to beat WoW one day. Someone is going to make a bigger MMO, it's going to be faster and better."

"If someone's going to beat WoW, it might as well be us."

Of course, Pardo also recognizes that there might not have to be too much cannibalization, since many of the people currently playing WoW weren't the ones there when it first started. "There's a whole bunch of people who tuned out of WoW two years ago or four years ago, but who really enjoyed it, and when another MMO comes out that tickles their fancy, they'll jump into it."

Yes, despite the game's massive success, the developers are extremely aware that they've made mistakes, says Pardo. The lack of a proper Looking For Group tool was something he was "really unhappy" to not have at launch, and that tool is only now coming five years later in Patch 3.3. Aside from all of the technological errors like having too few servers at launch to keep up with the demand, Pardo thinks that the single greatest mistake as far as design of the game is concerned was the choice to introduce competitive "e-sports" into the game via Arenas.

"I'm not sure that that was the right thing to do with the game ... we just added it on, so it continues to be very difficult to balance. Is WoW a PvE cooperative game, or a competitive PvP game? ... I don't think we ever foresaw how much tuning and tweaking we'd have to do to balance it in that direction. Either I'd go back in time to before WoW ever shipped and change the rules to make the basic game more conductive for being an e-sport, or if not that, just say it doesn't make sense. Right now, WoW has a bit of a schizophrenic philosophy behind it, and we're trying to figure out how to guide it."

Mistakes aside, though, Rob Pardo thinks that his team's biggest success is the game itself, and how they achieved their goal - to introduce the fun of high-end MMOG play to a wider audience - beyond all imagining. "[O]ur goal was to look at the genre, and we saw what was super fun about it ... 'Lets make a game where people can get to that fun, see it, and get invested in this wonderful genre instead of scoffing, and passing over it because it was an MMO.'"

"There were lots of little implementation details, but the idea was this: 'Let's just take this super fun genre that people don't know really exists, and expand it out so that everyone can enjoy that.' We set that goal and achieved it, and I'm most proud of that."

To read the full transcript of our interview with Rob Pardo, head over to our sister site WarCry [http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/interviews/6773-Five-Years-of-Warcraft-Speaking-With-Blizzards-Rob-Pardo]. Check back early next week for an interview with WoW Production Director J. Allen Brack and Blizzard Art Director Samwise Didier!

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Bretty

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Jul 15, 2008
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As much as I hate to say it; I am looking forward to see what they come up with next. Especially how they saw the issues with Arenas and PvP in a PvE game. Should make for a much more fun experience the next time around.
 

Shamus Young

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What made this interview so outstanding was that Pardo was so candid. It's been AGES since I saw a developer / designer willing to talk in detail about past mistakes and future plans. That stuff so often ends up watered down to "We strive to always provide the best experience possible", which yeah: Duh.

I know WHY it usually works like that. I'm sure the stuff Pardo said here will be getting dragged up in Hardcore vs. Casuals debates months from now, and end up being thrown back at Blizzard in their own forums if someone gets mad about balance or somesuch. (And there are always people mad about that stuff.) But it's great to read some genuine answers and some honest introspection.

EDIT: Added missing words so this could be understood by civilized people.
 

mrjinx

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I played WoW for 3 years and enjoyed it greatly. Of course it did have a lot of issues that made it feel like work sometimes, or the Grind so to speak, which eventually led to me quitting.

I believe that if Blizzard designs their next MMO with both PVE and PVP in mind it will be so much superior to anything anybody else is going to put out. I loved both in WoW but PVP was constantly imbalanced in some way from one patch to another, not to mention that many classes required a 50 gold respec to switch between PVP and PVE. (Warrior here). I wish they had enabled players to have 2 different specs they could switch between all along. Farming for gold must be the most masochistic thing you can do in a Video game. Don't even mention repair bills to me.

I know the Grind is a current facet of the MMO genre but I'm hoping they can reduce it as much as possible in their next MMO. Then I might just give it a shot.
 

seule

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Jul 21, 2008
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Do have to agree with him on arenas though, when Blizz bought them in it threw everything out of whack.
 

SAccharing10

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Guild Wars 2 is taking everything that made Guild Wars good, removing it, and trying to be a WoW clone.
 

Sion_Barzahd

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i've played WoW on and off pretty much since launch day, and i have to agree with Pardo. Lots and lots of mistakes, especially the LFG system, which currently is next to pointless.

Glad they will be finally releasing a decent system in the next content patch.
 

The Great JT

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Five years, two expansions, two new races, a new class and about fifteen important lore characters' deaths later, here we are.
 

Flying Pilgrim

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mrjinx said:
I played WoW for 3 years and enjoyed it greatly. Of course it did have a lot of issues that made it feel like work sometimes, or the Grind so to speak, which eventually led to me quitting.

I believe that if Blizzard designs their next MMO with both PVE and PVP in mind it will be so much superior to anything anybody else is going to put out. I loved both in WoW but PVP was constantly imbalanced in some way from one patch to another, not to mention that many classes required a 50 gold respec to switch between PVP and PVE. (Warrior here). I wish they had enabled players to have 2 different specs they could switch between all along. Farming for gold must be the most masochistic thing you can do in a Video game. Don't even mention repair bills to me.

I know the Grind is a current facet of the MMO genre but I'm hoping they can reduce it as much as possible in their next MMO. Then I might just give it a shot.
You can have two specs it was something they added in a patch.
 

Warrior Irme

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May 30, 2008
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As a former Wow player I must say that I am glad to hear that they realized implementing a game mechanic like arena late into the life of the game and then began balancing the entire game to arena was a bad move. One that hopefully they are willing to fix with their unannounced MMO. Pre-arena wow was a fantastic game. Sure there were bugs and some balance issues, but they worked to fix balance issues for general play instead of just arena.
 

mrjinx

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Sean B. said:
mrjinx said:
I played WoW for 3 years and enjoyed it greatly. Of course it did have a lot of issues that made it feel like work sometimes, or the Grind so to speak, which eventually led to me quitting.

I believe that if Blizzard designs their next MMO with both PVE and PVP in mind it will be so much superior to anything anybody else is going to put out. I loved both in WoW but PVP was constantly imbalanced in some way from one patch to another, not to mention that many classes required a 50 gold respec to switch between PVP and PVE. (Warrior here). I wish they had enabled players to have 2 different specs they could switch between all along. Farming for gold must be the most masochistic thing you can do in a Video game. Don't even mention repair bills to me.

I know the Grind is a current facet of the MMO genre but I'm hoping they can reduce it as much as possible in their next MMO. Then I might just give it a shot.
You can have two specs it was something they added in a patch.
I'd heard that, unfortunately it was well over a year after I quit the game. People tried to lure me back in to the game but I resisted the temptation. :p
 

oathblade

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While he is right the 'welfare epics' were horrible for the game the greatest mistake isnt that, its in releasing super new content...and then saying 'oh by the way its all goign to be obsolete. Not like soon but don't work too hard on this'. The big raiders benefit from the initial surge of enthusiasm and the slower to end game guild are terribly hurt when blizzard stabs it in the heart. I thought they realized it with BC but they repeated the mistake with WotLK.
 

Nanaki316

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A good read for any WoW player old or new. I've been playing for over 3 years now, I run my own casual raiding guild and have made some of the best friends ever in game and have never allowed myself to get addicted which puts so many people off.

Really looking forward to Cataclysm it's gonna be a huge shake up!
 

theultimateend

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Shamus Young said:
What made this interview so outstanding was that Pardo was so candid. It's been AGES since I saw a developer / designer willing to talk in detail about past mistakes and future plans. That stuff so often ends up watered down to "We strive to always provide the best experience possible", which yeah: Duh.

I know WHY it usually works like that. I'm sure the stuff Pardo said here will be getting dragged up in Hardcore vs. Casuals debates months from now, and end up being thrown back at Blizzard in their own forums if someone gets mad about balance or somesuch. (And there are always people mad about that stuff.) But it's great to read some genuine answers and some honest introspection.

EDIT: Added missing words so this could be understood by civilized people.
What I liked was that the things I hate (or at least really really don't like) are the things he mentioned. So at least I'm not alone in the feeling :p.
 

TitsMcGee1804

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Dec 24, 2008
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Shamus Young said:
What made this interview so outstanding was that Pardo was so candid. It's been AGES since I saw a developer / designer willing to talk in detail about past mistakes and future plans. That stuff so often ends up watered down to "We strive to always provide the best experience possible", which yeah: Duh.

I know WHY it usually works like that. I'm sure the stuff Pardo said here will be getting dragged up in Hardcore vs. Casuals debates months from now, and end up being thrown back at Blizzard in their own forums if someone gets mad about balance or somesuch. (And there are always people mad about that stuff.) But it's great to read some genuine answers and some honest introspection.

EDIT: Added missing words so this could be understood by civilized people.
its the blizzard ethos...rather than try to convince people that what they are doing is the right way to do it (MW2 ded servers yadda yadda), they try to convince themselves that things are the wrong way of doing it, therefore find ways to build it up and make it perfect, self criticism to make perfect games

one example, diablo 3 went through like 3 art revolutions before they decided on the best

I like rob pardo though, he is my fave blizz dev, you can just tell that he is the most laid back and coolest guy ever
 

benbenthegamerman

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Capo Taco said:
It won't be WoW 2, it will be "world of lost vikings".
win.

Im starting to think that the next gen mmo in the works is gonna be Universe or Starcraft, because Diablo is alredy kindof a single player WoW. Plus, its rare to see a space themed MMO, and it would be good to see a company who has made one of the greatest space-RTS games of all time turn it into an MMO, like Warcraft.
 

Capo Taco

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benbenthegamerman said:
Capo Taco said:
It won't be WoW 2, it will be "world of lost vikings".
win.

Im starting to think that the next gen mmo in the works is gonna be Universe or Starcraft, because Diablo is alredy kindof a single player WoW. Plus, its rare to see a space themed MMO, and it would be good to see a company who has made one of the greatest space-RTS games of all time turn it into an MMO, like Warcraft.
Yes that's what I was going to say but then I thought about their valuable vikings ip.