An interview with former WoW level designer, John Staats [Classic World of Warcraft]
274MP3: https://soundcloud.com/user-116094235/interview-with-john-staats/s-dH8CQ
Timestamps:
0:00 Introduction
13:37 If you zone into the Deadmines in Vanilla WoW, early on, you can glitch through terrain into an otherwise hidden area that contains landscapes and structures that would fit in perfectly in Outland. Why are those structures hidden there and can you elaborate on any other hidden structures like these that do or did exist in instanced dungeons?
20:16 Why were The Island of Dr. Palidis and Gillijim's Isle removed from the game? Was any content planned for them?
22:54 Your book mentions that you and Toph Gorham had a suggestion, and ultimately significant change, for WarCraft III during its development, related to maximum food caps. Can you recall an example\ where someone from another Team play-tested WoW in its early/alpha stages and had a massive suggestion, which you or other Team 2 members then implemented?
32:49 What was the team's thoughts on people trying to explore unreleased/"inaccessible" content, such as Hyjal in Vanilla, or the previously mentioned structures hidden inside The Deadmines? Did the team actively try to hide/remove this content or detect players accessing it post-launch, or was it left there because they thought no one would be able to access it?
37:04 Speaking of hidden areas in WoW... who put the smiley face in the textures under Karazhan!?
39:51 Your book mentions that server costs directly impacted storage space (e.g., banks and bags) for players. Hypothetically, how many bag/bank slots did you want to give players, as opposed to the starting 16-slot bag that players had at launch? Were server limitations impactful in other ways directly related to the player (e.g., we know that debuff slots were limited to 8 before changing to 16 later in Vanilla)?
50:51 Apparently, Animal Crossing had an influence on WoW's development. Besides other Blizzard games or other MMOs, did any other games have drastic impacts on the final WoW product?
58:58 Playable naga were apparently considered as an option early in WoW's development. Why were playable naga never re-visited, even in expansions? Was this entirely due to their geometry?
1:02:58 Was Quel'Thalas planned to be released with Vanilla? An early minimap shows that there was some work done in this zone, however, it was later scrapped and remade. I believe the zone eventually became a part of Programmer Isle.
1:06:26 "Chow is my love monkey" is written on the ground in an alpha build of Programmer Isle... any story there?
1:08:13 The Dragon Isles were shown as concept art in the original WoW credits and also in an artbook. They also appeared on the world map (unlabeled) until around Wrath of the Lich King's release. Was there ever any ADT data for the Dragon Isles, or was it just a conceptual plan that was never pursued further?
1:14:49 In the E3 2003 WoW Announcement Trailer, we can see a Dark Portal in Loch Modan. Apparently, Dark Portals were used as placeholders for instances in early WoW Alpha builds. Do you know what instance was planned for Loch Modan?
1:19:14 The Deadmines have a relatively early mapID (34?) and the minimap shares texturing similarities with Westfall... with that in mind, was The Deadmines originally an outdoor area that was later transformed into an instance? If so, why was this done, and how early in the development process did it occur? The earliest version of alpha WoW available publicly is 0.5.3, which has The Deadmines as an indoor instance.
1:27:53 Legend has it, Molten Core wasn't originally planned to launch with WoW and went from 0% to 100% complete within a few days or weeks before WoW's launch. Can you go go into any detail about Molten Core's development process?
1:36:55 If memory serves, EverQuest 2 launched before WoW, but WoW's open beta was released the EXACT same day, or within ~24 hours of EQ2's launch. I've always wondered, was this intentional? I mean, it HAD to be, right?
1:42:13 Is there anything you wish the world new about World of Warcraft or the WoW team?
1:46:45 Do you have any advice for anyone wanting to enter the game industry?
1:55:04 To your knowledge, do any earlier versions of Alpha WoW still exist that are earlier builds than 0.5.3?
1:57:41 Do you have any thoughts you'd be willing to share regarding the upcoming release of Classic WoW?
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