A few members of the Warcraft team are sitting down to discuss how they build the world of Azeroth! More info to come!
- Player character is very important
- Azeroth itself is the most important character to the design team.
Blocking Out a New Zone
- Start with a flat plane
- After they have a basic surface, they start to map what the surface will look like
- All textures are hand painted and geo is molded
- Once hub is established, terrain is push and pulled for elevation differences.
- Demo zones are shown to art team to break the ice and discussion is created.
Inhabitants
- General idea of inhabitants and story of area is known before world building.
Vertex Building
- Painting with shadows to create terrain and depth
- Work with art team to use textures and creations to the best of abilities
Creating Atmosphere and Mood
- Concept and storytelling comes after the general zone is created
- A general human character is set into an area to get a perspective on the area and size scaling
- Sketches/ideas are used in the process of forming a story of a small area of the map
- Playing around with ideas is common until it feels right
- Lighting helps sets the mood of the area and guides the eye in the direction you should go in
- Like to tell visual stories without words using props and visuals such as spider webs, graveyards, etc.
- Small details give quest designers ideas of what should be in a space
- One of the biggest things in Warcraft is telling a focused story. Using lighting to guide the eye and changes in color is an inventive way to lead a player in a certain direction.
- Fog is used to hint for a character to stay away from an area
Iteration
- Creative process to make something exciting
- Process involves making something and changing it over time until it's perfect
- Look for improvements and changes
- Quest designers will alert zone designers of new story arcs and how to change the terrain to reflect it
- Sometimes entire quest hubs are turned into Adventure points of interest. Team tries to utilize these areas as best as possible by adding boss points or changing terrain to reflect new direction
- Almost everything added to a map is hand placed including purposeful spots for quest givers and bosses
- Every area of the game goes through tweaks, some small and some large
- A month before shipping WoD Gorgrond went through a change in which the jungle area and the Botani were added to reflect differences in the zone.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/713 ... Live-Recap
