... isn't going to happen. Using all the addresses I could find and those suggested by readers, I still got absolutely no reply from Blizzard to my request of getting something like a press pass for the 2008 Blizzard Invitational. Not even a "No", just stony silence. So I'll just go there as a regular visitor, and won't get to talk to anyone. Too bad, I would have liked to interview one of the developers of World of Warcraft. But hey, if silence is all the response I get anyway, I can easily simulate a whole interview with Tigole, just asking my questions and putting <silence> as response. So here we go:
Tobold: Today we have with us Jeffrey "Tigole" Kaplan, Lead Game Designer at Blizzard Entertainment, responsible for "world design" for World of Warcraft. Tigole, thank you for joining us in absolute silence. Tigole, before you got the job at Blizzard, you were guild leader of Legacy of Steel, one of the top raiding guilds in Everquest. It is said that game developers create the games they would most like to play themselves. Is that true in your case? Would World of Warcraft have been a much different game if you had been lets say guild leader of a PvP guild in Dark Age of Camelot instead?
Tigole: <silence>
Tobold: Let's talk a bit more about PvP. Everquest had no PvP at all on most servers. The Warcraft lore would have fit well with a more PvP-centric game, but the various PvP systems like honor points, PvP rewards, battlegrounds and arenas have only been patched in later. You're on record as calling PvP rewards "welfare epics", is it fair to say that you aren't a big fan of PvP personally?
Tigole: <silence>
Tobold: Last question on PvP: The PvP part of World of Warcraft is apparently perceived as a weak spot in an otherwise immensely successful giant of a game, and several competitors are coming out with more PvP-centric games this year. Do you perceive Age of Conan or Warhammer Online as a threat? Do you think that World of Warcraft's subscription numbers will take a visible hit when these games come out, that the population at least of WoW's PvP servers will drop noticeably?
Tigole: <silence>
Tobold: Agreed, World of Warcraft beats all other games in excellence of execution and craftmanship, the term "polish" has entered the MMO design vocabulary because of WoW. But then Blizzard seems to be unable to produce this polished product in a timely manner. The second expansion of World of Warcraft will presumably come out close to the 4th anniversary of WoW, two years per expansion on average. What prevents Blizzard from keeping an earlier promise of releasing one expansion per year? And no, one expansion in early 2007 and the next in late 2008 doesn't count.
Tigole: <silence>
Tobold: So will there be a third expansion in 2009?
Tigole: <silence>
Tobold: Will the feature list of that third expansion mainly consist of raising the level cap to 90, a new continent with level 80 to 90 content, one more hero class, and one more crafting profession? Or could you imagine expanding WoW in a different dimension, like creating a new continent with new races and level 1 to 80 content, or adding totally new features like player housing?
Tigole: <silence>
Tobold: If you introduce player housing, the step to guild halls isn't a big one. Are there any plans to introduce more features for guilds, like guild ranks, guild halls to hang up trophies from successful raids, a guild loyalty and reputation system, a guild event calendar, or better web support for guilds? Would you say that creating better social systems can prolong the longevity of a MMORPG, because people want to stay in the game their friends are in?
Tigole: <silence>
Tobold: Back to your main area of expertise: raids. In the Burning Crusade there was a distinctive trend of increasing the power of players, and decreasing the difficulty of raid encounters with every patch. All attunement requirements have been removed, some bosses like Magtheridon have been considerably nerfed, and getting epic gear by various means has been made a lot easier. Was that a deliberate plan from the start, or was that a learning process in which you adjusted the accessibility of raiding in function of the progress the players showed? Will the first raiding dungeon in Wrath of the Lich King be easier than the original Karazhan?
Tigole: <silence>
Tobold: Do you think that there is value in making raid content more accessible to the average player? Is there value in having extremely hard content which only a very small elite of players can access? And do you think you can combine the two with your announced new concept of having all raid dungeons in WotLK have an easier 10-man version and a harder 25-man version?
Tigole: <silence>
Tobold: Final question: History suggests that MMORPGs decline in subscription numbers after a couple of years, because players get bored of playing always the same game, and newer games becon with new features and advanced graphics. Do you see World of Warcraft as still growing, stable, or slowly declining? Do you think that WoW can keep up at 10+ million subscribers by adding regular content patches and expansions, or would it be better for Blizzard to concentrate on creating a next-generation MMORPG?
Tigole: <silence>
Tobold: Thank you for your continueing silence!
As you can see you can ask much more daring questions if your interview partner is absent and silent. Of course Tigole is invited to send me his responses and I'd insert them in this interview, but somehow I doubt he will do so. I'd continue this series of silent interviews with a Warhammer Online interview with Paul "Bears, Bears, Bears" Barnett, but had to cancel the idea because nobody can imagine Paul Barnett to be silent for that long. :)
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