Diablo Watch

Next Gen has an interview with Rob Pardo, Blizzard’s Chief Game Designer.

He’s the guy credited with the success of World of Warcraft and the first expansion, The Burning Crusade.

I ask him if getting these expansions out on a regular basis is a matter of survival. After all, if gamers aren’t getting fresh content, they’ll start looking elsewhere and WoW’s subscriber base will dwindle.

“Calling it a matter of survival makes it sound grim,” he says, “It’s more a matter of entertainment. Of course we want our gamers to stay in the world for as long as we can. But I look at this from the positive angle of us trying to entertain them. We’re trying to give them new experiences. One of my favorite analogies is how much an MMO is like a TV series. We’re developing episodes just like Lost or Seinfeld. We’re always trying to come up with something that’s true to the theory; that’s true to the content that people love; but that is new. From the moment that the series starts re-treading the same ground over and over again… well, that’s what we’re trying to avoid.”

Enough about WoW, if you ask me. Let’s hear something about what else is cooking in Blizzard’s kitchen.

We have other PC projects in development and we’re already working on new stuff for World of Warcraft, like another expansion. We’ve mentioned in the past that we’d love to get a boxed expansion out every year but it’s more important to deliver really high quality content to our fans. If we can do that every year that’d be great but we’re not going to do that at the expense of the experience.

With all due respect, I’m sick of hearing how Blizzard is now ONLY working on WoW expansions. What are these PC projects in development, Rob? Spill the beans already! I’d like to know if you’re talking about Diablo 3 or Starcraft 2.