World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King: It has been almost 13 years since the release of the original World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. The game was released back in 2008, and has garnered a huge fanbase over the years. Now, Activision is set to re release a version of the title in 2022. For more information about World of Warcraft, keep following InsideSport.IN.
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Ahead of the release of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic, veteran Blizzard developers Ely Cannon, Sarah Boulian Verrall, and Aaron Keller got candid about their experiences designing Northrend for the original WoW: Wrath of the Lich King.
Activision Blizzard developers speak about their experience creating the original World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Speaking about their experiences designing Northrend for WoW: Wrath of the Lich King, all three developers agreed that it was a completely new and challenging experience for them, but that is what made it all the more exciting for them as well.
Aaron Keller, who is currently the Game Director of Overwatch, worked as a Lead Level Designer for the original Wrath of the Lich King. He explained how the role of a level designer for the title was a lot more difficult than it is in other projects in the game industry.
“For the WoW team, the level designers are responsible for designing and building the whole world.”
World of Warcraft Art Director, Ely Cannon, spoke about how one of the main concerns for the designers on the team was to ensure that the map was interesting and also easy for players to navigate while they played the game. Therefore, they had to put a lot of thought behind designing the various aspects of the map, making it attractive for the players but also not very challenging to navigate. He added that the developers had to work with the design team to conceptualize and then design the various details that make up Northrend.
The developers then took fans through the various nitty gritties of creating different places on Northrend that went on to become key parts of the map, that really enhanced the experience for WoW players. Sarah Boulier Verrall explained how a bunch of the designers had lived in the Pacific Northwest, which inspired them to come up with the design for the map.
“We knew we were going somewhere in the North, right? That was a really important aspect of it. A couple of us on the team, myself as well as Ely Cannon, had lived in the Pacific Northwest.”
Designing Northrend was challenging for the developers due to the technology back in the day
The developers also got into the details of how building the map was a more challenging affair for them since back in the day, they did not have the kind of advanced technology that they have today.
Aaron Keller got into the details of how the design team would combat the issue of the lack of a proper measuring tool by using pirate ships.
“At this time there was no measurement tool. We were trying to measure how high things were. So, what we ended up doing as a level design team is we would bring pirate ships into the editor and we would stack them on top of each other. So the pirate ship became our yardstick for how tall things were in the game.”
Wrath of the Lich King includes memorable personal stories from the developers
Sarah Boulier Verrall, who is currently a Lead Level Designer for Activision, worked as a level designer for Wrath of the Lich King. She recounted a memorable experience for herself during the making of Sholazar Basin, where a memory with her engagement ring was included in the game.
“During the development of [Sholazar Basin], I got engaged, and my fiance had some issue with my ring. So I was talking about it with the quest designers working on the zone and they got inspired by the story and decided they wanted to put us and a little bit of our story into the zone.”
This has been incorporated into the game as part of the quest in Sholazar Basin, wherein players have to help a character named Chad retrieve a ring that he had lost in the zone. Players will receive a ring as reward for completing the quest as well.
As the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic goes into beta testing, Activision is set to release a series of such BTS videos from the making of the original title. The first video of the series was quite an entertaining watch, and fans can only expect more such memorable details to come out as more videos from the series are released. Keep an eye on the official World of Warcraft YouTube channel for more such videos.
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