Tag "blizzcon 2016"

BlizzCon 2016 Lightning Talk – 20th Anniversary Event

by - 8 years ago

In what is likely one of the last Lightning Talks from BlizzCon 2016 to be uploaded, we have Senior Software Engineer David Pendergrast going into the details of how the Darkening of Tristram event came to be. The difficulties of lowering the quality of the Diablo III engine to pay true homage to the aesthetics of the first game can be truly appreciated as David goes over the graphical and mechanical tweaks they worked on to add up to the experience players will get throughout the event. This upload comes right on the heels of yesterday’s news, which teased cross-game events […]

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BlizzCon 2016 Lightning Talk – Diablo Dungeon Design

by - 8 years ago

Next in the line-up of Lightning Talks from BlizzCon 2016, we have Diablo Dungeon Design presented by Senior Game Designer Ed Hanes. This talk goes over the goals the designers have when thinking about dungeons, in relation to pacing and dungeon creation (fixed vs. procedural), as well as all of the methods they can utilize to add variety with random generation and rulesets. This is a really fascinating talk if you’ve ever wondered about what’s going on in the background every time a tileset is made for you.

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BlizzCon 2016 Lightning Talk – One Couch To Rule Them All

by - 8 years ago

The holidays are here, but the Lightning Talk recordings from BlizzCon 2016 haven’t stopped rolling in. Today’s entry is entitled “One Couch To Rule Them All” and it’s presented by Gameplay Engineer Mike Hershberg. In this talk, he goes over what went into bringing Diablo III from PC to console and some of the challenges the team faced along the way. Input and local co-op in particular were key elements that pushed certain design decisions.

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BlizzCon 2016 Lightning Talk – Engineering The Design of Set Dungeons

by - 8 years ago

Here’s the next Lightning Talk in the series being uploaded to YouTube from BlizzCon 2016. This one features Senior Gameplay Engineer Stuart Capewell and Senior Designer Alex Sulman presenting on Engineering the Design of Set Dungeons – The Relationship Between Design & Gameplay Engineering. These two Brits go over the initial creation of Set Dungeons and then dive more deeply into the issues they ran into taking the idea and implementing it through engineering. It’s an interesting look at the iterative process and how some ideas can be great, but may have to be reconfigured or evolve in order to […]

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BlizzCon 2016 Lightning Talk – In-Game Animation Philosophies

by - 8 years ago

The Lightning Talks from BlizzCon 2016 continue to make their way to us, as we now have the next one in the series – In-Game Animation Philosophies presented by Non Thareechit, a Principal Animator at Blizzard Entertainment. This is one of the lengthier talks so far, but for good reason, as there is quite a lot that goes into bringing the monsters, actions, and skills that we see and use every day to lfie. Surprisingly though, most of these animations have to be only seconds in length due to the fast action nature of Diablo III. For those of you interested […]

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BlizzCon 2016 Lightning Talk – Evolution of Cursed Events

by - 8 years ago

Next up in the Lightning Talk series from BlizzCon 2016, Senior Game Designer Zaven Haroutunian presents on the evolution of Cursed Events in Diablo III. His talk dives into the details on what cursed events were originally going to be – a sort of challenge mode – and how the twists and turns led them to what we have now – cursed events with chests and shrines.

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BlizzCon 2016 Lightning Talk – No Downtime in Diablo III

by - 8 years ago

Following up on Neal Wojahn’s Lightning Talk from earlier, we have the next installment from the suite of talks given at BlizzCon 2016. Senior Software Engineer Kenneth Williams, in his talk titled “No Downtime in Diablo III”, went into behind-the-scenes details on servers and how the client-server relationship works. Of particular note, one of the things that was marveled at by the community when it first happened was Diablo III gaining the ability to be patched without requiring maintenance downtime for deployment. If you’re curious about that and other fun facts, watch the video below. As previously mentioned, many of these talks […]

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BlizzCon 2016 Lightning Talk – Clickies, Traps, & Breakables

by - 8 years ago

As was hinted at prior to BlizzCon 2016 kicking off, the infamous Lightning Talks that were such a hit at BlizzCon 2015 would be returning and hopefully documented in some way. While it’s still a bit difficult to have that happen live at the convention itself, the fine folks at Blizzard went a similar route to last year by re-recording the talks back in the office. Community Manager Nevalistis notes that many of these will be coming out in the next few weeks, so we will be sure to post them up on the site as they make it to […]

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BlizzCon 2016: World of Warcraft Interview with Brian Holinka and Michael Bybee

by - 8 years ago

In a dual publication interview, BlizzPro’s own John Horstmann and Lee Vaughn in conjunction with Blizzplanet’s Danny Perschonok were able to sit down with WoW developers Brian Holinka and Michael Bybee to discuss WoW and what’s coming up in patch 7.2 and beyond. Some interesting notes in the discussion were surrounding when we would be going to Argus, that the new class mounts will change in appearance based on your spec, and just how the WoW team has been approaching Legion and beyond due to changes within the team (new blood + some old guard leaving). You can check out the […]

Blizzcon 2016: Interview with Adam Rosen and Stefen “akaface” Anderson

by - 8 years ago

It started with over 400 collegiate teams from across North America, but when the confetti cannons went off at the CenturyLink Field Event Center there was only one team who could call themselves 2016 Heroes of the Dorm Champions. A new documentary from Blizzard Entertainment, A New Hero: The Rise of College Esports, tells the stories of the players who made it to the Heroic Four in Seattle, as well as the rapid growth of collegiate Esports as a whole. We were fortunate enough to be able to sit down with Adam Rosen, President and Co-Founder of Tespa, and Stefen […]

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