暴雪公司游戏设计执行副总裁Rob Pardo曾在一次GDC大会上介绍了暴雪的11项游戏设计法则：

游戏玩法第一：众所皆知，游戏必须具有趣味性，而趣味性来源于游戏玩法，它正是直接将玩家引向游戏的重要原因。额外的趣味性能够成为玩家长期在游戏中逗留的刺激因素。

容易上手，难以精通：游戏必须简单易懂，拥有简单的机制和对象，以便所有人都能体验游戏，容易进入游戏世界。但除了容易上手之外，游戏还需具备一定的深度，《魔兽世界》中的公会袭击及决斗内容很难被玩家吃透。

发挥想象力：Rob Pardo还提到了游戏视觉设计的重要性，并以《魔兽世界》的UI为例进行说明。他称暴雪在这一点上并不成功，多数玩家采用了自定义的UI，而不是标准化的用户界面。

Gnome Warrior(from ose-xp.org)

征服一切的能力：一些玩家在扮演Gnome Warrior时可以击败一些很强悍的事物，同时却常无法看到敌人的全貌。但正如Rob Pardo所言，这会增加玩家挑战并击败敌人的非凡感，为他们的带来史诗般的游戏体验。

浓缩才是精华：与《魔兽争霸》相比较，《魔兽世界》中的族群分类更少，但需要注意的是，这些元素却是暴雪精挑细选的结果。

巧妙设置文本内容：有趣的是，一般玩家都不喜欢看任务文本，但却不排斥体验游戏的故事情节。所以暴雪通过一些途径将任务文本融入故事中，丰富了故事情节。

提供奖励：玩家不喜欢被罚，但却很乐意获得奖励。Rob Pardo称《魔兽世界》的休息系统就属于此例。在最开始时，玩家因为玩游戏时间过长而遭罚（游戏邦注：例如经验值从100%跌至50%），这一点让他们极为反感，但Pardo改变了这个系统，让休息的玩家获得200%的经验值，不休息的玩家保持100%的经验值。从数学角度来看，这个系统实际上并无多大变化，但玩家就是喜欢这种调整。

不影响玩家的操作：为了不影响游戏玩法，暴雪不得不放弃一些很酷的动画和特效。Rob Pardo以召唤山峰为例，山峰会在一阵烟雾中从玩家脚下升起。但却得改变动画效果，以免影响玩家操作。

恰到好处的调整：“调整容易优化难”，游戏调整要兼顾保证趣味性，同时又要让玩家知道调整的目的所在。

逐步展开内容：有趣的是，暴雪会先在初期就展示相关内容，而不是等到项目完工或者完美的时候才推出所有内容。游戏开发者应打造一个鼓励根据反馈信息改进游戏，同时允许试错的环境。

重视游戏润色：不但游戏开发团队需要关心这一点，暴雪还引进其他团队成员，让他们测试游戏，从更新颖的角度提供反馈信息。

游戏邦注：原文发表于2010年3月26日，所涉事件及数据以当时为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Blizzards Game Design Elements

My little Gnome Warlock back in the beginning of World of Warcraft

As I am currently reading a lot about Game Design I stumbled upon an interesting article about the panel of Rob Pardo (Executive Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard Entertainment) at the Game Developers Conference. He was talking about the Game Design of Blizzard. He stated eleven elements, which are essential for a Blizzard game.
Gameplay First: This is an interesting fact as the game has to be fun and fun is hereby the way to direct the gamer into the right way. Additional fun is a great way to increase the long-time motivation for the player.

Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master: The game has to be simple, with simple mechanics and objectives, so everybody can play the game and everybody has an easy entrance to the game. However there has to be more depth to the game than easy learning, in World of Warcraft you see that raiding and arenas are more difficult to master.
What is Fantasy? Rob Pardo was talking about the look of the game, especially the UI in World of Warcraft. This was a failure for Blizzard, as the vast majority of the gamer customized their UI, instead of using the standard interface.

Make Everything Overpowered: I have to admit, I played a Gnome Warrior and tanked some pretty big stuff, and often I did not see the whole model of the enemy. But as Rob Pardo said, this made it extremely special to challenge those enemies and defeat them. Make it overpowered and it is an epic adventure.
Concentrated Coolness: There are only few classes in World of Warcraft, if you compare it to the classes in Warcraft 3, however Blizzard took only the best elements and concentrated them into the few classes in World of Warcraft.

Play, Don’t Tell: That is interesting, as players tend to not read the quest text, but still want to experience the storyline. So Blizzard has to find ways that the quest text is only an enhancement for the story. For example the death knight starting area is a good example for that way.

Make it a Bonus: Players don’t like punishment, however if this effect is changed into a bonus players like it. Rob Pardo stated the Rest System of WoW as an example. In the beginning players are punished for playing too long (drop from 100% xp to 50% xp) and the players hated it, however he changed it into rested players get 200% xp and not-rested players stay at 100%. From the math the same system, but somehow the players loved the change.

Control is King: Blizzard had to sacrifice some cool animations and effects for the game play. Rob Pardo takes for example summon a mount, which appears beneath you in a puff of smoke. However a different animation would be cool, the control for the player would be less.

Tuning it Up: “Tuning is easy to do, hard to do well.” Thus it is important to tune your game for an audience it is necessary to still have hooks and try to know why you are tuning it this way.

Avoid the Grand Reveal: That is something interesting, Blizzard tries to show their stuff early and not until it is finished or perfect. Game developers have to establish an environment where feedback is encouraged and you can fail.

Culture of Polish: Polishing is not only for the team which tries to make a good game. Blizzard also brings in so called strike teams, people from other teams. They test the game as well and give feedback and a fresh perspective.

Definitely an interesting panel and it gave me some interesting insights into Game Design.（source:gamestudy）