暴雪Boss采访：J.Allen Brack谈《魔兽世界》的过去和未来

原作者：Mike Minoti 译者：Vivian Xue

J. Allen Brack如今是暴雪娱乐的总裁，但他曾经是《魔兽世界》制作总监。这款在线游戏即将迎来发行15周年纪念日，Brack对游戏的过去和未来发展有许多想法。

Brack正忙着向暴雪新Boss的身份过渡，包括对公司新手游《暗黑破坏神：不朽》以及今年2月底的大规模裁员做出回应。单是管理暴雪旗下的游戏系列，当然包括《魔兽世界》，就已经令他足够忙碌了。

上周，我在加利福尼亚尔湾举办的暴雪活动上采访了Brack。除了刚接任的重要职务外，Brack自2006年加入暴雪以来，一直是《魔兽世界》项目的核心人物，在此之前，他还是首款《星球大战》MMO《星球大战：星系》的开发者。

我想了解Brack作为《魔兽世界》玩家和开发者的心路历程，此外我还询问了他上任以后的目标。

GamesBeat：你现在是暴雪的掌门人了，但你也是魔兽系列的关键人物。如今要把注意力平均分给所有系列，这对你来说难吗？

Brack：暴雪的每一款游戏我都玩过。我玩过数千小时的《暗黑破坏神》。我在进入暴雪工作前就是《星际争霸》系列的粉丝，之后玩得更多。我也打过《守望先锋》、《炉石传说》和《风暴英雄》。尽管我一直在制作《魔兽世界》，我是暴雪所有游戏的粉丝。《魔兽世界》永远在我心底。它是我有生之年玩得最多的游戏，也是我职业生涯中付出最久的游戏。它永远在我的心中有一席之地。但我是暴雪所有游戏的忠实粉丝。

world-of-warcraft（from psmag）

GamesBeat：我想让你选一个最重要的系列应该很困难吧。

Brack：我爱我所有的“孩子”。

GamesBeat：你觉得如果没有魔兽，还会有今天的暴雪吗？

Brack：我可以肯定，会很不一样。《魔兽世界》改变了暴雪。《魔兽世界》发行时，暴雪有300名员工，如今有4300名员工。公司发生了很大变化，这使我们能够做更多不同的、了不起的事情。如果没有《魔兽世界》，暴雪很难发展到如此大的规模，制作这么多大型游戏。没有《魔兽世界》，暴雪依然能够发展。但是它对于暴雪今日的地位影响是巨大的。

GamesBeat: 今年有两个纪念日，一个是整个魔兽系列诞生25周年，一个是《魔兽世界》发行15周年纪念日。你们打算如何庆祝这两个具有里程碑意义的日子？

Brack：我没法给出一个完美的答案。说真的，大约两年前我们就开始讨论这两个纪念日了。我们知道我们要庆祝《魔兽世界》15周年纪念日。我们在10周年纪念的时候为常年订阅游戏的玩家定制了纪念雕像，为此费了好大一番功夫。我们不想照搬这种形式。我们想搞一些更大范围的庆祝活动。

我们希望庆祝活动中包含一些实物纪念品，正如John所谈到的拉格纳罗斯雕像。它很快得到了玩家的热烈反响。但是想一想，我们还有很多事情可以做。最重要的是为整个魔兽系列庆祝，同时让《魔兽世界》拥有独自的辉煌时刻。

GamesBeat：暴雪拥有众多支柱型产品——《炉石传说》、《守望先锋》、《魔兽世界》。你对《魔兽世界：经典版》的定位是什么？它是《魔兽世界》的一部分，还是一个新的支柱产品？

Brack：它是《魔兽世界》的一部分。它与其它扩展包或补丁没什么区别。它被包含在《魔兽世界》订阅内容里。因此我们当然把它视为《魔兽世界》的一部分。

GamesBeat：你上任以来遇到的波折还蛮多的。先是去年嘉年华上，一些玩家对《暗黑破坏神：不朽》的宣布感到失望。从那时起暴雪一直在裁员。这段过渡期是否比你预想的困难？

Brack：是挺难的。我不知道这是否比我预想的困难，但确实具有挑战性。最重要的是团队正在进行的工作，《魔兽世界》的未来，我们所有游戏系列的未来，《暗黑破坏神》和《守望先锋》的未来。我想我们公开表示过我们现在正在研发的游戏比公司过去任何时候都要多。我坚信我们的团队正在做正确的事，并且我们能创造一个美好的未来。

GamesBeat：移动平台是一个巨大的市场。你们要如何制作手游产品，同时让核心PC玩家感到高兴呢？尤其是在美国，人们对移动设备的看法与其它国家，比如中国不太一样。

Brack：我不认为我们的每一款游戏都要获得所有玩家认可。如果你不是手游玩家——我们的目标仅仅只是让你尝试它，给它一个机会，但游戏不可能适合每一个人。移动平台有它自己的特点，PC、主机平台也一样。你想想你在主机上打的不同游戏，它们和硬核PC游戏还是有所区别的。区别肯定是存在的。它将是暴雪专门为移动平台打造的优质体验，不是PC游戏的复制品。

GamesBeat：说到平台，不久前你们在Switch上发行了《暗黑破坏神3》。我很喜欢这个版本。和任天堂合作是什么感觉？你对结果满意吗？

Brack：我们特别高兴。任天堂是很棒的合作伙伴。我们团队都是这个平台的粉丝，任天堂IP的粉丝、Switch的粉丝。Switch是一个很好的平台，玩起来也很有趣。很多登陆这个平台的游戏体验都很棒。(合作)一部分原因是对任天堂的喜爱，再加上我们认为《暗黑破坏神》在这个平台上体验会很棒。我们高兴你喜欢它。我也很喜欢它。

GamesBeats：也就是说未来你们可能会再次和任天堂合作咯？

Brack：有可能。我们想把它当成另一个平台。Switch拥有一些 Xbox 和PS4没有的独特性。我们会不断思考什么游戏适合这类平台。

GamesBeats：让我们回到魔兽庆典和你的魔兽经历这个话题上，作为魔兽玩家，你有哪些珍贵的游戏记忆？

Brack：我永远记得我们公会第一次击败拉格纳罗斯。还有第一次让凯尔萨斯倒下？凯尔萨斯在《燃烧的远征》里是个很难打的Boss，至少对我们的公会来说。我们的公会不是很大。打倒凯尔萨斯是一次伟大的经历，要通过很多不同的传送门。我最喜欢的成就之一大概是“不朽成就”，获得它必须10人组队通关纳克萨玛斯副本并保证全员不死。那真是一次了不起的经历。我们打到最后一个Boss时，有那么几秒内我们觉得不可能成功了，但我们做到了，那真是一次超棒的经历。

GamesBeat：有意思，我朋友刚刚和我聊他当年怎么获得不朽成就。

Brack：这是一个伟大的成就，也是一个超级有趣的成就，在于达成成就的过程——在战斗的最后几分钟里，我们需要分散队伍，像Raid副本里一样。我们只能凭感觉和猜想分离队伍，如果我们分布的位置正确，我们就有机会赢，但如果位置不好就团灭了，只能下个星期再尝试。但我们刚好处于正确的位置上。

GamesBeat：那游戏开发方面呢？ 有哪些令你记忆深刻的经历？

Brack：团队一起为《军团再临》创造不同的游戏系统永远是一个特别的回忆。我们让伊利丹回归、创造了不同的神器、世界探索系统以及围绕着它们的传说。这是一个超棒的回忆，我们不仅创造了游戏，游戏完工后我们还一起打游戏。阿古斯之影显然是我们做过的最大的补丁之一，从技术角度来看是最具挑战性的——要保证视觉效果一切完美，让世界呈现破碎的形态。很有趣。我制作了13年《魔兽世界》，为它付出了很多时间、精力，也获得了许多宝贵经历。

GamesBeat：我发现了一个很有意思的现象，《熊猫人之谜》刚出来的时候饱受批评，而如今人们谈起最喜爱的扩展包时，往往会提到它。

Brack：是这样。

GamesBeat：我非常喜欢这个扩展包里的一些地图。看到曾经不受重视的内容重新获得人们的喜爱，你们感觉欣慰吗？

Brack：这正是庆祝纪念日最棒的事之一。《熊猫人之谜》是遭人误解最多的一个扩展包。但老实说，里面有我最喜爱的一些装备、主题和地图。特别是艺术团队，还有地图和关卡设计师，他们的工作成果令人惊叹。很长一段时间里，我们一直想创造一个能选择加入部落还是联盟的职业或种族。我们最终在这个扩展包里实现了（熊猫人），这很酷。

GamesBeat：回到《军团再临》，当玩家们还在对《争霸艾泽拉斯》褒贬不一时，《军团再临》似乎已经被奉为神作。我能感受到你为它骄傲。你认为它是《魔兽世界》的最佳版本之一吗？

Brack：我确实这么认为。每个人都有自己最喜爱的版本，取决于他们的游戏年龄、游戏好友和玩过的内容。但是我很喜欢这个版本——里面的神器、职业调整以及不同职业的专精天赋，所有内容结合在一起酷极了。并且它也实现我们一直以来的想法——什么时候我能成为该职业中的领袖？怎么成为狩猎大师、战争领主?回想一下那些40个人打副本的日子(熔火之心之类的副本)，你往往要让你的职业成为公会领袖。

Gamesbeat：《魔兽世界》风靡久远，没有其它游戏能与它相提并论。未来我们能期待它像过去几年一样发展吗？保持两年一个扩展包、三个重大补丁的更新周期？或者你觉得《魔兽世界》未来的发展会有所变化甚至是变革吗？

Brack：过去15 年我们一直在尝试改变。我们认为如今是时候这么做了。今年的一个大变化是怀旧服的上线。它将是周期中途的一个重大更新，今年8月底上线。这令人十分兴奋。我们总是站在开发者的角度思考什么是正确的，怎么做补丁，怎么做扩展包，怎么把故事串联起来。这个过程是曲折的。但我们总是乐于思考各种可能性。

我们谈到了《军团再临》，它是一个真的很棒的版本——无论是游戏机制、系统还是后续补丁。总是有这么多我们本可能做的、本应该做的事。我们是不是应该把阿古斯做成一个单独的扩展包？显然我们没有选择这样做，结果挺好，但我们确实考虑过。这个想法依然伴随着我们并且我们会继续实验。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

J. Allen Brack is now the president of Blizzard Entertainment, but he used to be the executive producer of World of Warcraft. With the online game’s 15th anniversary coming up, he has a lot of insight into its past and future.

Brack has been busy with his eventful transition to Blizzard’s boss, which has included the underwhelming response to the company’s mobile project Diablo: Immortal and major layoffs in February. But managing Blizzard’s major franchises, including World of Warcraft, would have been more than enough to keep him busy.

I interviewed Brack at a Blizzard event in Irvine, California last week. Along with his important new job, he has been a key part of World of Warcraft’s development since joining Blizzard in 2006, a position he took after working on the first Star Wars MMO, Star Wars Galaxies.

I wanted to ask Brack about his experience with World of Warcraft, both as a player and as someone who worked on the game. I also asked him about his start as Blizzard president.

GamesBeat: You’re in charge of all of Blizzard now, but you have a big footprint in the Warcraft universe. Is it hard to pay equal attention to all of Blizzard’s franchises?

Brack: I played every Blizzard game. I’ve played thousands of hours of Diablo. I’ve played lots of StarCraft before I worked at Blizzard, lots of StarCraft after. Played a decent amount of Overwatch and Hearthstone and Heroes. I’m a fan of and have played all the games, even though I worked on World of Warcraft for so long. World of Warcraft will always be close to my heart. It’s the game I’ve played the most in my life, just in terms of number of hours. It’s also the game I worked on the longest in my career. It’ll always be a special place. But I’m a true fan of everything we do.

GamesBeat: I’m sure you don’t want to say that any one of your franchises is the most important.

Brack: I love all my children equally.

GamesBeat: But do you think we have a Blizzard as we know it today without Warcraft?

Brack: I think it would look very different, for sure. World of Warcraft is a huge game that really changed Blizzard. The day that World of Warcraft launched, Blizzard had 300 employees. Today it has 4,300 employees. It’s a very different company. It’s allowed us to do different and amazing things. It’s hard to imagine the size and the scope and the scale of some of the games Blizzard has been able to do without World of Warcraft. It certainly is a huge footprint on what Blizzard is today.

GamesBeat: We have these anniversaries, the 25th for the entire Warcraft franchise, and 15 for World of Warcraft. What goes into the decision-making about how you’re going to celebrate these big milestone years?

Brack: I don’t really think there’s a great answer. We started talking about the 15 year anniversary and the 25 year anniversary, I want to say, really seriously, about two years ago. We knew we wanted to celebrate the 15 year anniversary of World of Warcraft. We’d done a physical statue for subscribers for the 10 year anniversary. That was a very difficult process for us to get done. We didn’t want to do something exactly like that. We wanted to have it be broader.

We knew we wanted to do something that had a physical piece, and so you saw John talk about the Ragnaros statue. That piece came together pretty quick. But in thinking about — there’s lots of ideas. There’s a lot of things you can do, that you can decide to focus on. Wanting to have Warcraft have its moment, and World of Warcraft have its own separate moment, that ended up being pretty important.

GamesBeat: You have all these pillars — Hearthstone, Overwatch, World of Warcraft. How do you view Classic? Is it part of that World of Warcraft pillar? Or do you think of it as its own new pillar within the company?

Brack: It’s part of World of Warcraft. It’s not unlike any different expansion or patches. We’ll have this piece that comes with and is part of your existing World of Warcraft subscription. We see it definitely within the World of Warcraft universe.

GamesBeat: Your transition has already been really interesting. At BlizzCon some people were upset about the Diablo: Immortal announcement. Since then there have been layoffs. Has the transition been more difficult than you were expecting?

Brack: It’s been difficult. I don’t know if it’s been more difficult than I was expecting, but it’s definitely been challenging. The important piece is what the teams are working on, the future for World of Warcraft, the future for all of our different franchises, the future for the Diablos and the Overwatches of the world. If I didn’t believe in the future for those franchises — I think we said publicly that we’ve got more games that we’re working on now than at any other time in the history of the company. I’m a big believer in what the teams are doing and that future we’re going to create.

GamesBeat: Mobile is a giant market. How do you make products for that market while keeping your core, more PC-focused fans happily? Especially in America, where sometimes mobile is perceived differently than in countries like China.

Brack: I don’t think it’s a requirement that we try to make every game work and speak to every single player. If you’re not a mobile gamer — our goal is to get you to try it and give it a chance, but every game is not going to be for every person. The mobile device is its own platform, similar to PC, similar to console. If you think about the different games you have on console, there’s a bit of a different flavor to a lot of games you have on console than you have with hardcore PC games. It’s going to be different. It’s going to be a good, authentic experience for the Blizzard games we bring to that platform, but it’s not trying to replicate the PC experience.

GamesBeat: Speaking to platforms, you released Diablo III on Switch not too long ago. I really enjoyed that version. What was it like to work with Nintendo on that? Are you happy with how that came out?

Brack: We’re super-happy. Nintendo’s been a great partner. We’re a fan of that platform, a fan of Nintendo, a fan of the Nintendo IP, a fan of the Switch. It’s a really good platform and it’s really fun to play on. Different games have come about that are good experiences. Part of it is Nintendo love, plus thinking that the Diablo experience would be great on that platform. I’m glad you enjoyed it. I loved it.
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GamesBeat: It’s not ridiculous to assume that more Nintendo collaborations may be coming?

Brack: It’s not ridiculous. We’d like to have — we think of it as another platform. It has some unique properties that the Xbox and Sony platforms don’t have. Thinking about what games make sense for that type of console is something we’ll never stop doing.

GamesBeat: Going back to the Warcraft celebration and your history with World of Warcraft, as we’re getting to the anniversary, what are some of your favorite memories as a player of the game?

Brack: I’ll always remember the first time we beat Ragnaros in my guild. Certainly the different — getting Kael’thas down for the first time? Kael’thas was such a hard boss during Burning Crusade, or at least for our guild it was. We’re not super great as a guild. Getting Kael’thas down was an awesome experience, the different attunements that needed to happen. Probably one of my favorite achievements that I’ve ever earned is the Undying achievement, which you got for doing 10-player Naxxramas without any players dying during a boss encounter. That was an awesome experience, to really get that done. There were quite a few seconds when we were fighting the last boss that we didn’t think we were going to be successful, but that was an awesome experience.

GamesBeat: It’s funny you brought that up. My friend just talked to me about how he also got that Undying achievement back in the day.

Brack: It’s a great achievement. It’s a super-fun achievement. Just how it all came together — there was a moment in the very last minute of the fight where the fight was coming unglued, like some raid fights do. We just had to guess as to how the group was going to spread out, and if we spread out correctly, we might have a chance, and then if we didn’t, it was going to be a wipe and we’d try again next week. But we spread out correctly and that was good.

GamesBeat: And how about working on the game? What are some of the highlights in that history?

Brack: I think the work that the team did to create the different game systems and iteration, the kitting of Legion, will always be a special memory. If you think about wanting to bring back Illidan and have different artifact weapons and have the world quest system, the lore around all those different pieces, that’ll always be a really awesome memory, not only creating the game but also playing it after it was all done. Doing the patch for Argus was obviously one of the larger patches that we’ve ever done, one of the more challenging from a technical — making sure everything would work from a visual perspective, having the broken pieces of the world. It’s interesting. I spent 13 years working on World of Warcraft, so there’s a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of adventures in there.

GamesBeat: One thing I find interesting is this sort of redemption of Mists of Pandaria. At the time people were pretty hard on it, and now, when people talk about favorite expansions, that comes up a lot.

Brack: I’d agree.

GamesBeat: I know when I leveled through those zones, they’re some of my favorites. Is it gratifying to see that even sometimes content that didn’t get its due at the time can still have this second life?

Brack: That’s one of the great things about celebrating the anniversary. Certainly Mists of Pandaria was the most misunderstood expansion. But going back, the kitting of it and the theming and the artistry of the zones is some of my favorite, honestly. The art team in particular, and the zone and level designers, did such an amazing job on the world of Pandaria. That was a super fantastic experience. We always had, for a long time — we wanted to have a class or a race where you chose whether you went Horde or Alliance. It was cool to finally have that be the expansion where we could do that.

GamesBeat: Going back to Legion, which was the last expansion we’ve seen everything of — the jury is still out on Battle for Azeroth — but already people seem to revere Legion. I sense some pride there when you talk about it. Do you think that expansion was one of WoW’s highlights

Brack: I do. Everyone will always have their favorites depending on when they joined and who their friends were at the time and what different content they experienced. Everyone always has their favorites. But the thing I like — everything coming together really cool together in that expansion, with your artifact weapons and the class overhauls and the different custom class quests you got. To have your class really — something we’d also had as a long time idea of, when do I become a hero of my class? How do I become the champion of the hunters, the champion of the warriors? If you think about back in the 40-person raid days, when you were doing Molten Core and things like that, you would often have your class lead in the guild. This is the lead for the mages, take your direction from that person. Recognizing and putting some of that thought, some of that spirit into the game felt like it really came together in an awesome way.

GamesBeat: World of Warcraft has been popular for a long time. You can’t compare it to many other games. Should we expect its future to play out much as it has the past several years? The two-year expansion cycle with three major patches? Or do you think there will be a shakeup or something different happening in the future with how development on World of Warcraft goes forward?

Brack: That’s something we’ve experimented with a lot over 15 years. That’s what we think is the right thing right now. The big inflection this year is going to be Classic. That’s a huge piece that’s going to be midway through the cycle, coming out at the end of August. That’s pretty exciting. We’re always looking for what the right thing is from a development standpoint, the right thing to do in patches, the right thing to do in expansions, how the story all comes together. Again, it’s a circuitous process. It comes together quite organically. But we’re always open to thinking about different things we could have done or could do.

We talked about Legion and having that be a really great — both the game, the systems, and a really great package of patches also being really good. There’s always all these could-haves, should-haves. Should we have made Argus its own expansion at some point in the future? That’ll be always with us. Obviously we chose not to do that and that ended up being pretty good, but certainly we were thinking about it. We’ll continue to think about it and continue to experiment. (source：venturebeat)