Originally Posted by MMO-Champion
AMA about Vanilla WoW, with 4 former developers on
reddit/classicwow, Wed Sept 12th at 4 PM EDT
John Staats, the author of The WoW Diary (thewowdiary.com), will be joined by former teammates for an AMA. Former devs include lead gameplay programmer Sam Lantinga, exterior level designer Bo Bell, and game designer Alexander Brazie. They will appear on r/classicwow Wednesday, September 12th at 4 PM EDT. We will be fielding questions from people interested in the nuts-and-bolts of how MMOs are built, demystifying the process of game development.
Bo Bell (Hapy00) created zones such as Loch Modan, Duskwood, Moonglade, Thousand Needles, Silverpine Forest, and Durotar. He helped on other zones with other exterior level designers (they all did). He worked in QA for almost two years before moving onto WoW, testing Diablo, Starcraft, and Diablo II.
Alexander Brazie (Xelnath) was a monster, dungeon, and raid designer who joined the company soon after the game launched. He worked on event design, monster design, spawning, boss fight design, pet battles, and overhauling warlock spells.
Sam Lantinga (slouken) was a lead gameplay engineer on WoW. In addition to creating the WoW UI addon system, he worked on spells, AI, and gameplay systems like phasing and battlegrounds.
John Staats (whenitsready) built half of Vanilla WoW's instanced dungeons, and 90% of its non-instanced dungeons (caves, mines, crypts, etc.), including Booty Bay, Warsong Gulch, and Loch Modan Dam.
If you have questions, please join us.