Game Development Giant

If Warcraft 3 is still in charge of Jester, then even if players don't believe that Jester can make a better RTS game than StarCraft, after all, Jester has been corrupted countless times. As a great and magical designer, he designs and develops it himself, which is still worth looking forward to, but is there anyone else?

Then I can only apologize.

But this would not meet the expectations of players. Previously, they speculated that the reason why Jester transferred people from the StarCraft development team was because of his new game.

In order to develop Heroes, Jester transferred a large number of manpower from more than a dozen development teams under Mars Entertainment located in various places.

But at that time, it was because the project of The Heroes was too big, and the entire company gave it its full support, which is what it should be.

But this time is different.

If Jester wants to develop Warcraft 3 himself and recruit people from other development teams, there is nothing to say. After all, Jester is the creator of Martian Language, but now Jester is talking about Warcraft 3 Isn't he the developer? Then this is very unreasonable.

This will definitely make Pardo extremely dissatisfied, because this is someone who was removed from his development team, and he is still developing a very important expansion pack.

Therefore, immediately after Jester’s explanation post, angry players asked questions.

So who's going to develop this game?

Jester can naturally sense the mood of the dozen or so people who asked questions immediately, but it is not the time to announce this matter, because after a while, there will be a special press conference. Explain this matter, so Jester immediately replied: I can't say who it is yet, but at most two months, maybe one month, Mars Entertainment will hold a relevant press conference, and in this release More detailed information will be announced at the meeting. And by then you will know who the chief designer of this game is.

However, this answer will definitely not satisfy the players, because saying it is equivalent to not saying it, and maybe it is just an excuse.

I can only say that this choice will make you feel very surprised. Or when you know it, you suddenly understand why someone was transferred from the StarCraft development team.

Jester thought it was better to say something, but he couldn't really say it, so he could only say it in a vague way. In fact, he didn't say it until now. If someone could understand the meaning of his words, it would be enough for him to know what Jester was talking about.

In fact, I don’t say it now just to keep it mysterious. Anyone who knows him or Mars Entertainment knows that they will never directly compete with the same type of games. Of course, strictly speaking, Warcraft 3 Although it is also an RTS, the RTS with this new design concept cannot be regarded as the same type of game as StarCraft, a game that takes a pure RTS game to its extreme.

Although they are all games about building soldiers and fighting.

After replying to this post, Jester continued to watch the player community's interest decrease significantly. After all, he still has a lot to do, even during the E3 exhibition.

In addition to the annual carnival, the operation of Mars Entertainment is a big get-together for the entire Mars Entertainment employees and players. The rest of the time, everything was business as usual. He originally wanted to call and inquire, but after Jester thought about it for a moment, he decided to go directly.

The entire Mars Entertainment headquarters occupies a large area. Jester is located on the west side of the headquarters park, while the RTS game development team led by Rob Pardo is on the east side of the park. Basically, it needs to cross The entire park.

Cars are not allowed in the park except in certain areas.

In fact, there is no way to pass. Because there are no roads designed for cars to pass through the entire park, it cannot be said that there are none. The company's security department has golf carts to commute within the park.

However, employees don’t have to worry about wasting too much time traveling across the campus because there are bicycle parking spots everywhere. Any employee with an employee card can receive a bicycle for use by swiping the card. After use, he only needs to swipe the card to return it.

No one is treated differently, not even Jester.

Riding a bicycle through the park, we arrived in the East District in less than ten minutes.

Pardo's development team was on the third floor. When he walked to the second floor, Jester saw a large group of people doing something in the activity room. At first glance, it turned out to be some routine welfare activities of the company. Generally speaking, the company will hire some experts in the industry to train its employees in professional skills. It is possible to invite Microsoft security engineers to talk about security matters. .

But it’s not just people in the network security department who can listen, people in other departments can also listen.

Of course, there are also some very strange trainings. For example, there was one before, which was a professional knowledge training on how to brew beer at home.

Jester remembers this time very clearly. This was a training plan proposed by his vice president as a benefit to employees. At that time, employees participated very enthusiastically, and because many people failed to participate, the company later restarted It was held once, just for those who had not attended.

Later, when this kind of training was held again, the company learned from the previous experience and no longer asked everyone to participate. Instead, it directly drew lots. The most primitive method was that those who were drawn would go and those who were not drawn would not go. Of course, Those who are drawn can give up their spot to others.

This kind of lottery method was used when conducting this kind of beer brewing training again. Jester himself also participated once. Of course, he also had to draw lots. In these activities within the company, everyone is always treated equally. In the training During this period, I tasted more than a dozen different flavors of beer, including even chocolate flavor. Of course, there are also various brewing methods of beer.

It is said that after participating in this training, an employee suddenly decided to go home and open a beer brewing factory.

The company did not stop this, because this employee was very good, so they promised him that if he wanted to come back within three years, he could come back.

Jester thought about the training that was going on this time and then remembered it. However, he was not responsible for these things. There was a dedicated vice president in charge. He was mainly responsible for game development.

This time, a chef from a Michelin three-star restaurant in California was invited to teach cooking skills, so many foodies came to learn a thing or two - originally Jester wanted to come and have a look. But he didn't win the lottery, so he had to give up.

So, when I walked to the activity room, I saw a lot of people inside. But Jester didn't go in either.

When he arrived on the third floor, Jester glanced inside from the window and found that Pardo was looking at something intently, so he did not go in, but went to a small lounge next to it—— Sometimes this is also used as an interview location for the StarCraft development team. There are two types of interviews at Mars Entertainment. One is for departments such as administration, business promotion, and security at the headquarters, where interviews are held at the headquarters.

As for each development group, it is the people who have passed the review at the headquarters. Other development groups are conducting final interviews. When Jester came to the lounge, he happened to see a young man conducting an interview. The interviewer They were two level designers from the StarCraft development team, and Jester had some impressions. But he really couldn't remember the names. After all, there were thousands of people in the entire functional company, and he couldn't possibly know them all.

This applicant is applying for the position of level designer.

It seems that his ability has been recognized by the interviewer, and now he is basically discussing something about games - Jester even heard them talking about what games to buy during this year's Thanksgiving sale.

When Jester came in, the two interviewers naturally saw Jester immediately and stood up to say hello.

The applicant also knew Jester, and he was quite excited at this time.

Jester was used to this. He casually chatted with the three people for a while and knew that the applicant had passed the interview and could officially go to the HR department after meeting Pardo. Jester also expressed his congratulations.

Several people are game enthusiasts, which is common within Mars Entertainment. After all, the first requirement for Mars Entertainment recruitment is that they must love games very much. Because what Mars Entertainment needs is not highly skilled professionals, but developers who are highly skilled and enthusiastic about games, where highly skilled and enthusiastic about games are equivalent.

Of course, it would be better if you like Mars Entertainment games very much.

Generally speaking, those who can apply for Mars Entertainment are basically Mars Entertainment fans. They are a group of people who can really work hard.

Because the game is brainstormed by these people, they are making a game that they like, not a game that other people like or want to make - this is also crucial.

In fact, Jester remembered an interesting recruitment story from a gaming company that he had seen before.

The general content is that Blizzard is once again recruiting a designer for StarCraft 2. I can't remember the specific design position. At that time, the recruitment conditions for professional background, personal ability and other requirements were quite reasonable, but When you scroll to the bottom, you will see a very funny and humorous condition, that is, you must have the ability to prevent the Zerg 6D wave of RUSH.

Of course, Jester later asked a friend who once worked at Blizzard on a forum if this was really the case.

When recruiting, really have a fight to see if the candidate can block the 6D Zerg wave of RUSH.

This friend who had worked at Blizzard laughed loudly, and then explained: Actually, this is Blizzard's tradition. Humor for the sake of humor. No matter what announcement is made, it must be humorous. This is still for outsiders to see. If it is some internal emails It will be more funny and humorous - of course, it does not rule out the possibility that the other party will really play a game of StarCraft with you, but even if you lose, as long as you can satisfy people before, it won't be a problem.

He then went on to talk about an example that he had personally experienced.

At that time, I was in the community manager department, which in Chinese terms is customer service, but it was a bit more advanced. Our job requirement was to act as a bridge between players and designers, because designers basically didn't have time to pay attention to the forum, but on the forum The opinions of many players are worth letting the development team know. What we do is to convey the voices of the community to the designers, and then answer the questions of community players on behalf of the designers.”

One of our recruitments was hilarious at that time. Because we were responsible for the WOW community, we required you to be a PVP expert. Then there was an applicant. Our supervisor was very satisfied with the interview because The other person was familiar with almost every aspect of WOW, so our supervisor decided to have a flag-raising session with him - as a result, the applicant was beaten to a pulp by our supervisor. You know, our supervisor's flag-raising level is very low.

“However, this candidate joined our team.”

This kind of thing is quite common.

While Jester was chatting with the other three people, Rob Pardo also walked in. He was surprised to see Jester here. After nodding slightly, he said that he still had something to deal with. , he went to talk to the applicant for a while. Although Jester couldn't hear clearly what they were talking about, he could still tell from Pardo's face that he was very interested in this applicant. satisfied.

After all three people left, Jester smiled and said to Pardo: How is it? Is the development of Brood War going smoothly or not?

“This student is slightly better”

Pardo smiled bitterly and said: Originally, I thought there would be no problem in letting a few of them do the early stage of Warcraft 3. After all, most of them are technical people and have not left the planning, and the game It’s almost completed, and the rest is just tinkering and perfecting, but now it seems that it still needs a little later.”

So, what about the press conference? Should it be postponed?

Jester also frowned after hearing Pardo's explanation. This was not good news.

But Pardo shook his head.

It's not necessary. The game is actually almost done. I just want to make it more perfect. The press conference should follow the original plan and announce StarCraft: Brood War. By the way, I will announce my next step. A new game.”

Warcraft 3.(~^~)