Before the official opening of World of Warcraft WLK Classic Server, Blizzard invited the level designers and artists who designed Northrend in Wrath of the Lich King to talk about the design concepts of that year. They talked about the design of Northrend . There are many interesting little stories in the journey.
Everything in Northrend first originated from the people living in this world. The designers first designed various biological communities and the biological environment in which they depended for survival.
Based on these, they created roads to connect these biomes or tribes, using them as the backbone to support this magnificent world.
has these roads, and the designer hand-drawn various areas of the Northrend world and combined them together, including the familiar Dalaran , Crystalsong Forest, Grizzly Hills, Howling Fjord , Icecrown , Sholazar Basin , Borean Tundra , Dragonblight, Storm Peaks and Zul'Drak. In fact, Northrend is the largest expansion area in the history of World of Warcraft. The designer's Full of sincerity.
With the foundation of the world, designers began to create 3D compositions, turning them from flat surfaces into three-dimensional shapes. At that time, 3D editors were still very crude, and designers had to hand-draw a large number of textures and use various homemade tools to perfect the details.
The designer produced a large number of original images, enriching the details of this arctic world. The designers said that many pictures were drawn purely by hand. More than 10 years ago, they did not have the texture mixing technology as powerful as today. If they wanted to show lifelike picture details, the designers had to paint by themselves.
This is the designer's hand-drawn version of Dalaran, the city in the sky. The majestic momentum of the fantasy world is coming. It is these great artistic creations that laid the foundation for WLK's success.
Due to the immaturity of related 3D technology, designers do not even have a reference for the height direction. They do not know how high it is most appropriate to design these towering magic towers, steep fjords and even towering giant trees.
In the end, the designers came up with an interesting idea. They used a pirate ship as a design benchmark to design various tall buildings and rolling mountains. For example, there are two or three pirate ships on a small hill.
In addition, the designers also solved numerous technical difficulties, including the collision of cave water and ocean water in the fjord backflow, and the varied and rich color changes on the boreal tundra.
At the same time, the designer also added many easter eggs. For example, chief level designer Sarah Boulian Verrall was about to get married at the time. She talked about this topic with the designers of Sholazar Basin, and they An interesting task of retrieving an engagement ring was designed in the basin.
Players need to find the lost engagement ring and give it to the hotel proprietress so that the lovers can finally get married. This is a very interesting experience.
All in all, from the various details of how these designers created the world of Northrend, we can see that the Blizzard designers of that era were a group of people who truly loved games and were good at creating. They used simple tools to create the most powerful game in the history of World of Warcraft. A successful expansion pack. Now that World of Warcraft players have the opportunity to return to WLK Classic Server to play, they will surely have a better experience.
