World of Warcraft: Level Design Panel

I shot this video of the World of Warcraft Level Design Panel after hearing that it wouldn't be streamed on the Virtual Ticket. Wish I had gotten there earlier to camp out a better shot.
Ely Cannon, Matt Sanders, Gary Platner, and Craig Morrison dive into what it means to be a Level Designer at Blizzard. This is the first time the editor has run outside Blizzard which is an amazing accomplishment for our Engineers!
Music:
Crunk Knight by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (creativecommon...)
Source: incompetech.com....
Artist: incompetech.com/
Shot on a Sony RX100 Mark III: amzn.com/B00K7...

[@Marlamin]

Yes! Have been waiting for this panel for YEARS. Awesome to see a recording of this to show up. So sad this wasn't broadcast on the virtual ticket.

[@collingilbert]

I'm glad we were able to get this out there. It's fun to see behind the scenes :P

[@mrnatural48]

Thanks for making the effort to record this. Much appreciated.

[@nirv]

Holy shit you did the honorable thing. I can't believe it. Thanks for this, dude. *Saves youtube video to hard drive because I don't trust youtube OR Blizzard anymore*

[@Wowmusicable]

Thank you for uploading this!

[@snafubar]

Thanks for being there and recording the whole thing!

[@lorefreak94]

Thank You much for posting this. Exactly what I wanted to see

[@mbuhtz]

Thanks for recording this!! The seat you did get wasn't bad, it gave us a view of all the screens, and we can hear everything (unless the esport fans cheer). :-)

[@slinkyinteractive3938]

This was a great resource for me during the world design of my own game. Thank you.

[@pattiford1362]

Thank you!
With 6 different games now and the very limited number of stages they stream from (non eSport stuff) it's really hard to find material if you're mostly interested in WoW. There was much more about it before OW/HotS came out. Looking at the DirectTV schedule there were already three complete rows of stages that were not broadcasted... I really hope they change this for future Blizzcons.

[@bernackels5045]

this is pure gold

[@nkish]

Very cool. Thanks for posting!

[@yougotganked]

thx for sharing this i was sad i coulnd't see it with ticket really glad tho i can see it like this its really interesting to see how you guys build our world :D

[@KiyokaMakibi]

This is interesting, thanks for this! Looks so much easier than Unreal tournament 3's level editor I once dabbled with..

[@soytack]

At first I was very confused why they are cheering at random moments until I realized that they came from another panel xD

[@ThomasAdr-x]

Thanks for that

[@HockEnergy]

This editor need to be puplic for custom Games, Player Created Dungeons, BG´s it would be a Dream.

[@svelle37]

I remember in WoW classic there was an RP addon that let you design your own quests. You could choose the quest items, mobs to kill etc. and then put in a reward in form of items and gold. That was so cool. One can only imagine what could be possible if there was user generated content nowadays. But I understand why Blizzard would never do/allow this.

[@boreopithecus]

My favorite World of Warcraft level hands down is level 4.

[@zarkeven]

hey collin, im a beginner level designer and i was wondering if you could give some tips on how to keep the world feeling natural as you place assets?

[@collingilbert]

One thing that helps a ton is clumping. A lot of the time we see newer designers spread assets over an area like a blanket because they don't want something to look hand placed but nature has it's own patterns. Clumping plants in logical groups and generally getting a range of sizes in each clump helps things feel more natural. Reference is also super great for grounding a scene, even high fantasy takes a lot of notes from some of the natural beauty here in reality :D

[@zarkeven]

thanks for answering! this will definitely help with some of the struggles ive been having with a couple portfolio pieces im working on.

[@zarkeven]

@@collingilbert another random question for you. when you worked on the zones you were in the middle of developing the visual look of, did you ever work on a demo area that you didnt like at all until you actually finished that demo area?

[@ing_frantisek_mohykan]

classic level design is much much much much better looking, what a shame, can't beat 2005

[@fathelos]

Thank you for posting this! Could you possibly recall and sum up what they said in those 3 minutes that you couldn't record because of your battery? I want to become a level designer and I watched the entire panel just in case they explained the process of becoming one, and indeed they did, but... yeah xD

[@collingilbert]

I don't think Matt actually went into details about becoming one. He was mostly talking about how you really need to love environments and landscapes to become a Level Designer at Blizzard. Most people will tell you there is no step by step process haha. I'll throw up a video of what I did but everyone has a different path in :)

[@xNityo]

can anyone tell me what is the software they're using, is it cinema4D? or any other software?

[@OMGiTzRebirth]

they said it's proprietary, so the only way to be able to get it is if you work for Blizzard

[@collingilbert]

It's called WoWEdit and it's all done in house.

[@TranceF0rmation]

In house tools made by blizzard.

[@agentsmithishere]

LOL @ tracer's voice at 56 mins