 lizzard
North is a computer game design company. They are the makers of
Diablo, Diablo II, and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, and they have a
couple of additional titles under development. One is
widely-assumed to be Diablo III, though that's just speculation; nothing
is publicly known about either of the upcoming games, nor if there are
really two of them.
My visit to Blizzard
North took place in late May, 2003 and the game info aspects of it are related
in this article, on the D2 site. I had been there before, three
and a half years earlier, as part of the Diabloii.net site visit.
You can read all about that visit and see photos
of it here, on the D2 site. The place looks much the same, as do the
employees, and there are far more
photos from that
trip than I took on this most recent visit, so honestly, you'd
probably enjoy reading that page more than this one.
The May 2003 visit came
about since the Blizzard North offices are not too far from Malaya's
condo, and I wanted to hook up with a friend who works there. The
initial plan was just to get together for lunch one day, but as the day
approached it so happened that the v1.10 version of D2X was nearing
completion, and Blizzard North was noticing that they needed some
outsiders to give it a test run and see how it played compared to
v1.09. Malaya and I were among the few people tapped to do some
testing, so our "meet for lunch and maybe a quick look around the
office" turned into a "be here from 10-6 for lunch and snacks
and all the play testing you can stand, if you give us feedback and
suggestions as you play".
We did, and the pizza
for lunch was scrumptious.
Unfortunately for all
of the D2 fans out there, we all had to sign NDAs that prohibit us from
saying anything about the game changes in v1.10 until Blizzard actually
releases the patch. So obviously I can't say anything about that
here either. However this isn't a gaming site and this photos page
isn't about Diablo II, so that's not really a handicap.
I didn't take that many
photos there, but this is a vacation, and there are half a dozen
thematic pictures, and these pages are for just this sort of thing, so
here we go.
The cool life-size
Thrall the Orc model from the lobby. They take office supplies
theft seriously at Blizzard North. Are those your scissors?
Is that your toner cartridge? Drop them and run for your life,
puny human.
A bad picture of me
with the big and cool Diablo foam rubber costume. He's actually
seen better days, being something like seven years old and worn at
numerous events and trade shows. And yes, "worn", this is a
foam suit. A female manikin resides inside him now to give him
some stability, though obviously he's sagging a bit even so. It
can't be worn anymore, since something would surely break, but he does
a good job of guarding the other side of the lobby, across the main
doors from the big Orc.
These two bookcases
house less than half of a huge wall of computer games found deep
inside the Blizzard North offices. As we were told, Blizzard
North is one of the biggest accounts with some local computer stores,
and they purchase several copies of literally every computer game that
is released, and many more copies of hot titles that lots of employees
want to play. These are kept in this open library where any
employee who wants to play can grab a copy and do so, either at work
or at home. All of these boxes are full, with the games and manuals
and everything else inside. Nifty, eh?
Our play testing/QA
area looked a lot like this. In addition to Malaya and myself
there were several other guys who were friends of various Blizzard
employees, and experienced Diablo 2 players. Malaya played on
the farthest one to the right, and I was immediately to her
left. To the far left is a corner desk and computer where a
Blizzard QA guy was seated all day, and behind us sat a couple of
other Blizzard employees who were taking notes and talking to us as we
played.
The computers were
decent, but nothing special, and with it being an unoptimized
beta-build, there were some slow down problems.
Peter Hu, the lead v1.10
patch programmer and designer. He's busy interrogating Malaya here, while
trying to look "programmery," per my photo request.
Peter left the company in
late 2003 with the v1.10 patch complete, and now works as Director of
Technology for Flagship
Studios.
Swag! When it came time
to leave Malaya and I were each loaded up with the basic Diablo II black
T, a Blizzard North mug, and the much-prized collector's white D2X
T. This shirt has never been sold, just made for Bliz employees to
wear at E3 in 2001, when D2X was nearing completion.
Yes I wore mine.
Yes I washed mine. Unless you are from the Smithsonian, you can
just shut up now.
This photo was taken
with the swag spread out across Malaya's bed, a subject I'd much rather
discuss than the swag -- but not one that I'm going
to discuss on this page.
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