Rob Pardo

- Name: Rob Pardo

Notable creations and work:
Lead Designer:
- - World of Warcraft
  - World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
  - Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne
  - Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
  - Starcraft: Brood War
Designer
- - Diablo II
  - Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition
  - Starcraft
Games Credited
- - World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
  - Kingdom Under Fire
  - Mortal Kombat Trilogy
  - Wolfenstein 3D

- Born: June 9, 1971
- Died: Not quite yet.

Biographical Summary

While

Rob has been named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine he started out as a game tester for Interplay with only an educational degree in Criminology. He progressed through this however and soon became a line producer and came in to Blizzard as a contractor who added feedback in StarCraft doing game balancing work. At his time in blizzard he rose quickly and worked on many different titles, starting at StarCraft and working all the way up from the Warcraft RTS series into the more commonly known games such as World of Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft II. With work for the company he also gained ranks becoming the Vice President of Game Design at Blizzard Entertainment and by perfecting the MMO game genre. Also by being able to think about both sides and all aspects of a game he became very good at them. According to a Blizzard executive he became one of the best players of the game internally, if not the best player.

Work

Rob Pardo worked on many different projects, on many levels, throughout his many years in design. Most of these titles being under Blizzard Entertainment. Due to being mostly a Lead Designer on Blizzard games his influence was spread throughout and is most commonly noticed in the overall feel of how and MMO or RTS game plays, seeing as he is accredited to perfecting the genre. This includes everything from immersing the player into the game realm, creating a fun environment for all to play, and giving things a concentrated level of "cool" meaning that instead of having many mediocre units to play as with neat abilities unique to them, he concentrated them making less units with more fun abilities at their disposal. Rob also has rules of design that he implements in each of the games, those being:

- Gameplay first
- Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master
- Make everything Overpowered
- Play, don't tell
- Make it a bonus - Make players feel rewarded

Project

Warcraft III Series

Rob worked on balancing races and opposing sides in the game as well as working out mechanics of gameplay for units and maps. He applies his rules of design to make a fun yet challenging environment for all to play in and continues to apply them to each game he makes, ensuring a positive and fun environment to be in.

Diablo II Once again Pardo had an overall influence in Diablo II's design trying to make the game as fun as possible for everyone who played. One of the shortcomings Pardo says is in its economy which revolved around bartering high-end items. He learned from this quickly which allowed him to make World of Warcraft's economy a great success for him. Diablo II featured some failures in design but was all just a learning experience in perfecting the art of a MMO.StarCraft Series

StarCraft is possibly one of the best examples of design in gameplay where balance is seen and attempted to be achieved by Pardo. He tries to balance gameplay of all three races while giving them all unique abilities. His rule of design of making it easy to learn but difficult to master is seen from the many players it has. While everyone can pick up the game and play, there are also numerous devastating combo's that can be produced with certain races that makes them very powerful.

StarCraft II is still in its beta but soon to be released. Pardo applies the same principles of design to the game as the first but amps up the quality in which it is done.World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is possibly Pardo's greatest achievement seeing that it embodies everything he has been working towards. The idea of this MMO came up during the making of Warcraft III and from there was brought to fruition. This MMO embodies everything that he strives to achieve in a design standpoint and he continues to build onto through many expansions and updates. As lead designer on this project as well he oversees everything that goes on and works to balance the factions, races, and the way items are produced and distributed. He works to create a fair but fun environment that attempts to follow lore as closely as possible while trying to make the game fun for the millions of users. As it is always expanding and growing he is always on top of the project making sure everything is balanced and gives the players equal and exciting choices to make.

References

- http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,12797/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Pardo
- http://www.google.com/#q=rob+pardo+timeline&hl=en&safe=off&tbs=tl:1&tbo=u&ei=G727S_7ZB5LW8ASo0-TuBw&sa=X&oi=timeline_result&ct=title&resnum=11&ved=0CCYQ5wIwCg&fp=a2bb30ecf4f91972
- http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19163
- http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96113-Blizzards-Rob-Pardo-Talks-Five-Years-of-Warcraft
- http://www.wow.com/2010/03/12/rob-pardo-speaks-about-blizzard-game-design/
- http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1298

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