WOW's vital statistics revealed

By Oli Welsh Published 18 September, 2009

Plus, Blizzard talks cancelled sci-fi RPG.

In a typically detailed presentation to the Austin Game Developers Conference, World of Warcraft producers Frank Pearce and J. Allen Brack have laid bare the structure of the organisation which makes and maintains the MMO.

They also discussed the cancelled game that the WOW team was working on before it chose to focus on entering the MMO market instead: a science-fiction, squad-based RPG called Nomad.

A lot of time was spent on the game, but Blizzard eventually felt that it wasn't what it wanted to make. You can see concept art and read more at Joystiq. A full report on the presentation is available at Gamasutra.

Brack and Pearce revealed that WOW runs on 20,000 computer systems, using 1.3 petabytes of storage and 75,000 CPU cores, and takes the skills of more than 4600 people to operate. The game itself comprises 5.5 million lines of code, two million words of text, 1.5 million art assets, 70,000 spells, 40,000 NPCs and 7650 quests. The game's testers have tracked 180,000 bugs since it launched.

Pearce noted that Blizzard takes a "substantial loss" on its BlizzCon fan conventions, despite selling 20,000 tickets at over $100 apiece, plus internet and cable TV feeds. "It's a huge marketing opportunity, so that's the benefit we get out of that," he said, according to GameSpot.

The pair also offered an interesting insight into how Blizzard structures its creative staff. WOW is led by three tiers of management; executive producer Pearce at the top, Brack and lead designer Tom Chilton below him, and eight managers reporting to them. There are 30 department leads and teams are structured around employee's individual strengths.

However, the game has only 10 people working in production, who are viewed as support staff rather than management. Creative teams report not to these producers but to practising team leads who still work actively on the game - the art lead, for example, still creates art for the game.

There's masses more detail in the Gamasutra write-up. For a further behind-the-scenes look into the genesis of the game, read Eurogamer's recent Making of World of Warcraft.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (17) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • dingo75 #1 2 years ago

    And we all wondered where SKYNET's origins were...

  • butler` #2 2 years ago

    EU cross-faction migration has just gone up for £20 a go to pay for all that hardware!

  • bigjimbeef #3 2 years ago

    Surely if you're admitting that huge marketing benefits are to be reaped from holding such conventions, then you should to factor in the revenue generated from this marketing boon into your calculations?

    I suppose that would be a fairly insurmountable task really, but it still seems a tad calamatist to say that they make substantial losses from Blizzcon.

    Then again, I haven't read the link in its entirety. I suppose I should do before commenting, but that's just how I'm rolling this morning - ill-informed and (apparently) reasonably grumpy and opinionated.

  • cianchristopher #4 2 years ago

    Oli Welsh? Writing about World of Warcraft? Well I never........

  • dither #5 2 years ago

    What the fuck are you rambling about, Bigjimbeef?

  • viper_h #6 2 years ago

    I think he's saying that the advertising potential from the conventions far outweighs any net loss they take from the shows.

  • Ged42 #7 2 years ago

    That Sauropod/dragon artilery thing from Nomad needs to make it into another Blizzard game. The picture of the three characters reminds me a bit a Chaos Engine for some reason.

  • CordableTuna #8 2 years ago

    70000 spells? I'd have guessed somewhere around 100.

  • Venkman90 #9 2 years ago

    If you WoWhead "spells" you will see what they mean, every mount summon, on use item and ability in the game is classed as a spell.

  • sneetch #10 2 years ago

    @dither

    He's making sense, they say they make a "substantial loss" on BlizzCon but "It's a huge marketing opportunity, so that's the benefit we get out of that". If it's a huge marketing opportunity then it's not a loss, it's a marketing expense, however - as bigjim said - it's difficult to calculate the return on this kind of marketing and advertising. Either way writing it off as a "substantial loss" seems wrong to me too.

  • Genji #11 2 years ago

    Are Blizzard actually making any games that aren't Warcraft, Starcraft or Diablo? I'm not having a go - I'd genuinely like to know. I can't bring anything to mind.

  • the_mtfr #12 2 years ago

    Yeah sounds like a total bureaucracy, 30 team leads, 3 top producers, and only 10 guys working the buttons.

    Sounds like Blizzard has been Activisioned.

  • Shikasama #13 2 years ago

    Genji - apparantly they have been working on a new MMO that is not related to any of the three for a while. It's what Jeff Kaplan left the Warcraft team to work on

  • Slipstream #14 2 years ago

    Pre-BC some of the servers ran off of a Hamster wheel and went down when the Hamster got tired.

    Pretty sure they still do...

  • ps3owner #15 2 years ago

    how many power plants do they own?

  • saintclaire #16 2 years ago

    @the_mtfr
    Yeah sounds like a total bureaucracy, 30 team leads, 3 top producers, and only 10 guys working the buttons.

    The article misinterprets this information, there are 10 people in the "production" department who work will all the other departments to oversee the creation of material. There are over 50 people in the art department alone creating all the new artwork. Each department is about 5-8 people, so with 30 leads that means between 150-240 people "working the buttons".

  • davisorle #17 2 years ago

    "180,000 bugs since it launched"

    I wish all those noobs that play MMOs lately and werent there before WoW was a bit more... "playable" and without all the major bugs would stop crying and bitching about each single MMO that is released, going on and on with "OMG BUG!" and " I CANT BELIEVE THERE ARE BUGS IN THE GAME" and "SO MANY BUGS".. Happened with Lotro, with AoC, with everything ever since WoW and before WoW and I just wish they would quit bitching. I think the main reason why i ended up making my own clan is each single MMO is cause I had to handpick them members to not include the tards crying about those kind of thing in the clanchat. Custom chatpanels ftw.

    I just wish instead of just cataclism they woul make an alternative, more "3d" engine for the game. Id start over again. Just for cataclysm and making it easier for all the noobs to lvl , no thanks. Used to take some ballz to lvl before. Now its like a damn kiddengarden with everyone flling p alts in each server in no time. Not worth the time no more. ( Id say effort but now its like a joyride to lvl up without the joy in it... :( damn you Bliz... )