BlizzCast

BlizzCast is a somewhat regular podcast by Blizzard Entertainment for the fans with interviews and fan Q&As during an hour or so show. It aims to give a behind the scenes look at the development process of titles currently in production and the people working on them. The BlizzCasts usually involve information from all three of Blizzard's franchises including Diablo, World of WarCraft and StarCraft.

• Blizzard.com/BlizzCast

Episodes

Episode Six - broadcast on 19th November 2008 | Duration: 66:18

Interview with Monte Krol, Lead Tools Programmer, WoW. Interview with Sam Didier, Senior Art Director and Dustin Browder, Lead Designer, Starcraft II. Interview with Anthony Rivero, Senior Character Artist Diablo III. Q&A Session for all three franchises.

Episode Five - broadcast on 27th August 2008 | Duration: 38:37

Karune, Bashiok and Nethaera discuss their WWI Paris experience and Bashiok interviews Jay Wilson, Lead Designer Diablo 3.

Episode Four - broadcast on 7th August 2008 | Duration: 60:33

Nethaera interviews Russell Brower, Director of Audio and Video. Drysc interviews Jon LeCraft, Profession designer on World of Warcraft. Q&A with Jeff Kaplan, Lead Designer on World of Warcraft. Starcraft 2 Q&A with Mike Heiberg, Senior Game Designer and David Kim, Associate Game Balance Designer.

Episode Three - broadcast on 1st June 2008 | Duration: 57:12

Karune (Kevin Yu) RTS Community Manager interviews Dustin Browder, Lead Designer on StarCraft II. Bornakk interviews Jeff Kaplan, Lead Designer on World of Warcraft. Nethaera speaks to Joeyrary, Manager of Video Production. Q&A session with Dustin Browder and Jeff Kaplan.

Episode Two - broadcast on 22nd February 2008 | Duration: 49:05

Karune (Kevin Yu), the RTS Community Manager interviews Chris Metzen Vice President of Creative Development. Nethaera of the World of Warcraft Community Team interviews Geoff Goodman a designer on World of Warcraft. Finally, a Q&A with Andy Chambers, Writer for StarCraft and Tom Chilton, Lead Designer on WoW.

Episode One - broadcast on 10th January 2008 | Duration: 20:46

Karune (Kevin Yu) RTS Community Manager interviews Sam Didier (Samwise) Blizzard's Art Director and Drysc from the World of Warcraft Community Team interviews Lead Designer of WoW Jeff Kaplan on patch 2.4.

A Note on Dates

The release dates of the official BlizzCast page are different between US and EU, which probably has to do with actually setting up the files and pages rather than their release dates. Shown here in chronological date order:

US Dates:

• Episode 1 - 2008-01-22
• Episode 2 - 2008-02-22
• Episode 3 - 2008-06-01
• Episode 4 - 2008-08-07
• Episode 5 - 2008-08-27
• Episode 6 - 2008-11-01

EU Dates:

• Episode 1 - 2008-01-10
• Episode 2 - 2008-02-22
• Episode 3 - 2008-01-06 (2008-06-01*)
• Episode 4 - 2008-08-11
• Episode 5 - 2008-08-27
• Episode 6 - 2008-11-19

The EU site probably used US date system on Episode 3 by mistake. Since Blizzard released the podcasts simultaneously in different languages, the European dates are the correct launch dates, as they probably prepared the US versions earlier, before actually making them available.

References

• Official BlizzCast site