“I think that’s a story that has repeated itself with many new types of tech that we’ve gotten over the years: Run wild using it initially, learn its limitations, and then pull back to a more measured place.”

-Ion Hazzikostas points out a pattern with World of Warcraft’s development

USgamer has assembled an extensive history of Blizzard’s massively influential MMORPG World of Warcraft, pulling from the memories of current and past Blizzard developers like former chief creative officer Rob Pardo, Battle for Azeroth game director Ion Hazzikostas, principle artist Jimmy Lo, former lead systems designer Greg Street, and technical director Patrick Dawson to tell the story of the still-thriving game.

Be warned, it is quite the lengthy read but the piece itself does manage to capture nearly 20 years of history surrounding the conception, development, and ongoing support of World of Warcraft and, in doing so, provides developers with a first-hand look at how the MMORPG mainstay came to be. 

One interesting excerpt from the piece explores how Blizzard layered game instances to deal with players that would be experiencing different story moments, many of which altered landscapes, in the same area all at once. As technical director Patrick Dawson explains, first getting that tech in place during the Burning Crusade expansion days (roughly a decade ago) was no simple feat, but was essential if Blizzard wanted to maintain a balance between the single-player and massively multiplayer aspects of the game. 

“You can have in one phase there be this tremendous war between the Alliance and the Horde and in another phase it’s this peaceful, tranquil area because maybe the war is over,” Dawson tells USgamer. “If you make it go from one war to another war to another war you’ve now layered three phases worth of very expensive combat on top of each other; that could actually cause server issues.”

Ion Hazzikostas, game director of the most recent expansion Battle for Azeroth, explains that keeping that balance between impactful single-player storytelling and wide-scale online experiences is a line the development team is constantly trying to define throughout the ongoing development of World of Warcraft. 

“We’re always trying to find a line between robust single-player storytelling and a sense that your actions matter in the world,” Hazzikostas tells USgamer. “And there is a coherent narrative, that is the backbone of this world. But also the inherently MMO nature of the experience. We never want to stray too far away from these shared social multiplayer roots.”

Summer is always a special time at Microsoft, as the company is joined by over a thousand interns from all over the world. The internship program not only allows students the ability to show off and develop their skills throughout the 12-week program but also allows them to consider whether they’d like to pursue a full-time career with the company after graduation. Interning at Microsoft isn’t just about the daily grind, however, as plenty of fun activities are planned for the interns, such as special presentations by executives and even a huge concert at the end of the summer.

Aside from getting to experience what it’s like to work at Microsoft firsthand, one of the coolest things about the internship program is the opportunity it allows students to contribute to projects that Microsoft and Xbox users everywhere may one day interact with. For example, you may notice a feature developed by our Xbox Insider Team intern, Yifei, in the Xbox Insider Hub very soon.

This feature, which Yifei spent her 12-week internship working to build, allows users to make more informed decisions when selecting a system update ring or switching between rings in the Xbox Insider Hub. No longer will Xbox Insiders have to wonder whether selecting a ring will trigger an update or factory refresh, as this information will now be visible within the dialog box used to change system update rings.

Learn more about Yifei and the cool new feature she developed below!

What’s it been like interning for the Xbox Insider Team this summer, and what did you know about the program prior to your internship?

To be honest, I didn’t know anything about the Xbox Insider Program prior to my internship. But after I joined the team, I wanted to come back full time within the first week of my internship. Everyone on the team is so nice, and I can feel that they are truly passionate about their work. Not only was the team passionate about their work, but we also had a lot of fun as a team when we took part in morale events – special shout out to Anna for taking me for boba and being an amazing mentor! Everyone on the team cares a lot about the Xbox Insider Program and really acts with a sense of responsibility for the program and the people in it.

I still remember being around for the announcement of the Xbox Adaptive Controller, which occurred early in my internship, and knowing that Xbox as a team is focused on accessibility also makes me want to return in the future.

Tell us a bit about the feature you developed. What led you to start the work? What was most challenging or interesting about it to you?

The feature I developed helps Insiders make more informed decisions when switching rings. For example, when selecting a system update ring, you might be wondering what build you’ll receive, whether you’ll have to update or go through a factory refresh, or if an update is coming and when. My feature provides information on all those things.

I was sort of handed this feature to work on in the first week of my internship because my manager and mentor knew that I didn’t have much prior knowledge of the Xbox Insider Program and its intricacies. I felt a lot of pressure at first, but everyone on the team really helped me a lot. It was also surprising that Microsoft trusts their interns to do work with real impact on the product. What was challenging was learning the complex systems and services behind the Xbox Insider Program, and it’s really amazing to me that this feature will now be available to all Xbox Insiders!

Do you have a favorite videogame or are you playing anything currently?

Fortnite!

Your internship just ended, and we’re sad to see you go but hope you enjoyed your time on the Xbox Insider Team! How did this summer benefit your skills and understanding of software engineering?

I had to make many software engineering decisions that I wouldn’t have had to make for a school project. For example, real software services can have randomness and unexpected failures. I had to learn how to judge the severity of various issues and determine the proper error handling strategy for each one to provide the best user experience. The second thing that I’ve learned is that learning from others is important. My teammates took the time to explain why they do things a certain way to me, and I learned so much from them.

What advice would you give to other students interested in interning for Microsoft?

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. It sounds like a cliché, but I really do feel like that’s the best advice I could give besides talking to people from your team and different teams. Share your opinions, and don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions so you can correctly understand things because software engineering isn’t easy.

If you are a high school, college, or graduate student and you’re interested in learning more about a Microsoft internship, visit careers.microsoft.com to learn more, or look for Microsoft at a college campus recruiting event!

It’s another lovely weekend (hopefully) full of relaxation, chilled vibes, and a good gaming session or two. As ever, Team Nintendo Life has banded together to chat about our plans for the next couple of days, with farming sims, Game Boy Advance classics, and online shooters making for an interesting mix this time around. But what about you? Take a read of our plans, and then share your own in the comments below. Oh, and leave a vote in our poll, too!

Austin Voigt, contributing writer

Today, I’m picking up my copy of Little Dragons Cafe. I’ve been dying for a new sim game on the Switch (Stardew Valley is awesome – but Yasuhiro Wada invented this genre, and I adore anything he makes). Funnily enough, although farming sims are some of my favorite games, I stumbled upon them completely by chance as a child: I’d ordered a Hamtaro game (shut up) on eBay, and they sent me Harvest Moon by mistake, like the hand of fate. I had never seen anything like it – it was love at first sight… Okay, gotta run – GameStop opens soon.

Ryan Craddock, staff writer

With Hollow Knight getting its final batch of free DLC – and going on a pretty mighty sale at the same time – I’m starting to feel the pressure from that bit of the brain that tells you to just go ahead and buy things. At the time of writing, I still haven’t entirely made up my mind, but something tells me that I’ll end up taking a leisurely, metaphorical stroll through the eShop’s jaunty alley of goods to pick up a copy.

I’m also in the mood for some couch co-op style play, so I might take a look through my collection to see what’s available. I have been eyeing up Overcooked 2, though – another highly rated game that I’ve somehow resisted so far – so maybe I’ll end up falling into a pit of spending misery by the time the weekend’s over. 

Dave Frear, retro reviewer

In truth, most of my time will be spent re-experiencing Shenmue via the remaster, but the GBA will also be keeping my weekend on a Dreamcast theme. I’ve been dipping back into the handheld’s port of ChuChu Rocket! recently and have been enjoying it immensely. It’s a game suited to quick bursts of play here and there and I’ve been flitting between the stage challenges and battles which can require quick reflexes and get quite frantic, and also the more relaxed Puzzle mode. All have provided fun, and although there’s been frustration too, I keep finding myself diving back in for more.

Liam Doolan, news reporter

Overcooked 2 is my go-to game right now. Having purchased the title approximately a week after its release, I’ve now made it to world four. Progress has been slow and steady, with many retries along the way. So far, me and my co-op buddy have been able to three-star every level. I’d definitely say it’s more forgiving than the first game.

When I’m not cooking up a storm in the kitchen, I’ll be catching up on Dead Cells. Another game I acquired shortly after its release. Based on what I’ve played of it so far, it’s incredibly addictive. I often sink an hour or two into it and it feels more like 10 minutes – it’s that fun.

Dom Reseigh-Lincoln, reviewer

This weekend I’ll once again be pulling double duty as I leap into the hotly anticipated Blade Strangers for some 2D fighting action with the oddest crossover roster you’ve ever seen. I’ll also be pulling on my best ninja threads and unleashing feline violence in Claws of Furry. Look out for reviews of both on the site next week. I’ve also been going back to Attack on Titan 2 quite in a bit in the last week, and I can already fill that deep urge to fire my hip-mounted grappling hooks and fight some naked giants. Don’t judge me, okay?

Glen Fox, guides editor

Been really into Paladins this week – so much so that I’ve been playing it into the early hours of the morning. It’s so addictive, tweaking your loadouts to try and find an interesting new way to play, and messing around with different characters. There’s so much variety, and no two of them feel the same. I don’t know how much it will hold my attention in the long term, but there’s nothing else like it on the Switch at the moment and I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

Dave Letcavage, contributing writer

So I kept my word and started that Donkey Kong Country series playthrough that I mentioned last week. I’ve completed the original, and now I’m halfway through Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest. But this weekend I think I’m going to take a break from monkey business to explore the depths of Hollow Knight. I was planning to wait for a physical release before doing so, but the current eShop sale has tempted me. Unless I buy Dead Cells first. That’s also a possibility. Decisions, decisions…

As always, thanks for reading! Make sure to leave a vote in the poll above and a comment below with your gaming choices over the next few days…

Play Pizza Connection 3 for FREE starting now through Monday at 10AM Pacific Time. You can also pickup Pizza Connection 3 at 35% off the regular price!*

If you already have Steam installed, click here to install or play Pizza Connection 3. If you don’t have Steam, you can download it here.

*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time

Apple’s eGPU support extends beyond consumer-grade cards. AppleInsider takes a look at the AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 GPU workstation card, inside a Sonnet eGFX 650 Breakaway Box.

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The WX 9100 is a high-end professional workstation card that supports ECC memory is intended for large computing jobs or a high volume of them in a zero-fault environment.

To support this goal, the WX 9100 comes with 16GB of HBM2 memory, 4096 stream processors and is based on AMD’s latest 12nm Vega architecture. For outputs, the card has six Mini-DisplayPort 1.4 connections supporting 10-bit output.

All of these features add to a graphics card costing $1500 which will definitely seem high for the consumer market, now that the BitCoin squeeze on pricing is over. But, to those needing that kind of computational heft, it’s not a bad buy even when you add the eGPU enclosure.

We’ll be comparing the WX 9100 and Sonnet combo to the best graphics card available in our 2018 15-inch i9 MacBook Pro, the 4GB Radeon Pro 560X. We’ll also be connecting that machine to the AMD 580 Pro Blackmagic eGPU which houses a Radeon Pro 580 graphics chip with 8GB of memory.

We used the Set-eGPU script to force all applications to use the eGPU, but this shouldn’t be required with MacOS Mojave.

Starting off with Geekbench 4’s OpenCL test, the WX 9100 scored more than double that of our MacBooks internal graphics and a bit higher than Blackmagic’s unit.

Doing a quick benchmark run in Unigine’s Heaven benchmark which tests gaming graphics performance, the WX 9100 once again performs more than twice as good as the 560X and about 45% faster than the Blackmagic eGPU.

Moving on to video editing tasks, we first ran the Bruce X benchmark for Final Cut Pro which mostly taxes the graphics cards.

Running the Final Cut X stabilization filter on a 20-second 4K video clip, the WX 9100 eGPU performed the task in just 7 seconds, compared to 13 with both the integrated 560X and Blackmagic’s eGPU.

In Davinci Resolve, this task went from 28 seconds to 17 seconds with Black Magics eGPU and then to 14 seconds.

We do video editing tasks daily, obviously —a task that many are looking to improve with an eGPU. Starting with rendering a 5 minute 4K project using standard h.264 footage with color correction and effects, we didn’t see any improvement in Final Cut X, with the Blackmagic eGPU actually slowing it down.

We suspect that the highest-end graphics available in the 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro is already fast enough at rendering this footage with effects to the point that CPU isn’t limited. On top of that, there is some bandwidth constraints made worse by having to send the data through Thunderbolt 3 not only to the GPU to be rendered, but also back to our software.

As we move on to much tougher codecs like Canon Cinema RAW Lite where internal graphics are a huge bottleneck, we see some major improvement even with a short one-minute timeline. Not only did our render go from almost four times longer than the project itself to less than half that time, but our timeline performance went from and unusable 20 frames per second, to 55 frames per second which is a massive improvement.

In Davinci Resolve, we went from 20 minutes with the internal 560X, to 15 minutes with the Blackmagic eGPU, and just 8 minutes with the WX 9100.

Taking a look at a 1 minute 4.5K RED RAW project with color correction and effects, we don’t see much change in Final Cut Pro because our CPU is the bottleneck. Davinci Resolve uses the graphics cards more so we see about 60 percent faster speeds with the WX 9100.

Applying noise reduction is often needed with RAW footage, and it usually makes anything but the highest end computers like a higher spec iMac Pro choke. With temporal noise reduction added in Resolve, our WX 9100 finished the job in nearly one-third of the time than the 560X and the timeline had very few dropped frames making it workable where the MacBook wasn’t.

To finish off this first round of testing, we used Blender to test the 3D Rendering capabilities of the Radeon Pro WX 9100 vs the internal Radeon Pro 560X. We used the 1225 BMW test Project available on Blender’s website and used the graphics cards to render. Here, the WX 9100 completed the task at just 5 minutes vs close to 27 minutes on the MacBook Pro alone.

In Conclusion, the WX 9100 is a very powerful card that can greatly speed some professional tasks. On top of that, tasks that require dual precision GPU’s and ECC memory are now possible, without purchasing a dedicated workstation computer capable of this.

We at AppleInsider are very excited about the possibilities that eGPU’s offer and are looking forward to even better support in MacOS Mojave.

Where to buy

AMD’s Radeon Pro WX 9100 Graphics Card is currently available from third-party sellers on Amazon for $1,449.99. B&H also has the video card in stock for $1,499.99 with free expedited shipping and no tax collected outside New York and New Jersey*.

Both Amazon and B&H also carry Sonnet’s eGFX 650 Breakaway Box for $399.00 with free shipping.

A quick news bulletin for you this morning – those of you who were excited by the prospect of playing quirky city-builder Tropico on your iPad will definitely be interested in what we’ve got to share with you.

Feral Interactive have put out a gameplay video showing a direct iPad feed. You get a good look at the menu, the graphics and how the interface handles – especially with the touch inputs registering as little circles – which is cool. It’s just shy of fifteen minutes in length, and we’ve embedded it below for you:

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Yesterday, the developers released the long awaited iPhone port for Rome: Total War, making that a fully universal iOS game. Unfortunately Nick wasn’t able to get the iPhone version to download in time for today’s Weekender, so we’ve got no hands-on impressions for you.

Tropico for iPad is due out later this year, before the end of Autumn.