Bosses in World of Warcraft are not as deadly as the invisible killer rabbits – thanks to the programmers.
The development of video games sometimes takes convoluted paths that are hard for mere mortals without programming knowledge to understand. World of Warcraft serves as a good example.
Because who would have thought that in most kills in the game, it is not the bosses with their abilities that are to blame – but invisible rabbits?
Nathaniel Chapman, one of the encounter designers of World of Warcraft, explained to the colleagues from Kotaku on Twitter how exactly certain mechanics in the game work. Very often, it is the case that no complete “mechanic” is developed, but rather existing resources are utilized and employed in new, creative ways.
As an example, he mentioned a laser beam, similar to what is encountered in many boss fights. Often, dungeon bosses cast a laser that follows an individual player across the ground and then causes damage in its vicinity. The funny thing about it: The impact point of the laser is quite often an invisible rabbit. Instead of developing a complete “mechanic,” the developers simply let an invisible NPC (usually a rabbit) appear. This rabbit now follows the selected player and periodically casts an area spell around itself, which then causes the damage.
As an example, they mentioned Siegecrafter Blackfuse from the Siege of Orgrimmar – as seen in this guide:
„NPCs need to support and perform many tasks in the game, such as pathfinding, casting, using weapons, or other actions that they execute with other NPCs. In theory, each effect in the game could be implemented separately by a programmer, but that would yield very little benefit.
Understandably, as developers’ time is valuable – why waste resources when a wonderful puzzle with seemingly endless possibilities is right in front of you?
So the next time you pass by a rabbit in Val’Sharah – give it a right click. It will know what for.
What you can do with rabbits from WoW will soon be shown in a Korean show.
