From the Archives: Interview with John Staats

Hello it’s Jae here, let me set the stage for this episode: Hop in your Delorean and travel back in time with me, to the year of our Lord 2018 when World of Warcraft was soon to be heading into its 15th year, and World of Warcraft Classic was due to come out in Summer of 2019.

Back then, I went by the name of Frazley and ran FrazlCast, which was a World of Warcraft fan podcast. I showed this episode to James, and we both thought that it would be great to bring this episode to you as our first in a series we’re lovingly calling “From the Archives”.

I was given the honour to sit down with John Staats, who designed and built half of Vanilla WoW’s dungeons and raids. This was a lovely look into game design and the challenges that John and his team faced while building the iconic game of World of Warcraft. My friend Ali of the Dungeon Fables podcast joined me for this fun interview! I know some of you will be have been listeners of my former podcast as well! Thank you for being along for my journey.

Did you ever play World of Warcraft or Vanilla WoW? We’d love to hear from you, so please do send a note over to podcast@crossedwires.net, leave a comment on the post, or join the discussion over on our Discord server.

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Episode Links

• Dungeon Fables – Ali’s podcast about the lore of the dungeons in World of Warcraft
• The WoW Diary – John Staats’ book about designing and developing the World of Warcraft
• Loki’s Minions Capture The Flag Mod – John Staat’s Former Mod
• Tabletop Board Game Cafe – A cafe in Ohio
• Malted Meeple – One of John’s favourite drinks
• Interviews and Articles with John about the Dev Diary – For more interviews and articles by John Staats

Credits

• Intro by Brandon T. Blaylock
• Outro theme: Ace of Clubs by RoccoW