Sorry to bother you during work hours with my question, but I was wondering what was your stance on making skin based of other characters (for example the Widowmaker skin that you made a while back for Nova).
I imagine a lot of characters models and abilities would fit thematically with existing heroes and wouldn't require as much development time as developping them into their own hero, but at the same time I could imagine it would potentially dissapoint certain players who would have prefered seeing these characters being their own heroes in the Nexus.
Thank you for your time if you are reading this and replying, I hope you have a great day!
There's a pretty big difference between making a new hero vs making a skin.
With a skin we have a framework with the base hero and their animations along with their ability models and FX. These things are already established and coming up with new was to approach these things are fun for us and seem to be fun to our players.
Making a Hero doesn't have this framework. Design is involved. They have to come up with a kit. We test the kit. It doesn't work. We go back and change it or scrap it and redo it. We test it... It doesn't work. We go back and change it or scrap it and redo it. We test it. Then we have to do talents.... similar process. Then on the art side we ask questions like "What is the ideal version of this Hero for our game?" "What do we need to do to make this Hero work for a tech, animation and art?". We make a plan. We try something and if it doesn't work we redo it. Lets not forget everyone who comes after. Voice over, Localization, our Video and PR teams as well as the tireless efforts of our QA peoples for the new content.
Eventually we get a Hero out of this. Making a Hero is less straight forward than a skin and takes much more time and effort from multiple departments across the team.
One last thing, just because we made Widowmaker Nova doesn't mean that Widowmaker is off the table. We had a Medic Uther skin before we put out Lt Morales. We had an AzGul'Dan skin before Gul'Dan. Just because we want to scratch an itch with a cool skin for a Hero doesn't mean we can't do that Hero. On a long enough timeline we'll get to all of them.
KinaBREW
There's a pretty big difference between making a new hero vs making a skin.
With a skin we have a framework with the base hero and their animations along with their ability models and FX. These things are already established and coming up with new was to approach these things are fun for us and seem to be fun to our players.
Making a Hero doesn't have this framework. Design is involved. They have to come up with a kit. We test the kit. It doesn't work. We go back and change it or scrap it and redo it. We test it... It doesn't work. We go back and change it or scrap it and redo it. We test it. Then we have to do talents.... similar process. Then on the art side we ask questions like "What is the ideal version of this Hero for our game?" "What do we need to do to make this Hero work for a tech, animation and art?". We make a plan. We try something and if it doesn't work we redo it. Lets not forget everyone who comes after. Voice over, Localization, our Video and PR teams as well as the tireless efforts of our QA peoples for the new content.
Eventually we get a Hero out of this. Making a Hero is less straight forward than a skin and takes much more time and effort from multiple departments across the team.
One last thing, just because we made Widowmaker Nova doesn't mean that Widowmaker is off the table. We had a Medic Uther skin before we put out Lt Morales. We had an AzGul'Dan skin before Gul'Dan. Just because we want to scratch an itch with a cool skin for a Hero doesn't mean we can't do that Hero. On a long enough timeline we'll get to all of them.
Stay safe out there.
KinaBREW
I really like this. Well done!