Borderlands 2 humor, World of Warcraft networking talks added to GDC 2013

Game Developers Conference organizers have announced new lectures for its 2013 Main Conference, including how Borderlands 2 added humor through gameplay, how World of Warcraft coded its network API, and how EVE Online became a multiplatform universe. These lectures are part of the Programming, Production, and Design Tracks in GDC's Main Conference, to be held March 27-29 in San Francisco at the Moscone Center. In a Design Track lecture, Gearbox Software lead writer Anthony Burch will share how his team added humor in game mechanics in the talk 'Designing Humor in Borderlands 2.' He will discuss "how a quest with no gameplay can actually be funnier than a quest with it, how every mechanic holds the potential for humor, and how even jokes need debugging." For the Programming Track, Blizzard's Joe Rumsey will explore solutions to issues for 'Network Serialization and Routing in World of Warcraft.' He will share sample code to illustrate how they handle machine generated codes for serialization, dynamic protocol negotiation, and more. Lastly, for the Production Track, CCP Games' senior technical producer Andie Nordgren will discuss connecting PlayStation 3 shooter DUST 514 to the existing EVE Online universe in 'Creating the EVE Universe: Technical and Cultural Strategies.' Her talk will explain "how patterns from web services can be used to create the ability to connect" the PlayStation game and PC client with mobile apps and even 3rd party applications. For more information on these lectures or others in the show's growing lineup, check out GDC 2013's official Schedule Builder, which continues to add new talks every week. The deadline for discounted Early Bird passes to the event is February 13th. GDC 2013 itself will take place March 25-29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. For more information on GDC 2013 - part of UBM Tech, as is Gamasutra - visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.