eric dodds video game designer

Eric Dodds

Regular

latest?cb=20210812095020

Battlecry: Summon a 2/2 Pirate and destroy all Ninjas.

Data page

Eric Dodds is a former Blizzard employee who previously served as Game Director^[1] for Hearthstone.

Ben Brode was promoted to Dodds' previous title of Game Director in late 2016.^[2] Dodds subsequently moved to another project within the company in the form of a StarCraft first-person shooter game. The project was cancelled in May of 2019, after which Dodds left Blizzard alongside Dustin Browder and Jason Chayes.^[3]

Dodds is featured in the credits card of the same name.

Official [ ]

As Blizzard Entertainment's lead designer for Hearthstone™: Heroes of Warcraft™, Eric Dodds oversees all aspects of gameplay, including card design, gameplay balance, game modes, and the user interface.

Dodds joined Blizzard Entertainment in 1997, and during his lengthy tenure with the company has served in key roles on numerous games. His first role was working on StarCraft® and Diablo® in quality assurance. Dodds then went on to serve as a level designer on StarCraft: Brood War® and Warcraft® II: Battle.net® Edition as well as on the strike team for Diablo II and the Lord of Destruction® expansion. He then joined the newly formed World of Warcraft® team and spent eight years serving as a systems designer. More recently he worked on the design of Diablo III before joining the Hearthstone team.

Dodds is a board gaming enthusiast who is always up for a game of Galaxy Trucker or Liar's Dice.^[4]

Notes [ ]

Early in the game's development, prior to the beginning of prototyping, deadlines for another Blizzard project caused all of Team 5 except Dodds and Ben Brode to be reassigned to that game.^[5] This isolation allowed the two designers to work in an even more focused way, with only the two of them to settle prototyping decisions, and were able to rapidly progress through myriad design iterations.^[5] The two went on to establish the core game still found in Hearthstone today.^[5]

For most of the game's initial development, Brode and Dodds were the sole designers regarding card changes and balance.^[6]

Dodds was a designer on World of Warcraft, from the game's very beginning until "a little way past" The Burning Crusade.^[1] One of Dodds' roles was as professions designer, designing all of the professions for players, including engineering.^[1] Dodds was responsible for the Gnomish Mind Control Cap, Explosive Sheep, Discombobulator Ray, Ultrasafe Transporters, Dimensional Rippers and "all the awesome, ridiculous gnomish and goblin inventions" in World of Warcraft up to that point.^[1] This was an additional reason why Dodds personally was excited to do Goblins vs Gnomes as the game's first expansion.^[1]

Trivia [ ]

Dodds is paid tribute to in World of Warcraft by the NPC "Watcher Dodds", found in Duskwood. He was also the inspiration for the intentionally mismatching "Edward the Odd" items - "Ed[ward the] Odd" being rather close to E. Dodds.

Card art [ ]

The art used for Dodds' credits card was created by Zoltan Boros^[7] and depicts Dodds' tribute character Edward the Odd.
The same art is used for the game's debug cards.

Gallery [ ]

References [ ]

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 ^1.4 Hearthstone Fireside Chat Goblins vs Gnomes. (2014-11-07).
↑ Ben Brode on Twitter. (2016-12-06).
↑ Jason Schreier (2019-10-28). After A Terrible 2019, Blizzard Is Going All-In At BlizzCon. Kotaku. Retrieved on 2019-10-29.
↑ Blizzard Press Center
↑ ^5.0 ^5.1 ^5.2 Mark Serrels, Kotaku.com (2014-05-04). Pens, Paper And Envelopes: The Making Of Hearthstone.
↑ Monk (LiquidHearth) (2014-02-05). Interview with Senior Game Designer Ben Brode.
↑ WoW TCG Browser.

External links [ ]

Posts

Eric Dodds - Hearthstone's Card Balance Philosophy (2014-01-16)

Selected media

Hearthstone Day Q&A (with Eric Dodds and Jason Chayes) (2014-03-14)
Value Town #15 w/ ChanManV/Kripp and guest Eric Dodds (Blizzard HS Lead Designer) - Patch Talk! (2014-01-16)
Hearthstone Elite Podcast #3: 30 Minutes with Eric Dodds! (2013-12-6)
Hearthstone Panel BlizzCon 2013 (2013-11-09)