First up Austin Game Conference was a Keynote from Rob Pardo, Vice President of Game Design, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

A lot of this was using World of Warcraft as a device to explain Blizzard's design, development and marketing methodology.

Blizzard mantras:

• "Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master"
• "Killing with a purpose"
• "Concentrated coolness"

Interesting that Blizzard, in their attempt to meet their "Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master" mantra designs depth first (character classes, dungeons, pvp, raids and end games), then accessibility. And pacing bridges the two.

On the accessibility front, UI is obviously the most apparent, and Pardo criticized UIs that "try to show too much" -- WoW offloads a lot of this to things like their auction house implementation.

Other areas of accessibility include the solo experience ("0 to 60"), new content as you level up, and handling "The Newbie Experience".

"Concentrated coolness" is handled through differention of races. They're not just differently skinned. And by limiting the number of classes.

Pardo went into the development truism that every decision costs. Interesting idea that compromise is not good, because "it makes members of both sides dissatisfied." He did some cool comparisons with graphics (WoW vs. Crysis); World size/Teleportation (WoW vs. Diablo); Prestige Gear/Customizable gear (WoW vs. Ultima).

He also made some conmments on creating a culture of polish that I need to evaluate in the context of my toy job.

Good keynote overall, and it worked, given the MMO nature of the conference.

As an aside, I'm just realizing the exclamation point matker system populated in Diablo II is a really good interface device.

UPDATE: A more in-depth blow-by-blow of the keynote is available from GameSpot.com.