While Blizzard's throat must be dry from the number of conversations it conducted this Tuesday last ahead of the Cataclysm launch, it did offer one interesting tidbit on the wider influences on its best-selling MMO, World of Warcraft.
In a question discussing their thoughts on the company's MMO competitors, Lead Systems Designer Greg Street talked of how they'd learn from well-implemented design choices in other titles, including Activision's other big hitter, Call of Duty.
"It's great to play a great game, and if it's a well designed title then there are things we can learn." Answered Greg. "Like ‘whoa - did you see how they handled-' Not MMO's specifically, but we're talking a lot about the multiplayer component of Call of Duty. How they did a good job with EXP and how you level up your weapons. Its really clever."
[We've asked ourselves] is there someway we can - not that we'd have machine guns in our game - but is there someway to get that awesome feel they did and deliver that to World of Warcraft."
You can read the whole interview with Blizzard here. You'll have to excuse us, we can't shake the awesome image of a raiding Worgen pack touting Uzis.