from Blizzard. As with all Blizzard projects of the time, the game was internally overseen by a small "Strike Team" within the company. In writing the script, Blizzard sought to humanize and deepen the portrayal of the Orc race, whose situation in Warcraft Adventures Chris Metzen compared to that of real-world American Indians. The team hoped to make the story accessible and interesting to both Warcraft fans and newcomers, while including numerous characters from the strategy titles. Metzen likened the game's plot to the films Spartacus, Braveheart and Dances with Wolves, and described Warcraft Adventures as a hero's journey, in reference to the theories of Joseph Campbell. The choice to make the game a comedy derived in part from a desire to counterbalance its dark themes. According to Cindy Yans of Computer Games Strategy Plus, Blizzard fleshed out the cast via "tongue-in-cheek projection" of what it thought each character would do during peacetime. Warcraft Adventures script was not written for particular actors, and its initial voice-recording sessions in Boston did not include major names, although all roles were portrayed by professional union members. According to Metzen, Blizzard decided that "a few characters [...] needed an extra boost" after reviewing these tapes, and chose to seek more recognizable actors for certain key roles. The team began to recall its favorite voices from other properties, including that of Optimus Prime from The Transformers; and that character's actor, Peter Cullen, was hired as a result. Other hires during this period included Tony Jay, who appeared in 1996's The Hunchback of Notre Dame; and the voice of Thrall, Clancy Brown. While Roper had voiced characters in Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, he was unable to contribute new lines to Warcraft Adventures because of union restrictions, as he was not a member. To circumvent this issue, lines that Roper had voiced in previous Warcraft games were inserted into certain scenes. According to Colin Williamson of PC Gamer US, Blizzard struggled to adapt to the adventure genre. Roper commented in 1998 that the "development process in putting together an adventure title is very backwards from a real-time strategy game", since aspects such as voice recording and screenwriting occur at the beginning of the project. The production pipeline became a major source of problems for the team. While Blizzard used rapid iterative design techniques to develop its games, the distance between the teams creating Warcraft Adventures slowed