Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel is the Final Planned Raid of Warlords of Draenor

Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid of Warlords of Draenor
MamyTwink had the opportunity to talk to Cory Stockton (@mumper) recently. We have recapped the more interesting parts below, but watch the full thing for more context!


Expansions and Raids
  • Hellfire Citadel is currently planned to be the last raid of the expansion.
  • It wraps up things and it is hard to beat Archimonde as a final boss.
  • Players saw Tanaan Jungle at the start of the expansion and are wrapping back around to it now.
  • Anything can happen between now and whatever the team does next, but Hellfire Citadel is the pinnacle of where players are getting to.
  • There isn't anything to announce about future patches, but part of that comes down to how Patch 6.2 plays out. How far players progress in Hellfire Citadel and Tanaan Jungle will give the team an idea of how long the content will last.
  • Some expansions had four big patches, some had three, Warlords had two big patches with Patch 6.1 and 6.2. As the team gets closer to hitting the goal of a small gap between expansions there will be less large patches in each expansion.
  • The team isn't happy with players having to wait a year for new content.
  • Long waits aren't something they ever want to do, but the team was working on the new expansion and they weren't going to release it until it is at the right quality level. That isn't an excuse for the long wait, but it is better to wait two more months to have a great expansion rather than releasing it earlier and ending up with many issues.
  • Farahlon was a cool idea, but it didn't really fit into the story being told.
  • Tol Barad didn't make it in the game until Cataclysm, but the team was talking about adding it during Wrath of the Lich King. It just didn't fit the story until then.

Garrisons
  • The Mage Tower has felt underpowered for a long time. The power it offers in terms of completing naval missions may not be exactly where they want it yet.
  • Similar to Battle Pets, followers don't need more levels. Followers are content themselves, so more content is added by adding more followers and missions rather than requiring more upgrades.
  • Overall, the team is happy with garrisons. There are things that they would have done differently though.
  • Moving forward they will look at the parts of the garrison system that worked well to see how they can offer new gameplay that is exciting.
  • Building a building, assigning a follower to the building, and sending followers on missions felt new and fresh, but in the end players figured out how to optimize it.
  • The team wants to continue to engage players in new ways, so not every part of garrisons will move forward, but the things that players really liked might.

Legendary Items
  • The team is currently making legendary items that everyone has access to, but that doesn't mean they will never go back to the old model for specific classes. They are just trying something different for now.
  • The concept right now is to have an item that is updated with every patch and then reward something really good at the end of the expansion. Earning it requires playing through all of the content in an expansion.
  • Earning the legendary item right now feels good, but it doesn't have the same feeling as the old legendary items.
  • The journey of earning the legendary item is on each character, so making the item account bound rather than character bound is unlikely.
  • Raids are not tuned around everyone having the legendary ring. The team can estimate how many people will have the ring on average when the raid comes out and then tune the raid around that. If the tuning is off, it can be hotfixed right away.

Misc
  • The WoW Token has worked out well. It lets players with extra gold safely buy game time for gold and players with extra money but no time safely purchase gold from other players.
  • Mythic dungeons need a little bit of tuning, but overall the tuning is sufficiently challenging.
  • Completing 5 Timewalking Dungeons could give players a Normal difficulty cache in the future in addition to the extra Bonus Roll.
  • The team would love to do more things with Gul'dan in the future.


Mythic Hellfire Citadel Progression
Method is moving quickly today, already at 7/13 before the day is over. Midwinter and Paragon are close behind at 6/13. So far nine guilds have killed Kilrogg, putting them at 5/13. You can keep up with the latest progress on WoWProgress, our forum thread, and Manaflask.

This article was originally published in forum thread: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel is the Final Planned Raid of Warlords of Draenor started by chaud View original post
Published on 2015-07-02 07:56 PM
377 Comments
Comments 377 Comments
  1. pjbottoms's Avatar
    "Overall, the team is happy with garrisons"

    Glad the team is happy with them as the playerbase seems to have nothing but outright hate for the system. One of the main reasons my sub is expired and will not be re-upped until at least the next expansion.
  1. deathsreaper's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Peterpewn View Post
    K, this interview just shows they are milking the game for all it's worth now. That makes it very easy to never sub again. Kinda sad after playing this game on and off since vanilla release, but it's only going to get worse and worse.
    You have been playing on and off since Vanilla so you have stopped playing the game during what was considered the best xpacs that WoW has had so would not surprise me that you would never sub again. Hell even if they made the perfect expansion that has ever been made you would still sub then guess what unsub would you not.
  1. Kazuchika's Avatar
    Long waits aren't something they ever want to do, but the team was working on the new expansion and they weren't going to release it until it is at the right quality level. That isn't an excuse for the long wait, but it is better to wait two more months to have a great expansion rather than releasing it earlier and ending up with many issues.
    Oh give me a fucking break.
  1. MFDOOM's Avatar
    I can't believe for a second that not a single interview has asked the devs what they thought about the Grommash redemption story. It makes absolutely no sense if you raid. He just shows up on Archimonde trash (Mount Hyjal Bosses) as allied with Yrel and Khadgar for no reason. At all. In ICC, there were random screams that were significant to the lore to expound on the story. There's nothing close to a story in HFC. Like, I can't imagine anyone liking this "story".
  1. Azrile's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Peterpewn View Post
    K, this interview just shows they are milking the game for all it's worth now. That makes it very easy to never sub again. Kinda sad after playing this game on and off since vanilla release, but it's only going to get worse and worse.
    What they are counting on, and it worked for WoD, is that people will see ´the new expansion´ as an opportunity for Blizzard to learn anything. Players are horrible about listening to marketing and thinking that maybe the Devs will make things better in the next expansion.. and then they pay $50 and the crap repeats itself.

    Some things make sense now... Why the beancounters out Blizzard would be willing to grow the WOW development team so much... the answer is that they are no longer going to do free content patches, all those new employees will be doing nothing but pushing out a $50 small expansion every year.
  1. Prag's Avatar
    Tired of hearing about how they're unhappy with their content release schedule, the way legendary items don't feel legendary, etc.

    Show me. Fix it.

    "Actions prove who someone is, words just show who they want to be."
  1. deathsreaper's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Shambulanced View Post
    That's just absurd. Everybody uses patch to denote content AFTER the expansion launch. C'mon now.
    So your saying that no one will say they started raiding in 6.0 or that they started playing wow in 6.0! 6.0 is a patch and that is the reason they mini patches for hotfixes in 6.0 are not called 6.1 they are called 6.0.1 or 6.0.2 because it's a patch!
  1. barackohmama's Avatar
    This just tells me they are trying to get as much money as possible from players buying the expansion. People are probably unsubbing to early after exp hits for it to be worth the effort to make patches/content
  1. mmoc1404d70bfa's Avatar
    Giving everyone a chance to gain the legendary easy.
    That basically removes the unique of being a legendary.
  1. Zephre's Avatar
    It's amazing really, I've never actually see a company purposely try to kill off one of it's games before with crap design plan after crap design plan.

    Kudo's Blizzard your stupidity knows no bounds.
  1. mmoceb49e7900c's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by deathsreaper View Post
    You have been playing on and off since Vanilla so you have stopped playing the game during what was considered the best xpacs that WoW has had so would not surprise me that you would never sub again. Hell even if they made the perfect expansion that has ever been made you would still sub then guess what unsub would you not.
    Difference is: this time I won't be coming back.
  1. aeuhe4yxzhds's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Aimscoes View Post
    Giving everyone a chance to gain the legendary easy.
    That basically removes the unique of being a legendary.
    Giving it to everyone allows them to subscribe for a couple of extra months as it takes time to get it
  1. Aberrict's Avatar
    I don't understand how FFXIV's dev team was able to launch Heavensward three months after patch 2.55, but Blizzard with its larger team is going to take a year for the third time.
  1. Jdance's Avatar
    I don't think the majority of people want faster expansions if they're just going to be a shell of the content they could have been..
  1. Issalice's Avatar
    There is so much wrong with what they've said here.

    • There isn't anything to announce about future patches, but part of that comes down to how Patch 6.2 plays out. How far players progress in Hellfire Citadel and Tanaan Jungle will give the team an idea of how long the content will last.
    How far can people progress in a zone like Tanaan? That makes no sense to me, same thing with raiding. At some point you just get to the end and don't want to run it anymore.
    • Some expansions had four big patches, some had three, Warlords had two big patches with Patch 6.1 and 6.2. As the team gets closer to hitting the goal of a small gap between expansions there will be less large patches in each expansion.
    Quality over quantity. Personally I don't mind waiting for something worth my money and time. WoD was neither.
    • Long waits aren't something they ever want to do, but the team was working on the new expansion and they weren't going to release it until it is at the right quality level. That isn't an excuse for the long wait, but it is better to wait two more months to have a great expansion rather than releasing it earlier and ending up with many issues.
    I agree with this. It is better to wait longer for something worthwhile. However WoD was NOT worth the wait. This expansion feels rushed, I can't imagine what would have happened if it had been released on time.
    In fact if the next expansion isn't at the quality of previous expansions I'd be happy to wait and wonder around Draenor until they get the next one perfect, I'm fine with that honestly. I just don't ever want to see another turd like WoD released.
  1. mmocfd561176b9's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by deathsreaper View Post
    So your saying that no one will say they started raiding in 6.0 or that they started playing wow in 6.0! 6.0 is a patch and that is the reason they mini patches for hotfixes in 6.0 are not called 6.1 they are called 6.0.1 or 6.0.2 because it's a patch!
    No, You are wrong.
    Some expansions had four big patches, some had three, Warlords had two big patches with Patch 6.1 and 6.2. As the team gets closer to hitting the goal of a small gap between expansions there will be less large patches in each expansion.
    Read the OP before posting.
  1. meroko's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MFDOOM View Post
    I can't believe for a second that not a single interview has asked the devs what they thought about the Grommash redemption story. It makes absolutely no sense if you raid. He just shows up on Archimonde trash (Mount Hyjal Bosses) as allied with Yrel and Khadgar for no reason. At all. In ICC, there were random screams that were significant to the lore to expound on the story. There's nothing close to a story in HFC. Like, I can't imagine anyone liking this "story".
    To be fair, he didn't just "show up"...if you paid attention, he was being tortured during the Fel Lord fight and you save him. Now the redemption part of it does need some explaining but he didn't just randomly show up like you are making it out to be.

    To me, it just seems like he was lead the wrong direction by Garrosh, once Garrosh died and Gul'dan seemed to overthrow him, I think Grommash realized the errors of his ways and took our side to stop Gul'dan. It would've been nice if there was a little story in between that to help show how we "forgave" him...this MIGHT be something we see in the final cinematic for the end of the Legendary chain (if such cinematic exists)
  1. Tridus's Avatar
    This is what it looks like when a company starts milking fans for all they're worth. A higher priced expansion with less content than ever before.

    Get ready to pay again!

    The only way to stop this stuff is to cancel. Send a message that they're not delivering what you expect and you won't play along. If a couple million more people quit, the message will get through loud and clear.
  1. Rygar4's Avatar
    woaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaabulance
  1. Moradim's Avatar
    6.1 was a big patch? lol
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