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  1. #1

    Dev Watercooler: Scenarios

    Don't miss the other news from today: Mists of Pandaria Beta - Build 15972 and Patch 5.0.4 Release on August 28, Season 11 Ending Soon!

    Dev Watercooler: Scenarios
    Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
    We recently began revealing the Scenarios you’ll experience at level 90 in World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria on our preview site. As the final tweaks are being made, we thought it would be a good time to sit down with Senior Game Designer Dave Maldonado and Game Designer Jonathan LeCraft for a little behind-the-scenes perspective on this unique new system.

    Q: What do Scenarios bring to World of Warcraft that we haven't seen before?

    Dave Maldonado: From a technological standpoint, almost everything in the system is new. Players are obviously going to see the World of Warcraft they know and love when they're running Scenarios, but all of the technology driving what we can do with Scenarios is new, and we took that as an opportunity to really indulge in new ways of interacting with the players, the NPCs, and the environment. It was a lot of work to design the technology, with a whole new UI, and new tracking systems and so forth, and while that programming was going on, we got to dream up and implement a lot of randomization and many new things for monsters to do and for the environment to do.

    Jon LeCraft: With Scenarios, we can do even more than we could previously do with group quests, because even with phasing and all of our options in the outdoor world, there were a number of things that we still wanted to bring to the game. We can now change the environment and change the ways things spawn and change the behavior of enemies on the fly, and that opens up nearly infinite possibilities.


    DM: My favorite example is the concept of a ship that you want to destroy by setting it on fire. So you could storm the ship, kill everyone on-board, and then burn it down. But what happens when you decide to sneak on to the ship, leave everyone alive, and set the fire while they're all standing around? In Scenarios, we have a lot of flexibility to imagine the different ways that players might choose to play, and have the NPCs and the environment react to that more naturally. The result is -- you're going to see all those NPCs on the ship jump off because it's on fire, and then look back at it in amazement. Other NPCs that were making deliveries to the ship before it became a floating inferno are going to react to the change in their world. Instead of trying to put the box that they're carrying on the boat, or despawning and disappearing before your eyes, or something else unrealistic, they're going to stop and gawk at the flames.

    Q: We've seen Scenarios compared to dungeons a lot, yet you're comparing them to group quests. What aspects of Scenarios are like dungeons, and what aspects are like group quests, and what’s just new?

    JL: For one, you're in a group and you start the Scenario by going into the Dungeon Finder, and if you aren't in a group, one will be provided for you. That's dungeon-like. Also, Scenarios have a boss at the end.

    DM: The boss at the end brings everyone together.

    JL: They're very different than the bosses you're used to, though, because Scenarios are designed to be completed by three characters of any spec.


    DM: We're still tuning and discussing exactly how difficult Scenarios will be, but there are many major differences between Scenario bosses and dungeon bosses. Scenario bosses often can't be tanked, or tanking isn't very helpful. They can be easier than dungeon bosses, because they have to be feasible for three DPS players, but they can also be much more difficult than dungeon bosses, because they can have very high damage attacks that must be avoided by the players. These encounters aren't designed in a way that you can tank or heal through their massive attacks. You either pay attention to the signs that an attack is coming and avoid it, or you fail.

    JL: Because there won't always be a certain number of interrupts, or a certain amount of aggro control or healing in a Scenario, these boss encounters rely on placement, timing, and pattern recognition.

    DM: At the same time, there are many different things you can do to bosses in Scenarios. You can often crowd-control them, or stun them, or interrupt what they're doing. This would make them very easy to deal with in other circumstances, but they have a huge health pool and the ability to deal massive amounts of damage. Very few can be "tank-and-spanked."

    Q: As World of Warcraft players, how would you describe the Scenario experience?

    DM: Watching other players test Scenarios, and testing them ourselves, they’re really what I would call a “pure WoW” experience. They give you the option to do a lot more with your character than in other aspects of the game. In PvP, for instance, there isn’t a lot of room for experimenting, or using all of your spells, or even using most of your spells -- unless you want to get killed. In Scenarios, we see every class, every spec, and every style of play being viable. Furthermore, Scenarios are places where you get to experiment with how you move through the environment. There are all sorts of things you can skip, or choose to interact with that someone else might skip, and those decisions you make will have a noticeable impact on what happens next in that Scenario.


    JL: I keep coming back to that. Choosing to interact with things is a constant in Scenarios. A huge ghost mob might be mind-controllable. An urn might be something that you can try to access, and it might drop a few gold for you while spawning a couple of mobs that you have to deal with.

    Q: What’s coming next for this system?

    DM: More Scenarios! We’ve got a lot of really cool ideas, and this is content that we hope to make even more of as we start producing post-expansion content patches.

    You can check out feature pages on the Greenstone Village and A Brewing Storm Scenarios on our Mists of Pandaria website.
    Last edited by chaud; 2012-08-15 at 01:39 AM.

  2. #2
    thanks for the good share .

  3. #3
    Warchief Alayea's Avatar
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    I like the thought of the NPCs and environment being more dynamic, since (at from my PoV) scenarios are more of a different way to show a story to the player. Just having the same effect in a dungeon where a choice doesn't make any real difference outside of the hp/mana bar would simply make scenarios an extension of a dungeon rather than its own identity.

    (Hope that makes sense. Eloquence isn't one of my strengths.)
    Last edited by Alayea; 2012-08-15 at 01:50 AM.
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    The Patient AoBman05's Avatar
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    Cool, I like how it allows for much more variance like in a typical Final Fantasy game.

  5. #5
    Sounds great. While I am looking forward to this, I am a bit disappointed as well. When I first heard about this, I had hoped it would be more similar to instant adventures in rift that have dynamic groups, scaling, and varying goals with bosses at the end. The major difference being that they scale from 1 player to any size, and more importantly they occur in the real world, so instead of taking people out of the world they help add to the feel of a dynamic living world. Still looks like fun though.

  6. #6
    JL: Because there won't always be a certain number of interrupts, or a certain amount of aggro control or healing in a Scenario, these boss encounters rely on placement, timing, and pattern recognition.
    so...scenarios are gonna be like raid training? i like this .

  7. #7
    Seems to me like they were trying to counter the GW2 dungeon system really.. Hope it ends up being great.

  8. #8
    August 28th for Pre-patch

    I see what you did there blizz

  9. #9
    competition between companies = win for us all

  10. #10
    It gives me joy knowing that blizzard see's GW2 as somewhat of a "threat" to counter their release in such a manner. Maybe not too big of a threat, but they obviously want to try and keep some people from GW2.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by catalystical View Post
    competition between companies = win for us all
    I agree.I like the Guild Wars 2 dynamic quest system so Blizzard putting these scenarios in Warcraft will add a little dynamic flavor to Warcraft too.Pretty awesome that they are going to add more with each content patch.
    "Chaos boils in my veins."

  12. #12
    Blizz wants every spec to be viable in scenarios, but they also want scenarios to be doable without tanks/healers. Isn't this a bit contradictory? If the bosses don't need to be tanked or healed through, then those specs are inherently going to be less useful due to lower damage output/utility.

  13. #13
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Alayea View Post
    I like the thought of the NPCs and environment being more dynamic, since (at from my PoV) scenarios are more of a different way to show a story to the player. Just having the same effect in a dungeon where a choice doesn't make any real difference outside of the hp/mana bar would simply make scenarios an extension of a dungeon rather than its own identity.

    (Hope that makes sense. Eloquence isn't one of my strengths.)


    Just what I was thinking.
    I'm really unimpressed by this. It seems like a lame attempt at trying to be a little more like Guild Wars 2's Events and Hearts.

    ---------- Post added 2012-08-15 at 07:10 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrathius View Post
    Blizz wants every spec to be viable in scenarios, but they also want scenarios to be doable without tanks/healers. Isn't this a bit contradictory? If the bosses don't need to be tanked or healed through, then those specs are inherently going to be less useful due to lower damage output/utility.
    They want to be GW2.

  14. #14
    Old God Swizzle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrathius View Post
    Blizz wants every spec to be viable in scenarios, but they also want scenarios to be doable without tanks/healers. Isn't this a bit contradictory? If the bosses don't need to be tanked or healed through, then those specs are inherently going to be less useful due to lower damage output/utility.
    Healing and tanking are always useful, even in scenarios. Did one with a Resto Shaman and a Hunter while on my Mage, never once did I feel that another DPS would somehow make it more fun, easier, or go by faster...not like the bosses have much health or enrage timers. Anyone can play what they want when they want to play it in a scenario. Fun times were had by all, even the forum posters who just want to watch the world complain.
    BfA Beta Time

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Tyrathius View Post
    Blizz wants every spec to be viable in scenarios, but they also want scenarios to be doable without tanks/healers. Isn't this a bit contradictory? If the bosses don't need to be tanked or healed through, then those specs are inherently going to be less useful due to lower damage output/utility.
    I feel like tanks won't run into an issue because as far as questing is concerned, those specs don't usually have issues with damage output anymore, and scenarios will be more akin to group quests than full dungeons (let alone I highly doubt these things are going to be competitive). As far as healing is concerned, a friend of mine thought of an alternative to the norm that could be used in scenarios and questing in general: heal allied NPCs rather than killing enemies. That is, an objective could say "kill 10 enemies or assist 10 allies".

    Aside from that, my biggest concern is that Scenarios will help to carry the ability to play the game AFK in Stormwind or Orgrimmar into Mists more than they will accomplish anything else. One of the defining traits that should separate the multi-player aspects of an MMO from any other game is the necessity of teaming up with players in the game world to accomplish goals, rather than being able to queue up for a match or event to accomplish absolutely everything. As much as I would like to view this as a positive new direction, their potential to perpetuate issues that Blizzard has already philosophically began to defend (i.e.: their sympathetic tone towards those who don't want to join a guild/would avoid social interaction all together in a game that is meant to be Massively Multi-player) is what keeps me jaded drives my skepticism.
    Last edited by kizee94; 2012-08-15 at 05:43 AM.

  16. #16
    Pandaren Monk Deleo's Avatar
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    So you queue for scenarios too?

  17. #17
    Blademaster Bytecus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Deleo View Post
    So you queue for scenarios too?
    As a premade group, yes.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by iJagg View Post
    As a premade group, yes.
    Or, if you queue solo, you get put in a random group ala dungeon finder.


    I hope they make Caverns of Time style Scenarios. Take important events from books and let us experience them in-game at appropriate levels and the like.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Creamy Flames View Post
    Just what I was thinking.
    I'm really unimpressed by this. It seems like a lame attempt at trying to be a little more like Guild Wars 2's Events and Hearts.

    ---------- Post added 2012-08-15 at 07:10 AM ----------



    They want to be GW2.
    I'd consider that untrue on account of the fact that they don't want to flop.

  20. #20
    Ale, one might use the exact same retort!

    A cynic might certainly say that this is indeed veeerrry similar to certain features of another game. Which is no bad thing really, all post WoW mmo's (at least near or at AAA level) have benefitted the behemoth in one way or another. New feature is new, similarity is par for the course. We all win whether GW2 or WoW players.

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