Fan Art - Naxxramas, Dev Interview, Blight Boar, ToS Progression, Tweets, Diablols

[chaud]

The Lore and Secrets of the Shrouded Moors, New Diablo 3 Zone Coming in Patch 2.6

Top HearthPwn Standard and Wild Decks of the Week for July 2

Fan Art - Naxxramas Trailer
Hurricane is back with another trailer, this time for Naxxramas.

Dev Interview
Jesse Cox and Crendor had the opportunity to talk to Ion Hazzikostas recently.

• There are no plans to increase the item level of items that drop from existing world bosses. World bosses are extensions of raid tiers.
• Dungeons are one of the big success stories of Legion. In older expansions, there was a huge spike in dungeon participation early in the expansion and then it rapidly dropped off. In Legion, through a mix of adding new dungeons, updating the difficulty baseline and rewards, as well as the Mythic Keystone system, we are seeing people to continue to dungeons as a parallel or complement to raiding.
• It seems very likely we will have more dragon story in the future. Certainly when you are Level 112, as you learn in the Chromie scenario, dragons are going to be very important.
• There are terrible void creatures out there and an unexplored set of worlds. That is something the team is looking forward to tapping into in the future.
• Argus would have made a monotonous setting for an expansion. It's an awesome place, but is a husk of a world that has been destroyed by the Legion. It isn't a place where we can have a bright and happy zone or civilizations that are flourishing and interesting to interact with.
• Draenor was a brutal and savage world, but had the Arroka and the rolling plains of Nagrand. Argus doesn't have that and wouldn't support that.
• Players often say they miss being a humble adventurer, rather than being a hero and champion. The story has advanced beyond that. When you are Level 90 or 100, you aren't just a faceless person anymore. You have defeated Onyxia, defeated the Lich King, defeated other great threats to the world, so you are becoming a peer to other heroes like Thrall, Jaina, and Varian. As we get stronger, the threats we face get stronger. At the same time, the team tries to keep in mind relative power scales. When we took on Deathwing, we had the assistance of the dragon aspects to make it a fair fight.
• On Argus, we find a Legion portal network that allows the Legion to assault other worlds. You go through these portals to Rift worlds using riftstones from Kil'jaeden's ship, allowing you to get a glimpse of all new planets around the cosmos. You clear out the Legion invasion force, fight a boss, do an event, and complete an objective there. This provides some variation to Argus and allows us to see some different settings.
• What's happening on Argus is the culmination of Azeroth's defense against the threat that the Legion poses. Could Argus be used for something else in the future? Who knows. It's an important location, the homeworld of the Draenei, a very important place, but the purpose it serves in the Legion story is defeating the Legion.

Darkmoon Faire - Blight Boar
The Darkmoon Faire is back in town with the addition of the Blight Boar band. Collect a toy, cage helmet, and guitar 2H mace from this event, as well as several achievements.

Tomb of Sargeras Progression
Several guilds are now at 7/9 in Mythic Tomb of Sargeras. Method is doing detailed coverage of the race!

Blue Tweets

Just obliterated 3 pieces of pvp gear and only got 3 Echoes of Battle in total. Is this a bug?
You can now obliterate Legion Season 4 Battleground-quality gear for a few Echoes. Gladiator gear is worth more. (WarcraftDevs)

Ghostcrawler Tweets
Ghostcrawler still occasionally talks about WoW. Remember that he no longer works for or speaks for Blizzard.

On the matter of player experience: do you think that the average player wants a game design that is created in a manner that they immerse themselves in and don`t realize they`re dealing with gameplay mechanics, decisions and overall game design elements, or do you think that the average player prefers to face to-do mission lists, itemization tables, gameplay-oriented character decisions and interfaces that make the whole game experience feel and look like a mission control panel?
This is a good question to talk about the difference between how players sometimes think about development, and how developers think about development… or at the very least, how I advocate that developers should be thinking about development.

I wouldn’t approach your question in terms of what the average player wants, but instead what kind of game you as a game developer want to make. You should have a vision for your game, and goals you are trying to meet, and an experience you want players to have.

The risk you run whenever you start worrying about what the average player would like (even if you are limiting that to the average player of your game) is that you can quickly to get to a least-common-denominator / designed-by-committee design. You can end up with a design that doesn’t offend anyone but doesn’t inspire anyone either. I love Dark Souls. I understand that it isn’t for everyone, and trying to make it more broadly appealing would probably greatly erode things that I love about the game (like the difficulty, hidden information, experimentation, and so on).

It’s a subtle distinction perhaps, but I think the development process should not be:

1) Ask players want they want
2) Build what they want.

Instead, it should be:

1) Come up with the kind of game you are trying to make
2) Ask players if your design is meeting this goal
3) Iterate until it does (or until you change your goal)

It’s kind of like the scientific method, where ideally you formulate a hypothesis first and then go get data.

So you may just be describing two different games in your original question. If I wanted a game that rewarded exploration and experimentation (something like Breath of the Wild), then I would go for the first one (the “immersive” one.). If I wanted a game where players were supposed to log in almost every day to check out what is going on, or maybe a really competitive game where comparing achievements and avoiding wasting time were both paramount, then I’d go for your second one (”mission control panel”). Those two games might have overlap in who enjoys them, but they might attract different “average players” as well. (Source)

Diablols - Rise of the Necromancer
This Diablols focuses on the Necromancer!

[Jin]

If WoW could look like that cinematic it would be amazing! So well done..

[Triggered Fridgekin]

Players often say they miss being a humble adventurer, rather than being a hero and champion. The story has advanced beyond that. When you are Level 90 or 100, you aren't just a faceless person anymore. You have defeated Onyxia, defeated the Lich King, defeated other great threats to the world, so you are becoming a peer to other heroes like Thrall, Jaina, and Varian. As we get stronger, the threats we face get stronger. At the same time, the team tries to keep in mind relative power scales. When we took on Deathwing, we had the assistance of the dragon aspects to make it a fair fight.

See, I have a problem with this. For all we've done, for all we've learned and for all we've grown a reputation with we're still tasked with delivering mail and killing boars. The only place we're relevant to our accomplishments is what's shown on our armory and to other players otherwise the game treats us as if we're the same players who rolled in to a town or city at level 1. The Demon Hunter's Order Hall NPCs are like "I've sacrificed much, what have you given" (or to some effect as that) and it's like.... what the hell?

If you're going to make me a hero or a champion, I damnwell deserve the luxuries of such. Make custom greetings based on reputations, make custom compliments based on what we've done, give us faster rested XP generation, give us something other than a rep vendor with garbage. You see that Jaw up there? That's Deathwing the Destroyer's Jaw and the best you can do is a god damn satchel, a table rag to put on my back and antiquated mounts?

I'm the man who's gonna burn their house down with lemons if they don't step up their hero worship game outside of the order hall.

[TickTickTick]

I kind of understand their reasoning about the impossibility of Argus being its own expansion. All other expansions had variety in the zones and many different races fighting for survival. Argus, on the other hand, is just a wasteland, a world ravaged by fel energies. Logically it would look like Broken Shore on steroids and it would be very bland and boring. People already complain 7.3 looks like Broken Shore.

So as much as Argus itself is a very important world, it just doesnt serve as expansion idea in similar sense Emerald Dream doesnt. Cant wait for the invasions on different worlds tho. This is where they can go off with their imagination and different looks.

[Snes]

I don't like the idea of travelling to an infinite number of worlds through Legion portals just to kill stuff for the sake of killing it. Sounds like more of a business move to keep WoW on life support instead of a lore-driven move.

Guess we'll never get Warcraft 4.

[TickTickTick]

See, I have a problem with this. For all we've done, for all we've learned and for all we've grown a reputation with we're still tasked with delivering mail and killing boars. The only place we're relevant to our accomplishments is what's shown on our armory and to other players otherwise the game treats us as if we're the same players who rolled in to a town or city at level 1. The Demon Hunter's Order Hall NPCs are like "I've sacrificed much, what have you given" (or to some effect as that) and it's like.... what the hell?

If you're going to make me a hero or a champion, I damnwell deserve the luxuries of such. Make custom greetings based on reputations, make custom compliments based on what we've done, give us faster rested XP generation, give us something other than a rep vendor with garbage. You see that Jaw up there? That's Deathwing the Destroyer's Jaw and the best you can do is a god damn satchel and a table rag to put on my back?

I'm the man who's gonna burn their house down with lemons if they don't step up their hero worship game.

Well, you should also remember you are the one (in lore) to assist in collecting the Pillars of Creation. You are the one making contact with Prince Farondis, the one assisting great druidic being in helping Cenarius. You are the one making first contact with ancient Night elf civilisation. We are so important WE are sent to such crucial missions cause important NPC figures trust in our abilities. Of course there is sometimes this silly quest, but you should look at it as a whole, and we accomplished much on the Broken Isles. There are (in lore) also many more easy tasks that get done by avarage footmen that you just dont see.

There cant only be very very important quests to do, cause in such case it creates ridiculous illusion in the world being in terrible terrible danger and us being godlike saviours. We are not. We are just the veterans and defenders of Azeroth that mosly get tasked with important missions. Much more important than a few years ago.

[Villager720]

Logically it would look like Broken Shore on steroids and it would be very bland and boring. People already complain 7.3 looks like Broken Shore.

Hell, I was complaining that the Broken Shore looked my class hall.
Please let us leave behind green/black rocky, wastelands.

[Sulika]

The Demon Hunter's Order Hall NPCs are like "I've sacrificed much, what have you given" (or to some effect as that) and it's like.... what the hell?

And based on what accomplishments should a starting Demon Hunter be worthy of respect? They aren't a storied hero of the age, they are just the poor sap who got locked up along with Illidan and now has to try and make something of the fractious bunch of ex-cons they were locked up with. There is no history of accomplishment there to make them worthy of respect. I'm sure it will come with time but lets face it, at the start of legion as a DH you are basically a nobody.

Picture the scene at the end of Tomb, the DH comes home saying "we did it guys, we beat Kil'Jaeden" and after some snickering in the back someone says "so by we you mean that you, and the bunch of heroes who beat Arthas, Deathwing, Garrosh and all their armies beat Kil'Jaeden, lets face it, they let you tag along out of niceness, they didn't really need you now did they?"

[Triggered Fridgekin]

And based on what accomplishments should a starting Demon Hunter be worthy of respect?

This is more or less what they literally greet you with while being on your Demon Hunter inside the Order Hall. The Order Hall the player is essentially the leader of. It's like a peasant talking shit about a King inside the Keep. :/

- - - Updated - - -

Well, you should also remember you are the one (in lore) to assist in collecting the Pillars of Creation. You are the one making contact with Prince Farondis, the one assisting great druidic being in helping Cenarius. You are the one making first contact with ancient Night elf civilisation. We are so important WE are sent to such crucial missions cause important NPC figures trust in our abilities. Of course there is sometimes this silly quest, but you should look at it as a whole, and we accomplished much on the Broken Isles. There are (in lore) also many more easy tasks that get done by avarage footmen that you just dont see.

There cant only be very very important quests to do, cause in such case it creates ridiculous illusion in the world being in terrible terrible danger and us being godlike saviours. We are not. We are just the veterans and defenders of Azeroth that mosly get tasked with important missions. Much more important than a few years ago.

Let me rephrase it a little. I don't mean every quest should be to bring the head of a Dragonflight or to drop kick a Lich King but recognition being baked in to the game would go a long way to give us the impression that we're these heroes and champions outside of where it's required at that time. We have the quests, sure, that goes without saying as they're there in order to progress a story but the infrastructure simply doesn't cater to these events and titles which is why I drew the comparison between a fresh level 1 character and a esteemed character who has essentially saved Azeroth countless times. I want some instanced horns to blair with a greeting every time I enter the gates of Orgrimmar and I want people to talk about me like they talk about some of the Artifacts. You stand near a Blood Elf with the Felo'melorn and sometimes they're like "omg that's so cool!" much like with Doomhammer and Orcs.

The only place you seem to be revered as a whole is within your order hall and the minimum requirement of NPCs who are hard coded to, more often than not, refer to you as "champion" or "hero" simply because they can't text-to-speech your name as shown in the chat bubbles.

[TickTickTick]

Let me rephrase it a little. I don't mean every quest should be to bring the head of a Dragonflight or to drop kick a Lich King but recognition being baked in to the game would go a long way to give us the impression that we're these heroes and champions outside of where it's required at that time. We have the quests, sure, that goes without saying as they're there in order to progress a story but the infrastructure simply doesn't cater to these events and titles which is why I drew the comparison between a fresh level 1 character and a esteemed character who has essentially saved Azeroth countless times. I want some instanced horns to blair with a greeting every time I enter the gates of Orgrimmar and I want people to talk about me like they talk about some of the Artifacts. You stand near a Blood Elf with the Felo'melorn and sometimes they're like "omg that's so cool!" much like with Doomhammer and Orcs.

The only place you seem to be revered as a whole is within your order hall and the minimum requirement of NPCs who are hard coded to, more often than not, refer to you as "champion" or "hero" simply because they can't text-to-speech your name as shown in the chat bubbles.

IIRC, people in Ashran hubs (as well as Garrison) called you commander etc. The recognition is being able to talk to the important figures themselves, and them reffering to you by your title or name. How many people on Azeroth can talk freely with the Council of Six, let alone get some of their power? Who does Anduinn trust more when he wants YOU to escort him through the streets of Stormwind? Who else is a witness to the message from Turalyon from the Light's Heart? Or Magni communing with Azeroth herself?

There is sooooo much that shows how important we are. You cant just focus on stupid quests or avarage no name npc talking shit to us (which have been a thing since the begining).

[Kaiser499]

I don't like the idea of travelling to an infinite number of worlds through Legion portals just to kill stuff for the sake of killing it. Sounds like more of a business move to keep WoW on life support instead of a lore-driven move.

Guess we'll never get Warcraft 4.

They're working on Warcraft 4, where do you think Dustin Browder got shifted to?

[purebalance]

Players often say they miss being a humble adventurer, rather than being a hero and champion. The story has advanced beyond that. When you are Level 90 or 100, you aren't just a faceless person anymore. You have defeated Onyxia, defeated the Lich King, defeated other great threats to the world, so you are becoming a peer to other heroes like Thrall, Jaina, and Varian. As we get stronger, the threats we face get stronger. At the same time, the team tries to keep in mind relative power scales. When we took on Deathwing, we had the assistance of the dragon aspects to make it a fair fight.

As usual they don't know their own lore. We didn't defeat Onyxia canonically. Varian did.

[oldgeezer]

Sounds like more of a business move to keep WoW on life support instead of a lore-driven move.

Guess we'll never get Warcraft 4.

What does Warcraft 4 have to do with your first sentence?

[Smeller]

There are no plans to increase the item level of items that drop from existing world bosses. World bosses are extensions of raid tiers.

So although they are still world quests every ID they are useless now. Thanks Blizz.

[Babblet]

Argus sounds like Broken Shore with portals .. with no flying.

[Snes]

What does Warcraft 4 have to do with your first sentence?

I'll try to spell it out.
-WoW is a cash cow
-Warcraft 4 can't logistically exist alongside the MMO (in terms of story) - unless it acts a bridge between expansions
-Therefore, as long as they keep WoW going for the money, we'll never get another Warcraft RTS game

[Thetruth1400]

I wish they'd have the balls during one of these interviews when a dev goes "Dungeon participation was a great success because attendance didn't drop off! People love dungeons but before this expansion we always saw a drop off in participation." That they'd call them out and go, "Do you think this is a real success or is it only because you're giving out such high rewards that people continue to do them?"

Slight offense meant to the devs intended because I feel like they've got their heads so far up their participation stat number that they think participation = fun, exciting, and what players want and not "hey, this is the easiest path / least amount of work."

[Deleted]

Pls Blizzard get inspired by that Fan Naxx trailer. It looks like wow had better graphics even though it is using old models (not that the current one doesn't look like a huge upgrade, but it seems like we are missing something other than just high poly models). Lightning and particle effects makes wonders. It feels so dynamic.

[Darkagial]

"Collect a toy, cage helmet, and guitar 2H mace from this event, as well as several achievements." If you can manage to get through it without a bug... which is near impossible. 4 attempts, bugged all 4 times.

[oldgeezer]

I'll try to spell it out.
-WoW is a cash cow
-Warcraft 4 can't logistically exist alongside the MMO (in terms of story) - unless it acts a bridge between expansions
-Therefore, as long as they keep WoW going for the money, we'll never get another Warcraft RTS game

1) Agree
2) Disagree. Why does a hypothetical WC4 have to act as a bridge between expansions? It can be set at any point in time on (or off) Azeroth.
3) See above. Also, RTS seems to be pretty much over as a genre, South Korean Starcrafters aside.