The Art Department is leaking...

[Deleted]

isle of quel'danas?

yeah...not gonna happen that they're sending us to an isolated TBC island just for an invasion

Or actually, that would make it possibly easier to create the invasions? Since it doesn't affect anything but the isolated island (that doesnt even have flying enabled).

[Enter Name Here]

who would actually bother to take the trip?

on the devs side i think there will be some restrictions preventing them from doing that...

[Senea]

Leveling zones are disconnected like in Cataclysm, although this is meant to be "remedied" by scaling technology. When players get to choose their next zone rather than having it determined for them, they enjoy the exploration more.

I can't see them returning to this formula after the amount of flak Cataclysm received for doing this, scaling or not it makes travelling about at the end game feel disjointed and arduous, portals to every zone removed the 'world' from world of warcraft in my opinion.

Not only that, the Kul Tiras quest armour that was recently discovered clearly shows a new landmass:


And lastly, I find it hard to believe that Blizzard would inform external artists of their core gameplay mechanics for old existing zones.

[Hctaz]

It's all incredibly vague bullshit.

For WoD, they got exactly two things right: That gul'dan features in, and that an old city would be a raid. That's it. That honestly doesn't sound like something someone couldn't just guess and happen to be right about. If a crazy man makes a thousand predictions, at least one of them is bound to come true.


Everything else is too vague (or downright wrong) to be interpolated as being correct.

As for the "well they just changed it before it shipped," are we to believe that the former WoD was supposed to include Medivh as a questgiver, Garithos for some reason, Wrathion in some capacity, Anduin Wrynn "regretting his choices," the involvement of the Dragon Soul, Turalyon and Alleria returning, and something to do with Saurfang. Because NONE of those things happen in WoD.

Yeah we can... I mean do you know how many changes WoD got? The entire idea behind it was changed twice. Originally WoD was going to be Garrosh uniting the mongrel races of Azeroth into a new horde. Centaurs, gnolls, furbolgs, and kobolds would be a part of his new horde. Then they changed it to him getting exiled to Outland and finding a powerful artifact that would allow him to forcefully put the pieces of Outland back together and summon all of the old warlords from the dead as ghosts or some shit to remake the original horde... and then we got WoD. But also WoD was changed as well. Originally we were supposed to come in through some chrono spire thing and stop the construction of the Dark Portal before it was ever made.

Wrathion was supposed to play a huge part in WoD as well as Kairoz but those either got scrapped or just not really put in game. The whole reason that WoD happened was because Wrathion wanted Garrosh to go back in time and remake the old horde. The entire expansion was because of him it was just never clearly explained. Turalyon and Alleria were supposed to return as well. It was talked about but then I guess scrapped for Legion. I mean a lot of shit was scrapped. Also the old city never became a raid either. That was scrapped. So was the old raid becoming a city. Originally in design, Karabor (Black Temple in our time) was supposed to be the main alliance hub city and Shattrath was supposed to be a mid tier raid. Both of those got scrapped but the original leak called them out as existing.

So yeah, I'm down to believe a lot of stuff from this leak was correct but got completely fucking annihilated before release.

[Tharkkun]

You would be right if that was true.

But then there's this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VWGw5itaug - Which are independent contractors, working for Blizzard, on a contract basis for Warcraft.

What does a statue for a collectible have to do with creating in game art through 3rd party contractors? The art is already complete. I'm sure Blizzard licenses 3rd parties for all their store items. The designs aren't created by them and then re-used in the game. This is specifically about leveraging 3rd parties to do artwork for Blizzard which a *lot* of smaller companies do.

[Hctaz]

Again, those are terms that could literally mean anything. Of course they'll fit when you try to put them in context afterwards, but they're like psychics, they're just phrases that could refer to a hundred situations so they can always say they're "right".

I mean... are you sure? If the next expansion was an Azshara/South Seas expansion then literally nothing on that leak would be even vaguely or remotely correct. Azshara would have no father and son and it would definitely have Old God involvement in it as well as having nothing to do with Garad or G's in general. No raids would be cities and no cities would be raids. Like... how do you not see how this is clearly accurate. I mean, take even Legion into account. What father and son stuff do we get? What raids became a new city? I don't think we ever raided fucking Dalaran lol what old city became a raid? None.

[Tharkkun]

It's according to people who do said stuff for Blizz, like models, textures, etc. I posted links to one German studio earlier in this thread, it's easy to find it. There's also Ukrainians who do similar stuff, HotS stuff is outsourced too.

As I said earlier, I'm not exactly sure about WoW, I know how things are internally, how people feel about certain aspects of their work, dunno about outsourcing for WoW though.

-- edit #1

K, you edited your post, regarding hiring and retaining artists. The latter is a huge waste of money, many artists aren't needed all the time, people are getting hired/fired depending on the stage of development of the product, at some point it becomes easier/cheaper to do only important stuff internally and outsource non-critical stuff to contractors who proved themselves to be good enough.

-- edit #2

Should've said "need to know very little about engine" instead of "don't need to know anything".

Some of their other games are yes. There's open job positions for Overwatch for doing their 3D modeling outsource project. But that's mainly for tying artwork into the engine itself. It still doesn't indicate that Wow has ever outsourced their artwork considering there's huge videos showing how they do it internally.

[Vorecien]

Didn't Ragnaros try to burn it down at one point?

He attempted to burn the World Tree, which is located in Mount Hyjal. He did attempt to burn down a tree, though.

shut that down and they'll have no way to get to Darnassus or back

I could see it now...

50 Naga enter the portal
The night elves disable the portal
The night elves kill the 50 naga
The night elves enable the portal

XD It would be too funny.

[MoanaLisa]

I am inclined to not believe OP for one reason alone;

The post originally said it had been deleted twice. Now I know some mods are not the best at their job but never once have I seen a thread get removed for leaking on here. Unless he/she literally doubleposted the same thread and one got removed or something, OP is a liar.

Can mods confirm?

I made a post confirming that we don't generally delete speculation threads unless they are duplicates of others or are clearly trolling. We think they make for good discussion but I would reiterate that framing it as a leak makes half the thread about whether or not it's a leak and you'll get something better by saying up front it's speculation.

Specifically, I can say the OP made the thread three times, we deleted two duplicates and kept the one open that had responses.

[Gadzooks]

Zones and cities are done in-house I believe. Stuff that gets outsourced tends to be smaller things.

They do world-building stuff with their in-house tools, that they developed for that - generally, companies will not allow that stuff to be installed on computers outside of the company. Pixar is the same, with a lot of their in-house stuff - it's only used inside the company. I agree, that if they're outsourcing (I believe this started being commented on in WoD, the art department was allegedly backed up), it's for props and such - you don't need the game engine to build tables and chairs and bushes and lightposts.
I doubt, if they're outsourcing, that the contractors get much in the way of code, otherwise we'd see the 3D models being leaked, and textures, and the tools needed to place them in the game world. All they need is Maya and Photoshop to make a table for the game. Look at any capital city in the game - all those doo-dads have to be made by someone, and outsourcing that isn't giving away any Blizzard Secrets™.

[Kaleredar]

Yeah we can... I mean do you know how many changes WoD got? The entire idea behind it was changed twice. Originally WoD was going to be Garrosh uniting the mongrel races of Azeroth into a new horde. Centaurs, gnolls, furbolgs, and kobolds would be a part of his new horde. Then they changed it to him getting exiled to Outland and finding a powerful artifact that would allow him to forcefully put the pieces of Outland back together and summon all of the old warlords from the dead as ghosts or some shit to remake the original horde... and then we got WoD. But also WoD was changed as well. Originally we were supposed to come in through some chrono spire thing and stop the construction of the Dark Portal before it was ever made.

Wrathion was supposed to play a huge part in WoD as well as Kairoz but those either got scrapped or just not really put in game. The whole reason that WoD happened was because Wrathion wanted Garrosh to go back in time and remake the old horde. The entire expansion was because of him it was just never clearly explained. Turalyon and Alleria were supposed to return as well. It was talked about but then I guess scrapped for Legion. I mean a lot of shit was scrapped. Also the old city never became a raid either. That was scrapped. So was the old raid becoming a city. Originally in design, Karabor (Black Temple in our time) was supposed to be the main alliance hub city and Shattrath was supposed to be a mid tier raid. Both of those got scrapped but the original leak called them out as existing.

So yeah, I'm down to believe a lot of stuff from this leak was correct but got completely fucking annihilated before release.

Where in the hell did you hear that? The only part of that I see is that "we were supposed to go to Outland and resurrect old warlords" on WoWpedia, but it cites a source that doesn't actually say that anywhere.

You're cherry picking what you want to see, which is how "future-telling" things like this are written. Are you asserting that this guy "leaked" the three different versions of WoD you claim existed, all at once, even though only one could be true, and it just so happens that the true version is almost completely not there, and that we should chalk all the wrong things up to "well that's just the version of WoD we didn't ever hear or know anything about!"

Yeah, I'm going to claim they were just making things up and got lucky with a few details.

I was talking about outsourcing in general, that it's not that impossible that some parts are outsourced, not the world itself though. Way too many people think that Blizz NEVER outsource anything, which is false.

As I said, I've seen nothing verifiable indicating that Blizz outsources WoW assets.

[Alydael]

Darnassus isn't particularly vulnerable. There's only 2 ways in, through the air and through that one portal in the harbor.

Yeah, I always considered Darn pretty solid from a defensive point of view. The naga are underwater creatures though, so they can just come through the sea (the harbor you mentioned).

I don't consider them "vunerable" though.

I would hit Exodar, since it was just invaded by demons and all.

- - - Updated - - -

With those contracts come nda's. So this post is mossy likely bs.

I am not saying I believe this, but just how would blizzard track who broke the nda on this?

The OP claims it is a friend who is working for Blizz. You don't have any real info about the OP or the person he/she is talking about.

Seems if you are going to break the nda, that was a pretty safe way to do it.

I also think that Blizz doesn't care so much that some info is leaking out........ It generates some excitement and talk about the new x pac.

[Gourmandise]

If I listened to the internet, every department at Blizz HQ apparently leaked every expansion.

[MoanaLisa]

As I said, I've seen nothing verifiable indicating that Blizz outsources WoW assets.

You could start with this:

https://www.glassdoor.com/job-listin...?jl=2410185413

They have an outsourcing team for their art. Took about five seconds to find that with Google. Exactly what all they outsource is anyone's guess but it's not a secret that they do some of this. Just read the job description.

That said, I think this thread is pretty much nonsense.

[CosmicGuitars]

As I said, I've seen nothing verifiable indicating that Blizz outsources WoW assets.

It's pretty common knowledge?

Armand Serrano, for example, is the guy who did the majority of the art direction and visual development on Highmountain and the Spires of Arak. He's a Disney artist who works on contract for other companies like Blizzard. He's outsourced talent.

http://armandserrano.tumblr.com/post...e-new-world-of

http://armandserrano.tumblr.com/post...ow-warlords-of

https://www.armandserrano.com/

[Kaleredar]

You could start with this:

https://www.glassdoor.com/job-listin...?jl=2410185413

They have an outsourcing team for their art. Took about five seconds to find that with Google. Exactly what all they outsource is anyone's guess but it's not a secret that they do some of this. Just read the job description.

That said, I think this thread is pretty much nonsense.

I specified WoW assets; that job does not specify any specific Blizzard property.

It's pretty common knowledge?

Armand Serrano, for example, is the guy who did the majority of the art direction and visual development on Highmountain and the Spires of Arak. He's a Disney artist who works on contract for other companies like Blizzard. He's outsourced talent.

http://armandserrano.tumblr.com/post...e-new-world-of

http://armandserrano.tumblr.com/post...ow-warlords-of

https://www.armandserrano.com/

That's vis dev, not modeling.

[CosmicGuitars]

I specified WoW assets; that job does not specify any specific Blizzard property.



That's vis dev, not modeling.

Okay. Here's a team that Blizzard outsources the modeling of Overwatch skins and weapons to.

https://www.artstation.com/artist/airbornstudios

https://www.artstation.com/artist/ai...s/albums/27636

Like, I don't know how much you need as evidence this is a thing Blizzard absolutely does.

[Kaleredar]

Okay. Here's a team that Blizzard outsources the modeling of Overwatch skins and weapons to.

https://www.artstation.com/artist/airbornstudios

https://www.artstation.com/artist/ai...s/albums/27636

Like, I don't know how much you need as evidence this is a thing Blizzard absolutely does.

I'm referring to the MODELING of WORLD OF WARCRAFT assets. Which is what the OP said "their friend did."

So far I've seen people saying Blizzard outsources models for Overwatch and some vis dev work for World of Warcraft.

That does not refute what I said.

[Shakou]

Yeah right , one of biggest (if not THE biggest ) video game company out source their main art/3D project and totally give all the information about every zone to some random artist out of company

You do realize that much larger companies such as Lucasfilm have this exact problem right? They do not hire some guy to draw a thing and only that thing that they are told to with no information given to them while they work in a separate cubical and never see or hear of anything else under development for said project. That's not how any of this works at all.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm referring to the MODELING of WORLD OF WARCRAFT assets. Which is what the OP said "their friend did."

So far I've seen people saying Blizzard outsources models for Overwatch and some vis dev work for World of Warcraft.

That does not refute what I said.

What you specified is that you have no idea how any of this works at all on even a rudimentary level.

I'm not saying I believe the OP either, but it's not even kind of sort outlandish at all. This kind of thing happens all the time actually.

If anything, it would be pretty god damn weird to have all this set up (again) for the Naga, and then completely ignore them. Seems like a no brainer that this would be the direction they're going in, and there are multiple independent sources reporting the same kind of things so, not a huge stretch of the imagination.

There's being a skeptic, and then there's being a pseudo-skeptic, who just denies anything they don't agree with regardless of if they have any expertise on the topic or not and without any valid reasoning behind it.

[Destinas]

I don't believe this for many reasons. Chief among them is that Undermine is supposedly a Horde city in this "leak". The entire premise of the Undermine is that it's the capital of all the Goblin cartels, including mostly neutral ones like Steamwheedle. It's a trade city to capitalize on all of the races and nations of Azeroth. It would be horrible writing (and a big retcon) if Undermine was ever made a Horde-only area - especially because the Bilgewater had their own port on Kezan, and they were neutral until the events in Cataclysm as well.

Speaking of Kezan, why would there be huge predators there? We've seen it. It's entirely covered in garbage and pollution. Since the Undermine is, you know, under Kezan, it would stand to reason that the most industrialized island in all of Azeroth wouldn't have many predators like the Lost Isles.