Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria Q&A

[Black Rider]

Yay some new infos here! Thansk for gathering them to Curll from scrollsoflore

Blizzard Taiwan and Blizzard China just release few more answers for our questions. Some of them are pretty interesting. Some of them are just trying to sooth the petty bickering of class balance. I translate those information that you might be interested and update them below.



Blizzard China

11/22
http://www.battlenet.com.cn/wow/zh/f...pic/4064917032

12/9
http://www.battlenet.com.cn/wow/zh/f...pic/4217072500

1/6
http://www.battlenet.com.cn/wow/zh/f...pic/4527003137

1/31
http://www.battlenet.com.cn/wow/zh/f...pic/4771687292

2/1
http://www.battlenet.com.cn/wow/zh/f...pic/4771857287

2/10
http://www.battlenet.com.cn/wow/zh/f...pic/4771938940

2/23
http://www.battlenet.com.cn/wow/zh/f...pic/4871928333


Blizzard Taiwan

11/18
http://tw.battle.net/wow/zh/forum/topic/413481386

11/24
http://tw.battle.net/wow/zh/forum/topic/413721475

12/23
http://tw.battle.net/wow/zh/forum/topic/432333251

2/1
http://tw.battle.net/wow/zh/forum/topic/450865102

2/15
http://tw.battle.net/wow/zh/forum/topic/457595783



Q:
There are less bosses and dungeons in Cataclysm. Why?

A:
We don't expect 4.3 will last a full year. And counting the amount of the bosses of an expansion is irrelevant. We only decide what best suits the content we are going to release. And besides, now we have 3 difficulties to make for each raid dungeon. It will take much more time for us to design them.

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Q:
Do you plan to add back the already-removed dungeons such as level 60 Naxxramas and level 60 Zul'Gurub through the Caverns of Time?

A:
No. We would only add gear with similar looking appearances to gear that originally dropped in these dungeon raids through the Darkmoon Faire.

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Q:
Are the Stormrage family some kinds of high ranking people or Highborne among ancient nigh elf society?

A:
No. They were just normal citizens back in 10,000 years ago.

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Q:
Are the night elves really evolved from the trolls? I can't believe it.

A:
Sadly yes. This is a fantasy world. You cannot apply the rules of reality.

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Q:
The Burning Legion and the Old Gods have been portrayed as main antagonists in game for a very long time. So would they be tied in to Mists of Pandaria? And what's the main antagonist of Mists of Pandaria?

A:
We will focus on the mortals, on the faction leaders and the conflicts between the Alliance and the Horde. We want to create the ambiance of war and rivalry. We want to bring back what was in the beginning of Warcraft: Orcs And Humans.

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Q:
The clock tower of Stormwind had been destroyed by Deathwing. How come we can still hear the bell rings from the tower?

A:
It's a bug, technically. The sound effect of the clock tower has never been removed.

-----------------

Q:
Can we get high level endgame gear from Scenario instances?

A:
Scenario instances will provide the players some valor points, as we mentioned before. The system is still under development.


Q:
Are you planning to revamp Outland and Northrend?

A:
We currently have no such plan. We do want to fix the timeline issue in Outland and Northrend, but they are not on the top list of our work sheet now. And actually you can see some dungeon quests have been updated in 4.3.

-----------------

Q:
The quests in Cataclysm are too linear, how are you going to address them in future?

A:
We try to focus the story on the main plot. The quests in Mists of Pandaria will tell a very strong story that stirs the core of Warcraft. There are going to be different storylines in different zones, yet they will converge toward the same end. Every zone might have a unique achievement for the main plot of that zone and several linear but parallel stories. Also we are trying to fix the phase problems. We tend to build the environment with the phase mechanism like Molten Front so that the players can still see each other even if they are in different phases.

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Q:
Can pandaren return to the Wandering Isle after completing their starting quests?

A:
It will be like the old Gilneas and Kezan, the pandaren will not be able to return to their starting zone. But in a future patch, we might probably revisit the Wandering Isle via PVE scenario.

-----------------

Q:
Since in Mists of Pandaria, there’s no world PVP zone like Tol Barad or Lake Wintergrasp, then how are you going to enhance the world PVP activities?

A:
We are trying to figure out some other ways. For example, let the players to seize the enemy’s territory, or kill the enemy’s leader. And if they made it, they would be able to increase the upper limit of the conquest points that week. And of course, we are going to add more PVP objectives in Mists of Pandaria as well.

-----------------

Q:
How do pandaren communicate with other people during level 1-10?

A:
Their starting zone is smaller than goblins’ and worgen’s. We might decide to let the pandarens unable to communicate with any other players in other races until they choose a faction to join.

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Q:
People love Fangs of the Father. Yet the non-rogue players are confused as to why don’t you make the legendary weapons like the last few ones to be accessible for more classes, not just limit to a single one only?

A:
Story wise, only the rogues fit such cool, awesome, and extra-ordinary quests. Also from the perspective of class balance, we feel that it’s proper to boost their damage. We don’t want legendary weapons to become too uniform. It doesn’t matter that if an item is limited to a single class or not. What matters is if we feel it is right and cool, we will make it real.

-----------------

Q:
For those players who prefer to solo, any plan to give them some new objectives and challenges?

A:
Yes. We will add more content that would be solo-able. It’s just like what Dave Kosak mentioned before, there will be more places similar to Molten Front in Pandaria, and more solo quests to help you gain reputation with certain factions.

-----------------

Q:
What’s your plan for archaeology? Many people feel that there are too few antiques!

A:
We might add a couple of new race categories to archaeology in Mists of Pandaria.

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Q:
There are many storylines that are never shown in game, like the duel between Cairne Bloodhoof and Garrosh Hellscream. Can we see more novel plots in game?

A:
We hope to let the essential storyline progress with the main game plot, and let the players with more interest in lore to read detailed background stories from the books.

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Q:
Some players say Cataclysm sucks when compared to the previous two expansion sets because Illidan and Arthas are the symbolic characters of Warcraft. Now, it seems that Mists of Pandaria fails even more since it disconnect with the main story of Warcraft(The Burning Legion, the Old Gods). If you are going to keep the players’ heart, how are you going to tell the story and shape the characters we know?

A:
Mists of Pandaria is the perfect chance to tell the story of wars and conflicts. We are going to highlight the topic of Horde VS Alliance. This, is the truest color of Warcraft, where we started to tell a story of the wars between the orcs and the humans when we first released the franchise.

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Q:
Please build an ingame archive so that the lore fans can enjoy the game. Give people who treat lore seriously some rewards!

A:
To pay back the lore fans’ support, we plan to add a faction called “The Lorewalkers.” The quests given by them will require the players to collect the historical items around the world, and bring back the precious knowledge to the Lorewalkers to help them establish and expand their history archive. You might even be able to become part of the history! But know that this faction will not give you any high level gears. We believe the story itself is the best reward.

-----------------

Q:
In Mists of Pandaria, if I am going to change my character into a pandaren, it would be race change or faction change?

A:
Race change.

-----------------

Q:
Any plan to give guild more levels and perks?

A:
There will be more new guild levels in Mists of Pandaria, and of course, whole new perks.

-----------------

Q:
When will you release Velen’s short story? Cataclysm is coming to an end already!

A:
Soon.

-----------------

Q:
Will Cataclysm revamped stories be followed up on in Mists of Pandaria, such as the fate of Ashenvale, Feralas and its army, and many other points?

A:
No. The timeline of level 1-60 zones will stay in the time of Cataclysm. And when you enter the zones that require higher than 85, Deathwing is already dead in their time. The story of Mists of Pandaria will set roughly 1 year after Cataclysm.

-----------------

Q:
When will you update the Mists of Pandaria talent calculator?

A:
Before we enter alpha test, there will be no update. It’s quite meaningless to update it right now.

-----------------

Q:
Plan to add any new symbols for the guild tabard?

A:
Not right now. We might do it when we have time.

-----------------

Q:
Some astute fans have noticed that the human male models shown during certain panels at Blizzcon and the model used in the recent Chuck Norris TV spot are significantly different from the current human male model. Does this mean you are planning on updating the player models at some point in the near future?

A:
The model in the TV spot is specially made. It doesn’t mean it will be the same when we are going to update the models. And to answer your question, yes, we are currently working on the new old-race models. But we aren’t quite sure if they will be ready during Mists of Pandaria’s launch.

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Q:
How’s your test about letting players raid a dungeon twice a week?

A:
We decide not to implement it in the future raids. LFR is the ultimate solution to only few players can access the high end content.

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Q:
Are the 5 men dungeons in Mists of Pandaria going to drop epic loot?

A:
For now, we plan to let them drop rare gears only. And LFR will be the way for players to obtain the first tier of epic gears.

-----------------

Q:
Regarding account-wide achievements in the future, players are wondering how this will work for those achievements that grant titles, mounts or pets. For examples, would it be possible to see level 3 characters with the “Kingslayer”-title in the future, or do we consider restricting specific rewards in any way?

A:
We’re still working out how to handle some of these special cases.

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Q:
Would we ever consider restricting team make up according to class role to make arenas easier to balance? I.E. Force 3s to be 2 dps/1 healer.

A:
Probably not, while we do like to primarily see two DPS with one healer, triple-DPS combos are fun so long as they aren’t too dominant.

-----------------

Q:
The Council of Three Hammers story had/has incredible potential yet it was hardly touched on in Cataclysm. Are there any plans to go deeper within this story in game or in the form of a comic or book?

A:
It’s hard to work some of these things in the game, particularly when the story heavily revolves around politics. There wasn’t a lot of action with the politics of the Three Hammers to incorporate into gameplay. That said, we’re definitely trying to cover a bit more of the Alliance politics in a compelling way in Mists of Pandaria, as we did a lot of this with the Horde in Cataclysm.


Q:
In Halls of Stone, the titanic computer mentioned some information regarding curse of flesh. It somehow implied that the Titans had at least visited Azeroth twice in the past. And the first time was even earlier than the reign of Old Gods. But in some other ingame documents, Old Gods were said to have arrived on Azeroth before the Titans. These two official lore arguments have conflicted with each other, which one is true?

A:
We always try to make sure the words of the Titans are vague, and sometimes even misleading. And about the truth, maybe the Titans don't think the time is right to reveal it.

-----------------

Q:
In The Burning Crusade, Heart of Fury and Spirit's Song had been returned to Velen. So where are the rest of other 5 ata'mal crystals? Do you have any plan to develop the story behind these crystals more?

A:
We have no such plan to continue the story of ata'mal crystals in Mists of Pandaria. If someday we decide to revamp the Outland, we might talk more about it.

-----------------

Q:
Any plan to give Heart of the Aspects the land walking animation?

A:
We don't have such a plan. Although we did want to add land walking animation before it entered the market. But now since it's one of the virtual product on Blizzard Store, give it any further animation modification might piss off the customers who bought it.

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Q:
What exactly is the player number limit of PVE scenarios?

A:
Technically, it could be unlimited since it's one type of the instances. But we would give each scenario a player limit per run. For example, there might be a 25 men raid scenario. And we agree that the player limit of a scenario must at least have more than 3 people.

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Q:
We like how you nerf Dragon Soul raid with the instance-wide debuff "Power of the Aspects." It decreases the difficulty of the dungeon over time. Would you like to implement such feature in the raid dungeons of Mists of Pandaria? Or you would only use such mechanics in the end raid like Icecrown Citadel and Dragon Soul.

A:
Yes. It's highly possible that we will continue to use such mechanics in Mists of Pandaria. This kinds of nerf is much clearer and simpler than the old hot-nerf of difficulty.

-----------------

Q:
Can you let us queue Baradin Hold through the LFR system? Because we always pug for this raid dungeon.

A:
We have talked about this issue before. But we didn't get a conclusion. Because how you can raid Baradin Hold is depending on if your faction having captured Tol Barad or not. If we want to add it to LFR system, then we would have to redesign the whole Tol Barad.

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Q:
Many players just get the loots from the 3 new dungeons of Hour of Twilight, then skip Blackwing Descent and Throne of the Four Winds, challenging Dragon Soul directly. Why not just use the old The Burning Crusade's dungeon unlocked mode, like making player progressing with the story and dungeons?

A:
We will not return to the old ways. All our surveys show that such forceful progressing way would drive most of the players nuts, and make them give up this game before they could complete the dungeon runs. And it happened mostly during the end phase of an expansion set.

-----------------

Q:
The Alliance army who invaded the Barrens wore the tabard of Theramore. Were they under Jaina Proudmoore's command? And their invasion happened way before the time of the incoming destruction of Theramore incident, so what's the reason behind their attack on Orgrimmar's territory? It seems the Alliance and the Horde were already in total war in Cataclysm.

A:
Because Garrosh wants to defeat the night elves and conquer the whole of Kalimdor under the banner of the Horde. So the humans of Theramore sent their army and tried to establish a military line between the night elf territory and Theramore. But it seems the result is not what they expected.

-----------------

Q:
In the end of Cataclysm, the Dragon Aspects became mortals. But are they still powerful dragons that just lost the blessings of Titans?

A:
Yes. For example, the bronze dragons still can travel between time, but they no longer have control over timelines. And the blue dragons are still powerful mages, but they lost much power in guarding the arcane magic of Azeroth. In the Age of Mortals, the whole flights need to contribute more to what was once the charge of the Aspects.



SOURSE
http://www.scrollsoflore.com/forums/...ad.php?t=21125

[IllidariCouncil]

Pretty interesting stuff here, Thanks for posting

[xskarma]

Very nice, coulpe of interesting things, especially the bit of the Lorewalkers. That sounds like it will be a nice way to spend some down time, traveling the world and doing some light questing while furthering your knowledge of the Lore.

[Resentful]

Thank you OP, a very good read =)

[Forfax]

thanks , im specialily excited about this

Since in Mists of Pandaria, there’s no world PVP zone like Tol Barad or Lake Wintergrasp, then how are you going to enhance the world PVP activities?

A:
We are trying to figure out some other ways. For example, let the players to seize the enemy’s territory, or kill the enemy’s leader. And if they made it, they would be able to increase the upper limit of the conquest points that week. And of course, we are going to add more PVP objectives in Mists of Pandaria as well.

[Chonar]

Lorewalkers

Why he-llo there favorite new faction.

[Thulvaso]

Very interesting read.

Things that really interest me are:

Lorewalkers, this is great as it will provide great insight into Pandaria itself since we have little to go on apart from the limited information at Blizzcon.

PvP/Conquest struggle. This reminds me much of Haala from TBC in Nagrand but it looks like Blizzard is moving it onto a bigger scale.

I had the idea that there will be one central city in Pandaria and the Horde and Alliance have to fight over it by capturing towers etc giving a sense of World PvP back ininto the game.

So far, liking this information

[Zaelsino]

The new models actively being in development already is what grabs me... it's vague about whether they're going to buff up blood elf/draenei ones, though; I'm not sure they count as "old races" yet. Not that I really think those two need it.

Oh, and the Lorewalkers have loads of potential.

[lunchbox2042]

All I read was less pve content because they added easy mode.

[Black Rider]

You welcome guys
Again thanks to Curll from scrollsoflore!
Lorewalkers
<3 this.
Hope they'll have big library! I liked Shen'dallar secret library

[Amethystlyn]

Thank you OP, this is interesting stuff!

[Anjerith]

This Lorewalkers thing appeals to me, yes it does.

[Deleted]

Very nice read.
Lorewalkers would make me reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaal happy, that's for sure :P

[Falrinn]

I'm glad they confirmed the bit about the aspects.

I already suspected that was the case, but there were people who were acting as though the mere existence of Murozond was a plot hole. This also explains why, with Nozdormu's magic, we were able to screw with time in ways Murozond couldn't counter even though he would of known we were going to use it.

[discoepfeand]

Thanks much for the work you put into this.

[Miralynn]

Thanks for posting this, OP!

Now I'm intrigued, I am _really_ looking forward to Lorewalkers faction as something fun to do during my downtime.

[Flutterguy]

Lorewalkers.

Fak. I will not be able to resist mastering this faction asap.

[Breccia]

Q:
In the end of Cataclysm, the Dragon Aspects became mortals. But are they still powerful dragons that just lost the blessings of Titans?

A:
Yes. For example, the bronze dragons still can travel between time, but they no longer have control over timelines. And the blue dragons are still powerful mages, but they lost much power in guarding the arcane magic of Azeroth. In the Age of Mortals, the whole flights need to contribute more to what was once the charge of the Aspects.

Fun with timelines. So, if Nozdormu is no longer capable of controlling timelines, does that mean he will never become Murozond?

[Chonar]

Fun with timelines. So, if Nozdormu is no longer capable of controlling timelines, does that mean he will never become Murozond?

End Time will remain an offshoot timeline that WOULD HAVE happened if we had NOT defeated Deathwing.
Right now, Noz's future is uncertain.

[Skulli]

Q:
Many players just get the loots from the 3 new dungeons of Hour of Twilight, then skip Blackwing Descent and Throne of the Four Winds, challenging Dragon Soul directly. Why not just use the old The Burning Crusade's dungeon unlocked mode, like making player progressing with the story and dungeons?

A:
We will not return to the old ways. All our surveys show that such forceful progressing way would drive most of the players nuts, and make them give up this game before they could complete the dungeon runs. And it happened mostly during the end phase of an expansion set.

Important part here. Guess thats confirms that Blizz wont go that route again. Some people will like it and some not. I am sad to see that development but now we know it wont come back.