Dev Interviews, PTR Class Balance, OpenRaid Events, Curse is Hiring, The Daily Blink

[Staticus]

Damn, I thought I was the only one who got that idea :-/

Nope, I think it's that too...either challenge-mode-scaled old raids or dungeons with matching achievs and vanity stuff. (it takes little effort to implement and it's recycled old content dressed up as new content, fits the bill perfectly doesn't it?)

[SadWarrior]

..and now, 'de fag be da Warchief of da HORDE?! I SPIT on da' Horde! I hate you, I hate you all... But I got a surprise for ya' now, muahahaha MUAHAHAHA WHAHAHAHA...

[Jinna]

Probably challenge modes for older dungeons/raids what with the "lots of new stuff to do."

Something that would be easily work-on-able in the background as they work on other patches, as it's just number tuning.

That's not what they said though. It may end up being the case, but then they should have said "lots of old stuff to do, again".

[ttak82]

The unannounced feature will most likely be gear/level downscaling for older dungeons/raids, so that you can still have a challenge while doing them, and as a reward for doing it this way you'll get some form of level-appropriate reward, such as a ilvl 496 item at the end boss.
If you rather want to do the old version, you don't get the current rewards of course.
Can't think of any downsides to that.

This could be the unannounced feature, except that i feel instead of raids it would be for quest zones to play with friends, similar to the blue post about low level DKs (cant remember the link to the post.)

I t could also be scaled bgs like AV / TB / WG based on existing quest zones , each being a 40 player scenario with 2 factions

Another Idea off the top of my head: some kind of hardcore server where quest mobs hit like trucks and your character gets deleted when you die (similar to diablo 3) Characters on that server will be either separate.

[Merawen]

Downscaling for old Raids/5 mans/Quest Zones?

[Hikashuri]

The unannounced feature will most likely be gear/level downscaling for older dungeons/raids, so that you can still have a challenge while doing them, and as a reward for doing it this way you'll get some form of level-appropriate reward, such as a ilvl 496 item at the end boss.
If you rather want to do the old version, you don't get the current rewards of course.
Can't think of any downsides to that.

It's the other way around. Bosses will scale up to the level you are currently at or your raid is at. Same technique they'll or use for bgs where a lvl 17 will be upscaled to lvl 19 (level and gear) something like that. Scaling down gear levels and player levels wouldn't make it more challenging because you'll retain those lvl 90 abilities that make content considerately easier. Simular to what they do in challenge modes, scaling the bosses upwards and gear downwards.

[SirMeo]

At the moment this seems like a cool idea. Then again, almost everything Blizzard implements seems to backfire at some point. I can imagine people complaining about the new stuff the "are forced" to do. My only hope is that it provides rewards with more cosmetic effects.

You just know the forums would fire up with REHASHED CONTENT!!! rage

[Nephyron]

They should have finished the Blizzard DOTA map we saw months ago here on MMO-C

[Inahu]

For Mists of Pandaria the quest team originally wanted to do a class quest for every class, but it would have taken as much time as doing an entire zone. The choice came down to doing Townlong Steppes or class quests, and the content that everyone could enjoy won. We might see more class quests for just one class at a time in the future.

Personally, I would have preferred they do the class quests. I did Townlong Steppes on one character, and found it so boring that I couldn't be bothered going back there for other characters. This is coming from a player who generally enjoys the questing part of the game. Maybe if they let you unlock flying after you have one level 90, I'd consider going back, but as it is I'm just going to stick to Jade Forest for a little bit, then straight to the dungeon finder til 90. Their attempt to push people to experience the content by disallowing flying has pushed myself and many other players to simply avoid questing altogether.

[Strakha]

Townlong steppes was awful, I would have loved to have had a different experience on each of my alts rather than "Good god, it's that Townlong lazy zone again, where we are doing the same thing every mission, just in a different place."

To me it just sounds like a lazy lazy lazy cop-out. Townlong has never been heard of as some kind of bastion of great story telling or as something that people actually enjoyed for its unique diversity. It was not interesting or very fun.

I'd love to see Blizzard put instead of a survey, a questionairre to the playerbase that asked "Would you rather have seen Townlong Steppes or A unique class quest for every class?" I guarantee almost everyone would vote for #2, even if they didn't know the zone in advance.

[Auxis]

Aren't Mogu titan constructs? If so, then how can they die of old age? surely the Watcher's in Northrend are as old as them, and they seem awfully young and spry.

[UnifiedDivide]

Townlong steppes was awful, I would have loved to have had a different experience on each of my alts rather than "Good god, it's that Townlong lazy zone again, where we are doing the same thing every mission, just in a different place."

To me it just sounds like a lazy lazy lazy cop-out. Townlong has never been heard of as some kind of bastion of great story telling or as something that people actually enjoyed for its unique diversity. It was not interesting or very fun.

I'd love to see Blizzard put instead of a survey, a questionairre to the playerbase that asked "Would you rather have seen Townlong Steppes or A unique class quest for every class?" I guarantee almost everyone would vote for #2, even if they didn't know the zone in advance.

Actually, in this case, I'd have gone with Townlong Steppes.

As initial levelling content, the zone would be much better than a class quest. The class quests would be fine if they came in at level 90 and gave you a useful weapon or something as they used to do.

He even said that just one class quest takes to about the same length of time to do a zone. You can call them lazy all you want but I'm sure they'd have had more complaining and sub losses when Cataclysm lasted even longer because they were doing 11 class quests rather than content everyone could do.

---------- Post added 2013-03-01 at 11:45 AM ----------

Aren't Mogu titan constructs? If so, then how can they die of old age? surely the Watcher's in Northrend are as old as them, and they seem awfully young and spry.

Curse of Flesh? I forget if the Mogu were actually affected by it or not :S

It's the only way they would get old though as it would give them mortal bodies/lives. Otherwise they would all still just be walking talking stone men.

[losmarios]

There is no gating for Normal and Heroic mode, but Raid Finder will open up over a few weeks, starting "a couple weeks" after the patch launch and then opening another every "couple weeks".

I thought it would be week by week. Seems like they want to delay the gearing process a bit.

[Fatos]

Hooah would be nice to battle against Blizzard employees

btw theres Broken link for Creative Director. It redirects to Lead Front End Developer.

[Aberration]

If you would have told me a year ago that Lorthemar would be the warchief I would quit WoW on the spot. After seeing all his character development in this expansion so far, I will be proud to serve under him loyally. Lok'tar Ogar!

---------- Post added 2013-03-01 at 01:17 PM ----------

But of course, I will always want Rexxar for warchief!

[Millennía]

Oh, it's great to throw hardcore raiders a bone like this. Just remember there's no such thing as an "optional" boss to us.
Just don't ask us to nerf it so that you can be a 13/13 guild.

Got a laugh out of this.

Hope the new feature involves scaling gear down to lower dungeons and then just adding better rewards to them to provide an incentive

[Ferrouswheel]

Why do they keep saying we're going back to Azeroth? Do none of the devs actually look at the maps? Pandaria is in Azeroth.

[briktal]

Why do they keep saying we're going back to Azeroth? Do none of the devs actually look at the maps? Pandaria is in Azeroth.

It was the interviewer who said Azeroth in that particular case.

[RyokuchaMidori]

[*]Lor'themar Theron was mentioned as a potential future warchief.

How about some sort of High Council of the Horde, instead of one warchief, Democracy for the Horde, power to the people !

[Granyala]

Draenei lore and story will be revisited at some point in the future hopefully.

A.k.a. Not going to happen, put Draenei story to the dance studio and path of Titans.

The unannounced feature will most likely be gear/level downscaling for older dungeons/raids, so that you can still have a challenge while doing them, and as a reward for doing it this way you'll get some form of level-appropriate reward, such as a ilvl 496 item at the end boss.

As long as it is optional and nor forced I have no problem with it.