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  1. #1

    Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona.de
    Gamona.de had the chance to interview J. Allen Brack (Production Director) and Tom Chilton (aka. Kalgan, Lead Game Designer) and ask a few questions about Wrath of the Lich King. The most interesting parts of the interview are :
    • Premades characters level 80 will be made available near the end of the beta testing process. Whether it will be done on a new server or on the existing beta servers isn't decided yet.
    • The next beta build will most likely feature new level 80 dungeons and remove the level cap.
    • In the current state of WotLK beta testing, the retribution paladin is doing a lot more damage than expected and will most likely be nerfed.
    • Naxxramas mechanics changes to suit 25 players raid include a new version of the Four Horsemen allowing non-tanking classes to tank some of the bosses.

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    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    How is the beta going ? Is everything alright ?
    T.C. - Things are definitely going very well, we've got a lot of very good feedbacks through the beta process. We've been making a lot of changes and improvements based on the feedback but overall it's coming along very well.

    The beta servers have been very unstable in the last days, is there any improvement ?
    J.A.B - We've got our server team who is looking into all problems, the point of our beta process is to actually figure out what problems we have and get them all fixed before we do the big release.

    Is there any plan to open more beta realms ?
    T.C. - We do actually have plans to start up a realm that has premade characters at level 80, the reason being that we're going to want to give players another opportunity to test some of the end game content without having to go through the leveling process. We can probably do that near the end of the beta process but it might be on a different server, this isn't decided for sure.

    When do you plan to open more instances and rise the level cap to level 80 ?
    T.C. - Each time we do another patch on the beta we try to open up new content for the players. [...] I don't know if we'll be able to patch this week while we're being here in Europe but that should be coming very soon.
    J.A.B - For each patch we try to evaluate how much content do we have, is it time to give players the chance to open that up ? We're talking internally about when it is time to rise us up to level 80 but we're getting close.

    Why didn't you separate PvE from PvP more?
    T.C. - We made that decision because prior to The Burning Crusade, what we found as people increase their gear they die quicker because PvE gear is specialized gear. For DPS classes as an example it is designed to do the most damage as possible in the shortest time as possible and it does not have a lot of survivability. If that's the best gear players have available, then what happens is they take that into PvP is that they die very quickly and there's not much time for their strategies to evolve. What we've found is that in PvP we had to create gear with balanced offensive capability and survivability and because of that we had to create this separate set of gear with the new stat called resilience to make sure fights lasted long enough so that they are interesting and have depth. [...] Well, certainly something that we want to do for Litch king is better crossover so that when you're doing PvE you are actually able to accumulate some PvP gear in case you decide to try out some PvP you'll have a good
    starting point. The same would go in reverse, if you're doing a lot of PvP, you might have a couple of really good items that you could use into PvE and do pretty well.

    What about the paladin, is there any plans to nerf the DPS Paladin's damage from what it is on beta servers now?
    T.C. - We are just now beginning on going through the heavy tuning phase, we really don't do that until the end of the beta generally, where we start going through all of the classes and finding the things that are way out of balance and there's no doubt right now that the ret paladins are doing a lot more damage than what we would expect.

    Are you satisfied with how the death knight is going?
    T.C. - Yeah, the death knight has been coming along very well, we've been getting a lot of good feedback from it, people seem to like the class, they seem to enjoy the starting experience very much, we really kind of put our heart into the death knight class, hopefully that's going to pan out.

    What talent tree do you prefer on the death knights?
    T.C. - Personally, I really enjoy the frost talents, but I believe all three trees are very strong, they all definitely all have a strong role to play.

    What else do you plan? Are there any more instances coming?
    T.C. - Well, certainly, there are a lot more instances we plan to release, CoT: Strath instance, Ulduar, a handful that we are play testing internally that are pretty much ready for players to see, should be one of the patches that come out any time now [...] but it should be rolling out there very quickly.

    All the instances were very well designed, however, I consider it unfortunate that say, Azjol-Nerub only has three bosses, its very short.
    T.C. - Most players would consider that a fortunate thing, we've been getting a lot of feedback in the past that some of the instances were taking too long, so we're going for the middle ground here, we want to have some diversity between the instances too, there are a lot of players that miss the old big dungeon crawls, like BRD, etc. We want to find ways to deliver that too, but ultimately I think the core experience is that players should be able to get through an instance in less than an hour. Its something that we're trying to be very conscious about in Wrath, unlike in Burning Crusade when we had the heroic instances, those take a very long time to get through, 3 hours, 4 hours, 5 hours depending on your quality of gear. We're trying to make sure when Litch King comes out that when you do the heroic instances, it doesn't take as much time going through it as you did before.

    But, we need the epic feeling from the Blackrock Depths too.
    T.C. - We're trying to capture that too as much as possible.

    How do you plan to balance the 10 and 25 man raid instances? Are there any changes in boss design?
    T.C. - There definitely are changes in boss design, for example, not only do we have to have changes in boss design even to get it down to 25 from the way Naxx used to work, certainly in the past at level 60, the four horseman boss took eight different tanks for instance. There definitely has been design change, but the integrity of the encounter remains the same, you still have the four horsemen, they all are still there. The mechanics of the fight are different, you will tank them in different ways, the horsemen will be tanked by different classes, even non tanking classes, kinda like what we have done in the past with warlocks tanking. We have some mechanics like that in place so that we can maintain the integrity of the encounters even though the actual mechanics will be different.

    Will Naxx still be one instance?
    T.C. - It is still a single instance, it still has that epic feel.

    When will Wrath be released?
    T.C. - When its ready. Specifically, the fifth of when it's ready.

  2. #2

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    First
    any why Kalgan? he nerfs locks to much.

    But off that Naxx sounds likes its comming along good. Maybe mage and warlock tank there just like Gruul, SSC, BT etc.

  3. #3
    Blademaster
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    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Remember, remember, the fifth of November!

  4. #4

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Can we get a interviewer who speaks English well ?

  5. #5

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Quote Originally Posted by Jordaeh
    Remember, remember, the fifth of November!
    Lawl nice, be funny IF that was the date when it was released. And protein i totally agree with you, i couldnt understand some of the questions and i had to replay it a few times

  6. #6

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Why does it seem so many raiders think along the lines of longer and more painstaking is better? Its like with gearing. Raiders hate on welfare epics because they aren't as painstaking to acquire as raid gear. But even with this interview you get the sense from the interviewer that he's a raider, and would prefer the 3, 4, 5 hour long dungeon crawls.

    Honestly why do so many raiders tend to think along these painstaking lines of gameplay? Why can't something be 1 hour, or even 1/2 hour? Why can't there be 20 of them broken up into smaller time segments instead of a 2, 3, etc. hour straight just to get through it? I don't get it.

    Is the accomplishment just how much time you've sunk into something period? ???

  7. #7

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Quote Originally Posted by protein
    Can we get a interviewer who speaks English well ?
    Yeah, god forbid that a non-native English speaker would do his best to produce an informative interview.

    I'm sure you can understand what he's saying, so stop being such an arrogant twit.

  8. #8

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Wonder if the premades will be a da capo of 2.4.3 in EU ???

  9. #9

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Quote Originally Posted by Poke
    Why does it seem so many raiders think along the lines of longer and more painstaking is better? Its like with gearing. Raiders hate on welfare epics because they aren't as painstaking to acquire as raid gear. But even with this interview you get the sense from the interviewer that he's a raider, and would prefer the 3, 4, 5 hour long dungeon crawls.

    Honestly why do so many raiders tend to think along these painstaking lines of gameplay? Why can't something be 1 hour, or even 1/2 hour? Why can't there be 20 of them broken up into smaller time segments instead of a 2, 3, etc. hour straight just to get through it? I don't get it.

    Is the accomplishment just how much time you've sunk into something period? ???
    I'm a raider and i think i can answer for most of us that the reason why we like longer raids is...



    ...



    ...


    BETTER CONTENT! If its longer it means theres better gear, its more fun, you get to know your raid memebers more and its, again, better content. Take BT and SWP for example: they have great gear and their fun because there long. I dont want heroics to lasts hours though, but raids yes. Because raids are meant to be done with a guild and friends and harder to pug harder content but heroics are easier to pug and should be short. Thats what i at least think

  10. #10

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Well.. long instances just gives more an epic feeling. But it shouldnt be farm instances for badges. It should be very hard with superior gear.
    I even wished there were more timed instances like ZA. So AFK'ers can quit the game cause no1 want them in the group.

    What about items from last boss with stats depending on the time it took to kill him?

    Like a rogue chest with 40 agility min if it take more then average time(1hour?). And every minute faster gives +1 agi. So if you kill it in 56 minutes it should give 44 agility.

    Although while writing this, im thinkin of slackers that makes it hard to get for the non slackers.

  11. #11

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Quote Originally Posted by Poke
    Why does it seem so many raiders think along the lines of longer and more painstaking is better? Its like with gearing. Raiders hate on welfare epics because they aren't as painstaking to acquire as raid gear. But even with this interview you get the sense from the interviewer that he's a raider, and would prefer the 3, 4, 5 hour long dungeon crawls.

    Honestly why do so many raiders tend to think along these painstaking lines of gameplay? Why can't something be 1 hour, or even 1/2 hour? Why can't there be 20 of them broken up into smaller time segments instead of a 2, 3, etc. hour straight just to get through it? I don't get it.

    Is the accomplishment just how much time you've sunk into something period? ???
    Invading a dwarven city underneath a volcano has an epic scale to it, running into the basement of hellfire citadel and killing a single boss does not.

  12. #12

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    5th December.

  13. #13

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    I hope they do realize that the current pvp gear is way to good in pve.

  14. #14

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Seriously, does anyone else think Tom Chilton looks like a skinny version of Dr. Evil?


    [size=14pt]Read the: Paladin - Frequently Asked Questions[/size]

  15. #15

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

    What about the paladin, is there any plans to nerf the DPS Paladin's damage from what it is on beta servers now?
    T.C. - We are just now beginning on going through the heavy tuning phase, we really don't do that until the end of the beta generally, where we start going through all of the classes and finding the things that are way out of balance and there's no doubt right now that the ret paladins are doing a lot more damage than what we would expect.
    OK, sure. I can see nerfing Art of War to take care of the 20k JoComm crits on stunned targets, but they already did that. Why lower our DPS more, is it that great? I guess I get to make a death knight and get all the toys I ever wanted as a Ret paladin, just covered in The Crow makeup. Oh well.

  16. #16

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
    T.C. - When its ready. Specifically, the fifth of when it's ready.
    Whooo, hes certainly funny isnt he -_- lol
    Just get it done already.

  17. #17

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Quote Originally Posted by Rockeroad
    Lawl nice, be funny IF that was the date when it was released. And protein i totally agree with you, i couldnt understand some of the questions and i had to replay it a few times

    It honestly wouldn't surprise me actually. When I went down to preorder my copy of WotLK's collector's edition at the local EB (er, "Gamestop" now I guess...), their computers had it slated for November 4th. And while they obviously don't have some magic connection with the game developers to get inside scoops on release dates, hearing the "fifth of when it's done" line puts a bit more emphasis on the fact that they could have gotten it correct.

  18. #18

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Quote Originally Posted by Wymorence

    It honestly wouldn't surprise me actually. When I went down to preorder my copy of WotLK's collector's edition at the local EB (er, "Gamestop" now I guess...), their computers had it slated for November 4th. And while they obviously don't have some magic connection with the game developers to get inside scoops on release dates, hearing the "fifth of when it's done" line puts a bit more emphasis on the fact that they could have gotten it correct.
    Yup all makes since now...They have planned this all along :P. Joking aside i just hope they finalize the talents soon and release in a patch so we can mess around with them on live. Be so much fun!

  19. #19

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    The fifth of when its ready... wow.. does that mean they are releasing it in 5 parts?!
    It's just a game.

  20. #20

    Re: Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brack interview on Gamona

    Tom Chilton looks like a douche bag.

    LEAVE MAH PALLIE ALONE you bald goon.
    Face Tomorrow - Overpowered http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YH6E5aOTgc I am overpowered...

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