Blizzcon 2017 Opening Ceremony Announcements
World of Warcraft – Gameplay and Systems Deep Dive
Azerite
- Gnomes and Goblins will give you maps that lead you to islands with Azerite
- Will take ships from faction hubs to find Azerite
- Denizens of the islands will fight hard to protect Azerite
- Gain Azerite from:
- Nodes and chests
- Creatures and Questgivers
- Powerful bosses and more
Island Expeditions
- 3-player Scenarios
- 4 different difficulties: Normal, Heroic, Mythic and PVP
- Role agnostic (No need for specific role set ups)
- 15-20 minutes to complete
- Low que times
- Goal: Obtain Azerite for faction and for yourself
Dynamic Replayability
- Interactable environment
- Shrines that give unique buffs and debuffs
- Puzzles and optimal ways to play through scenarios
- Same island will look different and have different challenges every time you que up
- Locations of enemies, shrines and intractable items is random as is time of day and look of island
- Island Content that is randomly generated:
- Creatures
- Capture points
- Chests and Azerite Nodes
- Questgivers
- Consumables and Shrines
- Start Locations
- Caves, Ships...and more!
Faction Champions
- The AI you face all have classes based on race
- Example: Troll AI - Shadow Hunter, Witch Doctor, Beserker
- Example: Worgen AI - Wolf pack that are really good at "sniffing you out"
AI Creatures
- Tactical ability usage: will polymorph you and your team while also stealing azerite nodes among other things
- Will go after map objectives that you are focusing on
- AI makes strategic decisions
- AI have personalities
- Example: "Sneaky Pete" Rogue could come and sap your healer while you are fighting a boss
- Unpredictable
Different Island Locations
- Randomized islands mean random locations
- Take you to a wide variety of different visual locations
- Examples include:
- Abandoned Gilnean islands
- Un'gol Ruins
- Havenswood
Heart of Azeroth
- The faction that wins will inherit a dying world
- Magni will grant players the Heart of Azeroth artifact, a neck piece gifted from our planet's titan.
- Heart is a new take on the artifact system without the linear path
- When the Heart gains Azerite it levels up and gains new abilities for three pieces of specified armor and itself.
- Gaining azerite will level up your Heart over time and unlock ranks that give the player an assortment of abilities to choose from on ever expanding tiers of rings.
- Every time you loot a new item, your Heart's power remains the same. You keep moving forward. It doesn't lose the azerite from the item being upgraded but may present you with different abilities from your previous choices.
- The strength of individual azerite abilities is determined by the item level of the piece of armor.
- Example: Character Shaman has a Heart of Azeroth power of 20, which unlocks 2 rings on the neck. The 3rd requires level 21. Said shaman can choose 1 ability from the first 2 ring tiers to empower, such as increased ghost wolf speed or more damage reduction on astral shift. When she unlocks the 3rd ring by gaining azerite, she gets to choose between several different abilities in that tier to empower. This tailors your character individually from everyone else. In this example, the shaman gets to chose between survivability or mobility.
- Choices will always be individual and new choices are made throughout the entire expansion.
Warfronts
- 20 player
- Alliance vs Horde
- All out war
- Warcraft RTS fantasy
State of Eastern Kingdoms
- Undercity lies in ruins
- Eastern Kingdoms is controlled by Alliance
- Arathi Highlands is a key holding point.
- For the Alliance!
- Undercity isn't defensible
- Threat of Horde remains
- Cut off the north, especially Silvermoon City
- For the Horde!
- Make a stand
- Prevent the alliance from building up
- Launching point for Gilneas
First Warfront: Stromgarde
- Stromgarde is being visually updated
- Establish base of operations by working together with 19 others in your faction
- Gather resources: Lumber and iron
- Territory gain allows research and to start building bases
- Gather resources and work together to focus on constructing one building as fast as possible or spend your resources on buildings you think are more important
- Just like RTS game, troops will be recruited from buildings constructed and sent to front lines. You can send some of the raid to help them out there.
- Other faction will be trying to take your territory
- Fight different enemy commanders
- Research new war technology
- Battlefield events: random events happen such as a mercenary showing up that can be paid to give special troops.
Social Features
- Enhance existing social structures
- Make it easier to manage connections and keep communicating
- Integrate Battle.net voice into WoW
WoW Communities
- Helps players of similar in game interests play together
- Character specific groups
- Cross-server
- Can be in multiple communities
- Roster of members
- Simple role management
- Quick Join
- Voice Integration
- Auto-maintained calendar invites
- Text chat history
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