World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

World of Warcraft Boss Design Workshop
The boss design team came up with the potential mechanics for the first boss for Shrine of the Storms right on stage!

Giant Water Elemental Boss

• Boss starts as full water elemental but descends into shadow.
• Boss has 3 abilities in A phase then moves to B phase and splits into smaller adds (2 or more)
• Killing Adds hurts his health bar as well
• Will add spawn locations be RNG based? Is this fight mean to melee?
• Dungeon as a whole is considered. Different bosses in dungeons test the different members of the party.
• Some sort of party damage to test healer: maybe a tank crush mechanic or a raid wide dot? Something shadow based!
• Impossible to design a fight that caters to every role. Make sure certain abilities aren't mandatory.
• Court of Stars is used as a reference for dungeons in Battle for Azeroth.
• Potential mechanic that absorbs a random party member into his body who needs to be dpsed out.
• Shadow pools on the ground will either help you from getting pushed off the platform or hinder you.
• Some boss designs focus on visually stunning mechanics and events.

BlizzCon 2017 - Overwatch: Archives
Take a look at the Behind the Scenes of making Overwatch

The Pitch

• Overwatch development started in the summer of 2013
• The development team is known as Team 4
• Made 3 totally different game pitches, first of which was new Starcraft content
• A sketch of Chris Metzen was used to inspire this new project
• After the first two weeks it looked like the Starcraft project was likely to happen
• The second pitch was a Chris Metzen idea, about a far remote crossroads planet for aliens
• Movies, other games, and community artists are used to inspire the visual style
• This was supposed to be a new class based MMO with about 9 classes
• Explored the idea of having around 50 classes with very different but specific abilities
• Titan had a lot of incredible art made for the project
• Character art from Titan was used to make a new concept for the third pitch
• After the pitch to the team, each team member was assigned to come up with 1 hero
• A total of 48 hero concepts were made the very first day
• A more polished pitch deck was made by Jeremy Craig to be shown to Blizzard
• This was to be a global game with maps around the world
• The concept art for the maps by Peter Lee were used, however this was a completely different art style
• The final concept was to be pitched to Activision
• The CEO stopped the pitch mid presentation, and asked to go back three slides
• This was the group concept art of the Overwatch heroes
• The variety, and color became hallmark of the Overwtch universe
• This new project was code Prometheus
• Was given permission to develop Core Combat for the greenlight gate

Core Combat

• The core of the game was to be developed with 4 heroes and 1 map
• Almost 4 million lines of the code from the Titan engine were erased
• Only about 760 thousand were kept to develop into Overwatch engine
• The concept was taken from Titan, but all the art was re-modeled from scratch
• New Render pipeline to allow for 60 FPS on console and PC

Tech Reboot

• Very first render of the engine. Tracer with her floating gloves showing
• Added guns, and experimented with light
• In November it was added to the Blizzard engine to have more game Physics added
• Smooth camera development to make movement more organic

Heroes of Core Combat

• The core combat was started in October, 2013
• Reinhardt was one of the first four to be developed
• Tracer, Reaper, and Widowmaker were the other three
• Rocketdude later was developed into Pharah
• Early play testing on Temple of Anubis
• Reaper used for scale for buildings
• After block levels, the map was further developed
• Abilities slowly added to the game
• Early animations
• By February, 2014 the map was almost complete
• The Core Combat was to be shown in March at a company show and tell
• Announcement was planned for BlizzCon the following year
• 3 playable maps, and 12 heroes were needed for the announcement

Ability Design

• Hanzo first had the bow implemented
• Sonic Arrow
• Scatter Shot
• Dragon Strike was to be a moving AOE known as the caterpillar
• The initial design only had 1 dragon
• The final version would have 2 dragons to show the full range of the hitbox

Hero Ideation

• A hockey hero was being though of as a fast moving hero
• A free flight character with a flamethrower
• Later became the Jetpack cat in early concept art
• These ideas were though of going too far, but not within the boundaries of Overwatch
• Torbjorn's early ability Claw Trap was a mine which when triggered would grab the hero and contain them
• In the video Reinhardt is shown as throwing his hammer
• This ability was implemented to deal with Claw Trap
• If he threw his hammer too far, he had to wait before attacking
• This later evolved into his new E ability, which is now in the game

BlizzCon Video

• This early video had Mercy with green healing animation
• Early Reinhardt charge had no charge-up time
• The last point, known as Robot City in King's Row was very open with multiple drops
• First Mercy ultimate allowed her to heal multiple people
• Winston's early ability marker was a banana
• Early Volskaya had a capture point which also moved like a payload would
• First point on Hanamura was initially a circular area
• Symmetra's early sentries were mini Torbjorn turrets
• Bastion's early ultimate was a volley of grenades
• Winston's initial leap also stunned when landing
• Genji started out as a melee character who was able to perch on walls

Q&A
Q: Will we ever see a Titan progress video?
A: There are screenshots and video of Titan, but someday they might surface.

Q: Have you considered Officer Mai skin?
A: Yes, a lot of the skins are inspired by the community.

Q: Overwatch is very character driven, is there a chance of novels for the game in the future?
A: Different character mediums are always being explored, such as the 2D Doomfist reveal.

Q: In the Hanzo-Genji short Hanzo can bend the path of arrow, was this ever something on the board?
A: Deflect on Genjo was the closest thing, but the tech is capable of supporting this and might be part of future mechanics.

Q: Is there a cap on how far the game can go?
A: The game is only as good as the last patch, so ideas are constantly being explored. Very inspired by Warcraft, Starcaft, and Diablo, so Overwatch is just though of as the first game.

World of Warcraft: Live Q & A Recap
The developers are sitting down to answer community questions about all things Warcraft and the next expansion!

Key Points

• Stat squish and item squish
• Unique raid buffs are back and are class specific
• Titanforging will continue, however, slots affected by the Heart of Azeroth can't warforge/titanforge.
• More character customization options coming in expansion.
• Jaina is not a villain, just flawed
• Void Elves will switch into a void form in combat and have a more normal form when desired.
• Timewalking will be expanded
• Flying will unlock similar to Legion
• The Legion legendary system is gone in Battle for Azeroth
• Starting bag will increase in size if you have an authenticator attached to your account
• Worgen/Goblin updates are on the way, but not for 8.0
• Players get 6 new character slots per realm.

Q & A

Q: Are Warfronts similar to invasions? What are the rewards?
A: They will be built up to and up for a certain amount of time. The team is looking at other rewards such as invasions and timewalking in terms of rewards. Nothing is finalized yet.

Q: Will basic reputations become account wide?
A: Account wide unlocks try to focus on content unlocks over simple reputations. It is a separate set of goals that doesn't need to be account wide.

Q: Is there a stat squish?
A: Yes, there is another squish. The point isn't to nerf but bring everything in line. This time they are also squishing item level.

Q: Is Anduin a Paladin?
A: Anduin is still a priest. He is a hero character and so can do things normal priests can not.

Q: Will there be cross faction chat?
A: No cross faction chat at all except through battle.net. Community chat is character to character.

Q: Are there any changes in the works to help with guild recruitment?
A: Nothing planned right now, but trying to focus on social structures that are not quite as hard to get into.

Q: Will mob health and damage be scaled as well with the new scaling of the old world? What about heirlooms?
A: Team is looking to make the health and damage of mobs relevant to level. Heirlooms are scaled for level.

Q: Any comments on artifact power/knowledge and how it influenced azerite?
A: Decisions at the start of the expansion were a lot cooler than at this stage in the expansion. Team wants choices to be meaningful throughout the expansion and get rid of the crazy amount of power that needs to be obtained.

Q: What was your thought process when bringing back raid buffs?
A: There was something cool about the buffs going out before a boss. Team always looks at classes as unique and special and want to emphasize that. They don't want these buffs to be extreme but worthwhile.

Q: How do you view PVP templates?
A: Team likes the PVP talents, however, it is hard to put that into the outdoor world. They recognize how unbalanced world PVP is. Team wants you to be able to customize your character more in PVP. They are looking at the scaling technology to use within PVP, basically using the same tech that lets low levels party with higher levels. They are reworking the reward structure in PVP.

Q: What about titanforging?
A: There will be tweaks but not a fundamental change to the system. They want there to still be excitement in rewards. Titanforging will not happen on armor slots affected by the Heart of Azeroth, however.

Q: Can characters get some sort of counter to push backs and knock backs?
A: Niche for Death Knights , want to expand upon it for that specific class.

Q: What do you plan to do about the character creation being archaic?
A: Allied races are the start to this. Art team took a look at Allied races and are now going to incorporate that into the older races. More character customization is coming. Upright orcs are on the agenda. Barber will now double as a chiropractor!

Q: Is Jaina a hero in Battle for Azeroth?
A: She is complicated. Jaina is wrapped with regret. She was responsible for the death of her father and how the Horde is today. She is a damaged character and that damage will be explored. We will try to understand the way she is and try to pull her out of it. She is not evil, she is conflicted.

Q: Why do so many bosses have holes in their ceilings?
A: Functionally, there is no camera collision. Aesthetically, it allows team to show outside world without windows.

Q: What are your plans for starting zones affected by the new expansion?
A: No changes except for leveling improvements. In order to appreciate the impact of the events of Battle for Azeroth you need to understand it. Sharding technology will change the zones affected by these events for characters who are 110 and above. Other zones are also affected.

Q: Will Void Elves be stuck in Void Elf form?
A: It isn't like metamorphosis but they definitely have a void form and a more normal form. It is similar to worgen. They will go into the void in combat.

Q: How will you address trinkets and titanforging?
A: The rate of titanforging and warforging will be adjusted. Item level should win at all times. Relinquished system helps.

Q: What about adding Mythic + to old dungeons?
A: Good idea. Team is looking into timewalking keystones that are only available during the timewalking events.

Q: How soon will flying be available?
A: Same as Legion

Q: What is the future of mobile apps moving forward?
A: Team likes being able to stay in touch with character on the go and wants to continue it. Also want to merge armory app with these features.

Q: Any chance of a consolidation for timewalking?
A: Probably not all expansions active at once, but what other activities can happen during timewalking such as the outdoor world? WoD timewalking likely coming during Battle for Azeroth.

Q: How do you keep people attached to their faction instead of switching sides?
A: Play the game you want to play it. The new technologies allow for this.

Q: What are your plans for legendaries in the next expansion?
A: Azerite armor does what legendaries did in Legion. The legendary system from legion is not continuing into Battle for Azeroth.

Q: Will the quest log size be increased?
A: Certain quests don't need to be in the log. Team wants to tackle this first. 25 quests is already too hard to manage.

Q: Will the default backpack be increased?
A: Very close to allowing the first backpack to slightly increase. In future patch if you have authenticator is attached to account your bag size will increase.

Q: Will there be different raids based on factions/stories in raids?
A: Definitely different stories. In terms of bosses, not so much. Looking further ahead faction conflict might play out in raids. Member of opposite faction could be raid boss.

Q: Will exploits and bugs from Classic be fixed for the Classic servers?
A: Turning to the community for answers. Team wants to recreate the experience as you remember it. They do not want bugs that cause crashes or severe issues, however. Should UBRS be 10 or 5 man?

Q: Is heritage armor unlocked on all races?
A: Heritage armor is only wearable by the race it is made for.

Q: Will friends limit increase for battle.net?
A: Team needs to make this happen and will eventually.

Q: How will farming for ilvl specific greens be affected by scaling?
A: The items will still drop and will scale.

Q: How long will Warfronts last?
A: Longer than dungeons, but team is still working this out. Beta feedback will help.

Q: What classes are available to the Allied races?
A: Allied races are unique and not linked to the other classes. Identity is taken into account when figuring out what classes the race can be.

Q: Why are Nightborne Horde and Void Elves Alliance?
A: All Allied Races have introductory quests that answer these questions.

Q: What does the Legion ending mean for the demon hunter class?
A: Demon hunters are ultimately night elves and blood elves. They will continue on protecting the world that Illidan loves. One day demons might return!

Q: Are the continents completely split between the factions?
A: Silvermoon is still Horde and Azuremyst is still Alliance. They are the lingering zones for their factions on these continents.

Q: When will worgens/goblins get updated?
A: Not in 8.0 but they are actively being worked on. Animations for Goblins are fine but they need visual updates. Male worgen are decent, but females need to be reworked.

Q: Rewards for Opting into World PVP?
A: Don't want to pressure players into opting in. The exact values aren't finalized yet.

Q: Will the character slots per realm increase?
A: Yes, 6 new slots per realm.

Q: Cross realm trading?
A: Figure out a way to do it without economy issues.

Q: When is beta?
A: Opt in at the website.

Heroes of the Storm: Deep Dive - Live Panel Recap

Screenshots


Recap

This panel was hosted by Alex Kinabrew (Senior 3D Artist), Matt Villers (Senior Game Designer), Kent-Erik Hagman (Lead Hero Designer), and Alex Neyman (Live Game Designer).

Alexstrasza - Art

• She's the Queen of Dragons, so they wanted to make her human form regal
• Addressing the "dragon in the room". Dragons are massive. Team wanted to make her as large as possible. Didn't want a drake but a dragon.
• They looked at other heroes, like Azmodan who's massive in the Diablo universe but more subdued in Heroes
• Uther's model size is used for baseline comparisons for all heroes, so they used his model to make her the proper size for the game
• Movement was also a concern. The heroes need to turn on a dime, so sometimes they need additional animations to not appear janky.
• They had to do this with Alexstrasza's dragon form
• Skins and tints affect both her human and dragon forms

Alexstrasza - Gameplay

• They needed to emphasize that she's a dragon. And not just a dragon, but the aspect of life. They wanted to convey that properly.
• Check out our hero thread for ability details: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-Warcraft-Hero
• Gift of Life is all about sacrificing her own life to heal others.
• Abundance was inspired by the storm dragons primarly found in Cataclysm (the dragon mobs in Vortex Pinnacle, for example)
• Abundance did indiscriminate healing at first (heal enemies as well as friendlies), but it didn't work out.
• The zone on the ground of healing worked well though, so they kept that aspect
• The ability is well-telegraphed, so enemy team can punish you for standing in it
• Flame Buffet is inspired by Blackwing Lair dragon abilities. Damage stacks with subsequent hits, low cooldown
• All that is cool, but they wanted an actual dragon, which is where her trait comes in
• Inspired by resto shaman Ascendance from World of Warcraft. Improves her stats and her basic abilities for a short duration
• First heroic, Life-Binder, is inspired by her Hearthstone card where she sets a hero's health to a specific amount of health
• She links to a hero, and after 2 seconds the lower health hero is healed to the percentage health level of the healthier hero (yo, I heard you like health...)
• Second heroic is Cleansing Flame. She flies into the air and rains damage and healing down
• Probius was originally meant to have a Mothership heroic ability raining damage down on the battlefield.
• They didn't like it, given his builder-oriented gameplay. So they moved it to Alexstrasza instead
• The flame comes down at your cursor for precision healing/damage.
• She lands at your mouse cursor 2 seconds after the ability ends

Hanzo - Art

• What does it take to bring a character from a first-person shooter to a top-down game?
• Level of detail is of great importance when transfering from one type of game to another
• Details on the hero were enlarged to make them more noticeable
• He's a bit bulkier in Heroes, "everyone is getting swol"
• But why are the adjustments necessary? It's all about "budget". Texture budget, polygon. It's not about money, it's about filesize
• A lot of info is being loaded by your computer every time you play. Every computer has a limit
• It's all about the gameview. Need to recreate the hero properly so it looks as awesome as possible

Hanzo - Gameplay And General Hero Testing Insight

• Hanzo is different from Alex. He's well-known and well-defined already. Players have expectations. He's using bow and arrow
• His attack range is higher than standard. His attacks are slower but deal more damage
• Storm Bow is a charged ability, Gazlowe's laser, but he can move while it is charging
• Scatter Arrow uses new tech to allow for proper scattering
• They looked at existing abilities/talents to find the right numbers for his abilities, such as Chromie's Sand Blast for his Q
• They then used that as a baseline to balance his overall damage output.
• New heroes are playtested every morning on the design team
• They use a lot of data (and pie charts!) to figure out how his damage is lined up
• Storm Bow was extremely powerful early on, dealing almost 50% of his total damage in a game
• They have an ideal "Power Pie", which shows their goal for damage distribution between abilities. No hero fits exactly into it, but it's a good guideline
• Among other changes, they used this to buff Scatter Arrow by 210% from the values used for the first playtest. The new damage distribution between abilities was much better
• He did a lot of damage with quite long range early on. They wondered if they had too many snipers in the game
• Because of this, they lowered the basic attack range to encourage basic attacks more often
• Hanzo is "Coming Soon(TM)"

Stealth Updates

• Most players weren't able to spot the shimmer of stealthed heroes, but skilled players saw through it easily
• They wanted to take the eye test out of stealth and instead put the stealth advantage elsewhere

Stealth - Nova

• They want to enforce her class fantasy as a proper stealth sniper
• Snipe Master is being made baseline. Subsequent snipes do more damage as long as she doesn't miss
• +15% movement speed in stealth
• New baseline active ability to immediately stealth, reminiscent of her current Ghost Protocol talent

Stealth - Valeera

• She's the disabling hero. Can pick one hero on the enemy team and reduce their effect in a fight
• She relies a lot on stealth because of her new ability bar in stealth
• They will enhance her disabling openers to make up for the stealth changes
• She can also teleport to enemies baseline if she has been in stealth for at least 3 seconds
• Playtesting showed it felt better for even the opponents, because it's even more rewarding to knock her out of stealth now

Stealth - Samuro

• They want to put more control into his images. His trait is now an ability to swap location with a mirror image. Illusion Master will buff it further
• When activating Mirror Image, the real Samuro will be placed closest to your mouse cursor. Will emphasize skill more than randomness
• Some damage is being moved from mirror images into Samuro himself

Stealth - Zeratul

• The team is happy with him currently. Technically demanding, lots of flashy plays, can be threatening in the hands of a skilled player
• Vorpal Blade is being made baseline
• That change opens up for Blink to be used in more ways too
• Shadow Assault didn't really fit with Zeratul's kit. It's too limiting.
• New Heroic: Might of the Nerazim
• Low cooldown. Replicates the last basic ability you used
• All these changes are "Coming Soon(TM)"

Q&A

Q: About a mechanic that was kinda removed but reintroduced with Garrosh. Stitches can't hook people through walls, but Garrosh can throw over walls. Consistency?
A: Similar to Diablo's Overpower, they don't want an invisible wall to block Throw.

Q: Hanzo's Storm Bow still requires an extra click to release with quick cast enabled. Intended?
A: Currently intended. They're hoping to make improvements before he launches though. It'll require some work

Q: If McCree were to be a hero, would they remove his cigar or give Tychus' back?
A: They'd give Tychus McCree's cigar


Robo-Probius rolled up to ask a question

Q: What's your favorite talent on the new heroes?
A: Alexstrasza's level 20 Ancient Flame. Flame Buffet is normally not usable in Dragonform, but this talent turns her basic attack into Flame Buffet. Hanzo's talent that allows him to instantly mount with his Trait, Natural Agility.

Q: How do you decide which heroes to add to the game?
A: 180 heroes currently on the to-do list. They're all awesome and they want to do them all. They want heroes that players are looking forward to, but they also want to bring in heroes from every universe and for every role. They want a lot of diversity, there's a lot of discussion on which they want to do at any given time.

Q: What about Uther's and Arthas' models?
A: They're happy with the general size of the models, but they'd like to bring the height of the models more in line with each other. Uther and Arthas are some of the older models, they'd like to do something but it's a question of time

Q: Tyrael feels stale and his mana costs are high. Imrpvoements coming?
A: Want lower mana costs? Okay.

Q: Do you have plans to revamp hero roles?
A: First they had warriors, supports, and assassins. And then there was Abathur. So they just made specialists as an oddball category. But now all these years later the waters are getting muddied with all the new heroes with varying roles. They'd love to split up the roles a lot more to emphasize their roles, such as tanks/bruisers. They think it would help the playerbase a lot in understanding which hero belongs where, but it's a question of having the time to do it

Q: Chen was recently changed to get some brew instantly when drinking and then he was nerfed. Are you going to reverse some of that?
A: There is a lot of fallout from any changes made because of how interconnected everything is on him. No immediate plans but they'll continue to watch him. They risk making him too good by buffing him, making it not fun for everyone else.

Q: Have you considered changing the stealth shader depending on how fast the character is moving?
A: Not specifically, but currently they want to make the stealthed hero completely disappear after standing still for 1.5 seconds. They want some psychological strategy added to it. They want to move away from the current eye test completely. Either you "see" the hero when they move, or you don't at all when they stand still

Q: How will stealth changes work with stealth talents on other characters?
A: Global change, all heroes will use it. They're considering changes to those characters if there's a need for it. Medivh talent gives the new stealth shader as well, target goes invisible if they stand still

Q: Brawl-related. Will they ever add new hero selection options, other than the current choose-one-of-three random heroes?
A: None of the panelists work on brawls

Q: When Alexstrasza is on both teams, you can't see which Alexstrasza is going to hit where when both are using the flying heroic at the same time
A: They made the impact of the projectile instant so it won't have much of an effect. Just try to be as evasive as possible.

Q: More multiclass heroes?
A: They're actively discussing where to go with it. They definitely want to do more.

Q: Lost Vikings. Are we going to see more changes? Will we see more retro characters?
A: Balance: The team is okay with most of what TLV does at the moment. It's not perfect, but it's not a high priority at the moment. It would be cool to do changes. Retro: It's a matter of when, not if.

Q: Medivh's power comes from teammates understanding him. It can be frustrating if they don't click portals and such, not knowing what a portal even is, etc. Do you have any plans to address this?
A: They're trying to figure out how to make Medivh feel better without having to rely as much on teammates, but they don't want to break esports. They think some of it will even out over time as the playerbase matures and watches more esports and such.