Edit:
- Sectioned the questions off into categories which was not done in the copy paste.
- Adding/editing questions based
Hello, I'm just some rando who's going to try and do a sitdown with the WoW devs at Blizzcon for those usual rounds of interviews. Thought I'd share my potential list of questions here.
Obviously I'll only be able to ask a fraction of them, between limited time and how many questions will involve the new expansion announcement. Wish me luck!
<snipped the video - leaving the post. Don't advertise your channel here>
Lore-based questions
1. Lightforged Draenei Death Knights. I know you're trying to be fair with the Allied Races but can you explain this one for the public?
2. The Mag'har orcs escaped a hostile Draenor and the Lightbound. Will there be any followup, or is this the the final door closing on the AU Draenor story?
3. Early in the BFA war campaign the Alliance see the appearance and the apparent extinction of the Darkfallen, aka undead elves. are they truly gone?
4. Thura Saurfang is presumably the last known Saurfang. Any chance we'll see her make an appearance?
5. Maybe this is a more like a complaint of mine, but I was thrown off during the transition between Legion and BFA where once I was the Highlord of the Silver Hand and suddenly I'm the no-name champion who serves at the pleasure of the faction leader. Were there ever plans to have that sort of closure, and what lessons were learned from that?
6. 15 years of WoW history is a lot to consume. Has the team considered crafting a general path that players can optionally take which can lead less lore savvy players through the story?
7. Sylvanas has spent the entirety of her time as Warchief as very
coy with her true intentions, which I would say has frustrated a chunk of the audience. Do you think the team has executed on her role in this chapter of Warcraft, and how might the role of villain change in the future?
8. When will the Forsaken annex Naxxrammas as their capital city? Just kidding, but will the Forsaken and Gilneans eventually find a new home? And will Nordrassil be a permanent capital for the Night Elves?
9. The original Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor have been restored on the modern WOW infrastructure. Any chance we can access this old world via Bronze Dragonflights?
"Can we have this?" sort of questions
10. Now that the character limit per realm has been lifted has there been any new trends on the total number of characters created? Can this lead to an increase to the current account limit of 50 characters?
11. I'm not the type who agrees with designing backward, but I feel that stats like defense rating, resistance, hit and expertise were truly interesting stats that had players think about more than just greater throughput. Has there been any talk about bringing them back and if so, why haven't you given in and made it happen yet?
12. During last year's Blizzcon, Chris Robinson has said that, in so few words, adding a dye system to WOW isn't easy. Since then though, has there been any traction about adding this sort of system to new armor or weapons?
13. Adding invisibility options to transmog has made customization a lot more interesting; now we can freely see pieces like shirts and bracers. When it comes to bracers though, they're pretty flat. Any plans that future bracers will have 3D effects?
14. The architecture for the Horde and Alliance has typically defaulted to structures that are definitively Orcish or Human respectively. Any chance that we can other race architectures get priority or - see a new structure type altogether that defines the Horde or Alliance as a whole?
15. Heritage armor is really cool. Now, how about heritage weapons?
16. BFA reintroduced class buffs and debuffs. Some are much more powerful than others, notably physical and damage debuffs that are each brought by only one class respectively. Are there any planned changes or additions to look forward to?
17. Why is Retribution Aura still a thing?
18. Mount equipment seemed to be pretty limited at launch. Any new bits of mount equipment planned, like oh say, giving non flying mounts the ability to fly?
19. Connecting realms hasn't happened in a number of years, despite ion having addressed this at a previous BlizzCon. Any update on this?
20. I know there's a certain appreciation in not updating old art assets for posterity. Do tabards fall under that though? Because I can think of a few tabards that could use some up ressing.
21. It's been a while since melee specs were steered towards a certain weapon type like 2H Enh Shaman or 2H Frost DK. Under the premise that it could be perfectly balanced, would the team be up for returning that bit of flavor?
22. Visual customization via glyphs has been very inconsistent, with some classes having a handful while others have many more. Any chance this level of customization can be fleshed out so it can be enjoyed by all classes?
Developer Insight questions
23. Can you fill us in on Allied Race ideas that you guys were like "Hey that'd be cool but nah?"
24. Taking a spec like Survival and turning it into a melee and mid ranged spec was pretty controversial. What other considerations have taken place with other classes, and would you consider other drastic changes like turning a pure dps spec into a hybrid?
25. Despite a few quirks, layering turned out to be a very useful technology with the WoW Classic launch. Any plans to apply this to current WOW considering expansion launches and possible server merges?
26. We've seen your imagination of player housing with the Warlords of Draenor Garrison. Discussion of traditional player housing among fans has since continued. But has this topic been revisited by the team since?
27. Classic seems to be doing pretty well at the moment, and many fans insist that there are lessons Blizzard ought to learn from its success. Do you or do others on the team feel the same?
28. We've seen numerous attempts from Blizzard to encourage players to join the faction they like. Balance on the PvE and raiding side of things remain imbalanced for various reasons. Are there other short or long term ideas the team has discussed?
29. When discussing new Allied Races within the team, has there been any talk about very specific Allied Races, such as races with a limited class selection?
30. Despite WOW Classic being an option, there's still a call for so called pristine realms as J Allen Brack mentioned a while back. No XP boosts, no cross realm, matchmaking and so on. Is this still a discussion topic?
31. I get that player feedback often dictates the future of game systems like adding RF, party sync and so on. Do these opinions also play into developments like what continents we visit or what an expansion's theme is?
32. Pandaren are a neutral race that could join either the Horde or Alliance. Not asking for a spoiler, but has this formula been considered a success, and are you willing to go down this route again?
33. Now that players have had a chance to experience an expansion's worth of Allied Race unlocks, what has the team learned and what could change in the future?
34. Ion has said that guilds are the backbone of wow's social structure but a lot of the team's faith and effort has been put into temporary grouping like the group finder as opposed to WOW communities and the guild finder. Is the prevalence of the so-called PUG world a concern, and do you think it's due in part to what the team has prioritized?
35. Features like pet and transmog collecting represent long term progression that outlives the gear as the game moves on. What has been discussed in the realm of non power progression, for example player or guild housing?
36. How does the team feel about flying these days, and I want to focus on this particular talking point - flying doesn't unleash new levels of content, it just makes repeating content already done faster.
37. Benthic armor brought back a concept of progressing through work and not necessarily luck like with Titanforging. Has player feedback been as good as I think it is, and will future iterations still roll tertiaries like sockets, because that especially made this gear very powerful.
38. Patch 8.2.5 content was mostly encrypted to prevent spoilers, all in an effort to give an opportunity for the world to react at once to the final leg of the war campaign. How hard was this to pull off in the technical sense and will this approach to patch content continue?
39. Sites like Wowhead and MMO-Champion regularly datamine pre-release information and open up opportunities for fans to react, create a narrative, even draw their own conclusions weeks, months ahead of time. How does the team feel about this?
40. We're now past one expansion with personal loot being a thing across the board. What's the feedback been like on your end, and are there any tweaks planned for the future?
41. Throughout BFA War Mode has been a bit contentious between providing incentives that benefit both PvE and PvP and realm hopping to find your most ideal shard, as in the one where your faction dominates. Are there any changes or additions in store for war mode to improve the experience and fix some of the more prevalent issues?
42. BFA's armor set themes moved away from class and towards the source from which they came, as in raids or warfronts. Any retrospective to share, and intentions on the future?
43. It was mentioned in an article that there was a betting pool on how long it'd take to down Ragnaros. who won?
44. We've experienced talent trees and the talent row system. What high level concepts have been discussed when talking about proposed class design revamps?
45. How did the team decide on making sharding only a dynamic system and not add a lobby like menu where players can simply choose the instance of the world or zone they're in? I'm asking this because with the premade group tool players have certainly been trying to make it into a lobby system.
46. What's the design philosophy behind having crafting materials be soulbound, especially when it comes to crafted gear? Is the team looking for better ways to balance professions accessibility and power, like limiting final crafting items with a cooldown?
47. We often hear from the team that you want our feedback, but more often than not there are cases where fans have given very robust feedback during PTRs, Alphas and Betas that appear to go unanswered or addressed too slowly. Has the team considered more transparent testing for game systems earlier so the team can make changes before it's too late?
48. When talking about communication and feedback the WOW team often refers to the data, like player trends and numbers that only they can see. Is there a reason the team doesn't cast a wide net through for example, quarterly surveys for active players to capture direct, targeted feedback that would be useful, like "hey let's put out an open survey" that talks about how much time we'd spend on a feature like being able to create our own dungeons or player housing?
49. Azeroth underwent the Cataclysm 6 years after the launch of WOW. It's been 9 years since. If not another Cataclysm that permanently alters the world, is there a chance for another game wide update of Azeroth?
50. Pet battle trainers, dailies, world quests and most recently, dungeons. What's next for Pet battles in WOW?
51. This expansion brings yet another new class to which I'm excited to learn more about. That said, is there any indication that this pattern of one new class every other expansion might break in the future in favor of focusing on class design, to give one example?
52. WOW communities launched in patch 8.0 with little to no updates since. in the PTR for patches 8.2 and 8.2.5, hints of community search tool as well as updated guild finder were found but never announced, let alone launched. Can you fill us in on what the team has been working on?
Recently Added questions
1. Fake leaks are nothing new when it comes to the weeks and months before an expansion announcement, but this year has been exceptional with this Shadowlands leak that made the rounds on MMO-Champion and among content creators. Does this sort of buzz affect the mood around the office and is there a line to be crossed where Blizzard will come out to quash these?
2. Today we can experience two very different questing flows between WOW and Classic. What are some takeaways from both experiences that you'd like to apply in future expansions?
3. Why has the team decided to make Pathfinder a meta, as opposed to making the earning of flight into part of an expansions story? It feels like a missed opportunity to add story and depth while making the design of delaying flight make more sense.