Warlords of Draenor Developer Interviews, Feb 28 Hotfixes, Blue Tweets, Fan Art

[Yig]

"The team is aware that the timeline in older content is a little bit inconsistent, but updating the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King content would take away from Warlords of Draenor development."

Hmm didn't stop them updating vanilla content while still developing Cataclysm. Perhaps the WoW team was bigger back then.

No, there's just a time and a place for when they decide to do what. This isn't universal physics. It's not absolute. They may always be inspired, find extra time, you never know. It's an organic process. You shouldn't view this as the excuse they will never do it, it's the reason they haven't done anything YET. And Cata presented a lot of issues as a result of dev resources allocated in places much of the player base never appreciated or made use of. This issue is nuanced and has a number of important circumstances to consider. Never say never.

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No, there's just a time and a place for when they decide to do what. This isn't universal physics. It's not absolute. They may always be inspired, find extra time, you never know. It's an organic process. You shouldn't view this as the excuse they will never do it, it's the reason they haven't done anything YET. And Cata presented a lot of issues as a result of dev resources allocated in places much of the player base never appreciated or made use of. This issue is nuanced and has a number of important circumstances to consider. Never say never.

And as of MOP, WOW's team was larger than ever in it's history, they now have 2 simultaneous teams working on major and minor content patches, mixed with miscellaneous projects and the 2 next expansions being developed at the same time.

[Shudder]

Updating the old world was the point of Cataclysm. Selective reasoning won't win this argument for you.

You're missing the point. Cata redid all of vanilla and still managed to make more content than we have with WoD. 2 new races, more dungeons, etc. Yet the team was 40% smaller back then. That excuse they like to keep shoving in our faces is something I'd normally wipe my ass with.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

You're missing the point. Cata redid all of vanilla and still managed to make more content than we have with WoD. 2 new races, more dungeons, etc. Yet the team was 40% smaller back then. That excuse they like to keep shoving in our faces is something I'd normally wipe my ass with.

Because you've made it your life goal to bash WoW. Also we don't need constantly more races. We got plenty.

[Yig]

We are constantly being reminded in blue posts that *everything* we want is at the cost of end game content and raid wings. Do you even read the blue trackers?

No, you players are using something taken out of context constantly as a jade cynical cannard. It was an analogy, not to be taken so literally, and it's petty to cling to it this way.

http://www.wowhead.com/bluetracker?topic=11675567808

It's actually a "gotcha" argument, and it's intellectually dishonest to present as such an all encompassing excuse. I can't fault you or others for your frustration, as Blizzard notoriously is skimpy on art assets and focused on raids historically only a fraction of the player base sees. That's different with LFR, and the largest dev team they've ever had. This issue is multifaceted and if you want to do more than stomp your feet, acknowledge context. We are getting more custom art now as MOP than ever, in a steady stream. More innovation, but it's never enough apparently. They had custom 3d geosets created for every troll on the ISle of Thunder, that was an amazing achievement if you know what went into that. And totally could have been circumvented with the usual geosets.

[Shudder]

Because you've made it your life goal to bash WoW. Also we don't need constantly more races. We got plenty.

Some more dungeons would be nice. Since ya know, they don't have to redo an entire world and have 40% more staff.

[Yig]

No, Its an MMO where the RP is expected to be mainly between players. Even if you are a hardcore RPer, how much gameplay are you going to get out of a WHOLE NEW AI for garrison NPCs? Sitting around on your Garrison all by yourself RPing with your blacksmith? Sounds like a cry for help, not compelling gaming.

It's immersion, just like Skyrim, it brings the world to life rather than feeling like you're a frozen amusement park diorama in a wax museum. How can you possibly complain about this?

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It's immersion, just like Skyrim, it brings the world to life rather than feeling like you're a frozen amusement park diorama in a wax museum. How can you possibly complain about this?

5 mans are getting much more focus in WOD, with non linear wings, and a number planned for future patches. You are understandably cynical, but bear in mind how much we've known about previous expansions at this point in the dev cycle.

[Nazmina]

Some more dungeons would be nice. Since ya know, they don't have to redo an entire world and have 40% more staff.

The changes to old world with cata were only partly art based, a lot of it was just quest and zone design. Which is why endgame content for cata outside of dungeons/raid and molten front was so scarce.

Most of the old world changes added a few features to some zone, a lot of it used old art assets they used elsewhere, several zones were virtually unchanged graphically.

When saying something comes at the cost of a raid tier they only meant it literally when talking about the work necessary to make silvermoon flyable. All of its buildings are flat one sided textures and the full versions of them don't exist and never did. In order to make it look like stormwind they would need to make all new textures and rebuild silvermoon from the ground up. That amount of effort could build half the arts assets of a raid instance. Then you compare what you get from a new silvermoon to addition raid art and its easy to see whats worth more. Blizzard doesn't make new cities anymore because they aren't worth the time to make them, they just see too little use.

Finally beta isn't out yet, we can't effectively judge the content or lack thereof for WoD until we get more than piecemeal previews.

[Tenjen]

Good set of fanart put up in the post today.

[carlinman]

The new Garrisons "smart" NPC AI sounds intriguing. Wouldn't mind seeing more of that at all.

I think no Blizzard employee has ever played The Sims...

[Tenjen]

I think no Blizzard employee has ever played The Sims...

ofcourse they have. But your statement is neither here nor there. They're not proclaiming it as a new game industry feature. They're simply stating its something new to wow and they set up such a function within the WoW engine. Look forward to seeing it used throughout the game.

iam quite happy about the stables function. showing your most used mounts and all.

[aeuhe4yxzhds]

Im not expecting anything about this "AI" which probably end up being some scripted crap

[Deleted]

The new AI for the NPCs sounds nice.

If/when they expand the AI to cities it'll help them feel more alive.

But the NPCs at the bank/AH better not get thirsty and/or sleepy

[Deleted]

The team is aware that the timeline in older content is a little bit inconsistent, but updating the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King content would take away from Warlords of Draenor development.

Whoa hold on a sec, they didn't say how many raid tiers it would cost.

[Deleted]

The team is aware of the problem with the farm in Mists of Pandaria and doesn't want players to feel the need to have garrisons on their alts just to funnel resources to their main.

I read that as having 1 Garrison per server, that will be shared between all characters. I realy hope thats what we get.

[Yarathir]

Why don't they just put both TBC and WotLK in the Caverns of Time and make one or two quests to explain that the hero, now in Cataclysm, needs to face the tests of old to become stronger before moving on to Pandaria and so on.

The mounts in your garrison's stable will be mounts that you own, based on the ones that you use the most.

But...I try to treat mine evenly! Can't I just pick my favourite ones or swap them daily like I do in my everyday questing life? :<

Looking forward to knowing more about all this stuff though, very interested!

Yeah, before, they said you could just pick your mount. That really needs to be the option, imo. No good reason not to make it that way, and by the system automatically doing it for you based on what mounts you use most, it's just annoying players by taking another possible option out of their hands for no good reason, or an arbitrary reason.

[eillas]

I read that as having 1 Garrison per server, that will be shared between all characters. I realy hope thats what we get.

Nope. 1 per character. There will be a leveling effect for the alts.

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No, Its an MMO where the RP is expected to be mainly between players. Even if you are a hardcore RPer, how much gameplay are you going to get out of a WHOLE NEW AI for garrison NPCs? Sitting around on your Garrison all by yourself RPing with your blacksmith? Sounds like a cry for help, not compelling gaming.

Listen. This may be a feature that PVE people enjoy, but there has not been many features given to the rp community. This right here is a god send. Right now people on my rp server (at least in my circle.) are in love with this AI idea.

[Deleted]

The horde pvp whining is becoming really hilarious.

[Nerraw]

"The team is aware that the timeline in older content is a little bit inconsistent, but updating the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King content would take away from Warlords of Draenor development."

Hmm didn't stop them updating vanilla content while still developing Cataclysm. Perhaps the WoW team was bigger back then.

And everyone paid for that in terms of less content.

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All the information gathered about Garrisons makes me wonder how many resources are being directed at playing Barbie at the expense of genuine endgame content. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of Garrisons, but developing a WHOLE NEW npc AI so that your blacksmith can go have a drink at the inn no matter where you place it? Seriously??

What new systems would you want in endgame content instead? If you follow the common opinion, endgame for you means raids, rated PvP, and the like. How does developing new systems elsewhere change how endgame turns out? Raids and PvP exist already.

And new systems has a way of spilling over into other content too.

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We are constantly being reminded in blue posts that *everything* we want is at the cost of end game content and raid wings. Do you even read the blue trackers?

Your "everything" tends to include the usage of the art team. Developing a new AI system does not.

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The horde pvp whining is becoming really hilarious.

Agreed. Some people just don't understand that flocking to one side upsets the queues.

[Xanatrius]

I bet the beta will come out when Rockstar finally puts in heists.

You my friend have just won the internet.

[Deleted]

I REALLY hope that starting experience is instanced. Do not want to be shoved in with hundreds of other players in the starting zone.