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  1. #1

    Developer Interview, Children's Day Video, Battle for Azeroth Mining

    PCGamesN Interviews John Hight on Battle for Azeroth
    PCGamesN got to take with John Hight, World of Warcraft Production Director, about Battle for Azeroth. Here is a recap:

    • The Legion threat brought the factions together, but now that it is dealt with the events of the Broken Shore are coming back into focus. The Alliance feels betrayed for losing their king and want redemption.
    • Story arcs for expansions are typically constructed two to three expansions ahead.
    • It hasn't been revealed how Battle for Azeroth will end and so players shouldn't make too many assumptions on where the story is going. There are many planned twists and turns.
    • John believes even skeptics will come to believe that the faction conflict was a good creative choice for the expansion.
    • You are not seen as an ally on the opposing faction's continent and it will evoke the feeling of not being safe when there.
    • Scaling has brought some of the challenge back to leveling and given players a reason to level new characters again.
    • The team wants players to pick a race and faction based on what they identify with.
    • When creating a new Allied race, the team focuses on interesting races that inhabit a relevant area of the story, their natural tendencies and who they align with because of it, and balancing big tough races and cute smaller races between the factions.
    • Zandalari trolls were originally discussed being rolled out at release, but the team realized it didn't make sense with the story because you hadn't gained their trust at that point yet.
    • Legion races were made Allied Races early specifically to give players extra content to do prior to the expansion launch.
    • Future Allied Races are already planned out.
    • Players have gotten good at datamining content that the team uploads without the intention of immediately unlocking it. This could mean races that have been datamined (such as Vulpera) are planned for future Allied Races later in the expansion. The response wasn't blunt.
    • The Mag'har Orcs received the different tribal skin customization to better differentiate them from current orcs while wearing armor.
    • There are no immediate plans for Wildhammer Dwarves, but it is possible in the future.
    • There are two members on the design team who focus on each faction storywise. They communicate daily to make sure that there is a balance on content and experiences without a lot of duplicating stories and quests.
    • Alpha releases a lot earlier than in the past so that the team can catch things such as one faction not having a cool feature or weak pacing.
    • Playing only one faction in Battle for Azeroth will still give you as rich of an experience as Legion.
    • Each faction will have wins and loses, but these are battles and not the war. You will have to wait and see where the story goes!


    Pinkfong X World of Warcraft - Baby Murlock
    Blizzard Korea and Pinkfong made a Murloc video for Children's Day.



    Mining While Mounted - Battle for Azeroth Beta
    In recent Battle for Azeroth builds, players have been able to mine while mounted. Players are not able to collect Herbs while mounted. It is entirely possible that this is a bug!


  2. #2
    High Overlord Crixes1's Avatar
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    Vulpera confirmed??

  3. #3
    "Players have gotten good at datamining content that the team uploads without the intention of immediately unlocking it. This could mean races that have been datamined (such as Vulpera) are planned for future Allied Races later in the expansion. The response wasn't blunt."

    Looks like that's pretty much how everyone's interpreting what was said. It's still highly suggested to read the original wording. There's a lot of fascinating subtext to what was discussed, such as 'balancing the number of cute or tough races between each faction'... Spoken in a way that could either be speaking of Kul Tiran or Sethrak for the Alliance side, heh.

  4. #4
    Vulpera were confirmed the moment they gave them playable race riggings. No way they don't use those assets to full potential.

  5. #5
    Old God Kathranis's Avatar
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    Then we consider what's their natural tendency - are they likely to be more sympathetic to the Horde or the Alliance? - and then if we noticed a preponderance of really big, tough-looking races on one side or really charming, cool, cute-looking races on the other, then we try to do a little bit of a rebalance.
    [...] it's hard to keep [planned Allied Races] from our players once we've uploaded the data.
    Those two quotes all but confirm Vulpera for the Horde, unless players have datamined some other cute-looking Allied Race possibility.

    Though, as already mentioned, I think it was already all but confirmed when they showed up in the character races database flagged with Horde character creation variables...

  6. #6
    Scaling has brought some of the challenge back to leveling and given players a reason to level new characters again.
    The challenge isn't there, there is no fear of death it just takes longer, glad to see they have no idea about their own game

  7. #7
    The Alliance feels betrayed for losing their king and want redemption.
    Redemption doesn't really seem right., I think retribution is a more fitting word there.

  8. #8
    Mining while flying! Sweet cheesy crackers yes!

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Bwgmon View Post
    Redemption doesn't really seem right., I think retribution is a more fitting word there.
    They should want retribution against Jaina for abandoning them and not teleporting them out then. The Horde sent out a retreat signal.

  10. #10
    The Unstoppable Force Super Kami Dende's Avatar
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    "The team wants players to pick a race and faction based on what they identify with."*

    *Except if you want to play a Elf, we just threw them into random Factions.

  11. #11
    John believes even skeptics will come to believe that the faction conflict was a good creative choice for the expansion.
    i'll take that bet johnny boy. faction war is where this game goes to die.

  12. #12
    I like being able to mine while mounted. I did it while trying to level up mining and engineering just so I could make a Archlight Spanner so I could salvage stuff in Kul'Tiras.

  13. #13
    They're never gonna be able to do the faction war in a satisfying manner. Even if Blizzard's writers were actually good (they aren't) there's too many people who want to many different things for pleasing everyone -or likely even MOST players- to be possible. Sylvanas lives? People are mad. Sylvanas dies? People are mad. Horde is evil? People are mad. Alliance is evil? People are mad. Horde comes out 2% ahead in the war? People are mad. Etc.

  14. #14
    "The team wants players to pick a race and faction based on what they identify with."
    Good guy Blizzard, the only company on Earth truly concerned about the gaming needs of chemical weapons wielding megalomaniacs and their gaming needs. Asaad finally has a faction he can feel at home in.

  15. #15
    Alpha releases a lot earlier than in the past so that the team can catch things such as one faction not having a cool feature or weak pacing.
    So where's all the changes to Alliance stuff? Pretty much everyone agrees the Alliance zones and allied races really suck compared to the Horde's. Why aren't they being changed, if Blizz specifically started alpha earlier so they could fix stuff like that?

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by LordSothe View Post
    So where's all the changes to Alliance stuff? Pretty much everyone agrees the Alliance zones and allied races really suck compared to the Horde's. Why aren't they being changed, if Blizz specifically started alpha earlier so they could fix stuff like that?
    Just because YOU didn't get high elfs doesn't mean everything on alliance side sucks.

  17. #17
    "Scaling has brought some of the challenge back to leveling and given players a reason to level new characters again."

    LOL. They clearly are not playing their own game. Challenge, leveling?! In wow?! LOOL. That has *never* EVER been the case. The reason why casuals flocked to this game instead of the competition back in 2005 was BECAUSE it was so easy to level in. This game has NEVER had "difficult" leveling and I seriously doubt that was ever the goal. The only thing this latest patch did to the game was turning the game into a *tedious* grinding chore. It's bad if you've leveled a lot of characters before the patch, because then you know what you've had but no longer have. I'd say the leveling grind is about 2 maybe 3 times longer than it used to be. We're talking about *OUTDATED* content guys.

  18. #18
    "It's the end!"
    "It's the end!"
    "It's the end!"
    "Mrgl, Mrgl!"

    Um, oops, sorry guys. I was singing along with the video. Back to business! Interesting interview questionnaire.

  19. #19
    The Legion threat brought the factions together, but now that it is dealt with the events of the Broken Shore are coming back into focus. The Alliance feels betrayed for losing their king and want redemption.
    I guess Mathias Shaw left out the part that the Broken Shore was a trap meant to divide the factions after all when talking to Anduin after the rogue Order Hall campaign.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Jaina Proudmoore View Post
    "It's the end!"
    "It's the end!"
    "It's the end!"
    "Mrgl, Mrgl!"

    Um, oops, sorry guys. I was singing along with the video. Back to business! Interesting interview questionnaire.
    That video, cringe...

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