Warcraft Storytelling Panel at E3, Warfronts Testing Friday, FinalBossTV - Warlocks

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Season 14 Launch!

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Overwatch League 2018: Stage 4 Week 4 Recap

Warcraft Battle for Azeroth Story Panel
Matthew Mercer talked with Christie Golden, Steve Danuser, and Terran Gregory about the World of Warcraft story at E3.

• Christie Golden co-wrote the theme song for Hearthstone's Kobolds and Catacombs.
• Stabbing Azeroth with a sword was not as hard as killing Varian Wrynn for the cinematic team.
• More amazing cutscene events are lined up for the near future in BfA.
• More recent cinematics have the ability to incorporate the player character to keep them involved and the drivers of the world.
• World of Warcraft Chronicle Volume 3 creates the lore of which faction killed notable bosses and raids to better help include players in the narrative of the story.
• Faction "conflict" has always been a part of the story but Battle for Azeroth is the first time all out faction "war" is the issue.
• There's nothing like a resource drive like Azerite to create conflict.
• Blizzard told Christie Golden that they wanted Before the Storm to dive deeply into the motivations of Anduin and Sylvanas.
• Killing major characters is inevitable when progressing the story and never easy. Not everyone has a heroic death or one that comes unexpectedly.
• The little bits of story seen already will blossom over the course of the expansion.
• There are 20-some quest designers for WoW currently.
• The story and animation department for WoW has a couple of hundred artists but they also work on other Blizzard IPs. The dedicated WoW group is 20-30 people.
• There is more content coming out soon for launch that hasn't been talked about yet, including stuff that hasn't been tried before.
• Characters are utilized more when it makes sense for what the story is currently trying to tell.

Warfronts Play With The Blues Friday

Join us on Friday, June 15 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. PDT and help test Warfronts in the Battle for Azeroth Beta.

We're going to focus testing on the Scenario portion of Warfronts, and to get as many testers in there as possible, we'll remove pre-requisites and spawn special war tables in each faction's capital city. You'll be able to queue for this one with a level 110 (or higher) character.

We'll update this post with more information on the playtest. Stay tuned!

Warfronts Testing and Feedback

With the current Beta build, Beta testers are experiencing the entirety of the Warfronts: Battle for Stromgarde experience. An alternating cycle kicked off on Thursday, June 7 between the Horde and Alliance vying for control of Stromgarde and Arathi Highlands. Both Horde and Alliance testers have queued since then.

Here’s an outline of how the cycle works:

• The Alliance starts with ownership of Arathi Highlands, and Horde players challenge them by contributing professions items, gold, and War Resources to help their faction build up enough strength to attack. This is a region-wide effort.
• Once enough contributions are supplied by the region, the Warfront: Battle for Stromgarde unlocks and Horde players are able to queue for the experience. This queue remains open for a set duration, allowing players to complete the Warfront on a schedule that works for them.
• After the Horde attack is complete, the Horde takes control of Arathi Highlands, giving them access to a unique World Boss and a series of rare spawns and other rewards only available during the period when their faction owns the zone.
• The Alliance then begins contributing resources to challenge Horde control.

The cycle continues perpetually, with each faction competing against the other to gain access more quickly or reduce the enemy team’s access to the zone. Currently, the queue window in the Beta is set to remain open for 2 days.

Notably, this update included a first look at a completely updated version of the Arathi Highlands zone, including new creatures, as well as access to your faction’s base in the zone, and plenty of other surprises.

Please feel free to post your feedback on Warfronts in this thread, and please submit issues with Warfronts to our BFA Beta Bug Report Forum.

Hey guys, few additional clarifications for you from the development team:

In order to be eligible to queue for Warfronts, you need to be level 120, and have completed enough of the campaign to have unlocked World Quests. We're also working to make it more apparent when the Warfront is actually open, and what its current state is. We previously had Warfronts available starting at level 110 for early testing; that is no longer the case.

Also just to clarify an earlier point: each state of the Warfront should be active for approximately two days, but the exact amount of time can change based on player participation. We're not planning on accelerating that any further in the Beta for the time being, because we want to see how things work out on this schedule.

The feedback we've gotten so far has been very helpful, especially the points where the system seemed confusing or unclear. Warfronts are pretty complex, and one of our goals with Beta is to figure out ways to make them understandable. This is part of why we haven't directly explained too much about how they work; we want to hear how you experience them naturally, and where that experience stumbles, so that we can make it more clear. Keep it coming!

FinalBossTV - Warlocks in Battle for Azeroth
FinalBossTV made a few videos recently on Warlocks in Battle for Azeroth!

[Jshadowhunter]

livestream? or feed?

[Volardelis]

"Faction "conflict" has always been a part of the story but Battle for Azeroth is the first time all out faction "war" is the issue"

I call bullcrap on that statement. Considering that the major story arc of MoP was the faction war.

[Deleted]

Having now read (well listened, audiobook) they should never have let Golden in charge of writing. It's incredibly biased and with certain segments being factualy wrong.

[Icaras]

I'm not sure I like the idea of them "locking in" certain factions as being the ones who actually defeated certain bosses in lore, it'd feel a bit like original Deadmines and Onyxia does, where originally my character did those kills (cept now it's a bunch of nameless random alliance NPCs that did the original deadmines and killed VanCleef, and I believe the comic book explanation of varian killing onyxia while he was split into 2 people or something is there lore there).

it's gonna suck a bit to find that certain bosses will now "in lore" be "if you not faction X you didn't actually take part in X raid (now)"

[Stormykitten]

I think the main thing that bothers me about WoW story is the human-centric-ness on the Alliance side. I know it was orcs & humans, but that was a different game. I don't mean like... that they only focus on humans, but they are what the others spin around, often. Like right now, we're seeing a lot of huge stuff happen to night elves as part of this Anduin-focus arc.

[Shoggoth]

"Killing major characters is inevitable when progressing the story and never easy. Not everyone has a heroic death or one that comes unexpectedly."

Sounds like a cheap excuse for Vol'Jin's death if you ask me.

[javierdsv]

- There are 20-some quest designers for WoW currently.
- The story and animation department for WoW has a couple of hundred artists but they also work on other Blizzard IPs. The dedicated WoW group is 20-30 people.

Getting to know this is pretty underwhelming, and quite revealing.

[Sanguinerd]

Not sure how I feel about kills getting divided between factions.

"The dedicated WoW group is 20-30 people." for story and animation.... that is very telling, to me. That sucks.

What exactly does that tell you.. ?

[Justpassing]

Not sure how I feel about kills getting divided between factions.




What exactly does that tell you.. ?

Means a lot less people are working on the story than people'd guess. I think they are doing okay but I guess that group could be bigger.

[Coldfire989]

Damn FB headline made me think it was something relivent about Warlocks not just videos by someone who doesn’t even play one.

[Fetus Rex]

I wonder what kind of nepotism, friendship or connections caused hiring of Golden. Strong ones, for sure.

[Archmage Alodi]

Matthew Mercer , Niiiiice.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Wonder how Negative Nancy's can spin that "20 or so dedicated quest designers" into a negative, even after an expansion like Legion and with an expansion like BfA coming up...

[meroko]

There's something satisfying about McCree interviewing Blizzard

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Having now read (well listened, audiobook) they should never have let Golden in charge of writing. It's incredibly biased and with certain segments being factualy wrong.

Warcrafts writing has always been bias one way or another it’s how they like it. What parts were factually wrong? Only thing I can think of is the undercity bit where they say they don’t live in lorderan any more.

[Deleted]

Wonder how Negative Nancy's can spin that "20 or so dedicated quest designers" into a negative, even after an expansion like Legion and with an expansion like BfA coming up...

You are awesome ! I really hope you work at blizzard tho, else it would be pretty sad.

[Queen of Hamsters]

You are awesome ! I really hope you work at blizzard tho, else it would be pretty sad.

I work in pet retail.

Not that I can pretend to understand the reasoning behind your statements.

[PraisCthulhu]

Getting to know this is pretty underwhelming, and quite revealing.

You think they should pay 100+ people to sit around and do nothing when they aren't needed?

It really isn't as bad as it sounds. They probably have a few "gun guys" so whenever a game needs a gun it goes to them, because they're good at it. They probably have scenery guys. Just because the artist isn't exclusive to WoW does not mean they aren't capable of turning out A grade work for it.

[Venziir]

I wonder what kind of nepotism, friendship or connections caused hiring of Golden. Strong ones, for sure.

Well probably the fact that the first bunch of warcraft/wow books she wrote were quite good and quite popular. Sadly though, ever since they hired her it's gone down hill quite fucking fast!