An Interview With WoW's Lead Designers

Zyuu — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:05:08 GMT

Wrath of the Lich King Preview -- May 9th, 2008

An Interview With WoW's Lead Designers

ZekeTheSquirrel — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:05:07 GMT

So...much...reading...

Lots of cool info though, I can't wait.

That video is a nice preview of the zones and vehicle combat looks like a blast!

An Interview With WoW's Lead Designers

Solander — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:05:06 GMT

Odd that they didn't mention druids in the tank discussion. I do like the idea of having each tanking class be the best in their own role though.

Awesome video and great interview, thanks Curse!

An Interview With WoW's Lead Designers

Kody — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:05:05 GMT

I think that's simply because the question was related to Warriors and Paladins specifically.

An Interview With WoW's Lead Designers

Shenshin — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:05:04 GMT

Solving the mindless grind to the battleground by giving more bonuses to the battleground? Is that the way they reasoned by adding the PvP daily? I sincerely hope they won't use the same reasoning for solving problems in WoTLK!

I'm glad I'm leaving for AoC..

An Interview With WoW's Lead Designers

dietx — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:05:03 GMT

Your post was extremely helpful, im gald you made it.

....

An Interview With WoW's Lead Designers

hamor — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:05:02 GMT

Lots of awesome looking stuff coming! I personally think they've made an excellent choice in doing the 10/25 man setup, as well as adding a way for new 80's with no gear to be able to accomplish something in PvP (vehicles). Little sucked more than trying to PvP as a new 70 in greens and a few Dungeon blues going against people in full season 3... They've said they won't do it, but it would be freaking awesome if they made the arena servers a permanent thing, open to anyone. Eliminate the gear issue entirely.

I just wish they would make all battlegrounds available to all levels (well, levels 10 and up anyway)... I love twinking at 39, but it gets incredibly boring only having access to 2 of the 4 BG's.

Related to that, there used to be a way to get at least some XP out of BG's if you wanted to (turning in tokens of some sort), they really should allow PvP as a viable way to level up for people who aren't interested in much PvE content.

An Interview With WoW's Lead Designers

GronF — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:05:01 GMT

Any comments on why would Blizzard bother to do level 70 instances - there are tonns in BC, why do another one for WTLK? I saw video where there were level 71 elites... I think a lot of people will just level up and don't bother with 5-man instances untill they reach level 75 or so...

Taking already designed level 71-74 instances to level 80 could make sense as endgame always seems to lack content (people will level to 80 in 2-3 months time, then start instances, and next expansion will be 2 years away).

An Interview With WoW's Lead Designers

blackweb — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:05:00 GMT

/sigh

Yet another fluff, softball interview with Blizzard by the gaming press. How long is the gaming press going to keep letting wow subscribers down? Again, you completely missed the point. The fundamental issue for most very unhappy wow subscribers right now is CLASS BALANCE or a lack thereof. Classes have been rebalanced around Kalgans failed, easily exploited WoW eSPort Arena system and we dont like the way they have been rebalanced one little bit. WoW PvP/Arena is now dominated by a few overpowered classes. If these obvious class imbalances carry forward into WoTLK then none of the fluff you have been reporting about WoTDK will matter.

Why dont you go to:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com

This post about sums it up

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=6417251913&sid=1&pageNo=1

and read up on what is really going on in WoW, then start asking the wow "lead designers" some tough questions.

When most of us signed up to play wow, we were expecting an MMORolePG. What we have now is an MMOeSportPG. Stop being mindless parrots for Blizzard MMOGAMER and TenTonHammer and start asking them some tough questions about the influence of eSport on WoW class balance.

An Interview With WoW's Lead Designers

Salsa — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:04:59 GMT

I too am concerned for druids as tanks. Not a single mentioning of them, and they even mention warriors should be the overal best mitigation tank, the area where druids excell at the moment (just soaking up the blows with armor and health, basicly). Sloppy press work not to push forward regarding this point.

Also, I am unable to understand why blizz are so happy with twinks that they are even making twink specific drops now. "Legacy" items sounds more like twink items dropping from end-game content, so only twinks with a main in end-game raiding will have the advantage... Thereby enforcing the old mechanics of endgame PvE'ers being on top of the foodchain in PvP which the twinks tried to escape from. Way NOT to go, Blizz...

Their discussions about why they add a tank class more (while totally ignoring mentioning one of the already existing tank classes whenever they talk about tanks) seems to indicate they have on real understanding of the deeper interaction mechanics of their own game. There is not a lack of tanks in the LFG system because the tanks don't exists. There's a shortage of tanks in the LFG system because tanks go with alerady established groups where they can avoid the idiots that make it a punishing routine to do instances where you get saved with anything but people you already know. Adding a new tank class won't fix that, and I'm curious what blizz will say when they realize their blunder.

When I read about their "vehicle system", I couldn't help but get pictures of Starsiege Tribes in my head. Except that I have a feeling that it won't feel as thematically "correct" in WoW as it did in Tribes. Of course, with spaceships, laserwileding draeneis and what have you, the theme of WoW have undergone quite a few changes by now, I guess, so they could prob throw anything in there by now.