World of Warcraft : World of Warcraft

Attach An Authenticator, Get a Core Hound Pup!

Kody — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:04:54 GMT

If you've been looking for a reason to add an authenticator to your account beyond the extra security it provides, now you have one. When you attach an authenticator to your account, you'll receive a Core Hound Pup on any current and future characters on that Battle.net account! Thanks to Athrynn of Might for the in-game screenshots below.

Quote from: Nethaera (Source)

The Core Hound Pup is a gift for anyone using an authenticator (attached to an account) whether it's the physical authenticator or the mobile authenticator. Anyone who attaches an authenticator will also receive this lovable new pet. Think of it as your own personal guard dog.

Blizzard Insider Interviews Shane Dabiri

DoranM — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 17:36:36 GMT

Blizzard Insider just completed an interview with former World of Warcraft Lead Producer Shane Dabiri that talks about the conception, creation, and early reception of World of Warcraft, and how building a successful MMORPG has shaped Blizzard Entertainment.

Here's a look at some of the Q&A between Blizzard Insider and Shane Dabiri:

When you started working on World of Warcraft, did you come on from the very conception of the idea, or did you join later in development?

There were actually two important milestones before I started working on World of Warcraft. I was the lead producer on Starcraft: Brood War. After that wrapped up, we were trying to figure out what kind of project I would go on to next. I was doing some localization work for Brood War, but then we started up a new team, working on a top-secret internal project. It ended up that we spent probably six months to a year on that game before we realized that it wasn't any good and didn't live up to our standard of quality.

What do you see as the legacy of World of Warcraft? When, 20 years from now, people are reading game development textbooks, and they come to the page on World of Warcraft, what is it going to say about the game?

There are so many things, things that I won't know for the next 10 or 20 years. I can say that we revitalized a genre that people thought was too expensive, and not lucrative enough to get into. At the time, a lot of people were trying MMOs, and their success was limited. When World of Warcraft came out with millions of subscribers after five years, people saw the possibilities. If you do things right, appeal to the amusement park style of gaming, create an environment that's open, appealing, and makes people laugh and smile, there's immense possibility.

There's many more questions, and lots of discussion about the past, present, and future of World of Warcraft in the full Shane Dabiri Interview!

World of Warcraft Patch 3.3 Recap

Kody — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:10:15 GMT

Patch 3.3 is live this week, so check out the content sections below for everything going into the patch.

3.3 Patch Notes
Icecrown Citadel - Encounters: Raid Access Progression, Chill of the Throne, Tanking, and You!
Icecrown Citadel - Items: Shadowmourne, Quel'Delar, Icecrown Raid Tier-10 Armor Sets, Icecrown Raid Recipe Stats
General - Items: New Kirin Tor Rings, Icecrown Dungeon 5-player Armor
Reputations: The Ashen Verdict
Weekly Raid Quests
New Achievements
Dungeon Finder
Quest Tracker
Kalu'ak Fishing Derby
Cross-Faction Bind on Account Mailing

Patch 3.3: Dungeon Finder Tool Mini-FAQ

Kody — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:05:27 GMT

The EU team put together a Dungeon Finder mini-FAQ based on some posts by Zarhym on the US forums this weekend. While nothing is truly new, it's a nice chance to brush up on this new tool going live with patch 3.3.

Quote from: Slorkuz (Source)

Will the random heroic search have the option of excluding certain Heroic instances?
The dungeon finder will not let you exclude a specific instance, however - if you have already run a specific dungeon it is much less likely that the random heroic search will place you in the same dungeon again (on the same day).

Will players still need to purchase keys to queue for TBC heroics?
The tool complies with all standard requirements for entering a heroic dungeon. For example, if you log into the game right after 3.3 is released and queue for a random heroic dungeon, you will not be placed in instances such as Icecrown Citadel - Pit of Saron or Halls of Reflection unless you have cleared all the pre-requisites (previous wings in those cases) to unlock said instance entering (i.e. you must still clear Forge of Souls to enter Pit of Saron, and Pit of Saron to enter Halls of Reflection).

Is it true that players will no longer be saved to heroics? Does this mean players can chain farm heroics for Champion's Seals?
The Heroic lockouts still exist, however the difference is that the random heroic option will ignore any potential lockouts a player might have. This means that even if you run every single WotLK heroic dungeon in a day, you can still choose the random heroic option to continue running WotLK heroics that day. As mentioned above though, the heroic dungeons you have run the most that day will be the least likely to be randomly selected for your continued play by the dungeon finder system.

Does this mean that raid-lockouts are unaffected and you can enter multiple raid instances through the random heroic dungeon finder?
The new dungeon finder is designed only for 5 man dungeons, and the lockouts and accessibility to raid content remains unchanged/unaffected by the "override" in heroic instance lockouts for 5 man dungeons.

Copying WoW? Bad Move Says Lead WoW Producer Shane Dabiri!

DoranM — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:24:19 GMT

NeoSeeker has posted a recent excerpt from an interview with lead producer for WoW, Shane Dabiri. Shane had lots of great things to say but one comment in particular jumped out to the NeoSeeker crew about other MMO's copying WoW.

Take a look:

"There are a lot of people that try to emulate World of Warcraft - and as flattering as that is our end it's definitely not the right move. I know that World of Warcraft is very successful, and so people think if they were to make another game just like it they could somehow capture that audience. However, I don't think that's what players are looking for.

"Players that have invested time in WOW don't just want to do the same thing in other game - they want to try something completely new and different."

For more on this or for user comments visit the original post at NeoSeeker!

WoW 5-year Anniversary: Game Informer Interviews Jeff Kaplan

Kody — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:02:15 GMT

Game Informer recently had a chance to interview Jeff Kaplan to talk Warcraft in celebration of the 15-year Warcraft and 5-year World of Warcraft Anniversaries. The interview is a fun read with some great quotes from Kaplan, and sheds a lot of light on why early design decisions were made, as well as the process of evolving the game to what we play now.

I've included some of the more interesting pieces from the interview below. While many know Tigole was one of the first quest designers on the game, did you know there were only two originally, working on many of the early zones? We also get word from Tigole that there will be a cutscene included with patch 3.3, likely related to the defeat of Arthas. Beyond that, Hinterlands was originally planned to be an endgame classic zone, while Burning Steppes was geared for level 30s!

On Kaplan's role

GI: You're primary job with World of Warcraft was world design, right?

JK: That's correct. I actually joined the World of Warcraft team as one of the two first quest designers, specifically to create quest content and to design that system. The other quest designer was a really great Blizzard veteran by the name of Pat Nagel. He and I worked in collaboration with the lead designer to design the quest system and start making some of the first quest content.

As WOW progressed from there, I got very involved with all things PvE with the game. When it came to dungeons, I helped formulate the vision along with some of the other guys as to what our dungeon experience and raid experience might be like. I worked very closely with our creative director, Chris Metzen, who was sort of the keeper of the flame when it came to the lore of Warcraft. I tried to apply his vision in a game design sense to world design and world building. I was kind of a medium between Chris Metzen and our level designers and our environmental artists.

On storytelling in WoW becoming more important with each expansion

GI: One of the things that I've picked up on personally that's been improving with the expansions -- whether you're looking at quests or instances or raids or anything -- storytelling seems to be a more and more important factor with subsequent patches and expansions. This stands out to me, because very few other MMOs have managed to create captivating narrative content, but it seems like you guys are really striving for that and often succeeding in World of Warcraft. Is that something you expect to continue progressing in future World of Warcraft expansions and future Blizzard MMOs, or will narrative always take a backseat to the grind in MMOs?

JK: It's funny, because you said that narrative became more important, but I look at it a little bit differently. The story was always extremely important to us; I just don't think we did a good job of telling it early on. What happened over the years as World of Warcraft progressed is that we had this very seasoned development team. Guys like Chris Metzen, our creative director, were partnering with guys like Alex Afrasiabi, our lead world designer who headed up the quest team. We've got the most experienced quest team in the industry. These guys are masterminds now when it comes to telling a story. They're just much better at doing it than we ever were before.

They really wrapped their heads around the concept of letting the players experience the story first-hand rather than just trying to beat them over the head with text, which is something that's really important. In the early days, we did a lot of quests where we put a lot of time, heart, and soul into designing them. If you go back and look at the "Green Hills of Stranglethorn" quests, for example, there's a lot of text written, and there's actually quite a bit of story there, but the players don't absorb it, because they don't experience it themselves.

If you fast-forward to something like the Death Knight starting experience, our story-telling team has really mastered or refined the art of delivering the story as first-hand gameplay rather than spraying you with the word hose, which is what we did in the past.

On the use of cutscenes in World of Warcraft

GI: I would agree that the game has gotten much better at showing rather than telling, but Wrath of the Lich King also saw the introduction of cutscenes to the game. It's obviously much easier to tell the story in that, but you're also taking the player out of the game. Do you think that those will keep showing up future expansions as well? Is it something you'll use sparingly?

JK: Cutscenes will always be something that we use sparingly, yes. We never want to interrupt gameplay too frequently or for too long of a period of time. The Wrathgate cutscene was a big experiment for us. It was our first foray into in-game cutscenes in World of Warcraft. I don't think we've fully refined how we want cutscenes to work with future World of Warcraft content.

We debate like crazy. We debate the length, we debate the frequency, and we have a lot of theories, but Blizzard is a really iterative development house. I think what's going to have to happen is that you'll see more cutscenes come into the game for us to really refine our strategy with them. We definitely have an eye toward more cutscenes, but at the same time, we don't want to become just a cutscene game.

Even before Cataclysm, in patch 3.3, there's going to be a really exciting cutscene moment that's going to be our next experiment with that.

On the casual-vs-hardcore debate

GI: With the drop to 10-man or 25-man for all raids, another major change was the ability to run 5-man dungeons for badges that you can use to purchase equipment that would normally only drop from raids previously. These kinds of changes seem focused on appealing to more casual players, but I know that some hardcore players complain about them. How do you strike that balance in the Warcraft community between pleasing the hardcore fans but still making things accessible?

JK: It's not even just a casual versus hardcore thing. It's a play style choice. There are some players who just never want to experience the large raids. They're not interested in hanging out with 25 players online. Some of those are very skilled, very hardcore players who play the game more than people who play 25-person raids. Between PvE and PvP, we have these separate paths to the end-game for people to pursue. The same goes for within a game type.

If you take PvE, we have to make sure that five-person groups or solo people or 10-person groups or 25-person groups, that everyone has access to really good gear and progression that they feel good about. We don't want them to feel like Blizzard is only validating one way to play. What we like to remind the hardest of the hardcore 25-person raid groups is that at the end of the day, when it comes to the best of slot items, you're still the only people with it. Just because we're doing a bit of catch-up for everyone else doesn't mean that we're diminishing your accomplishments at all.

I think amongst the players, they also recognize the elite titles and Achievements that those hardcore players are earning. Being a former very hardcore raider from EverQuest, I understand that mentality. The thing those players want most is to attain something that nobody else has, which is sort of an interesting paradox in a game with an 11.5 million player base.

Check out the full interview by heading over to the Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan on Warcraft's Past And Future article on Game Informer.

World of Warcraft Battle Mosaic Tile Revealed!

DoranM — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 18:13:14 GMT

The World of Warcraft community team has sent us an update on their Battle Mosaic picture posting event! Here's the latest update about the Mosaic:

Warcraft Anniversary: First Battlecry Mosaic Tile Revealed

We've assembled the first part of the Battlecry photo mosaic from your photo submissions! Every 1,000 photos you send us will reveal another part of the mosaic and additional Warcraft artwork. When the full mosaic is revealed, your combined efforts will unlock an epic, exclusive piece of World of Warcraft art as a final reward.

Head over to the Battlecry photo mosaic page to view the mosaic in progress, and keep those photos coming!

World of Warcraft US And EU Weekly Community Update!

DoranM — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:10:46 GMT

The World of Warcraft Community team has sent us several forum posts, noteworthy threads, and developer posts of importance over the past week!

Take a look:

EU Forums:

Here are some of the most recent blue-posts made on the EU forums:

·         Poll: Why did you join the Pilgrim's Bounty event?
·         02/12 - Forum Watch
·         Blizzard Entertainment is now on Facebook!
·         Blizzard Entertainment at Dreamhack Winter!
·         Gold cap
·         is this email safe?
·         30/11 World of Warcraft TCG Hero Card Contest
·         Naxxramas 60 level
·         27/11 Community News
·         Fishing from pools......
·         26/11 Community Events
·         26/11 New Fan Art: Blood Elf Mage!

Other noteworthy threads:

· Things that make you laugh in WoW!
· New features you would like to see!

US Forums:

·         Weekend Deal: Gift WoW for only $5.00
·         Flying and cost
·         Free Character Moves for Select Realms
·         More details on sweepstakes
·         Fresh New MVP Look
·         Professions and rolling for ingredients
·         Horde VS. Alliance - Battlecry Mosaic
·         Sharing more information
·         Warcraft Anniversary Celebration Information

Developer Posts:

·         On rogue trees
·         DKs and tanking
·         Mastery & Passive Talents
·         Current Known Issues

World of Warcraft Announces Anniversary Website!

DoranM — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:34:30 GMT

The Blizzard WoW team has sent us this recent update about the 5 year WoW, and 15 year Warcraft, anniversaries! To commemorate the milestone Blizzard has launched the Warcraft anniversary website located at: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wowanniversary/

Here's the official notice from Blizzard highlighting years of Warcraft:

Over the past 15 years, a lot has changed in Azeroth. Valiant heroes have travelled the length and breadth of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, taken wing in Outland to free the Black Temple from Illidan's clutches, and set sail for Northrend to battle the mighty Lich King. Whether you've been part of the adventure from the beginning or are just getting started now, we're glad to have you with us for the five-year anniversary of World of Warcraft and the 15-year anniversary of the Warcraft series.

To commemorate these milestones, we've just launched the Warcraft anniversary website. There you'll find video interviews featuring personal anecdotes from some of the shapers of Warcraft, as well as the Battlecry Mosaic where you can show off your faction pride. Visit the anniversary site now!

Warcraft Anniversary Website: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/wowanniversary/

Blizzard Entertainment at Dreamhack Winter!

Kody — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:16:17 GMT

Blizzard Entertainment is heading to Jönköping, Sweden from November 26th to the 29th for Dreamhack Winter 2009, and it's your chance to get hands-on time with both StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. If you're in the area, be sure to pay them a visit and play the games; you won't regret it!

Quote from: Ancilorn (Source)

We're pleased to announce that Blizzard Entertainment will be attending Dreamhack Winter 2009, the world's largest computer festival, which is taking place from 26th to 29th November in Jönköping, Sweden.

Dreamhack attendees will be able to visit the Blizzard booth to take part in various competitions and contests, and also to play both StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

You can find out more about Dreamhack Winter 2009 at http://www.dreamhack.se/dhw09.

We look forward to seeing you there!

World of Warcraft Anniversary Interview: The Creation of a Raid Dungeon

Kody — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:38:38 GMT

As I promised in the interview with Greg Street and Cory Stockton, here's a look inside the creation process of a dungeon like Ulduar. It's cool to have a better idea of what each dungeon goes through before players get their hands on it, and even some insight into the way the dungeons and encounters are designed!

Walk us through the creation of a raid instance like Ulduar. When do your various teams come into play, and how much influence do they have on tasks they're not directly involved in during the creation process?

Cory: As far as the kickoff goes for Ulduar... Ulduar was something we were working on all through Northrend, and we kind of realized that we had the content we wanted to ship it. Then we're sitting there with Ulduar, so we had some time to go back to it and beef it up from what we originally had planned for Ulduar.

We kick off, you know... brainstorming names, story, we have Alex Afrasiabi telling us the background, what we need to get across to players. So we kick off there, and it comes to a level design phase where we lay everything out in 2D. You've probably seen this at BlizzCon; we use these 2D illustrator maps to plan the layout of the whole dungeon, figure out where the bosses are gonna be, what we're gonna do.

From that point we talk about it more, decide we like what we have and start building it in 3D in what we call a "block out." The block out is just a really basic 3D form of the dungeon that we can run around in and see what the first stage is like. With Ignis, we knew how the fight was gonna be with the water pools on the side, how far we wanted players to have to drag the adds into the pool.

So in an instance like that, we're able to lay out all of that in 2D to get a sense of feel for units of measure, and then we get it into the basic 3D form and we can actually go in and spawn him, you know we didn't have his model done yet right, but we could spawn him there and get a feel for if there needs to be any changes before we get the final art going. We do that individually for everything in the whole place to lay it out, figure out how much space we need for the fights.

From there we get the encounter team involved. The encounter team comes in and we have meetings on the actual fights individually, and at the same time the art team begins working on final art. Those two work side-by-side from there until the end of the dungeon, or the production time, whatever that might be. Some dungeons that are smaller, we can kick out in two-to-three months, but something like Ulduar that's huge can take more time -- up to four-to-five months.

And during that time, they're working on the fights in Stranglethorn Arena spawning Razorscale there, fighting him, getting it down for how it's gonna play out and what he does while the art is being built for that room. As things start coming in, we'll start putting things together... we'll start placing the creatures in the actual instance and do internal testing.

Everything goes through testing here, we have a QA team that does that, but we test everything ourselves in 10-man form with the encounter guys, Greg is in on that, Tom Chilton, Alex Afrasiabi, all of us. So we go through as players and get a feel for it. From there it's just tuning, we get feedback after every session and work on tuning everything.

Then it goes on to Greg's team where the item art is getting hooked up, filling out the achievements, which all of those falls under Greg's team.

So could an item guy go up to the encounter guys and say "Hey, I have this awesome idea for a boss fight," or a class designer say "This room would look really awesome with a pink elephant ghost hovering near the ceiling."

[Greg Street laughs]

Cory: Oh 100%.

Greg: We're super collaborative here, our offices are full of very open people and we're talking to each other a lot. If someone gets this crazy idea about something and champions it can often get it into the game.

Cory: A lot of times we'll see a model come in from art and they'll end up creating a weapon the creature is holding and one of the item guys will say "oh I want to drop that," and at that point a task will go in, the artist goes in and rips the weapon out of the creature's hands, scales it down to fit the races in the game and we'll actually use that as a weapon.

Like with Razorscale when we saw his model we decided we wanted to get a mount for that. We had no idea until the art came in for him, and we saw it, and it looked so good we decided we had to get it in as a mount. So a lot of times things just happen... we try to plan as much as we can, but sometimes we end up getting things, and we all play this game just like anyone else. So there's a lot of things like that, that come out even though we didn't start with it planned and using it makes it feel so much better.

WoW Dev Interview: The Heart and Souls of Icecrown Citadel

Kody — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:06:34 GMT

It looks like World of Raids wasn't the only one interviewing Greg Street and Cory Stockton this week! Blizzard's community team sat down with them and grilled them on Icecrown Citadel, including their philosophies behind the dungeon and more. Check it out below!

Quote from: Zarhym (Source)

To shed some light into the chilly gloom of Icecrown Citadel, we sat down to talk about the decision-making process behind Wrath of the Lich King's ultimate dungeon, the World of Warcraft team's design philosophy, and the dangers that lurk in the heart of Arthas's stronghold.

Check out the resulting interview to learn more: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/underdev/3p3/icecrown-interview.xml

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

With the final battle against the Lich King just on the horizon, Lead Content Designer Cory Stockton and Lead Systems Designer Greg Street discuss what awaits players inside Icecrown Citadel and offer a glimpse at the design process behind Wrath of the Lich King's ultimate raid and dungeon encounters.

What were you looking forward to most about developing Icecrown Citadel?

Cory: I think the most exciting thing about developing Icecrown Citadel was just knowing that we were working on the final chapter of the Northrend expansion, and that we'd really be able to give players that ultimate sense of completion of the storyline. Arthas is a huge character in Warcraft lore, so we took a lot of pride in making this the best experience we possibly could.

Icecrown and the Frozen Throne are important parts of the world of Azeroth and have quite a bit of history, especially for longtime Warcraft players. How do you convey the significance of these places and the events that took place there in design?

Cory: History was a large factor in the design of Icecrown Citadel from the very beginning. When we first sat down to discuss the layout of the raid itself, we immediately went back to Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne to think about how the spire from the ending cinematic could be translated into World of Warcraft. We decided to actually build Icecrown Citadel around the original spire to pull players even more into the storyline. This kind of thinking carried on throughout the entire design process.

Greg: We want Icecrown to be an epic experience from top to bottom, and that includes the loot you get. We're not going to shower players in items -- well, more than we already do -- but we do want to make sure the items are sufficiently powerful so that they're upgrades for all of our players.

Is there an existing model in World of Warcraft for Icecrown Citadel's itemization or style of play? What lessons that you'd learned from earlier projects wound up being applied to Icecrown Citadel?

Greg: The nice thing about Icecrown Citadel from an itemization perspective is that we have lots of bosses. That's something of a relief coming from the Crusaders' Coliseum, where we had only five bosses. For Icecrown, we can afford to have multiple options for a particular slot -- say a healing leather bracer or a melee trinket -- and even itemize some of the more unusual pieces. We have a pretty effective system for figuring out who is going to drop what to make sure that an individual boss will be interesting to a variety of players in terms of loot. Most of our lessons learned are in the realm of what differences there should be between 10- and 25-player itemization, the role of tradeskill recipes, and what kinds of items to place with badge vendors.

Cory: I think we learn lessons from every raid that we do. We didn't model Icecrown specifically after any of our previous raids, but you can definitely see influences. For example, we have a winged structure in Icecrown that players will remember from Naxxramas. Another example of an influence would be the teleporters from Ulduar. We know that players really loved that concept, so we brought it back in Icecrown.

Can you talk a little about how artists and designers on the team collaborated on the creation of Icecrown Citadel?

Cory: The design and art teams worked extremely closely throughout the entire development process. The biggest single influence on the look and the layout of the dungeon comes from our concept art, and there was no shortage of that for Icecrown Citadel. Once we locked down the layout, we were able to get to work on the final art extremely quickly thanks to the existing style we'd developed for the Icecrown zone. We really wanted the players to feel connected to the environment, but we wanted to make sure it still had an amazing look. Oftentimes, these two things are hard to mix, but in this case, I think we've been able to pull off an amazing dungeon from both the art and design standpoint.

What sorts of new loot and item abilities will we see in Icecrown?

Greg: There are three main sources of loot for Icecrown: the bosses themselves, the Emblem of Frost badge vendors, and a new faction, the Ashen Verdict, that will provide suitable rewards as well, particularly at the Exalted level.

As far as the items themselves go, we want them to feel epic. In addition to having favorable optimization, we also want to try a lot of experiments to make the items feel cool and unique. We are going to try to do a lot of weapon procs, for instance, which is something we haven't done much since the original World of Warcraft.

When you set out to itemize "sister" areas -- like the Icecrown Citadel dungeon and raid, or Halls of Stone, Halls of Lightning, and Ulduar -- do you take any steps to make loot from these places feel similar?

Greg: Absolutely. We approach that on two fronts: the art and the names. When we did the Halls of Stone and Lightning, we hadn't completed the Ulduar raid yet, so the items there didn't necessarily have Titan-influenced art models for us to use. We are doing the Icecrown dungeon at the same time as the raid, and it's a style we already know pretty well, from Naxxramas and even the Warcraft RTS games.

Naming is something we've had a lot of fun with. There's a ton of lore to draw from for Icecrown loot and it has a very strong "kit." World of Warcraft players know to associate the Scourge with spiders, bats, and cultists along with more traditional forms of undead, like skeletons and liches.

Do you itemize Icecrown's "trash" -- the enemies between bosses -- differently from elites elsewhere in the world elsewhere?

Greg: We make sure there is epic trash loot -- specific items that only drop from trash. It helps keep players interested between bosses. However, we aren't doing Heroic trash, just Heroic bosses, so there won't be unique trash loot for Heroic versions of the 10- and 25-player versions of the raid. We try to construct the trash in such a way that it isn't trivial to go farm the first pull or whatever in hopes that an epic drops. We make our raids more accessible now in general, so I'm not sure the motivation is there to try stunts like that the way it once was. We want players who have raided so far in Wrath of the Lich King to be able to actually fight the Lich King, so chances are a lot of raiders will have plenty of opportunities to gear up. Now, the Heroics are another story -- those will be as challenging as they were in Ulduar and Trial of the Crusader, and the items will likewise be even better.

What have you done to make the tier-10 sets feel like a meaningful advancement from tier 8 and tier 9? How do they visually represent Icecrown's lore and history?

Greg: Not only do we want them to be a meaningful advancement, but we want them to feel really awesome. This is Arthas loot you're talking about. We started by spending a lot of time on the concept art to make sure it tied into the type of creatures you'll encounter and the whole Icecrown art "kit" in general. For example, the rogue tier-10 set has a strong geist look to it, while the hunter set has strong Nerubian elements, and the mage set looks a lot like the Blood Princes. You can see the Icecrown look and feel in a lot of pieces, which itself drew strongly from the Lich King's original helmet. Look for lots of blue, ice, skulls, and spikes.

We have also spent a lot longer on the set bonuses than we usually do. It's important that they feel awesome for every class and spec. Going back to the Crusaders' Coliseum, part of the challenge we made for ourselves was to create an instance that didn't require as much time or resources as Ulduar to develop, yet was still cool. We had set bonuses for the tier-9 gear, but they were often simple -- more crit on a common ability was a typical one. For tier 10, we're really going for set bonuses that change your game up a little. At the very least, you should want to change your rotation a little, though this is easier with some classes than others.

If you had something like a mission statement or a slogan for itemizing Icecrown, what would it be?

Greg: Epic. Cool things. Proc'y stuff.

Seriously, that's our mission statement. One of the risks of itemization is making things feel too formulaic. We know that when we step outside the bounds too much, players can have a bad reaction to it, like, "Why does my gear for this tier suck?" It's easy to fall into the trap of making the new gear feel just like the last gear with 20 more stat points. That is the exact design approach we use for the PvP gear, and left unchecked, it would be easy to go the same direction with the PvE gear as well. We're trying not to do that. We think we owe it to Icecrown for the gear to be memorable, but that means we're going to take a few chances.

Can you talk about any of the new mechanics we'll see in the raid?

Cory: One of the coolest new things we're doing in Icecrown is the gunship air battle. Players will be able to board their respective faction's gunship and then take to the air for a battle to the top of the citadel. They'll be fighting on the decks as well as using vehicles' cannon emplacements. If you're really daring, you can put on a goblin rocket pack and propel yourself back and forth between the two battling gunships. Needless to say, this will be a type of encounter that our players have never experienced before.

Icecrown Citadel's structure is extremely vertical -- what challenges does that present from a layout perspective?

Cory: Well, we knew from the start that the layout was going to be vertical, just due to the nature of the original spire. There are a number of things that we're doing to help players get around and not get lost. We're using elevators, teleporters, and even gunships to get players where they need to go in the dungeon. We are also going to have an in-game map with full support for all floors -- that should help too.

Icecrown is the last major raid and dungeon before the release of Cataclysm -- how has that affected the design?

Greg: The major challenge from an itemization perspective is that the items have to last basically until Cataclysm. That means we can't afford to give them away too quickly, but they also need to feel powerful enough that players are motivated to keep trying for them. On the other hand, the really fun thing about doing a final raid tier is how it unties your hands. We can afford to make these items great because nothing needs to follow on their heels. It's cool to be able to optimize the items very well, because it's okay if players don't want to replace these items for a long time.

Cory: We are really pushing as hard as we can to deliver the most epic experience possible. We know that our players have been waiting for this for a long time, and we plan to deliver. Everyone should expect to see this sort of storytelling and attention to detail in Cataclysm as well. I think we are always striving to pull the people who play our game into the storyline and really give them an explanation for why they're there. It won't be too long before they'll get a chance to bring the pain to Deathwing!

Thanks, both of you - we're looking forward to playing through Icecrown Citadel after patch 3.3 is released!

Shadowmourne Discovered

Kody — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:54:11 GMT

Shadowmourne has been discovered on the 3.3 PTR! Apparently certain devs (or maybe GMs) had it equipped during the encounter testing tonight. Also don't forget to check out the Shadowmourne preview. Thanks to Might for tipping me off on this. Click through on the image for a shot of the model too.

Icecrown Citadel Raid Access Progression

Kody — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:49:58 GMT

This doesn't come as a huge surprise since Ghostcrawler let slip of it in our interview with him, but check out the planned progression for raid access in Icecrown Citadel below.

Quote from: Daelo (Source)

Icecrown Citadel testing has been progressing very well over the last few weeks, and this has been a huge help to the encounter design team. I want to thank everyone who has logged onto the PTR and tried the encounters there.

As we're now getting closer to the release of 3.3.0, I wanted to talk about our plans for access progression within Icecrown Citadel. Icecrown Citadel is going to be broken up into four distinct sections: The Lower Spire, Plagueworks, Crimson Hall, and Frostwing Halls. We plan on releasing these four sections of Icecrown Citadel over time and not all immediately when patch 3.3.0 goes live. At this point I can't give precise dates for these release dates as they are determined by when patch 3.3.0 goes live. Once dates are known with more certainty, I'll update the community so they can plan appropriately.

The first section that opens will include the Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Icecrown Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang encounters. Progress beyond that point will be prevented for several weeks. Then the Plagueworks will open with Rotface, Festergut, and Professor Putricide becoming available. After another period of time, the Crimson Hall will open and you can then fight the Blood Princes and Blood-Queen Lana'thel. The final Frostwing Halls unlock then occurs after that, making Valithria Dreamwalker, Sindragosa, and the Lich King available. We believe a staggered release of the content will allow players to experience Icecrown Citadel at a sustainable, measured, and ultimately more enjoyable pace.

There are other elements that gate access along the way. Players may not attempt any Heroic versions of 10 player encounters until they have defeated the Lich King in a 10 player raid. Similarly, players must defeat the Lich King in a 25 player raid before they can attempt a Heroic 25 player encounter. So players must master every normal difficulty encounter in Icecrown Citadel before attempting Heroic difficulty.

The Lich King may not be attempted until Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, and Sindragosa are defeated. Furthermore, the Heroic difficulty of The Lich King encounter may not be attempted in any week unless the three aforementioned encounters have been defeated in Heroic difficulty that week.

The Ashen Verdict provides reinforcements and material for players to assault Icecrown Citadel, but this support is not endless. Raids will have a limited number of attempts total each week to defeat the four most difficult encounters in Icecrown Citadel: Professor Putricide, Blood-Queen Lana'thel, Sindragosa, and the Lich King. As these boss encounters are unlocked, the number of attempts available per week will increase. The initial number of attempts provided for defeating Professor Putricide is only five. When Blood-Queen Lana'thel unlocks, the amount of total attempts remaining will increase to 10. Then when Sindragosa and the Lich King unlock, 15 total attempts will be available to defeat all four bosses. After a raid has exhausted their attempts for the week, the Ashen Verdict must withdraw their support and the four most difficult bosses all despawn and become unavailable for the week. The limited attempt system is a feature of both Normal and Heroic difficulty.

There will be no explicit rewards for defeating the Lich King with a specific number of attempts remaining as there was with Trial of the Grand Crusader. There will also not be an achievement to complete Icecrown Citadel without being defeated by a boss encounter, or letting a raid member die. (i.e. A Tribute to Insanity).

In the weeks and months after all twelve encounters are unlocked, additional attempts against the final four boss encounters become available. This represents the Ashen Verdict growing more powerful and gaining a stronger foothold in Icecrown Citadel. To further help raids, Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will begin to provide assistance by inspiring the armies attacking Icecrown Citadel. This is represented as an additional zone wide spell effect applied to all players that will increase their hit points, damage dealt, and healing done. This effect will also increase in effectiveness over time. Players may opt out of the spell's effect if they so wish.

Legendary Weapon Preview: Shadowmourne

Kody — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:26:00 GMT

This looks like it will shape up to be the most interesting legendary quest ever added to the game. It should be a lot of fun for players to take part in when 3.3 goes live! Here's the official preview of Shadowmourne, the next legendary weapon being added to World of Warcraft:

Quote from: Blizzard (Source)

Before beginning his reign as the Lich King, Prince Arthas Menethil was first a servant, ruled by a sword he believed was the key to saving his people - the runeblade Frostmourne. Finding and claiming the blade among the frozen wastes of Northrend was an odyssey unto itself, and the search cost the prince his mentor, his relationship with his subjects, and his humanity. It cost the living of Azeroth far more.

With a tight grip on the blade that he traded his life for, Arthas ravaged the kingdom of Lordaeron and broke free from the control of the Burning Legion. By the time the former prince ascended as the leader of the Scourge, Frostmourne was already glutted with the souls of the numberless dead who dared to oppose him.

Now, Arthas has become so inseparable from his weapon that the sword's likeness has even found its way into the architecture of his fortress, Icecrown Citadel. Its hilt is never far from his hands; its ghostly whispers constantly ring in his ears. Frostmourne, as much as the Lich King, is the ruler of Northrend.

To challenge that rule, mighty heroes will need to follow more closely in Arthas's path than ever before.

In a relentless quest to arm the forces of the living against the Scourge, Darion Mograine has formed the Ashen Verdict, a union between the most skilled craftsmen of the Argent Crusade and the Ebon Blade. Though the peerless paladins of the Crusade wield the power of the Light, and their leader clutches Ashbringer, a few of Mograine's dark warriors have begun to question their hopes for victory.

These death knights insist that the Ashbringer and the skills of the Argent Crusaders, though potent, aren't enough to best Frostmourne alone. They swear that Darion Mograine has long been quietly aware of another legendary blade - one that could be the key to defeating the Lich King and cleansing Northrend... But it doesn't exist yet.

For the moment, the weapon is a formless idea, with no more killing power than an angry thought. When it is spoken of, it is spoken of quietly, and the Highlord has a habit of silencing those who discuss it in public.

But the hope of an artifact to rival Frostmourne is strong within the minds of the Ebon Blade. Just its name inspires the furnaces to burn late into the night, the bellows to pump air, and the darker half of the Verdict's smiths to swing their hammers until their fingers fail. While other craftsmen crafters lean over whetstones and gather pitted blades by the hundreds, these few dream of a single weapon to end the war for Northrend.

Shadowmourne... A great two-handed axe fit for a giant, born of sacred and corrupt powers, host of a thousand dead souls and able to be wielded only by the most stalwart armsmasters of Azeroth. Its creation seems nearly impossible; and yet, the rumors do not cease.

Some smiths claim that Shadowmourne must be nothing more than an ordinary axe, honed to unparalleled perfection, while others would shape it from a weapon of immense import in the world. Mograine, when he can be convinced to speak of it at all, is said to believe that only the hammer of Arthas himself will provide a worthy model - but such absurd ambition is just the beginning of Shadowmourne's creation.

To contain the energies that dance across its cold edges, Shadowmourne must be hewn from piles of impure Saronite: the hardened blood of the Old God, Yogg-Saron, treated only by master metal-shapers.

To fuel its power to kill, it is vital that Shadowmourne be drenched in the souls of the most potent servants of the Scourge as they are slain, one by one, with the unfinished blade.

To help break through the Lich King's armor, Shadowmourne is to be adorned with fragments of the Frozen Throne, originally crafted by Kil'Jaeden out of ice from the Twisting Nether.

Only with these mighty components, it's said, can Shadowmourne be finished. And, yet, even if the axe could be completed, questions and fears remain. Is forging the souls of the deceased into a weapon treated withblood and the essence of the Twisting Nether truly any different from the crafting of the Scourge's runeblades?

Who is to say that the Lich King wouldn't simply annihilate - or control - the maker for their impudence in mimicking his most treasured possession? If Arthas, one of the most dedicated knights of his age, lost his humanity to the whispers of Frostmourne, might Shadowmourne bring the same doom and misery tothe living as its sister blade?

Without knowing the answers to these questions, who would be bold enough to try and wield it?