Blizzard's Work-From-Home Policies
In order to protect the health and safety of employees, Blizzard is implementing work-from-home policies for their Irvine and Austin offices, as well as other offices around the world.
Windows Central - World of Warcraft Interview
Windows Central have caught up with Steve Danuser, Lead Narrative Designer for World of Warcraft to learn about the past, present, and future of the world's most successful MMO.
- The challenge with Warcraft's story comes with pacing out content in a way that makes sense for the game.
- If they pull too many characters in at any one time, it runs the risk of making the narrative disjointed and hard for players to keep track of.
- World of Warcraft is a game, and so sometimes the needs of gameplay requires the story to hold off on resolving plot points until later in the expansion, such as with Warfronts.
- The aftermath of the mak'gora in Orgrimmar felt like a time when they really needed to show how majors characters were reacting, as well as the commoners in the street.
- Azshara and the Old Gods were always intended to be in Battle for Azeroth.
- Looking back, Steve believes that they could have done a better job making sure both factions got a deeper context for where the story was going so that the threads that connected all the elements were clearer.
- He feels good about how the players got to experience the major beats of the story and that each one was intended from the start.
- The parallels between this story and Garrosh were intentional to emphasize the theme that "Ours is a cycle of Hatred." The story shows that the underlying structures of the Horde is what enables the tyranny in the first place, and it's within this nuance that they sought to show growth and ultimately the fundamental change in the Horde Leadership.
- On the Alliance, they wanted to show Anduin's struggle to live up to his father's legacy and the cost it incurred.
- The aftermath of war is always messy. Expect repercussions from the Fourth War to carry forward for a long time.
- There is a lot more story to tell in regards to the burning of Teldrassil and the repercussions from it. The characters involved have a long way to go and many lessons to learn.
- The team will do more cinematics in the style done for Saurfang where it makes sense and at the right moments.
- In Shadowlands the player character will be referred to as "The Maw Walker," but is not heralded as an all-powerful champion, but rather as someone with great potential who has an exciting adventure ahead of them.
- The team plans to tell a focused story arc that will continue through updates and culminate in a compelling conclusion. There will be twists along the way with implications beyond Shadowlands. Certain long-running threads will conclude with new mysteries as well.
- The new leveling experience is meant to be a standalone moment that easily flows into BfA and expansions in the future to avoid what the current leveling experience has become.
- To believe that there can only be a single outcome to the struggle against N'Zoth would be to ignore the lessons he was trying to teach us.
CarbotAnimations - WoWCraft Ep 48 "World Boss"
WoWCraft Ep 48 "World Boss" has been released!
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