Developer Reddit Q&A Live!
For the next hour or so, several WoW developers will be answering questions on Reddit.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Would there ever be a raid or dungeon that would happen to be an attack on a city such as Stormwind or Orgrimmar?
It would be difficult to dislodge a warchief without an attack on Orgrimmar. Oh man. I AM FIRED UP.
Is Thrall going to lead an attack against Garrosh?
It's hard to tackle these questions without just straight-up spoiling stuff. I argue that the best stories are experienced through gameplay.
So: Thrall. Obviously Thrall feels that Garrosh is his mistake. We explored some of his emotions around this in the "Elemental Bonds" questline in patch 4.2. For that reason, he'll DEFINITELY play a role in the ultimate conflict in Orgrimmar. But maybe not the role you'd expect.
He'll be lying low in 5.0, but the current plan is for you to catch up with him in 5.1. (That content is still in development, so don't hold me to that.)
Also, Horde and Alliance players will be happy to know that he'll be focused on Horde content this time around, not a neutral NPC helping both factions (which made sense in Cataclysm, but overwhlemingly the feedback is players want to see him be Hordey again. Yeah, I just made that word up.)
With all of the complaints this system has been receiving over the past few days, are you planning to change anything and/or address any of the player's concerns? (Some things that obviously aren't bugs, like cross-realm "farming" of Darkmoon Rabbits.)
The Darkmoon Rabbit issues are a bug. We'll definitely make other changes based on player feedback. For example, we changed the rules to only merge time zones within 3 hours of each other. If that still feels odd, we can lower that threshold even more.
We can try to get a post out to specify what is a bug or not.
Cataclysm debuted Archeology, which had the potential to be an interesting side-profession (especially with the original “Path of the Titans” idea), but it easily has become one of the worst and most painful experiences I ever have had with this game. Flying from one side of Kalimdor to the other to dig up the same night elf commons you've been digging up the last 500 finds to get one Tol'vir mount is not fun. I understand you want the rewards to be difficult to obtain, but every single aspect of Archeology is left to pure blind, dumb luck, and its completely intolerable to see people who invest a little time to get what they want, and have people who have been digging for a near eternity, get nothing. Giving Archeology some sort of direction, eliminating some of the randomness, and actually rewarding the time you invest into it would make it so much better. Are my complaints valid? What are your thoughts on Archeology?
I agree that archaeology ended up with too much travel relative to the time you spend doing soemthing fun. We have improved that in MoP with more dig sites per zone, and honestly Pandaria is a little more compact in general so you'll be traveling less. You should also check out some of the Archaeology gameplay in the Seat of Knowledge in Pandaria. We did some cool stuff there (IMO) and we would like to do more.
Are you aware of the current state of Hybrid healing and do you have any plans to adjust it?
We have been discussing having PvP Power affect either damage or healing, depending on spec. If that's too punitive, then it could affect healing by 50% of what it does for damage.
We understand there is a lot of concern about hybrid healing in PvP, and we'll be keeping a close eye on it. Shadow, Ret, Ele etc. are intended to have some off-healing capability, but they shouldn't be able to replace a healer completely.
Would Queen Azshara lead an attack on the shores of Pandaria after the war between the factions is calmed down?
Queen Azshara - what's she been up to there under the sea? Glorious things!! But... nothing that we're going to see in 5.0. Pandaria is safe from her advances for now.
Are Koltira Deathweaver and Sylvanas Windrunner showing up in Mists of Pandaria?
Sylvanas will DEFINITELY play a role in the Alliance and Horde conflict. We might not catch up with her until one of the later patches. We've been debating on whether or not we catch up with Koltira now or later... The guy's in bad straights.
Is the story of the Knights of the Ebon Blade over? Is Darion Mograine finally in peace? Why isn't him the questgiver on the new Scarlet Monastery dungeons? It would be quite fitting.
There are many many loose ends in the Warcraft lore, and often we pick them up later and run with them. What are the Knights of the Ebon Blade up to? Ahhhh... we'll probably catch up with them eventually, when they're doing something cool. (But not in Pandaria...)
As much as you are able to go into, can you explain the thought process behind the legendary gems and the future of the legendary Black Prince quest line in MoP (and perhaps any more details about the future of the questline)?
How do you think this legendary or legendaries will affect guilds and LFR players alike? Did you go for something that won't be as headache inducing as previous legendaries?
I can tackle the middle question (FWIW, it's better if you separate your questions in different posts.) Wrathion has a vision for the future of Azeroth - a united Azeroth - and he's not too particular about how we get there. We're big fans of characters who flirt along the line between hero and villain.
In 5.0, Wrathion is definitely feeling out the factions and trying to formulate a plan. It's up to you to impress him. You'll have another chance in 5.1, when the war rolls up onto the pandaren shores. As for his next move... well, no spoilers.
One of our goals with the Legendary in 5.0 is to remove some of the guild headaches and drama often associated with Legendaries. Everyone can begin working on getting a Legendary immediately, even if you use LFR. (You'll be able to gather faster with your guild, though.) Getting the final legendary (whatever form it takes) won't be an easy feat - you'll have to participate in content throughout ALL the patches.
It's a great opportunity for ALL players to experience a legendary questline!
What happened to the raid/arena observer feature mentioned during Blizzcon 2011?
Observer modes are still on our want list, it's just a question of when we get to it. So far, other features and changes have been higher priority but hopefully one of these days we'll finally get it done.
How pleased are you with the lore and storyline in MoP? Any hints or teasers? Thanks, keep up the good work.
The story for Mists was a real challenge because we wanted to tell a story that didn't have a big giant villain on the cover of the box. I'm immensely pleased with how it all came together; it's a real journey. After the widespread destruction of Cataclysm, Pandaria is a great change of pace. You can really delve in and explore a beautiful place.
We kick things off with a bang and then strang you on the continent to fend for yourself. You'll get to know the locals, solve some local problems, and learn what makes this land so different from the rest of Azeroth.
We've got a whole story arc planned out for the subsequent patches, where the war between the Alliance and Horde really heats up and splashes onto Pandaria itself. The pandaren force us to question what we're really fighting over - perhaps ultimately, it's a story about the factions defining who they want to be.
Don't worry - just because there's no villain on the box doesn't mean you won't be fighting for your life against some really brutal badasses...
Can we get CRZ turned off during the Fishing Derby and STV Fishing Tournament? Fighting against your own server was bad enough, now you're fighting against multiple servers, AND people jumping onto your server with the Shark/40 Fish already caught to win it as soon as it starts
CRZ isn't intended to affect fishing tournaments. We'll get that fixed if the patch today didn't fix it.
What is the benefit to players on a PvE server of CRZ? For a player whose primary purpose in being out in the world is not world PvP, what good does CRZ bring? If it doesn't improve gameplay, why is it in the game?
So far it has resulted only in trouble completing quests, difficulty farming mats for anything, a vast decrease in the likelihood of finding a rare spawn of any type, and an increase in the prevalence of trolls and bots in my daily play.
CRZ is intended to make emptier zones, especially low level ones, less empty. WoW is an MMO and we think it's more fun when you see other players while you're out adventuring (and perhaps even group up with them).
We understand some players have gotten used to the idea of farming nodes or rares without any competition, but we designed all of those features with a certain population in mind. At the end of the day, WoW isn't a single player game.
CRZ won't fix the economy for underpopulated realms and it wasn't intended to. It will make it easier to group with friends from other realms, or to help you make new friends (or just someone to quest with).
There are some bugs with the feature that we are working through, and we understand players can't easily tell what's a bug from what is intended. I also think CRZ has become a bit of a bogeyman, blamed for some bugs that it has nothing to do with.
Another problem with CRZ: You may control Wintergrasp in your realm, but when you fly to it, sometimes the other faction controls it.
Wintergrasp and Tol Barad aren't intended to be merged together. Hopefully that was fixed today.
We undestand that seeing rare spawns that end up not being there can be frustrated. We would like to have what you see in the air match reality.
More...
For the next hour or so, several WoW developers will be answering questions on Reddit.
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
Would there ever be a raid or dungeon that would happen to be an attack on a city such as Stormwind or Orgrimmar?
It would be difficult to dislodge a warchief without an attack on Orgrimmar. Oh man. I AM FIRED UP.
Is Thrall going to lead an attack against Garrosh?
It's hard to tackle these questions without just straight-up spoiling stuff. I argue that the best stories are experienced through gameplay.
So: Thrall. Obviously Thrall feels that Garrosh is his mistake. We explored some of his emotions around this in the "Elemental Bonds" questline in patch 4.2. For that reason, he'll DEFINITELY play a role in the ultimate conflict in Orgrimmar. But maybe not the role you'd expect.
He'll be lying low in 5.0, but the current plan is for you to catch up with him in 5.1. (That content is still in development, so don't hold me to that.)
Also, Horde and Alliance players will be happy to know that he'll be focused on Horde content this time around, not a neutral NPC helping both factions (which made sense in Cataclysm, but overwhlemingly the feedback is players want to see him be Hordey again. Yeah, I just made that word up.)
With all of the complaints this system has been receiving over the past few days, are you planning to change anything and/or address any of the player's concerns? (Some things that obviously aren't bugs, like cross-realm "farming" of Darkmoon Rabbits.)
The Darkmoon Rabbit issues are a bug. We'll definitely make other changes based on player feedback. For example, we changed the rules to only merge time zones within 3 hours of each other. If that still feels odd, we can lower that threshold even more.
We can try to get a post out to specify what is a bug or not.
Cataclysm debuted Archeology, which had the potential to be an interesting side-profession (especially with the original “Path of the Titans” idea), but it easily has become one of the worst and most painful experiences I ever have had with this game. Flying from one side of Kalimdor to the other to dig up the same night elf commons you've been digging up the last 500 finds to get one Tol'vir mount is not fun. I understand you want the rewards to be difficult to obtain, but every single aspect of Archeology is left to pure blind, dumb luck, and its completely intolerable to see people who invest a little time to get what they want, and have people who have been digging for a near eternity, get nothing. Giving Archeology some sort of direction, eliminating some of the randomness, and actually rewarding the time you invest into it would make it so much better. Are my complaints valid? What are your thoughts on Archeology?
I agree that archaeology ended up with too much travel relative to the time you spend doing soemthing fun. We have improved that in MoP with more dig sites per zone, and honestly Pandaria is a little more compact in general so you'll be traveling less. You should also check out some of the Archaeology gameplay in the Seat of Knowledge in Pandaria. We did some cool stuff there (IMO) and we would like to do more.
Are you aware of the current state of Hybrid healing and do you have any plans to adjust it?
We have been discussing having PvP Power affect either damage or healing, depending on spec. If that's too punitive, then it could affect healing by 50% of what it does for damage.
We understand there is a lot of concern about hybrid healing in PvP, and we'll be keeping a close eye on it. Shadow, Ret, Ele etc. are intended to have some off-healing capability, but they shouldn't be able to replace a healer completely.
Would Queen Azshara lead an attack on the shores of Pandaria after the war between the factions is calmed down?
Queen Azshara - what's she been up to there under the sea? Glorious things!! But... nothing that we're going to see in 5.0. Pandaria is safe from her advances for now.
Are Koltira Deathweaver and Sylvanas Windrunner showing up in Mists of Pandaria?
Sylvanas will DEFINITELY play a role in the Alliance and Horde conflict. We might not catch up with her until one of the later patches. We've been debating on whether or not we catch up with Koltira now or later... The guy's in bad straights.
Is the story of the Knights of the Ebon Blade over? Is Darion Mograine finally in peace? Why isn't him the questgiver on the new Scarlet Monastery dungeons? It would be quite fitting.
There are many many loose ends in the Warcraft lore, and often we pick them up later and run with them. What are the Knights of the Ebon Blade up to? Ahhhh... we'll probably catch up with them eventually, when they're doing something cool. (But not in Pandaria...)
As much as you are able to go into, can you explain the thought process behind the legendary gems and the future of the legendary Black Prince quest line in MoP (and perhaps any more details about the future of the questline)?
How do you think this legendary or legendaries will affect guilds and LFR players alike? Did you go for something that won't be as headache inducing as previous legendaries?
I can tackle the middle question (FWIW, it's better if you separate your questions in different posts.) Wrathion has a vision for the future of Azeroth - a united Azeroth - and he's not too particular about how we get there. We're big fans of characters who flirt along the line between hero and villain.
In 5.0, Wrathion is definitely feeling out the factions and trying to formulate a plan. It's up to you to impress him. You'll have another chance in 5.1, when the war rolls up onto the pandaren shores. As for his next move... well, no spoilers.
One of our goals with the Legendary in 5.0 is to remove some of the guild headaches and drama often associated with Legendaries. Everyone can begin working on getting a Legendary immediately, even if you use LFR. (You'll be able to gather faster with your guild, though.) Getting the final legendary (whatever form it takes) won't be an easy feat - you'll have to participate in content throughout ALL the patches.
It's a great opportunity for ALL players to experience a legendary questline!
What happened to the raid/arena observer feature mentioned during Blizzcon 2011?
Observer modes are still on our want list, it's just a question of when we get to it. So far, other features and changes have been higher priority but hopefully one of these days we'll finally get it done.
How pleased are you with the lore and storyline in MoP? Any hints or teasers? Thanks, keep up the good work.
The story for Mists was a real challenge because we wanted to tell a story that didn't have a big giant villain on the cover of the box. I'm immensely pleased with how it all came together; it's a real journey. After the widespread destruction of Cataclysm, Pandaria is a great change of pace. You can really delve in and explore a beautiful place.
We kick things off with a bang and then strang you on the continent to fend for yourself. You'll get to know the locals, solve some local problems, and learn what makes this land so different from the rest of Azeroth.
We've got a whole story arc planned out for the subsequent patches, where the war between the Alliance and Horde really heats up and splashes onto Pandaria itself. The pandaren force us to question what we're really fighting over - perhaps ultimately, it's a story about the factions defining who they want to be.
Don't worry - just because there's no villain on the box doesn't mean you won't be fighting for your life against some really brutal badasses...
Can we get CRZ turned off during the Fishing Derby and STV Fishing Tournament? Fighting against your own server was bad enough, now you're fighting against multiple servers, AND people jumping onto your server with the Shark/40 Fish already caught to win it as soon as it starts
CRZ isn't intended to affect fishing tournaments. We'll get that fixed if the patch today didn't fix it.
What is the benefit to players on a PvE server of CRZ? For a player whose primary purpose in being out in the world is not world PvP, what good does CRZ bring? If it doesn't improve gameplay, why is it in the game?
So far it has resulted only in trouble completing quests, difficulty farming mats for anything, a vast decrease in the likelihood of finding a rare spawn of any type, and an increase in the prevalence of trolls and bots in my daily play.
CRZ is intended to make emptier zones, especially low level ones, less empty. WoW is an MMO and we think it's more fun when you see other players while you're out adventuring (and perhaps even group up with them).
We understand some players have gotten used to the idea of farming nodes or rares without any competition, but we designed all of those features with a certain population in mind. At the end of the day, WoW isn't a single player game.
CRZ won't fix the economy for underpopulated realms and it wasn't intended to. It will make it easier to group with friends from other realms, or to help you make new friends (or just someone to quest with).
There are some bugs with the feature that we are working through, and we understand players can't easily tell what's a bug from what is intended. I also think CRZ has become a bit of a bogeyman, blamed for some bugs that it has nothing to do with.
Another problem with CRZ: You may control Wintergrasp in your realm, but when you fly to it, sometimes the other faction controls it.
Wintergrasp and Tol Barad aren't intended to be merged together. Hopefully that was fixed today.
We undestand that seeing rare spawns that end up not being there can be frustrated. We would like to have what you see in the air match reality.
More...