Mists of Pandaria: PvP Recap
According to the recent blue posts, Mists of Pandaria information is finally on the way. While we are waiting for new announcements we can review the new PvP changes that are coming in Mists of Pandaria using a dedicated thread in our Mists of Pandaria forum.
Previous Coverage:
- Blizzcon World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Preview Panel
- Official Mists of Pandaria Preview Panel Recap
Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
New Character Models
It's absolutely not a "too bad" situation, Sutei. I know the concept of us having near unlimited resources to throw at whatever we want to is intriguing, but it's just not the case. We don't have an army of artists on layaway that we can transfer onto a project.
Just the same, we don't necessarily want to exponentially expand the head count of the art team to ensure a specific project gets done. There's a synergy we strive for on each of our development teams. In fact, we go to pretty great lengths to vet applicants whenever hiring for a new position. We need to know our iterative design philosophy and our core values are shared. So, if we were to hire several new artists to get this project finished, you certainly wouldn't see the results of that "right this moment."
Right now it's just difficult to give any sort of estimate on when new models might be available. Whenever a new expansion is in development there are many, many requests for new art assets. We're elbow deep in designing new gear sets, fleshing out the environments, finishing up several new creature models, etc.
If all of this makes you feel that much further away from ever seeing new character models, I can say the project is still a regular topic of discussion for us. We want to figure out the best way to introduce such a feature without shocking a huge chunk of the playerbase that doesn't really think about how their character's features could be improved every time they log into the game. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
New Character Models
Nothing about the forums being down and characters being stuck with silhouettes earlier has anything to do with some sort of preparation for an announcement.
We haven't teased anything on Twitter. Bashiok and I confirmed on our accounts this week that we'd have an update on the status of Diablo III from Jay Wilson going up today (which happened this morning).
I did mention on my feed yesterday that I had just gotten out of a meeting with Greg Street and Cory Stockton (same as every Wednesday), and that they've made a ton of progress on Mists of Pandaria since we last spoke -- the ball is rolling. Cory also echoed my statement on his feed by saying it's rolling very fast now. But... we're not quite ready to reveal our work just yet. Right now we're locking down the plan of action for releasing new information.
I'm confident it's going to be a fun ride. Just sit tight while we plot the course. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Dragon Soul Trash
If I had to choose which trash I'd get rid of or change, the drake event before Ultraxion would be my first choice.
That would probably be ours as well. We're considering it. I doubt we'd remove it entirely [...](Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Ask The Devs
They switched to the live Q&A, but then stopped doing those too for some reason.
This is sort of correct. We feel that the CoverItLive platform we used for two developer Q&As post-BlizzCon is a better format. The methods for choosing questions are never perfect -- especially when there are so many -- but CoverItLive allows us to answer more questions much more quickly than we did with "Ask the Devs," not to mention it takes up way less time for our developers.
We haven't stopped doing the CoverItLive developer Q&As. There are a couple of reasons we haven't done this in a while. For one, there are only so many questions we can field regarding future content (in this case Mists of Pandaria) before we have to step back and say, "wait until we have these things more fleshed out so we can put the upcoming features in a contextual preview." Also, we really want to make sure there isn't an expectation that these Q&As will be done at regular intervals. We'll host them when we feel they'll appropriately compliment new information that's gone out.
We are in the initial planning stages of the next Q&A for World of Warcraft, but its timing is still contingent upon a lot of other things. It just doesn't make sense to host another one right now when we haven't really released further previews of the next expansion since BlizzCon.
That said, our goal is to try and cover as much ground with CoverItLive as possible. We want to expose you to different development teams at appropriate times (whether it be class designers, UI designers, the art team, etc.) so you really get a feel for all of the work that goes into everything we do. At the same time we want to make sure we get these kicked off for our other franchises as well. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Diablo 3 System Changes
Some major changes have been made in Diablo 3, including changes to the core character attributes. For the full changes post and the follow-up by Bashiok, see the news post by our friends at Diablofans.
- Scrolls of Identification are gone - players can now identify rares/legendary items without them.
- Button '5' is now dedicated to potions.
- The Mystic artisan has now been removed from the game.
- The Cauldron of Jordan and Nephalem Cube have been removed.
- The Stone of Recall is now a button at the bottom and has been renamed "Town Portal".
- The Blacksmith is now responsible for salvaging players'
- Common (white colored) items are no longer salvageable.
- Character Attributes have been changed. We're changing core character attributes to Strength, Dexterity, Intellect, and Vitality...
- Character stats are now placed in the same place as the inventory panel and the old dedicated stats panel has been removed.
New Warcraft Fan Art
The World of Warcraft Fan Art Section has been updated with five new pieces of fan artwork.
More...
