Partial Fireside Chat - Maria Hamilton

[Feedbot]

Partial Fireside Chat - Maria Hamilton
Taliesin & Evitel posted a long video with a partial transcript of their Fireside Chat with Maria Hamilton. This transcript is based off of Naguura's stream that is embedded below. Blizzard still has not released the footage, so this is all that we have for now.


Story and Lore

• The Worldsoul Saga allowed the team to pace the story out better, give players hints, let them theorycraft, and feel great when they are right. Foreshadowing is on purpose, the team isn't trying to shock and surprise.
• The Sunwell is holding back the Voidstorm from devouring us. Players need to give the Sunwell enough power to not be overcome by the storm. The Paladins and Priests are pouring power into the Sunwell to keep the storm at bay as we level and try to figure out how to get to the Voidstorm.
• Not only are players dealing with Void problems, they are also dealing with Light problems, called Lightbloom. It's an invasive thing happening because of the power of the Sunwell. It gives a glimpse of what happens with the Light has no opposition.
• We may see some Elf and Troll things, through learning about characters and cultures that are important to the story.
• There will be some surprising faces that players don't expected to get called by the Light to defend the Sunwell.
• Players will accompany Arator when doing Eversong questing.
• Arator is trying to make sense of how his dad is as a Paladin, versus how he feels a Paladin should be, versus how other people feel Paladins should be. He'll go back and learn more about his father and his father's actions.
• Arator's tattoos are something the team did to help show the conflict between being a Paladin but not a traditional type of Paladin.
• The team built up Xal'atath very carefully and like her. She's a good villain, so they wouldn't want to do anything to her too early.

Zones

• The trailer was meant to capture the sense of nostalgia. Players are returning to Eversong, the first zone many players experienced, so it's important to capture the feeling of coming back to our roots.
• The team constantly talked about Eversong during development, making sure they didn't change too much, still captured the right mood/colors/ambiance/design. It should feel like the memory you have brought up to modern standards.
• It was important to include Murder Row in the rebuilt Silvermoon, as it is an iconic place.
• Silvermoon should reflect what's happening in the campaign. How will people in town react? The city should seem alive.
• The Voidstorm skybox will be above the Sunwell, so as you get further from it you won't see it, you won't see it in the sky everywhere.
• Creating a zone centered around the Void was challenging, because the Void is nothingness. Visually, having the storm aspect to lean into was really helpful.
• The Domanaar are very intelligent, serving one another to avoid getting eaten. They are all trying to climb the ranks to become the top Domanaar.

Haranir Allied Race

• The team thought they would do the Haranir in The War Within, but they ended up fitting the story of Midnight better.
• The Haranir are an ancient culture. We'll see cave paintings, the theme of recording the history of Azeroth, lots of creatures that you'll find in darker places.

Lorewalking

• Lorewalking lets the team tell stories from other expansions because they can ignore any prerequisites and whatever comes after, building out the story in their own order and letting people play through.
• There are many players that don't know old stories because they didn't play that expansion or weren't the right class.

Continue reading...