Wowhead's Exclusive Interview with Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak

Posted 2012/12/05 at 3:47 PM by perculia

interviewed him right before MoP's launchGamebreakerAll Things AzerothNow that players have settled into MoP, what will keep them out there exploring the world in 5.1?What do you think are the defining characteristics of the factions added in 5.1? What new types of things did you experiment with in them? So far I like how the scenarios directly relate to the quest hubs and the epic faction quests.I think the commendation rewards are pretty cool--the Rodent Crate is a good incentive for non-PvPers to check out the area.Where did the concept of the Brawler's Guild come from? A lot of players at first thought it was a version of the Proving Grounds, although we know that the Proving Grounds is a separate thing now.How did you come up with the atmosphere and the types of solo bosses? I'm picturing a bunch of Blizzard staff reminiscing about their favorite bosses and redoing them.Tell us a little bit about the social component of the Brawler's Guild--both players as spectators and the system of limited invitations. At one point on the early PTR, spectators could even throw food that lowered the stats of players.Yeah--I was really glad to see the addition of the rares, and their other items are fun flavor drops too.I actually haven't yet--I spent a lot of gold finishing my Tier 3 recently, and maybe I'll try to buy a ticket after I sell some Darkmoon Cards this week. I did get pretty far on the PTR though and hopefully we'll have a guide up by this weekend!The 5.1 scenarios feel a lot more relevant lore-wise than the ones at launch. How did you come up with the faction specific ones? Also, several players have felt that Tyrande was an odd choice for Varian's foil in A Little Patience--why was she used as the headstrong one?Going back to some things at MoP's launch: what do you think has turned out well about the new daily system? What surprised you? In my experience, a lot of players really like the vanity rewards and storylines culminating at Exalted, but don't like how dailies feel mandatory with Valor rewards tied to reputation levels.Something interesting I've noted is that players will gladly spend time tending all of their alt farms, but will put off doing something like killing Mogu for the Golden Lotus. How can this feedback influence future reputation grinds?Golden Lotus specifically felt a bit grindier than most other factions, between all the Mogu to kill and how it was tied to unlocking other reputations. Do you have any thoughts on why players dislike that faction specifically?Another part of MoP that seemed to surprise some players was how cooking was changed. Can you tell us some of the decisions behind making the materials for max food difficult to acquire this expansion, on top of flavor rewards that take a lot of tokens?One last question: We were all really excited to read about the Black Temple quests for Warlocks datemined in 5.1, and were sad to see that had been pushed back. How do you handle class-based quests and can we look forward to more?

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Comments

Comment by 979234

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Comment by thaedris20

I think its great that they come out and speak to the community. I dont remember them being so social as they are now.

I never really felt reps were mandatory other than from a mount collecting aspect (i like collecting stuff) I did them everyday and not because of gear. Most of my gear came from DF and LFR only had one or two pieces of rep gear.

He need a new job if you ask me. Welcome to Mist of Dailys!

I think you shouldnt say things like that

Comment by perculia

I did an interview around Patch 4.3 (Blizzcon), the March press event for MoP, MoP's launch, and now for 5.1. They've definitely been more social/transparent with players in the past year which is great. Faster patches means more interviews too :)

It's especially nice having multiple interviews with Dave Kosak because I can piece together some hints from previous interviews and see how they unfolded on live. At Blizzcon for example, he was talking about wanting an elaborate quest reward to be an unarmored mount, and now there's a few of them in 5.1.

Comment by aynessa

I think you shouldnt say things like that

I agree, and I applaud your opinion. <3

Comment by 93648

He need a new job if you ask me. Welcome to Mist of Dailys!

I think he hinted at it, and used polite language.. But what it boils down to is ´ there are a lot of really stupid people who do not have enough math skills to realize they didn´t need to do every faction every day´.

Those of us with math skills learned the first few days that ´hey, there is a 1000 vp cap.. I am not going to be able to buy this gear even if I do open it up´.. And also the ´hey, i can only use 90 lesser charms per week.. do I really need 2000 of them in m backpack...

There are two types of people who ground rep the first few weeks

1. Players who felt it was worth it to have vanity items

2. People with bad math skills.

I did nothing but GL and tillers the first 3 weeks, and I guarantee you I bought just as many VP items as you.

Comment by Excelion

There's a great GC interview on Gamebreaker too.

Comment by perculia

There's a great GC interview on Gamebreaker too.

We've linked to the two Ghostcrawler interviews today and will be doing a link round up when all the fansite interviews are public :)

Comment by 965055

I appreciate the candidness of the interviewer, but strongly disagree. I would not have felt like dailies were mandatory IF I didn't need to finish them to learn recipes like the imperial silk bag or other enchants. Most of the rewards are gear and vanity items but when you include recipes that you can ONLY get from grinding dailies that MAKES it mandatory. If they had kept it all gear and vanity then I would buy his argument.

Comment by 300034

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Comment by Interest

I just had deja vu.

Comment by 503257

Mists of Pandaily-a is kind of epic.

I think that what they should've done is keep the daily cap at 25 - make it part of the game to figure out which reps you concentrate on first and which ones you finish in a month's time.

Comment by 451227

You completely forget the people who wanted rep to buy patterns. Especially the enchanters who wanted the top-end enchants which were only available once revered with Shado-Pan and August Celestials, which can only be worked on once revered with Golden Lotus. They would grind whether they were at cap or not.

Now that players have settled into MoP, what will keep them out there exploring the world in 5.1?

This is the question I really wanted answered properly. MoP has re-introduced a sense of adventure into the game. Somehow, the world hasn't gotten old yet, there's still so much to do, so much more to see. Are dailies intended to be the manner in which they keep people exploring?

I think that what they should've done is keep the daily cap at 25 - make it part of the game to figure out which reps you concentrate on first and which ones you finish in a month's time.

Indeed! When they removed the daily cap, I thought there was more reason to it than simply allowing people to do current dailies as well as old content dailies. It turned out I was right, but if Blizzard's intent was genuinely for people to do limited amounts of dailies instead of doing them all, then keeping the cap would've been the perfect message - people would've been forced to choose their dailies, even if they chose the dailies that would reward them with profession patterns.

Comment by ADDOriN

Vey nice interview.

Comment by trroach122

Dailies however they fill the time are not necessary to get into end game content. Some people inclusing myself ind it relaxing to farm up rep and get exalted with different factions. They make the game to suit a wide variety of gamers so to say someone needs to fins a new job is a little closed minded and needs to take a step back. This game was not designed just for any one single player but millions of players and to think otherwise is an elitest and cocky mindset. If you don't like doing dailies then do those of us that do a favor and don't do them. This frees up the dailies area for the rest of us to farm up rep.

Comment by 534766

Alright, will you send me the mounts and recipes I need to skill certain professions from 580-600 once you, the lover of dailies, get the required rep? I think you should take your own advice about cocky mindsets at heart and realize a ton of players don't like dailies and would gladly have farmed their rep through other means.

Comment by 663308

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Comment by 894773

myself for the first few weeks i tried lvling with the pet battles at the same time so i could collect pets along the way which can cause slower lvling now 90 and Oily smiling in Borean Tundras still isnt showing up on some realms (CRZ)

Comment by Alkony

I notice he says a lot that the players didn't understand what was intended. I hope Blizzard isn't taking the mindset that it's the players' fault that things were communicated badly (or not at all).

As for dailies, I think the worst decision was the Golden Lotus faction gating mechanic. My hunter was having problems getting gear to get into LFR, and the worst piece I had was legs. No problem, I've got tons of valor to spend... Oh, you mean I have to be revered to get the legs from Shado-Pan? Ok, I can manage that. Wait, why can't I see the dailies? I had been concentrating on other things, so I was barely Honored with GL. So now to get my upgrade, I have to grind to Revered with GL and then to Revered with SP. THIS is why people get frustrated with dailies.

Now that doesn't mean I hate dailies entirely. I've been digging the Tillers and Serpent Riders, and even getting far enough south to do Anglers fairly often. Klaxxi are Revered without me going for any specific piece of gear, too.

The problem is there is no alternative to dailies. If you want to get any of the rewards from Shado-Pan or August Celestials, you HAVE TO do several weeks of dailies with Golden Lotus. You can't complete any other kind of content (dungeon specific reps in BC, tabards in WotLK/Cata) to get the rep you need to do the content you want. It's like the worst parts of on-rails, phased questing all over again.

Comment by Vilion

At fisrt sorry for my english.

Secondly the dailies. I have never met any one who like them. I always did them only to boost/get reputation a then was extremly happy to never do them again. I guess that noone would say: "Oh i have nothing to do. Let's do dailies. Really i never met someone who would say that. No offence but i think dailies are just way how to make us spend more time at game.

And so as i speak about dailies ,more new dailies! Yay! I hate them ,I really do. When we go to dailies we are over numbered. Like 1:10. Horde is massacring us(Drak'thul). Well not all of them ,but once you try to defend yourself you're doomed. There are like mobs.... Huh Huh Huh Huh ..."Aliance is attacking ,lets kill them! FOR HORDE!".
The worst set of dailies is in mines. Respawn is extremly fast ,so its easy to end up fighting 3 pair of mogu ghosts. Once some horde-PvP-hero see that... guess what? Yes ,you're doomded. I know that aliance players do that too but with ratio 1:10 it's really hard to do dailies alone or in group of two. You can say: "Bring someone with you!" Well thats a good idea but most of guild said that they're done with dailies. There were so much dailies and they get really bored....

It's just my experience but i think i'm not alone with this opinion.

On the other hand ,I like the way blizz give us lore. Scenarions ,quests and other stuff. Oh speaking about that i have one last thing to say. 100 Scenarios as achivement? Really? For a first time you're like: Yeah nice story! Second time: I know what do ,it would be easy. Third time - Let's do this quick! Fourth time - BORED!

Well that's all.

Comment by 595572

That's not all there is to it... For players who want to optimize themselves as much as they possibly can (top-end raiders come to mind, but you don't have to be a top-end raider to want to optimize yourself) the order in which you purchase valor point items does matter. This is because the valor point rewards are itemized in various ways and for most classes there's an order of preference for stats. I am not familiar with all classes, but if there's a class for which crit = haste = mastery, then good for them. For everyone else, some rewards simply give better value for your valor points than others, however small the difference may be. And for some classes, the differences can be huge.

Unfortunately the valor point rewards are spread across the factions in a way that makes you grind all factions simultaneously to be as optimal as you can be. And on top of this, Golden Lotus and Klaxxi reward you with FREE 489 epics (neck and ring respectively) at exalted. The earlier you get these gear upgrades, the more they benefit you.

I'm not saying it's what everyone should be doing, I'm just pointing out that the benefit is there. The math is there to support it. The only question is how much do you value said benefit?

Since Blizzard keeps saying this wasn't the intent, this issue could be fixed by having similarly itemized rewards belong to the same faction. For example all items with:
hit/expertise + crit belong to faction A
hit/expertise + haste belong to faction B
hit/expertise + mastery belong to faction C
any combination of crit, haste and mastery belong to faction D.
End result: four factions with longer lasting benefits. Grind the faction most suited for you, purchase all the rewards and then move to the next best suited faction, all the while staying optimal.