Chase Items on Every Raid Boss: The Sun Interview on WoW Forever

Posted 3 hr 48 min ago by Squishei

Kris Zierhut, Principal Designer

Michael Nuthals, Senior Encounter Designer

Interview SummaryZephras Isle and the Skyborne

Zephras Isle is the starting area for the new race, the Skyborne Elves, which can last players until about level 12.

It's an isle floating in the air, deep within the elemental plane of Skywall.

The elementals that raised them there have left and the island is falling down slowly, so they're looking to make new alliances.

Players will pick their faction at creation, and it gives access to different classes: Alliance can only be Mages, and Horde can only be Shamans.

Mount Hyjal

Players will get to see what Mount Hyjal was like between Warcraft III and the Burning Crusade and Cataclysm.

Two raids will be present in Hyjal: the 20-player Hyjal Summit raid and the 10-player Barrow Deeps raid.

Riverglades

The Riverglades are located somewhat north of Redridge.

Alliance players will likely come to the Riverglades from Redridge, and many of the stories will continue from Redridge.

There's also humans, orcs, ogres and a goblin outpost.

There's also a Black Market Auction House and a dock that was previously not used, the Steamwheedle Port, which connects you to Gadgetzan.

Shen'dralas

Shen'dralas is located at the south end of Desolace.

The Valley of Bones has some quests that send you to fight monsters there.

There's more story with the Magram and Gelkis centaurs which continues on from Desolace.

There's also the ruins of Shen'dralas, which connects to the Dire Maul story.

Experience and Leveling

Original Classic WoW did not require you to do every zone to get to 60, and there were multiple paths.

They've now created different paths such as doing the Riverglades instead of doing something else.

They did not change the experience curve.

Riverglades and Shen'dralas are in the level range where things slow down, and Hyjal is when you're getting close to 60 and it slows even further.

They wanted to give players options where the game slowed down a bit. They don't want people to just decide to grind, and would rather players instead do quests and adventure through Azeroth.

Dungeon Experience

Experience from dungeon monsters has been brought way down.

Experience from completing dungeon quests has been made "much, much, much higher".

The first run of a dungeon is incredible and you get tons of experience and rewards, but doing it multiple times isn't the best thing to do. They want people to be out in the world meeting each other.

Talent Trees

It's the original talent system; every class has three talent trees with 7 rows, with 5 points needing to be spent on each row to unlock the next.

There's still "gold medal talents" at 11, 21 and 31 which are special one-point talents.

They did add a new one-point talent at the 16 talent point mark, so each tree has four special one-point abilities which allows them to bring in new things for classes that needed more.

Some talents are gone, others are changed, and a lot are new.

Some talent trees were very bad in original Classic and the goal is to make all 27 talent trees viable for dungeons and raids.

End Game

There are three raid sizes: 10 player, 20 player, and 40 player.

The goal is to allow players to find social groups, and then build those social groups.

They want to encourage players to do different raid sizes and you can get your tier pieces across all three raids.

They're trying to slow down the rate of item progression. They are trying to make it so that raids don't go obsolete, and there's still a reason to go back and do them.

Chase drops will be present on every boss' loot table. These items have a lower drop chance, but are "very, very strong items".

Imagine if every boss had an item similar to Dragonspine Trophy's power level from TBC, so everything at 60 always stays relevant.

The Future

The world will evolve indefinitely, forever.

In an update, there might be a new raid, a new area. The idea is that every update has something for every type of player.

Some players like alts, exploration or just doing trade skills. It's not all about the raiders. There will be something for them, but not everything.

Timeline Deviation

They're starting from a place of canon, and the same starting line where everyone was in November 2004.

Molten Core will open someday, but not now. Players have done Molten Core a lot across the different games.

They wanted to start off with something new, and they can explore stories that might have happened.

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Comment by Holysaxyboyadd normal second racial for dwarf u maggotsComment by PregnantOrc"Players will pick their faction at creation, and it gives access to different classes: Alliance can only be Mages, and Horde can only be Shamans."
Move the 'only' to before the factions, both factions can be other classes.Comment by Holyfire13Flex raiding when, Blizzard? You said our voice matters, but more than 70% of people from the C+ survey asked for flex, and you went the other way.Comment by LostHeadThe Sun? Am I missing something? Is it AI hallucination? The interview is done by GameSpot and I don't think they are related to The Sun in any way.Comment by GingeDannyl"Interview with The Sun" with a link to a Gamespot articleComment by dmasterlBlizzard should really focus on the good with vanilla and the bad. Alot of era andys will say this looks like retail. IT DOESN'T This is more classic than wotlk, even tho i love wotlk this feels more like classic. And what made classic, classic is the world, the systems and reward structure. Adding some (small) more engaging boss mechanics and raids or dungeons doesn't make it less classic, it just makes it more modern.

People doesn't like vanilla for their boring bosses or frostbolt 1 button rotation. And if someone say they do, they dont know at all what they even enjoy about the game. Combat like it is in forever now is fine, even tho i personally would like 1-2 more buttons into the rotation or a DPS CD per spec. This is fine, as long as you dont make it 1 button spam with slow cast time. That's not good combat at all.

And i would prefer wotlk stats rather than spell damage and spell healing, Spellpower, Haste, Hit, Armorpen, Crit. So hybrid benefits for both. That is just better design. It doesn't make it retail.

I think the forever playerbase will be majority players betwen TBC and MoP even up to Legion players. So i think my points is good. Anyways if it stays like this and doesn't go back to 1 button rotations and 0 mechanics on bosses this will be the best game ever, already without my comments. But i think they would make it better.

Also Flex Raiding is just much better than fixed. In TBC i lost so much motivation and time due to 1 person in the guild not being able to play. We wanted to clear the content on a high level and finding a pug that is the right spec in a solved game with decent logs was soo hard. Please add flex raiding.Comment by darigaazrgbChase items? What is this? Magic the Gathering?Comment by dmasterlFlex raiding when, Blizzard? You said our voice matters, but more than 70% of people from the C+ survey asked for flex, and you went the other way.Comment by mewhywhyI mean, 40man raiding still sucks and looks like the OG raids remain 40 man.

Unless the loot is the same quality and doable with just less drops on 20man or 10 man every guild that takes raiding even 1% serious has to prepare for 40man active roster.Comment by dmasterlI mean, 40man raiding still sucks and looks like the OG raids remain 40 man.

Unless the loot is the same quality and doable with just less drops on 20man or 10 man every guild that takes raiding even 1% serious has to prepare for 40man active roster.Comment by StilI'm ready for wow to ruin my life again.Comment by dawilson06I mean, 40man raiding still sucks and looks like the OG raids remain 40 man.

Unless the loot is the same quality and doable with just less drops on 20man or 10 man every guild that takes raiding even 1% serious has to prepare for 40man active roster.Comment by StoneLegionThis is a great Interview for info, but oddly written using terms like bad a lot haha. My English Sucks, but I guess maybe also not quite a native writer?Comment by TheRealAmelioAll the retail babies complaining the raids don't having dynamic flex difficulty like their used to in their Disney game, you already have an actively developed MMO you enjoy go and play that instead, this game isn't for you.Comment by Moltarradd normal second racial for dwarf u maggotsI'm ready for wow to ruin my life again.Comment by dmasterlAll the retail babies complaining the raids don't having dynamic flex difficulty like their used to in their Disney game, you already have an actively developed MMO you enjoy go and play that instead, this game isn't for you.Comment by SituationAll the retail babies complaining the raids don't having dynamic flex difficulty like their used to in their Disney game, you already have an actively developed MMO you enjoy go and play that instead, this game isn't for you.Comment by TGX27Do you think the ilvl will be locked, and that new patches/dungeons/raids will just bring new tier sets and effects/stats instead of increasing the overall ilvl? I honestly beg for that. I don’t want to have to refarm all my gear every three months…Comment by SerenalThe Sun? Am I missing something? Is it AI hallucination? The interview is done by GameSpot and I don't think they are related to The Sun in any way.Comment by dmasterlDo you think the ilvl will be locked, and that new patches/dungeons/raids will just bring new tier sets and effects/stats instead of increasing the overall ilvl? I honestly beg for that. I don’t want to have to refarm all my gear every three months…

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