Embers of Neltharion Patch 10.1 Group Interview with Steve Danuser and Morgan Day

라이브 15 일 전에 Wowhead에 의해 작성됨

Experiencing the World in Embers of NeltharionGreg from Shacknews: Since the release of Dragonflight, you've given players a lot of different ways to experience the world, get gear, explore, and level up. What's it been like and what have you learned since the release that you're not implemented into Patch 10.1? Morgan: There was a tremendous amount of effort that the team put into Dragonflight. There's been so much -positive feedback around all the different features from the talent revamp to the profession revamp. Dragonriding has been an absolutely incredible addition to World of Warcraft. That's something we've seen a lot of amazing player feedback from. That's a lot of the things that we're looking to continue to update and expand upon in the Embers of Neltharion update. I can talk about Dragonriding for a minute because I love it so much. That's an area where we've had tons of positive feedback and are actually continuing to improve upon that in the Embers of Neltharion, where we're adding new Dragonriding Glyphs and those glyphs are sprinkled throughout the Zaralek Cavern, as well as new races and new traits that you can use your Glyphs to learn. There's a tremendous amount of effort that the team has put into it, really just wanting to build upon that foundation that the team created with Dragonflight's launch.

Steve: Players have really responded to a lot of the characters of Dragonflight as well, both the major ones like the aspects (Alexastrasza and the others), as well as some of the smaller characters that tell more personal stories and so you'll see that continue in Embers of Neltharion as well. You'll get some of those smaller, quieter story moments, combined with the big boisterous battles and that is the hallmark of Warcraft.Mythic+ Dungeon Selection and LoreMichael from Dot Esports: In terms of the dungeons that are selected from season to season, do you try to tie in those into what is happening in the Dragonflight story? Morgan: Definitely not a coincidence. There are four dungeons that are just the remaining Dragonflight Dungeons that were not in season 1 Mythic+: Neltharus, Uldaman, Halls of Infusion, and Brackenhide Hollow. That's four of the dungeons and the other four are Underrot, Freehold, Neltharion's Lair and Vortex Pinnacle. In terms of how that pool is chosen, it's a smattering of ideas and philosophies there. Neltharion's Lair, like you pointed out, there's definitely not a coincidence; Embers of Neltharion, we have a dungeon from Legion called Neltharion's Lair, it also has Drogbar in it and they're making an appearance again in Zaralek Cavern so that one felt like a slam dunk. Also, Vortex Pinnacle also feels like it has some story beats and implications to follow up on there, but there are also some that are fan-favorites. Freehold was one that we felt the player base... every time those community threads pop up around "what dungeons do you want to see in Season 2", Freehold is mentioned in every one of those threads when they pop up, so being a fan-favorite had to be included. Underrot, interestingly, we look at the Mythic+ dungeon pool as a cohesive experience, the way we look at a raid as one cohesive experience and we want to make sure that we have coverage in terms of what kind of damage profiles are we asking you to do, what kind of utility are we asking you to use, and felt like Underrot has a lot of fun core WoW gameplay mechanics with interesting dispel profiles. So it really just helps to round out that seasonal package of what we had available for the players, trying to create the most varied experience possible while also looking for opportunities for story and narrative hits.

Steve: Narrative is one consideration, but it doesn't mean that all of these things are tied super tightly to the core story that's going on. Some of them can be thematic hits and some of them are in there for other reasons like Morgan said so it's really a combination when we're looking at what dungeons to pick. Affixes in Dragonflight Season 2Jez from Windows Central: Are there any thoughts on tweaking affixes in Season 2, especially with the less popular affixes? For example, in our guild whenever it's Tyrannical week, people groan and are not super happy about it. Morgan: Tons of conversations around affixes. I actually love Tyrannical, maybe I'm the weird one but I love Tyrannical. That's the week where we really get to feel like there's progression and we really feel like we learn the ins and outs of all these boss mechanics. So I personally love Tyrannical. I get to spend some time on the bosses, instead of spending time on the trash.

In terms of the philosophy of affixes in particular for Season 2, we've definitely taken a big step back there and are looking at it holistically. One major change we're making is we're actually just not going to have a level 10, that is to say, the "seasonal affix" like Thundering. There won't be a replacement for Thundering and Thundering is being retired. So at level 10, the scaling will continue to kick in but there's no new affix there. Seasonal affixes were created as an idea, I want to say, back in Battle for Azeroth, where we had the same dungeon pool. We would add one or two dungeons here and there but you could be playing the same dungeons for many many seasons, and really we added those Seasonal affixes to try to solve the problem of it feeling like Dungeons were solved like there was a specific route, there was a specific way everyone approached the dungeon. Seasonal affixes were there to mix that up and change the way you approached the dungeon. Going into Dragonflight, we were like "well we don't need to solve that problem anymore, but maybe there's a way to add some amount of gameplay that feels like more like a persistent element of the dungeon but ultimately we've heard a lot of feedback around complexity, like how much stuff do I have to know, to do and what's going on and how many wrenches are you going to throw at me, not even just dodgeballs but wrenches we're throwing at you that you have to dodge. Definitely taking a really close look at that with Season 2, so not doing the level 10 affix.

Then, we're really taking a closer look at the level 7 bucket and how much opportunity is there for counterplay. How much of that is making your healer's life harder versus how much of that is there an opportunity where if I play really well, I can negate this affix and use my utility really well or whatever it may be. So we're definitely taking a look at the whole level 7 bucket, so really more along the lines of an affix refresh for that bucket, as well as no level 10 affix.

On top of that, trust us, we've heard the feedback around "hey when season 2 rolls around if you've done Brackenhide on Mythic 0 the first week... it was pretty hard!" So definitely taking a close look at individual dungeons, and probably cutting some things that are existing today in Mythic 0 and really asking "once affixes are in the mix, do you really need this pull to have 3 creatures that all need to have a kick rotation?" or something like that. Very very much we have been discussing that.Cross-Faction Guilds in 10.1Robin from MMORPG: Cross-Faction guilds seemed to be indicated as coming in Patch 10.1. Is that real? Morgan: That is real! That will be on the PTR. The PTR is coming later this week I believe and that will be available Day 1 on the PTR. We are quite excited about that and that's just aligned with some of the philosophies that we've been discussing about cross-faction. We opened up cross-faction parties, my raid group is a cross-faction raid group and you know that conversation of "gosh, it would be neat to have people in my guild" and we are trying to be really considerate with those changes and you know, watching where we step as we make changes there, because we recognize the impact that that has on, not just our community, but the game itself. Factions, Alliance and Horde, are a huge part of World of Warcraft, even if I can play with people on the other faction, the tremendous weight that they have even in the story, or especially in the story is something that will never go away in World of Warcraft. Zaralek Caverns DevelopmentAmy @ Blizzard Watch: The new Zaralek Caverns zones have a bunch of features like Snail Riding, three biomes, and more activity with the Niffen. What was the process of deciding on that new zone, the features, and the gameplay? Steve: We do try to when we're looking at our updates that we're planning to make to the game, we do try to put things together that feel like they complement one another; the features and the story are all accentuating the themes that we have through all of it. When we knew that we were pursuing Neltharion's secrets in this underground space, we talked about the kinds of denizens we would run into, the kinds of things that we would want to offer players so that they could do and obviously we knew things that is such a popular feature for the outdoor spaces and we thought, what could we do with that in an underground space that puts a different spin on it, but yet gives you that safe feeling of freedom. We designed the zone in a way to feel very grand and have lots of openings but also places that you can swoop in and run some tight corners and get low to the ground and that became a way to inform the addition to Dragonriding where the new ability that you can earn is that you can pick up your resource when you're near to the ground, so it all ties together in that way. The storyline and the characters that are involved, all those choices go into putting together this update that feels like it's telling this cohesive experience. Those are some of those things that we do when we're talking about the different options that we have, how do we condense that coolness down into something that is very thematic as a whole and tells this great story in this awesome space that our artists have given us to plan.

Morgan: For those crafty players who look at datamining and stuff, they may have seen hints of an "underground zone" in some of our earlier betas. As Steve said, this was very much in the plans from the beginning. This is the direction that we really felt the story has been taking us this whole time and getting Embers of Neltharion into the player's hands, they can kind of see the progression of things like the Incarnates and their release in the Vault of the Incarnates, and how that is going to impact us and where their stories are going to take us is a huge part of this update. Revival Catalyst in Patch 10.1Elizabeth: Can you tell us anything about the Revival Catalyst in 10.1? Morgan: It will still be there, although we have had a lot of conversation around player expectations around their set bonuses. Once upon a time, back in Legion when you had sets, they were looked at as more aspirational, like it was a goal that would take a while to pursue and achieve. More and more as we've seen with the community, especially with how transformative and impactful your sets can be, it starting to feel less like a chase goal and more like something that "I am not complete without this thing," there is kind of an expectation around it. So we are making some changes, not exactly around the Revival Catalyst but we've definitely discussed how are ways that we can add more determinism and more Bad Luck Protection to people's acquisition of their set bonuses. I believe we might even have a blog coming out sometime in the next few days or later in the week that discusses this exact topic, so there's definitely been conversations around this and we're always looking to evolve based on player feedback and this is one of those areas that has been discussed... a lot.
Black Dragonflight Storyline - Wrathion and EbyssianTomas Hernandez from Blizzplanet: You mentioned a new Blue Dragonflight story quest, can you talk about those and will Wrathion and Ebyssian have their own story continuation?Steve Danuser: Embers of Neltharion, as the name implies, deals a lot with the legacy that Nelatharion left behind on his path from the Earthwarder, this noble protector of Dragonflight and of Azeroth as a whole, down to Deathwing. And this is a way that we can peek into that history and learn some of that progression. We’ve seen the end result of what he became, but this is a chance to tell that story, which plays out in a number of ways. Some of these are with the dracthyr, his creation, and Aberrus the raid space that will be adventuring in, the place where the dracthyr were first created. We get to delve into that history and see it come to life in one of the encounters, and that’s really cool. Besides the dracthyr and the legacy that they’re chasing, we know that Sarkareth, the leader of the Sundered Flame (a breakaway group of dracthyr) has become a force of antagonism–we’re telling their story, and how he is chasing that kind of power that he feels Neltharion owes to him. And on the other side of that coin is Emberthal, one of the noble dracthyr who lost the weyrn that she led. Now she’s looking for a purpose and helping her people find their fate. And all of that is intertwined with this destiny that Neltharion once had for them.

In addition to that, we have the Black Dragonflight, which as you pointed out, has been looking for leadership. You have both Wrathion and Sabellian who have made their cases for why they should be leaders and players got to pick sides there and unlock some cool rewards in the process of helping them. But as you go into our 10.0.7 update, for example, you will see that the other black dragon, Ebyssian, develops a close bond with Emberthal and helps her in this quest to find their future. All these stories are really intertwined in the underground.

And then in contrast to that, we have the Blue Dragonflight story that takes place in other parts of the Dragon Isles. That’s a chance to pick up from where we left off in the Dragonflight chapters. We saw that Kalecgos was attempting to get his flight back together, but he’s only able to pull a few pieces in. He felt like he still had a lot of work to do to make their flight feel more like it once did under Malygos long ago. So, we’ll get to adventure with Kalecgos and Sindragosa and delve into the past of the Blue Dragonflight as well as set a course for its future. That’s a really cool storyline that lets us get out to other places and do some adventuring and meet other characters, some of which you’ll be familiar with. It was really cool to tell both these storylines within this Embers of Neltharion update.All Raid Difficulties Released at the Same TimeJeremie from Wowhead: The raid will be simultaneously released again. You did that for the first time in Season 1, did you like it so much that you decided to do it again, or was there a different reasoning for it?Morgan Day: When we were talking about Dragonflight release, a lot of our conversations about the simultaneous release was about proximity to the holiday and our abilities to support the raid launch. Ultimately, after we saw how that played out, we had a lot of discussions about it. What were the pros, what were the cons, and what did we like and dislike? And we really felt like for the broader audience, it was such a great experience to not have to have that (frankly awkward) week where the raids are open but Mythic isn’t open, so then if you’re an M+ player…. ahhh, what level do I need to run? There’s an awkwardness that would happen when we had the season launch, but not *really* launch. So having that alignment around the season launching felt like a great experience for the broadest audience.

And the problems that it did create for us, which you know, there were definitely some problems it caused, felt like solvable problems, things that we could find solutions for, things that we could take our learnings from season 1 and apply to season 2 and look to execute that even better this time. Ultimately, just felt like this was the best experience for the largest audience and wanted to move forward again.UI Updates in Patch 10.1Michael from MMO Champion: Could you talk a little more about the UI updates that are coming in 10.1 and what player feedback has been like so far in Dragonflight?Morgan Day: Embers of Neltharion is definitely going to have some major UI updates and improvements. This is aligned with the journey that we said we were going to embark on with our UI updates, where Dragonflight was just the beginning. There’s so much stuff in the WoW UI that we really wanted to take another look at and really refresh. So some of the areas that you’ll see improvements on, possibly in the PTR later in the week…things like group management, raid frames, quest tracking, and how quests are displayed in the game.

There are a lot of improvements to Edit Mode which we know players have really enjoyed, but you know, very often we’ll see feedback like “I wish I could do this thing in Edit Mode” so a lot of feedback about Edit Mode that has been incorporated, like an Edit Mode Plus. I believe there are also updates to the personal resource bars, I don’t remember which ones off the top of my head, but we updated some of the personal resource bars to be higher fidelity and really add some more polish to what some of those things are, like the warlock one has had a ton of iteration done to it. Just taking an opportunity to look at some of those other bars and add an extra bit of polish. Very much a continuation of the initial goal that we set for Dragonflight, and we’re excited to get additional feedback on those new improvements.Cohesion Between Zaralek Caverns and the Rest of the Dragon IslesElliot from Tech Radar: With the first patch, the outdoor world systems all seem to tie in really nicely and intentionally to season 1. Is that as intentional as it seems, and will that be going forward with a brand new landmass that’s separate from the main Dragon Isles? How will you keep that sense of cohesion?Morgan: To answer the first part of your question, yes that was absolutely intentional–to make the open world feel more like a living breathing world, lots of opportunities to do some of these public events like fishing for people to engage with. And when we were talking about the Embers of Neltharion and Zaralek Cavern, something that we discussed early on was ..what is the experience like once the Cavern is available? What percentage of my time should I expect to spend there? And based on a lot of player feedback that we heard, we really felt like we wanted to make sure that you still want to be in some of these zones that we launched Dragonflight with. They’re so epic, they’re so beautiful.

We feel like there’s still more content that we could be adding to that space so players feel like they can spend time there as well. Off the top of my head, we’re definitely going to be updating a lot of those public events, as we don’t want to leave those behind. We heard a lot of feedback from players about how enjoyable those are, and they would be sad if they weren’t able to engage with them when the first big zone came out. We’ll be updating those public events from the launch, as well as adding new ones. As Steve mentioned, one of the stories we’re going to delve into in Zaralek Cavern is what happens with the Incarnates? Fyrak plunges into the cavern and finds essentially this molten lava pit to bathe in, and become more and more empowered. And then he kind of flies out of there and starts to wreak havoc on the world and there are these Fyrak Assaults that will take place in existing Dragon Isle zones. Kind of similar to what you might have seen with some of the Covenant Assaults.

So those will be existing in the zones, as well as adding new content to Zaralek Caverns that are more aligned with some of those public events. Even though it’s an underground cavern, it’s a contiguous space. You can fly to it from multiple locations even, not just one entrance to the zone. There are multiple locations across the Dragon isles where you will be able to get into the Zaralek cavern on your dragonriding mount, just fly from one zone straight into the cavern without load bars. We wanted to make sure that this felt like an addition to our existing and amazing Dragon Isles, not something that is replacing it.Adding Dragonriding to Normal MountsGreg from ShackNews: One of the things that the community has been really asking about was they want their mounts to have dragonriding capabilities. Can you give some insights into the difficulties of this process?
Morgan Day: We’ve heard that feedback loud and clear. We think it’s a great idea as well. To your point, we’re adding a new dragonriding mount, I forget the name of it but it’s like a long slender mount. This will be introduced in the Zaralek Cavern and there will be new customizations that you can earn through questing down there. We are adding to that library of dragonriding mounts that you can have more customization for.

And in terms of applying dragonriding to pre-Dragonflight mounts…yeah, there are definitely challenges there. I would say first and foremost is just the animations required to make that work. Like the dragonriding rigs and models, there’s a tremendous amount of time and effort to make that feel so visceral and awesome, there’s a ton of effort that goes into making it feel as good as it is, and we want to make sure we’re hitting that quality bar if we ever do that on existing mounts. So it’s definitely something we’ve heard feedback on, and we’ve definitely asked that question ourselves, what are the challenges? But nothing to announce, other than there is a cool new dragonriding mount and we’ve definitely heard that feedback loud and clear.Certain Items Becoming Mandatory for SpecsMichael from Dot Esports: There are a lot of cool items in WoW, especially in season 1 like the Elemental Lariat and Neltharax. These are all pretty epic and feel really sick when your character gets them. One of the main issues players encounter though is that items like those can become mandatory for certain specs pretty quickly. How do you balance really cool items that are fun and exciting with that feeling of making or breaking a spec?
Morgan Day: Itemization in particular is obviously something that our community talks a lot about, and we talk a lot about. Balance is something holistically that is discussed a lot. I think when we talk about it internally, we try to distinguish between class balance like ‘how hard does my class hit? How do we tune these talents vs each other?’ and we’re pretty proactive there. We have very frequent tuning updates when it comes to class balance.

But when it comes to items and rewards, often if there’s an item that stands out above the rest, that just becomes a goal for you. That’s just something that you’re excited to get and chase. So we try to be really careful about, especially post-launch, messing with the tuning there. But we definitely have conversations around that.

And in terms of the acquisition, that’s one of the things I’m actually really excited for, to see how Dragonflight Season 2 plays out. We have a whole new pool of dungeons. There are all kinds of fun Mythic+ trinkets that people love and while in previous seasons, you would essentially have to reacquire that same trinket season over season over season, there’s an entirely new landscape of itemization for players to explore and discover new items to chase rather than just knowing “ok I’ll get the puzzle box again this season.” So that’s something that we’re really excited to see how that plays out and is absolutely something that we discuss a lot.

You did mention the Lariat - so professions are getting a major update with Embers of Neltharion. There will be the ability to upgrade and bring a lot of those crafted items with you, as well as new recipes that are available. But you would of course have to earn the ability to upgrade the item level across some of those older items, they’re not going to automatically upgrade. That’s definitely something that we have discussed quite a bit.

Actually, this is not completely related but I think it’s really cool so I’m going to talk about it anyway. There’s a new item upgrade revamp coming with the Embers of Neltharion. One of the things we identified with Dragonflight was that we really like this idea of upgradeable items and feeling like you can make progress even if it’s a couple of time levels at a time. You feel like you can earn some progression on your character, and really work towards that end goal of yours. And what we found was there were a lot of different types of item upgrade systems. We have Valor, we have the ones in the outdoor world, we have Storms gear…and they all work in slightly different ways, and it felt like a lot of complexity and a lot of stuff the player had to wrap their head around that worked differently, even though they felt very similar with their end goal.

So we’re looking at introducing new currencies called Flight Stones, and then Shadowflame Crests, which is a currency that acts as your high watermark, that will allow you to upgrade certain items to even higher tiers. That’s a pretty exciting update that people will see. I don’t know if it will be in the very first PTR build, but it will be pretty early cause we’ve recognized that that’s a big change and want to get that into players' hands as early as possible to get as much feedback as we can and allow time for iteration. PvP In a Post-Faction-War StorylineJez from Windows Central: My question is about the lore and philosophy of the erosion of the faction war. It’s really cool at the Trading Post to see Aethas finding an item to send to Jaina, to repair their relationship after everything that’s gone on over the years. Are you guys actively thinking about where PvP fits into the story post-faction-war lore-wise?Steve: We wouldn’t have started undertaking any cross-faction grouping and systems without thinking through the lore implications and what it means to the world. Regardless of cross-faction guilds, we are still maintaining the identities of the Horde and the Alliance. Those are still organizations that exist in the world. And Stormwind and Orgirmmar will always be those bastions that represent those member races and feel like a home base for them. We don’t want to lose that. The Horde and Alliance have very different outlooks on life, which play out through the way they approach solving problems, and the kinds of characters you meet depending on which faction you’re involved with. All of that stuff is important to maintain, and that is very fundamental to the DNA of the game.

But at the same time, we’re opening things up to allow the possibility for these cross-faction groups. And that’s fundamental, even going back to Warcraft 3, which was a story of cooperation in a lot of ways, of these two sides standing together against a threat of the Legion. We’ve seen that happen time and time again, throughout World of Warcraft’s history, where some threat has arisen to our world, and we’ve had to set aside our differences and band together and face that. Those differences still existed and they came to a head in Battle for Azeroth, but in the aftermath, we have been able to tell stories of those forces coming together.

In Dragonflight, there is so much content that is available to every player regardless of what faction they are. And we have things like conditional quest text in places, that allow us to maintain some of that flavor showing differences between the Horde and Alliance, so we’ll continue keeping that spirit. But in terms of the fiction of the world, it gives us a lot of opportunities and places to take the storyline that would be more limited if we had just a hard line of these two factions never being able to cooperate. Morgan can chime in on some of the pvp details of this.

Morgan: Like Steve was mentioning, that participation has been present for a long time, so this is almost in some ways, the systems catching up with the world. There’s been this participation that’s been a major driving force in our previous expansions, and this is just allowing that opportunity for the systems of the game to reflect the world. And in terms of PvP, there are definitely very cool opportunities there to fictionalize that, but also there just is some degree of ‘the gaminess of PvP’ at times in order to create the best experience. Ultimately, that’s always going to be our focus, what’s the player experience? Even dating back to Burning Crusade, we had HvH and AvA areas for the sake of competition.Other Dragonflight Storylines in Patch 10.1Robin from MMORPG: I know we've talked a lot about the Black Dragonflight storyline and hit on some of the Blue Dragonflight, but will we get a continuation of the story of the other Dragonflights? I really liked how the Ysera and Merithra storyline was handled. Is the Green Dragonflight just hanging out for the Patch 10.1 patch cycle?
Steve Danuser: One of the things that we're doing with the story is we do have a lot of dragonflight. There's the 5 main flights and then some adjacent flights that have cropped up over the years that weren't part of the Aspects, but still represent different flights of dragons. The launch of Dragonflight is expansive enough to allow us to set up some of those pieces in motion, but with our updates, we like to make them a bit more focused and tell a smaller number of stories in a deeper way. We certainly haven't forgotten about those flights, you will be seeing more about the greens and the relationship between Merithra and Ysera. You'll see more about the Bronze coming up and all those kinds of things, but for Embers of Neltharion, it really was an opportunity to delve deep into the Black Dragonflight's legacy, resolve that, and also carry on with the stories we set up with the Blue Dragonflight. The other ones will get their time in the sun. Don't worry.Embers of Neltharion ExpectationsAmy from Esports.gg: What are you both most excited about in Embers of Neltharion? What do you want players to perhaps take a step back and smell the roses and appreciate?
Steve Danuser: Being a story person, I can't help but be excited about being able to delve into kind of one of the biggest looming characters in all of Warcraft history that of Neltharion to Deathwing. We have seen the effect he had on the world during Cataclysm and this is a chance to go back and revisit that pathway that took him from being that noble earthwarder to the breaker of the world. That's a really cool story that we haven't had a chance to tell before to this level of detail. And to be able to do it through the eyes of characters we care about like Wrathion, a fan-favorite character that has his own aspirations for what the future of his flight could be. Also, the fact that we were able to bring Sabellian back from Outland and really delve into him. What a tremendous character he has been. Then pull Ebyssian from Highmount and have him in the mix as well. It's been a great joy to delve into these characters and I think this update really encompasses that sort of callback to some old favorite dungeons and raids like Blackwing Lair and Blackwing Descent and all that stuff but see it through fresh eyes. That's all really exciting for me.

Morgan Day: That definitely dovetails into my answer. I'm very much not so good at stopping and smelling the roses. I always like to do PvE content like raids, dungeons, and Mythic+. For me really what Steve was just touching on, I think it's going to be so exciting to see Aberrus laboratory where this is the blueprint of what we saw with Blackwing Lair and Blackwing Descent back in the day. This is where Nefarian got the ideas for this kind of space. We get to see that initial laboratory and it just has so many awesome story hooks that the team has been really excited to pursue and really bring to fruition. Some of these awesome stories like the very first encounter you'll come across in Aberrus is this elementium dragon. It's kind of like the prototype for the elementium plating where Steve mentioned Neltharion descended into Deathwing and we got to see him apply that plating. This is where he experimented with that and finetuned his armor. There are so many other amazing stories that then get to translate into gameplay in this raid that I think have just such an amazing hook. The team really just ran with these ideas. Other cool stuff, like you get to see the experimentation of Dracthyr and how they came to be, all the different versions and failures he progressed through to get to the Dracthyr that we know today. And being able to experience that as an encounter is a really unique opportunity and something that we're really excited to have that story and gameplay have this amazing marriage. I'm really for people to get to see that. As we said the PTR is coming later in the week and raid testing will happen not too long after that. People will get to see it with their own eyes it's so epic.Dragonriding in Zaralek CavernsElizabeth from BlizzardWatch: I'm wondering if you can tell me a little about flying in Zaralek Cavern? Will we need to re-earn it or will we be able to fly right in?Morgan Day: Definitely you'll be able to Dragonride from moment one. That feedback is something that we've heard loud and clear from previous expansions. We didn't want to make you re-earn Dragonriding. Being able to in that opening experience take your dragonriding mount and fly through this huge hole in the ground that the Incarnates have created to bore their way into Zaralek Cavern. You'll be able to do that minute one. And similar to Dragonflight launch there will be glyphs that are available within Zaralek Cavern that you can collect as well as races that you can participate in that will be able to open up new options for your Dragonriding mount. I forget if mentioned this earlier, but there's a new trait called Ground Skimming that will actually let you recharge your vigor while you're flying really close to the ground rather than right now the only way to recharge your vigor is to fly at that really high speed. That's a trait you'll be able to earn once you've collected some of the glyphs down there. That's very much aligned with the philosophy of Dragonflight where we want you to use this right way and what unlocks look like is just unlocking more potential. We didn't want to turn it off just so that you could turn it right back on again.Item Level of Patch 10.1 Content and NozdormuTomas from Blizzplanet: For Morgan, what is the ilvl for the various content feature in Patch 10.1 such as world quests, dungeons, and raid? Will there be a new catch-up gear system for alt characters? For Steve, is there any Nozdormu love in 10.1?Morgan Day: Mine is quickly and sadly disappointing. I actually don't remember the item level. Someone asked me this last time and I said I would go look it up and I forgot to. I'm unfamiliar with what the item level increases are. I imagine they'll look similar to what we've seen in previous expansions in terms of having that distinction of the highest tier of Mythic+, the highest tier of the raid, and the highest tier of PvP then the outdoor world starting a little bit lower. We do similar to what we saw in Dragonflight launch really feel like there should be opportunities in the outdoor world to be able to earn this higher item level, especially through things like crafting. That's definitely something philosophically we want to carry forward. I sadly don't have all the numbers right in front of me. Apologies.

Steve Danuser: Nozdormu is certainly present, but this is a story that delves into the black dragonflight most prominently then there are the chapters that deal with the Blue Dragonflight. We want to parcel out those stories of the different flights throughout the course of the Dragonflight saga. There'll be more Nozdormu coming in future content updates.Class Changes in Patch 10.1Jeremie from Wowhead: Are you able to share anything more about the class changes coming in 10.1? Are there possible reworks or any big changes to the talent trees since Dragonflight was the return of talent trees themselves?
Morgan Day: Very soon, I'm sure people have seen in the 10.0.7 content update that dropping March 21st there was a very significant revamp of the Retribution Paladin. That was an area that we had a lot of feedback around and wanted to make some changes to. That really does align with the philosophy that we wanted to communicate at Dragonflight launch. The talent system was about building a really strong foundation that we can continue to improve and invest in moving forward. There will absolutely be updates that will happen with the 10.1 Embers of Neltharion update, especially because as we've discussed there are levels of changes when it comes to classes that we feel are best made at a seasonal boundary. There's really a lot of integrity we try to uphold with our seasons like with PvP and Mythic+. We want to make sure that we're maintaining the integrity of that over the season. With Mythic+ especially, if you made specific changes it might be possible to completely upend what some of those leaderboards look like. So we try to be careful around that with smaller updates and season boundaries are opportunities to take the gloves off a bit. So you're definitely seeing some of that in 10.0.7, and I definitely know the team has been spending a lot of time on some of those classes. It'll be available for everyone to see in the not-too-distant future hopefully later in the week for the PTR.Character Customizations in Patch 10.1Michael from MMOChampion: Will we see any new character customizations added in this patch? Steve Danuser: I know that there are some hair colors and things like that coming in 10.0.7. It's for certain races like orcs and humans to get some new hair color that coincides with their Heritage Armor questlines. But I'm not sure of the new customization in Embers of Neltharion specifically. I'll have to check on that specifically.

Greg Burke from Shacknews: Worgen Tails! We're all Worgen Tails.

Steve: I don't know what you're talking about. Worgen and tails make no sense to me.

Greg Burke from Shackews: Dragon Tales? They're dogs give them tails.Side Stories and Timegating in 10.1
Elliot from TechRadar: If felt like over the course of Dragonflight so far there's been a real emphasis on telling small stories throughout the patch. The number of sidequests after the main story really built up the world and told more interesting side-character stories not necessarily the main characters. There was an emphasis on telling those stories across the patch not just with the traditional time-gated quests but more locked behind renown. It felt quite natural that the story progressed over the course of the last several weeks. What's the plan with this going forward into 10.1? You mentioned several flights, but is that story going to progress naturally? What are you going to do with the time-gating of things?Steve Danuser: When we tried something new with renown unlocking these different quest chapters which we had done some of that in Shadowlands, but having the multiple paths of renown in Dragonflight it felt like it gave players a lot more agency in how they wanted to engage with those different groups and what those rewards were for doing so. And so we do have a new Renown track in Zaralek with the Niffen, who are the cute little mole people that you'll be able to meet. They're small but mighty and have adventurous spirits packed into those little bodies the big giant schnoz on there. They rely on their sense of smell much more than their sense of sight. There are lots of cute jokes about Sniffen and Niffen there. With the update though, we will have some content that unfolds on a weekly basis because part of that is as a raid unlocks you need to kind of time some content to contextualize the new raid. In those cases, it makes sense to have it more based on timing rather than something the player. I think all those options are open to using going forward. We'll try to make those decisions that best fit the feel of an update and what the right cadence is for a patch can be different than for an expansion.
Cosmetic Glyphs in Patch 10.1Jez Corden from Windows Central: Why can't we have more cosmetic glyphs?Morgan Day: I actually think we're adding one for Demon Hunters in Embers of Neltharion where you actually throw your own weapon with a Glaive Throw instead of the greener-looking glaive.

That's definitely something we talk about a lot. There are concerns about a lack of clarity depending on how much spell visuals change. Is it going to become unrecognizable to other people. We were talking about PvP earlier. Being able to understand that spell you're seeing someone cast is an important part of the game. We definitely have a bit of a line to tow there. This isn't too spoilery though, but there are definitely going to be some visuals that you'll see in the Aberrus raid that will have you asking that question again. I'll probably have the same answer.Thrall and His Involvment with the DragonflightsGreg Burke from Shacknews: Cataclysm had a lot of focus on the Aspects as well and Thrall had a major influence in that expansion. We haven't seen much of him in Dragonflight and I wanted to know if there was a reason for that? As a followup to that, is it difficult to write from a narrative standpoint to write a story and not crutch on the hall of fame, Uther, Thrall, Arthas when moving forward with story-driven content?Steve Danuser: It's definitely a balance. We try to pull in recognizable characters as well as elevate some of the more B-level characters that you kind of know but want to learn more about as well as introduce new characters. That's always a process. We certainly talked about Thrall and his place as the stand in Earth Warder during Cataclysm. But with all the other Black Dragonflight stuff, we didn't feel like we really needed to tell that story right now. We do recognize that we do want to get back to Thrall and better define his place in Orc society and the Horde going forward. Look for that coming down the line in the future.Greg Burke: Can you tell us where he is right now as of 10.0.7?Steve Danuser: He will be involved in the Orc Heritage questline, so you'll get to spend some Thrall time there.

Patch 10.1 Reveal

Interviews

Patch Content

Cross Faction Guilds in 10.1
Upgrade System Explained
Consolidated Gear Upgrade System
Upcoming Tier Set Appearances
Outdoor Content & Questlines
Sniff & Seek Niffen Cave Diving
Black Dragonflight Outdoor Armor
Demon Hunter Throw Glaive Glyph
Winding Slitherdrake Dragonriding Mount
Skimming - Low Altitude Dragonriding Ability

Season 2

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