Interviews with Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak, Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas

No ar Criado 20/9/2012 em 13:31 por perculia

lore developmentsrare spawns dropping vanity lootlegendary questlineeveryTankSpotWowhead's Interview with Dave KosakWhat sorts of things inspired Pandaria--lore, mythology, culture? How did you create a new area that on the surface, seems quite different from Azeroth, while still making players feel like they're tied to Azeroth?Pandaria is completely new in many ways, but this expansion more than once has reminded me of vanilla--the quirky rare spawn NPCs, Lorewalker monuments, special items for Lost and Found, the sad questline by the Cradle of Chi-Ji. What elements did your team like from past expansions and want to bring back?How did you want to improve upon the questing experience in Mists from Cataclysm? I remember that phasing felt a bit over-the-top in Cataclysm and that it can be used effectively in small doses. I know you were especially proud of the Jade Forest revisions.It's a challenge to make players feel connected to the lore and environment after dinging 90. Factions like the Lorewalkers are great because they make you keep exploring the world--what else is in store?Our guides to rare spawns in Mists have been really popular--players love them.

When we last spoke at Blizzcon, we discussed legendary quests as well as epic ones like Veteran of the Shifting Sands--how they were a lot of fun but also took a lot of time and only a small portion of the playerbase got to experience it. The legendary questline in Mists seems to strike a good balance where everyone gets to experience something epic--and it's really exciting how it spans content patches. Can you tell us about the process behind designing something like this quest chain?Yeah, this new system seems to really rewards players who stick with it, instead of showing up for a tier to collect a good weapon.I'll try! I had a lot of fun with the solo parts for Fangs of the Father.At BlizzCon 2011 we spoke about some of your early ideas with the Lorewalkers. They turned out great and the other reputations in Mists are really nuanced too. How did you come up with reinventing the reputation system after the dungeon crawl of MoP? Also, what was the inspiration behind the Best Friend system, introducing a new form of reputation? The Tiller system with special gifts and foods seems especially fun.Yeah, they're optional, but you can do a lot with building friendship if you're into that as a player. And if you're not interested in that, it doesn't affect things like gearing up for raids or collecting Valor Points.What are the challenges of developing an expansion like MoP where there's no clear-cut villain at the start, as well as one that goes between major events on two continents? We're both exploring Pandaria and learning more about Garrosh's awful leadership at the same time. How can players feel like they have a good grasp on all the storylines?I just finished running the new Theramore Scenario. What was it like collaborating with Christie Golden on the scenario? Also, what were the challenges behind coming up with Theramore's plot arc--something that would be so volatile among players with faction pride?Can you talk a little about how you take relatively static plotlines or characters like Jaina and Garrosh and dynamically change them in plausible ways that stay true to their characters?Thanks for the interview! Can't wait for Mists to launch next week!TankSpot's Interview with Ion HazzikostasLore: So to start off, what all do you do as Lead Encounter Designer? Obviously encounter design, but from my understanding of how Blizzard works I'm guessing you're involved with a lot more.Looking at tier 14, there's 16 bosses plus another 2 world bosses. So, quite a few bosses. Do you have to change up how you're designing the encounters when dealing with a larger tier like that? I remember when we were looking at Firelands and Dragon Soul with 7 and 8 bosses, part of the reason for the smaller tiers that the team was talking about then was to make sure that each encounter was unique and exciting.So with how the new talent system is set up, there's a lot more utility focus on the talents. So talents that a PvE player in Cataclysm might have looked at and said, "Oh, that's just a PvP talent, I'm not so worried about that," that's now the sort of thing that a lot of players are going to have. How do you have to adapt the design of the encounters in the raids in Mists of Pandaria to account for the fact that now everybody has so much easier access to, like, a stun, or a survivability cooldown and so on?You guys have been talking quite a bit in sort of bits and pieces here and there about the legendary gem in patch 5.0. So first question I guess, just for confirmation, that is something that everybody's kind of working on at the same time, right? It's not a question of "who gets the first one" and so on?And so, like you said, that's part of a longer chain. So is that kind of the idea going forward for any other legendaries that come up over the course of the expansion? It's still going to be that sort of personal quest?During the AMA that you guys did on Reddit, you were talking about Challenge Modes, and one thing you said was that Challenge Modes is the feature that you're most looking forward to in Mists of Pandaria. So I thought, if the lead encounter designer is saying that, there's gotta be something to that. Could you elaborate a bit more on what exactly it is about Challenge Modes that has you so excited?Obviously with the leaderboard system in place, there's a strong competitive PvE aspect to it. Do you see that sort of taking over as the go-to hardcore PvE content, and sort of supplanting heroic raiding as a result?I think that'd actually make an amazing way to make farm content a bit more exciting than just clearing through everything again.Do you have any plans yet for how challenge modes will transition into the next expansion when it comes along, and we obviously gain more levels and get whatever sort of systems reworks are done, that would kind of mess with how the old leaderboards work?You mentioned the possibility of scaling the player down to a lower level to go back and do the old challenge modes. Would there ever be the possibility of seeing something like that for old raids? For example, scaling down to go do Molten Core like it was when everybody was level 60 and undergeared, and so on?Looking at Scenarios, kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum from challenge modes. Someone said recently, I think it was Tom Chilton, that he expected to be a really big game changer for Mists of Pandaria. Looking at them myself, and a lot of other people who are perhaps more involved in the hardcore community, we kind of just see them as group quests that you queue up for. So I guess my question is, what are we missing? What's the big game changing thing about scenarios that makes them so cool?Another feature that you talked about in the Reddit AMA was the Proving Grounds feature. It sounded like something similar to Scenarios, but with leaderboards, but very challenge focused. Is there anything you can tell us about the Proving Grounds feature, and why that might be something we'd want to be looking forward to in a future patch?

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