User:Kaydeethree/BlizzCon 2011 Q&A

unformatted notes from the two Q&A sessions. please use/format/etc...

Class, items, professions open q&a
ret paladins killed ghostcrawler's parents he nerfs paladins maybe hate on warlocks for a while? kinda scary though

shadow orbs for shadow priests: wording on the new talents suggests a more resource-based paradigm (holy power). true? yah, kinda, secondary resource mechanic, -rng aspect. mind blast no mana cost, no cooldown, just shadow orbs.

healing in pvp: previous concept mentioned "triage", tough choices on who to heal, people at 50%? is that seen? are you satisfied? seems like classes at 100% or 0%. at the beginning, sure. but not with how the itemization scaled in 4.1-4.3. mortal strike buffed. comps changed--double caster at the tournaments, but brining back melee is in the works

noticed on the new tanking trees - new active tanking debuffs showing up on the trees. demoralizing shout/roar as currently are gone. death strike useful, used to keep self alive, more of that getting baked into all active tanking abilities

100-cap resource classes. currently talents push up to 130. is that in the works? for ass. rogues yes, nice knob to play with, but doesn't really fit into the talent system. set bonuses, level up bonuses

10 classes. 11th character slot? no decision yet. possibly keeping max cap at 50, but letting players put many on one realm

event items - scourge invasion - other specialty items for transmog purposes. vengeful sold at area52. event items not bta yet--expensive on blizz's side

feral druid - equip one fist weapon, but not two. monk tanks will be using a staff to compete with druids. monk dps will be dual-wielding. no plans for druids to dual-wield

enchanter - drops? not in 4.3. in the future, probably something more consistently

faction-specific legendaries? looked at on a case-by-case basis. if the story supports it and there's an interesting item possibility... but because of the work that goes into it, they have to think hard. gc loves the idea, though

new talents look awesome - dk tanks: in a really bad place, stats issues, outbreak change, 2pc tank set bonus based on our innate demise, but if tanks/healers doing their jobs properly they won't be that low. dks require less external healing than any of the other tanks. if both not susceptible to spikes and taking less healing, dks tanks #1. in 4.3, armor bonus from blood presence up from 30% to 55% part of the experience is getting low and then doing crazy things to come back up

eclipse - in 5.0: hurricane has a new arcane version too.

unholy dk - minions don't inherit crit/mastery, gargoyles have a melee strike, but seems useless compared to the rangeed attack. - trying to fix gargs on their end to make sure it uses its most powerful attack. dk stats did poorly, they know, but no real plans to change it until 5.0

noggenfogger - why can't we mount while shapeshifted as a skelly. - basic problem: animation system doesn't have animations for mounted. so hard rule: no mounting while shapeshifted

quality of life - holy priest. leveled to 80 as holy. impossible in cata. pve made easier for healers. certainly easier than vanilla, not really a big issue...

rogue - cats/monks can bring utility... rogues? fan crippling poison, awesome interrupts. others aren't going to have stealth, poison, roguelike stuff

new talent system - still looks numbercrunchable. most talents don't have numbers at all, they're not quantifiable. easier to actually adjust numbers in such a small space

noggenfogger followup: annoying to keep losing that charge when things can go away and come back. -- fun things about consumables: they actually are consumable. maybe give warnings instead of instantly dispelling it. "You cannot mount while shapeshifted."

archaeology - ignored outside of a few added things. cooldowns? not so rediculous as far as vanity stuff... -- looking for more ways to sex it up and take out that grindy nature. maybe a flaregun that takes you to a random dig site. random encounters with like 50 fragments as a drop. other big changes

druid tanking - going cat during tank swaps to do dps. viable in 5.0 with the new system? -- druids _will_ be losing that dps. no rip/shred for bears, no survival instincts for cats

resto druids have a decent single-target rotation for heals; but aoe heals are kinda mindless. more options in 5.0? -- alternate version of wild mushroom that heals. lots of druids like run around hotting, tried to tone that down but lots of pushback.

4pc t13 feral (bear); trying to limit cat access; causing problems for utility? -- intentionally - balance issue, all cats will be required to do it if they le it go.

new spells at 86, 88, 90? mages? lots of unnecessary abilities actually damages the class

tank legendary? tf was a long time ago, orange shield nice

arcane mage issues

dk t13 awesome. dk t1-6? expensive, takes a while. expensive = time budget. if we ask for one, we can't ask for another. time issue, not really money.

strength polearm? no real niche.

hunter epic questline? coming back. came up internally just recently. thinking about it, it might happen, it might not. dragonwrath/rogue legendary similar...

engineering goodies? yes. problem-often as powerful as class abilities. don't want everyone swapping to engineers. maybe limiting where you can use it, say, not in pvp. but crazy stuff is coming

hunters - limiting use for melee stuff. probably not. a hunter with sulfuras. thunderfury, maybe. rogues with legendary bow not so much. maybe customizing quiver assets

engi question - "what happened?" so awesome for that one patch, then nothing. goggles, trademark of engineering. archy getting close to giving more pets/gadgets than engi. been bouncing around between "engi sucks" and "engi op". trying to not let engi get away and become its own class. there will be a lot of focus. no specific examples yet.

priest health-swap talent: great for killing GLs. along with leap of faith fun... how is monk healing going to work? going into healer stance - chi changes to mana. two challenges for ourselves: "healing and dps. healing without targeting." single target, much stronger holy nova. very mobile. close prox to targets. pre place statues around the raid. while dps, healing emitted from statue. looking for a diff type of healer

lv90 shaman talents - cooldowns... the x-many totem thing will not apply to fire totem...

melee cloth class? problem is currently holy pally gear. don't want to create another one of those. fit into the leather archetypes for int/spi and agi

warlock demon naming? you don't really have a demon that's yours, just snagging one from the twisting nether, using it, then disposing it/saccing it. sometimes you get a bad name. maybe pay gold to some warlock to kill your pet and get a new name but not customization

-minimum range for hunters = less stats. ranged for hunters = 2h item budget, not wimpy ranged budget. everyone loses the ranged stats, but not much

crafters - issues for jcs. market very competitive. thanks somewhat to mods. dunno if there's a real solution to this

monks: no auto attack. no auto attack for other classes? controversial around the office. maybe we'll cave. but not for other classes. there are downsides, already spotted...

General Q&A
metzen, chilton, brack, robinson, street, stockton

10-man raider, disparity btn 10/25 raids. 10s feeling easier. lots of hardcore still raiding 10s. will 10s difficulty being raised? def hard to balance together. hard to know comp, how to kill players. def the goal to make them the same, may just make surgical changes. no plans to drop 25 to 20

real id dungeon++; plans to implement spectator mode for raids/battlegrounds. we've wanted it for a long time, replays integrated in the client. just a question of getting around to doing it someday. eventually. they hope.

plans on adding more options to the guild leaders' ui; giving more granular options. guild repair, etc... it comes down to the fact of "how much control do we feel comfortable giving out to people other than the gl". sounds useful

with upcoming expansion - will 85 purples be replaced with greens on the first day? yes, green is the new purple every expansion. maybe some kind of hall of heroes on the website saying "yes, I killed rag during 4.2"

monks for be/draenei? thrown in like it's always been there

hunters & cc: wyvern sting has a dot, makes it tough to sting/trap. not really changing in 4.3, but getting fixed in 5.0.

wind shear: nerfed. not worried about it in 4.3. not completely going away, just a long cooldown

enhance shamans? we try to make sure that the classes have options, and it's particularly challening to -- compared to mages with fire/frost/arcane -- "just go elemental" doesn't really work. pve is okay when they can just sit there to wail away on bosses, really challenged on movement-heavy fights. casters generally overshadow melee atm anyway, but that's changing some

combat rogues - now that haste gives energy back, restless blades wants us to do everything real quick. that never really worked out, something like 0.5%... combat using cooldowns more often? or wait until 30%? go restless blades, use CDs as they're up

guild name change service in 4.3? or 5.0? most of the guild services coming terrifylngly soon. <2 weeks

heroic rag++; same kinda challenges in 5.0? or bigger, better, higher things. heroic modes always going to be challenging, for hardcore players

healers; more healers into raids in 5.0? ratio not changing. some raids have monk healing, others won't

challenge mode gear normalization: hit caps won't be getting messed with. still lots to work out with how it's going to work. intent is that everyone does basically the same dps/healing as everyone else

with some pets/achievements becoming account-bound... mounts? hopefully someday. natural extension, but probably not in 5.0. probably likely

option to turn authenticator back on every single time? yes, soon.

moonkin: plans for the form? change looks like we can for bear/cat? too early to tell as of yet

customer service++; race changing, quest credit, legendaries. want whitelist of quests that don't get dropped on a race change. try to be careful with cs to not cause them much grief

boa items cross-server? maybe someday in the future, probably not in the immediate future. mail system is a terrible way to get gear to their other characters. already possible to log in and get pets/such on login without dealing with mail. probable for other stuff.

30k swipe tanks, 1112 arc mages. ick. aoe rotations didn't happen much. bigger part of pve now. am back in the rotation for arc mages

dots for arc mages? living bomb is class-wide in 5.0. mage t13 was fun.

ranged going away, wands going mainhand. enchanters making epic wands in the future? definitely.

5.0 professions? prof bonuses; gathering profs don't get too much, crafting gets a lot. no real sweeping changes to those perks. we don't want minmaxers to feel like taking a gathering prof isn't a mistake. profs should be cool, but not mandatory.

transmog: specifically, benediction. but what about people getting the look but without the work. maybe a different texture, like the ZA bearmount

ret pally rng? 90 talent? we want to be even

wind shear nerf - tradeoff or not having it for resto? don't have it.

any craftable mounts in 5.0? maybe. some exciting ideas. maybe JC. really? I said maybe. maybe herbalism. attacking opposing faction on mounts? no.

green fire for warlocks in 5.0? def a possibility. very, very hard technically. basically have to copy the spell.

heroic leap for warriors? it's hard. the engine just doesn't work for it. especially for elevation change. lbgt representation? 7 quest designers, CDev pushes fiction. we appreciate all parts of our audience, if it's well-rounded, totally a possibility.

10/25 raids: 10-man lots of wasted loot, balance, etc... up to 15 or smarter loot? more likely making loot slightly smarter.

cat druid: <3 fandral's flamescythe. any plans to make other items like that for the future and spread the love for other specs. if the item goes away, can we transmog it back?

gallywix? we haven't had a conversation about him in a while. no plans right now. super interesting, metzen agrees he's a bastard, that's why he's interesting.

blinding shield for pallys? nothing is set in stone, things can change, gc did not promise me a pony. currently penciled in as the level 87 spell

shaman talents look resto-focused. yes, hybridization is good. but people want to focus on dps. some talents sure look for both. totems are great, but not the passive buff totems like strength of earth

pally lore: each pally has a libram, but relics are going away. librams will be visible on the on the pally somehow.

4.3 end of time: get to kill nozdormu in a 5 man, but deathwing/maly require 25s. is this the end of the infinite? want to do it properly in a raid. infinite wraps cleanly in 4.3. the timeways will always exist, if we have a clever story it will probably be done

player housing? eventually, if we can come up with a good way to do it. incredibly resource/time consuming. tough to do if we're doing dungeons/classes at the same time.

jc endgame feels bland. trinkets/rings/neckpieces crafting? shooting for equality between the profs.

pandaren: distinguishing between A/H pandaren after level 10? the ui will tell you. may help the ui more clearly distinguish an enemy pandaren. not going to visually look different

dungeon leaderboards extending to raids? wipe counts? sure. we always are looking for more ways to keep track of player accomplishments

reskinning old races? remodeling? totally. 10x panda bones as compared to older races. we want to. working on it with the character artists now. we want to do it right and not get 20% of the playerbase after the modelers

items in raids evolving in texture/glow effects. new theme for pandaren raids? bamboo/wood? brewing! bamboo! lots of things that you're already seeing in the demo

Lore Q&A
Missed the first handful of questions.

demon/dragon soul? taking it out of the timeline: aspects at half power, alexstrasza brood free, etc... :yah, we know. watch.

arthas' menethil's mother? no info in wc3. her fate has not been crafted. metzen thinks it makes sense if she dies before the fall of lordaeron. or, kill her and get a legendary crown

shards of frostmourne? specifically not addressed in the sylvanas short story. metzen: some very smart people picked them up and took them safe where they would be safe. probably shenanigans in the future. some idiot trying to reforge it. that's all he knows.

what's up with the titans? who those folks are, what they're doing in the universe? are they still alive? do they have a plan for this? the titan storyline in wow needs to play out over a very long time, not "two expansions from now we'll have titans". he loves the titans, but isn't ready to put them into play. things about bc he really, really loved. ethereals running around, shattered planets. but too high science fantasy for more. so pushed back to familiarity of fantasy of grizzly hills. he wants to go to argus, the world of the eredar. shiny fleet of draenei out there that nobody knows about -- technically that's protoss -- show many ideas, just a matter of feeling it out. so we'll see. safe to say that there is something about azeroth that's unique in the cosmology and that's why it's the focus about this.

fissures and cracks in the horde unresolved getting looked at soon

trolls: zul'jin dead, new heroics fun to play, will we ever really see a return of the troll empires? why are the zandalari all set about recreating the empire? future troll storyline will actualize through the zandalari. not done, they're crazy. being driven by something right now

serious aspects of the wacraft storyline? or is all going to be light-heartedness? we haven't really seen who the pandaren really are. the kinda bad stuff they're dealing with, what's going on in their area? what happened in the sundering? not a joke race. pretty badass. live life to the fullest. eat hard, drink hard, play hard, sleep hard, etc... no way we're going to base an expansion off an april fool's joke - didier started drawing these guys years ago, nobody really thought we'd include them. not ultimately silly, just a little lighter. context of where they live, what's going on in the world. serious as a heart attack. they're just chill about it. absolutely the next vital chapter. things ratcheted up, getting gnarly. as things get really heated up between red/blue. pandaren seem to be in the middle of the solution. plenty of intrigues, dangers, drama. not so much undead, demons out of the sky, but it is serious.

baine bloodhoof, fearbreaker - kinda leaning sunwalker? his story's just beginning, technically. metzen's opinion: tauren just had a fit when paladins came up. traditionally nomadic, in with nature. sunwalker an attempt to realize the lore, fit about as well as it could. quest teams did a great job banging that out. relative to baine, realizes how people come to that conclusion. but a paladin leader does not really fit with the whole tauren kit. baine, cairne aren't supernatural, just regular guys. no real solid plans for where his future is of yet.

for the books we don't see too much of what happens in the books come into the game - krasus dying - is it going to do so? alexstrasza getting a new name? the aspects are going to be happening in 4.3. completion of a very very grand cycle that's been happening for a long time. books-for many years we've been putting out books. petrifyed trying to develop the lore in realtime. very time-consuming, complex process.

as chasing stories, took more a conservative route, telling stories in the past. cataclysm takes place in the present. millions of wow players don't like to read. with big tectonic movements in the ancillary fiction, gameplayers feel cheated (say, with cairne). onus is on us to bring these events more evidenced in the game, but that conflicts with the quest team. trying to make sure that it balances out. we can do a much better job of it.

alliance for 7 years. done a wonderful job with the horde fleshing out their story, thrall and so forth. varian feels one-dimensional, boring. does alliance ever get to kick ass at some point? -- so here's the deal, part of the thrall thing has been pushed as a thrall issue, not as a horde issue. here's what we're gonna do. trying to get this idea executed against 5.0. varian has the potential to be unbelievably badass character. quest "trials of the high king" - insight into each of the races, you will be his squire. whole point is - no personality bullshit - all of the races say "you are my king. we'll follow you wherever" he will have his shit together. it's gonna come around. also, his relation with anduin. before christie wrote the shattering, they didn't have plans for anduin. currently, he's off to boarding school with the draenai, luring the cosmic ways with velen.

plans for the horde too.

9 val'kyr, it takes one to revive her. in silverpine, 3 val'kyr, it takes all three. any rules for the val'kyr resurrection? can she make more? no, she can't make more. it took 3 of the lesser val'kyr in silverpine to raise her, one of the more senior one to raise her. one died in andorhal, 4 left.

tirion as a beloved character...

neptulon, throne of the tides. what happens with him? are we going to find out about his tryst with ozumat and the tentacle thing that kinda happened? no real good answer for that. it's a damn mess is what it was.

fordragon? alliance leader, badass mofo, next lich king. not really reigning in the scourge. tough transition. -- scholomance, strath? andorhol -- the scourge/cult of the damned operating in plaguelands are likely autonomous. bolvar putting that helmet on in an attempt to contain the scourge... in fiction, the scourge have basically gone to sleep in northrend. that obviously can't play out in the game for a while. no crazy new scourge attacks for some time. so definitely consider the plaguelands autonomous... zombies don't have free will, who's pushing them? -- arthas lost some control over the scourge when his power waned... someone's picked up the pieces of frostmourne.

gundrak: area with the stone sentinel guys. look over the cliff there's a big wiggly snake tail. there's nothing that massive and snakey... poster-sized screenshot. it's super-effective! there's something driving the trolls, but it ain't that. so what's this snake tail? sign of the return of the titans, medivh's leading them, thrall's leaving aggra and dating jaina - just kidding -- sometimes the artists just put cool stuff in and we have no idea why it's actually there

alliance answer to doomhammer: bolvar's longsword -- I like that

pandaren leadership? what happens after the lv10 split? can one of them be voiced by jack black? they actually don't kinda have leadership that way. there's notable pandas, but they're self-actualizing people. will be reps for the horde/alliance, but not racial leaders. reps come from the turtle. no names to give you yet. no, nobody's getting voiced by jack black.

original plan was have pandaren be the alliance race in bc. but had to pull back, issues came up. so rolled draenei instead. so now we can go to town and roll out the entire continent and not just a starting experience. models are so much more compelling compared to before