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Blizzard Insider: Before you came to Blizzard Entertainment to join the World of Warcraft team, you were the lead designer on Ultima Online — you worked on several expansions and game updates, right?

Tom Chilton: Right.

When you started at Blizzard Entertainment, you started as a senior game designer while World of Warcraft was in development?

That’s right — when I started, there were a handful of associate designers and one or two mid-level designers

Can you talk about the state the game was in when you came on?

Yeah — it was early 2004, around February. The core look and feel and the quest-oriented gameplay were already there, but I think the level cap was 15. Most of the zones in the game had been created by then, but there was no content in the majority of them above level 15 — they were basically empty.

We did a lot in nine months!

A huge amount of the content was completed in that time. Not all of the character classes were in place — hunters and druids weren’t in the game, and rogues were being redesigned. We had about three classes’ worth of content to design essentially from scratch. Not many major game systems were in place — there was a combat system in place, but we redid that during the last nine-month period. All of the math and the way stats worked were redone completely. A lot of the ‘feel’ stuff — the way the dodges and parries worked — was redesigned. The guild and chat systems existed, but that was pretty much it as far as social systems. No auction house, no mail system, no talent system, no Battlegrounds or honor system. When I was brought on board, it was presumably to do a lot of work on the PvP systems, but we quickly realized that we were going to have to wait on that, because a large portion of the internal feedback we were getting during our alpha and early beta was that players didn’t feel like they had enough character customization. People would say to us, “my warrior isn’t any different from any other warrior!” It wasn’t so much a visual customization thing as it was gameplay customization — they couldn’t distinguish their experience from anybody else’s.

No auction house, no mail system, no talent system, no Battlegrounds or honor system.

That led into the development of the talent system. There was a rudimentary talent system at the time; every level, you would get 10 talent points, and the things you could spend them on, “do 1 additional point of damage per hit, or 2 additional points of damage, or 3,” were super simple, really rudimentary. You’d pop open the UI, and it was just a list of stuff you could buy. Eventually, you’d get most of them, so it wasn’t really a customization system with progression. We decided that wasn’t enough, and went through a few pitches for a redesign, but the one thing the team really gravitated towards was the Diablo-style tree system — having multiple talent trees and choosing between different talents that were character-defining, and that’s the direction we went.From April until the game shipped, the vast majority of my time was spent working on the design for the auction house, the mail system, and implementing the talent trees for every class. I was the only person available to do that — our other class designer, Kevin Jordan, was mainly focused on ensuring that all of the classes had spells and abilities up to level 60, and managing the flow of when you’d get which ability. Kevin and I, and Rob Pardo, and Mike Heiberg from the StarCraft team, all worked on that part of the game. It was exciting, but it was weird — my experience with some of the classes was making a character of that class on an internal server, playing it up to level 10 to get a feel for how the class played, and starting to make 60 levels worth of talents. A lot of my early experience was trying to get familiar with every class.

Is it reasonable to say that the “something for everyone” scope of the game that we have now wasn’t present at that point in development?

It definitely wasn’t there philosophically. Back then, we had much more of a notion of two classes of players — hardcore, and not-hardcore. Not-hardcore players, they’d level up to 60, and then either be done with the game until an expansion came out, or start up another character and level up to 60 and do quests again some unknown number of times. It was really only the hardcore players that would want to have endgame content. Most of our design for how endgame content would work was very much aimed towards the hardcore EverQuest type of player’s mindset. They want stuff to be really challenging, they want it to take a lot of organizational effort, and they want to wipe a lot, but when they finally win, feel really good about it. At that time, we had very little concept of casual players caring about endgame content.

The concept of “casual” players of an MMO at the time was a little unheard of.

Exactly.

When did that start to shift philosophically?

It started to shift, I would say, with Zul’Gurub. That’s when we saw those first signs that organizing 40 people wasn’t for everybody, and was pretty hard to pull off. There were a lot of smaller guilds out there that wanted to do end-game content, so they ran Upper Blackrock Spire a whole bunch, but they didn’t have anything to do beyond that, so they just kind of got stuck and ran out of progression. That’s when we started to feel like we could start alternating — this patch will be for the smaller guilds, and the next patch will be another endgame raid zone for the hardcore guilds out there, and we’ll go back and forth. After doing it for a while, we realized that it was just happening too slowly. People would go huge, 6-month gaps of time where their playstyle didn’t see content. That wasn’t good enough. We tried to address that more with Ahn’Qiraj where we introduced a 20 and 40-person version simultaneously, and those results were better, but the amount of time it took us to make it, and the fact that 20-person was still fairly hardcore, led us to the decision we made in The Burning Crusade — to make this content more available to people, we’re going to have to make content for 10-person groups, and the big stuff will be more like 25-person. We still felt like it would feel epic, but a lot of arguments back in the day were along the lines of, “does 25 people really feel epic?” or “That’s so weird that it would only take 25 people to kill a famous name in Warcraft lore!” It’s funny — now, nobody thinks twice about it, but back then, we’d instilled this mindset that 40 people were necessary to make a fight epic.

As a player, less so than a designer, do you have a favorite part of the game?

Yeah — over the course of time, one of the things I’ve had the most fun with is Warsong Gulch. I’ve always liked the 10-person format; it’s given me the ability to affect the outcome of the battle more than, say, a 40 on 40 — which is cool too. I do like mixing it up — like pretty much anybody, if you stay in the same Battleground for too long, you’ll get tired of it, but Warsong is the one I come back to more than the others. I like the capture-the-flag format — it’s clear. Somebody can be the hero in terms of capping the flag or returning the flag, and I have a lot of fun playing on both sides of that.

One of the things that I’m most curious about here is the ‘why’ of World of Warcraft — why is it as successful as it is?

There are a zillion little reasons that play into it, but the big ones in my mind: number one, the player experience is carefully directed through quests. Also, it’s not punishing to players. When you die, you aren’t losing progress — you lose a little bit of time running back to your corpse, but it doesn’t feel really punishing. We have a good rewards cycle for advancement — you don’t advance so slowly that you feel like you’re not making progress. The game feels very responsive — the controls are good, the framerate’s good, it runs well, the world is really inviting, and inspires people to explore it. The zones are really different from each other, and every zone has a lot of character. The NPCs within the quests have personality. It’s really hard to come out of one of the first zones without wanting to see more.

I didn’t imagine that it would get as big as it has today, but I could tell that it would be a really good game that I couldn’t wait to play.

Did you know or predict the game’s success early on the game’s development?

Not the extent of the game’s success, no. Before I even worked on World of Warcraft, I saw it at an E3 in 2002, which is where it was shown first. I remember immediately thinking, “this game’s gonna be good.” It was responsive, it looked inviting, it had a good core — you could see the kernel of the game’s success back in 2002. When I came onboard in early 2004, playing in the alpha, and got to experience some of the quests and see some of the zone transitions — like the first time I went from Elwynn Forest to Westfall, and saw that it was a totally different feel — I knew it would be the best MMO on the market. I didn’t imagine that it would get as big as it has today, but I could tell that it would be a really good game that I couldn’t wait to play.

How did that runaway success and out-of-control growth change how you designed for the game?

We’ve had to learn a lot of hard lessons about planning for the worst-case scenario. I say worst-case, but they’re actually problems that we were in a sense very fortunate to have — you have too many people that want to play, for example. We thought about that when we launched The Burning Crusade. “We’re going to have a huge chunk of people all going into Hellfire Peninsula at the same time — how are we gonna handle that?” We had this worry that it would be way too crowded, so we made the zone really big, and the instant you came through the dark portal, we were shuttling you off to different parts of the zone. “Alliance, you guys go over there to Honor Hold, Horde, you guys go to Thrallmar, stay away from each other!” We took that a step further in Lich King with the separate zones — we essentially cut that area’s concurrency in half again. With things like Wintergrasp, we really didn’t know what to expect. It was this huge, nebulous thing — were we designing for 15 people being there, or were we designing for 100 people being there? We’ve only seen since then that we really have to use those same kinds of worst-case scenario design principles so that we’re better prepared for load balancing.

There have been some pretty significant philosophical shifts in World of Warcraft’s design from day 1 to Lich King, obviously. What do you think is the biggest change?

There were a lot of sacred cows that had to die. One in early World of Warcraft development was the idea that there should not be an auction house. We were hoping to see the social interaction in any kind of trading — players meeting up face to face, deciding what the price on something would be, and determining what they were going to do to exchange their goods. After the game had been in beta for a while, and we saw that trading was incredibly cumbersome, and people weren’t able to efficiently buy and sell stuff, we made the decision to include a game system to support it. There were also some perceptions about how hardcore raiding was, how much we’d expect out of a raider in the general sense, that have changed. We wanted to make content available to more players, but preserve challenge for hardcore players by including hard modes and that sort of thing.

What sort of creative inspiration guided the team during the development of World of Warcraft?

I’d say the earlier MMOs had the strongest influence as far as interest in the genre. So much of the creation of World of Warcraft is a result of the fact that the team at the time was playing MMOs, was super invested in the game-type, and felt that it was an untapped genre — there were games out there that had done well, but we felt they could be done so much better.

The team’s gone from 15-20 people to 140 today — what does that change mean for you?

When we launched the game, the team was around 65 people. It felt like a really big team even then, but at this point, it’s an operation. The most significant change is that we deliver more content than we ever did before. If you look at the patches that we did early on in the game’s life cycle, the first patch had Mauradon, and that was it — one 5-person instance that was already half-done when we shipped the game! We went from that to Dire Maul, which was aggressive at the time because there was Dire Maul East and West! We’ve gotten a lot more efficient, our tools have gotten better, and we’ve just got a lot more experience. Internally, the dynamics of team communication changed, too. When you are a smaller team, located in a physically smaller area, communication gets easier in a lot of ways. Now, we have to be more careful to make sure that parts of the team just aren’t off on an island, that everyone gets their feedback heard, that we talk to people on a regular basis, and that the team doesn’t become these separate pods of people who don’t really talk to each other much.

Is there an old-world relic that you’re particularly excited for, an aspect of the old-school game that you’re looking forward to bringing back?

Yeah, I’m really excited to return to Blackrock Mountain. We’re redoing some of it, and adding some new instances like Blackwing Descent. For me, Blackrock Mountain was one of those really defining experiences in World of Warcraft’s history — so many players went there for endgame content, whether for lower or upper Blackrock Spire, or Blackwing Lair — it was the hotbed of player activity. It’s such a geographically significant element of World of Warcraft — a huge lava-filled mountain. It felt really epic.

Is there any interest in recreating some of the old-school community classics? Corrupted blood, Tarren Mill v. Southshore, etc.

Well, Corrupted Blood, for example, we took that concept and did the zombie invasion with it. The Zombie Invasion was the deliberate version, whereas Corrupted Blood was an accident, where we were like, “whoah, what happened?” But it gave us the inspiration to do the Zombie Invasion, and there’s a good chance that we’ll do something along those gameplay mechanic lines in the future. As far as Tarren Mill and Southshore, that type of PvP is part of the inspiration for things like Lake Wintergrasp, but we think it will further evolve in Cataclysm with Tol Barad. Every now and again, too, we try to light it up a bit between Tarren Mill and Southshore with things like the Hallow’s End event. Those player-driven experiences definitely continue to have ripple effects on our design.

If you could go back the beginning of World of Warcraft’s development, to the very start in 1999, before you’d even joined the team, is there anything you’d change dramatically?

I would probably want to change earlier the philosophy of how we approach the creation of endgame content — I’d want to deliver content with more types of players in mind. That’s probably the only philosophical change — obviously, I’d love to have seen the game launch with Battlegrounds and Arenas and all the cool stuff we have today, but that’s kind of cheating the question.

What do you think the legacy of World of Warcraft will be for the development community and culture in general?

…We broadened the audience by making the game accessible and capturing people’s imaginations.

I think that World of Warcraft proved that an MMO can be done on a large scale — that you can have success with an MMO outside of a niche market or genre. Before World of Warcraft, there was a perception that MMOs were smaller, side projects with pretty good money in them if they were done well, but they’d never be mainstream, really big like a console game. More than anything else, that will be World of Warcraft’s lasting legacy — how we broadened the audience by making the game accessible and capturing people’s imaginations.

So, last question — you’ve been working on this game for six years of your life — what’s been the high point for you?

It’s hard to identify any single high point. The ones that stick out the most are the product launches. Launching World of Warcraft, launching The Burning Crusade and launching Wrath of the Lich King were the big ones. As far as high points within patches, the introduction of Battlegrounds was really cool — I still remember to this day the first day that we launched Battlegrounds. When you think back to how PvP worked before Battlegrounds, how it was just kind of random and unstructured, there was no particular “point” to it — you didn’t get anything for winning, there was no sense of satisfaction outside of “ha, I killed that guy,” and compare that to going into Alterac Valley or Warsong Gulch for the first time, actually playing them live and then seeing the response to it, even by people who might be jaded by it now, but at the time, when it was fresh and new, having people come out and say “my God, that was so fun,” or “that’s the most fun I’ve ever had in World of Warcraft,” it totally changed the scope of the game. It really introduced a type of gameplay that didn’t exist before that.

Tom, thanks for your time — we really appreciate it!

The Following is direct from Eyonix, one of the Blizzard official posters who posts in the forums, and today we got this great new bit of information on Cataclysm.

Eyonix said: As many of you know from panels at last year’s BlizzCon and posts here on the forums since then, Cataclysm will bring about major changes to familiar character stats such as Intellect, Armor Penetration, Defense, and others, ultimately designed to make the effects of stats more easily understandable and make gear choices more interesting. As these changes will have a significant impact on how stats work and relate to one another, today we wanted to offer you a closer look at exactly what’s in store and explain some of the rationale before Cataclysm arrives.

The most obvious question these changes raise is “Why are stats being changed, and why now?” As the game has matured, we’ve run into increasingly complex issues with the current stat system. Many stats are inherently confusing, and the way they interrelate can feel convoluted. Attack Power, for example, currently translates to damage, but so does Armor Penetration. Defense provides five different statistical benefits of varying utility. Mana regeneration involves understanding multiple stats and rules and often ends up being irrelevant anyway. In addition, the difference between a “good stat” for a class and a “bad stat” can be extreme. Some casters want Haste but not Crit; hunters want Armor Penetration but not Haste. There are other overarching issues, as well, such as Intellect not being very exciting for casters despite it being a core stat — and these are just a few examples.

Our ultimate goal is make gear a more interesting (and less confusing) choice by making each stat valuable to more players. While the reasoning behind some of the following changes may be clear, we understand that you may have questions about some of the less obvious alterations, and we’ll do our best to answer any questions you may have here on the forums.

What You’ll See on Gear

Stamina – Because of the way we will be assigning Strength, Agility, and Intellect, non-plate wearers will end up with more Stamina than before. Health pools will be much closer between plate-wearers and other classes.

Spirit - Come Cataclysm, this stat should only be found on healing gear. Non-healing casters will have other systems in place to regenerate mana, and we are designing special solutions for Elemental shaman and Balance druids who often share gear with healers (more on this below). Raid buffs that currently boost Spirit (such as Blessing of Kings) will only boost the primary stats of Stamina, Strength, Agility, and Intellect. We are also likely changing the five-second rule and other quirks of the current regen system.

Intellect - Intellect will now grant Spell Power (more on this below). Intellect will also provide less mana than it currently does.

Haste - Haste will become more attractive for melee classes by allowing them to recover resources such as energy and runes more quickly. Our intention is for Haste to let you “do stuff” more often.

Block Rating - Block is being redesigned to scale better. Blocked attacks will simply hit for 30% less damage. Block rating will improve your chance to block, though overall block chances will be lower than they are today.

Parry - Parry no longer provides 100% avoidance and no longer speeds up attacks. Instead, when you parry an attack, it and the next attack will each hit for 50% damage (assuming they hit at all). In other words, Dodge is a chance to avoid 100% of the damage from one attack, Parry is a chance to avoid 50% of the damage from two attacks, and Block is a chance to avoid 30% of the damage from one attack.

Mastery - This is a new stat that will allow players to become better at whatever makes their chosen talent tree cool or unique. It’s directly tied to talents, so what you gain from improving this stat is entirely dependent upon your class and the talent specialization you choose. We’ll talk more about specific Mastery benefits in the future.

Armor - The way Armor mitigates damage is not changing, but the Armor stat has been rebalanced to mirror changes to the armor curve in Cataclysm. As a result, bonus Armor will go down slightly overall. We are also changing the mitigation difference among armor types so that plate doesn’t offer so much more protection than mail, leather, and cloth.

Resilience - This will only affect damage done by players and critical damage done by players. It will not impact crit chance, mana drains, or other such effects.

Strength, Agility, Hit Rating, Expertise, and Critical Strike Rating – These will all still appear on gear as well. Aside from situations mentioned elsewhere in this list, in general these will function similarly to how they do now, though the details — such as how much Hit Rating you might need to effectively combat high-level creatures (more on this below) — are likely to change.

Being Removed from Items

Attack Power - This stat will no longer be present on most items as a flat value, though it will still show up on some process. Strength and Agility, which will be present on items, will grant the appropriate amount of Attack Power (generally 2 Attack Power per point of Strength or Agility) depending upon which stat a particular class favors. Agility may provide less Crit than it currently does.

Spell Power - Spell Power is another stat that you’ll no longer see present on most items. Instead, as mentioned above, Intellect will grant Spell Power. One exception is that caster weapons will still have Spell Power. This allows us to make weapons proportionately more powerful for casters in the same way they are for melee classes.

Armor Penetration - This stat will no longer be present on items. Armor Penetration will still exist in talents and abilities.

Shield Block Value - This stat will no longer be present on items, since the amount blocked is always proportional to the amount of damage done. Talents and other effects might still modify the damage-reduction percentage from 30%, however.

Going Away Completely

MP5 - This stat will be removed from the game completely. Holy paladins and Restoration shaman will be redesigned to benefit from Spirit.

Defense - Defense is being removed from the game entirely. Tanking classes should expect to become uncrittable versus creatures just by shifting into Defensive Stance, Frost Presence, Bear Form, or by using Righteous Fury.

Spell Ranks - Spell ranks will cease to exist. All spells will have one rank and will scale appropriately with level. The levels at which you can learn certain spells are being changed in order to fill in some of the gaps, and we will be introducing some new spells to learn along the way as well.

Weapon Skill – This stat will be removed from the game completely. Classes will start with all the weapon skills they need to know and will not need to improve them.

What Else You Should Know

Combat ratings - All ratings will be much harder to “cap out” at maximum gear levels. Ratings will be steeper in Cataclysm, and creatures in later tiers of content will be harder to hit or crit, similar to how level-83 mobs are harder to hit or crit than level-80 mobs.

Reforging - While these changes will go a long way to making a wider variety of stats more attractive, we understand that sometimes you simply don’t want more Hit Rating on your gear or you’d rather have more Haste than more Crit. In Cataclysm, we are going to give players a way to replace stats on gear as part of the existing profession system. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll be able to convert one stat to 50% of another stat. While some conversions (like converting Stamina to Strength) won’t be permitted, the goal is to let you customize your gear more.

Gems - We are changing the gem colors of a few stats as a result of these adjustments. For example, Hit is likely to be blue instead of yellow. We’ll have more details on this in the future.

Changes to Existing Gear

As with previous expansions, we plan to roll out these changes and modify all existing gear shortly before Cataclysm launches, though it’s still too early to say exactly when. For the most part, the gear you have will still be good for you, though there will be exceptions, such as warriors using leather and mail armor.

If you are a tank (druids excepted), expect to see:

• No more Defense on gear. Existing Defense becomes Dodge, Parry, or Block Rating.
• No more Block Value on gear. Existing Block Value becomes Block Rating.
• You’ll have as much Stamina as you’re used to, though you may notice your tanking plate has a bit less Stamina than a comparable piece of DPS plate, since we tend to take the gem budget out of your most attractive stat.
• Bonus Armor on gear will go down slightly.

If you are a melee DPS class, druid tank, or hunter, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina. Bear-form Stamina scaling will be lowered as a result.
• Strength if you wear plate. Agility if you wear mail or leather.
• Existing Attack Power becomes Agility and Stamina.Armor Penetration becomes Haste or Crit.
• No Intellect on melee gear. Hunters won’t need Intellect since they will no longer use mana. Shaman and Retribution paladins will get mana and spell damage in other ways.

If you are a DPS caster, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina.
• All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
• No Spirit. You won’t miss Spirit, though, because you won’t need it for DPS or mana regen.

If you are a healer, expect to see:

• A lot more Stamina.
• All of your Spell Power converted to Intellect and Stamina.
• Spirit instead of MP5. You’ll probably be happy with Spirit, though, because mana regen is going to matter more than it does currently. Healing paladins and shaman will benefit more from Spirit than they do currently.

If you are a Balance druid or Elemental shaman:

• You will still share gear with Restoration druids and shaman.
• Your gear will have Spirit on it. It won’t have Hit on it.
• You will have a talent that converts Spirit to Hit. We will adjust talents accordingly so that you want about as much Spirit as, say, a warlock wants Hit.
• Hit on rings and other such gear will still benefit you.
• Raid buffs will no longer boost Spirit, so you shouldn’t find yourself unexpectedly over the Hit cap because of buffs.

Many lower-level items with nonsensical combinations of stats, such as Agility and Spirit, will be changed. We’re also updating quest rewards, trade skills, and loot drops to support better itemization for class builds that weren’t widely available or used prior to The Burning Crusade (such as Balance druids).

We’re aware this is a lot of information to take in, but this is still only a piece of the larger picture, and many of these changes rely on integration with other systems we haven’t yet discussed in detail. In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll continue to tell you more about these changes, along with all of the new and exciting features we have planned for Cataclysm.

The Following is the Complete Blizzard development teams monthly Twitter Chat

Cataclysm

Q. Will there be any type of water mount, like, submarines?

A. We actually have two brand new subs that we made for Cataclysm. These submarines will be used as transports. We have one for gnomes and one for goblins. The subs are huge too! Both are about the size of the Gunships from Icecrown.

Q. They improved how water looks… seems only logical they’ll let us near the shores more often because of that =)

A. We are opening up as many places as we can to the water in Cataclysm. A few examples would be Blasted Lands, Stonetalon and Shimmering Flats. Heck, Shimmering Flats is a lake now!

And for the final question…

Q. Due to Silverpine’s (and thus the worgen’s) proximity to Undercity, will we be seeing the Forsaken move?

A. The Undercity will still be home to the Forsaken. In fact, since Azeroth is now flyable, we went back and rebuilt the entire surface area of Lordaeron. We should get some screenshots of this up. It looks amazing!

Q. Are there any plans to implement cross-faction/cross-realm mail(for BoA gear and such)?

A. We have cross-faction mail for BoA items now; cross-realm is a work in progress, but we hope to have it done “soon.”

Q. Is there any chance that tabards will eventually get their own tab on the character screen (a la pets/mounts)?

A. Tabard storage is something we have been looking into for the last couple weeks. Hopefully we will be able to get this done for Cataclysm. No promises though.

Q. Why we have never seen a female worgen model? I Want to see a beautiful one from you. ^^

A. The female model looks great! Hopefully we will get some screenshots of her up soon.

Q. Will we get some info about the other zones Cataclysm revamps, like Stranglethorn Vale or Tanaris?

A. Some Tanaris goblins wisely invested in desert real estate and reaped the benefits when it became beach-front property.

Q. Will we get some info about the other zones revamped in Cataclysm, like Stranglethorn Vale or Tanaris?

A. Yes, we are hoping to do a few specific web features on a few of the old world zones and exactly what is changing with them. Stranglethorn Vale is seeing a large amount of changes so it is a great candidate for this.

Q. Will you give us more bag/bank slots and make us able to carry more bags at a time if i say please?

A. We will have larger bags in Cataclysm for sure. The real question is will you buy them from Haris Pilton?

Q. I’d like to see a new Isle of Quel’Danas-like daily quest hub in Cataclsym. One place, no travelling quick gold daily (: please?

A. We are planning to do exactly this for Tol Barad. When the battle is not taking place, players will be able to use the island as a daily quest hub. This will of course be very fun on PVP servers. =)

Q. With the advent of Heroic Shadowfang Keep and Heroic Deadmines, is there any likelihood of other older instances made Heroic?

A. Yes. We are hoping to do more than just these two, but it just comes down to time. We are focusing on getting the new Cataclysm dungeons done first and then we can look into doing more old-world Heroics.

Q. Why did the Night Elves bring the Worgen into the Alliance, and were described as “old allies”?

A. The men and women of Gilenas were the “old allies.”

Q. With the Lich King defeated, in Cataclysm, will the Plaguelands be green and beautiful again?

A. Western Plaguelands will finally be free of the plague in Cataclysm. It’s hard for the Scourge to survive without their beloved Lich King. I guess this means we need to rename the zone?

Q. Will any of the new race/class combos be available before Cataclysm is released?

A. No.

Q. Will we be seeing more Caverns of Time in Cataclysm? War of the Ancients, maybe?

A. We will definitely see another trip to the Caverns of Time during Cataclsym. You are going to have to ask Chromie for more details though. =)

Q. Should players be concerned about what gear they pickup in this expansion, because of the gear overhaul that is coming?

A. I wouldn’t stress over it. You’ll probably replace that gear pretty quickly. Since we have 5 levels, we don’t really want players getting all the way to 85 without having upgraded at all.

Q. With the new gear stats system in Cataclysm, will you go back and redo all the old gear, or will it only affect new gear?

A. The new gear stats will affect both old gear and new gear. Time to reroll!

Q. With the new gear stats system in cataclysm, will you go back and redo all the old gear, or will it only affect new gear?

A. Yes, we redid all the old gear.

Q. When will we get new info and updates on Cataclysm?

A. Soon, but not too soon. Ragnaros would be pissed.

Q. When will we get new info and updates on Cataclysm?

A. We have an article on the stat changes that should be going up really soon. You’ll see more over time as we get closer to launching this next expansion.

Q. Will existing races get a more “epic” start to the game, similar to the goblin/worgen starting experience?

A. We have big plans in store for both the trolls and the gnomes in regards to their starting experience but you probably already know that.

We are also planning to spice up the starting zones for all of the other races as well. You can expect gameplay changes to the actual zones, as well as improved quest flows and all new items to match.

Q. The 3.3.3 PTR included some unreleased ‘event’ details (no spoilers). Should we expect to see that event in the lifetime of 3.3.3?

A. Something leaked in the patch? That never happens! The plan is for these events to go live sometime before Cataclysm ships. We don’t have an exact time yet, but we would like players to have a good month or two to play through these events to help build the back story for what is going to happen in Cataclysm.

Q. Regarding Cataclysm, can you reveal any of the ‘major changes’ in Blasted Lands and how this will affect the lore?

A. I love the fact that one of our first questions is in regards to the Blasted Lands! We have big plans in store for this zone in Cataclysm. We will be revamping the entire flow of the zone so you can expect an entirely new experience here. Some of the big changes include an opening to the coastline for a new play area, as well as a large new worgen area in The Tainted Scar.

In Cataclysm, do you plan on releasing two raid instances at a time (like Serpentshrine Cavern/Tempest Keep), or are we only getting one at a time (i.e. Naxxramas followed by Ulduar)?

A. We like the idea of having more smaller raids rather than one large one. In other words, we will have more than one at Cataclysm launch.

Q. Will existing races have their starting areas reworked to provide a more “epic” experience similar to the Goblin/Worgen starts?

A. Not quite at the Goblin / Worgen level, but we are looking at all the original start zones, especially for two races who feel a little disenfranchised at the moment.

Q. Is the Valithria Dreamwalker encounter a deliberate move towards making WoW more “fun & interesting” for healers? Will we see more encounters like this?

A. We want to make healing more fun, yes. Part of that is letting healers use their whole repetoire instead of just their best spells. Part of it is trying to get healers to look at the battlefield a little more and unit frames a little less, that of course means a little more time in between spamming heals so you can do stuff like that.

Reflections on Wrath of the Lich King

Q. What is the one thing you’re the most proud of in regards to how the Wrath of the Lich King expansion went?

A. It had a really strong theme with the frozen north and you knew from the beginning that a final showdown with you-know-who was coming at the end. One of the challenges of Cataclysm is not having that really focused theme (cold undead) but Cataclysm still has a great story mind you.

Q. If you could go back and redo or remove some features that were added with Wrath of the Lich King, what would it be? Why?

A. I would have really liked to see more Battlegrounds in Northrend. That is an area that I feel we fell short on. We have big plans for Battlegrounds in Cataclysm though and I think that rated Battlegrounds are really going to fire players up to get back into the Battlegrounds.

Q. If you could go back and redo or remove some feature that were added with WoTLK, what would it be and why?

A. I think the emblem system could be less clunky.
Limited Attempts didn’t really work out.
We always had some tension about what 10 player heroic should really be.
I’m only talking new features here. There were plenty of other things I’d change about this expansion in hindsight. We’re pretty critical of our own design.

Q. What is the one thing you’re the most proud of in regards to how the Wrath of the Lich King expansion went?

A. Questing in Northrend took on a whole new meaning. I can’t wait for people to see what we have in store for Cataclysm!

Q. Why have we not seen world bosses in this expansion?

A. World bosses are something that we have been talking about more as of late. We really like the concept, but there are certain design problems we would like to address before we bring them back. Stay tuned

Q. Why have we not seen World Bosses in this expansion?

A. They just have problems. It’s always a race to get to them, which tends to favor larger groups who are online often, and it’s hard to discourage or even prevent players outside the raid from helping or screwing things up.

Q. Do you consider Algalon a successful raid encounter, and will we see more hardmode-only bosses in the future?

A. We were actually really happy with the way that Algalon played out. We designed him with a very specific sort of raider in mind and those that got a chance to fight him really enjoyed the fight. Encounters like Algalon will not be in every raid zone, but we would like to do something like this again for sure.

Q. Do you consider Algalon a successful raid encounter, and will we see more hardmode-only bosses in the future?

A. Yes, we like it. The model in general is a good way to offer challenges to the extreme hardcore without making the final end boss of a raid something only a few people see.

Q. How do you feel about the limited attempts mechanic that has been use in Trial of the Crusader and Icecrown Citadel?

A. We’re not crazy about how they worked out. They were designed in essence to save players from themselves. In the past, some people would make 400+ attempts on new bosses. That’s not healthy and at some point you’re not measuring skill but tenacity. Yet, that’s not what happened. Guilds just made alts to get around the limitations, and things like disconnects and accidents make losing an attempt really frustrating. We like gating because if nothing else it lets the community focus on more than just the final boss in the zone. If we do limited attempts again it would probably be limited to optional bosses like Algalon.

Q. What have you learned from this expansion’s emblem system?

A. Having that many different kind of emblems is overwhelming. In hindsight, we wish we had done maybe 2 emblems: the current tier and the previous tier (Frost and Triumph at the moment). They also felt a tad too grindy when 3.3 first came out before all of the sources of emblems were available.

PvP

Q. Getting to exalted status with the factions in the Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin battlegrounds can be really long and difficult to obtain, are there any plans to change this?

A. For these factions specifically, we think it’s a badge of honor for players who complete them. It’s not like there’s a huge benefit for them.

Q. What have you learned from the inclusion of Wintergrasp in Wrath of the Lich King?

A. We learned a lot from Wintergrasp. I think our biggest takeaway is that we do not want to create such a technical strain on the servers like that ever again. We are pretty happy with the way that the gameplay worked out overall and are looking to grow and improve upon it with Tol Barad in Cataclysm. Tol Barad is going to have similarities to Wintergrasp, but the gameplay will be very different. We are still working out the details, but one thing I can say is that we want to reduce the overall amount of vehicle combat and get players back into the action using their own actions bars in pvp combat.

Classes

Q. Two-handed (2H) frost death knights was a really fun playstyle that died when dual-wielding (DW) was introduced. Are there any plans to make using two-handed weapons more appealing?

A. We can’t make every death knight tree PvP, PvE and tanking viable and also offer both 2H and DW options for all three of those. We are currently designing Frost as a DW-only tree.

Q. Are hunters likely to see more stable slots for their pets in the future? With the current variety of pets, the amount they have right now seems too small.

A. Arm-waving here, but a model I would love to see is dramatically expanded slots (so you can store all those Spirit Beasts) but have a smaller number of “active” pets, like 3. You could summon an active pet from anywhere in the world, when outside of combat. You would swap a pet from active to the stable at the Stable Masters.

Q. Is there any info you can share on future plans for holy paladins?

A. I hear they need more healing spells.

Q. The Hunter class has many odd and situational abilities such as Mongoose Bite and Aspect of the Beast – are there any plans for changes to these types of abilities?

A. Mongoose Bite is most likely a goner. Let us weep. We think Aspect of the Beast could have some cool uses for Beastmaster hunters.

Q. Are there any updates on the changes for Warlock soul shard mechanics?

A. We’ve implemented much of what we’ve discussed at Blizzcon: shards are a UI element instead of an item. You use them frequently, but for great effect. They are all for damage. Summoning and pets just cost mana. I think you’ll finally like shards.

Q. Has there been any thought of changing Eclipse to charges so that Moonkin dps doesn’t suffer so much from moving?

A. Yes. Expect a major overhaul in Cataclysm that keeps the same basic idea (alternating from Arcane to Nature) but in a way that is more core to the class. Like everything though, there is the risk that we may decide this idea sucks once we see it in action.

Q. You talk a lot about changing how we heal tanks, but will aggro ever come back as a challenging part of the game?

A. Not sure. This is something we discuss a lot. I even had a meeting on it this week! On the one hand, some tanks really felt like the way to distinguish themselves was to generate maximum threat per second. On the other hand, threat is a pretty invisibile part of the game (it’s limited to the UI at best), and I know when I tank that I always feel pretty emasculated when someone actually pulls off of me. It’s challenging, but is it really fun? This is the kind of thing we’d love to get more feedback on.

Please include your feedback on large banners to be shown in the background during the Olympics. Failing that, the forums would work too.

Q. With Illidan you removed attunements to give players accessibility. Why limit pre-Ulduar-geared players from even entering Icecrown Citadel LFG?

A. Gear requirements are a way for us to help players have an experience that is more in line with their skill level. We would much rather you not be able to get into the instance than to have you get in there with a group and find out that you can’t even tank the first boss. Gear requirements are not locked in stone either — we are updating these as we see fit.

Q. With Illidan you removed attunement to give players more accessibility to the instance, so why have you limited pre-Ulduar geared players from using the Dungeon Finder to enter the new 5-player dungeons that were released in patch 3.3?

A. We feel like players using Dungeon Finder need some reasonable guarantee that the other players they get grouped with are going to be able to pull their weight. We don’t yet have a robust system for tracking that other than gear. Gear obviously has its problems though, so we’ll be looking at smarter ways to do it in the future.

Q. Will there be any upcoming changes to shadow priest anytime soon?

A. We’re pretty happy with them currently in Icecrown and PvP. Long term they have some things we want to address, such as having long ramp-up time even on easy mobs when leveling or handling large groups. They also get really punished from school lockout.

Q. Is there any ETA on tree / moonkin form graphical update?

A. Moonkin is hard because Moonkin players are so in love with that form. It’s tough to change it at all. We currently hope to do a new tree form for Cataclysm, but no promises.

Q. Does Blizzard have any plans to give healers “fun” procs and on-use effects, like DPS have been getting lately?

A. Yes. Healer procs are trickier to design though to make sure they aren’t wasted. Damage is rarely wasted so it’s a bit easier to design.

Other

Q. Will the dungeon finder get upgraded to possibly track or detect players who abuse the kick system and/or ninjaing?

A. We are toying around with this idea. It’s hard to let you use it when needed without letting others abuse it.

Q. What did Yogg-Saron have to do with the Lich King? It seemed like a strange tangent to make in the middle of the expansion?

A. Did you do the quests in Icecrown? Quick answer: the existence of an Old God in Icecrown had a lot to do with the ability for mortals to become corrupted.

Q. What happened to the zone-wide buff in Icecrown Citadel? Did you trash that idea or is it coming in the near future before Cataclysm?

A. This is still in the works, we just are not ready for it quite yet. The buff will scale up over time as well.

This is also answered in more detail in BlizzCast episode 13: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/community/blizzcast/archive/episode13.html?rhtml=y

Q. Will there ever be cross-realm raiding?

A. This is something that we are looking into. There are a lot of design issues that need to be addressed before we could implement something like this, but we are definitely interested in the idea.

Q. Are there any plans to allow cross-realm raiding?

A. If we can solve the problems with it, we might give it a try. One of the problems is getting the group back together, especially on the longer instances. Loot drama and stuff like that is always a problem. There is also the ongoing concern about the concept of your realm having less of a sense of community.

Q. Could you add a resilience enchant for professions like enchanting, inscription, etc.? Right now only Jewelcrafting and Blacksmithing can get this PvP benefit.

A. Yeah, we’d like to do more of this. Enchanting makes sense.

Q. Where is my moose? Did you see that Ghostcrawler?

A. That was so epic. I was sure the screenshot was shopped until we saw the actual video. I guess we’re going to have to do a moose now…

Q. What happened to the advertised Dance Studio for the Wrath of the Lich King expansion?

A. It’s still on the list! We always start an expansion with more than we can realistically do and then shuffle things up and down. WoW is one of those games you just never finish, which is overall a fun thing about working on it.

Q. There’s no cap on Emblems, but there is on honor. Any plans to remove or raise the honor cap?

A. To be honest, we’re more likely to cap emblems. We like the gameplay where you’re motivated to periodically check in with WoW. We don’t like feeling like you have to log in every single day without fail (cough Frost emblems) and we don’t like the grind your face off in order to maximize return (old BG Honor).

Q. Will Ghostcrawler duel me for a large cash prize?

A. You are not ready.

Q. Are there any plans for more weekly quests (not raid but general) for the weekend only players?

A. I like weekly quests, because they get you to come back to WoW without making you feel like you have to log in every single night. Sometimes Ghostcrawler likes to go to the bar instead.

Q. Why are you answering the same questions twice?

A. We’d never do such a thing.

Q. Are we ever going to be able to get Frostmourne?

A. Not in game, but you can order a real one!

So if you haven’t already heard the news Blizzard now has their cute as buttons plushy pets for sale in their store for $24.  Along with the plushy doll you also get a special in game vanity pet to match your plushy. The baby gryphon and wind rider are supose to be available for only a limited time so act now.

Follow the link to the Blizzard Online Store

The Lunar Festival is around town again in the World of Warcraft, and if you weren’t busy enough grinding out the Love Is In The Air achievements then your going to be swamped now.  With more Elders than I care to count right now, taking up temporary residence in every city, dungeon and hole they can find, you can attempts to get the  To Honor One’s Elders This achievement can be found in the main World Events achievement category and is awarded upon completion of every one of the Lunar Festival achievements. This achievement awards the player title ‘Elder’ and is a requirement towards completion of What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been (Alliance version) which rewards the beautiful Reins of the Violet Proto-Drake. The zone of Moonglade is the center of all the action with fireworks and lots of other festivities in the air as well.  While Omen is a holiday specific boss, which needs to be summoned in moonglade for another achievement, there is no specific loot associated with him.  So, other than the fireworks, and the suits you can get for the holiday, there isn’t any real worth while loot to be sought.  Though the Elder title is kinda interesting if your into that.   Still though Love is in the Air for another week and there is still a vanity pet, mount, mask and more all to be had from the Holiday bosses in Shadowfang Keep.

Thanks to Wow.com for this video of the new Toxic Wasteling Pet, not to be confused with the Disgusting Oozeling Pet.  The toxic wasteling pet is an all new vanity pet added this year for the Love is in the Air holiday in Warcraft and is a random drop from the new boss Apothecary Hummel who has taking up residence in Shadowfang Keep for the duration of the holiday.   For more info on the boss and how to beat him, along with all his loot drops check out our posting on him, Love is in the air again! Oh and be sure not to let your Wasteling feed, or you might just get the results you see in the video…

Love is in the air again in the World of Warcraft, and that means tons of achievements to be had by all, not to mention some fat lewts by the seasonal boss Apothecary Hummel who has taken up residence inside of Shadowfang Keep in Tristfall Glades. Closest road there is to take the flight path to Southshore and hang a left on the road till you get there. No worries though because the summoning stone is up and running for all levels for the duration of the Holiday.

This boss is a new boss this year and is a standard heroic level 82 elite boss.  I pugged a group in minutes, and once was there grabed the daily quest to kill him from the goblin inside the instance. Killing him will get you the holiday achievement Tough Love.  He asks you to serve Court Subpoena to the boss and gives you a package containing said subpena along with two potions, Perfume Neutralizer, Cologne Neutralizer, both of which you use during the fight to stop the poison damage.  Other than poping the potions to stop the AOE damage, there is a bit of crowd control for the adds but they aren’t tough.  Mostly its a tank and spank and I had no trouble healing it, just make sure to keep your hots up incase someone in group forgets to pop their potion on time because the poisons will tick off some heavy damage.  The following is the loot list…even a super epic new Flying Mount!

Apothecary Hummel drops epic quality (item level 226) amulets which are the equivalent of Wrath of the Lich King’s second tier Emblem of Conquest neckpieces.

• Winking Eye of Love (Frozen Tear of Elune)
• Heartbreak Charm (Evoker’s Charm)
• Shard of Pirouetting Happiness (Shard of the Crystal Forest)
• Sweet Perfume Broach (Broach of the Wailing Night)
• Choker of the Pure Heart (Spiked Battleguard Choker)

Apothecary Hummel also drops some fun seasonal items, including a fancy rose for your character’s hair, a gas mask (YES!), a non-combat oozeling companion, and an item so powerful it can break your heart!

• Forever-Lovely Rose
• Vile Fumigator’s Mask
• Toxic Wasteling
• The Heartbreaker

As if those things were cool enough, Apothecary Hummel also has an extremely low chance to drop the most stylish flying mount ever – the Big Love Rocket! Nah..no innuendo there…

So get out there, down that boss and have fun with the holiday.  Oh and send me any screenshots if you manage to get the new mount, I’ll post it on the site and give your credit for your epic win!  Ronne@worldofweirdcraft.net