Tigole interview during Games Convention: new infos

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Tigole interview during Games Convention: new infos


Buffed.de interviewed Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan at the Games Convention in Leipzig, and here are the most interesting infos :


- There will be a new Caverns of Time instance: Stratholme, which one will be a level 80 instance 5-man.

- Death Knight requirements: According to Tigole, you won't need to be level 80 to unlock the Death Knight, it would rather be between level 55 and 60. Players can then create their Death Knights and have to go through a trial in order to be able to play their Death Knights.

- Death Knight's resourcing system (Runes): Runes are engraved by the Death Knight into his weapon (sword or axe). There will be three different kind of runes: Unholy, Blood and Frost. The Death Knight will obtain various abilities, depending on how the DK combines the runes, the number of runes than you can combine is limited to six (for example: 2 of every rune type or 4 Unholy and 2 Blood runes type), you can change your rune combination to change your playstyle/role (Tank, Dps or PvP combination mixing both with less power). Upon using his abilities, the DK consumes his runes. One DK skill example using runes: a DK skill called "Army of the Dead", which summons Ghouls, requires Blood and Unholy rune types, therefore you would not be able to use this ability with only Frost runes carved into your weapon.

- Future hero classes could be Demon Hunter, Arch Mage, and Blademaster.


Interview translated by Neko (the most relevant parts)

buffed: We already heard a lot of things about Wrath of the Lich King at BlizzCon. Any news since then?
Jeff: There are a couple of things we haven't talked about at BlizzCon, such as the new "Caverns of Time"-Instance Stratholme. We wanted to get back to the CoT-concept as it was one of the coolest things added to WoW recently. We also want to pursue what the Bronze Dragonflight is up to. We seek to show you the greatest moments of Warcraft history, and now we picked Stratholme. Many hardcore WoW players are fans of the old Stratholme-instance, while Warcraft 3 players know Stratholme from the single player mission, in which the player controls Arthas, burning buildings, killing the residents and fighting the Dreadlord Mal'Ganis. In WotLK you will have the opportunity to battle alongside Arthas before he turned into what he is now. You will "cleanse" Stratholme und burn it down!

[...]

Jeff: Stratholme is going to be designed for a group of 5 level 80 characters. We don't want players to visit CoT - Stratholme during leveling, but to return when they hit 80.

buffed: A question regarding the new hero class, the Death Knight: players will encounter Arthas during levelling more than once, for example in the Caverns of Time. Where else?
Jeff: CoT - Stratholme will not be part of unlocking the DK. The Death Knight is going to be a complete new gaming experience. They start with a level much higher than regular characters, supposedly level 55-60. This has yet to be determined. We are going to explain exactly how your Death Knight will be able to elude the influence of the Lich King, this development will be completely independent from the new Caverns of Time.

buffed: Did you already decide which race the playable Death Knight is going to be once a player unlocks it? For example, if your original character is a gnome, will the DK be one, too?
Jeff: Yes, we already have decided on that. But don't be surprised if we change our mind. You know, game designing is a very flexible matter. At the moment, any class can be a Death Knight, including gnomes. We reconsidered a couple of things since BlizzCon. Players probably don't have to be level 80 to unlock the Death Knight, the class will be accessible earlier. Powerleveling to level 80 in order to get to play the Death Knight as soon as possible is no fun and makes people rush through the game. We do have a lot of ideas regarding this topic. We haven't decided yet, but maybe the DK will be unlockable between level 55 and 60. Players can then create their Death Knights and have to go through a trial in order to be able to play their DKs.

buffed: But the newly created level 55 to 60 character will not become a Death Knight, or will it?
Jeff: The original character will not become a Death Knight. Many characters are named according to their class

buffed: Can you give us a bit of detail of the Death Knight's abilities?
Jeff: Of course. The Death Knight's resource is based on runes. We at Blizzard concentrate our efforts on making every single class as unique as possible. Best examples for this are the Rogue- and Warrior-classes. The Rogue uses energy and combo points while the Warrior generates rage - two things that differ greatly. When we designed the Death Knight we wanted it to be considerably different from the other classes. The DK will be able to carve runes into his weapon, which can either be a sword or an axe. There will be three different kind of runes: Unholy, Blood and Frost. Different combinations of a total of 6 runes yield different results. For example, you could use two of each type of rune, or you could use four unholy runes and two blood runes, because you want to tank with your Death Knight.. By using his abilities the Death Knight uses up the runes. For example, the Death Knight has a skill called "Army of the Dead", which summons Ghouls. This skill requires Blood and Unholy rune types. Thus, you would not be able to use this ability with only Frost runes carved into your weapon. We also designed a pretty cool system that makes the runes on your weapon flash up when changing your combination of runes.

buffed: The final question: The Death Knight is but the first of the new hero classes. Which other heroes would you like to see introduced to the game?
Jeff: My favorite? That's hard to say, I guess the Demon Hunter would be pretty cool, as would the Archmage be...

buffed: (whispering) Blademaster!
Jeff: (laughs) There's plenty of options, the fantastic Blademaster being one of them. We did a lot of brainstorming and also thought about classes that weren't present in Warcraft 3. However, we will go step by step and first of all introduce the Death Knight with Wrath of the Lich King. Then we'll see what's up next.

Teza
WoR reporter
http://boards.worldofraids.com/topic-6688-1.html
 
I agree that the new Stratholme instance sounds great. Stratholme is my favorite instance in all of WoW. I wish Blizzard would create heroic versions of all of the pre-TBC level 60 instances.

Am I the only one who's nervous about the new things being announced? The level 80 thing bothers me a bit, as I enjoy playing alts. I found that when TBC came out and the level cap became 70, I found that my number of alts was roughly cut in half. The additional time involved to level from 60 to 70 left me less time to play alts. Going to 80 will probably kill most of my desire to play an alt.

Also, this Death Knight stuff just seems too wild to fit into my view of what WoW is. The stuff I'm seeing discussed just seems like a completely different game to me. It's not that I'm against changing the game some, but this is a pretty radical departure here.
 
Yeah, the leveling thing has not got me all excited about another expansion, yet the 70 game will be dead when it hits just like the 60 game is pretty much dead.

WoW itself is somewhat of a departure from the Warcraft universe, things had to be done to make Warcraft into a MMORPG. The proposed hero classes actually have a solid foundation in Warcraft, but I am waiting to see if the hero classes at 80 are all around super-heros compared to the current classes when they are at 80 or are they just a mechanism to introduce new classes, something people have been wanting for awhile.
 
It sounds like it's going to be more of the latter... just a way to introduce new classes. The nice thing is that you won't have to re-start at L1. Being able to start a toon as it enters the outlands seems like a pretty good idea. The gear itemization at that point is so much better, it's like starting over, anyway.

As for the leveling? I actually have as many 70s now as I had 60s before the expansion. All of them are decently geared and viable for instances, G5 quests, heroics, and raids. I'm not a huge fan of the re-grind to 80, but I don't think it will be that bad. Blizz originally said it would take us as long to get 60-70 as it did 1-60, but I didn't find that to be true at all. It felt like I was able to go 60-70 in about a third of the time. Rested XP, instances, and a bigger quest log (so I can pick up more quests at a time) were largely to blame :)
 
I am not really interested in the death knight at this time (who knows things may change).

One thing I would like to see Blizzard consider is allowing people to level up additional toons more quickly the more max level characters they have. For example let's say I level Gnownage to 80, that would occur with the normal speed. The second 80 would yield 10% more xp from everything, a third toon 20%, etc...

This would likely never happen, but once the xp cap gets to 80, the time investment to level up a new character is getting too high. Even if this xp bonus only applied from levels 1->70, I would be very happy. If, for example, I decided to level up my shaman or mage after I got darth and gnownage to 80, I don't really want it to take all my time trying to get them from 30/40 something to 80. I don't think that blizzard benefits from setting the bar to level a new alt very high either.
 
I believe Netheara (one of the Blizz folks) posted that they will be re-looking at the 1-60 game, as far as leveling speed goes. Supposedly they are also looking at adding some things into Dustwallow Marsh and other areas to help with some of the more sparse questing levels.

We're actually kind of happy about the level being raised to 80. Questing is one of the most fun aspects of the game (for us), so we're fine with that. Right now, 1-60 is waaaay harder than 60-70... 60-70 was cake compared to 50-60. If they keep it the same from 70-80, and revamp 1-60 so that it matches the leveling speed of Outland, then I don't think it will be bad at all.
 
What bothers me about lifting the level, coupled with their releasing the xpac soon, is that everything you are doing now with your 70 is pointless.

All the gear you get... will be completely replaced once the xpac is out and you level up. All the recipes will be replaced with new and better stuff.

Blizzard needs to space things out a lot more. Level cap lifting should happen at most every 2 years imo.
 
The thing about TBC that hurts alts for me is not the 60 to 70 thing. It's that 1-60 is dead space. There are very few out there to run instances with (unless you're into getting run-throughs by lvl 70 players, which I'm not). The solo game is hard for me to play for long stretches.

I had just moved here from a horde server when TBC came out, so I had zero level 60s here. I had 4 on my horde server that I played often. Here I have 2 toons that I play consistently. I'd *like* to have 2 more alts, but starting out at level 1 is hard to get excited about. Level 80 will make it even harder. Even if they up the quest xp, you're still going from 1-60 mostly solo.
 
Yep...its hard to level at the best of times and when there aren't a bunch of ppl levelling at the same time its difficult (or time draining) to just off that one mob that's giving you troubles. While I was leveling when the cap was 60 I often ran into a mob that gave me trouble..whispered a toon who I saw near me if they needed to do it..grouped up...took the mob down..broke group and went on my merry way. Now you can go for levels and levels without even seeing anyone else. I guess the best thing to do is find someone who has the same schedule as you and level up with them. Its easier and certainly not as lonely as soloing.
 
faust said:
What bothers me about lifting the level, coupled with their releasing the xpac soon, is that everything you are doing now with your 70 is pointless.

All the gear you get... will be completely replaced once the xpac is out and you level up. All the recipes will be replaced with new and better stuff...
Click to expand...

This is the part that bothers me. Pre BC, I had gotten Kagnus to a really nice spot gear-wise, did alot of rep grinding. Post-BC, he was wearing 70% greens at 63, and the hard work I did meant nothing. To me, it's not really the gear replacement, it is the fact that factions are treated as level dependent. If there were some level 70 benefits of Cenarion Circle or Timbermaw, even if I had to do some long-drawn out quest, I think I would be happier.

Azolas is now my primary focus, I have already done a lot of work to get him where he is at. With some epics but mostly blues, I recently just hit 2439 ap on him self-buffed (I have a premade druid on the PTR and in t6 a feral druid has about 2600 ap, self- buffed)

If xpac2 comes out too soon, and basically throws away all the hard work I did again, I may end up just working on addons and if not that, then find something else to do with my time. The quests and content between level caps are nice scenery, but they are not enough to hold me. I want more of a return on time-invested.
 
Azolas said:
This is the part that bothers me. Pre BC, I had gotten Kagnus to a really nice spot gear-wise, did alot of rep grinding. Post-BC, he was wearing 70% greens at 63, and the hard work I did meant nothing. To me, it's not really the gear replacement, it is the fact that factions are treated as level dependent. If there were some level 70 benefits of Cenarion Circle or Timbermaw, even if I had to do some long-drawn out quest, I think I would be happier.
Click to expand...

Yeah I really wish the old reps meant at least something. That would go a ways towards making the old world mean something.

One thing that kind of bugs me is that with the Outlands being the way they are, Azeroth is almost unimportant. Other than just housing the auction house and class trainers.

I also think it's strange when you take a step back and realize you are supposed to be this great champion, yet you could care less about doing things for Stormwind, Ironforge, Darnassus, or Exodar. It's all about pleasing these groups who hold allegiance to no one but themselves. Heck you never even really bother to head to your homeland except to maybe make some money.

From an RP standpoint I find that odd.
 
I don't think you are alone Connor. I think it was ill-advised to release a xpac or even announce it already. I think the segment of people who left from the original to TBC and now to the 2nd xpac will be noticeable.
 
I do agree that it seems like the Azeroth content has been forgotten or at least swept under the rug for now. Other than the CoT and the new starter areas, the rest of Azeroth is deserted. And I definitely agree that it would be nice if instead of saying, "well, guess what, <insert old faction here> is pretty much useless at 70", they would make all factions have rewards up to 70, 80, and beyond. New content is good and all, but it could go so much deeper.

But then, I'm also a huge advocate of heroic old world instances and/or scaling dependent on the level of the group. I feel bad for all the up-and-comers who are going to have a REALLY hard time finding a group for Scholo, Strat, and the other old instances. They should give folks a reason to go back and run those instances... lvl 70/80 rep rewards with the appropriate factions and/or heroic versions might go a long way towards that.
 
the only problem is that there are a lot of people out there that accomplished getting their characters exalted with Thorium Brotherhood, Argent Dawn, Cenarion Circle, Hydraxian Waterlords, etc, before the expansion. How do they add new content at higher levels that is rewarding enough for players that don't have Exalted to be worthwhile to go back...and yet, not a "gimme" for players that had it from before?

It seems the current reputation system is the simple answer. New reps that give awesome rewards, and shorten the grind to exalted by hugely increasing rep gains per quest, easier repeatables, etc.

I never had a single character in Azeroth that was exalted with any faction. I spent a HUGE amount of time in places like Scholomance and Stratholme before spending a LOT of time in Molten Core. Yet in the 6 months since TBC released, I've already got 4 exalted factions and approaching a 5th quite rapidly.
 
Waaaaay back when, I used to be a heavy RP'er. I don't rp anymore, but I still like context for the games I play. Even with the current rep system, you get to exalted, get the items you want, then forget the faction even exists. I would enjoy having that feeling that the faction "values" the existence of my exalted characters in-game. You don't even get emotes from the faction NPC's when you walk by. It's like you don't exist. And if you talk to some, you get the same standard reply "Yeah? What do you want" as you do when not exalted.

Then to add insult to injury, they split factions into factions (Cenarion Circle, Cenarion Expedition) It's not enough that one part of Cenarion thinks the world of you, but this new one starts out shrugging it's shoulder at you.

If the game is purely about going through the numbers to get items, then Warcraft has excelled in this area. I think the problem I am having is immersion. The game keeps getting shallower and so far the only real reasons the game holds my attention are the addons and the social aspect.

However, if there were new reward quests that required me to travel to Silithus to get and turn in quests, but the quest was done in Outlands, I would just love that.

How do you give rewarding content that are not "gimmes" to already exalted players? Here is a simple example-

Cenarion Circle heard that Warlord Kalithresh is in possession of "item-x" that would greatly help them in their battle against the Silithid. But in order to get "item-x", you need to run Steam Vaults in heroic mode and in order to collect "item-x" you need "item-y". But "item-y" is so valuable that the Cenarion Expedition will only entrust it to those that are exalted with them. Once done, you get so-and-so epic item, perhaps an upgrade from the excellent 3-piece set you got from them at 60

Not so hard to do this stuff to keep players like me (those who raid hard, but are not hard-core elitist raiders) happy. I loved my quested epics.
 
Another batch of Wrath infos from Leipzig: Tigole interviewed by Curse


Jeff "Tigole" Kaplan revealed some new things during the Curse interview:

- Utgarde Keep which is located in Howling Fjord, will be a winged dungeon with two instances: the first wing is a level 70 instance for players to level up in (we already know about that one) and the second wing for level 80 players is called "Utgarde Pinnacle". Both instances will have Normal and Heroic modes.

- The Inscription profession will do more than increases effectiveness of spells and abilities. Tigole said the team working on it wish for Inscription to be more versatile such as increasing more elements like range, duration (for example: Frost Nova having a wider radius).

- About the increased leveling curve, Tigole explained a bit more : Levels between 20 and 60 are going to have the experience required per-level reduced, and the experience rewarded by quests is being increased by around 30%.

- Finally they talked about Hunters, Blizzard is considering a Woodworking profession (hunters will be able to create their own arrows),and a Mortal Strike-like shot that will reduce healing effectiveness on the target of the shot (the purpose of this idea is to increase the effectiveness of hunters in arena). These are just ideas from the team though, it might not go live.

Video of this interview by Curse

Teza
WoR reporter
http://boards.worldofraids.com/topic-6756-1.html
 
Azolas said:
How do you give rewarding content that are not "gimmes" to already exalted players? Here is a simple example-

Cenarion Circle heard that Warlord Kalithresh is in possession of "item-x" that would greatly help them in their battle against the Silithid. But in order to get "item-x", you need to run Steam Vaults in heroic mode and in order to collect "item-x" you need "item-y". But "item-y" is so valuable that the Cenarion Expedition will only entrust it to those that are exalted with them. Once done, you get so-and-so epic item, perhaps an upgrade from the excellent 3-piece set you got from them at 60
Click to expand...

Great idea.

I also agree that heroic mode Azeroth instances would go a long way to making the old world interesting and more alive.

Those leveling up would have a hard time getting people to run the old lvl 60 instances because the gear from the outlands is just that much better. The only solution is to reitemize the BRD -> UBRS 5-10 mans so that they drop items that are worth getting for the up and coming 60's. In fact they would have to be quite a bit better than the gear you can get in the outlands because otherwise why not just wait for an easy to do quest, rather than try and farm Scholo in hopes of getting some very nice item.

On all of my new 60's though since BC came out I just saw zero reason to run all of those old instances. The gear available early on in the outlands is fantastically good, so good that often times you can't even replace that gear for quite some time on the way to 70.

I suspect that the new xpac will do the same thing all over again. All the factions we have ground now will once again become pointless, and we will be expected to grind rep with another 15-25 factions. What's more, the Outlands will then become the new ghost town, and the people wanting to level up to lvl 80 with new characters will again have a difficult time finding people to run any of the Outlands instances.
 
Azolas said:
Waaaaay back when, I used to be a heavy RP'er. I don't rp anymore, but I still like context for the games I play. Even with the current rep system, you get to exalted, get the items you want, then forget the faction even exists. I would enjoy having that feeling that the faction "values" the existence of my exalted characters in-game. You don't even get emotes from the faction NPC's when you walk by. It's like you don't exist. And if you talk to some, you get the same standard reply "Yeah? What do you want" as you do when not exalted.
Click to expand...

I've read that once you reach Revered with Sha'tari Skyguard, that the skyguard NPCs start chatting with you when you're nearby. I think that's a nice touch.
 
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