Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

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AdamSavage
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Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by AdamSavage »

Expansions and Raids

Hellfire Citadel is currently planned to be the last raid of the expansion.
It wraps up things and it is hard to beat Archimonde as a final boss.
Players saw Tanaan Jungle at the start of the expansion and are wrapping back around to it now.
Anything can happen between now and whatever the team does next, but Hellfire Citadel is the pinnacle of where players are getting to.
There isn't anything to announce about future patches, but part of that comes down to how Patch 6.2 plays out. How far players progress in Hellfire Citadel and Tanaan Jungle will give the team an idea of how long the content will last.
Some expansions had four big patches, some had three, Warlords had two big patches with Patch 6.1 and 6.2. As the team gets closer to hitting the goal of a small gap between expansions there will be less large patches in each expansion.
The team isn't happy with players having to wait a year for new content.
Long waits aren't something they ever want to do, but the team was working on the new expansion and they weren't going to release it until it is at the right quality level. That isn't an excuse for the long wait, but it is better to wait two more months to have a great expansion rather than releasing it earlier and ending up with many issues.
Farahlon was a cool idea, but it didn't really fit into the story being told.
Tol Barad didn't make it in the game until Cataclysm, but the team was talking about adding it during Wrath of the Lich King. It just didn't fit the story until then.


Garrisons

The Mage Tower has felt underpowered for a long time. The power it offers in terms of completing naval missions may not be exactly where they want it yet.
Similar to Battle Pets, followers don't need more levels. Followers are content themselves, so more content is added by adding more followers and missions rather than requiring more upgrades.
Overall, the team is happy with garrisons. There are things that they would have done differently though.
Moving forward they will look at the parts of the garrison system that worked well to see how they can offer new gameplay that is exciting.
Building a building, assigning a follower to the building, and sending followers on missions felt new and fresh, but in the end players figured out how to optimize it.
The team wants to continue to engage players in new ways, so not every part of garrisons will move forward, but the things that players really liked might.


Legendary Items

The team is currently making legendary items that everyone has access to, but that doesn't mean they will never go back to the old model for specific classes. They are just trying something different for now.
The concept right now is to have an item that is updated with every patch and then reward something really good at the end of the expansion. Earning it requires playing through all of the content in an expansion.
Earning the legendary item right now feels good, but it doesn't have the same feeling as the old legendary items.
The journey of earning the legendary item is on each character, so making the item account bound rather than character bound is unlikely.
Raids are not tuned around everyone having the legendary ring. The team can estimate how many people will have the ring on average when the raid comes out and then tune the raid around that. If the tuning is off, it can be hotfixed right away.


Misc

The WoW Token has worked out well. It lets players with extra gold safely buy game time for gold and players with extra money but no time safely purchase gold from other players.
Mythic dungeons need a little bit of tuning, but overall the tuning is sufficiently challenging.
Completing 5 Timewalking Dungeons could give players a Normal difficulty cache in the future in addition to the extra Bonus Roll.
The team would love to do more things with Gul'dan in the future.

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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by cowmuflage »

Game tokens are good. I've not paid for game time in two months XD
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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by AdamSavage »

I hope they can come out with another Major Patch without a Raid... This 6.2 Patch isn't enough to get us by till the next Expansion..It looks like WoW will be shorter Expansions with less content...I wonder if they will still charge the same price ? If we get half the price, for half the content. That would be fair.
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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by Nimrod »

It's rather insulting that they consider 6.1 a content patch, and now they expect us to bide another 11 months (or more?) without any more content? Again?
cowmuflage wrote:Game tokens are good. I've not paid for game time in two months XD
Thing is; you're still on their books as a subscriber. They're still getting money for your subscription.

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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by Castile »

ive had mixed feelings about this expansion. I don't hate it..I just found it very underwhelming? I really loved Pandaria and even cata had some strong points like the molten front for example but this time its all abit...meh. I mean I lvled 14 alts to 90 in pandaria because I loved it so much and this time I've got 4 and are not really motivated to put extra time into the game to lvl others as much as id like a lvl 100 <insert class here>. I like garrisons but I really loved my farm - youd think I'd be ape for a castle right? mmm. Just can't really describe it better. Tanaan Jungle is fun (for now) but im wondering how fast the shine will last for this patch.

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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by Wain »

I guess we'll see what they have planned to fill in our time. Maybe the next expansion isn't that far away. But the fact they have planned for another Warlords arena season after the one that only begins this week suggests it'll be a while. Unless the arena seasons are intended to be unusually short.

I suspect Cory's line about "major" patches 6.1 and 6.2 was something off-the-cuff, and perhaps too much is being read into his referring to 6.1 as "major". I have a feeling he just meant the patch numbers rather than the degree of content, i.e. that a 6.3 isn't planned, just a 6.2.x. He's probably regretting that wording now :)

I agree with Castile on my feelings for the expansion. I enjoyed the garrison immensely, but after a while it starts to feel like you're playing a shut-in, in a game where a lot of players tend towards that anyway ;) Regardless, Tanaan has put an end to that and got us off our arses for a while :)

While I think they did a lovely job with the world, I think the artistic re-interpretation of the creatures of Draenor is bland and underwhelming in so many cases. Rather than feeling like an alien world (as Outland did) it seems they decided all the weird stuff was due to fel, and so the non-fel versions feel "safe" and too much just like something from Azeroth. It's really surprising from the art team that was as bold and innovative as the one that produced Pandaria. (Unless this was a different team?!?)

My major criticism, however, is the theme chosen for the expansion. Sure, everyone wanted to see Draenor before it became Outland, but I believe it's a place they should never have gone - I think it destroys much of the power of a story about something that was supposed to be lost forever. It's much the same as everyone wanting to see a beloved dead character return to a tv show. Even though soaps do this all the time, it's impossible to do without killing something good in the story. That's my feeling, anyway.
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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by cowmuflage »

Nímrod wrote:It's rather insulting that they consider 6.1 a content patch, and now they expect us to bide another 11 months (or more?) without any more content? Again?
cowmuflage wrote:Game tokens are good. I've not paid for game time in two months XD
Thing is; you're still on their books as a subscriber. They're still getting money for your subscription.
Sure but it's not from my bank account! :lol:
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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by Sukurachi »

Nímrod wrote:Thing is; you're still on their books as a subscriber. They're still getting money for your subscription.
So?
I'm not sure I understand your point?
You would like Blizzard to stop making money?

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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

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The irony of the Tokens is that they make more money from players, then paying the $15 monthly fee.
I believe if you can believe out of nothing an explosion (big bang) happened then how far fetched can god be?

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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by cowmuflage »

It's a good thing imo. WoW is not the first MMO to do this as most have something like it. It's good ebcause it's not forced on you imo
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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by Nimrod »

Sukurachi wrote:
Nímrod wrote:Thing is; you're still on their books as a subscriber. They're still getting money for your subscription.
So?
I'm not sure I understand your point?
You would like Blizzard to stop making money?
It's about voting with your wallet. Buying tokens is still subscribing.

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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by AdamSavage »

If the future expansions are anything like WOD seems to be, then I'm not sure I will keep playing.. Which sucks, because I enjoy playing WoW.
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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by SylviaDragon »

I have very mixed feelings about this. I am glad to hear WoD is that much closer to being over with but the idea that i dropped 50 bucks for a one patch xpack that just had me playing the quest giver until I quit is not cool. I'm kind of insulted by the massive amount of missing content that i dropped an extra 10$ for. But i guess it doesn't really matter since I'm already unsubbed anyway.
I really hope calling 6.1 a major patch was just a stutter and not what he actually believes. I know the players don't believe that 6.1 was major content for a second and in the Ion interview it sounded like there were other people at blizz that did not think so either. why the lack of consistency?
also pretty grumpy about how everyone is buddy buddy with Grom now for no good reason, even though it was said he would be the final boss. Sure, he was manipulated to a point but then again so was Garrosh, Deathwing, Arthas, Illidan, ect ect. The guy was torturing innocent bystanders and encouraging his people to use the souls of their ancestors to fuel his war machine for crying out loud. No one told him to do any of that. He called the shots on his own. He never shows any sort of change of heart for any of that.

for me, the sooner it is over the better. Even if i find the lack of major patches unacceptable in most situations. If the next xpack uses the same mold as wod though, i am out, even though i really want to love the game again. I think i prefer the longer xpacks over this idea of shorter, more frequent, more expensive ones if Wod is any preview of that.
/rant over.

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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by Wain »

Nímrod wrote:
Sukurachi wrote:
Nímrod wrote:Thing is; you're still on their books as a subscriber. They're still getting money for your subscription.
So?
I'm not sure I understand your point?
You would like Blizzard to stop making money?
It's about voting with your wallet. Buying tokens is still subscribing.
You seem to assume that the posters above you want to hurt Blizzard. I think this is a poor assumption. Some people just appreciate being able to fill their subscription without having to use real life money.

If someone hates the game, then by all means don't subscribe. In fact I think it would be an unhealthy sign for someone who despised the game to continue to subscribe, or hang about on forums as if they're still a player. That's like alcoholism. The discussion above is about wanting to play, but saving money at the same time.
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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by Nimrod »

Wain wrote:You seem to assume that the posters above you want to hurt Blizzard. I think this is a poor assumption. Some people just appreciate being able to fill their subscription without having to use real life money.

If someone hates the game, then by all means don't subscribe. In fact I think it would be an unhealthy sign for someone who despised the game to continue to subscribe, or hang about on forums as if they're still a player. That's like alcoholism. The discussion above is about wanting to play, but saving money at the same time.
"Hurting" Blizzard is not my point, it's that voting with your wallet is the only thing that Blizzard will listen to.

You've jumped onto the "well if you hate it, leave" bandwagon that everyone does when people say they're unhappy with the game.

I love playing WoW. I've had the same character for nine years, and am still playing (I switched from US to EU in vanilla, and regret doing so since I didn't get a shiny veteran trophy!). I'm still not happy with the way Blizzard is currently handling the game, nor do I like the direction it appears to be heading.

Blizzard is no longer communicating with the community as they once did. We're being kept in the dark about WoW's future (and it's idiotic to do so at this point, with less than a year to go before Warcraft hits cinemas).

I don't hate WoW; I love playing it despite all its faults (and Blizzards). But the no-flying-ever announcement got me to "unsub" (as in, I stopped buying tokens), and the lack of content past patch 6.2 (because we're being kept in the dark) doesn't fill me with confidence.
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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by AdamSavage »

There is a large number of upset players over this expansion, and its lack of content. Most don't like the idea of such a short expansion, and feel like we are being robbed. Blizzard is going to have to do something to bring back the player faith and stem the potential sub loss bleed. Some are even turning on the MVP'S, because they tried to explain that you can't just fire a entire Dev Team and expect new content anytime soon.
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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by cowmuflage »

Wain wrote:
Nímrod wrote: It's about voting with your wallet. Buying tokens is still subscribing.
You seem to assume that the posters above you want to hurt Blizzard. I think this is a poor assumption. Some people just appreciate being able to fill their subscription without having to use real life money.

If someone hates the game, then by all means don't subscribe. In fact I think it would be an unhealthy sign for someone who despised the game to continue to subscribe, or hang about on forums as if they're still a player. That's like alcoholism. The discussion above is about wanting to play, but saving money at the same time.
I have nothing against Blizz or have anything bad to say about WoD honestly. I just said that comment about the tokens because I'm happy I can use in game gold for game time and have that $20 plus a month to spend on more importat things then video games.

If I hated the game I'd stop playing it XD
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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by Arthur »

I personally don't feel robbed. I spent the money on the expansion on my own, I was not forced. I quit paying a subscription because the WoW token allowed me to play without spending real-life money, which was a great thing, since I can use the $15 on something else.

I think if they know in advance it's going to be a smaller expansion they could make it cost less, but either way, I still would buy them. I also like the option of being able to pay a little more to get a 'special' pet, or even a mount.
(I say 'special' because they re-used the ravenlord mount.)

Yes, I am disappointed. No, I don't hate WoW/Blizzard. I agree with Wain's thoughts of Draenor pretty much..
Wain wrote: My major criticism, however, is the theme chosen for the expansion. Sure, everyone wanted to see Draenor before it became Outland, but I believe it's a place they should never have gone - I think it destroys much of the power of a story about something that was supposed to be lost forever. It's much the same as everyone wanting to see a beloved dead character return to a tv show. Even though soaps do this all the time, it's impossible to do without killing something good in the story. That's my feeling, anyway.
But I have to say the re-done wolves for draenor are some of my favorite pets they've added in the game. I wasn't too impressed with anything else, NPC or Pet. I know it sounds.. ?? Rude.. I respect the work and time put into them, they just didn't feel that great or relevant to draenor to me, like Wain said a lot of the stuff seemed too much like a regular old Azeroth thing(???).

I do love the saberon and arakkoa though.

The one thing, my biggest gripe of the expansion, has to be the mounts. There are few good ones but?? They are all the same, with different colors. They're all wolves, riverbeasts, boars, talbuks, clefthooves, and elekks. and the occasional gronnling. The most impressive mount for the expansion in my opinion was the Mystic Runesaber and that was a shopmount. Solar Spirehawk was nice, though. But the raid meta for HFC... A recolored wolf!! not even an armored one. The mounts for metas used to be so cool, and though not always unique, you knew it was a bad ass mount. I don't feel the infernal direwolf (?) is badass. It's a cool mount but not worthy of being the meta. They should have left it the way it was - with the wolf being the crystal purchase mount and the bird being the meta mount.. I just feel they could have done so many other things, but they just.. didn't.

Maybe it's always been that way but it just feels so obvious this expansion!! I don't know how to phrase it. I'm probably being way too picky. ): Oh well, I'm going to stop because at this point i'm just rambling. Urgh

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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by Wain »

Scarlet wrote:The one thing, my biggest gripe of the expansion, has to be the mounts. There are few good ones but?? They are all the same, with different colors.
People have said that a lot. I was confused at first, as there are still quite a few models, and there have always been lots of colour variants for mounts of the same model. But I eventually decided that the difference this time is that they may be spread too widely. Rather than a few vendors selling a bunch of them, they're used for so many different rewards that after a while I think it all gets a bit bland. Especially later on in 6.1 when the less sexy colours (which I maybe unfairly think of as the "leftovers" - the ones designers didn't pick for 6.0) were offered up as brand new rewards. I think that's why people are finding them more boring, despite us having enormous number of mounts on offer. I think it's fine to offer recolours, even large numbers of recolours (they've always done this!) but I think for it to be interesting it needs to be from a condensed number of sources. That's my feeling anyway.
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Re: Dev Interview - Hellfire Citadel the Final Raid

Unread post by Lisaara »

Wain wrote:
Scarlet wrote:The one thing, my biggest gripe of the expansion, has to be the mounts. There are few good ones but?? They are all the same, with different colors.
People have said that a lot. I was confused at first, as there are still quite a few models, and there have always been lots of colour variants for mounts of the same model. But I eventually decided that the difference this time is that they may be spread too widely. Rather than a few vendors selling a bunch of them, they're used for so many different rewards that after a while I think it all gets a bit bland. Especially later on in 6.1 when the less sexy colours (which I maybe unfairly think of as the "leftovers" - the ones designers didn't pick for 6.0) were offered up as brand new rewards. I think that's why people are finding them more boring, despite us having enormous number of mounts on offer. I think it's fine to offer recolours, even large numbers of recolours (they've always done this!) but I think for it to be interesting it needs to be from a condensed number of sources. That's my feeling anyway.
Totally agree 100%

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