http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/ will have the full interview.
This is a rundown of some of the interview, not all of it.
- has done one or two bosses a tier, since ulduar; wrote the lines for Sindragos & Thorim
- has been at blizzard for 5+yrs
- bounced between class & encounter designing first few years
- guides process that leads to creation
- some of the least favorite raid encounters from the past: ryolith, would've worked better as a 5 player dungeon encounter, don't design that encounter with that central mecnanic
- ambershaper unsohk - at start of expansion, fight mechanics all right, drawback not giving players a chance to test, practice vehicle, redesign, letting pools in trash room before boss to mess with the amber golem
- Rah'Den fundemental flaws to the phaes of the fight, was no ptr testing, little bit too forgiving, shouldn't have been possible to let two orbs reach boss to reset, davita phase had a core tank mechanic, but didn't work out in game
- encounters enjoyed - no encounters expected to not be enjoyed, siege crafter blackfuse, lei'shen, integration with the play space, various abilities you can choose to work with or not.
- Will there be extra bosses in mythic like rha'den in throne, or limited attempt style bosses
-- no specific plans for limited attempt bosses & no specific plans for extra bosses added to mythic like rha'den -- would not do an icc type of limited attempts
How well was MoP received - what'd they take away from going into draenor
-- overall happy with expansion, would've redone some high level areas particularly to raiding, game as a whole would've done 5.0 dailies, rep grinding differently, Would've changed some aspects of andomized bosses on the pull like spirit kings
-- learned from daily'outdoor quest mistakes, see 5.1 model as more effective with story telling moments, good in timeless isle with free-form structure enviorment, looking to draw upon those strengths for the warlords outdoor content
LFR will no longer drop set pieces, inquiry -
-- not excited about change for folks who rely on that armor; the massive increase of drops across the board will help justify it; nearly doubling the drop rate
-- Tradeoff, more rewarding, want to avoid insentive folks who don't need that content, making them required to do it
Heroic Dungeon in Warlords, inquiry -
queue with guild group - can bypass proving grounds
queue as pug, have to do proving ground silver
how much do provnig grounds prove --
-- Proving grounds flaws now, gear downscaling, particular healing - proving grounds prove a fair bit, in general players are poor judgers of their own skill, lose sight of folks of their own peers, lose sight of core gamers, want them to be able to participate in the content.
-- Proving grounds as a first step, & protecting folks who aren't ready for a certain activity, will help them progress to heroic dungeons
Plans for content in Draenor
-- owe more with an expansion, 14 of 17 raid bosses tested for beta, things will move quickly, doesn't want to continue long delays - in a position for a great place for future patches & expansions with the lots of folks they've included
Garrisons importance in raiding
-- core feature of warlords, what you do with it is up to you, regarding raiding if you want to do everything it has to offer, you can get some gear that's normal raid quality, or heroic raid quality, won't be available right away, won't play into early raiding at all. Not required for end game raiders
Raid lockouts
-- designed system for raiding as a whole
-- seperate loot awarded from seperate lockouts: normal, heroic (loot based), mythic will work like heroic - fixed ID, not cross server
-- want to do non-linear layouts, bigger benefit for folks to run lower dificulties
-- flex 10-30 normal through heroic, concerns, performance
-- heroic does not need to be cleared to access mythic
-- mythic will be locked out an extra week, if someone has cleared heroic you can zone in on mythic
-- 6wk from launch before blackrock foundrey - similar to HoF, MSV
-- week 1 no raids, week 2 normal & heroic, week 3 mythic
Timewalker Dungeon
-- Jest: way to scale down & run old content, still working on bigger structure & rewards, working on, & want to do in the future -- not sure about raids....
Aftershow...
Raid Mechanics & Encounters
-- will be ulduar type layout
-- no major vehicle battles planned
-- want to do more envionment integration like blackfuse: fighting on trains, conveyor belts with molds for the weapons around you
Hints for awesome boss mechanics
-- Everything previously mentioned
-- Not any one new thing
-- Powers of Hanoi - Right orders to figure out abilities or deal with adds
Any raid rewards for exceptional execution i.e. ToGC, Undying kind of rewards
-- no real plan
Challenge Modes
-- give people a reason to do challenge modes outside of speed - gear rewards will help with this, will give you low end raid quality
-- Metal structure will remain, time based, speed run
-- change complete frantic rush
-- force you to pay attention to the mobs that weren't normally in the dungeon, more methodically
Role & Story in Dungeon & Raids which first
-- Role & story first, playing out other bosses clearcut storyline, then what sounds ''cool''
Level to 100, to test all bosses
-- No, can scale level up for purpose of testing, get as much feedback as possible
Best thing out of mists that benefited players
-- Flex raiding -- expanding to warlords will be awesome in regards to potention, for experience for social groups, raiding, & comitment.
6.0 patch live for 10m guilds to do mythics, how long will it be available
-- 4-6wks
Best Beer most recently b/c Watcher is a beer enthusiast
-- Brewery Hills-farmstead, north of boston, had to wait an hour, get a sip, & one bottle, had car break down, 12hrs to get back, beer was worth it
Transmog
-- spell visual adjustments will help with the spell obscurities
-- no imediate plans
Any class specific questlines
-- no specific plans, on the table, when something awesome fits a questline they'll do it
Spell Effect Overload in Melee
-- taking another step far beyond lowering spell effects, some visuals that are "noisy" for what they convey i.e. holy word sanctuary, & healing rain.
-- Alternate Visuals, for casters allies,
-- Progrematic spells: based on priority healing priority, then dps spells - don't want to wash out spells when soloing, when a certain threshhold is crossed, going to call all the visuals that are most important in raids, better client performance, & see what's going on
-- not getting toggleable regarding friendly spells
-- default = call a lot of spells to improve performance
Certain asthetic they want to preserve, but don't want everyone to always play on mininum settings, will be a major improvement
