So the War Within huh.
Reblogged barlimon
Philippe Druillet
WoW Q and A
Elaborate on the Chains of Domination cinematic: Story of Anduin and Sylvanas/relationship with the jailer is foundational to Shadowlands. Anduin was dominated. Jailer needed someone like Anduin to be able to walk into Bastion and claim the key. Brief moment of Anduin gaining control in cinematic, so still in there. Chains of Domination will explain more.
When he (Anduin) walks past Uther, did Uther know what was happening or did he feel bad? Couple things going on. His hand touches his wound, made by a weapon of the maw. Uther recognized on some level that power, as well as stirring memories seeing this blonde, kingly figure. Confrontation with Sylvanas in the raid one of the biggest moments in WoW.
Moving from classic to BC while keeping a copy. Whats it going to look like for gold, items/banks. Am I going to see differences or is it two separate entities for all time? Logging in at pre patch will snap a copy of your character. There will be an option to move onto BC classic, or stay in vanilla classic. Can pay a fee and activate “clone” to put them on BC classic if you choose to stay Vanilla. Beta is around the corner.
How will high population numbers be handled in TBC classic? How will you handle bottlenecks, sharding, dailies etc. Recognize high population, want to make sure experience is enjoyable. Optimization improvements to help stabilize servers. Experience of rare material and multiple people going is part of the game. Willing to make targeted changes if there is particular problems.
Will there be more race/class combinations? Player agency and choice is major theme. Customization key, but also want to reinforce differences. Want to maintain a world that doesn’t have exact symmetry. Have gone back over the years to change things. For now, think they’ve gone about far enough. Nothing planned, but never say never.
Surprise on Covenant armor? Based on heritage armor. Pure aesthetic, want to give players more and more options. Gameplay reasons to not tmog the entire range (warrior wearing cloth for example)
Workflow change during pandemic? Happened very suddenly. Team reached to each other to find comfort. The isolation found purpose for devs. Making Shadowlands/games help to reconnect friends and people.
Any plans to address faction imbalance? What happened to cause it? Something talked about a lot. Know there’s a very real problem, particularly high end. What caused the problem? Imbalanced in racials allowed to persist too long. At this point, don’t think racials are imbalanced. People staying Horde however due to social reasons now; compounded issue from all the way back from MoP etc. No real answer. Social issue requires social answer.
Have you ever seen a swing in either faction direction due to story elements? Across the game as a whole, faction balance is pretty good. Its raiding/high end PvE that the imbalances really emerge. Have seen faction switches/more cross faction alts in BfA for example.
If I play BC, when I decide to play on main char and a classic era realm at 60, will I have to name change? You have your name in both places. Ensure people don’t park on names forever.
Any plans to connect more realms? Had to do survey across all populations in all realms. Essentially have to copy an entire realms database onto another. Not a flip a switch thing, lot of work. Have been able to address a large amount of the very low pop. realms. Had to pause for Shadowlands launch due to launch and Shadowlands had huge effects on server populations. Last time they connected realms was right before WoD, and realms had a LOT of queue problems. Watching and waiting for populations to go down before making the jump.
Never gonna have cross faction raids, dungeons etc? Not gonna say never. Essential to hold onto identity but...
Will our amount of Anima be increased later? Is it possible for sanctum upgrades to be account wide? Lot to collect. Hotfixed Anima drops so far. Looking for new sources of Anima for next patch. Over all looking at the costs. Cosmetics are generally account wide. Anima is designed to span the bulk of Shadowlands.
Sire Denathrius is an eternal one and imprisoned. What will he do? Will we see him again? Best laid plans can adapt. During BfA, intended Bwonsamdi to be a one off. There, but no big deal. Once they heard the VA they went “we need more of this character”. Planned for Sire Denathrius to be there, you kill him w/e. Then heard the VA and went “this guys awesome we love him.” Changed plan to keep Sire Denathrius alive. Will find some other role for him to take. Watch fan feedback to see how community responds/gravitate to. He is in that sword, there may just be allies of him that would be interested in liberating him from the sword...
When will we see more Heritage Armor? As each one was released, got more and more excited from response/enhanced feel of the game. Working on further Heritage Armor. Some coming to near future updates, some more in the future.
Any plans to bring back the AH app? Not as you know it perse. It got turned into a lot of automation. Revamp removed app, then change of the AH. Meant to be more of a socialize thing then accumulation of gold by automated system. Recognize however convenience factor. Consider getting back into some form, but not like how it used to be.
Will there be more new character customization options for Shadowlands? None in Shadowlands. Tend to be fairly big projects. Release them when it’ll be very good for players. Lot of work to juggle. Felt like they got good feedback and support from it. Want to invest going forward when it makes sense.
What are actual requirements for flying in Shadowlands? Where can we fly? Can we fly across the realms? Shadowlands pathfinder no rep grind. Just requires completing full covenant campaign (9.0 and 9.1). Cannot fly from zone to zone. Once unlocked, alts will be able to fly freely.
In the BC classic, will there be class tuning that would make it notably different than 2007? Broadly no. Want to keep the authentic behavior of final patch, like classic had. Seal of blood
Is there work being done on new Torghast Anima Powers for later patches? Spec specific, when can we see? WIll be done through all patches/future patches. new powers etc. As for powers working outside Torghast, keep OP nature of them inside Torghast.
Difference between passage of time in Shadowlands and in Azeroth? Salanar the Horseman in DK order hall said he was in the veil for what felt like days and it was between WoTLK and Legion. Meet characters for whom time doesn’t seem to have meaning. What is time a construct of? Order. On Azeroth, understand the passage of time because of influence of titans/order. Outside of the influence of order, time loses meaning. A lot more fluid. Shadowlands about eternities. Can have it perceived differently by different characters even going through same thing.
Bringing back 10-man content, either as different difficulty or different instances for smaller groups to tackle. All raid basically is/can be 10 man. These days its the 5 player mega dungeons that fill the role. In BC, ZA and Kara filled that niche of the smaller group doing the BIG, raid like content. Fulfills the spirit of 10 man content.
Will summoning stones be available at launch of BC or come later? Will have them at launch.
What’s Bolvar up to and where is his story going? Will he have a major role to play? One of the fun parts of Shadowlands was getting Bolvar back into the mix. We saw him be pivotal in Torghast and getting into Shadowlands. Saw there was a price to pay for visions with Torghast. He will be front and center in Chains of Domination. Good rallying figure.
In BC, how will pvp titles be handled without battlegroups? Originally, reward was made for the best player in each battlegroup due to technical reasons. Now that they have better technology, fair way is % based, though still want to keep it small amount.
In Stormwind, Darnassus refugees mention going back once the smoke clears. Does this mean Teldrassil can grow back and become habitable again? The damage was pretty definitive/lot of lives lost. Don’t want to reverse on a whim. The story of the souls of the Night Elves however is not yet done, nor is Tyrande’s story going into Chains of Domination and beyond.
Will fresh classic servers be added in addition to TBC servers? For the timeline of BC classic, no new classic servers. Eyes on it however for the future. Will discuss once BC launches.
How do you get the Wandering Ancient Mount? Got to have Shadowlands. Will be in 9.0.5 patch update next month (March).
World of Warcraft: Chains of Domination Panel
Recap on the So Far
Centered on Jailers forces.
All four covenants unite for the first time in years to take the fight to the jailer
New areas, new enemies, new rewards
Return to the Maw: Explore new areas. Mounts will work again.
Korthia, the City of Secrets. New Area of the Maw pulled in. Similar to Oribos. Has mysteries the Jailer is interested in.
New rewards include: Giant Hand mount, pets, other Maw themed items
Sanctum of Domination: Ten boss raid. Tarragrue, Eye of the Jailer, Kel’thuzad, Fate of the Damned, ends on Sylvanas. Finale of the Sylvanas fight changes the future of the Shadowlands
The Eye of the Jailer is Odyn’s eye.
New Torghast updates. New foes, powers, rooms, traps
New Mega dungeon: Broker Trader City. 8 boss dungeon. Portals, Auction House, various cartels. Learn more about Broker culture. Mythic only to start. First half is Broker cartels. Second half is outside the market and into a heist. INFINITE DRAGON PIRATE BOSS
Mega dungeon rewards: New pets, disc mount, unique weapon models.
9.1 introduces flying. No rep grind. Do Covenant storyline.
New Flying Mount Based on Covenant.
New Covenant armor cosmetics
new Season of stuff