World of Warcraft: Current Year

Khane said:

Maybe it's all a ploy to lure Thrall back into action! Right? RIGHT?!?!

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• It's been fascinating for the team to recreate classic WoW and there have been questions of if there are ways that this could inform the way that they think about WoW today keeping in mind the philosophies of the modern game.
• There are aspects of how to approach the outdoor world that could continue to inform designs in Battle for Azeroth.
• Communication for retail WoW is a bit more complicated than it is for Classic as most of it is based on listening and feedback without clear answers where Classic has a lot of clear answers. It's the difference between figuring out the answers and already knowing them.
• The team wants to sustain healthy communities and not have too many servers at launch that run into low pop issues once the initial launch dies down.
• The Layer system is only planned for the first few weeks. As players spread out over time eventually there will be no layer system, especially by when the world bosses are introduced.
• Each layer can hold the same population as a server from the original WoW.
• There will be no pet/mount shop in Classic.
• It's nice to return to a nameless adventurer, but in modern WoW there comes a point after defeating major lore villains where you can't be nameless anymore.
• The beta is small because they are using it to make sure that they have gotten everything right, not to address if the content is fun or to nerf things.
• Classic is about the journey and not the destination, and so players who don't have the time that they once did will still enjoy the ride.

• The server architecture (population, etc) from retail WoW is used for Classic WoW.
• Quirky bugs that are not game-breaking/exploits were actually left in the game.
• Community feedback will be an important consideration for releasing classic expansions post launch.

• The team took the modern code and layered the old data on top of the new code.
• The back end developer interfaces for the game is the modern infrastructure. The customer, however, sees the original game.
• The old code recognized realms as a single cluster of servers. The modern architecture is more shared and distributed, allowing the team to be much more efficient.
• The team recovered a lot of the original art assets from the old code. They deleted the modern graphics and reimported the old graphics just with modern code.

• There will be progressive quests added during phases as well, such as having the Naxxramas introduction quests disabled until its phase release.
• The Thorium quest hub is most likely available from launch. (The two did ask for feedback on this in the interview)
• The original mount system is being utilized, cheap training with expensive mounts.
• The team is taking a pass on modern WoW to re-visioning some of the spells built to address the issues of server stability when many people are in one area.
• The team has an estimate on realm numbers, but can add more based on the amount of players. They are trying to avoid having unhealthy server populations or having to merge realms down the line though.
• The goal is to not having Layering in the game at all after a few weeks when the populations smooth out.
• Phase transitions will happen based on player feedback and progression of the player base.

• The team is excited to add Rise of Azshara to Battle for Azeroth as they have been hard at work on giving more player choice and things to collect in the new content patch.
• The 15th Anniversary Event will include a special raid that brings back bosses from previous expansions such as Kael'thas.
• Logging in during the anniversary event will get you the Nefarion pet while completing the raid will give you the Obsidian Worldbreaker mount.
• The raid is not a new raid, but a greatest hits of previous bosses back to back.
• The ability to visit Mechagon City outside of the dungeon could be possible down the line.
• There is upwards of 30 mounts coming in Patch 8.2. A lot of them have unique animation rigs as well.
• The team wanted to make sure that they gave a lot of new things to collect that felt unique.
• There are two versions of the Mechacycle, one of which is easier to obtain. However, the easier to obtain one is more broken down and junker styled while the meta achievement one is complete.
• The mount equipment system was designed to solve the water strider issue and will be iterated on based on feedback.
• In Patch 8.2, it will take substantially more time for the opposing team to show up during normal Island Expeditions, allowing a bit more time to explore freely.
• Heroic Warfronts will have a different flow in the battle to be aware of, such as utilizing resources right and defending your base from attack.
• Nazjatar has many different biomes to make it easier to navigate.
• Pathfinder Part 2 is likely to require exploring both new zones as well.
• The team feels that as long as you become familiar with the zone on foot first, it is not to early to allow flying in these new zones.
• If you don't like the companion system in Nazjatar you don't have to use it.
• There will be special repeatable profession quests in 8.2. An example is a herbalism quest in which you find a seed that you can plant in certain spots to activate a combat situation.
• Nazjatar has treasure finding gear that you can use to find buried treasure around the zone.

Serpens said:

Grrr. BFA team getting Classic nostalgia.

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