World of Warcraft: Current Year

Part of me is interested in checking out the new dungeon but so much of this interview about 8.2 sounds fucking boring.


Heather Newman: Rise of Azshara, patch 8.2 -- how big is it compared to earlier content updates?

Ion Hazzikostas: It's definitely on the larger end of that spectrum, right? I mean, between having two separate zones, Nazjatar and then the smaller Mechagon, between having the large system revamp to the Heart of Azeroth, the megadungeon in Mechagon and the [Eternal Palace] raid, everything else going into it, I think it's a huge additional pack of content for the world. I think it also reflects a lot of the fruits of a lot of our reflection on feedback we've been hearing from the community since Battle for Azeroth first came out.

I think what we saw in Tides of Vengeance, in many cases, were the shorter term solutions -- the things that we could get stood up and get out in players' hands ASAP. But something like the essence system and the Hearth of Azeroth rework, that's been seven months in the making, in terms of the overall design, the essences, making the UI, getting it all to a point where you can actually integrate that into the game. This is all of that coming to fruition.

Newman: The big socket for the Heart of Azeroth essences, is that unlocked at Azerite power level 55?

Hazzikostas: The way it works, the central socket, which activates both the major and minor power of the essence, is basically just given to you with no requirements. If you are 120, you do the Nazjatar intro, you'll get a summons from Magni. You go do the questline to empower your heart. There are no additional requirements. Even if you took six months off from the game and your neck is level 30, you will get that central socket. Immediately.

There's a sort of a little linear constellation that loops around that. Those nodes require progressive heart levels from 52-67, I want to say. The small nodes are giving you some stamina. They're giving you this additional bucket of of health, partly because there's some periodic unlocks between the major ones, but also from a systems perspective, we need to make sure as we're giving players powerful new damage sources, powerful new healing sources, overall player health pools are staying roughly in line with the numbers people are putting out. At 55 and 65, they unlock your two minor slots.

Newman: I see you can change essences in any resting area. Does it work like the old spell glyphs did, where you learn it and then it's there from a list to be selected from, or do you have to save up a pile of essences to socket every time you want to change?

Hazzikostas: No, it's very much like glyphs or talents. When you get a new essence, or a more powerful version of an existing essence, there's a one-time step of going back to the Heart forge in Silithus and learning that essence. From that point on, you can just shift-right click your Heart anywhere, and you'll see the interface available to you. Essences can be swapped in and out with no cost. They have the same restrictions as changing talents. So, you can do it in any rest area freely, or if you have a Tome of the Clear Mind active, you could change those as well as your talents.

Newman: In terms of the major ability, how much of an impact do you expect that to have for most folks in gameplay?

Hazzikostas: It depends. I think it's certainly powerful and the tuning there is on par with a Legion [expansion] legendary [item], kind of the high end of what Legion legendaries could do in a lot of cases. But the gameplay impacts, some of them are closer to rotational, others are major cooldowns.

One of the fun ones is one of the essences that's available for PvP. It gives you a specific honor talent for your spec, and that honor talent will work everywhere, not just in PvP. So for an elemental shaman, this essence will give you Lightning Lasso, which is an honor talent. If you're PvPing with it, you can take three other talents for a total of four. It's things on that level.

There are a couple of options that are more passive, occasionally triggering one of your major cooldowns. If you don't want an active button to worry about or something to micromanage, that's there for you too.



Newman: The zone of Nazjatar has some elements that feel a little similar to the Warlords of Draenor expansion's Tanaan Jungle zone. You're building out your base, have bodyguards, have rares and world quests and encounters there. What are the major differences, in terms of how the zone is going to feel, compared to Tanaan?

Hazzikostas: There are also similarities I would say to Argus in Legion. It's a traditional endgame sort of zone, so it's cut from some of that same cloth. There's the more natural kelp forest, that was just recently submerged, where we can see the ruins of the ships of the fleet that have foundered. There's the ruins of the elven city of Zin-Ashari. And then, in the deepest part of Nazjatar, there's the central area of naga power and their dwellings and their military knights in the shadow of Azshara's Eternal Palace.

There's a questline that threads its way through for the main plot of Nazjatar, as whether Horde or Alliance, we're initially getting our bearings and trying to understand what's going on here, what Azshara's up to, and then beginning to work to stop her and ultimately reach the Eternal Palace.

Newman: What content will players work through there?

Hazzikostas: There's a reputation, there's an emissary wrapper for the world quest stuff you'll unlock there. We also have, along with standard rares and treasures, a system of followers that are more bodyguard-like, friends that you can make. This is more reminiscent, going back to Mists [of Pandaria expansion] Townlong Shado Pan dailies, where each day you can pick who you want to take out with you in the field, and they have permanent progression.

They will actually level up by adventuring with you, unlocking abilities to make them stronger, but also giving you access to some cosmetic items. So, there are perks along the way as you level them up.

There are lots of other general secrets and things to discover as we explore the area, but you know, it's an evolution of lessons learned from Tanaan and Broken Shore and Argus [zones].

Newman: Do you mean secrets in general or secrets as in, WoW Secret Finding Discord, start your engines?

Hazzikostas: [Laughs.] In a general term. Not Jeremy Feasel's mad science.

Newman: Are world quests getting some new mechanics for this zone?

Hazzikostas: There's no fundamental change to the Azerite system, to be clear, it's more looking at more inventive quest mechanics and trying to move world quests, especially in our endgame zone, away from ... looking at the ratios of how often a world quest is just "kill them all, kill X mobs" or "loot these things from the ground," and have some more varied mechanics. That's been something we've tried to establish as a baseline expectation in our mix of world quests. There are still, of course, kill-the-rare quests, but we're aiming for more variety.

Mechagon is a whole different story. Mechagon doesn't really have traditional world quests. If Nazjatar is the successor to Argus and Tanaan, Mechagon is a successor to Timeless Isle. That's the model, the cloth from which it's cut. That is much more of an exploration sandbox.

There are some daily objectives there, but they're not traditional world quests. There is no emissary to send you to Mechagon. It's more about exploration and getting spare parts from the things that you're doing there, uncovering there, constructing city work projects to unlock access to pieces of content around the zone or to craft things back in your base and so on.

Newman: It doesn't sound like there's a lot of time-gating involved in either zone. Are you worried about folks burning through the available content?

Hazzikostas: There's a lot of content in Rise of Azshara, I think. There are reputation requirements on pieces of the major Nazjatar storyline. It's nothing gigantic, in terms of the wall there, just some pacing to feel like there's actually some passage of time between telling the story of, all right, we've just arrived here and crashed here a minute ago, to we've established our base and we're taking further steps. I think that we've found that using reputation thresholds to unlock those feels better than a rigid weekly chapter and "you just have to wait until next Tuesday." There's something you can do to speed it up.

But there's a lot of content that's going to be there day one. The only pieces that aren't there right away are the things that are tied to Battle for Azeroth Season 3, so the operation Mechagon megadungeon and the Eternal Palace won't be accessible literally on day one of the patch.

Newman: What is the new Season 3 mythic dungeon affix like?

Hazzikostas: Beguiling represents the minions of Queen Azshara invading the dungeons of Kul Tiras and Zandalar. There are three types of handmaidens that will be present in a variety of pulls in different configurations from week to week.

There's one that has shadow power, one that is arcane, and one that is frosty. They have fun, different effects that will change the way you approach certain pulls. They'll make it so that certain pulls that you probably haven't done in the last five months, because you always skip them, you might actually have to do.

Newman: When will Season 3 begin?

Hazzikostas: I think we're currently planning for Season 3 to start a couple of weeks in. We want a much smaller gap than we did in Tides of Vengeance. I think in Tides of Vengeance we had the holidays to contend with. That made aspects of the timing of starting a whole new tier problematic. We want to get people into the new content much faster this time.

Newman: Will the Rustbolt Resistance reputation be available at launch, or is that going to be available at the same time that the megadungeon comes out? I'm thinking about the Pathfinder achievements for players to get back to flying.

Hazzikostas: That is available at launch. That is primarily, almost exclusively an outdoor reputation. In general, we've tried to keep the Pathfinder requirements tied to outdoor content. You never have to go into a dungeon. You don't have to go into raids in order to actually complete those requirements.

Newman: So folks might be able to complete them before the dungeon and raid make it out?

Hazzikostas: It might come pretty close, though that does require a lot of very diligent logging in and catching every quest that pops up. But it's probably possible. I think that the time we're looking at is pretty similar to unlocking Pathfinder in [patch] 7.2. I think it will take a few weeks, and then you'll spend the majority of this tier flying in Nazjatar and Mechagon, if that's something that interests you.

Newman: Nazjatar has an underwater origin. Are there any areas of the zone that are under water?

Hazzikostas: Technically, none of it is above water, because the ocean has parted, thanks to the power of the Tidestone, and the entire zone is actually in this basement surrounded by these massive water walls as the ocean itself is being kept at bay around you and could collapse on you at any moment.

Newman: Can you walk through the water walls? Can you wander off the zone and start swimming?

Hazzikostas: Alas, no. The water is furiously churning and will repel anyone who tries to approach. But there are some underwater grottos and caves and things in the outdoor zone. There will be occasional underwater spaces, but it's not an underwater zone a la Vashj'ir.

As you get into the depths of the naga area, there's a little bit more of that, and then inside the raid itself, there are probably three or so major sections where you are, legitimately, underwater. There are two large tunnels that you have to swim through at different points in the raid, and then there's one boss encounter that is entirely underwater.


The reward from the Pathfinder achievement (that, and flying, of course.)

Newman: How does the Blackwater Behemoth encounter work?

Hazzikostas: It's this giant angler-fish looking eel creature that's stuck in a cave. You're in his underwater lair and flying between, swimming between, three separate platforms that the encounter unfolds on. It's making use of the three-dimensional space and trying to see if we actually can make an underwater experience that's not miserable when you do it. [He laughs.]

Newman: And how are you feeling about it so far, Ion?

Hazzikostas: We.. I...thus far, not miserable. We'll see if players scream. But it was a cool exercise for the encounter design team to figure out, all right, what does three-dimensional movement in space and orientation mean here? What sorts of encounters work? Which don't? You know we've seen hints of it in the past, like the Al'Akir encounter back in Cataclysm, or Kael'thas even farther back, but it's not something that we've generally done a whole lot of.

Newman: The Benthic Gear pearling system -- is it for folks who don't raid? Is it for giving folks who do raid the opportunity to fill in some pieces that they just can't quite seem to get to drop? Or is it for gearing alts?

Hazzikostas: Pretty much all of the above. So, the Benthic gear that you can upgrade with pearls, it's again inspired by Baleful gear or other systems from past endgame outdoor zones. Certainly for the person who mostly does outdoor questing and [looking-for-raid dungeon difficulties], this is a more meaningful progression path for them.

The baseline items that you can get off the vendors or occasionally as drops, those are [bind on account] so you can send them to alts. So, if you have your fresh 120, you can give them a meaningful head start there. The fact that a single piece can be upgraded to relatively high item levels gives you control over addressing some gaps in your gear. If you're focused on PvP or focused on raiding, and you haven't just gotten that pair of gloves to drop, you can get gloves through the system and take care of that yourself.

Newman: Some new rare creatures from Mechagon have actual rare spawn timers, as opposed to "rares" that come back a few minutes after somebody has killed them. Are we talking hours, days?

Hazzikostas: Not days, no. I think more hours. It's not something you're likely to expect to find up. I think the term "rares" as applied to silver-bordered enemies has evolved over the years and I agree, at this point, they're not really rare. There are silver stars all over the map that will come back one minute after you kill them, or maybe three minutes after you kill them. They're more just named targets.

These are more true rares, more in the style of Timeless Isle. When it's up, you're likely to see someone call out in general chat, "Hey, this is up." We've been looking at coordinating their spawns across servers and across shards so the way to do this isn't the shard hop. It isn't "find the shard where it's up," but rather, wait until the time when it happens to spawn and then, just make sure that you are there.

Newman: What's the incentive to sit around and wait for one to pop up?

Hazzikostas: Some have cosmetics, in the same vein as Timeless Isle rares. Others have some pieces of gear. A few of the punch cards for the personalized computer trinket can be obtained from these creatures. And then, of course, the general currency that drives Mechagon as a whole.


PASCAL helps Mechagon adventurers craft items.

Newman: How important do you expect the megadungeon to be?

Hazzikostas: Operation Mechagon takes place both in the exterior area where players quest, and then delves into Mechagon City inside the vault itself. It's a five-player raid. We thought Return to Karazhan in Legion was quite successful. I think for folks who do Normal to Heroic raiding, especially, this is a great complement to those activities, loot-wise.

If you're someone who perennially does dungeons with a group of friends, this is more of that sprawling, old school [Blackrock Depths]-style dungeon crawl, where you know, it's something you can come back to and resume at a later time if you want. The boss encounters have a bit more heft to them, I'd say, than in a regular dungeon.

Newman: How are they different?

Hazzikostas: In many [other] places, the non-boss enemies are kind of the meat of the dungeon and bosses are highlights, but it's rare that you kind of get stuck on a boss, or that overcoming a boss is an area of major concern. Whereas, in Operation Mechagon, the bosses often feel more like small raid encounters. They can be a few minutes long. They can be something that you actually have to learn from, strategize around, improve upon, ultimately overcome.

There are also some potentially hidden challenges in there, for the more mythic-raiding types who want to push themselves. Folks may remember Nightbane from Karazhan. The intrepid explorers of Mechagon may find something along the same lines here.

Newman: How is the gear level for that compared to the actual Azshara's Eternal Palace raid?

Hazzikostas: It's on par with the Normal mode raid, and then scaled up a little bit beyond that. There are some special things available that are another tier above that, in particular for players who are looking to customize and upgrade their punch card trinket they're gotten from Mechagon. Some of the most powerful punch cards are going to be found in the dungeon. Just as we did in Return to Karazhan, I think there will be a couple of items in here, whether they're trinkets or other things, that are attractive to people pretty much regardless of their play style or the other content they're doing.

There's also an essence. The way the essences are obtained, they're from a wide variety of content. So there's one for Nazjatar rep, one for the outdoor rep, there's one that you're only going to get from running the megadungeon. Pretty much everyone who's interested in the powers it offers will want to delve into this.

Newman: How important is the loot from the megadungeon going to be for endgame players, with the punch cards for the Pocket-Sized Computation Device trinket, the ring sets with the combined traits and the other drops?

Hazzikostas: The baseline item level of these rewards is certainly below what you're going to be getting out of the weekly Mythic Plus chest or Mythic Eternal Palace for the very high-end players that are doing that. For players who are a tier below that, I think the rewards from Operation Mechagon are going to be very attractive. For players who want every bit of help they can get in overcoming those mythic raid challenges, this will be a useful stepping stone along the way. I'm sure as is always the case, for some specific specializations, there will be items or combinations of items that are particularly desirable.

We're always trying to balance desirability of rewards. Mandatory feels like a strong, heavy-handed term, but ultimately, we want them to be liked. We want them to be attractive. For some players, that will make them mandatory, but we'd much rather err on that side of things than having them be uninteresting and ignorable.


The Mechagon dungeon trinket enhancements.

Newman: We've got some nerfs coming for outlaw rogues and protection warriors and a few buffs to guardian druids and vengeance demon hunters. In terms of actual class overhauls, are there any included in Rise of Azshara? Do you feel classes are in pretty good shape at this point, that there are not specs that need substantial reworking for this content update?

Hazzikostas: I think there are some changes underway, looking at frost death knight resource pacing in particular, and the way Breath of Sindragosa plays out for them. Some changes are in place in PTR and the team is currently getting feedback and looking iterating on those.

But beyond that, I think players shouldn't expect a full overhaul to really be something that happens in a patch and [instead] in a new expansion update. There were some exceptions to that in Legion, just because Legion reinvented so many specs, rebuilt them from the ground up out of the gate. Some were more successful than others, and those that were on the less successful end of the spectrum warranted more substantial reworks.

Changing something as fundamental as the rotation of specializations or the resource flow, or removing abilities and adding new ones, that's actually an incredibly jarring experience. It comes with great costs for people who are just coming back, looking to jump into the new content, who find themselves having to relearn the class. That's the sort of change that is best received, and that we try to couch, within the broader sweeping changes that come with the new expansion -- where there's a gear reset, a whole new progression system coming into play, and so forth.

So while we're always going to continue to look at underperforming talents, or a specific area where there's some very narrow problem to be solved with a class, something as broad as "let's reconsider the way this flows," or the way the resource generation and consumption model works for the spec, that's almost always going to be off the table for a content update like this.

Newman: Are there classes that you're looking at now in the context of the next expansion?

Hazzikostas: There are definitely specs that are high on the list or probably needing or wanting more substantial attention. That's something we'll be discussing in detail as we get into that phase of things. We have a lot more to figure out, and we prefer to be able to announce it with the context of, "This is the problem we're trying to solve, this is exactly what we're going to try to do. Take notes, let us know what you think, please let us know what your concerns are," rather than just throwing a flag in the ground and saying, "Hey, keep an eye on this one."

That sounds grindtastic, gate-o-riftic, much fun will be had.