One of the highlights of my visit to Blizzard HQ, aside from actually getting to play
Cataclysm, was a chance to sit down with Tom "Kalgan" Chilton, Game Director for World of Warcraft. It was a very fun day
filled with lots of great information, so I had to get some clarification on things announced, as well as some of the reasons behind changes going into the expansion. Some things weren't ready to be answered, so I tried to cut that out where possible to save the meat of the interview for the post.
The first thing I asked him was whether or not classic dungeons would be revisited, similar to the way all of the level-up content is being updated. "Old dungeons are being revisited to an extent," he said. "Mauradon, Wailing Caverns, places like that. Mostly to bring them up to standard on accessibility." From there I had to follow that up with a question also about dungeons; whether or not any others would be considered for heroic modes. "Just heroic Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep; those will be in a content patch after release." The plan is patch 4.1 for the release of the heroic versions of the two instances.
Surprised by the 'after release' comment, I begged the question of whether or not any classic raids would be looked at and either brought up to speed
similar to Onyxia last year, or just due to the major story shifts going on. "You mean like Molten Core? It's not planned right now, but we're not ruling that out," he said. Obviously with Ragnaros being brought to the forefront of Cataclysm, Molten Core may be due for at least some minor changes. We'll have to wait and see, though.
Being that World of Raids is all about dungeons and raids, next up I asked him whether or not Caverns of Time would make an appearance in this expansion. "Nope, there won't be a 5-player Caverns of Time with Cataclysm," he said, "but there will be a raid -- War of the Ancients." So folks, we get to travel back in time to the
War of the Ancients, though we'll have to wait a bit -- this content is planned post-release as part of the progression on to the fight against Deathwing.
After that I had to touch on some of the zones -- both new and old -- thanks to my hands-on time. First I asked for a few more details on
Mount Hyjal, and whether or not it would heavily use phasing, as many players were frustrated by the extent it was used in Icecrown. "Hyjal is a linear progression about the fight against the Twilight's Hammer, and it will use a lot of phasing. I think there are 11 or so phases in Hyjal. All of the new zones will be fairly linear and use phasing. We've even taken advantage of phasing in the old world areas as we revamp them."
Intrigued, I asked him just how dramatically classic areas will be modified -- especially with word of 3,000 new quests going into the expansion. "It really depends on the area. Take Westfall for example; it's fairly similar to how it originally was visually, but story-wise it's about 95% different. We did this because the original Westfall simply didn't fit in with where we're going with the World of Warcraft story."
Surprised by that response, I had to ask if there was any particular formula for revamping the zones. "It's a two-step process," Chilton said, "It's either the needs of the game where a zone isn't done all that well, like Desolace or Thousand Needles. On the other hand, in the case of Westfall, it's the needs of the story. We're introducing a post-Lich King story here, and some areas will have to be updated to reflect that."
Still, that leaves the question of what's happening with some of our favorite quests. Two I brought up were the
Linken series in Un'goro and the Fallen Hero of the Horde quest in Blasted Lands. "A lot of the iconic quests were left alone. We modified some of them where it made sense, but tried to leave as many alone as possible," he said.
After that I asked why Azshara was receiving such a substantial overhaul and if any other zones would see similar treatment. "Azshara wasn't quested very well, and it was optimal for a lower level zone due to the zone flow in the area. Plus it made sense from a story standpoint due to the Goblins joining the Horde. Their story will bring them there and it'll make sense," he said, "As for other zones... most will be fairly similar. Some that come to mind are Southern Barrens, Stonetalon... most are within a couple levels of their classic version. There's one on Eastern Kingdoms that changed somewhat dramatically, but I can't recall it off the top of my head. It's either... Searing Gorge or Badlands."
Moving on to a few PvP questions, I asked what the philosophy was behind making Twin Peaks so similar to current battlegrounds. "It's all about giving more environments with familiar gameplay," Chilton said, "Battle for Gilneas for example is more of a domination style gameplay, which we already see in the game, with a varied environment. But, we do have plans for another battleground. I'm not ready to talk about it yet, but it will be very different gameplay."
The topic of arenas then came up, "We don't plan to add any new arenas at release. We don't really see a dire need for them. We're happy with the number that are accessible right now and don't want to shake things up too much by adding more."
Back to raiding for a few questions, I asked about legendaries and whether or not they would be obtainable in 10-player raids. "Legendaries will be available in 10-player raids as well. We want this new shift in philosophy to be about a playstyle choice, not what you feel obligated to do because an item you want only comes from 10 or 25. The general idea is 'more loot, not more powerful' for 25-player raids." From there I then asked, due to the announced changes, if some raids would have shorter lockouts due to the number of bosses in the instance. "Hmm, it's not something we've discussed heavily, but that could be a possibility," he said.
Finally I asked him a two-part question. First I wanted to know if we'd actually be involved in the fight against Deathwing while leveling up. "It's going to be a bit different than player interaction with the Lich King. Mostly because, well, they're different characters with different purposes. I wouldn't expect to actually fight Deathwing until 85, but you can expect to encounter him and feel his presence." With that out of the way, I touched on whether or not all of the overland zones would be required due to a rumor that Twilight Highlands is being designed as an 'end-game' zone. "All of the zones will be for leveling. We're going to avoid another Icecrown where people got to 80 before experiencing all of the leveling content. While Hyjal and Vahsj'ir are optional in that you can do one or the other, Uldum, Deepholm and Twilight Highlands will all be part of the leveling experience."
And of course, the fun question of whether they've figured out a name for Western Plaguelands due to it... well, not being plagued anymore. "Umm... not yet. 'Western De-Plaguelands,' maybe?" He did mention that there is still a significant Scourge presence in Eastern Plaguelands, but it will play out more like they're being kept in check by the new Lich King to prevent them from running rampant on Azeroth.
Stay tuned over the next few days for some hands-on coverage of the expansion; I had 4 hours to play so there's a lot to share!
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