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Skin Previews: Bone Abathur and Char AbathurWarlords of Draenor Developer Interviews
There were a few developer interviews at the recent press events, so today we are taking a look at interviews with Ion Hazzikostas from Yogscast.
Warlords of Draenor Starting Experience
[list]
[*]Everyone will have a starting experience in Warlords of Draenor, which will take place before the gameplay in the recent videos.[/*:m]
[*]The normal experience takes place at the Dark Portal, having you go through to stop the impending Iron Horde invasion. You aren't able to defeat the Iron Horde, but you do stop the imminent threat.[/*:m]
[*]Characters that are boosted to Level 90 will have a slightly different experience, with most of the skills removed from their bars and then having abilities unlocked again as they play.[/*:m][/list:u]
Garrisons
[list]
[*]Garrisons should give you access to portions of other professions without making the people that actually have the profession useless.[/*:m]
[*]The mounts in your garrison's stable will be mounts that you own, based on the ones that you use the most.[/*:m]
[*]Garrisons have a new NPC AI system that allows NPCs to behave less like the scripted NPCs we have now.
[list]
[*]For example, the Blacksmith could wake up and go to work, work at his forge and become thirsty, eventually taking a break and going to the tavern, and ten finally going back to the barracks to sleep.[/*:m]
[*]This improved AI was made necessary when the team decided to allow players to select where they place buildings in their garrison, making it impossible to pre-script and pre-place all of the NPC interactions.[/*:m]
[*]This system might be used with NPCs in cities and other places in the future.[/*:m][/list:u][/*:m]
[*]The location of buildings in your garrison is mostly for personal choice, as the gameplay element of garrisons is selecting which buildings you want for your limited plots.[/*:m]
[*]The team is aware of the problem with the farm in Mists of Pandaria and doesn't want players to feel the need to have garrisons on their alts just to funnel resources to their main.[/*:m]
[*]Players will want to check in with their garrison once per play session, maybe when they log in or out. It won't be a place to idle like cities currently are, as there is no auction house or bank.[/*:m][/list:u]
Raiding / Misc
[list]
[*]There aren't any plans for Mythic only bosses in the Patch 6.0 raids, but there will be some Mythic only elements of the fights, similar to the extra phase on Heroic Garrosh. Mythic only bosses will continue to be added when they make sense.[/*:m]
[*]Ra-den didn't work out as intended. The boss wasn't tested publicly to ensure it remained a surprise and Ion wasn't able to spend as much time as he would have liked watching the internal testing sessions. This resulted in some loopholes in the fight making it live and Ra-den being easier than intended.[/*:m]
[*]The team is aware that the timeline in older content is a little bit inconsistent, but updating the Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King content would take away from Warlords of Draenor development.[/*:m][/list:u]
Patch 5.4.7 Hotfixes - February 28
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Classes
Death Knight (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)[list]
[*]Dancing Rune Weapon's summoned rune weapon should no longer incorrectly cause NPC guards to attack the target instead of the Death Knight that summoned it.[/*:m][/list:u]
Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)[list]
[*]Zen Pilgrimage: Return is no longer automatically removed from Monks that leave the Peak of Serenity.[/*:m][/list:u]
Battlegrounds and Arenas
[list]
[*]Resolved a pathing issue with Intervene for Warriors with Glyph of the Watchful Eye equipped while in the Temple of Kotmogu.[/*:m]
[*]Resolved a situation where players were able to retain the Readiness effect from trinkets without equipping them while in a Battleground.[/*:m][/list:u]
Bug Fixes
[list]
[*]Resolved a crash in the client that affected users running Windows XP: Service Pack 3.[/*:m]
[*]Resolved a crash that could occur while loading into an area or instance.[/*:m][/list:u]
Blue Tweets
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Classes
I can spec leeching¶lytic but only use 1, bad design or intended? (lock tal accounts for players taking link & sac)
We're OK with *occasionally* one talent making another talent a bad choice. (Celestalon)
Arcane Mages and Destruction Warlocks. Such mindless, spammy, 2-button specs. Really disheartening to watch, nevermind play.
If you think those specs are mindless 2-button rotations, you're not playing them even remotely to their fullest. (Celestalon)
Touch of the Grave doesn't act like other life steals in pvp, and mortal coil doesn't benefit from PVP power +healing. Intended?
Touch of the Grave I'm not sure; we'll be taking a close look at it following the racial changes.Mortal Coil sounds like a bug. (Celestalon)
Hunter (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)think all the hunter specs are very similar and only few skills change. What about making BM Melee ? BM God Rexxar had axes, too
We definitely agree that the hunter specs feel the same, and are taking steps to address that. Not melee BM though. (Celestalon)
Monk (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)Do you consider boss spinning / mob-ball movement to grab Gift of Ox legit concern, or just intended part of mastering spec?
Intended part of mastering the spec. (Celestalon)
The penalty for a brewmaster moving to grab orbs is inflicted on melee/raid rather than the brewmaster tho...
No it's not. If your Brewmaster is moving the boss, or cleaving the raid/melee, he's moving more than he needs to be. (Celestalon)
Is there a Cooldown on Chi Explosion?
No. (Celestalon)
Does it replace Blackout Kick? Purify still has a purpose but BoK seems redundant with Chi Explosion.
We're still debating that. The reason not to is if you want to sometimes pool 1 chi for emergencies, so not spend all at once. (Celestalon)
Now that I think about it, will it function with the 5th chi from Ascension?
If you cast Chi Explosion with 5 Chi, your explosion hits the whole server....or you're just left with 1 Chi. One of the two. (Celestalon)
Paladin (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)Also! Speaking of, any word on Paladin changes/L100 abilities since Blizzcon?
We put Seal of Faith back on our Shelf of Ideas That Have Potential But Aren't Ready For Primetime Yet. (Celestalon)
Rogue (Forums / Skills / WoD Talent Calculator)please tell me some of the upkeep is being rolled in for sub rogues. Between that and positioning, it drives me away!
Upkeep? The upkeep of keeping your poison up? o.O (Celestalon)
meaning both rupture and snd - I meant in general not related to the new talent.
Ohhhh, sorry, just assumed due to timing.Sub upkeep: That's the point of subtlety. Subtlety gameplay is defined by that. (Celestalon)
Interesting I feel like many players would say FW is sub's defining mechanic.
FW is just one of the things that Subtlety asks you to juggle. (Celestalon)
PvP
Horde pvp population: are you just going to let things continue to get worse? Tilting AV and IoC to favor Horde will not help.
We're very concerned about the imbalance and queue times. We have plans but expacs are often the time when people switch. (holinka)
FYI: 1. The ladder is used to calculate rating thresholds for granting titles. 2. We then give titles to people with appropriate rating. (holinka)
Step 1 didn't take low level characters into account. Step 2 accidentally gave titles to low level characters with correct rating. (holinka)
So removing rewards from low level characters doesn't mean more people will get rewards. (holinka)
Good thread about H:A map imbalance in Random Battlegrounds
Forgot to mention Twin Peaks is down hill when running the flag as Horde. Slowfall + speed boost.
pretty sure slow fall has a speed cap on it for just this reason (holinka)
Not in normals afaik.
RBG win rates are very close to 50/50 on all of these maps (no matter which faction plays Alliance or Horde). (holinka)
Thats not very telling? Your system is designed to adjust ratings until 50:50 is achieved.
No that just further proves the point. In RBGs, team skill is equal and map balance would be the only variable. (holinka)
Will PvE realms face PvP realms in Ashran since PvP realms are horde dominated and there won't be enough allies?
It's possible that this will happen in some cases. We'll try to minimize that crossover as much as possible. (holinka)
Fan Art Update
Blizzard has updated the art gallery to feature ten new pieces.
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