We’re here with a brand-new Artcraft! I’m your host, Chris Robinson, senior art director on World of Warcraft, and today we’re showing you where we’re at with the female Tauren.
The original female Tauren had a lot of issues with too-angular geometry and stretched-out textures. It’s not her fault—it’s just what we had available to us at the time. Our new process has allowed us to add a lot of detail to her hair, fur, horns, and hooves, to build a far more detailed and expressive face, and to add a lot of definition to her musculature (while retaining her shape and silhouette).
One other change of note: Warcraft character design is commonly known for its stylized long arms, large hands, and big feet, but the female Tauren’s hands were just completely out of control. We brought them down to a more consistent size with the other updated models, and were also able to add a ton more detail and dexterity in the process.
We hope you enjoy her new look—let us know what you think in the comments!
Lots of WoW news today! Another build is being pushed to the beta servers, opening the Spires of Arakk and Nagrand zones. This means all leveling zones will be open. The lvl cap will be bumped to lvl 100!
In a soon-to-arrive build, we will be opening up Spires of Arakk and Nagrand, and will be raising the level cap to 100, leaving the entire level-up experience open for testing.We have a close eye on the feedback that is being posted on these forums, and over the next week or two, you should see resolution for many of the major issues that you’ve been encountering in the currently released zones.
Please, keep the feedback coming. It is extremely useful in helping us identify issues that don’t manifest in our internal environments, and your opinions on our content and systems are very important to us.
Thank you for all of your input and support.
Spires of Arak & Nagrand opening up on the normal beta server today as well. Level cap will be pushed to 100.
In preparation for the next beta build that is planned to go live July 25, we will be doing a character wipe on the beta realms. Once the new build is live, you will also notice that the realms have been renamed, and that you will be able to create level 100 PvP and PvE characters. For more information about the new realm names, check out the thread Lore recently posted here.
EDIT: Apologies for any confusion; characters are being wiped from the beta realms today.
In an effort to make it clearer which Beta realms should be used for which types of testing, we’ll be renaming the current Beta realms with today’s maintenance. The realms are being renamed as follows:
Lost Isles (PvE) is being renamed to Beta Leveling Realm 01 Gilneas (PvP) is being renamed to Beta Leveling Realm 02 Mekkatorque (PvP) is being renamed to Level 100 PvP
As a result of the rename, some interface settings (such as combat log filters, or add-on configurations) may be lost, and will need to be reconfigured.
The logo for the Warcraft movie was shown today at the San Diego Comic Con!
It was also explained on twitter today that the enchanting garrison building will allow the changing of the visual effect of your enchants, which is effectively enchant transmogrification!
.@HideEnchants Enchanter garrison building allows you to trade WoD enchants for the same effect with a different visual (including none).
Greetings everyone! This is my first post on the forum as a blue poster. I’m Chris Kaleiki, a Game Designer on World of Warcraft. I work specifically on Ashran with some guy you may know — Brian Holinka. I previously worked on class design, notably the design of the Monk.The feedback you guys are giving is fantastic! Well appreciated. I wanted to respond.
Wall of text inc —
I have feedback on the “Horde and Alliance Hubs” (aka the staging areas)
The Horde and Alliance staging areas are still being worked on by the world team. As for Ashran the world PvP zone, they have very little relevance. You may see some random PvP skirmishes there in the same way you see skirmishes in any Horde or Alliance capital, but they’re not meant to be part of the overall world pvp zone. While we do want your feedback on those areas, the PvP team’s involvement is pretty minimal so I suggest directing them towards the general discussions in this forum rather than this specific discussion.
I feel the size of Ashran is too small.
During Ashran’s early development we debated whether the zone should be larger, but we ultimately landed on its current size after concluding that if the zone were too big your chances of running into the opposite faction in your day to day excursions would be quite low. We want there to be a feeling that you’re sharing a limited resource with the opposing faction, and you have to fight over that resource. The bigger the zone, the less the opposite faction’s presence matters, and the less tension and ultimately the less world PvP will transpire.
That said, it could be possible that the zone could still stand to be larger. And if more players spill out into the side areas to where it gets too cramped, we may have to make changes. Keep in mind we also want to build onto Ashran in patch content.
What is the philosophy behind Ashran?
Ashran is a new type of PvP design. While it does have the spirit of old Alterac Valley, it’s not supposed to be purely an objective based map. Our goal here was to create situations in where players would engage in world PvP. These situations primarily are the outskirts areas, off the midlane.
In beta it is understandable that players are not reward driven. But on live, we expect players to be driven by getting honor and other rewards for their characters. The PvE on Ashran will be the most rewarding in that regard. The idea is that Horde and Alliance will be fighting over completing the side objectives and spawning and that will create interesting PvP situations (especially since you can loot other players currency). Even within the current incarnation of Ashran on beta I’ve experienced small unexpected fights in the outskirts areas.
We feel we’ve delivered on objective based win condition content through battlegrounds, but we haven’t delivered in giving players a sandbox environment where they can experience PvP similar to that of which you may have experienced before battlegrounds were created. We’re trying to do that with Ashran.
One of my most memorable moments of world pvp before battlegrounds were introduced into WoW was when my guildmates were farming for the frostsaber mount in Winterspring. They were being ganked by a Horde guild over and over, so some of our guildies went to help them out. The Horde guild responded by sending more of their guildmates. Then other random guilds joined in. Eventually, there were so many players in that area we crashed the server.
The spirit of that experience is what we’re trying to go for in a zone like Ashran.
What’s the deal with the middle lane?
The middle lane serves as a centerpiece of Ashran. It’s similar to that of Alterac Valley: a push/pull tug-of-war battle. While the road of glory isn’t exactly world PvP, this type of PvP is appealing to a number of players so we decided to include it in Ashran. It’s also nice to know that there is almost always going to be some battle going on there.
The middle lane wont’ really be very rewarding in terms of honor or currency. And we intentionally don’t have a way to “win Ashran.” Storming the enemy base and killing their commander will give you some reward and an achievement, but it’s not the main focus of the zone. If your time in Ashran is within the middle lane and storming the enemy base, you’re mostly doing that for the intrinsic fun of it.
What is the main objective?
We envision that most players will be coming to Ashran to farm honor and rewards. You’ll do that by killing creatures and participating in the side events. Along the way you’ll find items that boost your characters power (such as the class books, scrolls, wands etc.) and we hope you’ll get some PvP fights.There is no objective like “cap and hold these points, run this flag, kill this guy” like our other objective based maps. We’ve found that more objective heavy maps lead to more predictable gameplay, which lead to less interesting unexpected PvP fights… which defines the idea of “world pvp.”
That said, I would say some goals in the map would be as a faction to maintain the mage portals, warlock gateways, and spawn Fangraal/Kronus. They all serve to help your faction be more efficient in the zone.
Why does Ashran not put you into a group/raid?
Ashran is intended to simulate any other zone in WoW. If we put you into a huge group, that would insinuate that there is some global objective to win… which there really isn’t. We want you to be able to come to Ashran in a small group as you would in any zone to collect honor and other rewards.
That said, I can certainly see the utility of having a raid group if you’re in Ashran to just do some casual PvP in the road of glory. For that, we will just leave it to players to create those groups naturally. It’s a bit anti-social to be forced into a raid group if you don’t want to be in one.
Faction balance
Balancing Horde and Alliance populations is a priority. Current on beta, there is no population enforcement. It’s something we’ll be monitoring and tweaking going forward.
~
Thanks for reading all that!
Keep in mind Ashran is still in development. There are bugs, things will change, items will be put in, new side objectives added etc. We hope you’ll revisit Ashran as the builds progress in beta.
To finish off tonight’s round of news a new set of WoD beta patch notes have been released. You can check out the full set here, however here are some highlights:
Aspect of the Fox is a new ability for all Hunters.
Aspect of the Fox: Party and raid members within 40 yards take on the aspects of a fox, allowing them to move while casting all spells for 6 seconds. Only one Aspect can be active at a time. 3 minute cooldown.
Mages: Ice Ward now causes the next 3 attackers (up from 1) to trigger a Frost Nova.
Paladins: Sanctified Wrath (Protection) now increases the damage of Holy Wrath by 100% and causes it to generate 1 Holy Power.
Warlocks: We were unsatisfied with Grimoire of Sacrifice for Demonology. Fundamentally, it did not fit Demonology’s theme to sacrifice their pet, full time. We had toyed with ideas where it acted as a temporary cooldown for Demonology, but have decided to replace it with a new talent, which is more theme-appropriate, and fits well against the competition in that talent row.
Grimoire of Sacrifice is no longer available to Demonology Warlocks and has a new talent, Grimoire of Synergy in its place.
Grimoire of Synergy: When the Warlock or their demon deals damage, there is a chance to trigger Demonic Synergy, granting the other one 15% increased damage for 15 seconds.
The upgrading of the horde garrison bugged out today and boosted it right up to tier 3, so today we’ll take a look at the tier 3 garrison upgrade! Due to a server crash restarting the client was required.
On Monday, July 21, we will begin our Warlords raid testing with one Heroic encounter from Highmaul, and one from Blackrock Foundry. As this is the very first raid test of the beta, it is quite possible that there will be technical or gameplay issues that disrupt the testing. Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding.Remember that Heroic difficulty scales for any group size between 10 and 30 players, so feel free to assemble and bring a group of any size within that range. Our general plan is to test every encounter on Heroic difficulty first, and then test sections of the raid on Normal and Raid Finder, alongside targeted Mythic tests.
Each encounter should be available at approximately the listed times below on all Beta servers.
As always, this testing schedule is very fluid and subject to the realities of a beta environment. We might have to change the time of a testing session, change the boss being tested, or cancel a test entirely, due to bugs, server hardware issues, etc. Keep an eye on this forum for the latest information, and thank you in advance for testing and providing feedback.
Important Testing Notes
Q: How do I get into the raid zone?
A: In Stormwind, Orgrimmar, and your garrison, you may speak to Nexus-Lord Donjon Rade in order to teleport into the raid zone while it is open for testing. (The option to teleport into a zone will not be available when the zone is not open for testing.)
Q: What character should I use to test the raid?
A: Whichever you prefer. We will be scaling players’ effective level to 100 for raid testing, and their item level to an appropriate threshold for the encounter(s) being tested.
Blizzard released a new beasts of the savage lands preview and an announcement about changes to the heroes of the storm reward system! Check them both out below.
The lush Shadowmoon Valley appears peaceful and idyllic, lulling many would-be adventurers into a false sense of security as they explore its rolling hills and violet forests. But countless hidden perils lie waiting behind the tranquil façade, and only those well-armed with knowledge can hope to survive. What dangers lurk in the shadows?
Riverbeasts
Adventurers are often misled by the seemingly docile riverbeasts. Though slow to anger, once disturbed, a charging riverbeast is a ferocious sight: 4,000 pounds of fat and muscle storming toward its target like a runaway tram. Roaming draenei rangari have long been astounded by how much damage a rampaging riverbeast can take before it’s brought down, and draenei children are taught to keep a wide berth of shallow waters. Riverbeasts are characterized by their rock-like skin, likely developed during the early days of Draenor’s prehistory, when creatures of stone dueled for supremacy against the chaotic flora. Those looking to take a riverbeast as a trophy should take note of their durable armored flesh and tendency to charge unexpectedly.
Podlings
A number of Draenor’s indigenous species blur the line between plant and animal, and the so-called podlings are the most vicious and chaotic of their ilk. Small and seemingly harmless, they work together to capture their prey, attacking only when they have numerical superiority. Explorers who pay attention to the color of podlings’ flowering buds can ascertain whether they favor poison, ensnaring, or physical attacks to incapacitate their victims. Once podlings have overwhelmed their quarry, they will drag the unlucky creature down into the weeds to fertilize a new generation. The clear lesson for adventurers: looks can be deceiving!
Elekk
The majestic elekk graze contentedly across the grassy plains of Draenor, relying on their huge size and the support of the herd to keep predators at bay. Draenei explorers have determined that the animals pose no threat, as long as their young aren’t endangered or their water supply jeopardized. With the endurance to cover great distances and the ability to defend themselves by ramming or stomping attackers, these beasts have emerged as the draenei transport of choice. Explorers should take note of persistent draenei rumors that the Thunderlord Clan orcs torment and twist terrified elekk into vicious weapons of war, covering them in armor plating and inciting them to rampage when turned loose on their foes. Beware!
Draenor Ancients
It was only very recently that draenei rangari managed to communicate with these enormous sentient trees, but wildly different ways of life—not to mention a completely different perception of time—have made further interaction difficult. The ancients get their name from their analogues on Azeroth; they are tied closely to a prehistoric plant lineage that unites much of Draenor’s flora and places them in opposition to the creatures of stone. These enigmatic ancients remain in the same area for hundreds of years and are reluctant to move unless their home is threatened. Adventurers should be cautious when harvesting the valley’s lumber, as they may find the forest fighting back.
Shadowmoon Valley is a dangerous place, but there are many deadly threats still to be discovered across the savage world of Draenor. Until next time, stay alive . . . if you can.
Our next Heroes of the Storm Technical Alpha patch will bring a number of changes to the out-of-game Leveling System, Hero Quests, Player Profiles, and much more. Many of the changes that we’ve decided to include in this patch were made entirely because of the feedback that the Heroes community has shared with us on the official forums. Thank you very much for your help during Tech Alpha testing thus far; we’re looking forward to hearing much more from all of you in the future so that we can continue to make Heroes the best game it can possibly be. For now, we’d like to make sure you’re completely prepared to level up and earn rewards come patch day. Let’s take a look at some of the major features that have been reworked in the next Tech Alpha patch, starting with the new Player Profile layout.
Player Profile
Upon logging in to Heroes of the Storm once our next Tech Alpha patch is released, you’ll immediately notice that the Leveling System progress bar and reward icons have been removed from the home screen. Never fear, they haven’t gone far! They’ve just found a new home in the freshly revamped Player Profile screen. Access your Player Profile by clicking the Hero portrait found in the top right corner of the home screen. Once you do, you’ll see your current player level and Hero portrait are now located at the top of the profile screen, and several tabs have been added to the left-hand side which can be used to navigate the your profile. Hero Progress Use this tab to track of the Experience Points and Rewards you’ve earned by playing games with each Hero. Rewards Here, you’ll be able to see which Leveling System Rewards you’ve earned, as well as those you have yet to unlock. Daily Quests Select this tab to keep an eye on which Daily Quests are currently available to you. Profile Summaryand Match History Have been disabled during Tech Alpha testing.
Hero Progress and Rewards
In our next patch, the Hero Quests tab has been renamed Hero Progress, and Hero Quests have been replaced by Hero Levels. The Hero Progress tab is where you’ll be able to keep track of each Hero as you earn XP, level them up, and unlock new rewards. In previous versions of the game, Hero Quests could only be completed by playing in Versus games. Thanks to your feedback, however, that restriction will soon be a thing of the past. Once the patch is released, the experience points you’ll receive after playing games in Cooperative and Versus modes will not only count toward your overall player level, but carry over toward progress and rewards for the Heroes you use during those matches, as well. Better still, you’ll no longer need to reach player level 10 with the Leveling System in order to start leveling up your favorite Heroes. Instead, you’ll begin earning XP toward Hero progress with your very first game — Even if you’re starting from scratch with a brand new account! Hero Rewards Each Hero begins at level 1, and the more you play with a particular Hero, the closer you’ll get toward his or her next level. Progress caps at level 10 for each Hero, and every level after the first will unlock rewards that are specific to that hero. The table below details which rewards you’ll earn at each Hero Level: <center>
Hero Level
Reward
1
Heroes Start Here
2
Second Heroic Ability
3
Six Additional Talents
4
All Remaining Talents
5
500 Gold
6
Hero Portrait / Mount Variation 1
7
Skin Variation 1
8
Skin Variation 2
9
Hero Master Portrait / Mount Variation 2
10
Master Skin Unlocked
</center> There’s quite a bit of information there, so let’s break down a few rewards that you may not be familiar with yet: Heroic Ability Following the patch, each Hero will begin with one Heroic Ability, and the second can be unlocked by reaching Level 2. Talents Talents are no longer completely unlocked for all Heroes at once by achieving player level 8. Instead, each Hero begins with two Talent choices available at each tier of in-game Talent selection. Six additional Talents, one for each tier, can be unlocked by reaching Hero Level 3. All of a Hero’s remaining Talents will become available at Hero level 4. Hero Portraits Hero Portraits are now unlocked on an individual basis by reaching level 6 with each Hero. Upon reaching Level 9, you’ll unlock that Hero’s Master Portrait, which features a shiny golden border. Skin Variations At levels 7 and 8, you’ll unlock Skin variations. With these, each Skin you own (including a Hero’s base model) offers three different options for customizing the look of your Hero in-game, for free! Mount VariationsMount variations will unlock at Hero levels 6 and 9. Much like Skin variations, Mount variations allow you to customize the steeds you ride into combat.Master Skin At level 10, you’ll unlock the ability to purchase a Hero’s Master Skin with Gold, which you can use to show off your prowess with that Hero in-game. Just like other Skins, a Master Skin features two variations, which you’ll have already unlocked by reaching level 10. This means that once you’ve purchased a Hero’s Master Skin, you’ll immediately be able to use its variations in-game. It is also important to note that any Hero Quests which are completed prior to our next patch will count toward Hero Levels, but partial Hero Quest progress will be lost.
For example, if a Hero’s first Quest is already complete prior to the patch, that Hero will begin at level 2. If all six of a Hero’s Quests are completed, that Hero will begin at level 7.
Additionally, if a Hero’s second Quest was only halfway complete prior to the patch, progress will be reset, and that Hero will begin at level 2.
Leveling System and Rewards
Taking a look at the Rewards tab above, you can see that our next patch will bring a host of changes to Leveling System Rewards in Heroes of the Storm. As before, you can still earn Gold by leveling up, and you’ll receive 1,000 Gold for reaching levels 2 and 4. We’ve also made a few changes to the rewards unlocked at levels 8, and 10. Not only have we moved the free Hero rotation slot reward from level 7 to level 8, but we’ve also added a second slot that you can unlock by reaching level 10. This means that you’ll be able to choose from among seven free rotation Heroes for any given game, at any time! Additionally, we read feedback from a number of players who mentioned that they’d like to see rewards added above level 10, so we’ve added a 2,000 Gold reward to level 12, and levels 20, 25, 30, and 35 now offer 3,000 Gold each! You may have also noticed an “Artifacts” reward pictured at level 15 above, but we’ll have much more information to share on that in the coming days. Kindly note that all partial progress made toward the next player level prior to patch day will be lost.
For example, if you were halfway toward reaching player level 21, you will be reset back to the start of level 20 following the release of our next patch.
Let’s take a look an exciting new way to earn Gold in the next Tech Alpha patch.
Daily Quests and Gold
Many of you who frequent our forums have mentioned that opportunities to earn Gold in Heroes felt rather infrequent at times. We definitely heard your feedback, and after the patch, you’ll receive Gold for completing matches in Cooperative and Versus game modes! Every Cooperative game you win will award you with 10 Gold; while Versus games will net you 10 Gold for losses, and 40 Gold for wins. What’s more, quite a few of you have also let us know that you’d like the ability to complete Daily Quests outside of Versus matchmaking. We’re happy to share that, thanks to your comments, you’ll be able to progress toward and complete Daily Quests in both the Cooperative and Versus game modes alike after the patch. In order to help account for this change, we’ve decided to slightly rebalance the amount of Gold awarded by Daily Quests. Rather than offering 250 or 500 Gold on completion, all Daily Quests after the patch will instead award 200 Gold.
End of Game Screen
Along with the myriad of changes mentioned above, we’ve also reworked how you’ll experience Leveling System progression, and made a lot more information available to you on the end-of-game Score Screen. We’ve added a navigation bar to the top of the screen, which features four new tabs: Summary, Stats, Quests, and Rewards. Let’s take a look at what each of these tabs has to offer: Summary After completing a game in any mode, you’ll land directly on the Summary page, which is where you’ll be able to see the fruits of your labor from your most recent game.
All of the experience points and Gold you earned from your most recent match, as well as any rewards you’ve unlocked, will be counted up and detailed for you in the center of the screen.
The large blue progress bar keeps track of your Hero’s current level, the XP you earned toward the next Hero level, and displays your next Hero level reward to the right.
Similarly, the purpleprogress bar tracks your current player level, the XP you’ve earned toward your next level, and displays your next player level reward to the right.
If you’re ever curious about which reward is coming up next, hover the mouse over the reward icons to the right of each progress bar to get a brief description.
Stats The Stats page is essentially the end-of-game Score Screen you’ve become familiar with in previous Heroes of the Storm builds. Much like before, you’ll still be able to see Takedowns, Deaths, Battleground Mechanic scores for each player, as well as elapsed game time, and XP earned during the previous match. Quests The Quests page offers another a look at all of the Daily Quests that are currently available to you in case you’d like to quickly check out which Quest to complete next before hitting the Play Again button in the lower left corner of the screen. Rewards The Rewards page displays all of the rewards you earned during the previous match.
That just about does it for our Progression System and reward changes in the next patch. Thank you once more for helping us test during this phase of the Tech Alpha. Your constructive input over the past few weeks has gone a long way toward helping us shape the changes we made for the impending patch. If you’d like to share more of your thoughts with us, be sure to drop by the Heroes forums and contribute there. Stay tuned right here at HeroesoftheStorm.com over the next few days to catch more exciting information about what’s coming to the Technical Alpha. Finally, don’t forget to drop by our live Developer Insights broadcast, starting at 11:00 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, July 22. If you’d like to submit a question for the Q&A portion of the show, kindly submit your queries to @BlizzHeroes using #HeroesQA on Twitter.
