The second interview that took place today was over at Final Boss.TV! Again Zarhym and Celestalon joined them! Check out the transcript below, with a special thanks to Mario for transcribing it while it aired!
Jonathan Zarhym – JZ
Chadd Celestalon Nervig – CCN
Q: What do you do at Blizzard?
Title: WoW Senior Community Rep.
JZ – Is a weird title. Most people know us as Community Managers. Posting on Forums, Manage Official Pages (Face, Twitch, Youtube, Twitter), PR Marketing Campaigns, Community Feedback.We take seriously what we do.
Title: WoW Technical Game Designer
CCN – I work closely with the games mechanics designers. Systems design. I talk a lot with the core designers of the game. The main aspects of the game and how the class design and collaboration between the various departments that fine-tune the game experience.
I got started in Blizzard during WoTLK – during ICC. I was a theorycrafter. And back at that time, there were a lot of issues with “armor penetration”. So I created a few spreadsheets with numbers and calculations on the subject, to improve the mechanic of the game which seemed broken at the time. So I posted onto Blizzard pages and the next few days, I received a letter from Ghostcrawler that said: “Hey, I like your ideas, let’s have lunch”. And that’s how I ended at Blizzard.
Q: How do you feel about your job?
CCN – I think is important to follow what the community has to say about the game; I like talking to people and seeing what and how things are at all levels. Reason why I stay up late most of the time.
Q: Overall, does your information have a positive effect?
CCN – Absolutely yes. Players is what makes WOW alive and it inherently, makes the game better. We spend a lot of time on the patch notes to explain to the community everything about the changes or everything that we intend to do with the game. It helps the players to see the bigger picture with what we intend to do with the changes.
Reason also why we redesigned the patch notes format. People now can click directly on their class and skip down to that particular section, instead of reading through all the text.
On Sunday Zarhym and Celestalon are on to two other podcasts Convert to Raid and Final Boss.tv . And they are interviewed about the Warlords of Draenor Alpha. Check out the transcript from the Convert to Raid interview below. We might have missed some questions/answers but once the VoDs are up we’ll go back to see what is missing.
Convert To Raid:
Q: What is happening with the Alpha right now? How many people etc?
A: Right now it’s internal employee take home alpha. The reason we made the announcement, is that we plan on inviting a small amount of people soon. For that to happen the files need to be uploaded to battle.net. Which means that it could be datamined. So to not cause confusion we announced everything we have, so people know what’s going on.
Q: What does the roll out look as far as timing goes?
A: It’s still To Be Determined. The time frame is still uncertain. Even this week the announcement was delayed due to a problem with the 64bit client.
Q: Open beta, no open beta?
A: I don’t know. Generally it might be more limited than mists.
On time between Blizzcon and these patch notes:
Q: Did you guys encounter some problems? or was this the intended time line?
A: We didn’t want to step on D3 and Hearthstone’s thunder. But also the problems that occur like the client issues and builds that didn’t work. The stability of the builds is often suspect.
A: We have been in Alpha for a while now. It doesn’t mean much to the public but it’s still been a mile stone. All blizzard employees now have access to the Alpha, which in and of itself is a milestone.
As a second part to tonight’s announcement of the WoD Alpha, a gigantic amount of patch notes have been released. From ability removals to buff changes to system changes. Check out the full list here. See a highlight below:
Automatically Learned GlyphsWhile leveling, characters unlock Glyph slots at several specific levels. However, in order to get glyphs, characters need to visit an Auction House (and potentially pay way more gold than an average character of that level has yet), or know a Scribe from which to request them. To solve this, we’ve made characters learn some Glyphs automatically as they level.
All classes now learn some of their Major Glyphs as they level. Recipes for these Glyphs have been removed.
At level 25, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class:
At level 50, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class:
Might of Ursoc, Nature’s Grasp, Rebirth, Rejuvenation, Savagery, Mending, Chimera Shot, Black Ice, Polymorph, Spinning Crane Kick, Denounce, Divine Storm, Word of Glory, Reflective Shield, Smite, Mind Blast, Recuperate, Totemic Recall, Fear, Executor
At level 60, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class:
Dark Succor, Unholy Command, Death Grip
At level 75, the following Glyphs are automatically learned by characters of the appropriate class:
Death and Decay, Dash, Faerie Fire, Healing Touch, Master Shapeshifter, Misdirection, Slow, Frostfire Bolt, Water Elemental, Breath of Fire, Mana Tea, Fists of Fury, Light of Dawn, Final Wrath, Double Jeopardy, Penance, Renew, Dispersion, Ambush, Cheap Shot, Lightning Shield, Eternal Earth, Healthstone, Bull Rush, Enraged Speed, Shield Wall
Professions
Some of our goals with Professions in Warlords of Draenor are to make them more of a personal choice, and less of a mandatory “min/max” selection. To that end, we’re removing the direct combat benefits of Professions. Additionally, we’ve made it easier to level Mining and Herbalism. Healing Potions have gone mostly unused lately, compared to combat stat potions. We chose to solve that problem, along with a problem with Warlock utility, by having Healing Potions and Healthstones share cooldowns.
Herbalists can now harvest herbs throughout the game world without hard skill requirements. The yield an Herbalist will be able to harvest from each node is now determined by skill level.
Miners can now harvest mineral nodes in outdoor areas of the game world without hard skill requirements. The yield a Miner will be able to harvest from each node is now determined by skill level.
Healing Potions no longer share a cooldown with other potions, but instead share a 60-second cooldown with Healthstones. The cooldown will not reset until the player leaves combat.
Before we talk about Challenge Modes. The battle.net desktop app now supports chatting with friends that are also online on the desktop app or in blizzard games!
Now onto Challenge Modes.. You can read the 2 updates below, the most important one being that if you have 1 phoenix mount, you’ll get access to all 4 once the Challenge Mode season ends!
Countless adventurers continue to brave the most trying versions of Mists of Pandaria dungeons, but the clock is ticking. This “season” of Challenge Modes will be coming to an end with the upcoming release of a patch prior to the expansion’s release.Challenge Modes are designed to offer as close to a “normalized” difficulty as possible, and they’re tuned to be tough to master. With Warlords of Draenor’s class changes, itemization changes (e.g. the removal of Hit and Expertise), and—of course—increased level cap on the horizon, the difficulty of Mists of Pandaria’s dungeons will no longer be tuned the same as they were. In the spirit of fair play, when the aforementioned patch is released a little while before the new expansion launches, the current slate of Challenge Mode dungeons will no longer be available, and the achievements they award will be converted to Feats of Strength. The reward items will still be available for purchase by those who qualified prior to the end of the season, but it will not be possible for new players to earn those rewards going forward.If you still need to earn your Undaunted title, Ancestral Phoenix, or class-specific Transmogrification sets, now’s the time to get out there and prove your worth. In Warlords of Draenor, an entirely new set of Challenge Modes will be available . . . and with them an array of new rewards for you to earn. Until then, stay sharp!
* Reward Clarifications
With the upcoming end of the Challenge Mode Season, we wanted to provide some additional clarification on how we plan to handle rewards.
Achievements: All Achievements associated with Mists of Pandaria Challenge Modes will become Feats of Strength.
Rewards
Bronze: The “Undaunted” title for achieving a full set of Bronze medals will become account-wide.
Silver: The Pandaren Phoenix mounts awarded for a full set of Silver medals will become account-wide. If any character on an account has earned a full set of Silver medals, all four variants of the Pandaren Phoenix (Crimson, Ashen, Violet, and Emerald) will become available to all characters account-wide.
Gold: The cosmetic class sets will remain character-specific. Any character that has earned all nine Gold medals will still be able to repurchase the appropriate set, should they misplace theirs, from Challenger Soong or Challenger Wuli in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Any characters that have earned one or more “Challenger’s Path” teleport spells by earning Gold medals in Mists Challenge Modes will retain those spells.
Realm Best Titles: There are extremely limited titles that are held by the players who hold the best clear time for a given dungeon on a given server. Since those Challenge dungeons will no longer be available in Warlords of Draenor, their respective titles are also being permanently removed. There will be new Challenge dungeons in the upcoming Warlords season, and new titles for which to contend, however.
We do recognize the effort and skill that went into seeking and obtaining realm-best times in the current Challenge Mode season. As noted above, the titles were a mid-season addition this time around, and we did not do a great job of setting expectations and ground rules for how they would be handled going forward. Because the competitive landscape was already well-established going into patch 5.4 when the titles became available, setting a record time was particularly challenging, and anyone who managed to set a realm-best time has accomplished something worthy of lasting recognition. We are going to add a new title, Mistwalker, which will be awarded in patch 6.0 to any character who earned one of the “Challenge Master” Feats of Strength during the Mists of Pandaria Challenge Mode season (this title will not be account-wide).The dungeon-specific titles will still be removed in patch 6.0 as previously announced. As setting record times for a fresh slate of dungeons will not initially be nearly as difficult (by definition the first group to complete a given Challenge Mode in Warlords will have the best time on their realm), we will not be awarding any permanent titles for setting record times in Warlords. There will be a new set of dungeon-specific titles for Warlords Challenge Modes, which will indicate the current record holder(s) on a server, and which will be removed if and when that Challenge season ends.
The moment is finally here! Warlords of Draenor has entered Friends and Family Alpha testing! Not only that but in the announcement blizzard has declared we should be getting more information in the near future!
We’ve been hard at work on World of Warcraft®: Warlords of Draenor™, and today we’ve entered the Alpha phase of our expansion testing. As part of this, we’ll begin using public servers to host the data, which means you may begin seeing some datamined information show up in the usual places.One of our goals for this very early stage of the Alpha is to test out some new technology in the wild with employees and friends and family, including a new file format called CASC (more on that below). As such, the expansion content available during this first phase will be quite limited—many of the expansion’s major features, such as Garrisons, won’t be available until a later point in the testing process. This early phase of testing will help us ramp up for our larger beta phase later on, when we’ll be inviting more players.
Introducing Our New File Format: CASC
For nearly 20 years, Blizzard games have used a file format called Mo’PaQ (MPQ for short) as a way to compress and store game files. We’ve been able to introduce some great new technology using MPQ, such as our streaming client, but we’ve really pushed the file format far beyond what it was ever intended to be used for. Today, it’s become the source of a number of technical limitations for World of Warcraft.To address these limitation and help us develop new technologies that will improve everyone’s game experience for years to come, we’re introducing a new proprietary file format that we call CASC (Content Addressable Storage Container). We’ll be using this new format in the Warlords of Draenor alpha and beta tests, and our intent is to convert everyone to the new format in a pre-expansion patch.
As geeky as it may sound, we’re extremely excited to be moving to this new file format. It provides a ton of benefits not only for us and our ability to support and patch the game, but also for players. Here are just a few of the benefits of the new CASC file format:
File Corruption—File repair tools are a thing of the past. The file structure maintains itself, helping to prevent errors during installation.
Speed—Real-world game performance should increase for many players thanks to a non-redundant file structure—in layman’s terms, the game can find the assets it’s looking for more quickly.
Patching—Updating your game files should be faster and more reliable. Patch data is integrated seamlessly, and no longer requires double the installation size on-disk when patching.
Client Hotfixing—CASC allows us to be able to hotfix client game data, similar to server hotfixes, giving us the ability to address client-side issues that would normally require a patch.
Streaming—The new format provides better support for streaming data and gives us greater flexibility to define how content updates are delivered and released.
Expandable—The file structure is built to allow easy integration of new technologies in the future that we haven’t even thought up yet.
. . . and more!
We’re already using this file format for Heroes of the Storm’s Technical Alpha test, and we’re looking forward to reaping its benefits for WoW. As we mentioned, the first big step in transitioning all WoW players over will be converting everyone’s World of Warcraft installs to the new file format prior to the expansion. Our goal is to make sure that’s as seamless and painless a changeover as possible, using as much of the existing installed data as possible to reduce additional downloads. We’ll have more info on the file conversion process as we get closer to the launch of Warlords of Draenor.
Signing Up for Beta
We’re still early in the Alpha testing process, but if you’re interested in opting in for a chance to participate in the Warlords of Draenor beta test later down the line, let us know you’re interested by creating a beta profile. To do so, log in to your Battle.net® account, go to Beta Profile Settings to download and run the Battle.net System Check tool, and submit (or update) your computer’s specifications. From the Beta Profile menu, make sure that Warcraft is checked, and update your beta preferences. You’re now eligible to be randomly selected for a Warlords of Draenor beta invite at a later stage of the testing process.
Account Security Reminder
As interest grows for the upcoming Warlords of Draenor expansion, please be aware of phishing attempts. Unscrupulous individuals (possibly working for the Iron Horde) may send out falsified emails purporting to be from Blizzard, but are in fact meant to steal your login credentials. For more information on how to identify these emails please refer to our Battle.net® Account Security site.
Stay tuned for more information as development and testing progresses for Warlords of Draenor™. This is just the beginning and we’ll have more information to share with you in the near future!
Welcome to Artcraft! I’m Chris Robinson, senior art director for World of Warcraft, and today we’ll be discussing the revamp of the female Draenei model. In this blog, we’ll touch on how we approached this redesign, show before and after images, and talk about our art process with this particular model.
When we first discussed throwing away the old model and making a new female Draenei from scratch, one topic that kept coming up was the connection between the Lost Ones and the Draenei; visually, there wasn’t one. We wanted to help a player understand, more viscerally, the connection between the Lost Ones, and their seemingly perfect cousins—the Draenei. Ready to challenge long-standing design conceits, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.
Lead Character artist Tyson Murphy explains: “The original model was never very popular among players, and while certainly there are the few who dearly love playing a female Draenei, we felt like we needed to start over. The best way for us to do that was pretty clear from the start: rely on the lore. I wanted to create a new face that got across the idea that this was someone you know, the proverbial “blue space demon next-door”, while playing up her connection to the Lost Ones. We brought out her eyes, created a more natural “Lost Ones” jaw line, brought her waistline in to more realistic proportions, and took the hairline up to create some visual parity with the male designs.”
Lead Animator Steve Aguilar:
“A lot of what we try to accomplish with art in the game is to tell a visual story through the textures, props, and animation, giving you a sense of what something is without having to outright explain it through text or voice. Most people forget that the original Draenei survivors on the Exodar came from one specific mountain family clan, and the Draenei female you know and love was actually conceived en route to Azeroth. We wanted to rough up her edges a bit, and tell a story that has been told many times before—the story of a rebellious young girl cooped up on her family’s floating crystal ship that’s just crashed on a fantastical planet. When you get your hands on Warlords of Draenor, be sure to take a look at some of the unique emotes the animation team has created for her. Some of my favorites are: /twerk, /ew, /chewgum, and /whatever. Also keep in mind that the models shown here are using a temporary pose, which may make her appear more animated and lively than she will in the final product.”
Character Artist Dusty Nolting adds:
“The Draenei, like all of the game’s races except the humans, are essentially anthropomorphic representations of animals, so a lot of care went into conveying that. Playing up the capra-like slender reverse-ankle and hoof, and adding tasteful amounts of fur, were both changes players have been asking for since Burning Crusade. We also know a lot of you have been requesting full “back side” shots to properly compare the before and after. Hopefully this helps!”
That’s all we have for the female Draenei right now. We hope you continue to enjoy this series as we invite you to meet the team, get insight into our development process, and sneak early looks at some of the art we’re creating for Warlords of Draenor.
The new hero Pajamathur was presented today. You can check out his amazing abilities and other details here. Let’s hope this will become a Abathur skin!
Throughout our history, we’ve sought to bring epic experiences to gamers around the world. StarCraft II has seen Jim Raynor, Sarah Kerrigan, and Zeratul as the focal points of epic adventures across the universe. As we move toward our third chapter for StarCraft II, we’ve come to feel that a fresh approach is needed to keep the experience as immersive as possible. Accordingly, we’ve decided to realign the focus of the Protoss story to reveal this mysterious race in all its power and glory. Therefore, we’re happy to announce that the next expansion will feature the Protoss story through the eyes of Artanis, the Hierarch of the sage Templar, and it will be titled StarCraft II: Herald of the Stars.
Herald of the Stars will feature a revolutionary non-linear campaign. It can be played backwards, forwards, with any mission in any order, or not played at all, while still delivering the exact same life-affirming storyline.
Writers James Waugh and Justin Dye said,
“We don’t want to give away too many details of the plot at this point, but rest assured we will answer the important questions you’ve always wanted to know about the Protoss, and we plan to do so in excruciatingly specific detail. “What do they eat?” “How do they breathe?” “Do they breathe?” “Hold on – they surely breathe, or how do they oxygenate their blood?” “You know what, I’m sorry I asked about the whole breathing thing… this is going massively off-track.””
New weapons! New units! New armors! New hairstyles on the Stalkers! Customize the color of your lasers so long as you’re okay with 10 different shades of blue! A dance editor? Yes. Sure! A dance editor!
Will Artanis save all of the multiverses from utter annihilation? It’s up to you and all of the other Twitch viewers who are in chat at the time!
While the motivation for this change ultimately stems from our desire create the most epic gaming experiences ever, there’s more behind this decision. As you might expect, Blizzard Entertainment is constantly researching the aspects of our games that our community of players enjoy. One thing that has unexpectedly come to our attention is our audience’s love for the acronym HotS. With recent successful titles Heart of the Swarm, Heroes of the Storm, and Hearth (of the) Stone, we took notice of players’ absolute love for this particular string of letters. This caused us to reconsider everything, and the results were nothing short of spectacular.
Long-time Blizzard Head of Trend Studies Jack Sterling said,
“At Blizzard, we constantly strive for optimization. Over the last few years, through deep market analysis, ethnographic study, and highly advanced acoustic research, we have come to scientifically prove that the player community prefers games with titles that form the following acronym: HotS. We were amazed. It’s quite unexpected. For some reason, people just synergize with the acronym HotS. In one study, 87% of respondents choose the HotS acronym over another random video game acronym. People seem to like how easy it is to say, how attractive they feel when saying it, and the sudden rise in body temperature associated with such an impactful acronym. Other than that, it’s baffling, but it’s awesome at the same time!”
Senior Game Designer David Kim also voiced his excitement about the new name.
“From a design perspective, we want to create new and exciting experiences for our players, while making it as easy as possible for new or returning players to try the game out. HotS is a well-known name at this point with lots of awareness in the gaming community. Switching over to an entirely new acronym for our next expansion creates an entry-barrier that just felt unnecessary. When players upgrade from HotS to HotS, that transition will be as smooth as possible!”
Senior Game Producer Hony Tsu had this to say about HotS:
“Developing the StarCraft II franchise puts a lot of responsibility on us at Blizzard. There were many creative hurdles between Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void, and we just love the acronym HotS. We’ve spent so many hours of time searching for names in the past. In fact, more than half of the time we spend in development is on hair-brained, outlandish, theory-crafted suggestions from random co-workers. With Herald of the Stars, our team saves not only frustration and time, but we get to hold on to superior acronyms. It’s hard, on the spot data that can’t be contested. HotS is like a … hug of the soul. HotS will hugely overhaul the sacred naming conventions of our games. I just realized that thanks to my name – Hony Tsu – my e-mail address is [email protected]. That just makes heaps of total sense.”
In a rather unexpected move blizard has now allowed players to group up for Siege of Orgrimmar Normal and Heroic crossrealm! This change is already live in the US and should go live in the other regions in the next few days.
We’ve recently implemented an often requested feature to enable cross-realm raiding for Siege of Orgrimmar. Cross-realm BattleTag™ and Real ID friends can now raid together and take the fight to Garrosh on Normal or Heroic difficulty. Players will be able to earn greater rewards such as Reins of the Kor’kron War Wolf or the title of Conqueror/Liberator of Orgrimmar; both of which aren’t available to be earned within Flexible or Raid Finder difficulty.
Current-tier Mythic raiding in Warlords will still be limited to players from a single server. In the meantime, though, this change may help guilds that are trying to recruit and grow in preparation for Mythic raiding.
As for realm firsts, realm firsts are guild achievements; you need to be in a guild group, which is by definition 8/10 or 20/25 members coming from a single guild on a single server. You could theoretically have a couple of guests from a different server and still claim the realm first, but ultimately 80% of the group still has to be from the same guild.
