Editorials GameMAG.ru managed to talk with the developers World of warcraft within the framework of the round table before leaving World of Warcraft: Shadowlands… The technical director answered our questions and those of our colleagues from other publications about the development of the legendary MMORPG Patrick Dawson and senior level designer Sarah Bowlian Verral… See below for the most interesting answers.
How much was the work on the locations for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands different from creating locations in other parts of Azeroth? What did you focus on and what were your inspirations?
That’s a good question. Shadowlands is markedly different from other extensions we’ve worked on before. The closest parallels can be drawn with the Burning Crusade, which was released a long time ago. Then we also tried to create something more extraterrestrial.
With Shadowlands, we’ve pondered some really high ideas. What is it like to go to the world of the dead, how it can be visualized, how it can be worked with and how it can all be looked at. On the aesthetic side, it took us a long time to make final decisions, especially trying to give new locations a unique mood that sets them apart from other places in Azeroth and conveys the idea that this time around is not happening in Azeroth at all.
When it comes to sources of inspiration, we looked at a variety of directions. We looked at stock images on different image hosting sites and discussed how to give familiar landscapes a touch of something atypical, distant, for example, showing objects in unusual shades or floating in the air.
In the case of Bastion, let’s say we liked the idea of creating a place soaring in the clouds, which we have never done before. And through this place we decided to stretch such gusts of ephemeral wind, which means that the creation of all the elements had to be approached by hand, giving them even more strength than usual. We had never created anything of this scale before, so we faced a number of technical difficulties.
But in general, fresh locations are something extremely unique, new, exciting and challenging. I am very proud of the world that we have managed to bring to life.
It’s hard to ignore the COVID-19 situation. How has the pandemic affected Blizzard Entertainment? How much has changed for you and how do you deal with the difficulties now?
Yes, a lot has changed. COVID-19 has had a huge impact on the usual life, many had to switch to remote work, and in the shortest possible time. The transition has been challenging, but I really appreciate Blizzard’s support to ensure that we always have access to the materials we need to create great games that can bring at least a little joy to the lives of others who are in similar situations.
Therefore, we hope that users stuck at home due to the pandemic will find some kind of outlet in Shadowlands and enjoy the project.
Will allied races have the same deep customization options as the main races?
The fact that we managed to prepare for the start of Shadowlands in terms of advanced appearance settings is just the beginning. Our first step in trying to give you the ability to more subtly reflect your personality within the game, and this applies to all races at once.
Allied races are a fairly fresh innovation, so it didn’t seem to us that they should immediately create an in-depth customization system. It is possible that later we will revise this moment, but now preference has been given to traditional races.
According to the current edition of the World of Warcraft rules, the use of the Multiboxing technique (allowing one person to play simultaneously from several accounts) was punished with a ban. Why did you come to this decision only now?
We came to the decision to ban Multiboxing recently based on the feedback from the player community, as well as our own observations of how players use such systems.
Previously, only a small part of users resorted to such moments, playing in a way convenient for them, but now the economy and the availability of resources are under attack. In other words, Multiboxing begins to influence the entire audience at once, and this is wrong, so we decided to put a definite end to it, and urge all players to just unite together.
Throughout the history of World of Warcraft, players have battled countless powerful opponents and creatures, with certain narrative lines never being completed. Will Shadowlands be some kind of new beginning, focusing entirely on conflict never seen before, or will it continue previous story arcs?
Shadowlands is a brand new expansion, and we wanted to make sure all players had the opportunity to dive right in and out of its story, rather than waste time playing through old content.
We take the whole story very seriously, certain plots end, but leave behind noticeable imprints on the entire game world, which later may result in new interesting events.
Shadowlands marks a major new leap forward for World of Warcraft. Do you have any global plans to actively integrate new locations into the overall structure of Azeroth? Will there be a repeat of the situation with Warlords of Draenor, where territories from that expansion are empty today?
In fact, players keep returning to Draenor, closing missing content, or just looking at their favorite locations. But with Shadowlands, the situation is even more atypical, Darklands is a completely different world from Azeroth, so we think that players will want to return here too often.
But anyway, the stories we’ve written often reuse existing material, so Shadowlands is unlikely to be any exception.
What was the main reason for the introduction of “level squish”?
This was a very important decision for the team, given the current state of the game. We wanted to provide the most comfortable gaming experience for a new audience, for the same reason, a special location has appeared in Shadowlands where you can learn more about the most subtle mechanics without fear of getting lost in the huge amount of content created over the past 16 years.
Throwing newbies into the game and sharing their progress across old addons and different locations is not a good idea. Instead, we suggest that they focus on only one direction, give them a complete set of impressions, a single story.
Accordingly, to achieve this goal, we had to find a way to speed up the progression of the characters. By pumping to level 120, sometimes it turns out that you do not receive any special rewards, except for an increase in the numbers in the statistics. As you progress towards the 50-level ceiling, your every step makes sense, and we can properly stimulate the players. All in all, the new system is much more friendly to an audience that is not familiar with the game.
With the release of previous World of Warcraft add-ons, many players left, some of whom were disappointed with the general course of the game’s development. Do you think Shadowlands will be able to grab their attention again, forcing them to return to the project?
World of Warcraft never stands still, and this, I think, is our main strength. Each new addon brings with it something we haven’t done before. Some will be disappointed, some will not, but the release of extensions is always a mass of new content, which you can enjoy studying.
Personally, Shadowlands inspires us with the position that this addon makes a huge bet on the involvement of the players themselves. This time, you have a lot more choice in terms of how you see your hero, what place you want to find for him in the game world. This is a very powerful tool.
This is largely achieved through a covenant system that offers unique rewards, abilities, abilities, mechanics, and more. Not to mention the traditional World of Warcraft gameplay scenarios. We hope that players will want to return to the game and try everything we have prepared for them.
Has the pandemic had an impact on your creative processes or any subtleties of the gameplay?
No. Our workflow is like this … First we outline the general creative plan, which we took care of two years ago. Then the concepts and storyline sketches are being worked out. We managed to deal with all this long before March, when the pandemic struck.
Reflecting events from the real world in World of Warcraft is interesting, but in this case we did not prepare anything like that, with Shadowlands we wanted to tell a somewhat atypical story, an extraterrestrial story.
The Battle of Azeroth expansion has left some users frustrated, and it seems that with Shadowlands you wanted to fix some of the mistakes you made earlier. If so, what points did you highlight the most?
With Shadowlands, we really listened closely to the players in terms of key gameplay features and features that can be brought into play. A good example is the endless Torghast Tower, which has changed many times during development and is one of the most interesting ideas we have ever implemented in World of Warcraft.
Today, looking at the feedback from the players, starting with the earliest test clients, and seeing how much they enjoy the game, we are very proud of the result. I’m looking forward to the fans trying to beat the tower. I want to see how far they can go.
Is there any game mechanic that you, for one reason or another, was unable to implement in Shadowlands, and now regret it?
No, that was not the case. In the case of Shadowlands, we had very ambitious plans, and one of the main ideas was the covenant system. It is through their lens that we wanted you to now interact with World of Warcraft.
How long will it take for new players to complete the Shadowlands storyline, starting from level one?
Everyone plays in a different way, at their own pace. We have never calculated any conditional duration, instead we just wanted to tell an interesting story, present it to you in all its glory. This is what we paid the most attention to when thinking about new players.
As for the content, World of Warcraft is a bottomless game, it is impossible to finish with it. In turn, along with the Covenant, the endless tower, you will find even more interesting and challenging adventures, even different from what you could get used to before.
Traditionally, World of Warcraft has never had a strict division between “bad” and “good”. Will the game continue to adhere to this philosophy?
Our narrative varies greatly depending on the course chosen. Therefore, it is now difficult to say in which direction the plot will move on. It all depends on the place, characters, their destinies. Everything is very changeable, and we try not to stand still, we listen to the players. There are many nuances, and I hope that players will continue to closely follow the events in the game world.
How do you determine which types of hairstyles to add to the game?
We try to make different races as unique as possible by giving them our own identity. To do this, we work closely with the community to decide which cosmetic elements best fit in a particular case. It is important to make sure that players from different parts of the world can create a character that reflects themselves.
We have made significant progress in terms of the appearance of the characters, and now we can appreciate the excellent work of our players. This makes us very happy.
With a new crafting system coming to Shadowlands, are you worried that its introduction will diminish the feel of owning certain legendary items that you have obtained through your labor?
The creation of legendary items will still require a significant investment of forces and resources, and the ability to equip only one of them will definitely retain the feeling as if you have some truly unique artifact in your hands.
Material prepared Zellel and SomeRetard…
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Released November 24, 2023…
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