BlizzCon 2013: Updates on the level 90-100 questing experience
Craig Amai, Lead Quest Designer, sat down with other developers on the WoW gameplay and systems panel to discuss the future of questing in Warlords of Draenor. We learned more about the level 90-100 experience as well as Blizzard's plans for max level PvE content outside of dungeons and raids.
Level 90-100 questing
There will be key story related quests in each zone involving major lore characters.
The optional quests are entirely separate, so people who only want to progress through the zone's story have fewer quests to do and can instead get more of their XP in dungeons or elsewhere.
There will be dynamic world events and treasures similar to the Timeless Isle while you are leveling.
One example of a dynamic event: You encounter an Iron Horde caravan entrenched in the snow. It's being dug out by the escorts, and if you kill them you will be able to loot the chest on the caravan.
All quests have a chance to grant rare or epic items as rewards.
Quest UI changes
Story progress of the current zone will display beside your world map.
The map will show where the next story quest is, and where other quest hubs can be found.
Events happening in the zone will dynamically update on the map to draw your attention.
Also worth noting from a previous panel that quest items no longer take up bag space. On-use items are only activated from the quest tracker UI.
Level 100 content
Warlords of Draenor will be the death of daily quests. They will still exist, but they'll be few and far between.
Blizzard likes content that unlocks over the course of several weeks based on player participation.
They also really like how the Timeless Isle turned out.
They want to marry both of these methods to give players free-form content with long, progressive story lines evolving over weeks or months.
There was a mention of having more environmental gameplay similar to the Troves of the Thunder King scenario.
As someone who does most of his leveling via questing, I am extremely excited about all this. The idea of questing but also running into Timeless Isle style rares and events along the way sounds awesome to me. What do you think of these changes?
