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Tom Chilton: Blizzard had hoped to have Warlords out a couple of months ago
In a recent interview with Icy Veins, Tom Chilton talked about Warlords of Draenor and one of the things he mentioned that struck me immediately was that Blizzard was hoping to have Warlords out by now. Specifically, a few months ago. We did a good job earlier in Mists of Pandaria, having the content come at a more frequent intervals, and certainly we had hoped to have Warlords of Draenor out a couple of months ago. The reality is that scaling up the number of people that we have, to work on multiple projects at once has slowed us down. Honestly, it should have not come as a surprise to us. We increased the size of the team by 50% and the majority of those people had never worked on World of Warcraft before or any other MMO, so it is really difficult for them to create content right away, without getting up to speed. This echoes what other developers have said in interviews and it interests me because one of the things we've bemoaned is the huge drought in content between the end of Siege of Orgrimmar and now - if they'd intended to have Warlords out in June, that would have been a fairly reasonable amount of time for a new expansion, really. (September to June is 10 months, long, but much more reasonable) and the idea that just throwing people at development doesn't immediately bring more content because they have to learn what they're doing makes sense. I still feel like it's been a heck of a dry spell, all things considered. I really would like to see the alternate timeline where Warlords released in June.
Warlords of Draenor: Final boss revealed
In his interview with Vanion.eu at this year's Gamescom, Tom Chilton has revealed the identity of the final boss for Warlords of Draenor. Watch the embedded video to hear it from Chilton himself (this spoiler begins at 11:00), or click on to read about it behind the cut. You ready for some spoilers? Okay!
Tom Chilton talks mistakes and successes in WoW design
In case you hadn't heard, Gamescon is going on over in Germany, and Blizzard has a good chunk of representatives over there giving interviews, showing off Hearthstone, and talking about all kinds of stuff. If you're familiar with Blizzard interviews, one thing that becomes apparent over the years is the way they're willing to talk openly about design decisions that they consider to have been a mistake. You may remember the furious storm in a teacup that accompanied the statement that the implementation of Arena PvP was, in retrospect, something they regretted. Well, over at PCGamesN they've got a similarly candid interview up with Lead Designer Tom Chilton about the limitations of questing, dailies, and secondary professions.
Patch 5.4, flexible raids, dailies and more with Tom Chilton
Patch 5.4 is nearing completion, and soon we'll see the Siege of Orgrimmar and the fate of Garrosh Hellscream on live servers. But 5.4 has much more to offer than the raid itself -- we'll have plenty of other content to play through as well. Featuring new pets, new mounts, a new raid difficulty and much, much more, patch 5.4 is shaping up to be a substantial addition to an already massive expansion. We had the opportunity to chat with Lead Game Designer Tom Chilton regarding all of the above, as well as plenty of other topics of contention in regards to both patch 5.4 and Mists of Pandaria as an expansion. Read on to hear what he had to say about Flexible raiding, the upcoming Connected Realms feature, the future of daily quests and the challenges of creating a raid out of a capital city.
Tom Chilton chats about what's coming in patch 5.3
We know Blizzard has a lot planned for patch 5.3, which could go live any time now. But to keep us busy while we wait for the next batch of new WoW content, Blizzard Insider has posted an interview with Game Director Tom Chilton. Though the interview mostly summarizes what we already know about the upcoming patch, it provides a great overview of what's coming with a bit of added insight Blizzard's development thought process. Covered in the interview are how the devs felt patch 5.2 performed, the storyline of patch 5.3, PvP changes and the new battleground, new scenarios (and heroic scenarios), gear and the ability to choose which spec you'd like gear for, and visible pet battles. The patches are certainly coming our way quickly. Are you looking forward to patch 5.3 or still working on patch 5.2?
Blizzard developer interviews
After WoW Insider's Anne Stickney rounded off Blizzard's Developer Interview schedule with her chat to Cory Stockton and Dave Kosak, discussing patch 5.1, brawler's guild, lore, dailies, proving grounds, scenarios and player housing, WoW Insider thought we should bring together all the interviews in the recent set. Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street: Legendary, GAMEBREAKER.tv Ghostcrawler discusses raiding, PvP, alts, reputation, dailies and cross realm zones with the Legendary hosts. All Things Azeroth Design, Cataclysm vs. Mists, patch 5.2 release schedule, classes, transmogrification changes. Wowjuju Brawler's guild, daily quests, transmogrification, 10man vs 25man, the gear grind, pet gear for battle pets? Lead Encounter Designer Ion Hazzikostas Convert2Raid Scenarios, challenge modes, Brawler's Guild, dailies, and, of course, raids. Method Coming soon! Lead Content Designer Cory "Mumper" Stockton: Curse Coming soon! Warcraft Pets Pet design process, pets in future expansions, pet battles, potential for pet gender and breeding, pet model updates, "boss" pets Lead Quest Designer Dave Kosak Darkmoon Herald Hidden quests, easter eggs, phasing, lore, future questing changes, interesting activities, tillers, dailies. Wowhead Patch 5.1 factions, brawlers' guild, scenarios and their lore involvement, dailies, alts, faction grinds, cooking changes. Lead Designer Tom Chilton ArenaJunkies Coming soon! Mists of Pandaria is here! The level cap has been raised to 90, many players have returned to Azeroth, and pet battles are taking the world by storm. Keep an eye out for all of the latest news, and check out our comprehensive guide to Mists of Pandaria for everything you'll ever need to know.
The MMO Report: Catackalysm special
First things first, to really understand this week's intro to The MMO Report, you need to do a wee bit of homework, assuming you don't already get the reference in the title anyway. Pop over here and watch this user-created video about the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion. We'll wait. OK, all caught up? Great. Off we go then! This week, Casey is joined by the lovely (and World of Warcraft-addicted) Morgan Webb, who sits down with Game Designer Tom "Kalgan" Chilton for a chat about the myriad things that have come in Cataclysm. Sure, it's chock-full of the normal things one would expect, like talk about things players both old and new will be experiencing in the expansion. Morgan also gets Tom to tell us more about some of his favorite quests in the revamped areas, as well as a bit more insight into Blizzard's development cycles for this expansion -- certainly a hot topic this week. In all, this will definitely be a treat for any World of Warcraft loving gamer. We've tucked the video behind the break for your enjoyment, or you can catch The MMO Report every Thursday on G4TV.
BlizzCon 2010: Day 2 round-up
Day 2 at BlizzCon 2010 saw the two most traditionally popular panels (the class Q&A and the general Q&A) go live, but there was plenty at the convention to keep you busy even if you were among the two or three people there not interested in developer panels. Liveblogs We liveblogged the World of Warcraft class Q&A and the World of Warcraft open Q&A panels and transcribed two previously unannounced DirecTV interviews with Greg Street (Ghostcrawler) and Tom Chilton. If you're looking for player complaints, developer snark or news on future game changes, you'll find 'em here. People, interviews and events Matticus caught up with Andy Salisbury for a preview the WoW magazine's third issue, and Anne Stickney interviewed both Richard Knaak and Christie Golden. Robin Torres put together a gallery of the items Blizzard auctioned off to benefit Child's Play, one of them a painting of characters in the upcoming DC Horde comic series. We also took lots of pictures of this year's art gallery. On a non-Blizzard note, someone took a nasty spill during Friday's dance contest. Friday recaps Lisa Poisso observed some happy realm meetups, we recapped an impressive costume contest, and Matticus wrote about the live raid and Paragon's ill-fated defense of Orgrimmar. Future content The Emerald Dream (or should we say Emerald Nightmare?) was confirmed as a future addition during the general Q&A. We don't know if it's going to be an expansion, a patch, a raid or something else, but developers promise that seeing it "is a matter of when, not if." New worgen cinematic The cinematic panel was a lovely peek at how the Blizzard team created the recently released Cataclysm cinematic, but it was also notable for the debut of long-missing cutscene that will power the Gilnean leveling experience forward. Revenge of the login dragon Angry about being voted out in favor of players' favorite candidate for warchief, Abesik Kampfire, the "login dragon" makes an ear-shattering return for the Cataclysm login screen. Closing ceremonies The Warcraft III and StarCraft II tournament winners were crowned (the WoW tournament was still in progress), and Paul Sams, Blizzard's chief operating officer, even started to talk a little about the company's new MMO ... or so we thought. %Gallery-105863% %Gallery-105843% %Gallery-105842% %Gallery-105858% BlizzCon 2010 is upon us! WoW Insider has all the latest news and information. We're bringing you liveblogging of the WoW panels, interviews with WoW celebrities and attendees and of course, lots of pictures of people in costumes. It's all here at WoW Insider!
