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Chilton content to endorse multi-boxing
Belfaire already explained previously that Blizzard's okay with the idea of multi-boxing, whether it's for PvE use or even to compete in the Arena. In the same Eurogamer interview that discusses the new phasing technology, Tom Chilton reinforces that Blizzard is "content to endorse multi-boxing to some reasonable degree." Eurogamer was focused on the possible abuses of Blizzard's Recruit-a-Friend program, and the speed with which players can create and level new accounts. Chilton says that if someone wants to drop the bucks on a new account -- not only the retail fees, but also the subscription cost -- then Blizzard's okay with that. J. Allen Brack immediately brings the discussion back to a point I've previously made -- the idea is really to help players get ready for the new expansion. You can bring in a friend or family, and get them to a level where they can play with other friends very quickly. They want new players to be able to "roll a Death Knight and be ready to go." Now, Chilton did say the endorsement only goes to a "reasonable degree." I suspect if we see vast abuse of multi-boxing in multiple areas of play, the endorsement might quickly be repealed or re-focused. But, for now at least, Chilton has confirmed Belfaire's statement -- Blizzard's okay with multi-boxing.
Blizzard interview focuses on Wrath and the changing player experience
As the Wrath of the Lich King expansion gets closer to release, World of Warcraft players have a number of questions about how the game experience is going to change for them as the title moves forward. Co-lead designer Tom Chilton and producer J. Allen Brack spoke with Oli Welsh from Eurogamer at the Games Convention in Leipzig, about where the Blizzard title is now, and where it's heading. The interview touched on how Blizzard will handle instances in the Death Knight starting zone in Wrath of the Lich King, with Brack stating that instances won't actually be used. Rather, a player's environment will shift between different world states dependent upon quest progression. Other highlights of their talk include the design aspects of the hero class, faster leveling, and whether new players can really have the same experience that drew so many gamers to World of Warcraft years ago. Be sure to check out the Eurogamer interview for the full story on Wrath of the Lich King, particularly the Achievement system and how Blizzard feels about its growing competition. One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!
Brack: Will Blizzard consider a graphical overhaul? "Yep, probably."
Chilton and Brack are just all kinds of talkative at the Leipzig Games Convention this year -- in addition to chatting with the buffed.de folks, they also sat down with Jeff Kaplan and Eurogamer, and the results of that conversation are now up on their site.They start out by talking about the changes with 10 and 25 man raiding, and Kaplan says plainly that the Burning Crusade endgame was just too plain hard: "We just had: 'OK, welcome to level 70, here's a brick wall. Maybe you can climb it.'" There will still be a hardcore endgame in Wrath, but it'll be later on, near the very end of the raiding ladder. They also describe Wrath as a "coming home" moment -- after an "exploratory" period in Outland, Wrath will be a return to Warcraft's tradition and lore. And perhaps most surprising, Brack actually lends a lot of credence to a question about a graphical overhaul "from the ground up." He says that by the next expansion they'll "probably" have to look at updating the graphics system completely.And finally, Blizzard believes that yes, even though it doesn't seem like it now, eventually there'll be something bigger than World of Warcraft. Brack's last word is an interesting look at the future: "Something will come along and WoW will be like EverQuest: a great game I played back in the day."[via WorldofWar.net]
A Hex on both your houses
Hex was announced for Shamans at the WWI and there's a little bit of confusion out there about Hex. That's okay -- Hex is a little confusing. As explained by the dev panel, Hex is meant as a kind of "emergency" crowd control -- used in the same situation you'd see a Hunter throw a Feign Death or Scatter Shot. A brief moment of "Oh, crap!" to defend yourself, and hopefully your tank (or arena team) will snag that sucker off you before you're dead.To sum up the spell, Hex transforms its target into a critter. It's fast, just short of an Instant -- Hex has a .5 second cast time. Here's where things get a little more confusing, and where some of the "what the..?" starts. According to some sources, the specifics of the spell read "while moving the hexed target cannot attack or cast spells." That means your victim can either walk, or they can fight. They can't do both at once, but they can still act. From Tom Chilton's description of the spell, a mob will likely completely freak out and be erratic. I took that to mean, however, that a player might be a frog -- but it'd still be pumping out damage or heals while ribbiting at you.In this sense, "Hex" isn't really crowd control -- it's a more a kind of debuff. It forces the subject to be either rooted in place, or unable to cast or attack, but it leaves the choice of which up to your victim. A new spell is still good news for the Shaman class, but it isn't quite the good news we have been hoping to hear.
How I learned to stop worrying and love Cyclone
You'd have expected a little more in-depth Arena discussion from the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational. You'd have been wrong, but you'd have expected it. We've covered the new Arena maps, but something from the Question and Answer periods really stuck out for me. What's the future of the Arena going to be like...for crowd control? Should we expect more, less, or about the same? What's going to happen to that naughty little Cyclone?The answer from Tom Chilton was predictable -- without crowd control in its various forms, Arena matches become little more than DPS races. Crowd control (and its cousin line of sight) helps Arena fights take a little longer, and introduces viable strategies that are based all around controlling the other team. (As opposed to just blowing them to heck.) But the forums are alive - alive! - with complaints about Cyclone, Sap, Sheep, and hell, even Scatter Shot. No sir, folks don't like crowd control. Often, it seems like they'd rather get killed than sheeped.I think it comes down to a pretty basic thing -- we have fun in these games by controlling our characters. Anything that jeopardizes the control of our characters on either a short-term or a long-term basis is therefore anathema. No one wants to stand there, helpless, while some Rogue performs their billionth stun on you. It seems to me (in my rosy-glassed retrospect) that we heard less complaints about insta-kill POM+Pyro than we do about a 3 second stun. Your mileage may vary, but I think until Blizzard finds some way around that dichotomy -- CC is good for interesting fights, bad for fun -- we're going to continue to see tumultuous forum fights about the issue. I'm forced to agree with Chilton -- crowd control adds a layer of strategy and depth to the tactics of the Arena. Still, I hope they do something about it.
WWI '08 Panel Analysis: PvP part II, New Arena Maps
Any discussion about World of Warcraft PvP nowadays inevitably involves Arenas. With the onset of Season 4 and its new rules and requirements, Arena play is getting more intense than ever. Of course, as the competition heats up, the cries of an imbalanced contest grow louder than ever. Blizzard seems to be aware of the issues and have taken some steps in the development of the Wrath of the Lich King to address class and spec viability.During the panel on "PvP Game Systems", however, lead designers Tom Chilton and Corey Stockton devoted most of their Arena discussion to the new maps rather than the hairy, and probably inconclusive, issue of class balance and representation. The new Arena maps follow Blizzard's philosophy of keeping things simple yet have room for innovation; having dynamic points of interest; having conceptually different starting areas; and leave allowance to make adjustments during development.
WWI '08 Notes from the PvP panel part 3
1:55: Time to talk Arenas. Design ideals for these are: Keep it simple Still leave room to innovate (keep it simple, but add some new twists) Dynamic points of interest (read: moving objects) Unique starting areas/events. Might put starting teams close to each other. Room to grow: we need to be able to make quest adjustments during beta 1:57: Stockton takes center stage again to talk about the two new arenas in Wrath: Dalaran and Orgrimmar.Dalaran Arena: Located in the sewers of Dalaran city. When Dalaran came over to Northrend, it took a large chunk of rock out of the ground with it, including the sewers.This environment seemed like a great fit for the arena. Dynamic line of sight: we can move objects in arenas and have the line of sight move with them. Think about the pillar in the Nagrand... and think if that pillar could move. We could make these move randomly or based on a specific timer. This can mix up the gameplay. Simple layout Mounts will not be usable. It's a small arena and wanted to let people get right into gameplay. There's a pipe in the center of the arena that water will occasionally pour out of. While the water is falling, it will block line of sight. It's a simple layout, but a few dynamic elements that will mix it up. There's a pipe on either side of the arena where each team will start, and a blast of water will push people out of the pipe early on.It's currently in playtesting.Orgrimmar Arena: There's been an arena in Orgrimmar for a long time in the Valley of Heroes, but Blizz has never done anything with it. Elevating pillars will create line of sight (on set timers -- there will be little wheels and gears on the side of the arena that will spin before the pillars move) Triggered objects that damage players (thinking as the pillars go down, a wall of spikes may come up -- you can get across them but you'll take some damage) Extremely close starting areas: players start on elevators that rise out of the ground ten yards apart from each other. The elevators will be surrounded by spikes that will drop a couple of seconds after the elevator reaches the top -- so you'll have a couple of seconds. Mounts will be allowed inside -- this arena is a bit larger than Dalaran. Thought this was the perfect place to get NPC spectators who cheer, etc. These dynamic elements will make each arena feel different. Not testing yet. NEXT: Northrend Battleground and Q&A ===>
WWI '08 Notes from the PvP panel part 2
1:46: Siege vehicles! Chilton covers five different types, all usable for both factions: The Demolisher: baseline vehicle. Has both short and long-range attacks and a ram attack. Can carry a driver and three passengers. (The passengers are exposed, can be targeted and attacked -- but it also means you can fight back!) Drive-by shootings. The driver is also the gunner. Forsaken Catapult: much quicker than The Demolisher (says Chilton: more agile). Not as long range as The Demolisher, doesn't do quite as much damage, doesn't carry any passengers, has a flame attack. Lowest cost vehicle. The Siege Engine: hardest-hitting and longest range vehicle. Carries a driver, gunner, and passengers (but not exposed -- which means they can't attack). Flying Machine: a flying vehicle that's very quick but fragile. Vulnerable to anti-air weaponry. Carries a pilot and a gunner. Goblin Shredder: an anti-air vehicle that fires rockets and can rocket boost yourself into the air to reach air vehicles (or jump over walls!). Essentially a personal armor suit -- if the suit is destroyed, you can jump out and keep fighting. Close-range melee attack. Vulnerable to siege vehicles. They're still considering how to obtain the vehicles, but they want the process to be fast-paced and fun. NEXT: Arena Design in Wrath ===>
WWI '08 Notes from the PvP panel part 4
2:09: Chilton comes up to talk about Northrend's new battleground Tital isle located off the southern coast of Dragonblight Attack/Defend gameplay, but a bit different since it's instanced. You play half the game on defense and half the game on offense, switching mid-fight. This battleground will have siege vehicles and destructible buildings Based on the Titan lore. A lot of Northrend circulates around Titan lore. 2:11: Stockton explains the layout. Attackers will come in on boats and assault the city. Siege vehicles will need to be used to break through the city's walls and break in. The further you get, you'll capture points allowing access to more siege weapons. They're currently planning it to be 10v10 or 15v15. They BG is currently being play-tested. Q&A2:17: Q: Now we have one source of honor, Alterac Valley, and everything else is a source of marks. Some people lose on purpose to get marks quicker. Is there anything being done to solve this problem?Chilton: It's a very very difficult problem to solve. We find that if we give no rewards for losing a battleground, it's very punishing. That's why we have systems to report players for not participating and we've lowered the number of players who need to report someone. (There is a certain point where the system can't determine how hard you're trying.2:19: Q: Do you have plans to implement a spectator mode?Chilton: Definitely on our list of things we want to do. To add to that, we also have the idea of using that spectator mode to extend to other things, in raids for exampleQ: Unique (racial) combat moves?Chilton: We don't plan to add any more racials.2:24: Q: My girlfriend and I love PvP, but since the Burning Crusade, we feel like we're forced into arenasChilton: We do plan to keep a pretty similar sort of reward items.Q: For the frost mage, some crowd control talents seem to be PvP-oriented, don't you think this could cause unbalance?Chilton: It's always going to feel that way because bosses tend to be immune to crowd control, but we're trying to open it up.Q: What do you plan to fix Warlock pet scaling?A: Right now we're pretty happy with pet scaling. It should be a viable tactic to spend some time attacking the pets. A player has to make a choice. We feel like if that scales very well, it's going to be a viable tactic to just focus on one.2:34: That's all she wrote, folks! The Invitational's final World of Warcraft panel has come to a close.%Gallery-26320% WoW Insider is on the ground in Paris at the Blizzard Invitational bringing you the big announcements and latest Wrath news as it happens. Check out our latest coverage!
The state of WoW on Linux
During the dev panel a few minutes ago, Tom Chilton told us something interesting about playing World of Warcraft on the Linux platform -- Blizzard has actually had it working. For "compatibility purposes," they apparently had an internal build of the game that worked on Linux. But unfortunately for Linux users, they have no plans at all to bring the final game out on the system. They didn't expound much more than that, but of course we can imagine all kinds of reasons they'd hesitate to release a Linux version, first and foremost being that in terms of gamers on the platform, the marketshare just isn't there.Of course, this doesn't mean you can't ever play WoW on Linux, it just means you can't do so off the shelf. WoWWiki has some really great information on how to play WoW with WINE (which just, by the way, reached a 1.1.0 release, and allows you to play Windows programs on other platforms). Transgaming's Cedega is also supposed to work with World of Warcraft (and you probably won't get banned), and Codeweaver's CrossOver also is approved to work with World of Warcraft on Linux.So there are ways to play it, but you might have to do some tweaking. Still, we wish they'd told us more about why they don't want to release the client they builtt
WWI '08 Panel: Druid (UPDATED)
While there isn't quite as much shocking news for those of us in the furry set as there was for our totem-spouting Earth brothers, there's still enough information to get us excited about our futures in Wrath of the Lich King.I have to admit that I was a little surprised to hear Tom Chilton say in the first WWI dev panel that Blizzard isn't planning any Cyclone changes. When an audience member asked if there would be any alterations for Cyclone, Chilton answered in a pretty clear, unambiguous manner: Nope. But he did give us some explanation for it.
Tom Chilton talks Arena with Gotfrag
We aim to hold premiere events every year, and this year is no different. Our intention is to continue running topnotch competitive events that players want to take part in and spectators want to watch. This is what first leapt out at me when reading the new article over at Gotfrag. We've already seen the fine folks at Big Download quiz the folks at Blizzard about how Arenas are developing and affecting the overall gameplay of World of Warcraft, so it definitely seems like there's a renewed emphasis on PvP as an e-sport going on. Maybe I just missed the boat on them doing something every year for it... how is this going to work for next year, when Wrath of the Lich King has been out for a while?We're looking to add new Arenas for Wrath of the Lich King that may be a bit different from the current Arena environments, but we're not ready to go into specifics just yet.Frankly, new arenas sounds like a good idea to me, but I'd also like to see a new arena bracket. 2x2 has always struck me as being too small to really be anything more than glorified dueling, but I enjoy 3x3 (I'm not terribly good at it, mind you) and find 5x5 starts to get a bit hectic. I think 4x4 could be a fun addition to arenas, but I have no idea how popular it would end up being. The masochist in me would like to see 10x10 brawling, or even 10 man King of the Hill style arena matches where all ten players are hostile to each other, similar to the way Gurubashi Arena and the Maul currently work. It would be a means for single players to gain arena points but would be challenging and a change from dueling. They're also considering means to allow for spectators on arena matches, which I'd be interested in seeing. The whole article is up at Gotfrag.com so feel free to take a look and see what you think about the future of arena as put forth by the inimitable Mr. Chilton.
WoW graphics engine to be overhauled someday
World of Warcraft producer J. Allen Brack and designers Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton were interviewed by Eurogamer today. Most of the interview dealt with Wrath of the Lich King content like the Death Knight, 10-person raids, and world PvP objectives. The most interesting bits of the interview were on the last page, though; the Blizzard reps talked about WoW's future.According to Kaplan, a major graphics engine overhaul is "probably" part of that future. While he himself is not convinced it's necessary (he cited players' lukewarm reception of similar moves by the developers of Ultima Online and EverQuest), he said: "That's actually something we talk about every expansion ... and I'm positive we'll talk about it next expansion."In the meantime, WotLK will allow "people with high-end machines some additional graphical effects." WoW Insider joked that future graphics engine updates might be dedicated entirely to producing even larger, more detailed shoulder pad armor. We wouldn't be surprised![Via WoW Insider]
Big Download's big interview with World of Warcraft's Arenamasters
Today on Massively's sister site Big Download, there's a featured article all about the World of Warcraft Arena Tourney. The BD team sat down with Tom Chilton, Paul Della Bitta (Senior Manager, Global Community and eSports) and Joong Kim (eSports Manager) to talk about that huge $200,000 prize purse, the future of World of Warcraft as an eSport, and the reaction players have had to the Arena.We found especially interesting the news that eventually these online matches will transition to live events. They're still looking for a place to throw the Global Finals this year, probably sometime in October or November. Eventually, they'd like to look into televised matches; it may sound strange, but Guild Wars has definitely shown there's a market for that kind of event. Go check out the interview, and stay tuned for more details on the WoW Arena Tournament.
More Death Knight news and clarifications
Having had a few hours to sleep and then a few more to digest the new information on the Death Knights, I'm finally getting a clearer picture of what the Death Knight will be able to do and how they'll fit into the existing hierarchy of classes, and I have to say, I'm still just as excited. There's a lot of questions that have risen from a lot of corners, but new information has come to light that may answer at least a few of them. First, let's look at some of the clarifications the CMs have been offering, and clear up some other questions from the comments of this morning's article about how creating a Death Knight will work:
More Wrath of the Lich King impressions and information coming out
WorldofWar.net also got an invitation to the Blizzard event this past week (our invitation must have been lost in the mail, maybe?), and they've got six full pages of text about what they saw. Six pages hard to read though, so we've got all the salient points right here: Both Jeff Kaplan and Tom Chilton presented, with Kaplan showing off the Death Knight class and Chilton showing off the work they've done on Northrend. The Forsaken-designed starting town Vengeance Landing was shown off -- this was the same area we got to play back at Blizzcon, as well as Utgarde Keep They also got to see Valliance Keep (the other Alliance starting area), and Warsong Hold, a huge gothic iron structure run by Garosh Hellscream that Kaplan apparently called the "new look " of the Horde Horde players will be taking a Zepplin up to Northrend The Nexus, in the Coldarra part of the Borean Tundra, is the first instance on the western side of Northrend from Utgarde Keep, and it's a three wing instance with a raid dungeon where players will meet Malygos. The Badge of Justice system will continue in Northrend, but there will be new tokens to act as Badges and be returned for loot. Lots more after the break.
Drysc reveals new arena season 4 rating requirements and rules
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/pc_games/New_Arena_ratings_and_rules_for_WoW_s_season_4'; Drysc has just posted what may soon be known as the death knell of "welfare epics," announcing new arena season 4 rating requirements for the brutal gladiator gear that extend not only to the shoulders and weapon, but to many other pieces of gear as well, even to honor-purchased gear. We've seen some of the gear leaked recently, and some of the ratings requirements leaked a bit earlier than that, but now we have the official whole picture. Check out the word of Drysc after the jump.
The art of the Arena point sell
What's a good way to earn Gold? Some PvP players seem to think that Arena point selling is a viable option. As detrimental it is to the spirit of competition and working for achievements, it currently does not qualify as a violation of Blizzard's Terms of Use. This small loophole has helped make it a rampant, although unsupported and unsavory, practice. It's an old practice that dates back from Season 1. There are a couple of ways by which players sell Arena points. One is through outright sale of a moderately ranked team. Players take a team to a decent ranking of, say, 1800-2000, and sell the team wholesale, transferring leadership of the team to the purchaser. Depending on the size of the team, costs can vary. A 1900 2v2 team can sell for maybe 900 Gold, while a 3v3 team can go for about 1,300 Gold, and a 5v5 will cost anywhere from 1,700 to 2,000 Gold. The one caveat of team buying is that players will almost never get what they're paying for. The irony is that those who purchase teams are almost never equipped or skilled to compete at the level they're purchasing. These players often end up tanking their newly-bought team a couple of hundred points just to complete the minimum 10 games to qualify for Arena point gain. In this way, team purchases are an unwise investment unless players can competitively maintain the team's rating. In some dastardly cases, very high-rated teams are bought by win traders who use the purchase to inflate their team ratings.
Tom Chilton talks about Arena PvP and the tournament
Gamespy has an interview with WoW's lead designer Tom "Kalgan" Chilton about the upcoming Arena Tournament (which WoW Insider is actually playing in), and there's some good discussion in there about the PvE vs. PvP split and what Blizzard is planning for the Arena tourney and the game in general.He specifically mentions "changes" coming to the game (in a patch apparently "just a few weeks away") that will deal with the problem of exploits, specifically point and personal rating selling. He also says that the Arena game puts class balance "under a microscope," and says that the Lifebloom and Ice Block changes were specifically aimed towards balancing Arena teams -- Blizzard made those changes hoping that they didn't mess with PvE gameplay as much. Arena tournament players, he says, will be the "mad scientists" of class balance, so Blizzard can see firsthand what works and what doesn't. Finally, he mentions actual arena design, and reveals that in Wrath of the Lich King, there will definitely be some new Arena environments to play in.Lots of good information in this one, especially for Arena players. We'll have to wait and see what that patch "a few weeks away" does for us, and we'll also have to watch and see what comes out of the Arena tournament -- lots of the changes that eventually show up in Wrath might come as a direct result of what happens in the tournament.
Upper Deck's WoW TCG World Championships coverage begins
Upper Deck has begun their live coverage of the biggest event the TCG has ever seen: the World Championships. They are live from San Diego, as a few hundred players are battling it out in the card game for a $100,000 prize. There are other tournaments going on there as well this weekend-- the Darkmoon Faire is in town and giving away tons of great loot. And Blizzard is there as well-- they're even giving away a Dinner with the Devs, where winners of a certain tournament can sit down and talk shop with the devs: Chris Metzen, Shawn Carnes, J. Allen Brack, Lee Sparks, Scott Mercer, Cory Stockton, Travis Day, and Tom Chilton. Artists are in the house, too: Samwise, Glenn Rane, Alex Horley-Orlandelli, Jonboy Meyers, and Dan Scott will be signing cards and doing sketches for attendees throughout the weekend. Pretty rad if you happen to be as big a fanboy/girl as we here at WoW Insider are.Ben Drago, the manager for Organized Play (who we interviewed a while back) is also blogging live from the event, and been posting updates, both small and big, from his hotel room and the tournament floor. Expect to see lots more coverage, including photos and results, from Upper Deck on the tournament over the weekend.And we'll have more here at WoW Insider, too-- our coverage started yesterday with an interview with one of the top TCG players, and we'll be keeping an eye on the results all weekend. And even if you're not in the tournament at all, you still have a chance to win something-- watch WoW Insider all next week for results of the tournament and our very own consolation prizes.
