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PAX East 2014: First impressions of Warlords of Draenor
The biggest problem that Warlords of Draenor is facing right now is one of first impressions. This isn't a mark against World of Warcraft so much as it's the nature of the beast. I wrote a while back about how World of Warcraft can't really be back, all things considered; it's too firmly a part of the establishment to ever shake the image that it's created over the past several years. You know what it is. You know how it plays. Odds are good that you've played it. Warlords of Draenor also features no new races, no new classes, no overhaul of the talent system, and in the build I got to play, very few of the new models. That's where the first impression problem crops up. A lot of the things that are being baked into the expansion just don't show up at first glance. That isn't to say that the first glance is bad, just that it overwhelmingly sends the message of "this is still World of Warcraft; no need for elaboration."
Interview: Technical Game Designer Chadd "Celestalon" Nervig talks Warlords of Draenor
I was lucky enough to head over to Blizzard Campus this week to talk to Technical Game Designer Chadd "Celestalon" Nervig. Chadd is a huge part of the class design team, key to a lot of the changes we saw in the recent Warlords of Draenor patch notes, which is just what we discussed. We were also joined by Senior Community Representatives Zarhym and Lore. You can also find a much-abbreviated summary on Wowhead. Olivia: First up, is there anything you really wanted to clarify and get out there? Celestalon: I've tweeted about pretty much everything. This was the first version of the patch notes, there have been more changes since then, those patch notes are about a week old or so? Zarhym: Yeah it's like, tons of changes. [Rygarius] said he had a huge list of changes. Celestalon: There's another five thousand words that aren't up there yet, which [Rygarius] is working on now. There have been different amounts of patch notes released for different classes. Paladins have been complaining that they haven't got enough, rogues have been really happy that not much has changed. Is it safe to assume there's more to come? This is just step one? There's definitely more coming. Like, for example, paladins had relatively few patch notes, and a lot of that is we were relatively happy with how things played out, at least for ret and prot, with the exception of a few things we can solve with tuning – changing numbers. So a lot of what you see in the patch notes now is what we call design changes, so the mechanics that we want to change so we can get to some design that we like.
WoW's Warlords of Draenor alpha patch notes are huge
Blizzard has released today a massive dev blog with preliminary annotated patch notes for the Warlords of Draenor alpha test, which itself was just officially announced yesterday. The big additions relate to garrisons, stat squish and balancing, talents and Draenor perks, racial traits, crowd control, and yet another major healing revamp. Nearly every class in the game has a hefty entry outlining which skills are being changed and which are being deleted from the game entirely. Sounds as if returning players might be needing that newbie tutorial for Draenor after all. Have a look at your class changes and let us know whether you think you're getting buffed, nerfed, or just set up for another cataclysmic reset of the game's combat meta.
Blizzard kicks off WoW's Warlords of Draenor alpha
In a blog post on the official site today, one interestingly timed to coincide with a big launch going on today and tomorrow (ahem), Blizzard officially announced the start of the World of Warcraft Warlords of Draenor alpha test. The studio cautions players that not all of the promised content is in the alpha client, so don't panic when dataminers can't give you all the nitty-gritty on garrisons. They're not in yet. Players interested in signing up for later phases of testing are instructed to create a beta profile on Battle.net. Applicants will be selected randomly.
World of Warcraft shows off the 'redesigned' female Draenei
For far too long, Draenei have existed as bastions of unassailable beauty and elegance in World of Warcraft. We're told the race has fallen to the depths of the Broken and the Lost Ones, but you don't really see that in the game. Fortunately for fans, the new redesign to the female Draenei shows a closer connection between the various subtypes of the races, while simultaneously emphasizing the roots of the game's resident space goats. (Those roots would be "space" and "goat," incidentally. Truly.) Among the major changes Blizzard threatens to make to the model are the addition of fur, a slimming of the lower legs and hooves, and the removal of the ridiculously long tail from the model. The eye design also speaks to the ways in which this ancient and mystical race sees things in a way that most of Azeroth's residents can only imagine. It's a bit more of a departure from the existing model than the other redesigns, but take a look at the full diary for a closer look. And then remember what day it is. You don't need to reroll your Shaman as a Dwarf. We promise.
World of Warcraft garrisons won't cost you gold
You know that World of Warcraft's next expansion is going to feature housing. Not just housing, in fact, since Garrisons are sprawling complexes under your direct control. So you know you need to figure out how you can afford it. You've been farming diligently, even resorting to shaking down repair vendors for gold, although that one hasn't worked out so well. But as it turns out, you don't need to worry. According to a tweet by Senior Game Designer Jeremy Feasel, Garrisons won't cost you gold. Feasel specifies in the tweet that Garrisons will use their own resource, stating that more information about what that resource is and how it can be gathered will be available soon. So you can rest easy knowing that your hard-won gold won't be needed to build your fortress. Or you can rest despondent that all of your gold won't buy you a nicer place. Either one, really.
World of Warcraft's Warlords of Draenor is launching by December 20th
Just yesterday, World of Warcraft gave everyone a look at just how important reaching the level cap could be. Today, the game is opening up independent level 90 boosts for everyone via the in-game store, and they're still priced at $60 a pop. It's bad news if you have an army of alts you want to speed along to the level cap, but it's good news if you have that army of alts and more money than you know what to do with. A tutorial video is embedded just past the break to show you how to make use of this feature. Even if you're not up for buying one of the boosts, you might be looking forward to getting one along with your purchase of Warlords of Draenor. So when's that expansion actually coming out? According to the official site, it will be releasing on or before December 20th of this year, which means it's definitely coming out this year but leaves the field wide open in terms of when. Keep your eyes peeled for rollbacks on that date, as it's more likely that the expansion will be out long before the end of the year.
World of Warcraft's new Warlords of Draenor trailer wishes you were here
So your friends in World of Warcraft have finally convinced you to come back to the game. Great, but they're all Level 90 and you're Level Seriously Who Even Cares. They're decked out in epic garments while you're apparently dressed like some sort of drifter with plate armor. What are you going to do? How could you ever take part in their adventures? Well, you could buy Warlords of Draenor and just hit 90 immediately on the character of your choice. A dramatization of exactly that is available in the trailer just past the cut, with a Gnome taking the plunge and bypassing a whole lot of leveling content in the interim. Click on past the break to see it in action, and perhaps you'll be inspired to also vault past a whole bunch of leveling to get right to the top. [Thanks to Schippie for the tip!]
World of Warcraft monkeys with health and heals in Warlords of Draenor
World of Warcraft has another dev watercooler out today, this time talking about health (your character's, not your own), healing, and what the team will be doing to improve related systems come Warlords of Draenor. For starters, the devs will be doubling player health in the expansion to make characters more durable in PvP. "The net result of these changes is that individual attacks will knock a smaller chunk off of a player's health pool in PvP, but your survivability in PvE won't be affected," Blizzard posted. Other upcoming changes include reducting base resilience and battle fatigue to practically nil, increasing creature damage, increasing the effectiveness of heals, reducing the power of aborbs, and "making smart heals a little less smart." Some smaller, cheaper healing skills will also be removed from the game, and a few instant-cast heals are on the chopping block as well.
EVE Evolved: What to expect from EVE Fanfest 2014
Almost 10 years ago, EVE Online developer CCP Games started a new tradition with the first ever annual EVE Fanfest. The event started out as a largely informal gathering in a tiny venue that allowed players and developers to mingle on a more personal level, but it's now grown into something massive. Over a thousand players now make the annual pilgrimage to EVE Online's birthplace in Reykjavik, Iceland, to hear what the future holds for their favourite MMO. For many, the event is also a social gathering, a chance to swap stories with other players, and a rare opportunity to meet the corpmates they fly with every day in the virtual galaxy of New Eden. The Fanfest weekend is typically a packed schedule of panels, talks, roundtable discussions with developers, and keynote speeches revealing the future of the game. While the event is understandably focused on EVE Online, it's recently expanded to cover aspects of DUST 514, the latest goings-on with World of Darkness, and even CCP's new virtual reality dogfighter EVE Valkyrie. CCP has announced that this year's event will see a monument to the EVE playerbase unveiled in Reykjavik Harbor as well as the first reveal of EVE's summer expansion, but what else can we hope to glean from this year's event at the start of May? In this edition of EVE Evolved, I delve into the EVE Fanfest announcement and speculate on what we might expect to hear from this year's event. Will this be the year that World of Darkness gets some serious news? And what's new for DUST 514?
Warlords of Draenor is making big changes to WoW's number game
When World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor hits, players will be adjusting to more than just a new continent and gussied-up character models. With the expansion, Blizzard is looking to squish stats across the board, bring racial traits into parity with each other, prune excess abilities among the classes, and nerf a bunch of the game's crowd control skills. The stat-squishing in particular is something that the developers address at length in a new "watercooler" post: "It's important to understand that this isn't a nerf -- in effect, you'll still be just as powerful, but the numbers that you see will be easier to comprehend. This also won't reduce your ability to solo old content. In fact, to provide some additional peace of mind, we're implementing further scaling of your power against lower-level targets so that earlier content will be even more accessible than it is now." The post goes into detail about the reasoning behind the changes and how the devs expect each of them to improve WoW as a whole, so give it a read if Warlords of Draenor is on your wish list this year.
CCP Games reveals big plans for EVE Fanfest 2014
The universe of EVE Online may be best known as a crazy virtual galaxy full of back-stabbing pirates and political betrayal, but for a few days each year it becomes something altogether more tangible. At the annual EVE Fanfest, hundreds of the game's most devoted fans make the long pilgrimage to the game's birthplace in Reykjavik, Iceland. In addition to the official talks and reveals on the game's future from developer CCP Games, Fanfest plays host to charity raffles, roundtable discussions with developers, and informal get-togethers for players to share their stories. Last year's 10th anniversary Fanfest was the biggest one yet, with information included on World of Darkness and DUST 514 and the official reveal of Oculus Rift-based dogfighter EVE Valkyrie. This year's attendees can look forward to the first ever live demo of EVE's yet-to-be-revealed summer expansion, hands-on experience with the next major evolution of DUST 514, and playtests of a brand-new build of the virtual reality dogfighter EVE Valkyrie. This year's Fanfest will also see a special monument dedicated to EVE Online players revealed to the world; The "Worlds Within a World" monument will be installed in Reykjavik Harbor and will be etched with the names of all active EVE subscribers on March 1st. It's also hoped that crowdfunded EVE Online documentary A Tale of Internet Spaceships will be premiered during the Fanfest weekend, and we'll reportedly hear the latest on CCP's new EVE comic book and live action TV series. The event takes place from May 1st to May 3rd, and I'll be attending this year's event on behalf of Massively to bring you in-depth first-hand coverage of all the big reveals. Stay tuned!
World of Warcraft aims to restructure currencies in Warlords of Draenor
World of Warcraft has been running for a decade, and that means a lot of changes have taken place over the years. One of those changes was the addition of the special currencies like Justice and Valor points, designed to ensure that bad luck on raiding loot drops doesn't lock people out of getting upgrades. But according to lead encounter designer Ion Hazzikostas, this system may well be on the chopping block when Warlords of Draenor comes around. Hazzikostas explains that the bonus roll system can be expanded and refined to ensure that players wind up with appropriate loot from encounters, replacing the current currency system altogether. The developers are also hoping to simplify the game's PvP currencies, giving players fewer things to keep track of while providing a more organic system of rewards. While nothing has been finalized yet, it's a fair bet that by the time the expansion comes out, you'll have fewer currencies to track on your character sheet.
Blizzard's reasoning behind $60 cost of WoW's level 90 boost revealed
What reason could Blizzard possibly have for the $60 price tag on World of Warcraft's upcoming level 90 boost? According to the studio, it's so that the accomplishment of actual leveling isn't devalued. Ion Hazzikostas, WoW's lead encounter designer, told Eurogamer that the idea behind selling the boost separately was so that players didn't have to buy additional copies of the Warlords of Draenor expansion to take advantage of the included free character boost to level 90 on multiple characters. So instead of spending the $60 on an expansion and juggling multiple accounts, players can spend the same amount and use it on a toon on their existing account. At the same time, the team didn't want to diminish the hours and effort that players have invested in leveling nor create a world where no one levels. Hazzikostas explained, "If our goal here was to sell as many boosts as possible, we could halve the price or more than that -- make it $10 or something. And then hardly anyone would ever level a character again." Instead, the aim is to allow those who want a second or third alt but don't have time to level it because of other real-world commitments the chance to have it.
See World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor in action
We've got not one, not two, but three preview videos of World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion, Warlords of Draenor, for you Azeroth fanatics to watch today. MMO-Champion posted the videos today from a Blizzard press tour in Korea. The three videos take you on a journey with an Orc Warrior being boosted to level 90 on the Timeless Isle and a tour through several different zones in the expansion including Shadowmoon Valley. The videos have a few interesting details to glean, including new talents, new grass animations, a toggle for the new character models, and improved map navigation. Give them a watch after the break and let us know what you think!
World of Darkness drawing inspiration from sandbox survival games while EVE CE goes on sale
CCP assured World of Darkness fans that the project is "evolving rapidly" despite recent layoffs, will have a presence at Fanfest in May, and is even taking cues from sandbox survival games for its development. CCP CEO Hilmar Pétursson told RPS that survival games have given the team inspiration for World of Darkness' social dynamics: "DayZ and Rust have shown us the power of a sandbox when you bring it into a more recognizable context. The creators of those experiences often reference EVE Online as an inspiration for their things. We're now cross-inspired by what we're seeing there. How the absence of all these structured game mechanics -– by just allowing these natural interactions to happen -– that is something we're definitely incorporating into how we think about World of Darkness." Speaking of EVE, the space game's collector edition has gone on sale for $99.99. This 33% discount will last from today through February 17th.
EVE Evolved: EVE needs real colonisation now
MMOs have absolutely exploded in popularity over the past decade, with online gaming growing from a niche hobby to a global market worth billions of dollars each year. Once dominated by subscription games like EverQuest and World of Warcraft, recent years have seen free-to-play games take centre stage. Global MMO subscriptions have been reportedly shrinking since 2010, and EVE doesn't appear to be immune to this industry-wide trend. Though February 2013's figures showed EVE subscriptions have technically grown year-on-year, those numbers were published just after the Chinese server relaunch, and CCP hasn't released any new figures since. Developers have done a good job of catering to current subscribers and polishing existing gameplay with the past few expansions, but the average daily login numbers are still the same as they were over four years ago. EVE will undoubtedly hook in plenty of new and returning subscribers when its deep space colonisation gameplay with player-built stargates and new hidden solar systems is implemented, but time could be running out on these features. Hefty competition is due in the next few years from upcoming sandbox games such as Star Citizen, EverQuest Next, Camelot Unchained, and Elite: Dangerous, and CCP will have to release something big soon to bring in some fresh blood. In this week's EVE Evolved, I ask whether CCP should focus on new players and suggest plans for two relatively simple colonisation-based expansions that could get EVE a significant part of the way toward its five-year goal in just one year.
World of Warcraft to award instant level 90 characters with Warlords of Draenor pre-purchase
It's easy to kind of get stuck in the pre-expansion doldrums in World of Warcraft right now. Yes, you really want to have one more character up at the level cap, but you can't bear the thought of leveling any more. So what are you going to do? Well... you could just pre-purchase the expansion and get your instant level 90 character immediately, thereby saving you any more work leveling through the expansion and letting you just catch up a bit before its launch. All right, you can't do all of that right now, but the development team has confirmed that digitally pre-purchasing the expansion will give you your instant 90... instantly. No word yet on launch dates, but players can opt in for the beta testing right now via the Battle.net account management page. The company is also testing the idea of adding in the level 90 boost to the game's store, allowing you to bring as many characters as you want up to the cap without any fuss.
World of Warcraft survey asks, 'How much would you pay?'
There's a new survey floating around from Blizzard that's polling World of Warcraft players about how much they might be willing to pay for various features in the game. Among the topics covered is a new annual pass program, whether the Warlords of Draenor expansion should be sold for $39 or $49, and how much players might pay for a character upgrade to level 90. One such upgrade will be included in the upcoming expansion, but this survey strongly hints that Blizzard is looking to monetize the feature as well. Out of curiosity, how much would you pay for these features and what would you like to see included in an annual pass program?
Layoffs at CCP's Atlanta office confirmed: World of Darkness development affected
Rumours began circulating just a few hours ago about layoffs at CCP Games' Atlanta office. It was reported that an unknown number of staff working on the World of Darkness MMO had been unexpectedly laid off right before the Christmas holidays. The originally unconfirmed tipoff came from several posts on Twitter, and GameBreaker later reported that an anonymous source named the layoffs as Level Designers and various other Producers and Designers on World of Darkness. Massively reached CCP Games for comment and received the official statement below confirming that the layoffs are real and that they are from the World of Darkness team: "CCP today made strategic adjustments to the staffing on the team working on the World of Darkness project in Atlanta that resulted in the elimination of approximately 15 positions at the company. The change was due to our evaluation of the game's design and ongoing development needs. While this was a difficult decision, CCP remains committed to the franchise and our promise to make a compelling, rich, and deep World of Darkness experience."
