267: This Is the Way the World Ends

[Steve Butts]

This Is the Way the World Ends

It takes a lot of courage to tear down the walls that you've constructed, but it can also be a lot of fun. Lead Systems Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street tells us how he plans to destroy the world of Azeroth.

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[oathblade]

"(Contrast that with Illidan Stormrage in The Burning Crusade, who, in Street's opinion, wasn't introduced strongly enough for players to associate him with the larger arc of the story.)"

I just have to say this is true. Your enemy is the burning legion in BC and then suddenly your hunting the elves that are wanting to kill them. So they bind demon magic to use against them ...enemy of my enemy is a better idea isn?t it? The whole Blood Elf Sunwell story was much higher impact and woven in to greater effect.

If they meant to redesign out the longer quest areas they should have done that instead of making mounts easier. It?s so easy to get mounts that long distances are trivial at best. That said I'm all for more RP style quests. I read every bit of dialong with NPCs...even when I ask where the trainers are.

Its funny how long it takes Bliz to add in ideas. Lost Dungeons of Norath had LFG tool groups and CoH has scaling levels for forever. They?re a great part of the fun in each game. Including them in Bliz's work should be a natural evolution.

I?m not fond of PvP...or events that force it. The game is tending more towards that so even on the non pvp servers it has that feel. I wish they would take the chance to strengthen some of the neutral groups like the CC and give some sort of alternative to panting with bloodlust.

 

[Yvl9921]

Ultimately, Street and his fellow designers want to give more casual players a chance to see more of the endgame content. Given the number of attempts required for those early guilds that first killed the Lich King, making the path to the end game more direct may not necessarily mean the final confrontations are easier. Street explains, "We have one boss in particular that we are designing to be soul crushing. There will be a sign outside the door saying 'You must be this high to fight this fight.' It's not for everyone; it's for the people who say the game is too easy." Players should be grateful that the difficulty isn't even more extreme. At one point during development, one of the producers joked that Deathwing was so deadly that when players log in to the game, their characters will already be dead.

They're throwing us hardcore raiders a bone, but one bone will not keep us satisfied for 6 months between patches, and we still miss the days of being the top dog in their eyes. I miss Ulduar - why did they ever move away from that brilliant model?

 

[MissAshley]

At one point during development, one of the producers joked that Deathwing was so deadly that when players log in to the game, their characters will already be dead.

I would love to see people surprised by the sight of dead toons upon login due to leaving them in less than stable places before Deathwing's emergence.

 

[Croaker42]

He makes a good point in saying that this redesign will go a long way to brining back those players who put the game down for whatever reason. I am certainly intreagued and would not mind experiencing the goblin/worgen paths through a revamped world.
But somewhere deep down I know that ultimatly I would enjoy it for about a week and then continue paying for it for months.
Perhaps if this cataclysm truly destroyed something I wouldn't be able to turn away.

 

[MatsVS]

I thought the article was going to be about T.S. Elliot.

 

[Eviltane]

They're throwing us hardcore raiders a bone, but one bone will not keep us satisfied for 6 months between patches, and we still miss the days of being the top dog in their eyes. I miss Ulduar - why did they ever move away from that brilliant model?

Hehe I used to be a hardcore raider for the last 3 itirations of the game and in my mind Old Naxx and BWL were the pinnacle of the raiding experience.. 40 Man for the win!

 

[Sartan0]

I miss Ulduar - why did they ever move away from that brilliant model?

That was the high point of the game for me. I loved the lore, the look and the fights in Ulduar. Before I had got maybe two out of three or even just one. I quit after we dropped from that high to the low that was the tournament.

 

[Kavonde]

In keeping with Blizzard's even-handed approach, Cataclysm isn't reducing the story down to a simple "good vs. evil" format. Street embraces the ambiguity, saying "Horde players, in particular, are going to start out thinking, 'Garrosh Hellscream is such an asshole; we want Thrall back.'" But the quest designers tell the story in such a way that you really begin to feel some respect, if not sympathy, for Garrosh."

I hope so. I've been hating the Horde's new direction since the info was leaked, particularly with Garrosh being even more violent, racist, and idiotic than Anduin Wrynn. The Horde have always been, in my mind, the real Good Guys (except for the Forsaken and the Blood Elves, I guess). Turning Orgrimmar into Spike City and putting Garrosh in charge seemed like Bliz was removing the moral ambiguity that makes the Warcraft setting interesting.

 

[rebus_forever]

rem reference in article? +rep if yes
otherwise go listen to world leader pretend so i dont sound like an utter tard

 

[Marowit]

I am very excited to see that they are going to be designing zones to have a good narrative from start of the zone to the finish. It was one of the great things WoTLK did in their zones. Sure it's been around since vanilla, but in WoTLK Blizzard did a very good job in every zone.

 

[Tarrker]

As a player from the beginning, there is one, and ONLY one change that I would really like to see and I'm almost certain will simply never be... The simple ability to change the sound and appearance of the start screen! I'm not saying I absolutely hate the newer ones, but I really liked the original music and that particular start screen. It was a nice, even blue and had that, nice, deep music to it. The only time I get that now is if I have to reinstall, which, takes many, many, many hours...

There has to be at least SOMEONE that feels the same as me? Maybe another person started in BC and would like that start screen back, complete with music. Dozens of changes and upgrades coming or not coming and this is what I pick at

 

[M-JN]

... not with a full stop... but a colon.


... anybody?

 

[Steve Butts]

... not with a full stop... but a colon.


... anybody?

Yes! Of course, the specific context of the implied comparison isn't terribly flattering, but I didn't worry about too many people finishing the line. In any case, it's worlds better than Time's glowing tribute to Toni Morrison entitled "The Sound and the Fury." You'd think at least someone on the staff had read Shakespeare.

 

[Yvl9921]

I miss Ulduar - why did they ever move away from that brilliant model?

That was the high point of the game for me. I loved the lore, the look and the fights in Ulduar. Before I had got maybe two out of three or even just one. I quit after we dropped from that high to the low that was the tournament.

Most of my guild did the same. I still utterly hate 3.2 for it.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I thought the article was going to be about T.S. Elliot.

Saaaaaame.

Besides, everyone knows that eventually World of Warcraft will end not with a bang, but a whimper.

 

[rddj623]

I'm not convinced MR T and William Shatner play either. In other news, it's neat to see the perspective of one of the main people behind the new elements and the overall shift. There's a lot of good to come from this, so long as people aren't blinded by what they'll lose.

 

[Kiithid]

The bright side of Blizzard being perfectionist, I have that feeling omy old drawings and random assorted pieces of poetry I used to write.

There's always that itching behind the ear to work on something you may have completed, just to do it better, they had a chance and went for it, in the end everyone involved may gain from it, the players for better content and the devs for being proud of making your ol' dusty stone shiny like a christmas tree... except for my beloved Ashenvale, I'll really miss it.

 

[Farseer Lolotea]

I?m not fond of PvP...or events that force it. The game is tending more towards that so even on the non pvp servers it has that feel. I wish they would take the chance to strengthen some of the neutral groups like the CC and give some sort of alternative to panting with bloodlust.

Agreed.

I hope so. I've been hating the Horde's new direction since the info was leaked, particularly with Garrosh being even more violent, racist, and idiotic than Anduin Wrynn.

I think you mean Varian. Anduin is the son, and (despite being a teenager) he's got more sense than his dad.

The Horde have always been, in my mind, the real Good Guys (except for the Forsaken and the Blood Elves, I guess). Turning Orgrimmar into Spike City and putting Garrosh in charge seemed like Bliz was removing the moral ambiguity that makes the Warcraft setting interesting.

I wouldn't say that the Horde were ever "the real good guys." They were downright evil in the first RTS, and arguably evil in WCII. The "gray and grey" angle wasn't really in play until WCIII.

However, while the Alliance was more-or-less uniformly "gray" before BC, the Horde had both the most "evil" race (Forsaken) and the most "good" (tauren). Then, along came BC and imbalances it; the Horde got the "gray" and desperate blood elves, the Alliance got an equivalent to the tauren.

Meanwhile, the Forsaken have been gradually losing what "sympathetic antihero" cred that they had. And now, Cataclysm gives both sides seemingly "gray" races. (They could have done the antihero angle with the worgen, but I haven't seen any evidence of it yet.)

So yeah; in terms of moral ambiguity, the Horde isn't coming out on the good side. And yes, that kind of bugs me.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

So all this talk about the Horde experiencing yet another loyalty shake-up in the ranks has brought an old question back to mind- what about the Alliance? I admit that I have hardly played much A-side, but one of the reasons for that was because so much about the Alliance feels bland and dull. Their five races all but hold hands and have picnics in the park in Stormwind every week, while the Horde is full of people second-guessing and eyeing each other suspiciously. It would go a long way towards making the Alliance more interesting if the events of Cataclysm actually knocked over the comfortable couch that the "good guys" all hang out on together.

Take it from a long-time Hordie whose Forsaken Warrior got every Horde city BUT the Undercity to Exalted just to spit in the eye of Sylvanas: Internal strife can be a seriously awesome thing.