WoW Devs Answer a Ton of Fan-Asked Questions

John Funk

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Dec 20, 2005
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WoW Devs Answer a Ton of Fan-Asked Questions

Apparently, when you solicit questions for an "Ask the Devs" session, you're going to get some rather random contributions.

There are currently 12 million people who are actively subscribed to Blizzard's World of Warcraft. That's a very, very large community, with people from dozens of countries and all walks of life pretending to be orcs, elves and dwarves on a daily basis.

So it stands to reason that if you ask that millions-strong community to submit questions for your in-house development team, you're going to get quite a wide range of submissions. Such was the case with the first "Ask the Devs" session posted yesterday to the Battle.net forums [http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2228225718].

While the questions are all understandably about WoW, they really run the gamut of all different types and kinds of players. Some are more general questions that affect all WoW players, to a point: Will Blizzard update Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King quest zones as it did the old world in Cataclysm? Will the dated-looking races be given a graphical update of any sort? Can players actually get some more visual customization for once, please?

Other questions are incredibly specific, only affecting one tiny segment of the WoW market at best (albeit, a market of hundreds of thousands): Why does Holy Paladin Mastery suck? Why do Hunters suck in PVP? Why do Boomkins suck in the Execution phase of an encounter? (Those may be loosely paraphrased.)

In other words, it's pretty much what you'd get if you took the Q&A portions of BlizzCon panels and put them online, minus the advent of Red Shirt Guy [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/105110-WoW-Red-Shirt-Guy-Gets-Auto-Tuned].

Most of the questions are only of interest to WoW players, but for one: A player named "Danksz" inquired as to what the members of the WoW team did when not working on the mega-MMO. The answer really deserves to be quoted in full here if only for the sheer variety of answers:

[blockquote]We polled the entire World of Warcraft development team and included the most interesting, unusual, and potentially terrifying responses. They included: roasting my own coffee; hiking all over SoCal; gardening with yuccas and bamboo; building my own 3D printer; attempting to turn my living room into a live action scene from Tron using blacklights, stencils and a helluva lot of paint; autocross racing my sweet ride; board games (I have over 450 of them); being spinal tapped to Tumblr, Reddit and 4chan; mastering cooking (duck confit, breads, pastas, more breads); building Star Wars Lego sets; trying to control my computer using brainwaves and an EEG reader; plein air/outdoor watercolor painting; geocaching; hockey; painting miniatures; swing dancing; crafting old-time cocktails; running 5 / 10 Ks / mud runs; motorcycling; go; blending smoothies; skydiving; work on my Jaina/Varian fanfic; baking bread; playing drums; reading sci-fi; comics; playing WoW.[/blockquote]

For the record, I think that "attempting to turn my living room into a live action scene from Tron using blacklights, stencils and a helluva lot of paint" is my new favorite hobby description of all time. You have my respect, anonymous WoW developer.

(Battle.net [http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2228225718])

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Optimystic

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Sep 24, 2008
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I loved that they are as sick of Hellfire Peninsula as we are. And the "going back in time" problem once you head to Outland+Northrend is a big one that I hope they do get around to quickly. (You are questing in those two areas so you can... fight two bad guys that have already been vanquished?)

But most important of all - WHERE ARE OUR NEW DANCES??
 

Jamous

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Apr 14, 2009
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Gotta say the man is awesome; I like his wide range of epic activities.
 

Verkula

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Optimystic said:
I loved that they are as sick of Hellfire Peninsula as we are. And the "going back in time" problem once you head to Outland+Northrend is a big one that I hope they do get around to quickly. (You are questing in those two areas so you can... fight two bad guys that have already been vanquished?)

But most important of all - WHERE ARE OUR NEW DANCES??
Apart from the "not making sense anymore story wise" part i didnt had much problems with my Tauren Pala in Outland. By the time i finished with Hellfire, i noticed im 1 level away from Northrend, wasnt even paying attention to the lvls so i was pretty suprised that i can skip like 70% of the expansion. D:

(now i did had a full set of heirloom items so that probably explains it)
 

Scrythe

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Jun 23, 2009
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John Funk said:
attempting to turn my living room into a live action scene from Tron using blacklights
Fuck. Yes. I want this person's children. And I'm a man.

John Funk said:
being spinal tapped to Tumblr, Reddit and 4chan
Aren't we all?

John Funk said:
geocaching
People still do this?
 

Jamous

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Vanguard_Ex said:
Jamous said:
Gotta say the man is awesome; I like his wide range of epic activities.
These are responses from a large number of the WoW dev team, not one guy :p
Awwwwwwww... That's just disappointing.... Good to see such a diverse team? :p
 

Tom Phoenix

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I am disappointed nobody suggested hitting Stranglethorne Vale with a comet...

But anyway, interesting Q&A. Even though I no longer play WoW, it is still nice to see this kind of stuff going on.
 

HappyDD

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Since when did bread-related activities get so popular? Like, I just ate some toast, but these guys are hardcore breadies.
 

Kavonde

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I've got a question! Who designed the new Ragnaros, and why haven't you fired them yet?
 

Vanguard_Ex

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Jamous said:
Vanguard_Ex said:
Jamous said:
Gotta say the man is awesome; I like his wide range of epic activities.
These are responses from a large number of the WoW dev team, not one guy :p
Awwwwwwww... That's just disappointing.... Good to see such a diverse team? :p
It is ^^ I bloody wish it was one guy, he alone would completely take the stereotype of lazy gamers and blow it out of the water.
 

Optimystic

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Sep 24, 2008
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Verkula said:
Optimystic said:
I loved that they are as sick of Hellfire Peninsula as we are. And the "going back in time" problem once you head to Outland+Northrend is a big one that I hope they do get around to quickly. (You are questing in those two areas so you can... fight two bad guys that have already been vanquished?)

But most important of all - WHERE ARE OUR NEW DANCES??
Apart from the "not making sense anymore story wise" part i didnt had much problems with my Tauren Pala in Outland. By the time i finished with Hellfire, i noticed im 1 level away from Northrend, wasnt even paying attention to the lvls so i was pretty suprised that i can skip like 70% of the expansion. D:

(now i did had a full set of heirloom items so that probably explains it)
Heirlooms are nice but if they intend that to be the bandaid over the lore wound that is Outland+Northrend they need to make them more accessible. If I have to choose between using justice points to gear my mains and using them on alts, the mains will come first.

Tom Phoenix said:
I am disappointed nobody suggested hitting Stranglethorne Vale with a comet...
It sort of was. Deathwing broke it in two. I think you'll like it a lot better now.
 

Jamous

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Vanguard_Ex said:
Jamous said:
Vanguard_Ex said:
Jamous said:
Gotta say the man is awesome; I like his wide range of epic activities.
These are responses from a large number of the WoW dev team, not one guy :p
Awwwwwwww... That's just disappointing.... Good to see such a diverse team? :p
It is ^^ I bloody wish it was one guy, he alone would completely take the stereotype of lazy gamers and blow it out of the water.
Definitely. I think he'd be a crazy epic GOD as well. :D