Warlords of Draenor, the fifth expansion to World of Warcraft, launches tomorrow. Today, Blizzard hosted the final Q&A developer live stream via Twitch.
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Community manager Josh 'Lore' Allen joined World of Warcraft Lead Game Designer Ion Hazzikostas and Lead Class Designer Kris Zierhut to answer your questions regarding the upcoming expansion. No matter how much information has been released, they simply cannot cover all of it.
You asked and they answered! The questions were very much focused on mechanics. Let's hit some of the biggest moments.
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Regarding competing factions, such as the Aldor and Scryers: the devs were asked if they would consider reintroducing the more neutral, choice-based factions (Horde and Alliance is set in stone). They said they would be open to creating new ones.
Ability pruning: Warlords of Draenor has pruned many of the weapons and stats, not necessarily 'nerfing' them, but just adjusting the number. The growth of item stats necessitates the need for pruning. Ability pruning won't always happen; though Draenor has introduced a massive cut of character's abilities.
Rings will be getting a new proc visual, much like cloaks already do.
The Vale of Eternal Blossoms is permanently destroyed for the time being. It's how Garrosh went back in time and to change it now would be silly, though it might not always be so.
More level 100 solo content will be introduced! This is excellent news.
Mythic trash will be much more difficult in Draenor, and will introduce new Mythic trash loot. Which will make the endless slog through dungeons just a little more worth it.
Lots of raid questions: players will be able to gain access to Raid keys, which will allow you to jump to the end of a particular dungeon (the Blackrock raid, in particular). Bring parts of each wing boss; once you've killed the wing bosses four times, you will be able to craft the key and head straight to Blackhand's lair.
The devs hope to focus on the lower level abilities "later in this expansion cycle" to help the leveling up process and make the level at which you get certain abilities more uniform across classes.
Melee mobility and CC breaks is definitely being addressed. This is mostly an endless swing of the pendulum, and has shifted away from the ranged classes. Melee are stronger relatively compared to Mists, but only time will tell if it is a game breaking mechanic.
There is no automatic Cross Realm Zone gameplay. You can still invite friends from other servers to join up in your adventures. Expect some glitches in a few hours.
They definitely think that players will be able to change skin color of their character (like the Tauren ability). This is an easy cosmetic upgrade, as it does not change any of the shadow detailing or other major features on an avatar.
"Why Whirlwind?" a player asks. "Why not Whirlwind?" it's a way to return the Arms warrior to its past, and helps differentiate it from Fury warriors.
No World Bosses will be available at launch. The first ones open the week of December 2nd. All are behind gates currently.
Everything is ready to play Warlords of Draenor. Absolutely no more downloading.
Goblin and Worgen models will be updated, but there are no specific details to announce at this time. Blood Elf models are still in production!
Story patches and after-content updates will be a part of Warlords of Draenor. They will be interspersed in between the mechanics and gameplay updates. So, lore junkies will be happy.
Class quests will see a new focus in WoD, and will be coming down the pipe. Nothing major. The Warlock Greenfire quest was an excellent proof of concept and they hope to make more class-specific adventures in the future.
Probably no more Glyph slots. They are meant to be a hard and exclusive choice.
Versatility: confusing, not as good as offensively, but it can provide a lot of defensive bonuses. Meant to make your playstyle just that 'versatile'. It's not the priority of a glass cannon, or for cogs in the machine, but is excellent for solo content, tanking, etc.
The Postmaster won't be returning every single piece of damn loot to you. Grays won't be forwarded ahead.
Stacking the Deck is back. Enter the queue with a pre-constructed group, and bam! gold bonus. Gold will be the currency that really matters in this expansion, as opposed to the endless random Valor points, etc.
The devs will start to use phasing less and less, as it breaks up friends and discontinues the so-called 'persistent' world based on level and timelines. They're looking to address those challenges in clever ways.
Draenor raids are closed until December 2.
Certain garrisons will offer up world PvP quests like 'kill 500 gnomes'! Southshore 4 EVA!
You can watch the full Q&A below. Warlords of Draenor hits servers tomorrow!
