The Starting Zone BlizzCon 2018 Interviews - Dazar'alor Skybox, Warfront Contribution Revamp, Nazjatar World Quest Evolution

Blizzard Posted 2018/11/11 at 9:07 PM by perculia

The Starting Zone

The Battle of Dazar'alor raid adapts an existing city space we're all familiar with, but changes still had to be made. The zone had to be tweaked to be raid-ready, and that involved removing some plants, merchants, tables with wares etc. The raid was also designed to be from two distinct perspectives and stories, down to creating variation in the early "shared" bosses like the monkey boss. The Horde fights Grong, a super-strong gorilla, who is then resurrected and attacks the Alliance.

The creation of the Darkmoon Rollercoaster was a grassroots campaign--someone on the team created the concept for it, even building the seat chairs, and work gradually occurred over a long period of time.

Arathi Basin was challenging to uprez due to all of the geographical challenges and tactics created by the old terrain. For example, they wanted to preserve the spirit of bushes you could hide in, or oddly-shaped tables that required you to swerve or jump around to save a few seconds. It was important to maintain an emotional feel to the zone. Blizzard also was able to improve the awesome vistas you see in the background of the zone, creating cooler hills and scenery.

The aesthetics of Patch 8.2 Rise of Azshara were inspired by the naga--but with a twist, so players wouldn't visit the zone and think everything looked reused. Blizzard took a deep sea approach to the zone and wanted to be creative in the types of creatures present. For example, there is a new fantastical crab woman unlike anything you've seen before.

Nazjatar is a mix of underwater and ground areas. The team had ideas that you'd have the ability to swim in some parts, pull mobs onto dry land, then fight them in the water...this was a bit complex and they're still working on the zone. The fantasy is that this is a unique underwater zone with water and walls rising out of the sea, and they are trying to build tech to sell that fantasy for players.

The team is sensitive to player reactions towards underwater combat and want to use it in a way that makes sense, not all the time in Nazjatar.

When developing Heritage Armor sets, Blizzard tries to find people on the team that are very familiar and passionate with that race. They look at sets that went over well in the community and determine why those sets were a hit. The team then tries to take those elements and use it as a starting concept for the Heritage Armor.

The team is excited about AI making an appearance in PvP brawls. They want to experiment more with AI bots in different situations. "We'll see if Sneaky Pete queues for a battleground."

The criteria for making a zone raid-ready is different than making a zone quest-ready, so extra polish had to be done for Dazar'alor in preparation for the raid. There are different metrics for raid zone performance, for example.

There is an interesting sky box coming with the Battle of Dazar'alor due to Bwonsamdi's actions. Unclear if this is a permanent skybox or temporary.
Earlier today, Wowhead datamined the "Blood Moon Rising" cinematic which shows how Bwonsamdi changed the skybox of Dazar'alor.

Mythic mountswap factions

Arathi and Darkshore contributions will be on a daily quest system. Three will be up for each zone, with a maximum of six.

There will always be one resource or gold quest up, so you're not forced to do crafting materials.

There are now world quests that show up in each area, and these reward new currency--Service Medals.

We previewed some Service Medal rewards--this includes new mounts, pets, transmog, heirlooms, as well as an item that increases XP gained on alts.

Nazjatar is a good place to evolve the World Quest system - they want the World Quests to feel unique and different. This could include multi-stage quests, group quests, or even bosses that spawn across the entire region, and whoever gets to spawn it gets a special zone-wide yell.

In Nazjatar you can also recruit assistants on a daily basis, who have a friendship bar (similar to Mists of Pandaria Tillers). You can take these friends out to adventure for the day, and as they gain friendship, they unlock new abilities and perks like accessing more dailies.

Some of these friends, like the Gilbin for the Horde (a goblin with fins), have extra perks. Using the Gilbin as an example, you'll be able to see new hidden treasures using the Gilbin as a friend, and some of these treasures contain items which start quests that further the Gilbin's personal storyline.

Nazjatar is a zone that should be a place for "everything from A to Z." Comparisons to the Timeless Isle were made, like how Golganarr was really "mean" to players since he dropped a special toy and could take up to 48 hours to respawn.

Comment by Rahel5"The Forsaken will get some new architecture, introduced in Darkshore. It's been a while since Brill--time to re-evaluate their color scheme and skulls"

Tauren, gnomish, Dwarf, blood elf, worgen, goblin, not just forsaken :3Comment by SilmafarionThe Jaina statue revealed at BlizzCon had a pedestal with water and ice. The pedestal is actually is the top of her Mythic mount--a water elemental.Comment by Zander223Love TSZ, my favorite WoW Podcast bar none. Both Spencer and Jason are amazing and make a great team. Highly recommend adding them to your list to listen to every week.Comment by UchurAwesome! Exciting times ahead!Comment by KarigalThe Battle of Dazar'alor raid will feature one faction transforming into another a certain points to experience things from a story POV. For example, the Alliance players will transform into Horde players when fighting Jaina. This will let the Alliance players understand that they only survived the battle because of how powerful Jaina is--and be on the receiving end of her magic to really get a sense of her power.Comment by tsundastaThe Battle of Dazar'alor raid will feature one faction transforming into another a certain points to experience things from a story POV. For example, the Alliance players will transform into Horde players when fighting Jaina. This will let the Alliance players understand that they only survived the battle because of how powerful Jaina is--and be on the receiving end of her magic to really get a sense of her power.Comment by mentiralosoAll of this sounds great, except I'm not super excited about rare mobs with long respawns. Maybe I'm not part of the consensus, but I DON'T miss camping for rare spawns for long periods of time, only to have a ranged attack tag the mob first. I guess I'd be more willing to compromise if they didn't stifle the number of people who can tag it too much, but I winced a little when I read "dropped a special toy and could take up to 48 hours to respawn."Comment by KarigalThe Battle of Dazar'alor raid will feature one faction transforming into another a certain points to experience things from a story POV. For example, the Alliance players will transform into Horde players when fighting Jaina. This will let the Alliance players understand that they only survived the battle because of how powerful Jaina is--and be on the receiving end of her magic to really get a sense of her power.Comment by Alanray43All of this sounds great, except I'm not super excited about rare mobs with long respawns. Maybe I'm not part of the consensus, but I DON'T miss camping for rare spawns for long periods of time, only to have a ranged attack tag the mob first. I guess I'd be more willing to compromise if they didn't stifle the number of people who can tag it too much, but I winced a little when I read "dropped a special toy and could take up to 48 hours to respawn."Comment by HadorielThe Battle of Dazar'alor raid will feature one faction transforming into another a certain points to experience things from a story POV. For example, the Alliance players will transform into Horde players when fighting Jaina. This will let the Alliance players understand that they only survived the battle because of how powerful Jaina is--and be on the receiving end of her magic to really get a sense of her power.Comment by zattyThe Battle of Dazar'alor raid will feature one faction transforming into another a certain points to experience things from a story POV. For example, the Alliance players will transform into Horde players when fighting Jaina. This will let the Alliance players understand that they only survived the battle because of how powerful Jaina is--and be on the receiving end of her magic to really get a sense of her power.Comment by KarigalThe Battle of Dazar'alor raid will feature one faction transforming into another a certain points to experience things from a story POV. For example, the Alliance players will transform into Horde players when fighting Jaina. This will let the Alliance players understand that they only survived the battle because of how powerful Jaina is--and be on the receiving end of her magic to really get a sense of her power."You're getting your butt saved by this cool and epic character of ours, look how cool and powerful she is! Isn't she so epic?"Comment by DarkAviatorBodyguards with personal storyline, one of them have you see hidden treasures ... after leveling these reps, this seems to be the one you'll meet the most. So I expect some other buff on the others that have them appear at least equal.
Bodyguard system is annoying anyway. If you want one, play bm or sv hunter, problem solved. And no rep needed.Comment by KashraThe reason they do this is so that there is a cannon story that the player can be removed from.

In Vanilla Varian unmasked and killed Onyxia not the players,
In BC Maive (with the help of adventures) defeated Illidan,
In WotLK Tirion (with the help of adventures) defeated Arthas,
and so on.

It's never been any different. It's so when they write the official story there is a POV focus for the story and our player was the backup that is mentioned, however Varian beat Ony with his friends so you can't 'write' yourself into that one.

Also if you read the Alliance Novella for The Burning of Teldressil then our player was not even in the town Mia saved everyone (that she could) not us, where as the game has you as a player save everyone (that you can) and then she saves you.Comment by divrsThe Battle of Dazar'alor raid will feature one faction transforming into another a certain points to experience things from a story POV. For example, the Alliance players will transform into Horde players when fighting Jaina. This will let the Alliance players understand that they only survived the battle because of how powerful Jaina is--and be on the receiving end of her magic to really get a sense of her power."You're getting your butt saved by this cool and epic character of ours, look how cool and powerful she is! Isn't she so epic?"Comment by WolrajhThe Forsaken will get some new architecture, introduced in Darkshore. It's been a while since Brill--time to re-evaluate their color scheme and skullsComment by Soeroah"Comparisons to the Timeless Isle were made, like how Golganarr was really "mean" to players since he dropped a special toy and could take up to 48 hours to respawn."

Yeah, he was mean, but this sentence reads like they want to do that again? That's exactly what I never wanted to happen again.. that and Monstrous Spineclaw.

Ugh.Comment by etheldaldThe Battle of Dazar'alor raid will feature one faction transforming into another a certain points to experience things from a story POV. For example, the Alliance players will transform into Horde players when fighting Jaina. This will let the Alliance players understand that they only survived the battle because of how powerful Jaina is--and be on the receiving end of her magic to really get a sense of her power.Comment by Shelassa
I really wish they'd stop developing these Jesus-tier characters Comment by notrees"The Forsaken will get some new architecture, introduced in Darkshore. It's been a while since Brill--time to re-evaluate their color scheme and skulls"

Tauren, gnomish, Dwarf, blood elf, worgen, goblin, not just forsaken :3