Wowhead's Patch 5.4 Interview with Lead Game Designer Tom Chilton

Live Posted 2013/08/18 at 10:24 AM by perculia

Patch 5.4 is coming very soonI've had a lot of fun with the Timeless Isle on the PTR--finding all the hidden events, getting the vanity loot, participating in the Pet Tournament, etc. What were the inspirations in designing a hub that's so radically different from past ones, where the emphasis is on participating in fun vanity content instead of daily hubs for reputation epics?Timeless IsleHow do you hope players will view and experience the Timeless Isle. The daily hubs felt mandatory for gear at first, but since the Isle is just for enjoyment, what will make players keep returning to it?Can you talk a little about the new tech that's on the Timeless Isle? I've observed some additions like the map alert for rare spawns and new event tech.In addition to just the rare spawns, I had a lot of fun stumbling across the sword icons on my map and doing those daily challenge events.So in addition to the Timeless Isle being a daily-free hub, we also have most of the daily quests in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms being destroyed in 5.4. I know at launch Golden Lotus dailies were seen as a bit extreme, so some players might view this as a welcome change while still being sad over the overall destruction. Can you elaborate on the decisions that went into revamping the zone?Yeah, while the vale does look pretty different, you can still get everything done except that one Feat of Strength. So we also have the conclusion of the legendary questline. When it was first announced that the rewards would be capes, some players were shocked that they weren't weapons for a change--how are some of the ways players get to feel special when finishing this questline? I've seen some of the visual process on the PTR and they look great.What about the decision to make the capes obtainable pretty early on in 5.4, instead of towards the end of a tier's progress, such as previous weapons?With all these new cool things to do, some new or returning players might worry that their gear isn't good enough for a raid or taking down some of the rares on the Timeless Isle. What catch-up mechanisms are in place for players? We touched a little on the Timeless Isle BoA gear before, and there's also things like no ilvl requirement for Flex.Timeless IsleTimeless IsleCool, that ties into my next question actually which is about Flex raids. They seem like a lot of fun for players who don't have a dedicated raid but are missing the social component when they're in LFR. What is your target audience for flex raids, and how do you envision it fitting into players existing raid schedules--both more casual players in LFR and organized groups in Normal/Heroic?As for more serious raiders in the Siege of Orgrimmar, there's a wider variety of mount rewards and other incentives compared to previous MoP raids. We've got a mount from Heroic Garrosh, a mount tied to the Ahead of the Curve achievements, and then the Glory mount...and also the new heirlooms. How did Siege of Orgrimmar end up with all these additional cool raid incentives?Yeah, it seems that there's many community initiatives with Flex--the glory mount for example. You can go in and do it with friends, but it's not tied to Heroic kills, so it can be more casual and also not disrupt heroic raids.So to prepare players for raiding, there's Proving Grounds also in 5.4, where players can go from easy Bronze challenges to pretty challenging encounters in Endless. What are your target audiences for various levels, and what sort of players do you think will be drawn to these challenges?How do you envision Proving Grounds fitting into the larger community? Do you think they'll catch on as qualifications for pugging raids?So I guess while we're on the subject--quick question about Valor. What's happening to it in 5.4?I know you guys are short on time, so I'll just ask one more quick question. Cooking got a big (and possibly controversial) revamp in MoP, with all the various Ways and additional effort required to max things out. It's been untouched for a few patches and now we have the addition of noodle carts--how does that fit in and what niche does it fill?Thanks so much for answering my questions--we'll get back to having fun exploring the Timeless Isle and playing the PTR!

Comment by ghostiron"Yeah, while the vale does look pretty different, you can still get everything done except that one Feat of Strength."

What is the feat of strength that will not be attainable?Comment by perculiaEternally in the Vale is going away, and you can learn more about the complete changes here.Comment by ghostironThanks for pointing that out, I had almost every quest done towards the achievement except about five, I finished them and got the achievement, I'm glad I didn't miss out on that FoS!Comment by perculiaWould help if I linked the guide in my earlier comment :PComment by AzrileI really like their thinking with proving grounds as a requirement to do heroic dungeons in the future. But i think ?role? is a lesser problem then just knowing the dungeons themselves.

In Cata, the heroics were fairly difficult for pugs, but that came mainly from players not knowing the boss fights. The entire Cata-heroic issue would have been easily resolved if they simply required you to do the normal version before you could PUG the heroic version. The boss mechanisms required a lot of different, rather unique things from the DPS ( ie blocking the evolution beam). It was a lot (IMHO) to ask dps to learn those mechanisms while the group was a pug AND maybe their ilvl was only mediocre for the content.

In other words, even if they required ?silver medals? in proviing grounds before you could have done Cata heroics, it would not have mattered at all.Comment by ShoadowolfCan't wait for 5.4 to go live! :DComment by 1064233I am REALLY looking forward to the proving grounds! I'm on a mid-low pop server and a member of a very small (used to be quite large) guild. I don't group up much, and haven't done any LFR anywhere, but especially in Throne of Thunder (yet). This is EXACTLY the reason why:

A lot of players have negative experience--they go into dungeon finder, and they get yelled at because they don't know what to do in an encounter, they get yelled at because their dps is terrible, or they don't know how to tank or heal a group, and they feel like there's no way to really learn that without doing it.Comment by TheWheatOneNow if only they would just take off the raid lockout at a week still for past-expansion content. Its okay that I have to farm for a 1/50 or a 1/200 mount drop in old raids, but asking to have a chance at it once a week is just too long. If we're just that unlucky it can literally take us more than 13 years to get it. And that's not even counting Need rolling against other people, which can easily double to 10x the unlikelihood of getting it.

I'd even take a chance of introducing elder charms or mogu runes for past content. I mean, we can use it for second chances at astral cloud serpents and other MoP mounts that are definitely still current content, so why not let us use it for past content?Comment by ZujiThe font the questions are printed in is seriously annoying.Comment by RodpadThe font the questions are printed in is seriously annoying.Comment by DeathhordzUnless I haven't heard anything, I would like to know something else to do with lesser charms than stacking them to 700 on one char will still getting the same amount for the 90 weekly quest you need.Comment by IceveiledI think it's funny how blizzard still thinks people want to do world PvP.Comment by FalconxiiI think it's funny how blizzard still thinks people want to do world PvP.Comment by merl023I think it's funny how blizzard still thinks people want to do world PvP.Comment by AzrileI think it's funny how blizzard still thinks people want to do world PvP.Comment by AzrileThe font the questions are printed in is seriously annoying.Comment by FYYNKThe font the questions are printed in is seriously annoying.Comment by rinkworksI think PvP sucks in general, but I don't see anything problematic with the world PvP stuff on the Timeless Isle. On PvP servers, being able to kill each other for bloody coins isn't any worse than being able to kill each other for nothing. On PvE servers, you have to opt in to play, and if someone opts in, presumably they want to be doing so. On both kinds of servers, opting in means being able to kill members of your own faction, which is something new -- now your whole raiding guild can go duke it out with each other if they so choose.

As much as I hate PvP, I can't see a reason to object to the Timeless Isle PvP. It seems like it adds a lot of value for how simple a feature it must have been to implement and lets people who like PvP do something a little different with it.Comment by Snowy6What about Aki the Chosen <Grand Master Pet Tamer>?Comment by AdamsmWhat about Aki the Chosen <Grand Master Pet Tamer>?