Spooncraft

A lot of what’s in the interview has already been posted by me earlier today but here are some high points I don’t believe I covered. It’s A LOT of information to process today.

• Karazhan showed Blizzard that 10-man raids could work, and were good for more casual players/small guilds; on the other hand, more hardcore raiding guilds were upset about having to break into 10-man groups. Thus Wrath’s split 10-man/25-man raid system. This way both camps will be able to progress through the game and not feel like they are missing out on anything.
• Naxx is going to have to be tuned way down, since it’s now an entry-level raid instead of a top-level raid.
• Class balance as we know it is going to change drastically with the new talents for every class (at least in their current, secret, developmental state). There’s near hysterical levels of panic over the news regarding death Knights as details of their spells and roles are coming out today. But people must remember that each class is getting another 10 levels of spells and talents and Blizzard has learned from their mistakes with TBC. Basically try to remember how big a deal most spells were when Burning Crusade was announced compared to Classic WoW.

• WoW was always planned out with item inflation in mind, so don’t worry about it too much.
• There will be a Northrend kick-off event similar to the opening of the Dark Portal that kicked off the Burning Crusade.
• Kaplan would rather we did dailies for gold instead of farming primals, since it’s less repetitive; on that note, he wants to make more of a varied experience, like the cooking daily or the daily dungeon with randomization built in. The one singlular way that Blizzard has essentially KILLED the gold selling operations in WoW was by making daily quests relatively easy to complete and a steady source of income.
• They’re planning a new item type that will bind to your account, specifically for twinking. You might get it in a dungeon, and you can mail it to your alts, but you can’t sell it on the AH or anything. This is quite interesting as it could lead to other ways to transfer funds or items from one character to another on your account.
• There will be a new battleground, with siege weapons and destructible buildings. Thank you!
• The Paladin is designed to be the best AoE tank, and the Warrior the best tank for sheer mitigation; the Death Knight is designed to be the anti-caster tank. These distinctions should be fairly irrelevant in 5-mans but they will come into play in the more difficult raids. Druids obviously can still tank but you know, I’m of the school where Warriors were all alone back in the day.
• They’re experimenting with daily quests being used during the leveling process.
• The Arena gear will come in two tiers, to mirror the quality of the 10-man and 25-man raids.
• 10-man and 25-man gear will be recolors of the same models, and you will be able to wear them together for set bonuses.