Behind the Blue Curtain: Further Discussion on Wrath of the Lich King with Tom “Kalgan” Chilton
Curse: With all the changes in introducing 10 person instances for every raid, can we expect to see a similar shift for the honor/arena system, to where the honor system is basically the equivalent of 10 person, and arena is 25?
Tom Chilton: Certainly the itemization is undergoing some changes to reflect that. The way we have it set up is that the highest end arena gear, and some of the honor gear that has arena requirements on it, will actually be equivalent to 25 man raid instances.
When season one starts for level 80 arenas, the best stuff that has really high rating requirements, kind of like what we’re seeing for season four rating requirements, will mirror the 25 man Naxxramas quality.
Then we’ll have a middle tier below that that has lower rating requirements, and is much cheaper, and reflect the 10 person raiding item quality. And then we’ll have a tier below that for PvP gear which has no requirements at all, which mirrors the heroic quality items.
We do plan to start with multiple tiers right out of the gate, and we’re going to make sure that the best stuff for PvP feels equivalently difficult to get as the best stuff in PvE. We’re trying to equalize the balance there a little better.
The MMO Gamer: When the reputation system for PvP battlegrounds was first implemented, I remember people in my guild being very excited… “We’ve got to go out and get this reputation!”
But, within two weeks it had devolved into this kind of Korean level grind where they weren’t even concerned about the PvP anymore, they just wanted to get in and farm the other team…
I haven’t played WoW for about a year now, but, those I know who do still seem to maintain that is the case.
Tom Chilton: Well certainly not with reputation. The reputations for BGs don’t really do anything anymore, they just give you a title.
But, you can make an argument that it’s that way for honor now. Players will just try to do battlegrounds very repetitively to maximize their honor per hour.
We’ve done a few things over the last year to try to mix that up. For one, the introduction of the battleground daily quests; so that it can be very beneficial just go in there and do your one battleground per day because you get a whole bunch of bonus honor for doing it, and some gold, and any subsequent battlegrounds you do are only worth the normal amount.
We’re trying to do things like that to help the more casual players that don’t want it to feel grindy, who don’t want to kind of be compelled to grind; to kind of help them get the rewards they want by spending a little bit of time every day. We’ll probably do more of that kind of thing in the expansion.
Also I think a lot of it is that we have to make sure to kind of vary up the content. We’re adding another battleground with Lich King and we’re also adding Wintergrap, so that’s almost like two battlegrounds there, and the more different places and ways people play, the less grindy it feels.
Ten Ton Hammer: What tier level are we going to see equipment going up to in the next expansion?
Tom Chilton: It’ll start of at tier 7/8 quality. It depends on whether or not you consider Sunwell to be another tier of gear.
Then, Ulduar beyond that will be another tier, and there are even tiers within that as far as 10 and 15 person. While the art is shared between the 10 and 25, there are color variants of it. You will be able to see the differences, but thematically it will be the same.
Also, the sets within that tier or instance actually work with each other, a lot like how right now the season one gladiator, season two, season three are all part of the same armor set, you can mix and match the pieces and still get the set bonuses. That’ll be the case for the 10 and 25 man instances.
With Naxxramas 10/25 if you have the leggings from the 10 man zone and the chest from the 25 man zone, you will be able to wear them together to get the set bonus.
Curse: Something that just popped into my head regarding the 10 and 25 for each raid instance: Are you concerned that guilds at the cutting edge will put together 10 man groups just to learn encounters, and take that knowledge into the 25 person instances?
Tom Chilton: Yeah, we have talked about that possibility. One thing we are also talking about doing—we haven’t finalized it yet—would be that the instance has to be defeated by somebody on that server in 25 man mode before it can be unlocked for 10 man.
With some kind of fail-safe, so if some time goes by and it still hasn’t been beaten, it would unlock for 10 mans anyway. Just in case there isn’t a guild on the server that’s capable of doing the 25 man content.
So, that is definitely a concern that we’re actively talking about how to approach.
The MMO Gamer: The thing that perked my ears up the most during the demonstration this morning was that the Arthas encounter would not be added into the game until the end of the Wrath of the Lich King patch cycle.
Does that mean we might see the third expansion announced before players are able to fight Arthas?
Tom Chilton: No, it would definitely be in a patch that happens before the third expansion, but the idea is that it would be kind of like the final patch before that… Oh, I see, before he actually dies.
Not likely, it tends to be that those patches come out far enough in advance of the expansion launch that if players haven’t beaten it, it’s just because we mistuned the encounter or it’s bugged in some way, and we get that fixed pretty quickly. A good example would be Naxxramas.
It came out several months in advance of the Burning Crusade launch, and it was a huge, huge raid instance, but a good chunk of players were able to kill Kel’Thuzad before the expansion was launched.
Ten Ton Hammer: You also in the presentation talked about the different kind of raids and the loot that is going to be dropped in 25 man vs. 10 man.
Do you think there is going to be any sort of backlash from those people that enjoy doing 10 mans more, since there’s going to be better loot in the 25 man raid, or are they just going to be content with having X amount of raids?
[At this point, a Blizzard employee leaned into the conference room from outside, and made a throat cutting motion with his hands, indicating that this was to be the final question.]
Tom Chilton: You can argue that that’s the case already, so we’re kind of used to it.
I mean Zul’Amon loot isn’t as good as Black Temple loot. I don’t think it violates our expectations too much. As long as they’re getting content at the same time that the 25 man raids are getting content, I don’t think it’s too much of a problem.
When Ulduar is opened up for players, then you’ll be able to do it in the 10 man shortly thereafter, and the same goes for the subsequent raid zones, so it should play out OK.
