»Nie wieder Content-Dürre!« - Blizzard verspricht das Ende des World-of-Warcraft-Frusts

GameStar

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Word of Warcraft: The War Within geht langsam zu Ende, das nächste Addon Midnight steht bereits in den Startlöchern. Und das hat eine Neuerung im Gepäck, die sich WoW-Fans schon seit Ewigkeiten wünschen: Housing.

Darüber und über die weitere Zukunft des mittlerweile über 20 Jahre alten MMO-Rollenspiels spricht unser Moderator Julius auf der FYNG-Bühne gemeinsam mit Kollege Benedikt Grothaus von MeinMMO und den beiden Blizzard-Entwicklern Ian Hazzikostas und Paul Kubit.

Das ist eine Aufzeichnung aus unserem Livestreaming-Programm FYNG gamescom: https://www.gamestar.de/fyng

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00:00world of warcraft the war within geht langsam zu ende world of warcraft midnight steht in

00:18den startlöchern und kommt mit einem feature das sich fans schon seit über 20 jahren wünschen

00:24endlich wird es housing in world of warcraft geben und darüber werden wir heute sprechen sowie über die

00:31auch etwas weiter gedachte zukunft des mmo's und dafür heute zu gast sind einmal ian hasi costas hello

00:41game director of world of warcraft and paul cubit game director of the midnight expansion

00:47guten tag hello everybody hi so nice to see you again and great to be back meet you yeah great

00:53to be here außerdem mit dabei benedict rothaus von mein mmo der schon mehr bosse in mythic

01:00gelegt hat als ich und deswegen qualifiziert ist hier fragen zu stellen so ian last year you were

01:06sitting in exactly this spot and i asked you for player housing in world of warcraft so yeah you're

01:14welcome for the suggestion as soon as i heard the suggestion yeah such a good idea i went back

01:18to the team i was like i know this is going to be hard yeah we need to make it happen in the next

01:22year yeah just for you you did it here we did it okay uh so yeah if if if ever spot is free

01:30you know where to find me man all right so um but i think we want to start off with uh like a little

01:37retrospective on uh the war within a lot of interesting stuff happening um the first time

01:43that you sort of did the first expansion of a trilogy expansion um which is quite interesting so um

01:51yeah what do you think went well with it and what do you think like we had to make adjustments and uh

01:58are there some adjustments you are quite proud of that you turned around on the go yes i think you

02:04know this is the biggest most ambitious story we've ever tried to tell in world of warcraft and i think

02:10one of the big worries one of the concerns that we had was whether the community would be okay

02:16with a story with an expansion that doesn't answer all the questions that it asks with an expansion

02:22that ends setting up a new villain as opposed to you know we're the heroes and we've saved the world

02:28and i think we've seen an amazing response and it's great to be able to really plant seeds

02:33that will bear fruit down the line like over the course of war within for example many players

02:39were wondering what was up with the harranier like we met orwena this one character and they

02:43wanted to learn more about these mysterious underground elves and like it seems like they

02:48left something out but no we've had this in mind all along we knew we were going to be coming

02:54to harrandar to understand their connection to the world in midnight and that's just one example

03:00of the way we can build things up and then pay them off yep another great example is the the

03:04feature that we added in the war within which is delves uh delves were you know something we added

03:09into that expansion as a new way for players to experience instance content in a way where they

03:14can choose the size of their group choose their difficulty that's something that we're planning on

03:17continuing forward into midnight we have 10 new delves plus a nemesis delve that we're adding into

03:22that expansion as well so we're taking the you know the building blocks that we've used in the war

03:26within and moving forward into midnight yeah that's also like what i wanted to ask because i think i

03:31had like a different idea from the get-go when i went into the war within um that it would be like

03:38the main thing that we fight uh fight downstairs with uh arathy and the rubians but then we had like

03:46this goblin side adventure which was which was really cool but uh sort of like a different story

03:52uh of course it added to the main narrative yes um so yeah it it felt like did you forget about the

03:58sword again but what you're saying is you didn't no it's the sword is going to play a very important

04:05role in the world soul saga not necessarily in the parts that we've seen yet but trust me we're going

04:10to get there but yes i think undermine was one of my favorite parts of the war within because when we

04:16tell stories in world of warcraft it's not just about characters and specific villains it's about the

04:21world yeah i think we knew that when we were going to go beneath the surface of azeroth and tell a

04:27story there it was the best opportunity to visit the location of undermine right this legendary

04:32underground goblin city that we long time coming yeah and now we can go there yeah another really

04:37important role that is something like undermine plays is it gives you variety as you're playing

04:41through an expansion like the war within your final raid boss at the end of of 11.0 it's nerubians

04:47it's dark it's purple at the end of 11.2 it's the shadow guard they're dark they're purple to have

04:53the you know the the levity and sort of a different color palette and a different enemy uh group uh

04:58inside of undermined is something that you know provides a lot of value to us but does it mean

05:02that we can expect like maybe a little bit bigger uh 11.2.5 or 11.2.7 story-wise to like wrap it all up

05:11uh going into midnight there's yes we're definitely going to have kind of an epilogue to war within

05:17and a prologue to midnight you know where players are fighting dimensius like as we speak i think you

05:22know echo is sitting 20 minutes from here trying to beat mythic dimensius for the first time but you

05:28know we're going to learn about the aftermath of that in ways that will set up midnight that's cool yeah

05:34sorry with midnight you're going to have uh the first time in expansion which is actively building up

05:40upon the further the previous expansion more than any time before instead of just hooking into like

05:45the last bit of story um how is that different in a dev perspective from what we had before and um

05:52what's better to develop or easier like having shorter expansions which are coming faster and

05:58building up on each other or having entirely new surroundings every time and with a longer lifetime

06:03i wouldn't say any one uh approach is better than another you know i think some of our greatest

06:07expansions uh in the past have been an encapsulated story that would last in the entirety of that

06:13expansion uh but i would say that things like when we are building this trilogy uh one of the things

06:18that we found that we need to uh to challenge ourselves with when we go into midnight is keeping

06:23folks current keeping folks up to up to date as folks step into midnight and players go into midnight

06:28uh they may you know there may there may be players who didn't play the war within and don't

06:32know that story there might be some who's been a little while since they played through

06:35isle of dorn and ringing deeps and need a refresher on that story and so one of the things that we're

06:39doing is making sure the players are caught up with a catch-up quest line uh as opposed to having to

06:44play through the entire expansion which would take you know dozens of hours to play through all the

06:47quests uh we've built uh a abbreviated quest line it takes a few short hours using the technology that

06:54we've used to build up some of our lore walking stories and through that you'll play through

06:58ringing deeps through uh through undermine all the way through koresh hit all the major cinematics get all

07:03the big character moments so you'll be brought current and ready to jump into midnight i think

07:07one of the most important things as we approach trilogy you know we want there to be that depth

07:12for players who have played all of it and understand the lore but each expansion needs to feel like it

07:17stands on its own and is satisfying it has a beginning and an end and as paul said you know midnight

07:23just because it's part two of a trilogy doesn't mean that it's not a great time to come into wow if you've

07:27been away for a while or even for the very first time with that in mind uh why did you decide on

07:33going back to old uh areas like uh the everson forest and zulaman instead of bringing entire new ones

07:40but i think ultimately we would be losing something and giving something up that's very important

07:44if we said that we could never tell new stories in any of these old important locations right that

07:50also brings about nostalgia right exactly so much so much history to them these are where like

07:55like the the area of eversong the area of um kelp the laws i mean that is where the lich king and

08:02his forces carved a scar through the earth where great battles happen and it's it's great to be able to

08:08go back there to revisit it nearly 20 years later you know both tell new stories and also bring it up to

08:14modern fidelity and we've we've seen a lot of excited response from players especially fans of blood elves to be able to go back and

08:21to go back and really have that be the center of where the story begins and we're going to see stories

08:25that center on characters that people know if you played back in those expansions you'll see lady

08:29liadrin and lorthomar like we saw in the cinematic but also characters like rameth or halderon or

08:35astral or bloodsworn you know maybe you know lower tier uh characters but still folks who are beloved and

08:40and we're going to see what they've been up to in the last several decades and that also goes to say that

08:45these aren't all uh revisited zones as we go into midnight there are a couple new ones as well we're

08:49going to go to herondar where we're going to see that fungal jungle where the roots of the world

08:54trees intertwine and discover details about the heronir and what they've been up to we're going

08:58to go to void storm the the you know the center of zalatath's attack on on azeroth itself and see

09:04the you know the cosmic forces of predation that that wandered around there lots of really exciting

09:09new places to visit in addition to the nostalgic ones that we're revisiting

09:12level sorry so before we dive deeper into the midnight uh expansion i want to go specifically

09:20to housing because right now we see it already um on the screen uh the new housing feature i think this

09:26is me trying out the basics but we've also seen like what rooms we can build with it um and for me

09:33personally i think you've gone further than i would have thought at first when i heard of it because

09:38it's really um very a very free system it's not like you go to a few spots and choose like which

09:45couch you want there you can really just freely place items there so there's a huge potential to go

09:51very deep into customizing these houses and i think we're going to see a lot of cool um cool houses from

09:57from players but these are all like instances in in of itself and these houses are placed in to

10:04neighborhoods and that's what i wonder like how is it going to look from the outside like will i go

10:09through my guild neighborhood and then also see their houses from the outside recognize them how

10:15they're built how does that translate from because you can go like really really big yeah on the inside

10:21how does it translate to the outside you know something that was super important to us in building

10:25housing is just giving players like bottomless expression huge amounts of ways to express themselves

10:29yeah and that extends to both the inside of their house and the outside so yes you can make a really

10:35big uh interior to your house that's not necessarily reflected in the outside it's it's really whatever

10:40you want to look like so we do offer players the ability to kind of customize the way their house looks

10:44changing the size changing the the roof and the gables and the wind the position of windows as well

10:49as their garden their yard they can place other you know items around it so you should be a player should

10:53be able to express themselves in whatever way they want and that could include if you want to have an

10:57incredibly large house on the inside that looks small on the outside or vice versa um we're not

11:02really two customizations the outside and the inside which is like a different thing okay and

11:07exactly that if you're in a neighborhood with your friends with your guildmates you'll learn to

11:11recognize exactly whose house is whose because they're going to look different they're going to be

11:15people's expression of their identity and of course you'll also be working with them as part of the

11:20neighborhood events and activities that are coming in midnight you know one of the most important

11:24things for us was to make sure that housing while it's focused on this creative self-expression

11:29didn't become just a solitary system where you isolate yourself yeah there's plenty of reasons to

11:34invite players into your home and to visit theirs but also because everyone is part of a neighborhood

11:39even if you're not in a guild or private neighborhood you'll be in a public one where you can work

11:44together with the other people in your neighborhood towards shared goals like endeavors which will unlock

11:49more upgrades for your house and more opportunities in the neighborhood itself so for the guild neighborhoods

11:55people are automatically if you're in the guild you can go to that neighborhood and use that but

12:00what if it's a bigger guild like how do you handle 50 plus people in one neighborhood then or will it be

12:06instanced or uh yeah i can answer that so uh first of all uh your guild neighborhood is automatically

12:12your neighborhood if your guild chooses to have a guild neighborhood you could choose to not have one

12:16and instead split up into separate groups and have private neighborhoods we wanted to just give players

12:20control and how they want if they wanted their guild to live together or not i suspect a lot of guilds

12:24are going to want to live next to their guild and that's something i'm most looking forward to

12:29personally as a player uh if your guild is more than 50 players then we just allow the guilds the

12:35the neighborhoods to stack so you should always have enough space for you know up to the maximum size

12:39of your guild uh if you have a thousand players in your guild and they're all separate different

12:43players the neighborhood system should be able to support that with just with multiple basically

12:47like uh stacked instances of the same neighborhood okay um and and uh but you will share your progression

12:52you'll share an identity together you will all still technically be neighbors okay but the instances

12:57are like uh constant persistent problems so the first 50 will live together and then the next 50 will

13:05live together in their neighborhoods but mechanics wise they all contribute yes you can move freely between

13:10them okay yep oh that's cool yeah that's nice so um another thing i was um i was wondering was um is

13:19there some way to like corrupt cooperatively uh build a house or do you think maybe about also guild

13:26housing in a way that you can all together build the same big house is this something you maybe have in

13:33store for the future or something that's an idea that's come up but it's something that we are we are

13:37working towards i think one of the really exciting things about housing yeah is that this is just a

13:41beginning this is a foundation i think as powerful as the system is as much as there is to do and to

13:46to do to express yourself it's a foundation that we're going to continue to build on for years to come

13:52yeah and a lot of that is going to be a response to what we see and hear from players as they get in

13:56and start using this system what opportunities what tools they want to help build stronger communities to

14:02help express themselves better and the idea of a cooperative decoration of being able to invite

14:07someone into your home and work together to build something is one of those things that we want to

14:11deliver after the launch of midnight and we can't wait to see what players do with it all yeah it's

14:16going to be cool uh another thing i was wondering is our alliance port like are they locked to the

14:22housing neighborhoods because you had the the cliff neighborhood for the horde and then

14:27uh one for the alliance is it faction locked or can you freely choose it is faction flavored it's not

14:35action locked okay as you know you should be able to live in whatever type of neighborhood you let

14:40you prefer to live with with the people you want to live with if those are uh other alliance players

14:44and you are a horde player we'll support that yeah there's there's no rules that prevent that from

14:49happening you might see like you know a lot more alliance uh npcs in one space and more horde npcs in the

14:56other but really that's mostly focused around the flavor as opposed to you can or cannot you're not

15:01allowed to live here yeah ultimately i mean we have cross-faction guilds at this point yeah and so

15:05you have alliance and horde players in the same guild they need to be able to you know play together

15:09in a neighborhood and not having to break those bonds but the guild would be the guild would have

15:14to decide on one or could even like different instances be different flavored neighborhoods the

15:21guild will have to decide on one yes the guild gets to make that decision together it's also

15:25important i will make that decision for the game yes uh point out that the house is owned by the

15:30warband your entire warband gets to to share your homes and so yeah if you have a warband with both

15:35alliance and horde characters in it as most of us do then oh that's yeah then all those characters

15:40will be able to visit either your alliance house or your horde home oh that's cool all right then let's

15:46talk about other stuff coming uh for midnight um i think you were um wondering about uh the update

15:53cadence and how that's gonna uh yes coming along for the future uh just like um right now we're

16:00having like these uh shorter and and and faster updates is this going to be prevailing or are you

16:05kind of going to go back to like the um old cadence of like i think four updates per or three big

16:13updates per uh for expansion no i think we're looking to keep the same sort of update cadence that

16:18we've had in war within and dragonflight before it and ultimately i think we've heard from our players

16:23that people like having more to do and more frequent updates i think you know throughout the long history

16:28of wow i think some of the periods of the most community discontent were those long content droughts

16:33when there wasn't anything to do and so i think it also lets us offer different activities ways to tell

16:38stories different shapes and sizes of things to do um i mean we're not necessarily locked into a specific

16:43formula but i don't see us going back to the much slower less frequent updates that we had years

16:49and years ago i'd have to stray away from the housing a little bit and talk about the demon hunter

16:54specialization because that's like i think one of the things that's been a big thing for a lot of

17:00players um it's the the only other uh specialization next to the eloper that's been mid-range uh are you

17:09planning to do more in in that area i mean especially looking toward a outlaw reward

17:16that's an interesting idea you know but i think yeah it's we're excited to bring another one of those

17:21sort of hybrid approaches to damage dealing right demon hunters are as a base class of course a melee

17:27class and so while the devourer is primarily ranged based it still has some of that flavor of a highly

17:35mobile combatant that the demon hunter inherits i think as we you know continue to see see and hear

17:40feedback um if there's interest in other specs whether they're existing specs or perhaps even new

17:45specs that we might add to other classes down the line that could be another interesting space to

17:50explore what's harder to do anyway bring in new class a new specialization or are you working in class

17:57the hard i think i think adding a brand new class to wow is probably the hardest thing to do

18:01on a lot of levels right it you need to create something that feels unique and flavorful and

18:06it's you know the the conception as well as their gameplay mechanics we need to balance them you need

18:12to fit them into a group you know a world that already has so many classes competing for spots and

18:17groups so it's something that you know we may do again if there's a really compelling idea that makes

18:22sense but really this time around the doubling down on demon hunters elves and who better to harness the

18:30powers that we need to turn against our opponents than demon hunters and whereas before it was you

18:35know fell energy this time around it's going to be void yeah demon hunters have been waiting for

18:40a third specialization for some time now and so this is a really great opportunity for us to

18:44you know discover what would happen if these characters who are so good at harnessing chaotic

18:50energies were instead to turn towards the void as opposed to to the fell uh it really matched our

18:55our story we were able to sort of sort of give players a uh a chance to see what this looks like

19:00in 11 2 with uh with the demon hunter council fight that exists in mana forge omega a lot of folks

19:05guessed that maybe that meant that you're going to get void elf demon hunters they guess that maybe this

19:09meant that there was a third spec coming there's that it was yeah intentional it was both to be a

19:13little bit of a teaser but also to give you a basis for comparison so that uh when you do get to play

19:18devour uh you can you can look at that fight and say like oh some of those really cool abilities that this boss

19:23that my guild defeated uh was using now i get to use those on my enemies just on the side note there

19:29um do you also bring a third uh hero talent tree then because yeah yeah there's a new hero talent

19:35tree coming uh we're going to talk about this a little bit in our in our panel coming up later this

19:39saturday but it's called annihilator it's all about dropping meteors on your enemies it's really cool

19:45it's shared with uh with vengeance and so you will as a vengeance uh demon hunter be dropping fell

19:51meteors on your enemies as a devourer you'll be dropping void meteors on your enemies uh really

19:56cool so uh thinking about that would not be also cool to maybe include some void mechanics into the

20:05game specifically to raids for the classes that actually use the void as a thing like maybe there's

20:13something only affecting the the void classes or something wouldn't that be like an interesting

20:18uh thing to bring into the game it's an interesting idea for sure you know anytime we can have

20:23something that's thematic that lets people feel special and to be able to use the unique tools that

20:28their class or their specialization have to help their group in a situation it's always fun so we're

20:34sitting here next year and you'll be like thanks for the idea last year it worked awesome i'm a shadow

20:39priest main myself i'm totally bought in this i think this might be your idea for this year that we

20:43thank you there's a good chance anyways um i was also wondering about um because it's special that

20:51you're bringing three raids right from the start yeah um i imagine those will be story related so

20:58that's why there's one person there and two there and six there how is it going to play out on a on a

21:03weekly schedule though are you expecting guilds to then just like do this raid and then they're moving

21:09to this raid and then do this raid in one week or um what's going to be like the thing that most guilds

21:15are going to play it are going to be like okay this week we're doing this and then next week we're doing

21:19this yeah let me share some of like the thought process that went into like why we split up the

21:23raids this way and then i can i can share some details although we're still pretty early on and give

21:27you a rough idea of what that schedule will look like yeah so uh we've heard feedback from players that

21:32having you know uh eight boss raids consistently is you know it's it's a good size for for loot

21:38distribution etc and and building up towards a final boss but it can also get a little repetitive

21:42a little monotonous and so we wanted that opportunity to have something a little different

21:46uh and and we we did that we split it up into three as you mentioned a boss a raid with six

21:51bosses a raid with one and then a raid with two uh and then we also saw that based on the way that

21:56the story progresses in this expansion that there was actually a really good opportunity for us to tell

22:00some story that happens in the void spire up to that sixth boss and then to have some more story that

22:06occurs in quests outside of raids for a little bit before we turn the story back into the the final

22:11raid the march on called anas because we have story mode raids now and players who are you know do not

22:16have a raid group consistently to play with can still get that story inside of raids you know we're

22:20able to start doing something something like that so what you'll see is at the beginning of the season

22:24you'll have that six boss raid of the void spire also the one boss raid in the in the dream rift and

22:29then maybe two or three weeks later is when march on called anas comes out after you've had that

22:33intervening story in between and folks will be able to jump into that final chapter of the original

22:39bits of midnight yeah and then i mean once all the braids are unlocked guilds well i think we'll probably

22:45do all three of them in a given week the what order you tackle them in will depend on your personal

22:49preference so in terms of loot they will sort of be similar so they're all going to be part of the same

22:56overall tier yeah but it's just you know more options in terms of how you want to approach it what

23:01setting you have in mind or again if you want to focus your progression on let's say the march of

23:05peldenos you can go straight there and not have to worry about re-clearing a different raid yeah

23:10should give folks a lot of flexibility too like there is a lot of value in just having a single

23:14boss raid that you can hop into and knock out and then be done for the evening if you're having

23:19it planning a shorter evening or something like that or have a really uh meaty raid night and take out

23:23all nine yeah this is something i mean that wow used to do a lot more right if people think back to the

23:28the early days of burning crusade where you have like gruel's lair and mag theridon and then

23:32serpent shrine it was small raids one two four bosses and you can kind of figure out the order you wanted

23:37to approach them in you'd like to get back to some sense of that level of variety in a way that fits

23:43the modern game i have one more lore question that's been bugging us for since since uh the uh cinematic

23:51who's the army that liadrin brings like like they're going to tell us now

23:55uh what i can say is that that cinematic takes place in the intro to the game that you that fight

24:01that happens there at the sunwell that is sort of uh uh parallel to what we saw in dalaran you know the

24:08assault on dalaran that first first major beats that's where players will be and so it's meant

24:13to be a little mysterious who did the sunwell call forward um but these are i i can say forces of the

24:19light forces who are tied to to the sunwell um who are you know coming to to aid the sunwell and azeroth

24:26itself against zealotas forces but then if you um like can you give us a little preview of of course

24:33you're not gonna tell us that much but for the expansion like is it gonna feel similar like the

24:38war within that will have like this uh sunwell a storyline and then we'll go to a whole different

24:45place or is it gonna be more focused on the same areas and tell like a more focused story on this

24:53one thing this battle between or this battle for the sunwell yeah there's so the existential threat

24:59to azeroth is right above the sunwell we see that and yeah the the void storm positioned right above the

25:05well with a beam of energy coming down at it it you know it's really sort of a uh an impressive sight

25:11when we see that but the story does take you all over you're not at the sunwell the entire time

25:15and so there will be reasons for us to go visit uh heron dar to visit zulamon eventually to go into

25:20void storm itself you know one of the things which i think is most interesting about the story in

25:23midnight is that players have some choice in terms of how they play through it your first zone will

25:28be ever song woods there in you know call the loss where you are assisting the elves and that's sort

25:32of an overture to the expansion where you'll get to see what's going on with the elves but also you'll

25:36get a taste of some of the story that will lead us into heron dar you'll get a taste of some of

25:40that story which will take you off into zulamon and you'll get the taste of a third story which

25:44is actually sort of zone agnostic it has to do with erator and him interrogating his relationship

25:50with the light itself and that'll take you to some legacy areas in world of warcraft but those

25:53three chapters you can choose to play in whatever order you prefer once you've finished all three

25:57then you come down to the final campaign finale which occurs in void storm cool yeah thank you so

26:03much um unfortunately this was already uh our time uh we had i think a couple more questions right

26:10so we'll do that next time uh hopefully uh we'll get to talk again then um thank you so much for

26:17coming and uh thank you for having us good luck with uh wrapping everything up for the war within

26:23and excited for midnight us too and housing coming later this year before war within ends anyone who

26:29owns midnight will be able to start but you don't have an exact exact date right now um end of the year

26:34and okay 1127 housing will come yeah all right we're looking forward to it and we'll try it out

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