The podcast continues after the beta
The WoW: Forever Podcast continues after the beta. A sign behind the developers in episode 5 reads “The Podcast WILL Continue”. The series was planned as five episodes, one for every week of the beta. An episode about the server technology is already promised.
Episode 5 appeared on 22 October; what it says about the beta, the language groups and the raids is in the post about episode 5. When the next episode follows, Blizzard does not say.
How a raid boss is made
Lead Encounter Designer Michael Nuthals describes the process. The team starts from the core fantasy of a boss and writes a pitch of what it should do. The boss is built, and the encounter designers debate the mechanics. Then the QA team plays it.
That feedback is the core, says Nuthals. Testers might say a mechanic is boring; the designers then dig into why, change it and test again. A boss is judged as a whole: one complicated mechanic can be fine, as long as the encounter as a whole asks the right amount of players.
The aim is “beer and pretzels”: prepare, and the raid should be doable. Too much complexity is the other risk, because Blizzard wants an approachable and familiar raid boss in the style of Classic. The host recalls the classic kind of mechanic: miss it and you die, like a Deep Breath from Onyxia, but the raid does not wipe.
Talking helps, but is not a must
Communication is a big part of raid encounters, says Nuthals. Without voice chat there are other tools: the ping system, taken from the modern game, marks an add for the group. The developers also name text to speech and speech to text, partly for accessibility.
Homes and hidden portals
Nuthals closes with a hint at the future. Forever lays the groundwork for more: there might be “some homes, some manors” that players have found, and instance portals hide in inconspicuous spots. Which manor he means and what these places become, he does not say.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment