Today marks the early release ofWorld of Warcraft: The War Within, the 10th expansion for Blizzard’s long-running MMORPG. The expansion starts a new era for asThe War Withinis just the opening act of an epic story arc dubbed The Worldsoul Saga, which will span across two additional expansions,MidnightandThe Last Titan, in the coming years. It is no secret thatWorld of Warcraft’s popularity continues to recover from the significant player count drops that took place during expansions such asBattle For AzerothandShadowlands.
AsDragonflightwas seen as a positive turning point for Blizzard’s MMORPG, Blizzard wants to keep the momentum going and bring back players who are curious about whatThe War Withinhas to offer both new and longtimeWarcraftfranchise fans. Game Rant spoke withWorld of WarcraftProduction Director Michael Bybee and Game Producer George Velev before the release ofThe War Withinabout what the developers have done and continue to do to bring new and returning players into the fold going into The Worldsoul Saga. Both developers suggested how fans of theWarcraftsaga’s lore can take in the game’s recent story beats before setting off for Khaz Algar.This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.
The First Chapter of The Worldsoul Saga May Entice Returning Players
Q: With a lot of players coming back, what’s the hook or pitch that you want to give to them for this first part of The Worldsoul Saga?
Bybee:I think that depends on when they’re jumping back from. I think there are a few that are engaging, such asthe conversation between Alleria and Xal’atathand the nature of the Void. For anyone who played the Legion expansion, whenever you go to see the Void Elves for the first time, or you see Alleria become all Voided out on the trip to Argus, I think that’s a fascinating hook. A lot of people care about Thrall, and they want to see that he’s back. It’s a huge call to action having Thrall step back into the fight.
Some folks who may have played inShadowlandsmay have seen what happened to Anduin, and how he disappeared for a time and has now come back. He’s got scars and is shaken up, but he’s trying to figure it out. Outside that, one of the most interesting things about Azeroth and World of Warcraft, in general, is that we’ve been hearing about the Worldsoul of Azeroth, even beforeBattle For Azeroth, all the way back into theLegionexpansion.
It’s that moment when you go to Argus and you see and fight the tortured Worldsoul of Argus, you then realize Azeroth has a Worldsoul too. Threads about that, the threats like the Old Gods, have all come together. The first chapter ofThe Worldsoul Sagais just the beginning. For anyone thinking about returning to Azeroth, this is the best time to come back.
Q: What was the thinking process behind locking some of the story content in theWar WithinBeta?
Bybee:This is a tough question all the time. It is balanced against getting good testing on these things. Our game is so big and our players are so creative at finding things that we may not have thought of if we didn’t put them up ina beta or a PTR build. So, for us to hide some of these things, there’s a risk that something doesn’t work right. We always balance that out, and it’s an ongoing conversation, especially with the narrative team.
We have to ask ourselves what the biggest things are, the biggest problems that we want to tackle, and what are some things like the cinematics that we want to hold onto. Those will not be leaked ahead of time, you will be able to see them in real-time like the day of launch. There are other parts of the stories that we want players to see for themselves.
Q: Is there any way that the books and diaries players find in the game can become Warbound, so they have a library of sorts for each character to reference?
Bybee:I think that would be super cool. I would love to have something like that. I’m a huge lore buff, and I had the pleasure of working on the originalWorld of Warcraft Chronicle. It was one of my favorite projects that I was part of back in the day. The team wants to find a way to do something like that without cluttering your bags. While we don’t have anything to announce right now, I can say that a lot of our conversations involve ways for players to read up on the lore without taking up bag space and letting you go back and see what happened.
Q: Do you have something to bring new players to bringWorld of Warcraftup to speed in the lore?
Bybee:We did try this duringthe Radiant Echoes event. If you talk to Khadgar, you can ask him to recap the story so far, and it shows a cinematic that goes over what the team believes are the core aspects to get you started. It’s a clever balancing act. If we try to explain everything that happens when you want to playWorld of Warcraftfor the first time, you will watch a 10-hour movie, and then you can play, so it’s a lot. The way we look at it is the bare minimum you need to know. We’ve started adding the “stay awhile and listen” button to NPC dialogue too. There are a lot of content creators who have shared videos about the lore, too.
Q: What lessons were learned duringDragonflight’s development that carried over intoThe War Within?
Velev:I think for me, seeing players' reactions to the evergreen systems like the talent and profession revamps we added inDragonflightwas a turning point. They want to see things stick around for more expansions, and how we want to dothings like Warbands inThe War Within. I think it shows how much players enjoy these evergreen features we add in, and how much player feedback matters. Players reacting positively was a big part of our decision-making.
Q: How do you plan on making class balancing accessible to players who are coming back to World of Warcraft now, particularly the more casual players who don’t run Mythic+ dungeons often?
Velev:We never attempt to separate classes and features like hero talents from what players like to do. We use expansions as a re-baseline for classes and specs. With Hero Talents, there was a lot of class and spec reworking. We’re going to do that on the expansion boundary to make sure we’re getting things out of the way to havea solid Season One and beyond. One of the goals is that there’s a more complex tree and another that is more passive. Talents can be complicated for folks, but we’ve got feedback that the trees are enough for some folks. Our goal is to give players enough flexibility with those talents.
Q: Some icons on the user interface were updated in Patch 11.0.2 to make them easier to see, especially for people who may have vision problems. Are there any plans to keep making changes to the user interface and improve the player experience that way?
Bybee:This is something we talk about all the time. The user interface team has a long list of changes they want to make. We’re constantly talking about when the right time is to put them in. If you look at the new spellbook, it incorporates a lot of ideas to bring clarity and to make it where you search for things. There are some new Quest Log icons too, that you can see when you pull up the map. As we go into that, we’re looking into bringing a set of features to a broad scope of players,like the Arachnophobia mode. For people who don’t like spiders, the mode turns all the spider models into crabs, the “oops all crabs” mode, as we’ve called it.
Q: Speaking of interface updates, the difficulty selection for instances was added to the party pop-out menu on the side. Do instances still require players to be outside them to make the difficulty swap?
Bybee:Yes, that is a thing that goes back to the foundation of how our instance technology was developed years ago. While we did update the interface to consolidate some instances and party functions together, you still have to make sure all members of the group are outside the instance, so the difficulty swap can be done. When you do go from, say a Normal to a Heroic difficulty instance, it creates a whole new instance and lockout.
Q: Currently, players have to dismount and change their flight mode from Dynamic Flying to Steady Flight mode and back, and this applies to all mounts and the Druid’s Travel Form. Are there any plans to give players an option to “lock in” specific flying styles for each mount, or for the Druid’s Travel Form?
Velev:It’s something we’ve talked about, but we don’t have any plans to share at launch. We heardplayer feedback about Dynamic Flight, and it’s a conversation we’ve been having on the side.
Q: Are there any particular plans to enhance the race and class variety than what’s available, particularly by adding more races that can become Paladins, Shamans, or Druids, for example?
Velev:There are no particular plans to reveal at launch, but expanding race and class combinations is something we have done before. Internally, we’ve talked about when would be the right time to do those race and class combos. We have been teasing some plans fornew classes to be added to the Dracthyrat some point, so hopefully we can share more about those plans soon.
Q: Given that there are a lot of Mythic+ changes coming in Season One, how does the team feel about tuning each difficulty level going intoThe War Within?
Bybee:We feel it went well with this new tiering system. It’s a little complicatedthe way Affixes in Mythic+ dungeons work. The way the new tiering works is that the current Heroics feel like a Mythic+ Zero did before, and the new Mythic+ Zero feels like a Mythic +10, and so on. Plus, you have the new Xal’atath’s Bargain Affixes that rotate weekly. That makes tiers 2 through 11 challenging. For anyone pushing Mythic+12 and on, it’s like a push as much as possible. We don’t mind if people attempt to make a meta out of those +12 key pushes, though.
Q: Since the Open-World Content tab has replaced the PVP section of the Great Vault, is there a way that PVP players can still get good-quality gear from their Rated Battleground and Arena battles?
Velev:We removed it from the Great Vault intentionally because we got a lot of player feedback about it, and now PVP players can get targeted loot instead. We juiced up Honor and Conquest points that players can earn and did a lot of redistribution of weapon costs at vendors. That way, players can pick between armor and weapons at will. You can complete weekly quests, and you canstill do Rated Battlegroundsand Arenas to get the Honor and Conquest points that you need, so in that regard, nothing has changed.
Q: Is there anything you want to say aboutThe War Withinahead of release?
Bybee:I am just really excited about this expansion. My guild and my friends are getting involved. I think it’s going to be a great one. I’m personally looking forward to the zone ofAzj-Kahet and meeting the Nerubians, even befriending a faction of Nerubians there. I’m looking forward to it.
[END]
World of Warcraft: The War Within
WHERE TO PLAY
In this opening chapter of The Worldsoul Saga, you’ll journey through never-before-seen subterranean worlds filled with hidden wonders and lurking perils, down to the dark depths of the Nerubian empire, where the inscrutable Harbinger of the Void has gathered her arachnid forces to bring Azeroth to its knees.
