Mists of Pandaria Press Tour - Questions?

[Cairenn]

Okay folks, here's your chance. I am going to the MoP Press Tour at Blizz HQ next week and will have 40 minutes to interview a couple Blizz directors/designers.

We’ve set 40 minutes of time aside on Wednesday, March 14 for each fan site to conduct 2 20-minute interviews. Developers and producers have been assigned to each site according to relevant expertise. Please let us know if you have any issues with this schedule. a. March 14, 5:20 pm – 5:40 pm: Greg Street, Lead Systems Designer b. March 14, 5:40 pm – 6:00 pm: J. Allen Brack, Production Director

So I am taking suggestions on what questions you'd like to (potentially) have answered. Post 'em here!

[KredianOfKhadgar]

Will achievements like For the Alliance still be around In MoP? also are the mounts from Heroic Ragnaros and Deathwing going to still be 100% or are they going to drop.

[Nibelheim]

Will we see cosmetic rewards for completing challenging content (such as Challenge Modes in dungeons) put into other areas of the game? For raids, it could be something as simple as defeating all bosses with a maximum ilvl of gear equipped (like the old ToGC achievement), or activating unique mechanics on boss fights (like The Big Red Button).

Cosmetic rewards are a great way to push people to play in challenging content and be rewarded without disrupting game-balance, and also extend the length and enjoyability of content.

[Haleth]

Is there any chance of improvements for RPers? They can be minor things, such as closable doors (honestly, we would love that, there's not even a need for an animation), more chairs to sit on (some are unusable), the ability to place a cooking fire at a target location rather than randomly (long time request), the ability to spawn a basic tent (with limitations of course), and a way to crouch/sneak like a rogue does, but without actual stealth. Sort of a toggle, like sitting/standing or walking/running.

Graphics updates! The most direly needed in my opinion are waterfalls - they haven't changed at all, while the new liquid detail option is great. The result is a very inconsistent look where the waterfall meets the body of water. Some newer waterfalls in Wotlk and Cata zones look better than the old ones, but still not great - this inconsistency bothers me a little, too.

And perhaps more reflection on water at a new setting (change the current Ultra to High), so that players and other things might also be reflected?

User interface wise, then - is there any chance for the UI to be less agressive in throwing taint errors? They bother many authors for often very innocent code, and require all kinds of - often complex - workarounds. Often, even the wrong addon is blamed for taint.

Finally, lore: What about death knights? Can they bleed and does it affect them at all? Can they feel/have emotions other than vengeance and remorse? Will they eventually die out due to not being able to reproduce, or are they immortal unless killed/destroyed?

[Nibelheim]

Originally Posted by Haleth User interface wise, then - is there any chance for the UI to be less agressive in throwing taint errors? They bother many authors for often very innocent code, and require all kinds of - often complex - workarounds. Often, even the wrong addon is blamed for taint.

+1000x this. To add, an option to disable the default Raid UI in the interface options would be amazing.

[kasca]

I guess a lowball question would be:
1) More slots for char. Since now with pandas most player will eather not make one, deleate a 85 or move to another server. None of sits well with me.
2) A larger bank. With all the skills and quest items you need there no place for things. Now with moging it stupidly small.
3) The more inportant to me. Away to force the raiding guilds to bring others into the high level raids. It way out of bounds to force 90% of the players to be left out the content there. Personly it a good reason to stop playing and move to another game.
4) Will ther be more than the 5 zones this time. Will quest be free range? There no fun being lead around by you nose. Doing the same quests in the same order over and over again.

[Nibelheim]

1) Blizzard stated they're working on removing the 10 slots per realm limitation and will instead limit it to just the 50 characters across all realms. No guarantees, as always.

3) Forcing guilds to carry people into high level content is a little silly, and either way, LFR was designed to get people into raid content that couldn't otherwise see it due to either time, skill, or group requirements.

However, I don't want to de-rail the thread. All questions are welcome

[Talyrius]

Reputation

• There has been a lot of discussion about account-wide achievements, pets, mounts, and etc., but where does reputation fit into all of this?
• Are there any plans to remove the factions where reputation is no longer attainable (Gelkis/Magram Clan Centaur, Zandalar Tribe, and Shen'dralar); perhaps only if the player isn't already exalted with them? For those of us that are a bit OCD, seeing these factions and knowing you can no longer do anything with them can be aggravating.
• Are you pleased with the current difficulty for reputation gains among the Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin factions? Those that took the time to work on these in classic had it easier with the extra reputation gained via marks (battleground tokens). - Answer (Question #4)

Raiding

• Right now, most heroic 10-man raid encounters are still designed with the assumption that you'll have more ranged DPS than melee. Can group composition be made to be more lenient in this regard? - Reference (Question #2)

Challenge Modes

• Has there been any discussion regarding giving us the ability to (optionally) use the same gear normalization that's being employed in challenge modes in other areas of the game (old raids/dungeons, questing, and etc.)? Helping friends on lower level characters would sometimes be more enjoyable if your presence didn't automatically trivialize the content.

User Interface

• Can you give addon authors the ability to modify font strings generated by the game engine (above the heads of players and NPC's)—or at least a place to anchor to when nameplates aren't visible? This would allow customization of the damage/healing done information that is shown overhead as well as the ability to enhance readability of names.
• Can the GetGameTime() function be updated to return seconds as well as consistently give the player's realm time instead of sometimes giving the instance server's time (which may be in a different timezone).
• Would you consider allowing the use of in-game links as well as (functional) external ones to the GMotD (Guild Message of the Day) and Guild Information areas? Linking guild achievements you're currently working on or directing guild members to something relevant outside of the game (such as the guild's website) could be quite helpful.

Account Services

• Is there any chance of offering us bundle and bulk discounts for paid services such as realm transfers and faction changes? When our guilds or friends decide to use these services, we're forced to stay behind or dig deeply (very deeply in the case of alternative characters) into our pockets.

I'll try to think of more.

[Haleth]

1) More slots for char. Since now with pandas most player will eather not make one, deleate a 85 or move to another server. None of sits well with me. 2) A larger bank. With all the skills and quest items you need there no place for things. Now with moging it stupidly small. 3) The more inportant to me. Away to force the raiding guilds to bring others into the high level raids. It way out of bounds to force 90% of the players to be left out the content there. Personly it a good reason to stop playing and move to another game. 4) Will ther be more than the 5 zones this time. Will quest be free range? There no fun being lead around by you nose. Doing the same quests in the same order over and over again.

1) They said they're working on this.
2) I think with the recently added Void Storage, they don't plan to, however they did once mention that they'd like the default backpack to be upgradable but the system doesn't currently allow that.
3) Raid Finder was introduced specifically for this, as well as to make the stepping stone to 'real' raids smaller.
4) They only announced 6 new zones (5 + the starting zone), although I'm not sure about the second part of your question.

Are you pleased with the current difficulty for reputation gains among the Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin factions? Those that took the time to work on these in classic had it easier with the extra reputation gained via marks (battleground tokens).

They mentioned a while back that they like how this achievement is now somewhat of a feat of strength, but -can- still be obtained.

[Wimpface]

I know I've asked before, but this is for Blizzard instead of WoWInterface admins this time.

Will addon authors be given MoP beta access in order to keep addons updated?

[p3lim]

Originally Posted by Wimpface I know I've asked before, but this is for Blizzard instead of WoWInterface admins this time. Will addon authors be given MoP beta access in order to keep addons updated?

Usually, authors will be given beta keys through WoWI.

[p3lim]

• Any chance of implementing aoe-looting?
• Bigger void storage? Currently there are 13 tiers, 2 dungeon sets (vanilla), 11 season sets, 2 pvp sets (vanilla), the AQ set, weapons and random items. Saying you have all the tier sets, you'd end up with ~100 items just there. My bank is still cluttered :/.

[Talyrius]

Originally Posted by p3lim Any chance of implementing aoe-looting?

This was one of the few things I enjoyed in SW:TOR.

[p3lim]

Originally Posted by Talyrius This was one of the few things I enjoyed in SW:TOR.

Also in Rift

[shatttered]

Could it be possible to make the dungeons and raids more difficult and longer with more combat and less NPC dialogue??? And maybe in depth quest chains for gear equal to (or almost equal ) to tier 14 gear for those dedicated players that dont care much for the chaos of dungeons and raids? i know that sounds a little off the wall but some of my toons, like my rogue, i prefer to play alone simply because its more fun for me that way, and i know alot of others that feel the same way.

[Dridzt]

Challenge Modes:

How do you intend to balance difficulty without (a) favoring class stacking OR (b) further homogenizing classes or (c) homogenizing the content?

We have seen in the past how every bit of challenging content the players are quite shrewd in discovering which class/role combo brings more to the table.
If the advantage is discernible you'll quite soon get "LF DK tank, shaman healer, 1 hunter, 1 rogue, 1 mage for challenge mode". (and the corresponding and valid complaints of "second choice" and "last choice" classes or roles)
Totally made up example, substitute the class of your liking the only certainty is there will be a favorable combo if things are done the same way as they've been done sofar and for the exact same reasons.

Storage Space:

Any chance we will see specialty profession bags (engineering, enchanting, herbalism, etc) converted to 'boxes'?
Example Blue Ribboned Gift for the type of container I'm talking about.

This would allow players to keep certain categories of items in a box and only occupy a single slot of a normal bag container.
You could control the amount of extra space afforded this way by controlling the size of the box and the amount of 'same kind' boxes you can have at a time (eg. flag them 'unique').
If this is an elegant solution to the limited storage space it could be expanded to other categories than profession bags for example an "armor box".
They would occupy a single bagslot and leave normal bags holding only the immediately usable/useful items and the bagslots being used as temporary bagspace when pulling items out of boxes (but you'd only need to do that to transfer them or use them)

[Nibelheim]

Originally Posted by kasca 4) Will ther be more than the 5 zones this time. Will quest be free range? There no fun being lead around by you nose. Doing the same quests in the same order over and over again.

The latest dev post may help answer this:

We learned that giving players a land to explore, a sense of place, is valuable. Ultimately, the scattered zones and the portals both served to kind of shrink the world, when we want to make the world a place you want to go out and be in. We’re definitely looking forward to getting back to a continent in Mists. We underestimated how important that was. In addition, while we liked that each zone has a story, questing ended up being too linear. It didn’t feel like you could fly into a zone, find some quest givers, and explore. Instead, you kind of had to start at the beginning and follow all the quests to the end, and if you didn’t like a quest, well, you had to stick with it to get to the next one. We want zones to have an identity, flavor and a story, but we don’t want to railroad players through a zone either.

Worth checking out, as it contains a lot of information and hints to their future goals in Mists.

[Anj]

Will there be a possibility of instance-locked rare pet training, where access to the said instance is granted through a tedious quest line? (Sort of like getting an epic item but an epic pet this time...). However, this "epic" pet will not give any new combat advantage and could be "just" a new Spirit Beast.

This hopefully gets rid of griefing and camping.

[whoarrior]

is there a chance to raid with friends from the opposite faction? faction change ain't a solution!

(:

[Vlad]

I'm awaiting their responses to these UI related questions, pretty excited actually.

I hope they also answer my question about the in-game knowledge base hosts file trick, that I asked some month(s) ago, maybe not, maybe they get to it in 2018. :P