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Discovering Blizzard’s flagship MMO through classic Machinima videos, World of Warcraft made me into the full-fledged gamer I am today. I can recall years ago when I started working during the summer to save enough cash to buy the Wrath of the Lich King expansion and pay for my subscription. That said, WoW has always had a significant impact on my life, and I’ve always wanted it to succeed. And I’m confident it now will because it is in great hands. After my time with The War Within‘s Production Director and Game Producer, I can tell you this expansion is bound to be the best we’ve had in years.
During an almost hour-long group interview session, other journalists and I got to talk with Michael Bybee, the Production Director, and George Velev, the Game Producer of The War Within, where we discussed hero talents and other features coming to TWW. So, if you want to know what these amazing developers have to say about the future of this legendary MMO, sit back and enjoy the ride because I loved every exciting detail they gave us.
Exploring Hero Talents and Class Fantasy
Julio La Pine, Staff Writer for The Nerd Stash: “With so many hero talents for all classes in The War Within, which ones were your favorites to design, speaking strictly about class fantasy?”
Michael Bybee, Production Director for The War Within: “I’m going to be playing Demon Hunter tank, and I’m super excited about the Aldrachi Reaver talents; I think they are super cool and interesting. From a fantasy perspective, I think Voidweaver Priest is the coolest thing we’ve added to the game in a really long time. I’m a huge fan of it.”
George Velev, Game Producer for The War Within: “I think I’m probably going to play Resto Shaman, probably Farseer or Totemic; I’m not really sure yet. I’m also not sure if I’m playing maybe Mistweaver, but probably a healer of some sort.
In terms of what was sort of the one that was the most favorite to design, Voidweaver is certainly up there. Talk about visuals on that one. I think Sunfury is also one that came together really well. It had a very clear vision like, “Oh cool, it’s Kael’thas, but we’re making it a hero talent tree.” It’s very obvious what it’s pointing to, so it was fun to put together. Getting this arcane phoenix to spawn was super cool.
But also, something like Oracle Priest, we sent that off very early on with our blog post simply because we were trying something new and leaning toward the support-oriented hero talent tree. The fantasy of an Oracle Priest is something we haven’t done before in World of Warcraft. We’ve touched on it a bit, but things like future sight or premonitions weren’t a big part of the Priest kit, so we decided to take a larger jump there and explore what kit a Priest set in seeing more into the future looks like. Oracle, today, is in a really good spot, and people seem excited about it.”
Julio La Pine, Staff Writer for The Nerd Stash: “Was there a class that gave you a bit of trouble when you were designing its talents?”
George Velev, Game Producer for The War Within: “There were a few that we did definitely explore some different avenues for. A point to Oracle again. Oracle was one that we set out to do very different things on. We did it intentionally with the goal of getting player feedback because we knew that something like a future sight Priest wasn’t really in the lore of Warcraft, but it ended up getting in a really good spot.
There were some that proved a bit more interesting to figure out, such as the combination of what makes sense for the entire hero package for a class like Shaman. Farseer was where we first started, with ideas like, ‘What if there is a Shaman that delves more with spiritual magic? That’d be kinda cool.’ From there, we were like, ‘Cool, what else makes sense? Well, how about a Shaman who is focused on totems?'”‘ For Enhancement and Element, we thought, ‘They have a really large focus on Lighting and Thunder magic. What if there was one that was Lighting to the eleventh degree?’ And that’s how Stormbringer came around.
It was definitely a fun process for all of them. Some were more challenging than others, but I think we landed in a good spot overall for launch.”
Julio La Pine, Staff Writer for The Nerd Stash: “I feel the class fantasy and identity are becoming a strong focus again in The War Within, which we hadn’t seen since Legion. With that in mind, and it might be too early to ask, do you plan on expanding the hero talents system after or during The War Within?”
George Velev, Game Producer for The War Within: “First and foremost, I’m happy that you feel that way. I also feel the same way. I’m really excited when classes and specs are in the forefront. That being said, future plans are a bit too early to talk about at this point. But, as mentioned, this is an evergreen feature; we’re going to support it going forward for multiple expansions.”
Julio La Pine, Staff Writer for The Nerd Stash: “With all hero talents ready to leave the oven in a few weeks, were there any that didn’t make the cut that you would’ve wanted? Maybe something crazy like a shape-shifting Rogue or a dual-wielding Ret Paladin.”
George Velev, Game Producer for The War Within: “Dual-wielding Ret Paladin—that sounds intimidating.
No, there wasn’t anything that we left on the cutting room floor, so to speak. One of the benefits of having 39 of these is that we get to design 39 concepts and trees from the get-go. We felt like we covered everything. Overall, all 39 really hit the mark of what we wanted to accomplish with hero talents in The War Within.
I will say, though, that a dual-wielding Paladin sounds dope.”
New Player Experience and Modern WoW
Julio La Pine, Staff Writer for The Nerd Stash: “One of my favorite things from modern WoW is Exile’s Reach. It’s a great way to ease new players into the MMO landscape. However, as people progress through the game, a few systems may become overwhelming. With hero talents being a system added on top of other systems, are there any plans to make a tutorial for players to get the hang of these new talent trees?”
George Velev, Game Producer for The War Within: “It’s an interesting idea, for sure. It reminds me of Proving Grounds in Mists of Pandaria. As of right now, there are no current plans for tutorialization for hero talents. Although, the idea of onboarding players for better ways to get used to their role sounds super cool.
We tend to treat how we handle difficulties on raids or even dungeons as a sort of onboarding. A normal dungeon versus a mythic dungeon is with the mindset of “Well, players are probably playing their spec or class for the first time.” So we try to make sure that it is tuned appropriately.” We tend to leverage things like difficulties in instances as a pseudo-onboarding system.”
Michael Bybee, Production Director for The War Within: “Exile’s Reach is something that I absolutely love. I think it is fantastic. There’s so much more we want to do to be able to bring new players into the game. One of the things I’m excited about, specifically in The War Within, is that now Dragonflight is the next step for everybody who goes through Exile’s Reach.
So, if you’ve got friends who want to return to the game, I think Dragonflight is one of the best ways to introduce them to the game experience because it’s such an awesome fantasy. The dragon storyline is so cool. The island is so amazing. And getting dragonriding very early on in your level-up experience is incredible. Shoutout to Exile’s Reach! Also, I think we’ve done some cool stuff with The War Within to continue that experience. And I think we need to do more.”
Julio La Pine, Staff Writer for The Nerd Stash: “With Dragonflight leaving for brighter shores (no pun intended), what would you say were the biggest lessons you learned from that expansion? How did they impact the work you’ve done for The War Within?”
George Velev, Game Producer for The War Within: “I think for me, seeing players’ reactions to a lot of the evergreen systems that we added in Dragonflight, such as the talent revamp, solidified that we’re doing the right thing for our players. Putting more of our time into making more evergreen content really goes a long way. People want to see things that stick around for more than one expansion. That’s what set a lot of the conversations on how we’d approach The War Within and how we want to do content like Warbands, Delves, and Hero Talents.”
Julio La Pine, Staff Writer for The Nerd Stash: “Going back to mechanics that focus on bringing new players into the game, do you have something in mind to bring them up to speed with all the lore that WoW has? For instance, my wife started playing this year and wonders how Anduin went from a lost kid in Pandaria to the hottest character in The War Within.”
Michael Bybee, Production Director for The War Within: “I think that’s a subjective title, but I understand what you’re saying. So, we actually did try this. If you play the pre-patch event, the Radiant Echoes event with Khadgar, there’s a cinematic that does a pretty great job of catching you up with the core beats you need to know.
The balancing act we always have to play with catching players up with the story is that if we try to tell you everything that’s happened, you would sit down to play World of Warcraft and then watch a 10-hour movie, and then you can play—it’s a lot. So, we try to say, “Here is the bare minimum you should know about what’s going on with Magni and what is going on with these echoes, and you can go do this event.”
As you go through the expansion, there will be pieces of the expansion’s story that harken back to that and try to catch people on important bits and pieces. We’ve started adding buttons underneath NPCs you can click that says, “Stay a while and listen,” which explains what’s going on. And that’s great. But there’s a lot of content online, tons of creators who are really excited about the lore and share a lot of these videos, and I think that is also a great resource for catching people up.”
The “Canon” Class and Roleplaying Features
Julio La Pine, Staff Writer for The Nerd Stash: “At the start of every expansion, I always wonder which are the “canon” classes in the story. For example, in Legion, Demon Hunter felt like the one to main, while Wrath focused on Paladins and Death Knights. As a fun question, which one would you say are the “canon” classes in The War Within?”
George Velev, Game Producer for The War Within: “I don’t know if I’ve ever really thought about classes like that. I can definitely see Demon Hunters and Death Knights and Monks being the figurehead of an expansion.
For The War Within, there’s no particular focus on one or the other. In fact, I’d say the focus is on all of them. Features like Hero Talents and Warbands let you experience more classes than ever before in The War Within because we’re making it easier to play alts. I wouldn’t say there’s a particular class that’s the figurehead of the expansion.”
Julio La Pine, Staff Writer for The Nerd Stash: “With so many great UI and QoL changes coming in The War Within, some are already available in the pre-patch; many add-ons are becoming unnecessary. However, as someone with characters in roleplaying realms, are there plans to add UI elements tailored toward roleplaying?”
Michael Bybee, Production Director for The War Within: “I wish that I could tell you, “Here’s a great new roleplaying feature we’re ready to announce right now today.” But actually, this is not something that we currently have plans to announce.
It’s something the team has been talking a lot about, and I can say the conversation’s been picking up because there is a tremendous amount of people, like yourself, who are participating in roleplay and the game right now doesn’t offer enough options for people to be able to do that. So, we’ve been talking about what’s the best way to do that or how can we incorporate that for players to make interesting in a way that lets players sort of create their own experiences using the existing assets and UI that are already in the game.
No plans right now, but it is definitely something we’re talking about and we’re very interested in trying to find the way to do that in the future.”
And that concludes the interview I had with the developers of The War Within. Frankly, I couldn’t be happier. While Dragonflight was a terrific expansion, The War Within is giving me the excitement I had in Legion and even before. Plus, you can see the developers really care about player feedback and have applied it for this upcoming expansion. So, start marking your calendar because the Worldsould Saga is about to begin on August 22 for early access players or August 26 for everyone else.
