243 – The Instance: Do the humans first



DIII beta news, and TOR beta talk start us off today.

Big News of the Week
Whats the big deal about Worgan mounts! Life after Cataclysm: Tom Chilton and Greg Street have been doing interviews!

Patch 4.3
If you add up all of the Deathwing encounter stages, it will be the longest fight in the game. Each stage of the fight will take place in a different location and offer some loot. The encounter starts at Wyrmrest Temple, progressing toward the players being on Deathwing’s back while he is flying toward The Maelstrom. The new five man encounters will build up to the Deathwing fight, similar to how the Icecrown five man instances built up to the Lich King. To combat the complaints of armor always looking the same, there is a sub-lead who is in charge of guiding the art team to produce new styles not found in the game yet.

After Cataclysm
More armor customization could be coming in the future; Transmogrification was a solution that could be finished in time for Patch 4.3. After Patch 4.3, and the world event, the team is going to focus on keeping players entertained and enjoying the game as well as new and potentially returning players. On Mists of Pandaria: “Most of the time when we do anything panda-related it’s going to be a comic book or a figurine or something like that.” There are more people that played World of Warcraft but no longer play World of Warcraft than currently play World of Warcraft They believe that each spec plays like a separate class, making the game feel as if there are 30 classes. Player created content is still in the back of their minds because of how well it worked in Starcraft II. Developing tools for players would take a lot of work, but the reward would be great as well.

Guess what? Blizzcon likes twitter!

People can follow @BlizzCon and get all the goods on the event leading up to the big weekend.

Rumors & Scuttlebut
New character models? Updating existing character models isn’t something we’ve been “”waffling on.”" It’s something we’d love to do, but the fact is the art team has finite resources. Updating the current playable race models to be more in-line with worgen and goblins requires much more than just increasing the poly count. There are more bone structures on the frames of newer models which allow for more animation options. In order to update older models, the wire frames have to change, which means a large number of existing animations and customizations/hairstyles would have to change.

It’s much more of a massive overhaul than many players are anticipating. That isn’t to say we don’t want to do it, but it’s difficult to justify delaying the creation of new art, models, and animations indefinitely to revamp old ones. And we have to make sure to do it in a way that doesn’t give some players a feeling of detachment from the look they’ve had for almost seven years.

Drop of the Week
Disenchanting Azeroth! With patch 4.3 and the introduction of Transmogrification coming to the Azeroth, it begs the question: If the majority is fair game, how can you avoid looking like everyone else? More on this below and a real eye opener to the potential future of shield design for the next expansion.