News Roundup: Gamereactor Interview, Gorefiend Cookies, Ghostcrawler Easter Egg, Archimonde Nerfs

Posted 2015/09/10 at 1:20 PM by perculia

Gamereactor Legion InterviewGamereactor

The idea for Legion started 2.5 - 3 years ago and the Warcraft team debated which expansion would come first, Warlords or Legion.

Over time, the team is trying to tie expansions together. Example: Garrosh in Siege of Orgrimmar leading into Warlords, Gul'dan in Hellfire Citadel leading into Legion.

Legion has a departure from Orc decor -- Night Elves haven't been explored for a while and made sense to return to it.

Artifacts are the ultimate progression system to customize weapons and abilities. They allow players at max level to keep progressing on a path, it keeps the world interesting and rewarding.

The team is always focusing on how to present content better. There's a ton of content, but it could be more replayable, more social, more rewarding.

Warlords had a very successful expansion launch (subscriber numbers, returning players), but the team has to work on delivering content in the long term.

Legion is in internal alpha at the Blizzard office, and they are preparing for beta, which will be a long process with more changes due to public testing and feedback.

September 10th Hotfixes

Blizzard

Creatures and NPCs

Tanaan Jungle

Harbormaster Korak should no longer go into evade mode if more than one player is engaging him.

Raids and Dungeons

Hellfire Citadel

Xhul'horac

Voidscribe Aathalos is no longer susceptible to Charm, Possess, or Banish effects.
Weaponlord Mehlkhior, and other creatures around Xhul'horac are now immune to Charm effects.

Archimonde

All of the following Archimonde encounter changes requires a realm restart to take effect.
We have made a number of changes aimed at reducing the difficulty of the Archimonde encounter for smaller raid groups on Normal and Heroic difficulty, with a focus on the final phase of the encounter in particular. These changes are offset by increased scaling with respect to raid size, so that the experience for larger raid groups will be mostly unchanged.

Infernal Doombringer's health has been reduced by up to 15%.
Shadowed Netherwalker's health has been reduced by up to 15%.
Living Shadow's health has been reduced by up to 15%.
Reduced the damage of Wrought Chaos by up to 20%.
Reduced the damage of Shackled Torment by up to 20%.
Living Shadows now spawn from each Nether Tear at a reduced rate for smaller raid sizes.

Added a 3-second cooldown to the periodic healing of , preventing Infernal Doombringers from healing other Infernal Doombringers until 3 seconds after spawning on all difficulties.
Archimonde's health has been reduced by 10% on Raid Finder difficulty.

Collections

Toy Box

Will of Northrend's cosmetic transformation now persists and is usable in combat.

Items

Timewalking 2-handed caster weapons now have bonus Spell Power equal to that of 1-handed caster weapons.

Bloodfire Greatstaff
Epoch-Mender
Grand Scepter of the Nexus-Kings
Spellfire Longsword
Staff of Polarities
Staff of Sinister Claws
Staff of Wayward Principles

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where Vicious War Kodo and Vicious War Mechanostrider were not correctly converting into the opposite faction equivalent while performing a Faction Change.

Ghostcrawler Easter EggFlippable TableNam Ironpawbeta nerfs hit PaladinsHinaloverGorefiend CookiesDayani

I love to play WoW and I love to bake, and sometimes these two passions intersect. This is such a time!

I decided to bake some Gorefiend cookies after my guild had been working on his Mythic encounter for ... quite some time. The fight was fiendishly difficult and there were many days it didn't feel like we would ever kill it, although after 304 wipes we finally did.

Progression was a tremendously dark emotional experience for me, and I wanted to turn all that negative energy into something positive somehow. Then it hit me - the perfect design for Gorefiend cookies! I planned for a week before beginning the project, as it required me to master three new techniques (and I'm quite a novice cookie decorator - this is my third ever decorated cookie project).

While it didn't take me as long to make these cookies as it did to kill Mythic Gorefiend, I had a great time, and now I can't think of the fight without recalling these sparkly swooshy Gorefiends and smiling. I guess a spoonful of sugar really does help the medicine go down! ;)

GorefiendGorefiend strategy guide

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Comment by lankybritThose Cookies are amazing!Comment by JivefunkGorefiend cookies! That is seriously excellent cookie baking talent. Now it's gorefiends turn to give you a tummy ache.Comment by Ivanking"An adorable *!@#ing menace to society, now in a deliciously sweet treat~!" What amazing cookies, that is some serious skill there. Awesome job!Comment by perculiaIf you want to see more awesome custom cookies by Dayani, check out https://healiocentric.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/off-topic-proving-grounds-endless-baker/ She made me stained-glass dragonflies, ducks, and dresses from Alice: Madness returns.Comment by overthinkerYes but how will they Digest?Comment by agrapur"Warlords had a very successful expansion launch, but the team has to work on delivering content in the long term." I read:
"Warlords drawn many players in launch, but the game itself scared them with boredom".

Why on earth don't they do housing in capitals, just like the garrisons, but inside capitals. At the taste of the player, each chooses his capital (decor wise) and all the facilities of a capital will be at hand. Just the house itself would be instanced. There the player could hang trophies on the wall and place junk all around. All of a sudden, capitals would be populated again, and even those we see deserted today (Silvermoon feelings here) could be crouded again.
Or is this idea too dumb?Comment by TheRedHorseMust have ALL the cookies!Comment by VerdammtXFor all the hate that Warlords has gotten, and justifiably so with the lack of major content patches, it kinda works if you look at it as a prologue. Warlords is the prologue to Legion. We killed Archimonde, but Gul'dan got away and now the meat of the story begins as we attempt to stop the Legion.Comment by CrossCynicalI just kind of cringe with hearing about Legion aI kind of feel that Warlords was unfinished.For all the hate that Warlords has gotten, and justifiably so with the lack of major content patches, it kinda works if you look at it as a prologue. Warlords is the prologue to Legion. We killed Archimonde, but Gul'dan got away and now the meat of the story begins as we attempt to stop the Legion.Comment by perculiaIt was a successful launch in terms of getting lapsed players to subscribe and see what the expansion was about--not tech/server stuff. They had roughly the same amount of players at the start of MoP, but lost them a lot faster as WoD progressed.Comment by GordonBuchat"Warlords had a very successful expansion launch"

Guess all those log in issues, horrendously long queue times, a public apology, and one of the rare grants of free game time as compensation were all just a dream....errrr....nightmare....and didn't really happen.....Comment by perculiaI've modified my sentence for clarity, but it should have been clear that they were talking about content vs tech things based on the rest of the sentence saying they have to do better at long-term content.Comment by HinaloverJust to give an idea of the low chance to proc on the easter egg, I attempted that 35 times to get the two screenshots (first one was the fluke where I got the crab to fly).Comment by medivh888alstok so i watched this interview yesterday and i ended up going back and watching gamecom and blizzcon 2013

They need to choose someone else to represent Tom Chilton, he should keep working on the game but he just doesn't have any way with words :/ , the interviewer here switches between them and Ion explains a lot more on the same question without giving to much away still,

edit: best interview since gamescom ^_^

also vanguard they all learnt there lesson did you come across a pvp quest in your new legendary quest-chain? no they made a different mistake and added the facebook game xD

"Warlords had a very successful expansion launch, but the team has to work on delivering content in the long term." I read:
"Warlords drawn many players in launch, but the game itself scared them with boredom".

Why on earth don't they do housing in capitals, just like the garrisons, but inside capitals. At the taste of the player, each chooses his capital (decor wise) and all the facilities of a capital will be at hand. Just the house itself would be instanced. There the player could hang trophies on the wall and place junk all around. All of a sudden, capitals would be populated again, and even those we see deserted today (Silvermoon feelings here) could be crouded again.
Or is this idea too dumb?Comment by KjfloodWOw, those cookies looked great!Comment by PentiganFor all the hate that Warlords has gotten, and justifiably so with the lack of major content patches, it kinda works if you look at it as a prologue. Warlords is the prologue to Legion. We killed Archimonde, but Gul'dan got away and now the meat of the story begins as we attempt to stop the Legion.Comment by OreoLoverI've had the table in a macro on my Ret Paladin, and didn't realize this was a secret @_@Comment by Insanewolfy"The team is always focusing on how to present content better. There's a ton of content, but it could be more replayable, more social, more rewarding."

How about MORE DIFFICULT? Why can we level cap in one day? Why can we clear all content IN ONE DAY. Leveling should be absolutely painful. Getting a second max level character should be a reward in and of itself. Dungeons need to go back to a heroic lock out so you can only do them once per day. There is no reason content needs to be so streamlined! Heroics should be so painful that clearing them is almost a raid tier of its own.Comment by bogdicaCookies look so delicious ... mmmmmComment by SaintStryfeNo, gul'dan ending up in Legion is the connection, Pentigan.

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