World of Warcraft Interview: Developers Talk Hero Talents and Dungeons in The War Within

World of Warcraft has officially begun its alpha for The War Within. Over the next couple of months, lucky players will be incrementally invited to test various zones from The War Within as the game is further developed, leading to the beta test period planned for late spring or early summer. Each build will add new sections to the game until much of the expansion is available, including most of the zones, dungeons, Hero Talents, and other features in the game. Alpha marks a major milestone in the development of the World of Warcraft expansion, and the hype is already growing to a fever pitch across the community.

Game Rant sat down with World of Warcraft game producer George Velev and assistant lead encounter designer Andrew De Sousa about The War Within as it begins its alpha period. As the major minds behind Hero Talents and Dungeons respectively, Velev and De Sousa spoke extensively about both of these major expansion features. From the history and future of Hero Talents to a virtual tour of the dungeons found in The War Within, these developers gave a sneak peek behind the development curtain. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

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World of Warcraft Devs Detail on The War Within Dungeons

Game Rant talks with World of Warcraft about the dungeons in The War Within and how the MMORPG is telling a new story through them.

Hero Talents in World of Warcraft

Q: In many ways, it seems like Hero Talents are an iteration of the Talent Tree revamp from Dragonflight. What was the design process that led to the creation of this new feature?

Velev: This is a great question. It’s something that I love talking about. How do we figure out what’s appropriate for Hero Talents? Honestly, we did a bunch of virtual off-sites; for example, when we talked about Rogue, it was like, “What are some really unique archetypes from Rogue’s history that we can tap for a Hero Talent tree, and what are some new ones?” It was just a big whiteboard with a bunch of ideas. From there, we figured out what would be appropriate for each one, and we started working on designs for Trickster or Fatebound. Once those designs were in a good spot, we reviewed them as a team, we gave constructive feedback, we shared them with other people on the World of Warcraft development team, and when things look good and people are overall happy, we started implementing it and started putting it in the game, putting it in alpha.

One thing we also leveraged this time around for Hero Talents was the Hero Talent articles, which were, in my opinion, super successful. We shipped off a bunch of initial paper designs to the community and got some early feedback on a lot of these. It allowed us to make a lot of really big swings that generally couldn’t for something like Oracle, where it was something very out of the box, very different from what people were expecting. We sent that out early to get people’s reactions; we got feedback, and we got a lot of thoughts on Oracle, and we pivoted. That’s another thing that also helps get Hero Talents in a good spot for the public alpha. That’s sort of it in a nutshell.

Q: Some of the Hero Talent trees feature majorly different cosmetic adjustments, like the Mountain Thane, while others don’t. What was the process behind deciding which ones got these, and which ones didn’t?

Velev: A lot of the current visual treatments are in progress – some are subbed in designer visuals and some are fully good to go. Mountain Thane, like you called out, is something that’s been good to go for a while; we showed it off at BlizzCon. In terms of figuring out what’s appropriate in terms of visuals, it’s really a collaboration between us and our effects artists to figure out what makes sense for the class kit, what makes sense for the Hero Talent kit, and what level of visual importance we want to give to it. If it’s a brand-new button we’re adding, it should be something fairly bright. If it’s a passive, and you weave it in with your other spells, it should be something a bit more demure. Figuring out what’s important is really a collaboration between us and our effects artists.

Q: And some of these Hero Talent trees even go so far as to change the appearance of existing abilities in the class and specialization kits, correct?

Velev: Yeah! There’s actually a pretty varied number of differences with how Hero Talent Trees are implemented and designed. Some replace existing things, like the Mountain Thane-themed abilities. Some give you a brand-new button with new visuals; some replace your current button with a new button. It’s really case-by-case. For some Hero Talent Trees, it was warranted; they’re getting a brand-new button! Some Hero Talent Trees where it makes more sense for it to be a passive or a button replacement, they’re getting that instead. Honestly, it’s a case-by-case basis for how it makes sense with that specific hero talent tree.

Q: Some players have expressed worry about these cosmetic changes changing their class fantasy in a way they aren’t excited about. Have you considered a way to opt out of these changes, such as with Glyphs?

Velev: We’ve talked about it. Right now, the focus is to get these released to the public. There are around seven or so that are still being worked on, and being prepared for public alpha. In terms of future cosmetic Glyphs where appropriate? I think that’s something we will definitely talk about. But as of right now, for launch at least, we’re not working on any Glyph replacements or things like that.

Q: Players have been very passionate about their feedback for Hero Talents, and while there has been a lot of excitement, there’s also been plenty of criticism, especially with being forced into certain builds to utilize them. In what other ways have you pivoted so far, and what is your approach towards handling that critique?

Velev: Regarding buttons feeling required for a Hero Talent Tree, that’s something that we’re curious to get peoples’ thoughts on. We got a bunch of that feedback from our Talent blogs, which was great, but now, they’re playtestable, and they’re in the game, and we’re curious to see if people still feel that way, or if a specific Hero Talent Tree makes players think they feel like they’re being locked into a specific build. We’ve made a few changes to classes to circumvent that; there are some changes to Warrior, for example. There is a Hero Talent Tree very heavily focused around certain Warrior abilities, and we’ve made those abilities easier to get in the Talent Tree, so we are definitely open to that if necessary. It’s not something that we do lightly, but it is certainly something we have in our tool kit.

But really, now that they’re in our public alpha, now that things are playtestable, that’s the feedback we’re gunning for the most. Comparisons are awesome, but that’s more of a beta focus for us. Right now, we’re trying to make sure it isn’t like, “Hey, I’m playing Templar, and I feel like I’m locked into a build.” That’s not great, and that’s something we’re trying to resolve over the course of the alpha.

Q: One of the biggest pushes in Dragonflight was to move towards making evergreen content. Are Hero Talent trees sticking around after The War Within, and in what ways can we expect the feature to evolve in the rest of The Worldsoul Saga?

Velev: Good question. To your first point, yeah, Hero Talent trees are being built as evergreen – we use that term a lot; for us, it means they’re built to last for more than one expansion. They aren’t going away in Midnight. In terms of how we’re going to be expanding them, I can’t really comment on that at this time unfortunately, so I guess just wait and see over the next certain amount of time!

Q: What are some of your favorite Hero Talents to create or playtest so far?

Velev: I had a feeling this question would pop up. It’s like picking your favorite child; I legit can’t! I think one that I’m really proud of is Oracle. We took a really big swing with that with our earlier blogs, and we pivoted quite a bit, and people will see that in the public alpha one. So that’s one that I’m really happy with how the development went.

In terms of favorite? I play a lot of Evoker this past season, so for me, I’m really into the idea of Chronowarden, Flameshaper, and Scalecommander. I think those hit three very different thematic beats, you know? Time magic, flame magic, and more like being a commander of the battleground. So, I would say those are the ones I’m most excited about about the playtest, but really, it’s like picking your favorite kid. I can’t just pick one!

De Sousa: I’ve always been a Warrior player. I’m a big fan of all three of them: Mountain Thane, Colossus, and Slayer. If I had to pick a favorite, probably Slayer. It helps me do what I do best! [Laugh]. Big fan of that!

On the encounter side, too, we’re really excited about Hero Talents. We design our encounters and creatures around what players can do, and we really want to empower the player, so we see a lot more opportunities to do that with things like Hero Talents.

Q: What have been some of the hardest Hero Talents to work on? Have there been any good glitch stories you can share with us?

Velev: We have funny bugs out the wazoo. That’s normal for development. In terms of things that are hard to design, I would say ones that are new themes that haven’t really explored before, which are always going to be a little more challenging. For example, pointing to Oracle as something Priests really haven’t done before. Farseer is another one that uses a school of magic that Shamans haven’t really touched in the past. Fatebound, for Rogue. New ideas and new themes that are something that we want to explore are always going to be slightly more difficult than ones that are more rooted in Warcraft and World of Warcraft franchise history.

In terms of bugs… Sometimes, we make abilities that accidentally stun bosses, and we fix them almost immediately. That has popped up once or twice, but they’re fixed pretty quickly. Not the end of the world.

Q: With 39 different Hero Talent ideas, there must have been ideas left on the cutting room floor. Can you share any ideas or themes that you wanted to make, but unfortunately had to cut?

Velev: You know, I think you touched on that in your question. There are 39 of these, so we were exploring a pretty wide gamete of class fantasy. Ultimately, no, I think we’re really happy with what we landed on. There were a lot of concepts we discussed internally quite a bit that we never went forward with for multiple reasons, but I think the final 39 are ones we feel really confident in, and we’re really excited to get peoples’ hands on.

Tour the Dungeons From The War Within

Q: Can you give us a virtual tour of some of the dungeons players will see in The War Within, and tell us some of the things you’re most excited about with them?

De Sousa: So, I’m a huge Dwarf fan, and I love the Earthen culture, so I’m really excited about the Rookery myself. Stormrooks are awesome. I fly mine around on live still, so I’m ready to go and get some of them back up in the air and free them from the Skardyn. As far as other snippets and a bit of a virtual tour? There are a lot of cool cultures we’re going to touch on. We have a dungeon that explores why you really shouldn’t take candles from a kobold. There’s going to be some mechanics there keeping things in the dark… Maybe there is something in the dark they’re worried about that we’ll have to deal with in that dungeon!

Some other cool cultures and tidbits are in there. We have a dungeon that will take advantage of Dynamic Flying mounts. It takes place over the span of a large zone. That dungeon’s called The Dawnbreaker. It’s actually named after an Arathi airship – like a giant battle airship that we’re escorting. Imagine you’re interceptors, diving off the side of this airship to take on smaller ships or handle units on the ground. That’s another really cool experience.

We also have two dungeons that heavily feature Nerubians, which is cool because we had dungeons like that in Wrath of the Lich King, for example, but these were undead Nerubians in crumbling ruins of their former empire. But here, with these dungeons and the Nerub’ar Palace raid, we’re going to see them at the height of their power, see Nerubians for what they are, and actually get a cool look into their culture and what they’re all about.

As for the Skardyn in the Rookery, there are a couple more hits of them throughout. We get to see some of the inner workings of the Earthen and that sort of culture with the foundry dungeon, which has a lot of the industrial forging motifs going on throughout, and just a lot of cool Earthen fantasy.

Q: Between The Dawnbreaker dungeon and some of the things available for testing in the new Delves, some of the new mechanics seem pretty exciting. Can you talk a bit more about how you iterate on these fun twists to make dungeons more than a straightforward dungeon?

De Sousa: There is value in the classic dungeon crawl experience, and we do try to strike a balance. We do have traditional “fight your way through, find out who the big baddie is, and put a stop to them.” But, we do like to look for something that is memorable, or that feels like a hook or a unique way you’re going to navigate the dungeon. For example, one of our dungeons is set in the Hallowfall zone, and there’s a large cathedral where there’s a military buildup. So, we’re going to have players sneaking around and picking off the chain of command to weaken them. There was a really interesting way to get you moving around the space, learning about the different ranks of the Arathi and how they fight. As far as how we decide where these mechanics fit, we try to go on where it makes sense.

There was a very strong hook with the kobolds where we could play with darkness, we could make a wing of the dungeon about this, we can play with this, and we can build boss encounters into this. The Dawnbreaker was a case of problem-solving. We want you to hang out and escort this awesome airship, but we also wanted you to have a bit of freedom. So, we’ll have you fly around! That’s a really cool way to get around that. You have a home base, and you’re going to protect that home base, but you still have some freedom to move around the zone. We try to be cautious to have a straightforward experience still – and even within that experience, some folks like dungeons where you can have open routing and go wherever you want, some folks want to go corridor through corridor and fight monsters – but we’re looking for variety, we’re looking for places where we have opportunities to upsell this fantasy, and just try to balance the overall experience.

Q: A huge factor about these dungeons is that some of them are going to be required to complete to finish the main scenario. Can you talk about the process of coming to this decision and how you made it happen?

De Sousa: We work with our partners on the quest team and our narrative designers to form the story here to see where these beats can take place. We also want to position these things where we have opportunities for the story to take place both in and outside of dungeons if that’s not really the type of experience you like, we want to make sure we have that set aside for you. But we really lean on the overall story for any dungeon we make, right? To set up villains, one of the first questions we ask is, “Who are we here for? Why are we here?” That’s where we start, on the ground level for most dungeons. So any place where we can have it as a part of the core campaign is an awesome bonus, and really lends itself to making a bigger, better boss fight, or a bigger, better dungeon, whenever we can do that.

One thing I will share that I will share that’s pretty interesting with the Rookery, which will be one because it is so critical to the story, is that we wanted to have AI bot support for it. If you do want to experience it as a solo player, the Rookery will have that available if you want to go through and just experience the story. We’re making those kinds of considerations where we can.

Q: Right now, Follower Dungeon NPCs consist of familiar characters from the Exile’s Reach starting experience. With some of these dungeons now taking place in the story, will we see some other major story characters?

De Sousa: I can’t speak for all of them, but in the case of The Rookery, we will have specific characters there to support the events that are going on, so we’re looking for opportunities to do that where we can, and where it makes sense.

Q: About how many of the dungeons from The War Within are going to be mandatory parts of the main story, and how many will be optional side content instead?

De Sousa: They all, in some capacity, touch The War Within campaign. An example of a side story that does feel like an impact – this is in the first alpha – but the Cinderbrew Meadery. As you campaign through, there might be some damage to that brewery, and they might need to contract out a goblin faction to do repairs. Hijinks ensue, and we need to clear them out. Maybe it’s not critical to the path, but the main story’s campaign definitely influences it. But to answer how many of them are involved, I’d say at least half. I think all of our level-up dungeons have heavy influences on the level-up campaign, and some of our dungeons even go through the campaign all the way through to the raid.

Q: Any final thoughts on The War Within alpha, and World of Warcraft in general?

De Sousa: We’re excited about Warbands, and we’d love more feedback about how that feels. One of the offerings with a feature like that is playing how you want to play, jumping between characters, and spending your time in Azeroth in how you see fit.

Velev: For me, I could wax poetic about Hero Talents for like three hours. But, things I’m really excited about that aren’t Hero Talents are actually what we’re offering for our PvP players. It’s not in public alpha one, it’ll be coming later down the line, but we’re actually running a whole new Battleground themed around zone two, the Ringing Deeps. It’s basically these two warring Earthen factions competing over this ravine full of gems and ore, and you control mine carts that are similar to Silvershard Mines, while at the same time fighting over a flag that you can turn back and cap to your base. So it’s kind of like a combination of previous Battlegrounds with a new twist, so I’m really excited for that. Again, not in the public alpha one, it’ll be coming out later on down the line, but that’s something I am really excited to get players’ hands on. It’s been a while since we made a Battleground.

[END]

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight

World of Warcraft: Dragonflight was developed by Blizzard Entertainment and is the ninth expansion pack for the iconic massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft.

Dragonflight features an overhauled user interface, raises the level cap to 70, and introduces a new race and class. 

Released

November 28, 2022