Old news is the best news! I like watching the panels and presentations on my iPad but argh, there’s lots of stuttering where people repeat things several times, and then there’s the infamous ring of loading occasionally. On the other hand, I could have taken some screenshots to include watching on my pc.
Wow What’s next
Most of this section was a presentation by Alex Afrasiabi, who was ok, but not as enthusiastic as I’d like.
He said “Our virtual lives are based on our factions, all we do is in service of these.” I don’t think that’s true for most PVE players. Other than choosing to look like a fairy princess or a zombie at character creation, I sincerely don’t think most people give it any thought. This is not a game where there are any particular perks for belonging to one faction or other, right? Unless you PVP?
He teases that the burning of Teldrassil by the Horde may be an attacking move by the Horde, or it may be in response to an attack on Lordaeron. While I say I don’t think much about Alliance vs Horde, perhaps I do, because it seems that in Cataclysm so much more Alliance territory was torn apart than Horde (maybe I don’t know because I don’t travel those areas?) And Legion was depressing for all the Alliance heroes downed. Leave the tree alone!
I noted merely Alliance=Eastern Kingdom Kalimdor =Horde
I hope that’s not the case. I love many areas of Kalimdor.
The new areas of Kultiras and Zandalar have really cool architecture, particularly Zandalar. That’s about it.
Warfronts and Island Expeditions might be ok.
I didn’t think the zone leveling similar to Legion’s would be a good thing, but it looks like it will be handled well.
Boss Design Workshop
This was the best. It was an actual panel. They talked about how they design dungeons and bosses from the ground up. Then they brainstormed how the first boss in the Shrine of the Storm dungeon might work. How the dungeon ties in with the zone it is located in and its story.
How does the first boss in the dungeon compare to the others. You can’t have your best stuff right off and leave nothing interesting for the end boss.
The boss would be an enormous water elemental with tentacles coming from his chin dubbed “chinticles” which he could use against players in many possible ways.
They talked about how they think of the various classes and how their abilities might be used against a boss.
Apparently boss fights are timed at 2 minutes or so. It sure seems longer sometimes!
One idea that kept coming up was the idea of waves of water rising periodically and sweeping across the dungeon. All I could think was poor gnomes! They can hardly keep their heads above water to swim. They’d just be tossed and tossed.
The Last Chapter Gaming Blog 