Posted by iTZKooPA on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 - 14 Comments
Tags: blizzcast, brach, content patch, Death Knight, developer q&a, hero classes, kaplan, lore discussion, metzen, necromancer, Patch, patch notes, podcast, rune master, Ulduar, v3.1, wrath wrap-up
Initially, I was going to discuss the purported patch notes for Wrath of the Lich King’s first content patch. As it turns out, the “leaked” Patch 3.1 notes that began floating around this weekend are fakes according to most sources. How fake? That remains to be seen, but it is likely that the creator - Aurelius of Forlorn Legacy on Windrunner-US according to WoWInsider - got some changes close to correct.
Thankfully there was another interesting topic to crop up late last week, BlizzCast Edition Seven. The latest podcast of all things Blizzard focused on one universe for the first time since the developer began the series, Rock N’ Roll Racing World of Warcraft. The episode was designed as a wrap-up to Wrath’s release with J. Allen Brack, Jeff Kaplan and lore master Chris Metzen, all stopping by to give their thoughts.
The first part of the cast featured JAB and Kaplan discussing Northrend’s creative process, things learned from the previous expansion, the hard choices and how they turned out.
- Northrend was one of the first lands to be prototyped for the MMORPG, during the development of The Frozen Throne.
- Northrend & Outland were both in the running for the first expansion.
- A group of five people, lead by Metzen took care of the awesome quests.
- Implement multiple starting zones for expansions.
- Throw the antagonist in everyone’s face at all times, in as diverse a fashion as possible.
- Moving to 10- and 25-man raiding was validated as a solid decision in the first month.
Perhaps one of the most interesting things to be revealed in this section of the BlizzCast was the amount of Hero classes that were in the works. Blizzard narrowed down the choices to 29 separate classes before beating that number down to just three. None of which were the long-rumored Arch Druid.
- Rune Master - Melee archetype like a rogue or monk (Pandaren ftw!).
- Necromancer - Ranged caster with “a lot of corpse explode.” Many ideas incorporated into the Death Knight.
- Death Knight - Umm, well, I hope you know what this class does by now…
The second half of the Q&A has Cygil questioning Blizzard’s Senior Vice President of Creative Development, Chris Metzen. Being the creative mind that he is, Metzen’s answers are incredibly long and descriptive. Cygil leads the discussion in all sorts of directions and storylines, covering Illidan’s demise, the distracted Dragonflights, Medivh and even the newly introduced Order of the Ebon Blade. For the lore lovers out there, the second half of the podcast is incredibly interesting with future plot points being danced around by Metzen.
If you haven’t checked it out already, Episode 7 can be read, downloaded or streamed at the official BlizzCast site. The total runtime is just under 40 minutes.
Related Posts: Blizzcast Episode 11, Blizzcast 10 Released, Controlling World of Warcraft - Keyboard? Mouse? Joystick?!,
By george on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 2:23 pm
First! very interesting post =D loving the horde!
By Farsythe on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Hmm new hero classes eh?, Runemaster sounds interesting, but necromancer?…. sounds alot like a lock…
I hope i’m wrong
By Rob on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
@Farsythe
I don’t know if I’d say they sound a lot alike. Warlock uses demonic pets and energies. Necromancer uses corpses. They’re different. It sounds more like the Necromancer would be close to a DK as the article stated above.
Should be interesting to see what direction they take WoW after this.
By Raknor on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 2:43 pm
I thought the new Hero class should be something like Pandaren Brewmasters. They could start nuetral like DKs, then go either horde or alli once they make it past their starting zones. They could be Casters/Healers that dont use mana. They should be able to seamlessly switch between dps and healing the way that a DK can tank/dps. A class called Brewmaster, could be really cool and unique, and provide ur team with lots of good buffs.
By bigwang on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 2:56 pm
am i the only1 who thinks that all hero classes sound so dark? DK, Necromancer(wich BTW is in diablo so i think that would be bad) and Rune master wich also sounds a bit to much like death knight.
By hordesucks on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
im sad they chose the deathknight as there final chioce…dont get me wrong i really like it and i think it is a lot of fun ..i have a lvl 78 one but most of the dks arent good tanks and i do not believe the game needed more tanks or dps… i think that the game even before wotlk needed much more healers and being a healer may not be fun for many people its a necessary roll and every class can dps so why not make like another good healing class..just a idea=/
By PatrickD on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Yes, the next hero class (whenever that may be) should definitely be a healer class. The fact that my poor priest is getting constant invites is a sure sign that the game needs more healers.
By Lasher on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Was hoping for some Diablo III or Starcraft II information, or at least some more info about the future of wow, unfortunately not much of that …. hopefully, the next one will have all this stuff, since this supposedly was a ” wrap-up ” for wotlk.
By Hatell on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 9:24 pm
I still wanna Demon Hunter to be a Hero class. T_T I wonder what all the 29 classes were besides the three mentioned. XD
By Jeyzi on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 11:24 pm
+1 Demon Hunter hero class will be awesome,
By Rale on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 8:15 am
Rogues with mana burn? Yeah, that’s not OP at all.
By vagner on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 10:46 am
i wanna rock a necromancer that will be cool! I hope its as OP as a DK lol
By Roi on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 11:42 am
Arch Druid ftw? I mean cmon… we are already (besides ToL) basically copy-cats of the real classes out there. We’re significantly strong, but not as strong as the Mages > Boomkin, Warriors > Dire Bear or Rogues > Cat Form.
Please, cut us some slack. we’ve been buffed in both forms, Bear and Cat since the x-pac and what not, but as Druids go, even if it’s not the class in general, Druids need to be known as the real attachment with nature. (Yeah I’m calling you shamies out.)
Project Lore is racist against Droods XD
By Sardit on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 4:23 am
Please no more healing classes, it will only result in priests being nerfed to the ground to give all our spells to the new hero class