Midnight Overview Midnight Preorders
Midnight Developer Q&A Liveblog
Housing
Players can choose to live in the Alliance or Horde neighborhoods, but each is anchored in a specific area of the world - Alliance outside Elywnn, and Horde outside Orgrimmar. If you're in that neighborhood, your housing exterior will have to reflect that aesthetic (take it up with the Orgrimmar HoA!).
Pets are something that the team is working towards, trying to solve issues like pathing. On release, Battle Pets won't be placeable, but they are planning to deliver it (and mount placement!) in the future. Hunter pets are trickier, since they're character specific rather than a warbound/account-wide housing.
If the housing plot you want is taken or you just decide its time to move into another neighborhood, a mage will come along and put it all in a bubble for you, transporting it from one to another, with no mess or fuss!
There are a couple new cosmetic updates coming in Midnight, specifically Amani customizations for Darkspear Trolls - they like to add these things as its appropriate to the story, but rolling out more customizations is something they try to chip away at over time, so they won't always be able to release a whole bunch all at the same time.
Prey System
The Prey system will affect everything in the zone, so if you're chasing a Nightmare Prey, everything in that zone will become much more dangerous. In the normal mode, other players can help, but in harder modes, you'll be all alone for your final hunt.
Prey will contribute to the Great Vault rewards, but they don't have specific details to share right now.
Glyphs and Visual Customization
There's no glyph overhaul planned for Midnight, but the general idea of more visual/spell customization is something they want to offer where possible and the glyph system is a great vehicle for that.
PvP
Training Grounds is a new Battleground feature which puts matchmade groups of players against enemy bots, allowing PvP curious players to learn the ropes without getting curb stomped by more experienced players.
In the first season of Midnight, the top tier cutoff for PvP rewards will be reduced from 2400 to 2300, making it a little less exclusive. There's a lot more that they'd like to do with the system over time, similar to Mythic+ offering new titles, resilient system, etc. It's definitely an area they want to focus on.
There's a giant new free-for-all PvP area in Voidstorm, the Slayer's Rise, full of world quests, activities, and other reasons to kill each other. There are also a few non-war mode activities as well.
Warbound Reputations
Making old reputations Warbound-wide is something that was previously promised, but the team fell behind. They're going to get back on it again, starting with the most recent expansions.
Legendaries in Midnight
Legendaries should always remain special and have stories behind them, worthy of the color. Some became a little formulaic or too grindy to be competitive, so there's a fine line to navigate. Nothing planned for the start of Midnight, but maybe in the future.
Lore
We'll learn a lot more about what happened with the Windrunner family in the Windrunner Spire dungeon.
You may not see all Amani Trolls previously mentioned in the game at the start of Midnight, but there's a big story to be told between the relationship between the Amani and Blood Elves.
Dezco will be present in Arator's journey, and we will look more at how the Tauren Sunwalkers view the mythology of An'she later in The Last Titan.
Addon Changes Coming in Midnight
Blizzard is rolling out their proposed addon changes with the launch of Midnight, removing the ability for addons to read combat state and information in real time. They want to launch this with the new expansion so that they can build everything around it, creating a more level playing field without the requirement to use external tools to be competitive. It also allows them to shift to more collaborative efforts, instead of twitch reactive to a mechanic within a split second. Without addons to solve mechanics for you, they may just give you an extra few seconds to position or communication, but the intent is to keep pull counts and progression time relatively similar to live right now.
There will be a raid test period in the alpha to experience raid bosses designed without addons in mind. They want to make sure they have the entirety of the Midnight alpha and beta cycle to iterate on player feedback, so stay tuned!
Fine tuning your UI is something that Blizzard doesn't want to change or eliminate. The addon API changes are focused on real-time combat information, but aesthetic changes should still be possible, so you can still use addons to make things bigger or smaller or a different color, they just can't read what's happening in combat. More details will be coming soon from the UI/engineering team.
Addons like Deadly Boss Mods, etc will be affected. Blizzard has already invited big addon developers to the first wave of Alpha, so that they can see how their addons will be affected.
More improvements coming to raid frames, allowing Resto Druids to see all of their HoTs, or encounters to show major de/buffs. Addons will also still be able to customize the look/size/feel, they just can't use logic based on which player is affected by what effects.
Draenei and other Forces of Light in Midnight
Draenei will be joining in the fight against the Void, but this chapter is mainly focused on the Blood Elves.
There are a few changes to the Forsaken lands, like the new tunnel connecting Eversong to the Plaguelands, and we will see notable Forsaken characters like Alonsus Faol, but the first chapter is largely focused on Silvermoon and Eversong.
Updating more old locations is something they're excited to do in the future, and of course we already know that The Last Titan will revisit Northrend.
Class & Spec Updates
No new class capabilities coming other than the Devourer right now.
They're always excited to make visual updates, and there are several in Midnight, both in new and returning abilities.
Tentacle Slam replaces Shadow Crash for Shadow Priests, offering a similar AoE component, but with more of a voidy-theme. The Disc Priest Apex talent also replaces their bubble with a void-shield.
Blizzard isn't adding any new support classes yet, but Augmentation Evoker isn't being changed away from a support role either. They still like the fantasy, but there's a tricky balance to making them feel impactful and helpful without being overbearingly required.
Delves
As we move through the campaign, we'll be entering new Delves alongside Valeera Sanguinar instead of Brann this time. These new delves will continue to have storyboard variety, and there will even be outdoor delves that allow the use of ground mounts! Midnight won't have any Underwater delves or candle/totem carrying delves though, those mechanics are gone!
World Revamp
The idea of revamping everything at once is frankly terrifying, but they really want to tell new stories in old areas, bringing them into the present day similar to Eversong. The focus right now is on the rest of the World Soul Saga, but they're definitely open to revisiting more old locations down the line.
Class Aesthetic Customization
Devourer represents a Demon Hunter who channels the void instead of fel energy, which transforms a wide range of their abilities. Fire and Frost don't forsake the arcane though, they still have things like Blink and Counterspell, so just because you specialize in one thing doesn't necessarily mean you have to lose everything else. They do like the idea of customizing spells and abilities though, so maybe they'll find a way to do it in the future.
Warbound Followers
Replacing the NPCs in Follower Dungeons with characters from your Warband is something Blizzard would love to do, but there are multiple technical hurdles in the way. It will come at some point, but no ETA.
Haranir
The Haranir forms all have quills. Pangolin is the tank form, there's a Wolverine feral form, a quilled owlkin boomkin, and the swimming form is an axolotl with quills!
A lot of the decision behind which races become playable comes down to narrative. We met the Haranir, they're becoming part of the story, and it fits to bring them in now. It's not lost on the developers that there are a lot of requests to play a sethrak or ethereal, but there are story questions as to whether those races would really join. On a technical level, adding new races is also one of the most taxing things they can do, both in the short term of creating the rig, and in the long-term of supporting it with visuals, cosmetics, and the like, especially for races with more unique body styles.
Haranir will not be available during Early Access. The intent is not to give non-EA players any major advantages.
Toxicity in the Community
Toxicity is something the developers are always concerned with. Sometimes its actual bad actors, but other times it's an issue of mismatched expectations. It's not unreasonable for a raid leader who has invested a lot of time in not wanting less experienced players that still need to learn, even though it may be perceived as unfriendly when those two groups are mixed. A lot of what the developers are focused on right now is addressing that by helping players connect with other like-minded players.
More Housing
Customizing NPCs, like warbound characters or even NPC versions of friendly player characters is something that sounds fun, but there are still a lot of technical hurdles similar to pets/mounts.
Housing is such a big social feature that they're hesitant to take it too far until they can share it with the community and gauge player reaction. They want to ensure that the features they're investing time and effort into are the features players want to engage with.
Crafting housing items with existing professions will give skill ups and can help progress them, though they aren't explicitly setup to level a profession from level 1.
There will be bookshelves in housing, though they're not functional... yet. It's a fun idea that they'll take back to the team though.
Guild neighborhood player requirements are something that is still in flux, though it'll probably be similar to guild charters requiring at least 10 players. There is a technical aspect where they can't spin up a unique server for every single player's alt guild of one character, but they'll see what they can support as the tech side unfolds.
A lot of housing item/achievement prerequisites will be visible in the Alpha, but they'll also publish a blog at some point.
Closing Questions
Filo (spelling?) is the capybara loa of children.
Class questlines, like Green Fire Warlock, come up really often as something that players are really excited about. Lorewalking is kind of similar, in that non-Priests can experience Xal'atath's story from Legion, and they're hoping to create more opportunities like that.
Valorstones will no longer be a currency in Midnight, you'll just need crests. They're also looking to streamline crests a little bit so that it's more obvious what crests relate to which upgrades.
Midnight Reveal
Midnight Deep Dive Liveblog
Midnight Dev Q&A Liveblog
Alpha Development Notes
Midnight Physical Collector's Edition
Developer Insights & Classes
All Alpha Talent Trees
Healing Changes
Systems & Content
Season 1 Mythic+ Dungeon Rotation
Class Appearances Unlock Lower Difficulty Variants
Combat Addons Disabled in End-Game
Valorstones Removed
