Hunting Down Prey
Prey has a journey track similar to Delves, lending itself to progression over time, titled Prey Season 1. We can infer that this means there will be a Season 2, but the developers can't confirm that right now.
Midnight launch will feature 30 Prey targets across three difficulties, so there are a lot of permutations, but the developers are eager to hear what players find interesting or challenging. One of the harder torments actually causes you to lose progress on death in Hard mode, and resets it entirely on Nightmare, but it does not appear in Normal mode.
The Prey introductory quest becomes available upon reaching level 90 and completing the main campaign, but the unlock is account-wide, so subsequent alts can participate while leveling. Normal mode will be available during Early Access, Hard unlocks with Journey Rank 1 when the expansion launches in full, and Nightmare at Rank 4 with the start of Season 1.
Players will have access to up to 12 Prey Hunts each week (one per zone per difficulty) awarding Adventurer/Veteran/Champion-track crests and gear based on difficulty. The first four hunts per week give a large amount of account-wide Journey progress, while subsequent hunts give significantly less. As long as you're doing four per week, you should be on track to unlock Nightmare by the time Season 1 begins.
There are random repeatable Hunts unlocked at Rank 2, while Custom Hunts are can only be completed once per week for more general rewards instead of gear.
Hunts can also be done in a group, even on different difficulties. If one player advances to the second stage, everyone's will, allowing players to help with each other's bosses without waiting for anyone to catch up. Hunts can also be done in War Mode and they're going to be very spicy, but there are some fun achievements for the brave!
The goal is for all difficulties to be soloable with sufficient gear and skill, but certain classes or specs will always have an easier time than others.
Evergreen Prey sounds like a great movie title, but they can't say yet whether it will be a long-term system or not. They're eager to see how players respond.
Please listen to the music in Murder Row, it's a fantastic place to AFK.
Story and World Design
The Zul'Aman storyline focuses on what's been happening over the last few decades between the elves and trolls. It's not so much of a truce as a stalemate, which each withdrawing to their own side, but with Xal'atath sort of "poking the hive," the Trolls and Elves are going to have to come together, even if they have to agree to disagree.
Trolls are one of the oldest races in Warcraft, but while Darkspear are an original playable race and we explored the Zandalari in Battle for Azeroth, they want to keep the current spotlight on the Amani. We're finally busting down those gates to see what's been going on over the past 15-17 years; they have their own ecosystem, their own culture, and their own characters to explore.
Much of the Zul'Aman story revolves around the four Loa that we saw in the Zul'Aman raid so long ago, and how the threat of the Twilight's Blade is affecting them. They're not going to divulge anything right now, but there will be many stories to share.
Everyone on the team was very excited as soon as they heard the idea of adding capybara creatures to the zone. Making one a loa was just kind of an extension of that, as there are are quite a few creature loa who aren't necessarily major ones, including a pangolin, rat, and the capybara. Each of them have their own domain, a physical shrine similar to the major loa temples, and Capybara are well associated with hot springs in the real world, which led to Fi'lo, the capybara loa of children (pronounced "fee-low").
There are a lot of iconic troll characteristics throughout Zul'Aman; they're strong, honor driven, brutal, but having a pocket shrine of Fi'lo to offset that came as a refreshing reprieve.
When it comes to revamping old zones, the team goes where the story dictates. It's not a quick redo or complete rebuild from nothing, but a careful revitalization and update of an area that you remember leveling through. Quite a bit of time has passed in game, so it's their chance to show that evolution along the timeline of World of Warcraft.
Verticality is another huge addition to the world, looking for opportunities to give players somewhere to go while Skyriding. They've always managed to create amazing vistas, but now they need to think about how players will see these areas from on high and down low, not just walking along a predetermined path. There's a lot to consider when it comes to giving players cool spaces to fly in, like the top of the temple on an enormous mountain or that great mysterious island way out in the ocean which the team isn't going to talk about right now. They just want to make sure they can satisfy players who are just flying around, and give them cool things to look at.
Open world delves are a new addition to Midnight which also plays into world design. As they created new spaces, such as transforming the Zul'Aman raid into a proper world zone, they started to think about what else they could do with those areas. While the Delves occur in the "open world" they're still instanced, so they don't actually take up the same space at the same time.
