Destin WoW: Forever Interview
Destin interviewed:
Clay Stone, Associate Production Director
Nora Mills, Lead Software Engineer
Entry Level
You don't have to have played World of Warcraft Modern or Classic to play Forever and enjoy the Journey.
The Legacy System encourages multiple characters and makes your new playthrough a little easier.
They want to go back to the player being the humble adventurer in the Vanilla timeframe where the journey is more than the destination, and the world is an adventure.
Beta
WoW Forever Beta will start with a level 20 cap and then will increase to level 30 at a later time. The cap will remain at 30 for the rest of Beta.
Everyone will start at level 1 on launch.
Catching Up
There are no plans for anything similar to a WoW Token or a boost.
The Journey is the game. End game is amazing, but the journey is so important.
Clay StoneNo plans for anything like a WoW Token or a boost.
New Zones
The Riverglades was a chunk of map that really hadn't been filled out yet.
There was room there to have players do something other than spam Scarlet Monastery.
They want people to explore more of that Classic World.
Internally, many players gave feedback that this felt like it was in Classic the whole time.
It should feel like Classic, but they also want to surprise players.
There were gaps in content and that was an opportunity to build something that felt authentically Classic and fill out those spaces.
Transmog and Models
They think that they handled this in a way that is the best of both worlds.
If you want a world where Transmog doesn't exist, you can do that.
For the players who love it, they can express themselves in whatever way they want.
They want to give players the agency to choose what they want.
The Future
When they built SoD, it taught them how to build a really strong roadmap for the future.
They are expanding horizontally. For the foreseeable future, they are staying on Azeroth.
This means exploring the unfinished and unused zones that were never fleshed out, or different places that players have in their minds about what Classic+ means to them.
Azeroth is a big place and it doesn't mean just Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms.
For the time being, a lot of time is focused on Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor.
Designing New Quests
The designers are incredibly passionate about the source material.
The quest designers write their own quests and can write the dialog for every race. They love Classic.
They have a wonderful Lore team that they work with. They work with Chris Metzen every day.
There are also historians that they can email and get feedback on various things, such as Night Elf naming conversations and the lore behind the character races.
Vanilla Everything
The thing they're trying to deliver on is not going to the Dark Portal.
They want to give that Vanilla feel, with the Vanilla World that will continue as long as the players want.
