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World of Warcraft Fan Site Chat - October 24, 2002. [GShif] Hi Everybody. Members of the World of Warcraft Development team are going to being introducing some new things that we'll be discussing about the game. Please note that we are asking that nobody run a live chat log during the chat. We will email the chat log to you after the chat. Until then, please don't post information text or summary from the chat. Without further ado I'll turn the floor over to the WoW Dev Team.



[WoWDevTeam] Hello everyone. Today we are going to be fielding general quesitons and talking about a few new features. On the table today are skills, mounts, instancing, combat, and anything else y'all want to discuss. So in brief our skill system is comprised of class skills and secondary skills. Class skills are abilities we consider integral to who a character is. For example, core to a Warrior is the ability to use swords, maces, axes, and such. These skills are developed in two ways: by leveling and through usage. Your level determines your potential and then usage determines your actual proficiency. As for secondary skills, they are more general purpose and will allow players to uniquely flavor their characters. Now for some questions.



[RBridenbecker] Is it possible to establish guilds in WoW with your own guild halls, emblems and such?



[WoWDevTeam] Absolutely. Socializing is a huge part of this type of game and a large part of that revolves around the creation of guilds. Guildmembers will be able to uniquely identify themselves through the use of Guild Tabbards. These Tabbards are worn over your armor and through the use of color and emblem will uniquely identify guilds and their members. As for guild houses, player housing is in the plan and guild houses are a part of that.



[RBridenbecker] Will the skills be in a skill tree, such as in Diablo II?



[WoWDevTeam] Nope, no skill trees. Instead, spread across the world will be various skill trainers. Many skills will have prerequisite skills or minimum levels, but there is no skill tree as such.



[RBridenbecker] Will any spells from the Warcraft or Diablo series be carried into WoW?



[WoWDevTeam] Oh ya... many, many of the spells from the WarCraft series will be available in World of Warcraft.



[RBridenbecker] Are there any plans to make guilds more dynamic, or easier to govern?



[WoWDevTeam] Hmmm. Not sure exactly what you mean by more dynamic, but I'll throw out a few more details and see if this helps. We are planning web site support for listing key stats of the various guilds. and we are planning fairly extensive Guild Master and Guild Officer commands for viewing and managing membership whether members are online or not. :).



[RBridenbecker] Will the setting of WoW, for example, Azeroth, Kalimdor, etc., be the same as Warcaraft III?



[WoWDevTeam] Yes, the world is largely based on the known geography of WarCraft. From Khaz Modan to Kalimdor, from Azeroth to Lordaeron, you'll be able to live in the world you are familar with.



[RBridenbecker] Will quests provide adequate experience and/or items that will substitute for combat?



[WoWDevTeam] This is a great question. We view questing as an area that Morgs have only begun to develop... So the direct answer to the question is: Yes, we are planning a vast number of quests, that provide meaningful amounts of experience and lots of good loot. We are planning a Quest Log that will track currently assigned quests and one of our goals is that the log is pretty much never empty.



[RBridenbecker] Can you discuss the monster AI?



[WoWDevTeam] Well, this is still in flux but we can mention a few things... We are planning a higher level, group AI that allows the leader of a group of monsters to direct the group's behavior. For example, a group of Gnolls, lead by a Taskmaster, might decide to sic a couple of Brutes on your Warrior and a Brute on your healer and a fourth on your Mage.



[RBridenbecker] Will there be mounts in the game, and if so, will they be unique to the races?



[WoWDevTeam] Good question. Yes, we are planning on a variety of mounts. For example, we have Humans riding around on Horses and Orcs on Wolves. Also, in some rare cases, player's who choose to specialize in riding will be able to ride mounts normally reserved for other races. Just to be explicit, mounts will be player controlled and will be a great way for mid to high level characters to travel the world.



[RBridenbecker] How will you avoid player camping and kill stealing?



[WoWDevTeam] This is one of the big problems of MMORPGs today. Here's our plan: Many of the areas of our world are instanced meaning that you and your friends can enter an instance that is essential a private copy of a section of the world. That being said, this is a social game, and too much instancing can be a bad thing. So large portions of the world are not instanced. Some player collision is good. It gives people an opportunity to make new friends. The key is that if you get to a location and find it 'camped' that you always have somewhere to go. Private instances guarantees there will always be somewhere for you to hunt in peace.



[RBridenbecker] How does combat work?



[WoWDevTeam] Hmmm. Let's start by discussing what it is not. It is not a 'click-fest' or a 'potion-fest'. These are questions we see frequently so we want to clarify that. Player's will initiate combat with a simple click on a creature then go into Combat Mode. While in combat mode, the character automatically continues swinging at the target creature. then to mix things up, the player will get to time a host of special moves and of course magical spells. As for potions, they do exist in our game, and are more abundant than in most other Morgs. We think consumable items are interesting when properly balanced.



[RBridenbecker] How is death handled in the game?



[WoWDevTeam] The trick with death is to make it painful enough so that player's respect the world but not so painful that it is overly frustrating we want people to explore and we want people to be heroic when you die, you will resurrect at your last bind site, with all of your items intact. There will be some form of penalty, but we haven't settled on exactly what that will be just yet.



[RBridenbecker] Can you discuss multi-user spells?



[WoWDevTeam] Ah, we mentioned those a long time ago, but haven't really discussed them recently we call multi-user spells 'Rituals'. The idea here is that a group of casters would need to get together to cast a Ritual. We're not prepared just yet to discuss the specifics of what these will do, but rest assured, they're mighty nice.



[RBridenbecker] Will there be class specific items in the game?



[WoWDevTeam] Yes.



[RBridenbecker] Will there be ranged weapons and can Dwarves use guns?



[WoWDevTeam] Yes. We have bows, crossbows, and... guns! Warcraft just wouldn't be Warcraft without Dwarves running around shooting stuff.



[RBridenbecker] When will we hear from Brann again?



[WoWDevTeam] Well, Brann has gone missing in fact... and one of the quests in the game will be to discover what has happened to him. Instead of Brann's updates we are going to a whole new Web Site. It should be up in the next couple of weeks and will contain a ton of new information, new screen shots, new FAQ, and a beautiful new format.



[GShif] Hi Everybody, we only have about 5 minutes left, so please type in your last questions for the chat now.



[RBridenbecker] How large is the party size for players?



[WoWDevTeam] The current party size is 5. This allows us to balance the game in such a way that every member of the party is important. Beyond the standard group we have the ability to link groups to form super-groups. These super-groups will allow players to tackle tougher monsters, split xp, split loot, and generally have a good time raiding together.



[RBridenbecker] Is there a way to finish the game? How long can we play?



[WoWDevTeam] Well, in fact there is no real way to finish the game... we will have storylines that player's can follow through to completion but the world is such a giant toy that there will always be hundreds of things to do. On top of that, our live team will continually add new quests, new items, and new lands to explore, so the game really never does finish.



[GShif] Ok, everybody. Looks like 6:00 got here faster than we expected. There was a lot of new information here, and we'll be emailing you all the log shortly. Thanks very much for participating today. Sorry we couldn't get to all of your questions, but please stay tuned and look for emails from me in the future. We'll be in contact to discuss the next chat, and of course, we expect to be discussing the game with the press a bit more following this chat. Thanks again and good night!



[WoWDevTeam] Thanks everyone. --Return to Top--

