WoW Battlegrounds Q&A

We sit down and talk with Blizzard about the Honor System, Battlegrounds, and the future of the hot MMORPG.

World of Warcraft has taken the MMO market by storm, and shows little signs of waning--especially when the game is expected to take off in China. While initially slow on patching, Blizzard has ramped up on updates, recently releasing version 1.4 which includes the Honor System. We talk with Blizzard about its future plans--and Battlegrounds.

GamePro: First off, congratulations on hitting 1.5 million subscribers. With the whirlwind success of World of Warcraft, how has your goals and direction for the MMORPG changed? Are you planning to hire more developers for updates, more CMs, or more network engineers?

Blizzard: Thanks, the last few months have been amazing. We've been extremely gratified to be able to see the number of users interested in trying out the game grow, but we definitely have not changed our original goals or intentions. We are completely focused on providing the best gameplay experience possible and have been actively seeking out more personnel to continue supporting our steadily growing community. If anything, the success has become our motivation to keep making World of Warcraft more accessible and as entertaining as possible.

GP: Do you have any particular goals for how many updates you want to do a year?

Blizzard: Our goal is to provide monthly content updates. Although these updates will vary in size, we feel it is extremely important for players to see regular updates that give players new and interesting things to do in the World of Warcraft.

GP: About the PvP honor system: how far up the ranks can a casual gamer potentially get to? Previews have shown 14 ranks--is it feasible for somebody who spends say 12 hours a week to get high enough for superior or epic item perks?

Blizzard: Although the Epic items are intended to be very high-end rewards for the most dedicated players, we definitely feel as though casual players will have a realistic chance to get superior items. We have many casual players at Blizzard, and in the first week, they appear to have progressed a meaningful amount. After a few more weeks of play, we fully expect them to get access to superior items.

GP: It has been said that honor points are divvied up in groups according to how much damage was done. Aren't some classes inherently easier to gain honor points? Mages with their powerful area of effect spells seem like they'd amass points quicker than supporting classes.

Blizzard: That isn't entirely accurate. Within a group, honor points are split in the same way that experience points would be split if the target were an NPC rather than a player. Essentially, that means players of equal level in the group share an equal amount of the honor points, as long as they were alive and relatively near the target at the time of the target's death. Damage dealt to the target is only a factor when the players are not in the same group. In addition, we're continuing to improve the honor system so that it provides players with better feedback. Hopefully, this will help prevent such confusion from occuring in the first place.

GP: Are there any non-combat means to gain honor points, such as resurrecting a player fallen in PvP?

Blizzard: Currently, the only non-combat method to gain honor points is to be grouped with and be supporting players who are gaining honor points, thus sharing in their gains.

GP: Can you go into more detail about hero classes? Will they be a part of a patch or expansion?

Blizzard: We can't reveal much more about hero classes other than that we are planning on implementing them in a future content update. The concept behind hero classes is still being adjusted and we plan to reveal more information in the future on our official site.

Class balancing, Battlegrounds...

Comments [0]

post a comment

Post a Comment