GamePro Q&A: More on the Burning Crusade

We recently had an exclusive sitdown with Jeff Kaplan, the lead designer of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. In this interview, Kaplan discusses game design at Blizzard.

The first half of this interview can be found HERE.

GamePro: Tell us more about the two new classes in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.

The Draenei will have a total of six classes to choose from

The Draenei will have a total of six classes to choose from

Both the Draenei and the Blood Elves have a total of six classes, the maximum of any of our races. For the Draenei, you've got the Warrior, Priest, Paladin, Mage, Hunter and Shaman classes. And for the Blood Elves we have Hunter, Mage, Rogue, Priest, Warlock, and Paladin.

[One quirk] about the Blood Elves is that they're the only race in the game that does not have a Warrior; the Paladin fills that role for the Blood Elves. As far as racial abilities, they're pretty interesting and pretty desirable on both sides. The Draenei get the "Blessing of the Naaru" -- it's a heal-over-time spell that all Draenei get.... even if you're playing a Warrior. They also get a group aura similar to the Paladin's auras. So [with the "Inspiring Presence" aura,] anybody grouped with a Draenei gets +1% chance to hit. So that's a pretty cool grouping ability. All Draenei will also get a +10 to shadow resist, because they've been fighting the Burning Legion for a long time. A lot of the Draenei architecture is based in crystal and gem cutting, so, fitting in with our expansion profession they're going to get +15 to jewelcrafting.

GP: So are they going to be the jewel-crafting-specialized race, or are there any additional races that are going to get bonuses in that?

JK: No other races are going to get additional bonuses to jewelcrafting, but it's more for flavor and more for a little bonus while leveling up, but it's not necessarily race-defining --- it's similar to the way that gnomes get an engineering bonus. It just kind of makes sense and makes the race feel cooler as a whole.

So some of the abilities we give our races are really race-defining, you know: Will of the Forsaken, War Stomp, Perception, those sorts of things. The Blood Elves get a + 5 to all resists, because they are really a magic-based race, but what I think are the most interesting abilities that they get are Mana Tap and Arcane Torrent. Mana Tap is basically a small mana drain that they can do once every 30 seconds [exact numbers might change] and stacks up to three times. With Mana Tap, you drain mana from the opponent, and it puts a stacking buff on you. That buff combos directly into Arcane Torrent, which is a point-blank area of effect silence and interrupt. And it also restores mana or energy depending on the class that you play, because they can also be Rogues, and Rogues are the only non mana-using Blood Elf class. It's a really powerful PvP ability and it also has used in PvE situations. It's really the sell that the Blood Elves are this race that are obsessed with magic and constantly yearning for more magical power, so it plays directly into their newbie zone quests and racial abilities.

GP: What it sounds like is it was inspired by the Spell Breaker units.

JK: Yeah, definitely.

GP: So they're kind of like an anti-caster unit.

JK: Yeah, they're very potent against other casters, and ironically a lot of the Blood Elves' casters are very potent as well so it should make for some interesting PvP situations.

GP: What do you think the effect on PvP will be with the Paladin-Shaman faction cross-over?

JK: I think it's going to give players many more options in PvP. Many players have never grouped with a Shaman before, or never grouped with a Paladin before, and [the faction cross-over] is going to change the PvP landscape for them. Similarly they've never gone up against these classes, either. If you've been primarily playing Alliance your entire career, you know what it's like to play against Shamans... but you might not necessarily know the frustration that is fighting a Paladin in PvP. Similarly, if you've been playing Horde, you've never gone up against a Shaman -- you've only played alongside them. So, I actually think it's going to really open up some cool PvP combinations.

GP: What are the specific historical battles that can be played? How exactly do these work?

JK: The Caverns of Time is an instance dungeon that is located in Tanaris Desert. It's actually in the game today, it's just closed. The front door is closed. When the expansion goes live the front door will obviously be open. Right now we're focusing on three PvE battles through the Caverns of Time.

The first battle as a trip to old Hillsbrad where players will go back in time and take part in the moment when Thrall escaped from Durnhold Keep. This sort of story is detailed in our novel Lord of the Clans which is a whole book about Thrall's rise to power. It's really cool because we can take players back to South Shore and Tarren Mill, and we actually got Tarren Mill pristine, before it was overrun by the Forsaken. That's not actually a max-level experience. It's part of your leveling up through 60 to 70. And that's a five-person experience. So just a regular instance dungeon, but a pretty epic moment, because we want to have these epic moments available to people who don't have the most hard-core play style.

Another five-person wing of the Caverns of Time is when Medivh opened the Dark Portal, which was a WarCraft II moment. It's all explained in the lore, but you go back in time and actually defend Medhivh while he's opening the portal, which is kind of an ironic thing because it was a very bad thing when Medhivh opened the portal. But you have to make sure that time doesn't get altered in any way or else the resulting things that would happen are far worse than what happened when he originally opened the portal. That's going to be a five-person level 70 experience, sort of like a Dire Maul.

Finally, there's going to be a very epic raid instance in the Caverns of Time, and you're going to get to take part in the Battle of Mount Hyjal. This battle was in the final Night Elf campaign of WarCraft III. It was a pretty crazy fight. It's really cool because in WarCraft III it was the fight where the Orcs and the Night Elves and the Humans all worked together. And you start off defending Jaina's base and when Jaina's base falls you move up to Thrall's base, and then Thrall's base falls, and finally you go up to Tyrande's base and fight Archimonde. So we thought it would be a super-cool experience for the players who have experienced WarCraft III and are familiar with the lore, but even for the players who aren't familiar with that at all it would also be a pretty epic moment, and the zone is beautiful and enormous and it's a pretty magnificent experience all around. You'll work your way toward the tree, holding off waves, and you'll fight bosses this whole time, and as the bases reach a certain point you'll have to retreat to the next base until finally you get to the world tree, at which point you could confront Archimonde.

GP: So all of the big characters will be there, and you're kind of like the cavalry coming to save them?

JK: Exactly. That's part of why we thought it would be really epic. We have these great characters in the WarCraft lore. Thrall, Jaina, Tyrande, and to get to actually fight alongside them, to be a part of that moment, you know, here's what it's like at the ground in that moment in time. We want to bring that to the players.

GP: So it might be interesting if your character happens to be undead, because you'll sort of be fighting your brothers in a way.

JK: Well, the Forsaken, our undead player characters, they probably hate the undead race the most because they've freed their will from them. Their biggest enemy is Arthas. We're also doing some things with the quests' lore surrounding the Caverns of Time as a whole to kind of explain why it's okay for me to be going and interacting, you know, maybe I'm an orc and I hate Jaina. We kind of set that up through the whole quests and the lore.

GP: So these aren't happening in some outside parallel universe. You really are participating in the actual history of the world.

JK: Yeah, that's what our goal was. We have all these epic moments and everybody wants to take part in them during WoW.

Could this be one of those

Could this be one of those "epic moments"?

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