Forums » News and Announcements
Shadowlands looks to move World of Warcraft forward
-
World of Warcraft is gearing up for its next expansion, Shadowlands. After a lukewarm response from many players toward Battle for Azeroth, Shadowlands is looking to rebuild some goodwill between Blizzard Entertainment and its community.To get more news about WoW Classic Gold, you can visit lootwowgold news official website.
Part of this involves looking at what exactly it is that so many disliked about Battle for Azeroth, which included complaints about unpolished experiences like Island Expeditions and Warfronts, a restrictive and annoying system of acquiring abilities through gear, and the difficulty of playing as more than one character for endgame content.
Earlier this month, I played the alpha test of Shadowlands and talked with the game’s technical director, Frank Kowalkowski. I wanted to know how Shadowlands is looking to stand out from the last few World of Warcraft expansions, and ask about new features like Torghast, a roguelike-inspired experience which has players exploring an unending tower.
Frank Kowalkowski: There’s quite a few of them. One of them we’re undergoing right now, which is making sure that — we’re going to beta next week, and we feel like we have a first pass on all of our endgame systems ready to go and to show to players on the beta and our own development team, and we can begin receiving feedback. We feel like maybe in BfA, some of that played out well in the beta, with Azerite abilities and the neckpiece. We’re trying to get a bit of a head start on some of that to get feedback as soon as possible so we can continue to tune up until we release Shadowlands. The second one, which is again based a lot on feedback throughout BfA and based on the positive reception we got for both the Queen Azshara content drop and the Lost Visions of N’Zoth, was player choice, player agency. We’re doubling down on that. The covenant is the obvious example of that, but you’ll also get to choose crafting your legendary. We’re also going to give you more mains to be able to populate your weekly chest than we did in BfA as well.GamesBeat: Covenants are a major feature in Shadowlands. You pick one of four, and that determines certain abilities and other features that you unlock. Are players going to be able to pick a covenant they want because it’s their favorite? Or will players be forced to pick certain ones because they are the strongest for their class.
Kowalkowski: We’re going to do a lot of tuning to make sure that we don’t have a, yeah, if you’re a demon hunter you have to pick this covenant. The covenant is about more than just the signature ability and the one power for your class. There are soulbinds that factor into the covenants, and other systems like Torghast that you’re going to be able to leverage to customize your character. It’s more than just the ability. That’s the one that’s up front because it’s the first thing players will see and experience, but there’s a lot of depth to the covenant system. We think it’s going to be up to each player to decide how they pick a covenant. You can pick it based on your play style, the types of things you want to do, but we also want to give you the option to pick a covenant for aesthetic or personal choice reasons. You identify with — I play a death knight, so maybe I identify with the Necrolords. I should be able to make that choice and not feel bad for doing that. There should be rewards and tuning such that I feel good about my choice.