Joystiq Interviews Jeff Kaplan
by Elizabeth Harper 
Aug 12th 2006 at 1:05AM
Joystiq managed to get a interview with World of Warcraft's lead designer, Jeff Kaplan, (you may know him as "Tigole" on the forums) - and there's some interesting stuff here. Of course there's a lot of info here, but some of the most interesting talk revolves around the new PvP system. As was posted earlier, the system will consist of arena matches of 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5 which will can be alliance v. horde, alliance v. alliance, or horde v. horde and cross-server. And the honor system as we know it will be gone entirely - to quote Kaplan:
It's a competitive-based ladder that uses a rating system similar to the chess ELO rating. One of the key differences is that we require a minimum number of games that you have to play. Unlike in the chess system where if you're on top, you can just sit there, we wanted to ensure that the No. 1 guy can be knocked off his top spot. But, we don't require too many games. We'll require something around ten games.
Further, honor points as we know them will be significantly changed. There will be no more honor decay and instead of determining your PVP rank, the honor points you accumulate can be spent to purchase PVP gear.
And other tidbits touched on by the interview include...
- News that there's been some thought about implementing voice chat in the game, though it won't be coming in the Burning Crusade.
- Dungeons (though whether all dungeons, or simply expansion dungeons) will have a "normal" and "hard" difficulty setting, and loot will be adjusted accordingly.
- They're currently anticipating new races with every expansion - though there is a finite limit on the number of races in Azeroth.
Filed under: News items, PvP, Expansions
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Grad Aug 12th 2006 4:29AM
Why were the Draenei the right choice for the Alliance expansion race?
Holahan Aug 12th 2006 5:03AM
Although Blizzard gets flamed a lot for all their imperfections, they truly are dedicated to their games. People have to understand that along with making new content for patches and running maintenance and all that, Blizzard still had to work on developing an expansion pack. Well done Blizzard.
kelly Aug 12th 2006 8:57AM
voice chat in barrens... be still my beating heart.
gill Aug 12th 2006 12:17PM
A revamp honor system? Finally, casuals like me can have access to the higher ranks and better pvp gear.
Urthona Aug 14th 2006 9:26AM
Dear Grad:
The exapansion of the World of Warcraft game meant an expansion of territory as well as race selection. The intitial game included the two landmasses Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. What was needed was new land to seed with new content.
There is a third continent on Azeroth, home to the Lich King, but to include that in the expansion would allow players to interact with the supreme enemy of the game. To do so, and thus allow players to overcome and defeat Arthas, would basically be "beating the game". Finishing accounts is not in the interests of Blizzard.
Instead, they chose to expand into the only other "land" mentioned in the lore: Outland, the planet known as Draenor. In order to contextualize this shift in location, Blizzard sought to ground it by choosing races that were indigenous to Draenor. That meant demonic races, Naga, Blood Elves, creating something new, or the Draenei.
One of the early concerns of the expansion was to develop a more attractive race for Horde. The population of the human and night elf players surprised many at Blizzard: aparrently the buying public only plays characters that are pretty. Many believe this was a complaint of the Horde players. I consider it to be complaint of the Alliance players.
The above decision meant that Blood Elves were to be chosen for the Horde, leaving the others to be considered for Alliance. Draenei was the most logical fit - as they abhorred the Orc population of Draenor. This necessitated a rewrite, as the Draenei were allied with the Blood Elves. See Wowwiki for more details.
The design and class choices for the Draenei have perplexed many players as well. This is just a hunch, but I might as well share:
The Night Elf demeanor and architecture has elements of Scandinavia as well as the Classic Greek and Japanese. Trolls are Carribean, Southeast Asian, Oceanic, and Central American. Tauren are Native American. Something about the Draenei lead me to believe they're based on Indian principles. Maybe it's the blue skin, but I think it's the "devolution" into the Broken and Lost Ones that echoes the Hindi caste system. And then there's the war elephants. In my mind, the class selection of the Draenei seems to emulate the stratified culture of the Indian people, with Priests being on top, followed by Paladins, Mages, Warriors and Hunters. The Shaman might be the arrival of a more worldly Buddhist perspective. Who's to say?
I for one look forward to playing a Draenei paladin, and riding my elekk.