WarCry talks with Tigole
by Eliah Hecht 
Jun 30th 2007 at 1:55PM
WarCry has a quick interview with Jeff Kaplan, a.k.a. Tigole, lead designer in charge of world design for WoW, mostly on BC instances. Head over to WarCry to see the full interview. Here's the question that caught my eye:WarCry: In many ways, Karazhan mirrors instances like Zul'Gurub or the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj in terms of raid size compared to the 40-person raids. How did the development of Karazhan compare to the development of these previous raids? Are there any plans for future 10-person raid dungeons?
Jeffrey Kaplan: While there are definitely philosophical tuning differences between 5-, 10-, 20-, 25-, and 40-person instances, we don't have a vastly different approach in our dungeon-creation process. The same basic elements that make a 5-person instance great -- pacing, story, varied creatures, varied abilities, punctuating boss fights, good itemization, accessibility, and understandability -- will also make for a great 25-person experience.
Karazhan was a lot of fun to work on, and we really took our time developing and polishing it. Karazhan, more so than Zul'Gurub or the Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj, had a very storied history in existing Warcraft lore, and we wanted to deliver on the high expectations. There are definitely plans for more 10-person content.
It's interesting to see that they think of a raid as fundamentally the same design problem as a 5-man. And more ten-man content, which we suspect Zul'Aman is going to be, is good news in my book. However, I think the approach of treating dungeons as similar to one another, regardless of size, is somewhat flawed. For instance, I'd say in a 5-man, trash mobs are almost more important to make interesting than bosses; in a raid, on the other hand, trash is an obstacle, and bosses are really what you come for.Filed under: Blizzard, The Burning Crusade, Interviews
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
EvilCheese Jun 30th 2007 2:34PM
That was a terrible interview.
"Lead Designer Jeffrey Kaplan drops in for this latest Q&A where our own Whitney Butts quizzes him on the latest things from the world of Norrath." - So I guess it's an Everquest interview!?
"WarCry: The complication and difficulty of getting keyed and attuned for many instances has risen quite a bit. What is the reason for increasing the complication for attunements and keys?"
LOL. This interview was posted AFTER Blizzard made major changes to attunemts, dropping them ENTIRELY for SSC and TK. What more could you possibly want? And why wasn't this addressed? And if this interview has been sitting around for so long, it seems like this should be noted.
OMG the new zones are easy? No wai!
Seriously, if you have access to Blizzard, ask some real questions folks. Good grief.
Jack Spicer Jul 1st 2007 11:44AM
I think that Karazhan is a huge dissapointment and I hope that it doesn't refelect the direction that raids are going in. I believe that 10-man content should not require a guild of well geared players to complete. Karazhan should be more like a UBRS than a mini-MC.
thetreasoner Jul 1st 2007 1:35PM
1st of all, Karazhan is not hard.
You can do it with 5-man/Heroic gear, and its a raid that gives out epics. Epics that are now significant upgrades over said 5-man/Heroic gear. So no, Karazhan is not supposed to be UBRS, it IS supposed to be the 1st raid dungeon of the Burning Crusade, and it is more appropriate to be mini-MC.
robodex Jul 2nd 2007 11:56PM
Kara is an amazingly fun zone. I'd rather do Kara than Molten Snore =\