Blizzcast episode 4 is now live and available for listening, and with it, of course, has come a wealth of new World of Warcraft Information. Some of it is stuff we've gotten wind for before, but there's some interesting insights into the whole game. You can listen to it here and read the transcript here, or join us after the break for a breakdown of the juiciest information from the Interviews

Professions: Engineering and Armorsmith Love

Drysc interviewed Jon LeCraft, the designer behind World of Warcraft's professions. In two more general areas, he says he doesn't want people to have to grind out max tradeskilling to get their ultimate BoP gear, so we should expect more stuff similar to how most goggle recipes only take 350 skill. They also want to cut back on world drop recipes, but are still looking at finding ways to differentiate individual crafters. One possibility offered was the idea of tokens from daily quests that you could then spend on recipes. Each individual crafter would spend their tokens differently, thus allowing for some uniqueness.

Here's some of the more specific new tidbits he let out:

• In Blacksmithing news, they say armorsmithing was probably legitimately underpowered, and they're hoping to make it more desirable and competitive with weaponsmithing in WoTLK.
• They feel they probably overnerfed engineering a bit in Burning Crusade, and are hoping to offer new upgrades to many old level 60 trinkets that fell by the wayside. In addition, Items like the Parachute Cloak and Rocket Boots will be reimagined as enchantment-type items that you can attached to existing armor.
• Yes, they probably overpowered tailoring with Frozen Shadoweave and similar sets, and won't go that far with it in Wrath.
• They'd like to make Fishing a bit less boring in the future. It will still be relaxing, but it will hopefully be a bit more interactive.
• For alchemy, they're looking at new ways to handle Discovery. Discovery will probably be either much more intuitive (such as making resistance potions to discover a cauldron) or reserved only for "fun" type potions.
• In leatherworking, they like where Drums ended up after 2.3, but they think they were a bit too conservative overall.
• For inscription, the plan is to have 15-20 glyphs for each class, including some that may affect talents. Also, they may great affect how the skill works or require tradeoffs, such as making Last Stand only give 20% of max health, but reducing the cooldown to 2 minutes. Knockback on fireball, the big original example of glyphs, is out.

Kaplan on Raiding and Dungeons

Bornakk interviewed Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan. Probably the most interesting tidbit he dropped is that they know exactly what patches they're going to release for Wrath of the Lich King. Everything, up to the culmination of assaulting Icecrown Glacier and defeating Arthas, has been planned to some degree.

He also discussed how they've learned from The Burning Crusade. They hope to avoid having to make major changes such as adding badges or removing attunements, but instead build the dungeons properly from the ground off. They also hope to have more attunements or unlockings that require the whole server, and more epic story lines that engage you and your first character without entrapping your alts into having to do a bunch of stuff you've done before. They also plan to let 25-man raiders go directly to 25-man content. You won't have to cut your teeth on 10-man Naxxramas first as you should get all the gear you need from 5-mans.

Music, Starcraft II, and more

There were a few other good interviews in the Blizzcast as well. Nethaera spoke to Russel Brower, the Music Director of World of Warcraft. He boasted of the 16 hours of music currently in game as of patch 2.4, and spoke a bit about the philosophy and methods for creating music for Wrath of the Lich King (Which, by the way, is awesome. The login screen music and the Howling Fjord music alone are worth the price of admission).

If you're into Blizzard's other, lesser franchises, you might also want to check out the interview with some of Starcraft II's design staff. Overall, another excellent Blizzcast. It's well worth listening to it or reading the transcript. Now if only they were aired a little bit more often.

Tags: 10-man, 25-man, blizzard, blizzcast, bornakk, cauldron, discovery, drums, drysc, dungeons, frozen-shadoweave, glyphs, goggles, howling-fjord, jeff-kaplan, jon-lecraft, last-stand, login-screen, music, naxxramas, nethaera, parachute-cloak, patches, patching, professions, resistance-potions, rocket-boots, russel-brower, starcraft-ii, wow-music, wrath, wrath-of-the-lich-king

Filed under: Fishing, Wrath of the Lich King, News items, Blizzard, Podcasting, Analysis / Opinion, Tailoring, Leatherworking, Engineering, Blacksmithing, Alchemy, Inscription