BlizzCon 2010: Tom Chilton interview transcript -- Dance studio still in the works
by Adam Holisky 
Oct 23rd 2010 at 2:39PM
Interesting decision to make Tol'Barab similar to the Isle of Quel'Danans. What is your thinking? What is it going to look like?
It's what you'd consider an Alcatraz to be. It's an abandoned island. It's a central hub for daily quests. Really where players are going to be and do their daily activity. On PvP servers it's going to create a lot of friction and action all the time. At the central part of the island, it's going to feel a lot like Wintergrasp did.
Tell me a little bit about Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks is one of our new BGs where introducing. Capture the flag, solid game play. A lot like Warsong Gultch. It's a proven game play style, a lot of people like to capture the flag.
When is the beta going to be coming down?
It generally comes down a little bit before we go live with a patch. [no direct answer of when the beta is ending]
When is the Cataclysm pre-event?
It's already getting geared up. We're going to see large scale elemental invasions of the cities. That's going to escalate. For a while it's going to shut down the world.
How far out is that?
A couple of weeks before Cataclysm.
Where are the new dances? Will path of the titans make a comeback?
We have been working on new dances. We'll put that into the dance studio feature we've been working on before, and will release that when we have enough content and it's ready.
Path of the titans, it's too early to say if it'll make a comeback.
How many tiers of content before Deathwing?
We're still trying to figure that out. We know we'll have a patch 4.1 and 4.2. We don't know if Deathwing will be in 4.2 or 4.3.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
MrJackSauce Oct 23rd 2010 3:16PM
"We don't know if Deathwing will be in 4.2 or 4.3."
Please please please please please DO NOT interpret this as: "OMG BLIZZ ARE DOING LESS TIERS THAN OTHER EXPACS" or something thereof.
Numbers thrown out randomly in an interview are just that.
Just thought I'd try to pre-empt the tears about tiers.
normaldude77 Oct 23rd 2010 3:27PM
You know that this valiant attempt will be in vain, right? ; )
Eddy Oct 23rd 2010 3:47PM
See, my interpretation was, "Hm, I wonder if Deathwing will be another Illidan, that he's not the very worst part of the sundering, and perhaps we're fighting an Old God at the very end." But I kind of doubt that- I think it might be a more interesting story, but it would also feel anticlimactic if Deathwing isn't the end.
Ishammel Oct 23rd 2010 5:23PM
@Eddy Interesting interpretation - I like it. Might not come true but I think it's a really nice thought.
Noyou Oct 23rd 2010 5:48PM
I've only been playing since LK so I don'y have a lot to go by but in Lich King he was the last boss to down. I would be surprised if we are able to actually 100% totally kill deathwing so quick. Unless they have something up their sleeve. Or maybe you kill him in one form and he partially escapes.
Ice Oct 23rd 2010 6:07PM
They should always end expansions to old god.
(warning, possible spoilers for those who want to remain totally spoiler-free even from common things so far)
Nah I'm kidding.. but serioulsy ulduar would've been better end raid for this xpack. "Now that you beaten LK I can finally unleash my sinister plan and control the scourge from its weaker master and bring this world to its knees!" would've been Yoggies plan..just like it was all along in the quests. Wasnt it at one quest that told us that scourge uses saronite to not get those numbnut zombies to yogg-sarons mad whispers?
Here it can go similiar way, after all we know deathwing wont do this stuff without influence already. If we kill that old god before, Deathwing will be weaker prey. If we kill deathwing before old god the old god will be weaker in a way. Lore wise ofc not raid mechanic. Its very intresting idea indeed.
Also I'm worried about said "4.2 deathwing" that they said raids will be 6 boss raids.. and we know that in wrath it took 6-10 months till next tier of content to come. Thats a lot, so they better speed it up in future. I'm not going to do 8 months of 6 boss raids ever again *cowers in fear of ToC and 10 months of ICC*
prenden2 Oct 23rd 2010 3:17PM
"We don't know if Deathwing will be in 4.2 or 4.3."
Good Lord, I hope this doesn't mean we have one major patch a year until 5.0.
PJ Oct 23rd 2010 3:18PM
Going to shut down the cities? Hah, do they have the guts to do that after the whine fest last time with the zombie invasion.
I'm all for it - give the whiners a finger - its only every couple of years for a few days, they'll live!
matiaid1 Oct 23rd 2010 3:21PM
The zombiefest was awesome! I started playing WoW a couple days before it started and when it was happening, i felt like this is a relly cool battle and though that those city defense-type things happen a lot!
Drakkenfyre Oct 23rd 2010 3:28PM
All vendor NPC's despawn from the city. The only ones that remain are the ones that are meant to be freed, and they cannot be used for their original purpose. The city must be defended to get them back. And if no one does, it takes 2 hours for them to come back.
There are portals around the place for lowbie characters to use, that ports them to the Valley of Heroes. Don't know where the Horde version puts them, probably outside Orgrimmar.
Jamie Oct 23rd 2010 3:31PM
Being a lvl70 RP Paladin during that event was full of both good and grief, grief from people who'd swear at you for cleansing them and great during the middle when abominations were raiding the city of Stormwind.
Then actually falling to the disease because you couldn't cleanse any more was a real emotional conflict actually becoming the evil your picked up your first hammer to fight wasn't a good feeling at all.
Although it did get a little stale after a while and the abuse was very annoying, but everyone has their own way of playing the game, I guess.
Horsepop Oct 23rd 2010 3:38PM
From what I've seen the attacks only take place in 2 cities for each faction. Org and Thunderbluff for Horde and Stormwind and Ironforge for the Alliance. The portals in dal will still be there when this happens so if you have bank toons or lowbies in one of these places find a mage and get your hearth set to dal to use one of the other cities when this happens.
Vaeku Oct 23rd 2010 4:19PM
Well, at least Exodar and Silvermoon will get some use.
Noyou Oct 23rd 2010 5:51PM
Oh no! trade chat might be disrupted!
Ves Oct 23rd 2010 3:28PM
Some time before Cata was announced there was an interview where someone said to expect an expansion every 18-24 months. So maybe with Cataclysm they're aiming for the lower bound.
On the other hand, I expected Wrath to last for 18 months, and then it ended up as 25.
chris Oct 23rd 2010 5:12PM
i remember back in the day they said they wanted to release and expansion every year.
Noyou Oct 23rd 2010 5:56PM
Yeah. And back in the day Def Leppard said they would like to put out albums shorter than every 4-5 years. I would be happy if they did an xpac every year but seeing all the things that go into it, I seriously doubt it. If they did I would imagine it would be on a much smaller scale.
Jim Oct 23rd 2010 3:35PM
Maybe next time they can do an interview by someone who actually knows how to spell Tol Barad and Quel'Danas.
Adam Holisky Oct 23rd 2010 3:40PM
I'm not entirely concerned with spelling arcane WoW words correctly when I need to get the info out. And, this wasn't done by me, it is a transcript from DirecTV, as I said in the article.
sccorp.sc Oct 23rd 2010 4:07PM
@ Jim
It's spelled *Tol'Barad*. Where you inserted a space, an apostrophe is needed.
What? You're the one who overlooked an entire article for it's grammatical errors. d(^_^)(d)
@ Adam
Thanks for the transcript! /bro-hug