World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth - Vorverkauf, Beta-Start, Release-Termin - Entwickler-Interview

Nun ist also klar, was lange als Gerücht durch die WoW-Foren geisterte. Wer die Verbündeten Völker spielen will, der braucht dafür die kommende Erweiterung Battle for Azeroth. Dass deren Vorbestellung - und damit auch der Zugriff auf die ersten vier der Verbündeten Völker - aber bereits jetzt startet, damit haben wohl die wenigsten gerechnet. So ist es aber. Wenn ihr diese Zeilen lest, dann hat der Vorverkauf von Battle for Azeroth bereits begonnen und ihr bekommt die Möglichkeit, euch Hochbergtauren, Nachtgeborene, Leerenelfen und Lichtgeschmiedete Draenei zu erspielen. Zu diesem und anderen Themen standen uns Production Director John Hight und Senior Game Designer Ryan Shwayder in einem kurzen Interview Rede und Antwort. Darin erzählten sie unter anderem, für wann der Release von Battle for Azeroth geplant ist und dass die Beta bereits direkt hinter der nächsten Ecke wartet.

WoW: Battle for Azeroth - Vorverkauf, Beta-Start, Release-Termin - Entwickler im Interview

Die wichtigsten Infos des Interviews haben wir für euch übersichtlich zusammengefasst. Weiter hinten findet ihr dann das gesamte Interview zum Nachlesen.

• Der Vorverkauf von Battle for Azeroth startet am 30. Januar um 19 Uhr.
• Vorbesteller erhalten sofort Zugriff auf die ersten vier Verbündeten Völker. (Hochbergtauren, Nachtgeborene, Leerenelfen und Lichtgeschmiedete Draenei)
• Die Vorverkaufsversion von Battle for Azeroth enthält einen kostenlosen Boost auf Stufe 110.
• Um ein Verbündetes Volk zu rekrutieren, benötigt ihr zudem bestimmte Erfolge, die im Vorhinein schon gedatamined wurden.
• Die Beta von Battle for Azeroth startet sehr bald!
• Der Release von Battle for Azeroth ist für Sommer 2018 angepeilt!

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• Die Zugangsbeschränkungen der Verbündeten Völker sind komplett Accountweit. Ihr braucht aber einen Charakter der passenden Fraktion auf Stufe 110, um die Zugangsquest zu erledigen.
• Nur wer ohne Boost auf Stufe 110 levelt, bekommt Zugriff auf die Heritage Armor.
• Ursprünglich waren die Verbündeten Völker tatsächlich nur als kosmetische Varianten der eigentlichen Völker gedacht. Die Entwickler entschieden sich aber dagegen, da sie im Laufe der Entwicklung eben jene Völker mehr und mehr als eigenständige Charaktere wahrnahmen.
• Zudem wären "Subraces" sehr abwertend, da es impliziert, dass diejenigen weniger wert wären, als die eigentlichen Völker.
• Verbündete Völker haben ihre eigenen Geschichte im Spiel, die sich von der der ursprünglichen Rassen unterscheidet.
• Abseits der Rekrutierungs-Quest-Reihen ist aber kein spezieller Content für die einzelnen Verbündeten Völker geplant. Die neue Level-Skalierung soll genug Content anbieten, der bisher brach lag.
• Die Zugangsbeschränkungen der jeweiligen verbündeten Völker sind laut Entwicklern nötig, um ein Verständnis der neuen Völker zu bekommen.
• Die Verbündeten Völker sollen die Zwischenzeit bis zu Battle for Azeroth überbrücken.
• Mit dem Dämonenjäger als Beigabe für Vorbesteller hat man gute Erfahrungen gemacht. Damals haben sich einige beschwert, dass sie erst so spät spielbar waren, weswegen man die Verbündeten Völker nun früher bringt.
• Da die Verbündeten Völker hauptsächlich kosmetischer Natur sind, stört es die Entwickler nicht, wenn sie eine Zeit lang nur für Vorbesteller verfügbar sind.
• Es sind bereits weitere Verbündete Völker in Planung.
• Die Verbündeten Völker kamen nicht mit Patch 7.3.5, damit zuerst die Stabilität des Patches gewährleistet werden konnte. Zudem werden die Völker im Gegensatz zu Patches gleichzeitig für alle Regionen freigeschaltet.
• Die Entwickler sind sehr zufrieden mit dem Stand der Level-Skalierung, auch wenn sie sich der kleineren Startprobleme bewusst sind.
• Die Frage, ob wir künftig mehr Content in der alten Welt sehen werden (beispielsweise World Quests), konnten/durften die beiden nicht beantworten.
• In Battle for Azeroth wird es erneut einen massiven Stat-Squish geben. Sechs und siebenstellige Zahlen sind nach Ansicht der Entwickler lächerlich.

Das gesamte Interview findet ihr hier:

buffed: The most discussed and expected topic these days are the Allied Races, so let's start with them. How did you came up with the idea of the Allied Races as independent races instead of the so called Subraces, that people have been asking for a long time? Which, to clarify that, would have been just cosmetic variances of the existing races.

Quelle: Blizzard WoW: Battle for Azeroth - Ryan Shwayder ist Senior Game Designer bei Blizzard.  Ryan Shwayder: Initially we started calling them subraces. We started with the idea that they would always be a tier below their parent race. As we started talking about them and working on them more, we realized that theses allied races had a story to tell on their own and we didn't really want to limit ourselfs. When you call something a subrace it inherently has to be some lesser alternate form of an existing race. We thought, it would be a lot more interesting for us and for the players, if their actually were their own people. Because they are! I mean, in the history, in the story and in the lore of World of Warcraft (jetzt kaufen ), each of these races, particular the first four, is deeply rooted in the lore of legion. It kind of felt like we might be doing a disservice to the races, to ourselves and to the players if we frame them as subraces. So we decided to take a step back, look at them again and realize really what these are. They are races, they are important characters in the story of Warcraft, that we can recruit to the Horde and Alliance. And that was kind of the designator, that Allied Races was born. From there we deiced, these are independent identities. They aren't just a cosmetic change. These are real characters in the game like Alleria Windrunner, the first Void Elf, whom was instrumental in the fight against the legion. So we kind of wanted to take that story forward on his own. And of course they're working directly with the Horde or the Alliance. But they aren't simply Subraces. Void Elves aren't simply Blood Elves with a different skin. They are their own race.

buffed: So when can we expect to see the Allied Races in the game and what requirements are there for unlocking them. Rumors tell that if you preorder Battle for Azeroth, you get to play them earlier. Is that correct?

Quelle: buffed WoW: Battle for Azeroth - John Hight war bereits zur BlizzCon 2016 unser Interview-Gast.  John Hight: So, the good news is, that on January 30. We begin the presale for Battle for Azeroth and one of the things, that you'll get as part of that is the ability to recruit Allied Races. So you have Early Access to them. And basically the way this works is, if you have a level 110 character you'll now able to go through quests to recruit all of the four first Allied Races. And it doesn't matter if you have a 110 Horde or Alliance character, because you'll have the ability to recruit all of them. The other thing that comes along with Battle for Azeroth is a boost. So if you don't have a 110 character, you can use it at that point. Or, if you want to, you can apply it to an Allied Race. Although we encourage everyone to level their Allied Race from level 20 all the way up to 110 because you get a really awesome piece of heritage armor that gives you incredible bragging rights amongst your friends.

buffed: So there are no other requirements? Because Dataminer found out, the you might need some kind of achievements or reputation.

John Hight: Yeah, it's part of the recruitment process. There are quests, there is reputation.
Ryan Shwayder: Yes, what lead to the Allied Races is a storyline for each of them in Legion. Let's use Highmountain Tauren as an example. So the requirements for the Highmountain Tauren recruitment: One is the achievement for completing the zone storyline which was the unification of the despaired tribes of Highmountain. So once you've completed that and met the second requirement which is actually that you achieve exalted reputation with the Highmountain Tribe. I think I should go a little more deeply into that. Initially we knew for sure, that the storyline would be required, because you need the context of understanding why this race is joining the Horde or joining the Alliance. But we also felt like, it made a lot of sense to use reputation here as well. Earning their trust and becoming one of the most venerated characters in Azeroth as far as that fraction is concerned. We felt like it was very important to actually go all the way and say "You know what? That makes a lot of sense of make these exalted." It wasn't something we did lightly. We really want to make Allied Races feel like an accomplishment - something that you can earn. But something that's clear and that you can target. With that you can set a goal for yourself and exactly know, what steps you have to take in order to recruit these Races.

buffed: These requirements are not server-bound or faction-bound? I can earn reputation and the achievements with my Alliance-character and then play the Highmountain Tauren on Horde-side? Is that correct?

Quelle: Blizzard WoW: Battle for Azeroth - Die Leerenelfen wurden von ihren Verwandten verstoßen und schließen sich nun der Allianz an.  Ryan Shwayder: We're trying to be as friendly as possible with the requirements. So they are account-wide which means actually if you main-character is Alliance and you have exalted reputation with the Highmountain Tribe and you finished their questline, you can take a Horde character - if you don't have one, you can use that free boost to 110 - and go to the Orgrimmar embassy and begin the recruitment questline. Because you met those requirements on your account. So you will need to have a Horde character to unlock the Highmountain Tauren and the Nightborn but you can met the prerequisite requirements on an Alliance character or any character.

buffed: So the Allied Races will only be playable with a preorder of Battle for Azeroth. Aren't you concerned, that many players will be upset about the decision, that major content is restricted to the preorder purchasers for a pretty long period of time?

John Hight: You know, when Legion came out, we wanted to offer something to people that preorder in a way of early access to the demon hunter. And the feedback we got on this was extremely positive. They said: "Boy, we wish we had it a little bit earlier, so that we had something new and cool." So we though: "Hey this is something cool, we can do this with the Allied Races." Because that's a major theme for us in Battle for Azeroth. We have the four now and we talked about two more that are coming. So we incorporate that in BfA. And this allows players to get an early glimpse of what the conflict looks like between the Alliance and the Horde. A lot of people are interested and excited about doing this. People that are regular players of WoW. We have a very high number of people that every time there is a new expansion are right there with us. So we don't really see that being an issue. We hope that people are gone excited about it. They already probably champing at the bit to get into Battle for Azeroth. So until we're ready to release it, this is a great way for them to experience the changes that we made in the old world.
Quelle: Blizzard/Wowhead WoW: Battle for Azeroth - Die Hochbergtauren schließen sich wie auch die Tauren der Horde an.  Ryan Shwayder: One thing also to point out. The Allied Races are primarily a cosmetic thing. It's like you play an Orc or a Tauren at level 20 and above. It's not exactly cosmetic but also it's not super important if you're one or another. With the Allied Races we wanted to make sure that you're not missing too much if you aren't playing one. I guess what you're pointing out is that there is risk of Allied Races not feeling like part of Battle for Azeroth since releasing them so early. But actually I think we fell like this is the perfect time to allow you to start recruiting the Allied Races. Because you have plenty of time to level them up and if you haven't meet the requirements currently to recruit them you can start working on that now. We wanted to give you enough time to familiarize with them, to gain levels with them, to get your heritage armor or to just do what you want to do with the new Allied Races before Battle for Azeroth kicks in.

buffed: Okay, so the Pre-purchase for Battle for Azeroth starts on January 30. What can you tell us about the rest of the schedule? When can we expect the start of the beta and do you have a rough release date of BfA in mind?

John Hight: Actually the beta is going to be soon! We haven't yet an exact date but you can count on that it's being around the corner. In terms of Battle for Azeroth we targeting this summer but we haven't set an exact date yet.

buffed: Coming back to the Allied Races. Do they have some kind of special story quests while leveling or is the same as all the other races.

Quelle: Wowhead WoW: Battle for Azeroth - Die Nachtgeborenen wurden befreit und schließen sich nun der Horde an.  Ryan Shwayder: This is something we went back and forth quite a few times. The majority of the content is actually prior to recruiting the Allied Race. The main storylines are within Legion as well as the questlines made for the recruiting process. Once you're done with that, it's more of a hand-off to Orgrimmar or Stormwind. From there you make your own decisions. What we realized was with the old world that's now scaling you have plenty of opportunities to write your own story. And for me that's actual the more interesting points. If I put myself in the shoes of a Nightborn for example, I have been behind this shield or barrier of Suramar for thousands of years. And now, after the Alliance and the Horde both helped us to defeat the Legion here and get them out of the city, I finally take my first steps into this world, that to me is completely foreign. For me it's kind of this player story of how would I see the Stonetalon Mountains? What is Icecrown? Places that you heard about. Whispers from adventurers who been there. As the talk in the Suramar taverns while drinking arkwine. To me the most interesting thing is putting myself in the shoes of that character and adventuring through the world. So I guess the answer to the original question: We didn't make much content after you created that race because we felt like the world already speaks for itself. There is already content out there, tons and tons of it.

buffed: There are six Allied Races that you have announced yet. Are there more to come? Maybe even an Allied Race that can decide whether it will play Horde or Alliance like the Pandaren?

John Hight: We do have plans an ideas for additional Allied Races. We haven't discussed the flip a particular race because there is this conflict between Horde and Alliance it is pretty important that you're unwrapping or revealing why a particular race chooses one side or the other.

buffed: Most people expected to see the Allied races in Patch 7.3.5 together with the new Levelscaling. Why have you decided against this?

Quelle: wowhead WoW: Battle for Azeroth - Die Lichtgeschmiedeten Draenei gehören zu den ersten vier Verbündeten Völkern.  John Hight: That's a really good question. The Allied Races are part of early access for Battle for Azeroth and we wanted to make sure that we had good stability on servers. The other part of is it because we are a global game. Some of our regions have complained, that other regions have access to content before others do. And since there is content attached to this, we wanted to make sure that all regions get access to them at the exact same time. Our current goal is at 10 AM, January the 30. (19 Uhr europäischer Zeit) we want to turn this feature on globally and simultaneously.

buffed: Talking about the Levelscaling - how satisfied are you with the new system. There were some minor start-problems and many players went nuts, because the Levelprocess now takes a bit longer.

John Hight: We did have a couple of bugs when 7.3.5 first rolled out. Unfortunately for players going into Mists of Pandaria, because we had some tuning issues there. It was a little bit more challenging for them that we had intended. So we have fixed that now. We had some small Updates go out on the last days to address that. In terms of the rest of the Levelscaling, we do want that it feels like a bit of a challenge. If you have great armor and you have good skill, you feel the different as you battling mobs and bosses. But we didn't want it to feel like it is completely cheating and you just started wasting your time and watching the clock while buzzing through that content. We want you to be able to play the game and enjoy it. It is tuned now, so that it will be a bit of a challenge where there wasn't necessarily challenge before.

buffed: Can we expect more changes to the Old World? Maybe World Quests in the Classic-Areas or things like that?

Ryan Shwayder: I don't know if we can really talk about that. Something important is that we always do look at the process of Leveling and we ourselves play through the old content. And I think now more than ever with players playing Allied Races and leveling up their new character aswell as us developers on the team. That will reveal to us what the next steps are if any. By in large we're very happy with the scaling world. It opened things up quite a bit and made it much more enjoyable to level. But at the same we're always looking to improve.
John Hight: As a player for me right now, I'm a little bit of an Altoholic, so I'm going through and getting the class mounts for all classes and just to see how our designers have gone through and utilized the old world, tell you new stories, take you to the whole world, that is pretty much fun. I play since the beginning and I love the nostalgia. It's cool to go back into these areas and now see some new quests here and there.

buffed: Talking about the Old World - do we see another Item-Squish in Battle for Azeroth? And will it be similar to the one in Warlords?

John Hight: Yes, there will be a stat squish. I think people that came to BlizzCon saw this first hand because they were aghast that their Itemlevel dropped. It is just a number but were felt like it was getting a bit ridiculous when you see seven or eight digit numbers flying on the screen. So yeah, we went through a squish.

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WoW: Battle for Azeroth - Vorverkauf, Beta, Release-Termin - Entwickler-Interview Der Vorverkauf von Battle for Azeroth hat begonnen. In diesem Zuge hatten wir vor einigen Tagen die Möglichkeit, ein Interview mit den Entwicklern von Blizzard zu führen. Dabei kündigten sie nicht nur den Start der Beta für Battle for Azeroth an, sondern auch den Zeitraum für den geplanten Release der Erweiterung. Zudem bestätigten sie einige der Gerüchte, die bereits seit längerem um die Verbündeten Völker in Umlauf sind. Beispielsweise, dass sie tatsächlich ab sofort verfügbar sind.

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