Ulduar 3.1 and Beyond.

[Khalo]

This stuff is totally unconfirmed but there was a Model Designer from the WoW team on /v/ today answering questions and seemed pretty legit from what i could tell. Now we might find in a couple months times that everything said here is entirely wrong however, judging from his responses they might be mysterously correct. Time will tell, not like anyone's got anything better to do!

-3.1-

3.1 is just Ulduar, the zone will be 3.2. I don't think 3.1. is going to release for a good two months minimum, and that's if the programmers are fast with the fights. I really don't know how far along they were. But yeah, don't expect a new raid until like, April, really.

Ulduar has about 9 bosses or so, plus the optional one. I'd say about half of them have "difficulty modes" attached to them that could make them count as a new boss. Does it sound like not a lot? Yeah, I don't think it is either. Whatever.

[On the Optional Boss he was working on] Naw. I think it's a pretty cool model, but I'm biased. Imagine a Nerubian and those tentacle things in Azjol had a kid. An ugly, horrible kid.

Thorim's the guy in Storm Peaks, right? He's dead, but you fight the other guys that had the temples, except for Freya. Like I mentioned, Yogg-Saron's not in this dungeon, but you do screw with his attempts to come up or manifest or whatever.

[On the subject of the last fight] It's really vehicle based from my understanding. It actually has to do with YS, half your raid will be dealing with the boss, who's some prophet or something, while the rest are using a vehicle interface to knock down walls to break crystals or idols or whatever the hell they decided on. If you don't the boss gets juiced up, but like Sarth you get more loot if you don't screw with it, and each idol you don't smash when it activates it makes you go insane or something.

-New Zone, 3.2.... Azol Nerub?-

Same thing everyone thought it would be coming in to the expansion, Azjol-Nerub. I don't know what they're going to call it now that they actually called something Azjol-Nerub though.

And yeah, there's a new raid coming in between the two, along with a new zone

Will the zone be like an instance? No, it's a zone. And there's no flying mounts, but the city hub has a port to Dalaran.

I have no idea what they're planning, but I know they want to use more phasing.

Sort of. It's going to have unlocked stages, and there will be dailies, but the focus is more on an ongoing questline, from what I've been told.

-The "New" Dances-

Don't even fucking mention it man, those dances are a pain in the ass. I hate when I have to animate one, we all hate that we have to do them, and we all hate that we don't have time to do them so they just sit there, looming. They WANT us to get it down by 3.1, but with how much of Ulduar we still have to do (mostly environment) I wouldn't hold your breath.

-Pandaren-

Forget all that China bullshit, here it is straight up - Blizzard doesn't want to deal with the bullshit whining they'd get from the faction the Pandaren don't join. We'll probably see some neutral ones next expansion.

-Models-

A new Thrall model is actually on our to-do list. We want to redo all the city leaders, but he's first on the list. I don't know when we'll be told "Okay, put energy into this now", though. It's not going to be in 3.1.

Chromie's not really an important character, so she's not gonna have any model work done. Chromie's not supposed to be hot. You will not find a single person on the model team who thinks that gnomes should be hot.

-Tier Sets for 3.1-

I can promise you that it's no longer gay [on the subject of Paladin sets]. The main idea thrown around when the guys were designing paladin t8 was to have something the Scarlet Crusade would wear.

One of the sets is red. Think like, badass inquisitioner. Fire is a theme in it - you might have noticed, but for all the t8 one of the themes we kind of worked with is that they're dealing with the undead plague - that's why the hunters have gas masks, the warlocks are plague doctors, etc. The deal with paladins is that they say "Fuck your plague, I'm purifying you in fire."

-New Expansion-

They haven't firmly decided on the next expansion yet, though they've narrowed it down. I think they're probably going to decide to go with the Southern Seas/Caverns of Time idea, which would focus around Azshara and Sargeras as antagonists.

Sort of. The idea is that half the "new continent" will be islands and the Maelstrom, and the other half will be back before the land split up because the night elf queen summoned Sargeras. There's not really a reason yet why we go back in time other than that it's "cool".

Azshara will have shit added in the South Seas expansion. I don't even know what Gilneas is.

Forgot to mention in what I just said, but one of the goals for the next expansion is to rehaul a lot of the graphics, and part of that is layering armor on a character. There's no way at the moment for us to make armor bulky except in the shoulders, gloves, and helm, and one of the goals is to update the paperdoll to support doodads on it.

There are plans to allow form customization, but we haven't been told how they want to do it yet.

I'll field this one before I go. I don't know anything about the lore behind karazhan or whatever, but I know that there's videos floating around of the karazan crypts or whatever. That place is literally just a playground for us modelers. There's no plans to go there.

 

[Braque]

fake

 

[Toba]

He sounds retarded.....

Still good reading, just don't like his tone

 

[Xaverri]

Yeah my thoughts exactly, fun to read about his (made up?) activities, but the language only makes it less believable.
I don't believe every single person who works on WoW is also a big fan of the game and knows everything that's going on about it, but he just seems generally dis-interested. If this is real and he'll get caught and fired, I dont think he'd mind

 

[Joy]

What's the source anyways?

Some blog?

 

[Arly]

Google gave this result:

http://zip.4chan.org/v/res/26514696.html

 

[Joy]

lol 4chan is a source now? <_<

 

[Arly]

This stuff is totally unconfirmed but there was a Model Designer from the WoW team on /v/ today answering questions

It's Khalo's "I told you so" thread.

 

[Careface]

lol 4chan is a source now? <_<

Only /b/ is the retarded part of 4chan. I would expect a fair few blizz employees browse that website so thats not really a valid reason to dismiss it.

He sounds retarded.....

Would be even more retarded if he spoke like a GM on a website

 

[Braque]

If you know about the standard division of work and the different roles and specialisations you get at a games company you'd know with pretty high certainty that he is talking out his ass. Not only is he not a Blizzard employee, but I doubt he ever had a job in the games industry.

YHBT, HAND, etc.

 

[Careface]

If you know about the standard division of work and the different roles and specialisations you get at a games company you'd know with pretty high certainty that he is talking out his ass. Not only is he not a Blizzard employee, but I doubt he ever had a job in the games industry.

YHBT, HAND, etc.

Sounds to me like someone working on a game he doesnt really have a big intrest in and has over heard stuff, surely he has friends at this company that maybe shared what their doing over some refried beans?

What does YHBT and HAND mean :/

 

[Lafielle]

If you know about the standard division of work and the different roles and specialisations you get at a games company you'd know with pretty high certainty that he is talking out his ass. Not only is he not a Blizzard employee, but I doubt he ever had a job in the games industry.

YHBT, HAND, etc.

Sounds to me like someone working on a game he doesnt really have a big intrest in and has over heard stuff, surely he has friends at this company that maybe shared what their doing over some refried beans?

What does YHBT and HAND mean :/

You have been trolled. Have a nice day.

 

[Joy]

Only /b/ is the retarded part of 4chan. I would expect a fair few blizz employees browse that website so thats not really a valid reason to dismiss it.

You really think that? Oo

4chan is still very much a dump <_<

 

[Careface]

Only /b/ is the retarded part of 4chan. I would expect a fair few blizz employees browse that website so thats not really a valid reason to dismiss it.

You really think that? Oo

4chan is still very much a dump <_<

True, im just saying its not a reason to dismiss it.

 

[Anshrr]

What the heck is /v/ and /b/?

 

[Careface]

videogames and random boards on 4chan

 

[Gink]

What does YHBT and HAND mean :/

I'm not sure about YHBT, but HAND = http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=l_8yPap-k_s (???)

 

[Ayu]

[On the subject of the last fight] It's really vehicle based from my understanding. It actually has to do with YS, half your raid will be dealing with the boss, who's some prophet or something, while the rest are using a vehicle interface to knock down walls to break crystals or idols or whatever the hell they decided on. If you don't the boss gets juiced up, but like Sarth you get more loot if you don't screw with it, and each idol you don't smash when it activates it makes you go insane or something.

Boss fights that have a Hard Mode are affected by certain variables which players can control and which change the encounter's difficulty. For example, spread throughout Ulduar's vehicle section are four defense towers you can destroy. The more towers you leave intact, the harder the encounter with the Flame Leviathan will be, but the loot will also be better.

Lucky guess or something to it after all? The details are different but the idea matches.

Anyways, some real Ulduar info:

http://www.wow-europe.com/en/info/under .... ulduar.xml

 

[Careface]

Ulduar = a week long version of occulus

 

[Khalo]

\o/

My account expires on the 7th of March so i doubt i'll get a chance to set foot inside, but have fun with it.