This weekend, Executive Producer & Vice President for World of Warcraft Holly Longdale and WoW Classic Associate Production Director Clay Stone visited PAX Australia, where they gave presentations and participated in interviews about Blizzard Entertainment’s upcoming release of WoW Forever. At this event, content creator JackedIQ was able to sit down with Longdale and Stone to ask his biggest questions about Collections, Shaman Tanking, and whether players will travel to Northrend or Pandaria in WoW Forever.
What is the Approach to Collecting in WoW Forever?
The team decided to bring in the Collections system to serve different types of players in WoW Forever. While this system and process may be similar to modern WoW, there are a few things missing that are sure to cause a little more friction.
One example that Clay Stone gives is the difference in information that is displayed in the Forever collections UI compared to Retail. In modern WoW, players are able to see every item, mount, pet, and collectible in the game, regardless of whether they have collected it themselves or not. In WoW Forever, players will only be able to see information related to items that they have collected so far, and will not be shown anything that they have not previously discovered.
Another reason that the developers want to keep many of these collectible items hidden is to encourage more community discourse about where a certain mount, pet, or appearance can be found, rather than giving players all of the answers upfront.
Will Enhancement Shamans Be Able to Tank in WoW Forever?
Players have noticed some Defensive talents in the Enhancement Shaman tree, leading some to wonder if this specialization will be able to tank endgame content in WoW Forever. This is a specialization that players have traditionally been able to tank low-level dungeons with, and it even got its own official tanking build in Season of Discovery, but will Shamans be able to take on this role in WoW Forever?
Clay Stone answers this question by stating that the team is interested in seeing how players play each class. He also states that Shaman Tanks are a popular discussion amongst the WoW Forever team, but this is not something they are officially pursuing at the moment. While this specialization will not be supported at launch, the team does recognize that there is a desire for it.
Clay also mentioned the famous “Battle Mage sword” that players found earlier on in the WoW Forever beta, stating that there are other build-defining items like this in the game that have yet to be discovered!
Could Players Adventure to Northrend or Pandaria in the Future?
While WoW Forever is dedicated to telling stories in the world of Azeroth, JackedIQ brings up the point that there are other continents on Azeroth, such as Northrend and Pandaria. Will players journey there in the future?
Holly Longdale states that, while nothing is off the table, she expects the two continents of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor to continue to evolve over time, giving players a lifetime of content to experience. While there is potential to explore other continents, the team is less focused on introducing more content and more focused on telling the best narrative story possible.
If you’d like to watch the full interview, be sure to check out the video from JackedIQ.
