Art and Narrative Interview with Hirumaredx - Visualizing The War Within

The War Within Posted 2024/04/19 at 10:19 PM by Archimtiros

Visual Class Fantasy

One of the goals for tier sets in the War Within is to lean back into the class fantasy of visual design.

Like tier sets, the core fantasy of hero talents is to add another layer of flavor to the class and taking the fiction of the character to a logical extension - not just a Druid, but a special type of Druid that player can get excited about connecting to.

In terms of visual, each one is intended to double down on their specific theme, such as the Chosen of Elune Balance Druids having light beams upon light beams and more light beams!

Mount Customizations

The Delve rewarded Gyrocopter is the only customizable mount current coming in The War Within, but the team is always lookin for additional opportunities to do more.

Underground Zone Diversity

One of the primary concerns in most expansions is how to create distinction between new zones, particularly this time around when they're mostly underground. It's especially hard when you consider 20 years of zones in World of Warcraft, so making a completely different type of environment can be a challenge.

They haven't done many full-sized caverns though, aside from the recent Zaralek Cavern, so they're focusing on leaning into the stories and subverting expectations of what an underground zone can be. For example, Hallowfall has a giant crystal up in the sky conveniently acting like a proxy sun, which is just one way they can inject interesting identities and push the boundaries of what might be considered a conventional cavern.

Varied architecture also helps; the Nerubian zone isn't just a whole bunch of Ziggurats.

Size wise, the zones are meant to be relatively similar in size to those of Dragonflight, with interesting landmarks like that giant crystal sun in Hallowfall that will even experience some change as we progress through the story.

The Foundation Hall in the Isle of Dorn is another major location where the Earthen council meets, and there are several other landmarks like Storm Perch, which is used to summon special gryphon riders.

Being below ground requires a little creativity to break up the environment. While they may have traditional day/night cycles, we will see some other types of cycles that alter the appearance of the zone throughout the day in the form of weather, "storms," and other triggers.

Customization is a pivotal part of player identity and how we consume the game, so it's important to find opportunities to add more. The Earthen in particular have some unique customizations that wouldn't fit normal races, like stone beards and glittering gems.

Story and World Building

No spoilers on future characters we may run into, though we already know that Xal'atath is the main villainous character in The War Within, and we'll be seeing quite a lot of her.

There's no particular tie in with Season of Discovery, though they aren't entirely sure of whether the mysterious void phenomena seen in the Classic game is considered canon to the main narrative or not. In our (modern-era) version of the game, Xal'atath has been just been playing the long game, plotting things from the shadows.
* Note: the developers appeared very cagey on this subject, so it is possible they're feigning in order to avoid giving anything away. Either way, we're not likely to get any firm answers.

Additional Dracthyr Customization

There aren't any additional visage forms planned just yet, but it could potentially happen in the future.

Magni's Role in The War Within

He's around and in for the long haul on this, a central part to the story. Keen players may notice he's not quite as shiny anymore either, which will play into his story going forward, which also involves his daughter Moira and grandson Dagran.

Visual Customization and Transmog

That players would like to be able to see their characters hair under helmets is a piece of feedback that the character team is very aware of. They don't want players to feel like they have to sacrifice the coolness of their haircut to wear a helmet, and there's a place to have the best of both worlds. It's something they've thought a lot about, but requires some creative solutions.

More visible wrist customizations, like the recent corsage is something they're experimenting with more, so long as they find ways that make sense and don't cause excessive complications with clipping or character/armor creation.

Open Talk

There's been a lot of thought put into the Earthen, especially among their various factions. The race is thousands of years old, abandoned by the titans, and we know that some of them eventually became Dwarves. There's a lot of history here, as well as some philosophy in what it means to transition from a construct into a living being.

We'll explore the earthen life cycle, what happened when the titans left, and how they became a society of their own... which is now kind of falling apart, underpinning a theme of The War Within.

Besides that, there's a really interesting campaign dungeon called the Rookery, which involves a new major character and the Earthen's main HQ.

Kobolds have always been a fun classic flavor in WoW, and the designers had a lot of fun thinking about how a secluded society of them might have evolved - how they live and build things, what weird things they make out of wax, where they're getting all that wax. It's not a very sophisticated civilization, but they have their own culture, and this might be their zenith.

The War Within Alpha Coverage

The War Within Alpha

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Interviews

Comment by ClinoclaseI just hope they keep the information found in Uldaman in mind. Not even most players are aware of it.

The really interesting thing about the curse of flesh, at least from the old lore, is that titan created races weren’t originally made of stone. Stone and metal were adopted as ways to make these existing races more resilient and suited to subterranean work.

As seen in Uldaman, it is outright stated that the standard matrix involves biological material, and that the Earthem were created from Azeroth’s crust instead:

A cross-section of Azeroth's crust was used as the foundation for the Earthen's synthesis rather than the typical biomass construction foundation used by the Creators. Destabilization was not discovered until well into the Earthen's primary service cycle for the Creators. The Creators began work on post-synthesis modification, rather than recall and re-synthesis.

The dwarf maintains an affinity for the stone composition of Azeroth, but due to the high-stress environmental anomaly within the Earthen's synthesis matrix, the dwarf reverts to a default biomass composition as seen in the standard subterranean matrix. Comment by potexet522Actually, is not a gyrocopter, is a flying machine that later on can be specifically turned into a gyroplane.

All gyrocopters are flying machines, but not all flying machines are gyrocopters.

Posted to Hiru already.Comment by hobbidaggyFuture characters we will see returning will be the Titans in their restored glory and Illidan with his titan imbued equipment and a Sargeras who has been either redeemed and seeing the error of his ways, or has been subjugated into control.

Never forget the warning we were given from the post Legion interviews “when the red star disappears that’s when we need to be worried”Comment by VennerusGotta have customisable class + race mounts.

More class & faction-based mog, weapons and mounts; less random, generic and goofy sht for toddlers.

*make a generic-looking tier set that doesn't at all draw from the class lore, slap a random colour that doesn't fit the class on it*
is not leaning into class fantasy.
There shouldn't be more death knight or druid-coloured paladin sets than paladin coloured paladin sets... Your colour palette is HORRIBLE.

Draw from the source material and what is popular among the players. That doesn't mean making crappy imitations of Judgement set 50 times, that means "WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PLAY XYZ CLASS?".
Being a good artist means knowing which direction to go in, and not being creative just for the sake of being creative to satisfy your ego.

"The ultimate sophistication is simplicity."
- Leonardo Da VinciComment by ForrestWI would love nothing more than to find out that the Kobolds were actually worshipping some strange, outer-god esque lovecraftian horror candle being deep beneath the earth. That would warm my soul- especially if this expansion just heavily alluded to that idea, without fully revealing said being.Comment by YswarFor Dracthyrs' visage options, I would like it if we could choose other than a human female body type, so maybe add an elf as an option?Comment by Jinokunmore class fantasy is what I will always love. As a player who started in MoP, CM mode sets are to this day peak class fantasy (also Legion weapons and order halls later on). They unfortunately lost the idea of class identity during BFA and SL but I am glad that after Zereth Mortis it got progressively better againComment by TrumpcatI did find something to complain about here. That is calling the corsage transmog "recent" when it was added with SL almost 4 years ago.Comment by AlakeiThancanI did find something to complain about here. That is calling the corsage transmog "recent" when it was added with SL almost 4 years ago.Comment by MightyBunnyKing"One of the goals for tier sets in the War Within is to lean back into the class fantasy of visual design."

I guess Blizzard's idea of the hunter class fantasy is being gutwrenchingly ugly then?

More class & faction-based mog, weapons and mounts; less random, generic and goofy sht for toddlers.
Comment by Olympus3129Gotta have customisable class + race mounts.

More class & faction-based mog, weapons and mounts; less random, generic and goofy sht for toddlers.

*make a generic-looking tier set that doesn't at all draw from the class lore, slap a random colour that doesn't fit the class on it*
is not leaning into class fantasy.
There shouldn't be more death knight or druid-coloured paladin sets than paladin coloured paladin sets... Your colour palette is HORRIBLE.

Draw from the source material and what is popular among the players. That doesn't mean making crappy imitations of Judgement set 50 times, that means "WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PLAY XYZ CLASS?".
Being a good artist means knowing which direction to go in, and not being creative just for the sake of being creative to satisfy your ego.

"The ultimate sophistication is simplicity."
- Leonardo Da VinciComment by vallenrod0218Noone's asking the real questions? Why hunters cannot have nice things? Why blizzard hates hunters?Comment by VennerusGotta have customisable class + race mounts.

More class & faction-based mog, weapons and mounts; less random, generic and goofy sht for toddlers.

*make a generic-looking tier set that doesn't at all draw from the class lore, slap a random colour that doesn't fit the class on it*
is not leaning into class fantasy.
There shouldn't be more death knight or druid-coloured paladin sets than paladin coloured paladin sets... Your colour palette is HORRIBLE.

Draw from the source material and what is popular among the players. That doesn't mean making crappy imitations of Judgement set 50 times, that means "WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PLAY XYZ CLASS?".
Being a good artist means knowing which direction to go in, and not being creative just for the sake of being creative to satisfy your ego.

"The ultimate sophistication is simplicity."
- Leonardo Da VinciComment by blindastronomerAdditional Dracthyr Customization
There aren't any additional visage forms planned just yet, but it could potentially happen in the future.Comment by sapiensoh noes, i suddenly realised we will be incarcarated in underground caverns for 18+ months. no skybox, no night day cycle, not much grass to touch...Comment by Pandaen94Likeable interview all in all, a bit akward at that one point in the middle where there were just 30 seconds silence, but yeah well ... thats what happens :D