Exclusive Developer Interview With Ebonhardt - What's Next For Season of Discovery?

Classic Posted 16 days ago by Passionate

EbonhardtHighlights from Ebonhardt Interview on Season of Discovery

A focus was placed on Fire Resistance to evoke the feeling of doing Molten Core in 2005.

The new Molten Core boss was the start of more collaboration between Blizzard's internal teams.

There is a need to rethink how good world PvP looks.

Tarnished Undermine Real has the potential to continue being used throughout Season of Discovery.

Tier 1 will not be available for Tarnished Undermine Real in later Phases.

Characters are very unlikely to end up on Era servers, but there will be some way to continue playing your character once the Season concludes.

New Phases will not be happening every once a month, but also won't take 3-6 months between.

There is a potential "larger than life" encounter that Season of Discovery is currently building toward.

How Developers Decide What to Add Content

Goals were to add to the world and enrich the leveling experience.

Season of Discovery is a good test bed to see what works and doesn't in the Vanilla framework.

Demonfall Canyon - New Content Design

This was originally created as an instanced version for a Priest rune quest.

The team decided that they may as well make it into a full dungeon.

Since the team is smaller, they can move and pivot quickly.

The 11th Boss - Why the Molten Core

The goal of Molten Core was to preserve people's original experiences.

Blackfathom Deeps and Gnomeregan were chosen to be changed because they weren't as popular.

The team wanted to keep MC familiar but with new mechanics.

They made The Molten Core Boss because they thought it would be funny.

The Molten Core boss is the first time the Classic team is working with the main Art team.

They wanted to enhance the role of the Hydraxian Waterlords faction.

New Bosses/Changes to BWL/AQ/Naxx (Huge Content Coming)

New bosses may be coming to later raids if it makes sense with the time.

They're looking at every Raid Tier on a case-by-case basis, not looking for a rigid paradigm.

Similar to the instanced World Bosses, the team could be working on allowing more players to experience more different types of content that were previously easy to miss.

There is a larger-than-life encounter that ties into something that people are doing now and will build towards more next phase.

SoD Phase Length (Accelerated or Normal)

Future Raid Tiers are planned to last a few months each.

It won't be like the 2019 cadence, where Raid Tiers later 4-6 months.

Every Raid Tier is expected to be longer than 4 weeks, but less than 3 months.

There's so much to do right now, the team feels that there is no reason to rush.

SoD Era (Characters After SoD Ends)

There are too many SoD-specific items.

Characters will not be going to Era Realms once SoD is over.

If you want to make an Atiesh you should feel secure you can make it and enjoy it before this ends.

We're going to let this run and exist for a while, even after the final Phase.

There is no specific answer for what will happen to characters after SoD ends, but the developers want to allow players to continue playing them, even if there is no new content.

Heat Levels/Hardcore in Classic

There's such a variety of players with different goals and ideas that the team wanted to add difficulty levels to accommodate more players.

The goal of Heat 1 is to be incredibly approachable for casual players.

The team is experimenting with Resistances to see if it plays well as a hard/soft cap system for player progression.

Blackwing Lair is probably not going to be focused on Shadow Resistance.

Heat 3 is supposed to be very difficult, if players try to skip steps.

Blackrock Eruption (PvP Events in the Future)

The team will probably not continue to add PvP events in high PvE areas.

Factions are still perfectly balanced on PvP servers.

The PvE portion of this event is pretty much exactly where they wanted it.

The team wants to rethink what is good world PvP.

They want to give players more tools to have spontaneous outdoor PvP events.

How Incursions Changed SoD

The team wanted to do approachable, repeatable quests, similar to what previously existed with the Cenarion Circle.

The goal was to an old school vibe but they missed the mark.

The developers feel like they learned good lessons from this event.

The Blackrock Eruption event was adjusted based on feedback related to Nightmare Incursions.

Tarnished Undermine Real (Currencies in SoDs Future)

This currency could continue to work for future Phases.

They will not sell Tier gear for Tarnished Undermine Real.

The reason this currency was introduced was to continue to make endgame dungeons relevant.

Classic+/New Seasons/New Content

The team teased that players should go back and look at the BlizzCon announcement to see what else is coming.

The team wants to do as much as they can, and they are beginning to receive support from other departments.

Demonfall Canyon was built in just a couple weeks.

The team will continue to inject their creativity into the upcoming Raids.

The Scarlet Monastery and Karazhan Crypts were two places that were teased during the Season of Discovery Panel at BlizzCon.

Comment by baitcomment"The goal was to an old school vibe but they missed the mark." LOL. the goal was this but it ended up feeling worse than The Maw is insaneComment by SinRI liked the BRE PVE Event. Get a group and knock it out in like 30min. No 24/7 farming Incursions like everyone did in P3.Comment by gleepottzman, if we get a SM raid AND karazhan crypts, that would be amazeballsComment by PadadinJones"The goal was to an old school vibe but they missed the mark." LOL. the goal was this but it ended up feeling worse than The Maw is insaneComment by ExtremelyCrusty"There is no specific answer for what will happen to characters after SoD ends, but the developers want to allow players to continue playing them, even if there is no new content.". If they don't keep SoD servers around that will make no sense at all given the new work they have put in. Also, T2 paladin armor needs to remain the same in terms of looks.Comment by Mixine"Demonfall Canyon was built in just a couple weeks." Feels about it right even copule week is overacting I think when it comes to creative department was made in top few days but coding could take few weeks less.Comment by Mixine"The goal was to an old school vibe but they missed the mark." LOL. the goal was this but it ended up feeling worse than The Maw is insaneComment by SolivarnikPromising so far, especially I like that they could see and understand what failed and what is good. So far I agree with what I read above.Comment by ZiaNitori"The goal was to an old school vibe but they missed the mark." LOL. the goal was this but it ended up feeling worse than The Maw is insaneComment by turlockmikeThe moment they removed 10 man it was dead. SOD was supposed to be casual.Comment by AcidBombThe moment they removed 10 man it was dead. SOD was supposed to be casual.Comment by WoWQTTo give more players incentive for world PvP or to at least interact in a PvP environment that isn’t a world event, make Gurubashi arena an area like the brawlers guild but instead of fighting mini bosses for rank you’d basically have arenas going on in the center of the Gurubashi arena. Allow players on the sidelines of the arena to watch same as in the brawlers guild arena.
This will introduce “arenas” to vanilla and give a new “hub” for your pvpers. You can also make the entire arena a sanctuary so your spectators aren’t killing eachother.

Just have an NPC that you can speak to to sign up to fight as a 2v2/3v3 team to put you in a placement queue of sorts.

Have a vendor for casual items and toys only acquirable through this new concept/reward system.

Essentially this would be the duelers guild but with current arena based brackets such as 2s and 3s.Comment by BZZTopExclusive interview Nr. 2 - I am wondering if those so called content creater know what exclusive means.Comment by Whosthechicken>The Molten Core boss is the first time the Classic team is working with the main Art team.

That's not really flattering considering how bad the new boss looks...Comment by LolumbineI hope they do SoD Burning Crusade. I would meltComment by Austeres>The Molten Core boss is the first time the Classic team is working with the main Art team.

That's not really flattering considering how bad the new boss looks...Comment by arboachg"The goal was to an old school vibe but they missed the mark." LOL. the goal was this but it ended up feeling worse than The Maw is insaneComment by TelloretMy man Ebonhardt, great interview again amigo 👏🏽Comment by Daemer"The goal was to an old school vibe but they missed the mark." LOL. the goal was this but it ended up feeling worse than The Maw is insaneComment by StrangerThanMythIronfoe on Real vendor when?