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Nethaera: One of the newest technologies added to the game is phasing. It has added a whole new element and is most noticeable in the Death Knight starting area. How does this technology work and how difficult was it to implement?
Jeffrey Kaplan: So one of the things people always ask us about in terms of the world is they want to have a dynamic effect on it. They want, if there is a village that’s there, full of bad guys they want to be the hero who goes in and burns that village down and drives the bad guys away. But the problem with that theory is that an hour later somebody else is going to log into the game, and they also want to be the hero and burn down the village, but somebody else got to it before them. So while the idea of a dynamic world is really cool, the reality of the game play isn’t always there. So what phasing basically is, is a tool that allows the designers and engineers to orchestrate these experiences where somebody can feel like they have a great dynamic impact on Azeroth when in reality they’re not taking any content away from anybody.
Nethaera: What more do players have to look forward to in the future patches, in particular, what types of new encounters should they expect?
Jeffrey Kaplan: Well one of the things that we’ve talked about a little bit that’s on the horizon, and players should be really excited about, is Ulduar. So they’ve got to experience a little bit of Ulduar with Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightning, but we have an absolutely massive raid zone coming up and it’s going to serve both 10 and 25 person raid groups. I think that’s probably the most exciting thing on the very near horizon.
Visit the site below to listen to the BlizzCast or read the transcript.Jeffrey Kaplan: So one of the things people always ask us about in terms of the world is they want to have a dynamic effect on it. They want, if there is a village that’s there, full of bad guys they want to be the hero who goes in and burns that village down and drives the bad guys away. But the problem with that theory is that an hour later somebody else is going to log into the game, and they also want to be the hero and burn down the village, but somebody else got to it before them. So while the idea of a dynamic world is really cool, the reality of the game play isn’t always there. So what phasing basically is, is a tool that allows the designers and engineers to orchestrate these experiences where somebody can feel like they have a great dynamic impact on Azeroth when in reality they’re not taking any content away from anybody.
Nethaera: What more do players have to look forward to in the future patches, in particular, what types of new encounters should they expect?
Jeffrey Kaplan: Well one of the things that we’ve talked about a little bit that’s on the horizon, and players should be really excited about, is Ulduar. So they’ve got to experience a little bit of Ulduar with Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightning, but we have an absolutely massive raid zone coming up and it’s going to serve both 10 and 25 person raid groups. I think that’s probably the most exciting thing on the very near horizon.
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