In the previous interview, Paul Kubit, Associate Game Director of World of Warcraft, and Dylan Barker, Lead Level/Encounter Designer, provided quite detailed answers regarding skill simplification and addon settings, which players were very concerned about. Now, following the update thread of "Midnight," we will continue to discuss the new hunting gameplay and the reset content of several old maps in the "Quel'Thalas" region. Focusing specifically on this topic, in this chapter, Kim Flak, Senior Game Designer and one of the core designers of the hunting gameplay, and Jake Shillan, Game Designer and lead designer for the Zul'Aman region, accepted our interview and shared their various thoughts during the design process.
The following is the interview content.
Q: The Delves gameplay in "The War Within" has a clear positioning, filling many previously unmet player needs. So, regarding the newly added Hunting gameplay, what position do the designers hope itoccupy in the new expansion?
Kim:This is a good question. We hope that the hunting gameplay and Delves gameplay differ only in story settings and gameplay forms, but both jointly serve the same broad category of player groups.
The Delves, first introduced in "The War Within" version, is a dungeon-like gameplay mode. It provides a slightly easier dungeon experience for players. Players play in independent instance scenarios, either solo or in groups. Even if they leave the game midway, they can continue their previous progress upon logging back in, making the overall experience more relaxed. For some players, Delves serve as an introductory experience to familiarize themselves with the game; for others, it is an advanced experience to improve their gaming prowess. From beginner to advanced, everyone strives to challenge various levels of Delves, ultimately conquering the high-difficulty level 11, which is the core pursuit of this gameplay mode.
Regarding the hunting gameplay introduced in "Midnight," we hope it provides the same value to players, but its core difference from Delves is that it is a systemic gameplay mode implemented in the outdoor world—the first complete experience of its kind in the history of World of Warcraft. In the hunting gameplay, players can accept hunting quests and travel to designated areas, independently choose the difficulty level, face different challenges, affixes, and random ambushes, challenge powerful bosses at the end of the quest, and receive generous equipment rewards: Normal difficulty yields "Adventurer" gear, Hard difficulty yields "Veteran" gear, and Nightmare difficulty yields "Champion" gear. The rewards for Nightmare difficulty are on par with Delves floors 8-11, and we strive to keep the difficulty consistent. If players can conquer floor 11 of Delves, then the Nightmare difficulty of the hunting gameplay should also be within their capabilities.
The hunting gameplay introduced in "Midnight" sets clear growth goals for players. New players can start with Normal difficulty and, as they accumulate gear and become familiar with the gameplay, gradually challenge higher difficulties up to Nightmare. Through this design, we hope to provide players with more gameplay options, allowing them to experience new outdoor gameplay within familiar reward and growth systems.
Q: The new capital city Bel'ameth in the "Dragonflight" version allows all players to visit, while the remade Silvermoon City has areas inaccessible to the Alliance faction. Does this setting seem unfair?
Jake:Regarding this question, compared to Bel'ameth in "Dragonflight," the reason Silvermoon City divides areas for the Alliance and Horde is that Silvermoon City is the core capital city in patch 12.0. Players will frequently visit here for weekly quests, the Great Vault, the Auction House, and other activities. Obviously, we want all players to regard Silvermoon City as their own capital and enjoy the gaming experience in this city, but we also want Horde players to feel that Silvermoon City has always belonged to the Horde—this is the core intention behind our area division.
Furthermore, this setting adds more narrative characteristics to the game and is deeply tied to the version's story. We are not deliberately setting up barriers but hope to integrate this setting into the version's narrative, giving it actual narrative significance.
Q: Regarding the reward mechanism for the Nightmare difficulty of the hunting system—in the highest difficulty, the test server features restrictions such as no grouping, negative affixes, and loss of progress upon death. It takes players nearly half an hour to complete a Nightmare difficulty run once. In comparison, its rewards are inferior to those of Delves. Additionally, Nightmare difficulty rewards "Champion" gear, but by the time players can conquer this difficulty, they basically no longer need "Champion" gear. Do these settings seem somewhat unreasonable, and will they be optimized in the future?
Kim:First, it needs to be clarified that all three difficulties of the hunting system—Normal, Hard, and Nightmare—support group play. The only restriction is that players cannot join large raids while participating in hunting quests—a rule that applies to the vast majority of quests in the game.
Therefore, if players feel that challenging Nightmare difficulty solo takes too long and is too difficult, they can absolutely team up with up to 4 friends to challenge the final boss together. Of course, the boss difficulty in group status will increase slightly, consistent with the logic of boss difficulty adjustments in other scenarios in the game, but it will never offset the advantage brought by the number of people, and it will still offer challenging fun. After forming a group, players can also arrange classes according to team needs, such as adding healers and tanks, to make the challenge process smoother.
Regarding the balance between risk and reward, as I mentioned earlier, the Nightmare difficulty of the hunting gameplay is calibrated against Delves floors 8-11, and its rewards are consistent with them. Our goal is that when a player's gear matches the difficulty of the hunting target, a single hunt should take about 15 minutes. At Normal difficulty, the player's experience rhythm is basically like this. As gear improves and the player becomes more familiar with the gameplay, the time required will gradually shorten to about 10 minutes. In the early stages of Season 1, players have not yet accumulated sufficiently powerful gear and are still experimenting with talent combinations and familiarizing themselves with gameplay mechanics. At this time, challenging Nightmare difficulty will naturally take longer than expected. However, as players master the gameplay, especially when playing in groups, the time required will be significantly reduced.
Of course, we will also continue to monitor the risk-to-reward ratio of the hunting gameplay and closely collect player feedback. During the testing phase, we have been collecting data through internal playtests and external tests. If we find that the values for a certain difficulty are too high and do not match the rewards, we will make timely adjustments. For this brand-new gameplay mode, we maintain an open attitude. If you discover issues with the difficulty being too high or too low, please feel free to provide feedback at any time. We will continue to communicate with players and optimize adjustments based on feedback.
Q: Regarding the hunting system, I would like to know the team's final plans for it—is this gameplay mode exclusive to the "Midnight" theme, or was it intended to be a permanent system from the initial design stage? Will it continue to be updated in future patches and expansions, similar to World Quests and Delves?
Kim:In the early stages of development, our core focus was to allow players to experience the hunting system in the current "Midnight" version. Based on this benchmark, we have prepared what is currently considered rich hunting content. Therefore, the subsequent development of this gameplay mode first requires attention to player feedback after the official launch of the version. From a system design perspective, the hunting gameplay has strong modular characteristics: currently, we have designed 30 hunting targets, 3 difficulty levels, 4 hunting zones, as well as rich random elements such as affixes and "Hunting Events." These design modules provide ample space for future adjustments and expansions of this gameplay mode.
So, whether we continue to optimize the hunting system based on these modules in the future or apply relevant design experiences to other new gameplay modes, we are confident in bringing high-quality content to players. But it needs to be reiterated that our current work focus is still on the "Midnight" version. We are waiting to collect player feedback after the gameplay goes live, so if you have any thoughts or suggestions during your experience, please let us know.
Q: Judging from the test server visuals, Quel'Thalas is obviously crafted according to the super-large scale standard supporting "Skyriding" flight after "Dragonflight." Does this mean that if there is a need to remake old continent maps in the future, they will all expand the map scale according to this standard?
Jake:This is a good question. In fact, your question contains the answer—since the introduction of "Skyriding" in "Dragonflight," our perspective on map design has changed. Players will quickly fly over large areas via "Skyriding," so we need to ensure players have a high-quality visual experience during flight. There must not only be rich landscapes to view but also, through game technology, allow players to see farther distances while ensuring the visual quality of the distant scenery remains excellent.
Besides Quel'Thalas, our design for Zul'Aman in the "Midnight" version also follows this concept—there is a high mountain in the Zul'Aman map, with the Temple of Akil'zon built at its peak. Players standing in the temple can overlook the entire Zul'Aman map and even gaze out at the ocean.
Regardless of the map, our design core is to give players clear flight targets when performing "Skyriding," allowing them to experience the fun of dynamic flight during dives and glides. This vertical depth design adds many experiences to the game that were previously impossible. Nowadays, the "Skyriding" dynamic flight experience has become an important gameplay element for players. We can also use this to create more dynamic game areas, designing more interesting "Skyriding" flight routes through rich distant landscapes.
Q: Will the new storyline in the Zul'Aman remake become a repeat of the Arathi Highlands plot in patch 11.1? Will there be adjustments to the subsequent storylines? It is understood that many players do not wish for the character "Zul'ga" to die, considering him a character with honor whose sacrifice would be a pity.
Jake:The version campaign of "Midnight" spans four core regions and is deeply connected with the questline of Arathor, introducing many new characters. The siblings Zul'gara and Zul'ga, who appear in the Zul'Aman quests, are core representatives. We have invested significant effort in crafting these two characters, striving to make them classic representatives of the Amani trolls, while also using them as a narrative springboard to connect the subsequent stories of "Midnight" and even the entire trilogy.
Our design goal is to allow players to form emotional connections with these characters. As you mentioned, players care about Zul'ga's fate and want to see more character stories. This is exactly the effect we hope to achieve. This version campaign is not the final appearance of the Amani trolls and these characters; there will be more related plot content in the future. We hope everyone looks forward to subsequent updates—because the current plot is an important foreshadowing for the stories to come.
Q: In "Midnight," the map remakes of Quel'Thalas and Zul'Aman are not only visual upgrades but also adapt maps originally designed for ground-only gameplay to the current era of dynamic flight. How did the team balance the vertical depth and content density of the new maps when redesigning them? How do you preserve the recognizability of the original maps while adapting to modern high-speed movement gameplay, allowing players to recognize them at a glance?
Jake:I really like this question. I have always looked forward to enabling flight in the original Eversong Woods, Silvermoon City, and Ghostlands areas. Therefore, I am very excited to have the opportunity to optimize and upgrade these areas now. Our first task was to integrate Eversong Woods and Ghostlands into a single large area, which provided more space for our design. On this basis, we sorted out the area settings and character stories from previous versions, integrating them into the current "Warcraft" timeline to show players how these contents have changed over the years.
For Zul'Aman, buildings that originally appeared in the dungeon will remain in the new map. We rebuilt the surrounding areas in "Midnight." After players enter the Zul'Aman gate via the Amani Pass from Quel'Thalas, the first thing they will see is the original dungeon area—we named it "Ata'Amani." For the design of the area outside "Ata'Amani," we strived to recreate the dense forests and beautiful coastlines familiar to players from the early Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, allowing veteran players to feel a sense of familiarity. On this basis, we set up numerous prominent landmarks in the area so that upon entering, players can look up and see different points of interest—such as temples in the mist—which can stimulate their desire to explore.
Regarding map design under modern gameplay, our core design philosophy is: from any location within the area, players should be able to see targets worth exploring. This approach has also given the rebuilt Zul'Aman many distinctive structures, such as sky bridges, the aforementioned Temple of Akil'zon, and the "Shattered Temple" occupied by the Twilight's Hammer. In addition, we have added a large number of weather and fog effects to the area, further enhancing the atmospheric feel of the scene and making the experience of the entire area richer.
Q: The last time players visited Zul'Aman was during the "Cataclysm" version. Now facing both new and veteran player groups, will the previous storyline be retold? Will the blank storyline from the "Cataclysm" Zul'Aman dungeon reset to now be supplemented in the new storyline? I am curious about how the team designed this part of the plot.
Jake:This is another excellent question. From pre-production to the current version development, we have always been thinking about this issue. Our core goal is to serve both new and old players simultaneously: one group consists of veteran players who have experienced this area since "Cataclysm" or even "The Burning Crusade" when Zul'Aman was first introduced, and have played until now; the other group consists of new players who have just joined the game and know nothing about Zul'Aman's background story.
To address this, our solution is to delve deeply into the culture and history of the Amani trolls and present it completely to players. The Amani trolls are a highly charismatic族群 (group/clan) that first appeared in the RTS game Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. However, there are many troll tribes in the "Warcraft" universe. We hope not only to let players understand the overall settings of trolls but also to gain a deeper understanding of the uniqueness of the Amani tribe. Therefore, when players enter Zul'Aman and encounter Amani trolls, we will convey background information through various methods: not only introducing their current situation and the character stories of Zul'gara and Zul'ga but also explaining the origins of their behaviors and attitudes. At the same time, we will supplement the historical background of Zul'jin and the Zul'Aman dungeon, even tracing back to earlier stories. We also took this opportunity to fill in plot gaps regarding the Amani trolls from past game versions. For example, the questline delves into the motivations of Zul'jin, the most iconic character in Zul'Aman, exploring what made him an opponent for players in the dungeon. It also traces back to the history of when the Amani tribe left the Zandalari Empire.
During production, by constantly asking ourselves these questions, we refined the storyline settings and accurately grasped what players want to learn after entering Zul'Aman. Even veteran players may find it difficult to clearly remember all the plot details from years ago. Therefore, through this design, we hope to satisfy new players, veteran players, and all players in between. This is the goal we have always adhered to.