MMOpwn
04-16-2008, 12:31
World of Warcraft lead producer J. Allen Brack and art director Chris Robinson were recently interviewed (http://www.wow-europe.com/en/misc/insider/bi026/interview.xml) about the last patch (Fury of the Sunwell) and Wrath of the Lich King.
Some quotes of the interview:
Insider: Do you see a lot of parallels between Naxxramas and Sunwell Plateau?
J. Allen Brack: I see Sunwell Plateau more as an evolution of what we did with Naxxramas. Like I said, Sunwell Plateau serves a dual purpose of concluding The Burning Crusade’s story as well as representing the ultimate challenge for PvE content. In that regard, you could say it’s the Naxxramas of The Burning Crusade. But there are also some noticeable differences reflecting what the team learned from developing Naxxramas: Sunwell Plateau definitely has a more focused layout than the massive expanse of Naxxramas. Naxx’s immense size was one of its defining characteristics, and that was not a bad thing in itself. It allowed us to populate the necropolis with some of the game’s most memorable raid bosses, but at the same time I think its size made it difficult for some players to fully experience the dungeon. Sunwell Plateau’s smaller scale will let more players access the raid and give them a reasonable chance of clearing it before the launch of Wrath of the Lich King.
Insider: What sort of challenges are there in this artistic transition from The Burning Crusade to Wrath of the Lich King?
J. Allen Brack: Another challenge was how to balance Northrend’s cold northern climate with the need for diverse environments. We can’t just cover everything in snow and ice, because players would get bored of that quickly. But if we approach the snow and the ice as environmental clues for the player, we can actually use it as a powerful storytelling tool. There’s a story arc that ties all the zones of the expansion together, and the snow becomes a visual component of this common theme. The relatively green and “temperate” starting areas will be fairly densely populated, but as the story progresses we expect players to get more spread out. By slowly adding more and more snow, we can enhance that growing sense of isolation and dread. It’s very much what Arthas must have experienced when he wandered the wastes of Northrend after destroying Mal’Ganis.
Read the full interview (http://www.wow-europe.com/en/misc/insider/bi026/interview.xml).
Some quotes of the interview:
Insider: Do you see a lot of parallels between Naxxramas and Sunwell Plateau?
J. Allen Brack: I see Sunwell Plateau more as an evolution of what we did with Naxxramas. Like I said, Sunwell Plateau serves a dual purpose of concluding The Burning Crusade’s story as well as representing the ultimate challenge for PvE content. In that regard, you could say it’s the Naxxramas of The Burning Crusade. But there are also some noticeable differences reflecting what the team learned from developing Naxxramas: Sunwell Plateau definitely has a more focused layout than the massive expanse of Naxxramas. Naxx’s immense size was one of its defining characteristics, and that was not a bad thing in itself. It allowed us to populate the necropolis with some of the game’s most memorable raid bosses, but at the same time I think its size made it difficult for some players to fully experience the dungeon. Sunwell Plateau’s smaller scale will let more players access the raid and give them a reasonable chance of clearing it before the launch of Wrath of the Lich King.
Insider: What sort of challenges are there in this artistic transition from The Burning Crusade to Wrath of the Lich King?
J. Allen Brack: Another challenge was how to balance Northrend’s cold northern climate with the need for diverse environments. We can’t just cover everything in snow and ice, because players would get bored of that quickly. But if we approach the snow and the ice as environmental clues for the player, we can actually use it as a powerful storytelling tool. There’s a story arc that ties all the zones of the expansion together, and the snow becomes a visual component of this common theme. The relatively green and “temperate” starting areas will be fairly densely populated, but as the story progresses we expect players to get more spread out. By slowly adding more and more snow, we can enhance that growing sense of isolation and dread. It’s very much what Arthas must have experienced when he wandered the wastes of Northrend after destroying Mal’Ganis.
Read the full interview (http://www.wow-europe.com/en/misc/insider/bi026/interview.xml).