World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Eternity’s End Interview with Patrick Dawson and Maria Hamilton – Be it cosmic or “mundane”, there will always be Something for Everyone

As the closing chapter of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands approaches, we had the opportunity for a pre-release interview before Eternity’s End launches to the public at large. The 9.2 patch will at last be arriving 22 February 2022, with secrets yet to be uncovered that haven’t been in the Public Test Realm…

With us today are Patrick Dawson, Production Director, and Maria Hamilton, Lead Quest Designer, spending some time to answer some questions. If you haven’t seen our interview of the preview for Eternity’s End, check it out here! This time, we hit on some touchstones about the upcoming patch content, its potential effect on the larger lore universe, the feedback following the Public Test Realm and the overall look at developing all the upcoming content.

Interview has been edited for clarity.

HEADING INTO ETERNITY’S END

With the revelation of Zereth Mortis and its deeper meaning on the World of Warcraft lore in mind, is it still possible to sort of go back to a simpler time where the heroes of Azeroth are fighting dragons or exploring new areas? Will the larger cosmic story interfere with some of the more nuanced stories that could be told coming up in the future?

Maria Hamilton: I don’t think so. I think we can go all over the place. We have a vast world, lots of fantastic characters to explore yet. Not all stories need to be cosmic or epic.

A common thing seems to be that many have been hopping in and out of their regular games. Given the coming update as an epic conclusion of this particular chapter, do you think that people have a lot to be excited about? Would players who have gone on hiatus be drawn back to the game?

Patrick Dawson: There’s certainly a lot to be excited about. It’s the largest patch we’ve done yet, with tons of great content for players to enjoy – be it Zereth Mortis, our new raid with 11 bosses and 2 parts, a new PVP season, Mythic+ season, PVP brawl, new arena, and the tier sets that people tell us they’ve been looking forward to… as a player, I’m also looking forward to be collecting these powerful, iconic tier sets again.

Maria Hamilton: There’s a second legendary to pick up to make things interesting / easier, tons of mounts, pets, transmogs, all the things that attract the players who enjoy those. We have the campaign chapter finale and conclusion, so lots of good story as well. With lots of things to do, we hope to see those who like those things come back and join us.

Patrick Dawson: Something I want to say real quick about World of Warcraft is that there’s something for everybody, no matter what kind of player you are, and especially in a content update this size.

With the new tier system, will there be a way for returning players who might’ve skipped Castle Nathria / Sanctum of Domination to get into raiding easier? Will the set bonuses be enough to offset some of the meta gameplay, like for those who’ve already caught up with Mythic+ gear and ready to make their cool new tier sets?

Patrick Dawson: I think any new season change comes with a whole new set of rewards for players to enjoy, and unless you were at that cutting edge of raiding, you’ll be able to catch up pretty quickly to your expected level for this content update. That way, you get to jump right into Normal / Heroic mode raiding, and you’ll have avenues to catch up on gear for Mythic. The idea is that within a pretty short period of time, you’ll have gear from this content update and running the hardest of the hardest content if you wish.

Another important thing to consider about tier sets is that you can get them more from than just the raid. In the past, it was always locked to the raid and specific bosses, but now, you can get it from Mythic+, rated PVP, etc., so that everyone can enjoy and experience the tier sets regardless of what high end content you choose to do.

Doing due diligence, will there be any hints for the next expansion in 9.2 for people who watch every cutscene, read every description? About Sylvanas’ story?

Maria Hamilton: You have to do your due diligence, and of course, I can’t tell you about that. I can guarantee that things will happen with Sylvanas, and that players will have an opportunity to say if they like it or not. I think we’ve made a cool choice about how her journey continues or doesn’t, which I can’t spoil.

About the Cypher of the First Ones, will there be new types of quests or ways to progress?

Maria Hamilton: One of the exciting things about the Cypher is that you’re learning about Zereth Mortis. When you first arrive, it’s a mysterious, strange place that you can’t understand, and there’s a musical language represented in these rune shapes. As you learn more, you can translate and understand them, then be able to speak to and accept quests from creatures who only speak in this language. There is a little bit of questing and much exploration associated with the Cypher, which is intended to help you learn and explore more about the First Ones and Zereth Mortis; it’s very much focused on that.

COMMUNITY FEEDBACK

People have been discussing changes made to reputation in the Public Test Realm (PTR), like the distribution in quest rewards, rares, etc. (i.e. ways to get rep). Could you talk more about that?

Maria Hamilton: We’ve been listening to what the community has been saying about what they like / dislike about rep, gaining rep and the rewards tied to it. For example, with flying, we decided it would make sense that it would happen after getting an achievement rather than typing it to rep directly. The achievement involves a lot of zone exploration and a particular story chain, which on completion, you can unlock flying. We thought that felt better for players, and it came largely as a result from player feedback.

I’ve seen concerns about “timegating”, e.g. with the Cypher of the First Ones, where it’s apparently only removed for alts. Could you talk about this?

Patrick Dawson: I can tell you that with all the feedback from the PTR, it’s tough to keep up with all the changes we’ve made. I believe we’ve lowered some of the unlock research times as a direct result of player feedback. It’s definitely an effort in us developing the game alongside player wishes, and making sure we’re hitting the things they’re interested in, releasing the content and giving them enough to do all at once. We’ll keep our ears open for any other suggestions we can consider.

Speaking of the PTR, could you walk us through the process of incorporating player feedback into the final build? How do you decide what to incorporate? Anything you’re particularly looking forward to at launch?

Maria Hamilton: Part of why we have things in the PTR is to get those opinions. I think tier sets is one of the good examples where that feedback was instrumental in getting us to where we are now, making 3-4 changes to how they work, and tuning on top of that. As far as what I’m personally excited about, I love to collect mounts and pets and can’t wait to get my hands on them. I get to try them in advance when I’m playtesting, but it’s super exciting for my actual character to have them.

Patrick Dawson: I think a fun thing we’re trying this time that we haven’t really done before, is not including the final part of the raid, the last 3 bosses, on the PTR at all. This is a new thing to give that moment of wonder and surprise to our raiding community, going into it blind and discover the mechanics in a real time environment with everyone else. It also keeps that story hidden until when it opens the week after the season starts with the Mythic raids and everyone will get to see the Normal / Heroic / Mythic versions simultaneously.

About incorporating feedback, I think it comes down to if it matches up with our pillars for the game, and if we can address them in a healthy way. We reevaluate these pillars over time and see if they move. This is for a future patch, but there’s been a lot of talk about the cross faction play / instances we’re doing. We ask ourselves, is that true to how our game has evolved over time if it hasn’t been one of our “pillars”? As we reconsider things, some will match up and some don’t, and we try to switch it up to what’s core to World of Warcraft.

IN DEVELOPMENT

General question: what is the most challenging development of this patch? Anything that stood out to you? Was there any pressure from the high expectations for 9.2?

Maria Hamilton: We’ve touched on this a bit. For quest design, we’re in such a strange place, for instance. It’s important that in our world building, it’s made clear it’s a strange place, but equally important that it’s relatable enough for players to understand the basics of what’s going on. It’s about finding that line between completely incomprehensible gibberish, and something that has form and substance that you understand. In the art, you can see how the geometric shapes assembled to make a particular creature, for example. 

Trying to make it possible to understand building blocks but never have it be completely understandable… it’s sort of beyond mortals, even player characters.

Patrick Dawson: I think one of the challenges of Shadowlands as a whole was Zereth Mortis. It’s unfamiliar, it’s new. How do you come up with ideas for a world not anchored in anything you’re familiar with in the past, but keep those threads of familiarity too? That’s definitely been a fun challenge. Hard things aren’t necessarily bad, it’s been quite the awesome journey.

What of the bugs and errors that came up in the patch, any standout ones?

Patrick Dawson: There’s always bugs that people find when we test the patch. One of the notable ones to me I think was that a player could equip every legendary in the game? It’s clearly unintended, but they had fun for like half an hour before we figured it out. That’s why we have the PTR cycle, and a QA group that’s the best in the business to help us diagnose these problems so that we can release it at the quality that players expect.

With all the considerations in world building and such, could you walk us through the concepts you considered, what got cut, what made it in, stuff to look forward to, etc.?

Maria Hamilton: I can speak more for design than anything else. I can’t say if the artists have an exact process where they produce amazing concept art that sees them reference things from our world, other planets, space, with tons of research to come up with these fascinating visuals to develop the look of the place and build the place out together with our level designers.

By the time my group comes along, we have a really good idea of how the space looks like, what we’re building quests in, with high level story of major beats that we want to hit. We look at the space combined with story and think of what gameplay would be interesting, and how players should move through it. We do this on a giant scale across the space, as well as individual points of interest. It’s a matter of trying to keep in mind the overall goals / themes and find interesting stories with interesting characters / characterization to make good use of that space.

Sometimes, it’s obvious. When we saw the Vombata, there were tons of pitches and suggestions about quests we could relate to those, and we knew somebody had to be riding one. Other times, you get some fascinating visual and wonder, “What could we do with this? This is so cool, and I don’t know which way to go.” We have a very collaborative process, pitching ideas together and find the best one from across the team, not solely the designer team’s job to come up with the ideas.

Some of the systems in 9.2 seem to be meant to ease burdens on players. Is this a change of core philosophy or is it only for this patch?

Patrick Dawson: We’ve experimented this before, like Visions of N’zoth with the Echoes of Ny’alotha, a currency you could earn from a multitude of activities. It’s kind of the same idea: let’s have you obtain a new currency from any preferred activity, then buy whatever you want. We want to make sure that players have the option to engage with the content they want the most. Not so much a change in philosophy, but more of a dedication to letting you play the game the best way you wanna play.

IN CLOSING

Could you share the general direction you plan to take the game in the future? Plans to re-appeal to players who have fallen off over the course of the expansion?

Patrick Dawson: Forward, that’s a good direction. In terms of specifics, we’ll have more to share on that soon. For now, we’re focused on Eternity’s End to bring a grand conclusion to the Shadowlands adventure. I think we’ve refocused how we handle listening to community feedback, and we’ve rededicated resources to making sure we’re getting that feedback in a condensed way. We have our community council, a diverse focus group of players who play all different types of content in our game, and they’ve been providing really good feedback, as well as the community as a whole. It’s been really fun to act on that and making sure we’re making a fantastic game for everyone.

That wraps up our session with Patrick Dawson and Maria Hamilton! It’s understandable that there won’t be any discussion on the future expansions, though fans would have certainly seen plenty of rumour mills churning wildly about whatever “10.0” holds. Still, we should dial it back a little, and see this chapter come to its conclusion, then see what the future holds.

See you in Zereth Mortis!

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands

Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment

Developer: Blizzard Entertainment

Release Date: 2020-10-27

Microsoft Windows

What lies beyond the world you know? The Shadowlands, resting place for every mortal soul—virtuous or vile—that has ever lived. Pre-purchase the next World of Warcraft expansion now and be ready to discover what awaits in this world between worlds.

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