Blizzard hopes Midnight's alpha leads to a better World of Warcraft
Rogue spoke to World of Warcraft: Midnight developers Paul Kubit, associate game director, and Maria Hamilton on Midnight, what players can expect from the alpha and edgy blood elves
World of Warcraft: Midnight is an unprecedented expansion in the MMO’s long and storied history. Each expansion pack has traditionally been its own island: the heroes of Azeroth find a new landmass full of mysteries and monsters, thwart whatever villain is behind the latest world-threatening offensive, and move on to rinse and repeat the same formula with a higher hero level and some sweet new gear.
Midnight, by contrast, is the second act of a three-expansion story dubbed the Worldsoul Saga. The War Within set the stage, introducing our villainess Xal’atath and her subterranean schemes. The War Within concludes with Xal’atath slurping up the cosmic energy of a Void Lord, and Midnight starts with her on an offensive against Silvermoon and the Sunwell.
Blizzard hosted a press and creator summit around the launch of Midnight’s alpha, and we’ve learned a lot about the game’s next expansion and its core systems. Rogue spoke to developers Paul Kubit, associate game director, and Maria Hamilton, design director for content on Midnight, about what players can expect from the alpha and successive launch.
Rogue: Midnight is an unusual release in that it's the second expansion in the three-part Worldsoul Saga. What features worked really well with The War Within, and what needed to be removed or refreshed based off player feedback and the gameplay experience?
Kubit: One of the features that went really well was Delves. We learned lessons along the way, and it’s continued to grow as we built additional patches in The War Within, and it’ll continue to grow as we build it into Midnight and beyond. We’ve seen a lot of excitement from players just being able to hop in with a small group by themselves, show some skill progression; it’s something that I think was a big success.
As for where we saw opportunities, something that jumps out to me wasn’t an area for improvement, but a way for us to mix things up: the way we build our raids. We’ve had, for some expansions in a row now, build eight boss raids basically every season. Some had more, and there were of course heavy thematic variations and some structural variations within, but we hadn’t done a small raid in a while -- and those we had done were often in an off patch or a .5 patch or something like that.
We had an original plan to build two raids, and then our encounter team came up with an absolutely insane plan, so we said, ‘What if we actually did three?’ and we loved it. That shows we want to continue to iterate and surprise and delight with unexpected changes to the formula as we build the next expansion.
I’m glad you mentioned the raids - I know there’s the Voidspire, which is likely the main story, but can you tell me about the other raids players will be able to dive into?
Kubit: The Voidspire is the big one with six bosses in it; it’s part of the story and we haven’t talked a lot publicly about who the bosses are inside that raid, and that’s intentional because it’s pretty tightly enmeshed into the story of the saga and this expansion, and some people might want to discover that as they go along. So if you’re interested in learning who you’ll be facing over time, don’t dig too deep into the dungeon journals or data mining.
The Voidspire is a war; it’s a battleground between light and darkness. Pretty heavy stuff, pretty cool and heavily thematic stuff. The second raid, which is available at the beginning of the season, is the Dreamrift. That’s a one boss raid. That one takes place in Harandar, it’s a one-off boss where you’re fighting against a malformed creation that comes from the birthing tool. That one’s particularly gnarly, but it’s a pretty classic set up for a one boss raid. There’s a giant monster in a small area and you and your friends go deal with it and it drops loot.
The last raid is the March on Quel’Danas. This one takes place about three weeks after the Voidspire and the beginning of the season. This will be a continuation of the story that happens after Voidspire. I mentioned there are some twists and turns that happen in the six-boss raid of Void Spire and then some more happens: we’re going to go do quests, gather some allies, and then March on Quel’Danas for those final two bosses, one of which we are talking about and is playable on the alpha right now, a big cool Voidlighty phoenix.
With Midnight, we’re seeing Silvermoon and the Sunwell revamped, which players have been asking for since the end of Burning Crusade. We’re also seeing player housing, which fans have wanted forever. It feels atypical to provide so much information before an expansion, and I’m curious how you feel about fans’ response to the communication so far?
Hamilton: This is one of the most exciting times for the team. They’ve been working on this, thinking up cool moments and little Easter eggs to throw in there. Having someone see what they've done and see what they've built and respond to it has been really gratifying. I think the response in general has been really, really positive and favorable. The re-imagining of Silvermoon, the ability to fly, the forests of Eversong and how glorious those trees are, and those mountains up into Zul’Aman I think in general it feels really good to have players appreciate that.
We weren't sure what a re-imagined zone would feel like to players. We weren't sure how they'd react. And so it's really nice to see that people do really like this, and of course we're going to Northrend in [the next expansion] The Last Titan, so it's nice to know that people are going to respond. They're going to feel that nostalgia, they're going to be excited about it.
Kubit: This isn’t just a victory lap Alpha. We're really happy to see positive feedback when players have a great time adventuring through Eversong. But we're also looking for areas that we can continue to build the game. We're in alpha, we're going to continue through beta, and that means that the team is still actively working on 12.0 Midnight right now.
[At the time of the interview] we've only been in a limited alpha for 24 hours now, and we've already gotten a bunch of feedback that we've been sharing across the team to other sub-teams and deciding how much of we can fit, and where to change things, and so on.
Speaking of player feedback and blood elves, I think a big feedback point has been ‘We love dark, edgy blood elves.’ With Murder Row, the overhauled Silvermoon, and Eversong, was there a chance for the team to revisit the blood elf fantasy of sucking up mana, chasing power, and the darker sides of the faction’s past?
Hamilton: Yeah, we get a variety of opportunities to kind of peek in at Blood Elf culture. There's that seedy underbelly that you're seeing with Murder Row, and the Prey feature is going to lean into that sort of underhanded dealings. I'm sure everything's perfectly fine if you accept a contract to go hunt down someone and kill them. There are no problems with that at all!
That's part of us trying to lean into that fantasy and that idea that things aren't entirely on the up and up. Sometimes you can solve your problems through cutting words in a party — which you'll also have the opportunity to do through another feature — or you could just put out a contract on them and murder them. That works too. So we were really hoping to give a lot of flavor there for the blood elves.
Another endgame faction I’ve seen a lot of excitement for is the Amani. It’s been a while since we saw this Troll faction, and Zul’Aman was previously a raid. Can you tell me about the feedback and expectations around the Amani during the development of Midnight?
Kubit: It’s one of the reasons that we're excited to go back to Zul’Aman and really present the entirety of the Amani homeland in the splendor that we'd always imagined, that existed beyond the ruins of that particular temple that we fought a raid in, back in 2007. The Amani, when we discover them, and as we'll see in the next phase of alpha, are in a pretty dark place and have been for some time now.
The story of the 2007 raid was the Amani sort of perverting the Loa, which they revered, and some sinister folks like Hex Lord Malacrass forcing those Loa into the bodies of the Loaspeakers, which gave us mascot-head looking trolls with the bear head, and the dragonhawk head, and whatnot. The Loa weren’t happy about that.
So the relationship between the Amani and Loa has been tense since, and this is the backdrop where we land in Zul’Aman. It’s a really interesting space. We’re talking about housing and neighbors; the blood elves and Amani have not always been the best of neighbors, and there are undercurrents of tension there we’ll get to play with and explore in that zone. It’s a really interesting culture, and we’ve got really cool characters in Zul’jan and Zul’jarra that we’ll meet and adventure alongside as well.
We got to look at the Arcantina, which has big Garrison vibes, but with a much stronger social element. It was mentioned a questgiver would show up where you can do some business as needed, and you’re otherwise there to hang out. What’s up with the Arcantina?
Hamilton: It is a little different, in that it's a space where people have been gathering for a while. We learn about through it the course of questing, and there are quests on offer there. There are visitors there who are conversing with the other people, and talking about things that are appropriate to their character or their point of view, but it's more than that.
It's also meant to be a social space. It meant to kick back and relax and chat with others. There are games, there are a number of rooms with different sort of thematic feels to them where role-players could enjoy the space and make their own stories.
Kubit: It is also a shared space, as Maria said, so it's not personal like Garrison, you'll see other folks there. It's going to be a great hub not only to hang out, but also to jump out and do some quests every week or so, to be able to explore some other areas of the world — areas maybe you haven't been to for a bit so you can remember, re-learn, or maybe learn for the first time about some of the characters that we've met along the way that aren't necessarily our Thralls and Jainas, but more of your Gamons and your Alonsus Faols: the folks who are old warriors who've been a part of the Horde or Alliance for a long time,
Is the Arcantina in one of the new zones? Where is it in the world?
Hamilton: It’s an arcane pocket, we don’t really know where it is. Arcantina comes from Arcane-Cantina, and it was a place created as an out of the world location to kick back.
Kubit: If you remember, a webcomic came out around the holiday season last year called Seasons, where we see characters having a Winter’s Veil celebration in the Arcantina. As you can see, the entrance is not walking through a door. It's a little bit more of a magical portal.
Returning to your earlier answer, you mentioned we’ll see smaller characters and old world zones that aren’t necessary to Midnight. Is there a focus on Azeroth beyond the zones that are “end game” and can we expect to get a bit of a tour of old world zones?
Kubit: This is something which was really important to a lot of us as we were building out the story of Midnight, that there are opportunities for us to tell stories that aren’t just in the structure of a campaign chapter. So we have a campaign in Eversong and Zul’Aman and so on, but we also have the Arator journey storyline which takes place in a bunch of other places, some you may not have visited in quite some time like Stratholme, Blackrock Mountain. Either you’ll experience nostalgia from having been there, or you’ll get a feel for how big the world of Azeroth is as you go to these far-flung places.
I should also mention parts of our other chapters — like, the entirety of the Harandar chapter does not take place in Harandar.
So, we’re trying to break that mold a little bit. It’s made easier by new technology that makes it easier for our team to build content and scale the world when you go to these places conditionally. So when you go to Blackrock Mountain, you’re not going to be insta-gibbed by ogres that have 104 million health. Now there’ll be a scale that goes to your level, similar to how you go to Stormsong Valley to catch some bees for K’aresh ecodome content — the bees are of an appropriate level for your character in today’s modern 11.2 content.
Hamilton: Not everyone has played as long as you and they don’t know some of these places. They haven’t been, and it’s nice to give people an opportunity to understand more about the world just generally. That’s part of our plan for Lorewalking, the stories we’ve been telling there to help get people the background information that they might not have otherwise, and help clarify the story.
On a similar note, with Prey we were introduced to a rogue magister and a lightforged zealot. There’s the Arcantina and the guests showing up there. Are there any humble characters, not your Jaina or Alleria-types, showing up through these new systems that you are a fan of?
Kubit: Prey has a lot of interesting targets that you're going to be fighting against. We've seen a couple examples, but there are about 30 of 'em overall, at least with the launch of Midnight, that we'll be able to go on contract to hunt against.
I don't think any of them will necessarily be folks that you're familiar with, but they're from all walks of life, all cultures. A couple that jump out to me are Mechagnomes; they fight using an engineer kit with a lot more gears and cogs and cog wheels and things like that. It’s fun and not the typical enemy that you might otherwise see when you're wandering around Voidstorm or Harandar, but still very grounded in the fantasy of World Warcraft and gives you a little bit of levity and some variety as well.
Was there ever a decision when it comes to Prey as to which characters are possible, or off-limits? Like, did anyone write “No Milhouse Manastorm” on a whiteboard somewhere?
Kubit: We have a lot of whiteboards that say No Milhouse Manastorm on them but that’s irrelevant to Prey. It’s just in general.
Joking aside, we started Prey with the idea of having just some really fun combat archetypes to fight against that. At its core, this is a combat mode where you're chasing someone, and they're going to fight you when they can find you, and even when you find them. Then at that ultimate battle, where they're going to take out some of their bigger spells, it'll be closer to the encounter you might find at the end of a delve. For those reasons, we sort of focused in on what are some cool types of creatures or characters to fight.
Prey rewards certain housing cosmetics. Past achievements and content will also reward cosmetics and furniture for players. This is huge for rewards, because there are only so many mounts a player cares about, and you have to upgrade your gear every expansion, but a nice house is forever. Is that a satisfying lever to have at your disposal as a dev?
Kubit: This has been a tremendous effort, and I want to take my hat off to the team who’s been populating the entirety of our back catalog with the places you can now get decor from. It's going to be an ongoing effort as we continue to build housing into the future, but there's going to be just this huge amount of things that you can go back and get. Not only is it a large amount of fun creative work, but we've applied a lot of philosophy to making sure that as you do this, that we're not creating negative experiences for people.
For example, by hooking something up to a feat of strength which is no longer accessible. That’s not something we’re doing; we want to make sure that you haven't already missed the boat by the time you were aware that the boat existed.
If something drops off a boss, we're not going to create a situation where it was a boss that you've maybe been farming for several months, if not several years to get a mount. You finally got that mount and now you've got to start the process over to get that chair. If a piece of decor drops off of a boss, it'll just be a hundred percent and you can just go get it and then have it. These are the types of fun design challenges that the team has been applying to backfill the world.
Xal’atath has been a really fun villain. The Worldsoul Saga obviously has the advantage of being planned out in a three-part structure ahead of time, but I think a lot of fans have positively responded to her as the main threat. She takes center stage in Midnight — what is it like to write her arc so far?
Hamilton: Oh yeah, she's fun, she's fun to write for, she's fun to plan for. Anyone that actually thought that she was going to help us [in the recent K’aresh patch] was totally right because she did, but also she was going to get what she wanted and that was ultimately to our detriment.
The nice thing about her is while her motives are not very clear yet, her modus operandi is entirely clear. She does this again and again, and it was really fun and satisfying to write for her when she was in that helping role. I can tell you that the narrative designers that worked on her dialogue were having a lovely time with some of the teasing and some of the comments that she was making.
She's a really fun villain for us, and yeah, we're looking forward to her motivations becoming increasingly clear as we head into Midnight and she begins to set her plans more in motion now that she's got the power that she was after.
Kubit: One big clue to her motivations is this thing right here. [Points at his virtual background, which shows a Voidstorm above the Sunwell.]
Is there anything that didn't come up over the course of this conversation that you would want our readers at Rogue to be aware of?
Kubit: Yeah, I think that a lot of times what we spend time talking about in a new expansion is the new story, but something easy to miss in Midnight is we're doing a lot of paying attention to the new player experience and making sure that we are building out a clearer on-ramp into the World of Warcraft.
So if housing seems like it might be your cup of tea, if taking the fight to Xal’atath seems like it might be your cup of tea, or just you have friends playing and you always wanted to start playing, but found it a little or a bit scary to jump into a game which has been building up for 20 years, we've got you.
We've been really thinking about folks coming in and so new player experiences have been heavily streamlined with a lot of user testing and making sure that people who are new to the game are having a great time and understanding everything they need to so that they get caught up. If you count yourself among someone who is curious about World of Warcraft, think about hopping in at Midnight, or even better in 11.2.7, when some of these new player experience updates do roll out.
Hamilton: Yeah. I just want to tag onto that, I'm particularly excited about and proud of the recap that we have assembled using our Lorewalking tech to make it possible to help someone understand what happened.
That was always a big question: how do people who miss the first episode of a trilogy catch up? So this recap is particularly exciting and important in the sense that we really want to see what happens when we fence that story down, pick key moments, and put in all the cinematics. I just played a recent pass of it. It feels different. You're getting a lot more cinematics, a lot more of the key moments, and it's cutting out some of the stuff that is really important while you're leveling up and really important to enjoying that period of time, but less critical to telling the actual heart of the story.
So, I’m really looking forward to seeing what sort of reactions we're getting to that tech when it comes out, because it allows us to assemble quests in different order and is really giving us these opportunities.
