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Exclusive interview with Greg 'Ghostcrawler' Street
In the first instalment of an exclusive, three part interview, Lesley Smith sits down with Greg 'Ghostcrawler' Street to find out all about the final major content patch of Wrath. Check back for Part Two on Wednesday...
Written by Dan Hutchinson, 16 November 2009
MMOZine: Was it your intention for the storyline of Wrath to be completed in such a short time? After all it's been a year since the expansion was launched.
Greg Street: Yeah, we knew when we launched Wrath of the Lich King that it would come with three major content patches and that the Lich King would be in the third patch. We'd then be able to go on to Cataclysm.
MMOZine: How long do you anticipate normal raiding guilds (as opposed to hardcore or professional ones like Ensidia and Vodka) will take to complete the five man content and the Icecrown Citadel raid?
GS: The 5 man is a big five player dungeon for us, it's got three different wings and a lot of bosses. It's on the large side, indeed I think it's larger than anything we've done in Lich King so far. It's still not going to be tuned to being super difficult and I assume most players will complete it the first time they try.
Arthas himself is going to be pretty challenging. We still would like for groups that have raided up until now to be able to beat him. We're not going to suddenly say 'nope, you've made it this far. Now you're done!'. But, he will be really challenging. I expect him to be probably the hardest boss we've done in Wrath so far. Heroic Arthas is going to be pretty brutal.
MMOZine: Why did you decide to allow players to fight the Lich King twice - once in the Hall of Reflection and once in the Icecrown Citadel raid itself?
GS: (laughs) We play games sometimes with continuity. We've had villains show up over and over again. Tempest Keep was just a set back .... then Kael'thas showed up in Magisters' Terrace so we wanted players who weren't able to go into the raid to still have a showdown with the Lich King. It's just that, in the case of the five player dungeon, they're not there to kill him, they're there to basically try to strike a blow in other ways that you'll learn as you're running through the dungeon. You're not actually killing him in the five man but you are trying to do something really important for the Horde and the Alliance.
MMOZine: Will all the bosses in Icecrown Citadel be made available immediately or are you going to stagger them, as you did in Sunwell Plateau?
GS:Well we've not announced when it's coming out yet but we don't want to throw players against challenging raid content right over the holidays, so we're trying to avoid that a little bit.
MMOZine: Are you intending to implement phasing into Icecrown at all, so that the world changes once he's defeated but you can still go back and kill him again?
GS: I don't actually know if there is any phasing in 3.3. I don't think there is. It's the standard deal where he's going to die but if you come back next week you can kill him again. It's a little rule you have to break to make the game fun.
MMOZine: And all of the Tier 10 items are going to drop off of Icecrown bosses?
GS: Yes. We've done a kind of combination of the trophy system we used for ToC and the traditional conquerer/vanquisher/protector gear from Ulduar. It's kind of a combination where the trophies themselves will drop but they're more class specific so not just anyone can use any trophy. Also, they do cost badges but instead of badges you can also turn in a piece of gear from the ten-man instance instead. So you can hand in your 10-man chestplate with some badges to upgrade it to the 25 man item.
One of the problems from ToC was that players had to sit on these big stacks of badges and felt dumb buying the 10-man gear when they knew they were going to need the 25-man gear. We're hoping we'll be able to get the best of both worlds here.
MMOZine Issue 16
For our latest World of Warcraft coverage, click here to download MMOZine Issue 16 for free.MMOZine: As part of the raid portion, you've included a gunship battle between the Horde and Alliance. What made you want to include this?
GS: Players have such high expectations for this dungeon, they've been ready to go in there since gosh, even before Wrath shipped, back to the RTS days. So, we knew we really had to blow the top off of this one and want to make it a really cool experience. Aside from having lots of Scourge to fight we wanted to do some really epic things. We thought: 'Gosh, these gunships have been flying around Icecrown for a year now. It's time to see them in action!'
It's a little bit of a diversion from killing abominations but we thought it would be cool to have a fight which takes place on those ships.
MMOZine: And what about you personally, do you have a favourite raid within Icecrown?
GS: Well, they're all pretty cool. But there is one dragon fight (Valithria Dreamwalker), just before Sindragosa that is really neat. It's not something we've done before.
MMOZine: Does this hint at the involvement of the Dragonflights or is Valithria just imprisoned on her lonesome?
GS: Yeah we seem to have a problem with all these powerful dragons getting imprisoned by the bad guys!
MMOZine: So when can we expect to wield Frostmourne then?
GS: We've answered this question before. If you wielded Frostmourne, it would consume your soul and you wouldn't get to play your character anymore. But we do have Shadowmourne, the new legendary axe, that people will be able to get. There's a big story about it that you'll learn when you go in there but we're hoping to get the Frostmourne-vibe for people that want that axe, even if it's not as powerful.
MMOZine: Are you concerned - hypothetically assuming it's going to be released around Q2/3 next year - that players are going to get a little bored waiting for Cataclysm?
GS: It's definitely a challenge to make sure too much time doesn't go by. At the same time, if we stop and make a 3.4 patch, then that just pushes Cataclysm farther away. We know from the past, from Burning Crusade and Wrath, that when the beta comes out that's a really big moment and it gets people really excited again. What we've traditionally done is change the game and put in the new spells and talent trees quite a bit before the actual box goes up on the shelf. There's a couple of really big milestones along the way, even though they're not going to be playing Cataclysm as a Goblin or a Worgen right away.
MMOZine: Are you pleased that WoW is celebrating its fifth anniversary this November?
GS: Oh gosh, yes! It's amazing. I wasn't here when WoW started but talking to the people who first launched the game, they had no idea it was going to go on this long.
MMOZine: Have you enjoyed working on 3.3 and creating such a lore and raid-packed patch?
GS: Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. It's the final one and because it's the final you can pull out all the stops. Along the way, we were like, we can't give them that item, we need to save it for Icecrown! Now we're finally here, we can kinda go crazy with all the stuff we've been saving and it's really, really good as we don't have to worry about following it up.
World of Warcraft coverage available in MMOZine Issue 16 - click here to download it for free!
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