#30 - July 6, 2007, 8:54 p.m.
I liked the interview, and while we're not always going to be asked the specific hard hitting question you want to see, the information is still very useful and welcome by a lot of players. If it's not for you, then help a fan site come up with a list of questions that contain the substance you want. Or better yet you can start up your own website and dictate the content however you see fit.
Jeff is generally devoted to raid and dungeon design, so most of your questions really wouldn't be best directed towards him. Since I'm a fountain of bits of general and useless knowledge though we can switch this to the Drysc interview and I'll see if I can answer your generic questions.
Q u o t e:
1) What are (if any) the planned fixes for the low population servers?
http://wow.warcry.com/news/view/73602-The-Plight-of-Low-Pop-Servers
We've been addressing low population realm issues and have seen enormous success through tactics such as free transfers, and funneling new players to them through use of the Recommended tag. We're in the process of reevaluating all realms and we're going to do whatever is necessary to ensure they have a livable population and are fun to play on. We've seen great successes in our efforts thus far, and we want to keep seeing those successes.
Q u o t e:
2) Any non-arena pvp, Battlegrounds and world pvp in particular, is a shadow of it's former self, what are (if any) the plans to fix this?
The Battlegrounds are still extremely popular, and while there aren't always going to be massive pushes for strategic locations 24/7, there is still a lot of world PvP going on. That said we definitely intend to keep both aspects of PvP in the game, and improving them. Nothing we can comment on at this time specifically however.
Q u o t e:
3) What new content can I expect in the next 3 months?
We generally don't announce large features or patch release dates this far in advance. We have some things coming, but you'll just have to wait and see. :)
Q u o t e:
4) Any plans to finish Azeroth? ala uldum, making the lands flyable, Gilneas, so forth.
It's not unfinished, they're story arcs that we would like to include as future content, and yes we have plans to continue the stories of locations in Azeroth.
Q u o t e:
5) Any plans to plans to make Azeroth instances Heroic?
No plans at this time.
Q u o t e:
6) With the exception of Halaa, the attempts at world pvp are at best mediocre. Any new plans to revive world pvp?
I'm glad you like Halaa. See Question 2.
Q u o t e:
7) Lightwell and Circle of Healing, are they going to be removed or noticeably changed
Nothing that we are able to discuss at this time, but we do intend to continue making adjustments to talents that are undesirable or often overlooked to make sure they're something people want to take.
Q u o t e:
8) What are your plans with Shaman in the next 2 months.
We're still looking specifically at enhancement shaman, but we don't have any information on changes at this time.
Q u o t e:
9) What did you learn with Naxx? ie - huge resource dump on only a small minority of players, which even those players dropped when TBC was released.
We were extremely proud of Naxxramas as an achievement in our raid development and design. It definitely would have allowed more people to experience it if it was out there longer before the expansion released, but that doesn't change that we felt the dungeon itself was a huge success in what we wanted to achieve with the encounters and design.
It's definitely something people attempt to harp on as a negative or failure somehow, but in our eyes and our intents for the content that it contained it was a success. Releasing a dungeon of that size, regardless of how long the content is viable is a huge success in helping us to practice design ideas and development plans. If Naxxramas had never been developed the instances in the Burning Crusade would have been nowhere near the level of design and polish they are. All expansion and future instances are bettered by having Naxx released.
Q u o t e:
10) Give me a couple of good reasons why I should not cancel my account in the next month? Assuming that I'm bored at 70 and no new servers.
I think you might have answered your own question. Everyone justifies their own level of involvement.
