Murlocs and the underwater threat.

#0 - Oct. 7, 2006, 8:41 p.m.

Remember a few months back, Blizzard said something about the Murlocs and where they come from?

Remember that they said something great and evil lurks in the depths of the ocean and the Murlocs are just the first wave of what is to come.

Well, not to long ago, I ran into a book in game that had the Title of "The Dark Portal and the fall of Stormwind". In this book, it talked about the invasion of the orcs and what was promised to one of the leaders (Gul' dan). Sargeras promised him godhood if he found the tomb in which Sargeras body was stored in by Aegwynn.

This tomb in which the body rests in, is in the depths of the ocean.
And as we know by playing the games of warcraft, even a body of a great demon can corrupt anything.

So I believe that we'll see an underwater instance in the future. Because this has a great importance to Sargeras the destroyer of worlds.

And just for a question to the designers, will there be a possiblity that will see this early in the exapansion?

Tseric

#4 - Oct. 7, 2006, 8:57 p.m.

Q u o t e:
And just for a question to the designers, will there be a possiblity that will see this early in the exapansion?

Not for this expansion. There have been many of us here that have wanted to implement underwater zones or dungeons, but there is an impediment to that.

Underwater combat is not what we want it to be and, in its current state, is not something we want to draw player focus on excessively.

The main issue lies in the fact that the game operates with 2D pathing for the most part. When this is translated into a 3D environment, it doesn't look, feel or play as well as we would like it to.

So, while we have some quests, dungeons or regions that take you underwater for a short time, an extended adventure underwater would require a revisitiation to combat with that kind of range of movement.

Plus, it would make warlocks overpowered. :P

Tseric

#10 - Oct. 7, 2006, 9 p.m.

Q u o t e:
And Forsaken.

And druids.

Q u o t e:
zomg fir....eh forget it.

I'm so proud of you. :D

Tseric

#17 - Oct. 7, 2006, 9:03 p.m.

Q u o t e:

You do that just to stir them up, don't ya?

So that I may weed out the undesirables. rawr. :D

Tseric

#45 - Oct. 8, 2006, 1 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Just to derail a little for a second:

Hmmmm ... what, if any, implications does this have on flying and flying mounts? (Air being the "other" 3D environment equivalent to water, at least movement-wise I'm guessing) Does this mean flight in the expansion isn't going to have quite the freedom of movement I'm imagining (I'm imagining a fair amount of freedom)?

Or are you speaking more of NPC pathing/combat rather than player movement?

You're right, we are developing more terrain with 3 dimensions in mind. So, we could be closer to such a thing after we lock down flying and its combat implications. It still may be a ways off though.

Making flying in expansion possible has taken a lot of work. It has effectively multiplied the design time needed to create any given zone, as every object in that zone needs all of its surfaces covered, unlike Azeroth, which has shortcuts because players only see things from one or few sides and angles.

While there will be combat considerations to be made with flying mounts, it won't be a focus. You aren't likely to see a whole lot of new mechanics to support 3D combat, but rather see things implemented to prevent certain undesirable effects.

It may be possible that future iterations can support underwater combat better and that their roots would be in flight mechanics.

Q u o t e:
Or are you speaking more of NPC pathing/combat rather than player movement?

Yes, player movement is rather different than creature pathing.