10:35 AM: Ton Chilton (Lead Game Designer), Greg Street (Ghostcrawler - Lead Systems Designer), and Corey Stockton (Lead Level Designer) introduced.
10:36: New arena features. Dynamic line of site (LOS), pillars moving, fire!
10:36: Ring of Valor is the new Orgrimmar Arena. It's always been in Org, just unused. They like to keep the Arenas rooted in reality instead of just a random instance. The biggest feature in Ring of Valor is animated platforms that move in non-random intervals. They don't want random aspects. They'd rather arenas be based on skill. The moving pillars interrupt LOS. You can also ride up on the pillars when they move to get away from combat. There is also a periodic strip of fire that turns on periodically. It damages you with a 10% damage DoT, so they've done a lot of tuning on it. If you get CCed in the fire, it doesn't keep damaging you. It only gives you three ticks. People were using at as part of their strategy before they made that change. Players have to now make a choice weather to avoid or move through the fire. Another RoV features is very close starting positions. You start below like an old Roman arena, move up, and the fights start right away, very close in to each other. It's very different and makes people think on their feet. The designers really wanted something that felt different, but still very skill-based.
10:40: Ring of Valor gameplay video shown. Shows player entering on rising platforms, new hazards, dynamic LOS. The fire hazard goes the whole width of the arena. Pillars move at opposite intervals to the fire. Players have to make a choice. Each pillar has a unique texture ontop, which lets players in coordinated games call out which pillar they are on. "Axe" or "Horn" pillar.
10:43: Dalaran Sewers is the second new arena. They wanted to make a small arena, but with lots of new gameplay mechanics. It had to fit into the look of Dalaran's seedy Sewers. "Fight Club" kind of vibe. You can actually see the arena through the grates in the floor of the sewers. Scripted NPC fights go on down there. At the center of the Arena is a timed pillar of water element that dynamically breaks LOS. Also, it has a knockback if you are standing near the water pillar when it turns on. "Area denial" when the water is on. Makes the arena even smaller. There are no mounts allowed in this arena, though you can use Druid and Shaman travel forms. You start in raised pipes across the Arena from each other, so they had to come up with a way to keep people from hanging back in the pipe. So they added in a water element that pushes you out at the start.
10:47: Dalaran Sewers gameplay video shown. Shows the dynamic water features, including the LOS issues with the water pillar and the stairs. Part of the water feature tuning allows you to fight very close to it without the knockback. You actually have to run into it or stand under it. Crate stacks on corners of the arena area provide permanent LOS hiding places.
10:50: Strand of the Ancients is the new battleground. They wanted to do an attack/defend map. How could they integrate it into WoW in a way that fits? The destructible building/seige engine technology in this expansion made this battleground feel right. You get to play both sides in the battleground. On the attacking team, however long you take to get to the fort, that is how long the other team will have when the battleground flips. So, attacking faster means that the other team has less time to try attacking later. It is a 10 versus 10 battleground, but it is being upped to 15 versus 15 (NEW INFO) and there will be double the amount of siege vehicles that it currently has to allow more players to use them. The lore behind the bg is that it is a Titan island with tiers of destructible walls defending a central keep which both the Horde and Alliance are trying to capture or defend. Players can pick up mines, or use the large vehicles, to kill the gates. Melee can actually disarm and place mines when not in vehicles to give them something cool to do as well. The design of the island gives you choices. Do you go right or left? All the destructible walls have unique colors and names to help organize games.
10:55: SotA gameplay video shown. Shows players entering on actual moving boats. Shows seige vehicle action, the main keep objective, players using mines. Defenders can jump into destructible cannons on the walls and kill siege engines and enemy players.
10:57: Lake Wintergrasp is the now non-instanced PvP zone in Northrend., It was a huge step for devs; something they had never done before. A lot of the goals they had for it sometimes did not work out. They want huge battles with hundreds of players. They feel that it is going very well on Beta. The devs watch the live games on the premade Beta realms and they have never seen anything like it. Wintergrasp is also an attack/defend map, where the attacking team breaks down the main keep's walls to take it over. You can choose to kill any wall. Lots of choices. In order to use siege weapons, you have to earn ranks, which require honorable kills to gain. This makes sure people are participating. Right now it takes 2 kills only to get involved. They are tuning this number. You gain vehicles at the Siege Factories at various points on the map. Between each game there is a cooldown. Right now it is at 2.5 hours (used to be 4) Each game is 30-40 minutes, and then the winning side controls is during the 2.5 hour downtime. If Horde owns it, per se, they can port in from Dalaran during the 2.,5 hour period. There are also unique daily quests for the winning faction, as well as a brand new raid instance with a boss that drops both PvP and PvE loot. Archavon, the boss, is on a one-day raid timer, and anyone from the controlling faction can attempt him. The team that wins one round defends it in the next round. During that 2.5 hour controlled period, the controlling team can also loot Spirit Shards from all dungeon and raid bosses, used to buy a huge selection of items from Wintergrasp vendors. This keeps players coming back.
11:04: Wintergrasp gameplay video shown, captured live on the Beta premade server. Shows all the destructible elements of the main keep, which is just about every bit of the walls. The battles are "crazy" with things blowing up constantly and lots of AoE. Devs worked hard to balance players and vehicles. If you have enough players you can take out a vehicle. They are still vulnerable and need protection from players on the ground. One of the vehicles leaves a plague patch on the ground with gives players a DoT. Devs have spent a lot of time making sure the servers can support the amount of players they expect without a lot of lag. Shows the raid portal to Archavon.
11:07: Ton Chilton introduced to talk about the future of PvP.
11:08: Over the next several patches, devs want to allow PvP rewards to be gained in a variety of ways. The PvP player base is more diversified than they imagined. Some people only love arenas, or only love bgs. Some people just love Wintergrasp. They want to support every playstyle. They are working on a way to reward some of the better PvP loot to the players that genuinely do best in the thing they prefer, no matter what that thing is.
11:10: They want to deal with the AFK issue.
11:11: They want to make it easier to queue for bgs from anywhere in the world. (Oh hai Warhammer Online!) They don't want players living in the cities so much and missing out on world elements.
11:12: Competitive battlegrounds. They want to find a way to measure player contribution in battlegrounds and develop a rating system, on that which takes into account people in pugs versus premades. They also would love to have rated guild battlegrounds. They want to foster guild competition.
11:13:They want players to be able to level up in the battlegrounds via daily quests as well as XP rewards for winning.
11:14: The Q&A sessions starts. The devs are joking amongst themselves about the amount of people.
Q: Hunters are the least represented class. They are weak with their pets and the inability to shoot in melee range. Disengage is a band-aid. Why can't hunter shoot at melee range like all casters can use magic in melee range? Why can't pets have resilience? A: Pets can also be a significant advantage. Pushback with casters, and all new abilities. Yes you can lose a part of your character if they die, but they want to tune that. They want it to be a viable strategy to kill the pet to hurt the hunter. The new pet talent system allows more defensive pet customization. With regard to shooting at melee range, casters don't tend to be wearing mail armor. Hunters are also not effected by spell pushback. In the past elemental shamans have had a lot of pushback resistance, for example, they became able to tank a melee class while blasting them in the face. Devs feel Diengage is really interesting with a lot of potential.
Q: Players are glad devs are biting off WAR and meshing PvP and PvE. Will some older bgs and arenas get a face lift with some new dynamic elements? A: Yeah, definitely. What devs see a lot on PvP side is content burnout. PvP content comes out slower than PvE. The maps have turned out to be more important than they imagined. Devs want to make a better effort to introduce more new bgs.
Q: Paladins in Arenas: Pursuit of Justice at 15% movement speed increase was a help for mobility, but so many spells could be dispelled. Will Paladins get more abilities to help them stay in melee range? A: (Audience boos and someone yells: Go heal!) They do not have plans to do much to Paladin mobility. They want to help some of the Paladin's ranged abilities, tho. There is a glyph being added to increase range of Hammer of Justice, etc. Ret Pallies are doing pretty well in Beta.
Q: Will there be a buff to help deal with population imbalanced in Wintergrasp? A: Yes. The buff is Tenacity. It detects the population difference in Wintergrasp dynamically and scales the buff to let you take less damage and do more damage (as a percentage) as your side is more outnumbered. If you are outnumbered 5 to 1, you should be able to take on those 5 players. They are still tuning these numbers. The "psychology of defeat" effect where the losing team is demoralized needs to be undermined.
Q: In Wintergrasp you can AFK and get honorable kills, still. Will there be a fix for this? A: Wintergrasp does not have a forced groups system like bgs to to help combat this. The Ranks also reset with each cycle.
Q: Will there be any balancing factors for the fire in Ring of Valor? Will ranged be at an immediate advantage? A: The fire is timed. You can anticipate it and make decisions. Melee CAN shoot across it, tho, and that is soemthing you will have to figure out how to deal with.
Q: Resto Druids have been very powerful. Can you balance it without nerfing Balance or Feral? A: Devs do not think the current balance will hold in Wrath do to massive talent and ability changes. Lifebloom, for example, will not be able to keep people up all by itself anymore. That is just one example. The game is being changed quite a bit. Devs do not know exactly how things will play out in live, but they will keep an eye on it.
Q: Arenas and racials. Will there be a way to balance it bit more so you actually see Draenei Warriors running around? A: Devs like racials. They think they are quite fun. They don't want to put too many limiting rules on arenas. They have already limited consumables. Wrath sees quite a few changes to racials. Devs are also considering other option to give players other alternatives, whatever that means.
Q: Resto Druids in Wintergrasp: It's very difficult to heal when not grouped. Will Wintergrasp have an auto-grouping mechanic? A: Devs have avoided grouping mechanics in Wintergrasp to avoid exploits. If they can fix the AFK issue, they would like to make grouping friendlier for Wintergrasp.
See the WCRadio.com Schedule Page for upcoming broadcast information! Check the Blizzcon page for a link to the WoW PvP Panel audio broadcast as soon as it is available.