WoW Exclusive interview Ion Hazzikostas Patch 8-3, Awakened Affix

This Wednesday, January 8, we were able to ask all our questions to Ion Hazzikostas, famous Game Director of World of Warcraft. On the program we talk about general Ny'alotha, N'zoth, Shadowlands or even grind and RNG present in the game.

This Wednesday January 8, 2020 we had the chance to interview half an hour during Ion Hazzikostas, Game Director of World of Warcraft. The major news and most of the interview concerns Patch 8.3: Visions of N'Zoth from Battle for Azeroth, but Shadowlands is inevitably in everyone's mind, the perfect opportunity to raise several points concerning the expansion to come up.

After all the cataclysms undergone by Azeroth, isn't it difficult to make the players, in game, realize the power of N'Zoth without having to destroy the entire planet?

"There is no doubt that we have witnessed a wide range of threats to Azeroth, the recent highlight of which was that Sargeras literally plunged a sword into the heart of the planet.

WoW Exclusive interview Ion Hazzikostas Patch 8-3

One of the things we tried to set up with N'Zoth from the Visions of N'Zoth trailer (and by the way the content of his power manifests in play) is that his threat is represents a little bit differently. It is not going to blow up our planet; it will in fact subvert the minds and wills of all living creatures. He will transform Azeroth into Ny'alotha, into this nightmarish alternative future, if we don't stop him. "

"This is the way the Very Old Gods threaten us, they are not giant and powerful beings brandishing a sword that will kill us directly; they will attack the world around us as well as our minds. This is how that the events take place in Patch 8.3: Visions of N'Zoth and the horrifying Visions in which players will venture, and of course the raid on Ny'alotha himself. "

Let's talk about Ny'alotha. In the process of creating a raid, how do you decide how many bosses players will face, and what factors influence that number?

"I think there are several things that come into consideration. How many cool ideas do we have? Are there some characters that we have developed in the past that we would like to revisit?

When we arrive at the final raid of an expansion, it can last longer than the previous ones so we are trying to have more bosses available. Antorus at the end of Legion was one of the biggest raids of that time. If we go back to the Hellfire Citadel at Orgrimmar Headquarters, they were the largest of their respective extensions. "

"And so when we arrived on Ny'alotha, we already knew that we wanted a bigger raid than the Eternal Palace, Uldir, or the Battle of Dazar'alor. After that, we bring the whole team together to reflect in depth on this that we could find really fun there: what mechanics we could invent that the players would never have seen before? Then we assign the bosses and we start from there. "

What happens if a creature dies in Ny'alotha, including N'Zoth? Does that change anything, compared to the battles waged against Yogg-Saron and C'Thun?

"Yes, certainly. Ny'alotha is not an imaginary place: it is real. It is a parallel reality, and in one way or another it will merge with ours if we do not prevent it not.

Going there and triumphing over the servants of the Very Old Gods there, it is reasonable to assume that we are destroying them completely. And if we're victorious in the fight against N’Zoth this should be the last time we hear about him, but we'll see what happens. "

WoW Exclusive interview Ion Hazzikostas Patch 8-3: "Obviously, it would be just as serious if we succumbed ourselves. The stakes are high: it is an exciting adventure and we are looking forward to seeing the players experience it."

If ever we are able to permanently kill an Old God, what would be the impact of his death on the world? For example, would his tendrils continue to corrupt the planet?

"I think that remains to be defined. Logically, direct manifestations of N’Zoth’s power should decline and disappear.

Of course, regarding repeatable content we will make sure that you always have something to do. Even after defeating N’Zoth in the raid, you can still go and make your horrific Visions and enjoy the rest of the game. "

"Incidentally, from the point of the advance of history, I think that this corrupted power will no longer exist. Afterwards, as for everything on Azeroth and in the universe of Warcraft, there exist these opposing forces that s 'balance: like the Very Old Gods and the Titans who fought for a long time.

When one of these powers is removed from the equation, it causes an imbalance somewhere. And we'll see the consequences later in the future of World of Warcraft. "

Essences linked to the account have been in high demand by players for several weeks now, can we expect to see them arriving later or will it never happen?

"Our current plan is what players have seen on the PTR. We have reduced the pre-requisites for many of the old Essences from reputations in Patch 8.2. WoW Exclusive interview Ion Hazzikostas Patch 8-3

But when it comes to wondering what should be related to the account, and what should be related to the character, the line we always draw is that of access to content. This is something that we want to unlock across the entire account. If you unlock access to World Quest, the Islands, or the Boralus Headquarters, it's an activity that all of your characters can do. We don't want to force you to have to repeat the same process to unlock access to content.

WoW Exclusive interview Ion Hazzikostas Patch 8-3: But the power and the essences, you obtain them by being victorious in raid, in front of bosses, in mythical +, they are not so different ultimately from the jewels or items that a character can drop. All this constitutes the power of the player.

"There is a line that we generally do not want to cross between what is related to the account and related to the character. We know and understand that some players are concerned about this system and that they may feel like a barrier to playing a other character. We agree that there may be an inconsistency or disagreement between the speed with which you can acquire items and tell you that you have the required ilvl to go on endgame content and the time that it takes to mount your essences.

So this is something that we are looking at and certainly the lessons learned from this will determine how we will design such a system in the future. But Account Essences aren't on the table for Visions of N'Zoth. "

WoW Exclusive interview Ion Hazzikostas Patch 8-3

That we can get Corrupted Ny'alotha items from our weekly Mythic + chest is an interesting feature. Can we expect in Shadowlands or later that each style of play has its own equipment system? For example, allow Mythic + players to obtain items dedicated to MM + (with statistics that boost them only in MM +)?

"The Corruption present on objects is a system specific to patch 8.3. There are several reasons for this choice towards corruption in this update, the first is that we wanted to move away from the" War "proc systems and "Forged by the titans".

We've heard a lot of feedback from players complaining about a sense of randomness about how these procs could undermine the value of the ilvl. The question for us then was what would replace this system. In the case of the Visions of N'Zoth patch, we were excited to find out how to marry our system with the world we were building and the story we were telling, and while we were telling the story of the Very Old Gods , corrupting certain titanic installations, we thought it was an opportunity to modify the "Forged by the titans". "

WoW Exclusive interview Ion Hazzikostas Patch 8-3: "But this is not a system that will be planned in Shadowlands no. We will learn a lot from the way this novelty will be received and see how a world goes without" War "or" Forged by the titans "since I can say that these systems will not come back into play.

We are really impatient to explore new objects and to vary their obtaining system. We also want to ensure that players doing PvP have a way to get good equipment for PvP, same for MM + ... These are things that we are very actively discussing in the team, we still have a lot of information to share about Shadowlands' ownership and rewards, but I can confirm that there will be no "War" or "Forged by Titans" procs, nor Corrupted items in Shadowlands. "

WoW Exclusive interview Ion Hazzikostas Patch 8-3

Is the location of the Awakened Affix obelisks fixed from week to week or will it vary?

"I'm not 100% sure about that but I believe there are several locations and bosses associated with the obelisk positions, and that there is a small rotation of locations similar to the emissaries of season 3."

Does the Emerald Nightmare have a hold on Darkness? We know, for example, that the Drust passed through Shadowlands and that the Ulterres, the kingdom where we last saw them, were part of the Nightmare.

"By projecting ourselves into Shadowlands, it is very likely that we will discover the continuation of certain intrigues. These two kingdoms are very closely related: creatures of nature that have passed through the Nightmare and been affected by the Very Old Gods could very well find themselves in Sylvarden. "

Compared to the RPT, are you satisfied with the feedback from players regarding the content and balance of the update?

"Yes, the feedback was very rewarding. With the end of year celebrations, the RPT was a little longer than usual. This brought us a lot more feedback, for example on certain meetings of Ny'alotha or on the interest and balancing of affixes and amounts of corruption. "

"It has been extremely helpful to receive feedback and bug reports. We have made a lot of changes, even in the past few weeks, and we can't wait to see them arriving live next week."

WoW Exclusive interview Ion Hazzikostas Patch 8-3

Last question - the heat always reminds me of Teldrassil, so I would like to book a cruise to Greece for mid-July. However, as the last two extensions arrived at the end of the summer, I wonder about this idea. An advice ?

"I mean, I heard that Greece is beautiful in the summer! Growing up, we often went to visit our family there, I highly recommend it."

"Of course, when it comes to the release of Shadowlands, we will have a lot more information later in the year when we are in Beta - but I can only highly recommend Greece!"