Jeff Kaplan Video Interview Transcript

Will there be daily quests in Wintergrasp?

Yes we plan on adding daily quests

Will there be a buff for the faction that dominates the zone?

We're not only thinking that there will be a buff in the zone, but there is a good chance we will do a buff for the entire continent of Northrend as well.

We might also do something similar to the Auchindoun spirit shard concept but for all of the dungeons.

Not to worry players that feel they may be on a server that is imbalanced, too many Horde or too many alliance, we plan to put mechanisms into Wintergrasp that they can never be held by one side for too long.

A lot of people were disappointed with the BC where the items they farmed before became worthless. Will this happen again with WotLK?

There will be some replacing of old equipment, but it really depends how far you progress and how good your equipment is as it related to what level you earn. So the the equipment in the BC was for Naxx level gear you didn't replace it until Karazhan for the most part.

Probably our hardest of the hardcore who are in Sunwell gear or season 4 Arena gear will not replace it until very deep into the expansion so their epics will carry them a long way.

Players who didn't adventure much or earn as much really good epic gear will replace it sooner and sooner. We want a balance for two things. One, we want to make sure a brand new person who comes into WoW can play 1 through 80 and feel they can successfully get through the content without stopping.

Two, we want to make sure that even the people in the Sunwell Gear and the season 4 gear occasionally get a new item as a reward because it feels very odd to play the game for a long period of time without ever getting anything, it starts to feel disappointing to not get anything.

It's a very tricky problem because I understand with not wanting to replace the item but at the same time wanting to get something every once in a while.

In the same tone, will there be something for the Death Knights to level up a profession quicker?

As far as to level a profession quicker, I am not sure at this point. That's something we've been trying to tackle, not just in the DK case, but in any high level characters wishing to learn a lower level trade skill.

Especially since we've changes the leveling curve a bit that there are some inconsistencies in the gathering trade skills and the production trades skills in terms of gaining skill-ups at a fair pace and its something we need to rebalance. With that in mind the DK is a part of that picture.

Another DK issue that people have brought up is, am I going to have enough gear to be successful at level 55? We'll make sure that from the starting experience he's completely geared up and in good shape. Oh and he'll get a horse too.

Will there be special DK gear you can get through quests or reputation?

For sure, There will be specific gear through the DK opening quest chain. that will be specific to DKs and only DKs will have access to that gear.

At high levels once players have progressed into Northrend, or even BC content. the DKs share a gear interest very similar to the Warrior. So they care about attack power, strength, armor, defense, the same things that DPS warriors or protection warriors care about.

Will there be a big event before the launch of WotLK?

We're planning an even right now and I think it;s going to be really cool. Similar to how BC came out, there was avery big patch a month or two before that came out that featured the new talents, and the new class changes and we had the Dark Portal event. We're planning something similar for WotLK because we really want to set up the story for players so they understand why they are going to Northrend, or at least get the hints on why they are gong to Northrend before the expansion comes out.

You said you can gain reputation from more sides that oppose each other. Can you explain that?

I was talking about a zone called Sholozar Basin, and similar to the Centaur clans in Desolace, we want to do a similar system in Sholozar Basin where there are two new troll groups who you can side with and we want to make it easy so you can flip between these two factions.

Traditionally when we give you reputation we make it difficult for you to switch between factions, we want to make it much easier and fluid so you can experience the content on both sides.

We felt like Alder and Skryer was very interesting in the BC but it came with a host of issues as well. One was they were both in the same city so it was hard to create scenarios where the groups fought against each other. The other is they both primarily cared about a good cause.

In Sholozar Basin we are trying to take two very different more primitive groups that are core to the main storyline of Northrend and put them at war with each other and let the players a nd side with them. More along the lines of the Sporelings in Sporeggar where you would side with the Giants or the Sporelings.

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