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BlizzCon 2007: WoW Professions and Items
With the new expansion on the way, Blizzard discusses what new items and professions are in store.
August 4, 2007 - With all of the upcoming professions and items queued up for the upcoming patches and expansion for the game, the folks at Blizzard have loads to talk about and the fans are eager to find out more. At the WoW: Professions and Items panel at this year's BlizzCon, Tom Chilton, Travis Day and Jon LeCraft were on hand to explain their ideas for the reasoning behind these two essential parts of World of Warcraft, as well as what to expect.
The main portion of the panel was dedicated to discussing the philosophies behind the creation of new items, with a lot of focus placed upon what would make the game that much more amusing and what will make a better overall experience. From an initial inspiration from the creative team or fans right down to whether or not a given item would benefit players, helping them progress their given progression or if the complexity of materials and skills required to create an item is worth the payoff. The creators made it crystal clear that every item is meticulously planned and ensured that it would be a benefit to the game world.
Once they got through that main portion of the discussion, they moved on to things that they are planning for the future of WoW, and it's looking like there's plenty on the way to sate the fanbase. First of all, they want to make sure new profession items will be the best fit to a character's spec; that is to say, there's a slew of new items and recipes on the way to allow a nice range of diversity to make sure there's some great new gear for every last character class and that it will fit with their equipment. Things along the lines of the current engineering goggles or a transporter will add an extra sense of prestige and satisfaction to everything in a players inventory. Blizzard also wants to make sure that the new item recipes are great leveling gear, providing a person who has taken the time to level up their profession will get the ability to create gear that is actually worth the effort.
Sometimes, Blizzard simply doesn't have the time or resources to add a given piece of gear, so as they progress, they'll be adding pieces that have been already conceived and designed, but weren't quite ready for a given patch, so they'll be adding it down the road. A good example provided during the Q&A was the portable mailbox. During the Burning Crusade beta, this item was available and the fans loved it, but it was prone to exploits, but it wasn't ready for public use. Right now, it still needs some cleaning up, so they're holding off, but they'd like to pop it back in down the road because it's a great engineering item that was a hit with the audience.
A couple of new tweaks to the game aimed towards transmutes and vendor recipes, which was met with a warm reception and sounds like it will be beneficial to those who use them the most. Several transmute abilities are set up with a 24 hour cool down, which doesn't jibe well with the players. Blizzard is listening and rather than having a 24 hour cooldown, a lot of these spells will be changed to a once a day cast, so you could potentially log in at 11pm, cast a transmute and then wait an hour and cast it again once you breach that midnight threshold.
Another will be made to items available from vendors, helping add to the overall game. Blizzard doesn't really enjoy the current system in place, where players can buy a batch of items and wait for the respawn to occur at a predetermined time and buy some more. What they're aiming to do is tweak things to where blue and purple recipes show up with a given vendor to add a surprise when the given item pops up. This is system is shooting to be totally random, so players cant really hang around the vendor or show up at a given time to buy a recipe, making it that much more difficult to camp and be the first to buy the item, but it's sounding like that there's a lot of potential for players to turn these rare items into a monopoly on the auction house, so we'll have to wait and see how Blizzard pulls this initiative off.
Down the road, World of Warcraft is set to see quite a bit of new additions that should hopefully add to the game, with tweaks and new mechanics altogether that should hopefully make the game that much better, though only brief explanations of each were available at the show. New daily profession quests will be added to the game, which should help add incentive to various professions and are primed to give professions new abilities while making the level grinding less tedious. One potential improvement along these lines was aimed squarely at enchanters, who sometimes have a difficult time improving their skill. Blizzard is currently talking about going to an item-based enchant system so players can sell their enchants in the auction house. Though this doesn't necessarily guarantee this is something that will be implemented, it's something that the WoW team feels will improve game and should alleviate the stress on enchanters and it's one example of how leveling will be tweaked.
Also queued up for future updates is new crafter only gear, including recipes and jewels including the "Blood of Amber" jewel, which will have a +12 spell crit, "Kaiee's Rose" which comes with +26 healing, and the "Falling Star" jewel, which sports a +18 stamina boost. A new recipe for jewel crafting is on its way to compliment the jewels, called "Steady Talasite," which offers a +4 resilience and +6 stamina buff. Blizzard wants to make level progression easier, so new things are set to be added to help on that front (but the panelists didn't elaborate on what exactly that will consist of).
Coming with the new Zul'Aman instance is a substantial slew of new drops which should please the fans. A brand new enchant is on its way called "Executioner," which is an armor penetration enchant, able to be crafted by only the most experienced enchanters. Another drop will be "The Dagger of Bad Mojo," a giant, ivory looking weapon which is said to sport a damage rating of 142-213, it will increase your attack power by 40, and your attacks will ignore 154 of your opponent's armor. A two-handed sword dubbed "Jin'rohk, The Great Apocalypse," which will have a 360-570 damage and will improve your haste rating by 45. New legendary weapons are in the queue, and the first piece officially announced is a new ranged weapon which is primed to show hunters some love. Beyond ranged weapons, casters and healers will see a few legendary weapons, but it's sounding like that will be a ways down the road, but it is interesting news nonetheless.
With the announcement of the Inscription profession, there's still a lot of information left to be conveyed, so Blizzard shared a few tidbits with the audience. This new profession will allow for people to imbue a characters spells and abilities with an extra zing, almost acting as a single talent point for each of your abilities. Whether it's sinister strike, multishot or a frostbolt, you'll be able to tweak every last ability. Inscribers will also have a new ability that hasn't really been talked about before, allowing them to create completely new items. Though the panelists couldn't talk about it just yet, there will be a whole other side to inscription rather than just altering your spells and abilities. When it comes to inscribing abilities for other people, the inscriptions themselves will be scroll based, so players can put up an inscription scroll on the auction house, allowing others to buy and upgrade their arsenal at their leisure.
With all the work that's being put into the professions and items, it's sounding like there's a lot to look forward to for the future of WoW. Whether or not all of these things will make it into the game is anyone's guess, but it certainly sounds like Blizzard is paying attention to its fans and shooting to make the most enjoyable game possible.
With the new expansion on the way, Blizzard discusses what new items and professions are in store.
August 4, 2007 - With all of the upcoming professions and items queued up for the upcoming patches and expansion for the game, the folks at Blizzard have loads to talk about and the fans are eager to find out more. At the WoW: Professions and Items panel at this year's BlizzCon, Tom Chilton, Travis Day and Jon LeCraft were on hand to explain their ideas for the reasoning behind these two essential parts of World of Warcraft, as well as what to expect.
The main portion of the panel was dedicated to discussing the philosophies behind the creation of new items, with a lot of focus placed upon what would make the game that much more amusing and what will make a better overall experience. From an initial inspiration from the creative team or fans right down to whether or not a given item would benefit players, helping them progress their given progression or if the complexity of materials and skills required to create an item is worth the payoff. The creators made it crystal clear that every item is meticulously planned and ensured that it would be a benefit to the game world.
Once they got through that main portion of the discussion, they moved on to things that they are planning for the future of WoW, and it's looking like there's plenty on the way to sate the fanbase. First of all, they want to make sure new profession items will be the best fit to a character's spec; that is to say, there's a slew of new items and recipes on the way to allow a nice range of diversity to make sure there's some great new gear for every last character class and that it will fit with their equipment. Things along the lines of the current engineering goggles or a transporter will add an extra sense of prestige and satisfaction to everything in a players inventory. Blizzard also wants to make sure that the new item recipes are great leveling gear, providing a person who has taken the time to level up their profession will get the ability to create gear that is actually worth the effort.
Sometimes, Blizzard simply doesn't have the time or resources to add a given piece of gear, so as they progress, they'll be adding pieces that have been already conceived and designed, but weren't quite ready for a given patch, so they'll be adding it down the road. A good example provided during the Q&A was the portable mailbox. During the Burning Crusade beta, this item was available and the fans loved it, but it was prone to exploits, but it wasn't ready for public use. Right now, it still needs some cleaning up, so they're holding off, but they'd like to pop it back in down the road because it's a great engineering item that was a hit with the audience.
A couple of new tweaks to the game aimed towards transmutes and vendor recipes, which was met with a warm reception and sounds like it will be beneficial to those who use them the most. Several transmute abilities are set up with a 24 hour cool down, which doesn't jibe well with the players. Blizzard is listening and rather than having a 24 hour cooldown, a lot of these spells will be changed to a once a day cast, so you could potentially log in at 11pm, cast a transmute and then wait an hour and cast it again once you breach that midnight threshold.
Another will be made to items available from vendors, helping add to the overall game. Blizzard doesn't really enjoy the current system in place, where players can buy a batch of items and wait for the respawn to occur at a predetermined time and buy some more. What they're aiming to do is tweak things to where blue and purple recipes show up with a given vendor to add a surprise when the given item pops up. This is system is shooting to be totally random, so players cant really hang around the vendor or show up at a given time to buy a recipe, making it that much more difficult to camp and be the first to buy the item, but it's sounding like that there's a lot of potential for players to turn these rare items into a monopoly on the auction house, so we'll have to wait and see how Blizzard pulls this initiative off.
Down the road, World of Warcraft is set to see quite a bit of new additions that should hopefully add to the game, with tweaks and new mechanics altogether that should hopefully make the game that much better, though only brief explanations of each were available at the show. New daily profession quests will be added to the game, which should help add incentive to various professions and are primed to give professions new abilities while making the level grinding less tedious. One potential improvement along these lines was aimed squarely at enchanters, who sometimes have a difficult time improving their skill. Blizzard is currently talking about going to an item-based enchant system so players can sell their enchants in the auction house. Though this doesn't necessarily guarantee this is something that will be implemented, it's something that the WoW team feels will improve game and should alleviate the stress on enchanters and it's one example of how leveling will be tweaked.
Also queued up for future updates is new crafter only gear, including recipes and jewels including the "Blood of Amber" jewel, which will have a +12 spell crit, "Kaiee's Rose" which comes with +26 healing, and the "Falling Star" jewel, which sports a +18 stamina boost. A new recipe for jewel crafting is on its way to compliment the jewels, called "Steady Talasite," which offers a +4 resilience and +6 stamina buff. Blizzard wants to make level progression easier, so new things are set to be added to help on that front (but the panelists didn't elaborate on what exactly that will consist of).
Coming with the new Zul'Aman instance is a substantial slew of new drops which should please the fans. A brand new enchant is on its way called "Executioner," which is an armor penetration enchant, able to be crafted by only the most experienced enchanters. Another drop will be "The Dagger of Bad Mojo," a giant, ivory looking weapon which is said to sport a damage rating of 142-213, it will increase your attack power by 40, and your attacks will ignore 154 of your opponent's armor. A two-handed sword dubbed "Jin'rohk, The Great Apocalypse," which will have a 360-570 damage and will improve your haste rating by 45. New legendary weapons are in the queue, and the first piece officially announced is a new ranged weapon which is primed to show hunters some love. Beyond ranged weapons, casters and healers will see a few legendary weapons, but it's sounding like that will be a ways down the road, but it is interesting news nonetheless.
With the announcement of the Inscription profession, there's still a lot of information left to be conveyed, so Blizzard shared a few tidbits with the audience. This new profession will allow for people to imbue a characters spells and abilities with an extra zing, almost acting as a single talent point for each of your abilities. Whether it's sinister strike, multishot or a frostbolt, you'll be able to tweak every last ability. Inscribers will also have a new ability that hasn't really been talked about before, allowing them to create completely new items. Though the panelists couldn't talk about it just yet, there will be a whole other side to inscription rather than just altering your spells and abilities. When it comes to inscribing abilities for other people, the inscriptions themselves will be scroll based, so players can put up an inscription scroll on the auction house, allowing others to buy and upgrade their arsenal at their leisure.
With all the work that's being put into the professions and items, it's sounding like there's a lot to look forward to for the future of WoW. Whether or not all of these things will make it into the game is anyone's guess, but it certainly sounds like Blizzard is paying attention to its fans and shooting to make the most enjoyable game possible.
I've been playing World Of Warcraft for a long time and then came the Burning Crusade Expansion. They are both extremely engrossing with their indivudual race storylines and the quest lineups and the crittering and leveling. They have so many stuff to keep you engrossed that you don't know when the time passed. Lots of stuff to do. I haven't to this time fully explored the potential of the these two games and this one is coming up. Hopefullt like before, they will launch the download and the beta testing free logons like in burning crusade. Let's see what happens.
Although I won't give money to play it or any Wow version 
