WoW Developer Interview !
Hello everyone!
It looks like I'm going to have the opportunity to interview on of the WoW design leads tomorrow!
So, post any questions or topics you'd like me to cover below & I'll add them to the list. The interview is with Morgan Day, who is a lead encounter designer. So mostly dungeon and raid content.
Comments (14)
Thanks guys :) Am working this stuff into my topic list. Is pretty much only encounter design related stuff this time round, but hopefully there'll be more opportunities like this down the line.
I also like Nick Altieri's question about whom on the design/dev teams tests the content and whether or not they actually run dungeons/raids themselves and on what difficulty level.
Since they have recently made PvP mounts such as war steeds account wide instead of bound to a character, is there any interest in potentially allowing the use of titles such as Lord of War and other character-bound titles to also be account wide?
How do you incorporate set bonuses into your design of encounters? Do you keep them in mind and plan for moments of glory for players with those set bonuses, or do you try and compensate for their potential power?
Sometimes a game will have the enemies before a boss use the same mechanics as the boss to teach players what the abilities do in a less punishing environment. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this?
Often players will find ways to pull as few enemies as possible because trash is just fundamentally by design not as rewarding as bosses. What are some ways of making the enemies between bosses more interesting? Are there any ways trash mobs could be more rewarding? Or any way to incorporate trash mobs into boss fights?
Tying into Nick's question, do they design the raid's environment/geography first, and then design the bosses to fit that space? Or do they think up the boss fights and then make a raid around them? Or something in between?
How do they determine difference between challenging and frustrating mechanics?
Do you know the setting of the boss beforehand? For example, did you know guldan was going to be on a circular platform that you can fall off of or was that the result of the mechanics you designed?
What are some dungeons/raids you are proud of? Which ones do you consider the most fun or unique?
Do you guys test the raids yourself? Do you put on heroic gear and try to kill mythic bosses to see where difficulty level is at?
who chooses which bosses are included in the raid?
how do you come up with ideas for raid mechanics such as Elesande's rings? Is there just a giant list of options you've come up with over the years or does each encounter start from scratch and you work from there?
More stable slots, please, us hunters would appreciate it.