[Cairenn]

I settled into the Hall B, which seamed to by their main presentation area, a bit early. While there I struck up a conversation with two employees… ended up they were a senior GM and a GM that works for him. They were very guarded on the information they gave out. Very amusing actually, but it makes sense. A lot of the policy that guides the GMs is private and they did not want give it out. We talked a bit about technology and other things, a good conversation. I was able to glean that the GMs are more guided and limited by policy and procedure, rather than technology. As much “crap” that the GMs are subjected to in the forums, they did say that there is more good feedback than bad, more people helped than those that *****. The big difference is that the malcontents tend to be louder. The GMs, though guarded, where very human and approachable. They seamed to love their jobs, and wished they could tell us more about the details.


Character Class Panel

The character class panel was a fast paced panel. A massive amount of information in a short time. It would focus on four things.

• Origin of the classes
• Talent System
• Future
• Balance

The classes were designed with traditional RPGs in mind, along with the heroes from Warcraft 3. They wanted too use a lot of the traditional ideas from other games. If WoW went far to exotic, then people would not be able to relate to the classes.

They want to challenge the players.

When they decided to implement the classes they focused on a few things

• concentrate on coolness
• separation of roles
• some classes did not make the cut

The Necromancer and the Death Knight classes did not make the cut.

They wanted to make sure that there was “concentrated coolness”. Every class needs to have a purpose. They don’t want much overlap.

Mage

The mage originally came from the Archmage and the Sorceress from Warcraft 3.

The idea of the class was a high damage class.

There was thought about summoning water elementals, I believe this ability came from Warcraft 3, but it was decided to not make the mage a pet class. A pet class would dilute the mage.

Mages originally had an ability called Chains of Ice. This was a single target shackle, and could be cast on multiple opponents. This ended up being incredibly overpowered and was removed or modified.

Crowd control went through a more conscious redesign. Previous to the removal of Chains of Ice, a mage was required for every instance run. The ability to immobilize all except for one enemy at a time made content trivialized. After this they reevaluated the crowd control methods of the game.

They spread out the CC among the classes. No one class would have a monopoly on crowd control. The CC was meant to be specialized, situational. Different classes are needed for the different CC, allowing each class with CC to shine in different places.

Paladin

The paladin is a direct version of the Warcraft 3 paladin.

The paladins are very defensive in nature

The paladins were meant to be easier to play than any classes. It was no accident or “mistake” but a carefully planed “entry level” class. The designers figured that the paladin would be the most appealing class for new players, and wanted to make sure they had an enjoyable experience.

The class was a constant struggle to balance complexity with stuff to do.

There is a balance between fighter priest verses a defender. The paladin is supposed to be the protector, the defender. The shield spells follow this. They are looking to add more interest to paladins.

Priest

The priest class came from Warcraft 3. I have not played many other MMOs, but I get the impression that they are more armored in other games. There was a big deal made that the priest is not armored like a “cleric”, but is a cloth wearing class. Because the priest class is very fragile, the developers were able to add more damage spells. An armored healer would not be able to do as much damage due to balance.

Originally the idea was for each side to have different priests. The idea of the undead to have the same priest as the alliance was “weird” at first. They wanted to differentiate the races. The separate priest classes did not work, and they implemented the racial spells.

In the expansion pack there will be more racial differentiation among the priests. The details of this was not given, but one thing was rather clear and not ambiguous… the priests of different races will be more different then they currently are after the expansion.