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professional Hearthstoning or dabble in the
occasional match of
Overwatch
?) there’s plenty
in
Legion
to pull you back in. Cory believes
the veteran players will "see something like
Artefacts and know they have a chance to get
a weapon that they’ve maybe heard of", or that
the lure to "play a storyline with a Champion
Follower by their side" will tempt them back.
He can see the appeal to those that may have
returned for
Draenor
but lost interest in the two
years since.
“Our goal is really to create an expansion
that will get people back, and hopefully they will
continue to play the whole cycle. We really tried
to focus on content that would play to the end-
game. I think that was definitely something we
learnt from
Warlords
; how key and important the
end-game is. We obviously always know that,
but it plays out different every time. It’s just
something we focused on more here.”
avid Alliance hater], we realised that we could
push that storyline all the way out. So
[Warlords
of] Draenor
was definitely a thought earlier on,
and
Legion
was always planned to come after
Draenor,
so we could set this whole thing up -
we wanted the story to make sense to players
too.”
The new expansion sees the return of Illidan
– one of WoW’s most well-known characters
that dates back to
Warcraft III
.
“Illidan is an amazing character. It’s a huge
bonus obviously to have him,” offers Cory. “I
think our players love anything having to do
with our big defining story characters. So for us
to get the chance to bring him back, it felt like
there was no way we could pass something like
that up.”
Julian Morris also saw the revival of Illidan
as almost unavoidable. “[It was] just a perfect
opportunity to reintroduce him to the land that
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GAMES
GAMES
over-time debuff called Corrupted Blood that could be passed to
other players and dealt a fair blow to health, even killing some lower
level players. Due to a programming error, players pets were able to
carry the debuff out of the raid and into the rest of the game world.
The events played out much like they would in a real life pandemic
– some offered to heal, those who weren’t strong enough simply
acted as wardens, blocking entrances to infected areas, and some
made it their sworn duty to infect as many as possible. Eventually,
Blizzard brought everything under control through some server resets
and a bunch of patches.
he was born in and grew up in, where his family
was. With all these stories, there was just
so much value there for us to mine out with
Illidan.”
One of the most notable additions in
Legion
is a new class affiliated with the Lich King –
Demon Hunters.
They can double jump!
While
it may not sound like much to players new to
World of Warcraft
, to seasoned campaigners
it’s a real game-changer. When the demo
booted up, we literally had to stop ourselves
from continually leaping around like hot popcorn
kernels. Cory is over the moon about the dev’s
new class.
“It’s unlike any class we’ve made. Super
mobile; very quick and easy to pick up.
Obviously, it has a visual style I think that
appeals to a lot of people."
Where some players might have departed
the series since
Draenor
(perhaps to take up
Illidan is an amazing character. It’s a
huge bonus obviously to have Illidan...
•
World of
Warcraft:
Legion
is out Aug 30