STACK #142 Aug 2016

FEATURE GAMES

Illidan is an amazing character. It’s a huge bonus obviously to have Illidan...

GAMES

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

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

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.”

• World of Warcraft: Legion is out Aug 30

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.

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