WoW Insider Kalgan Interview: 3.2 Info and more

WoW Insider Interviews Tom "Kalgan" Chilton

What's that? A new battleground in 3.2, you say?! Yep! WoW Insider recently interviewed Kalgan, and one tidbit he divulged is that 3.2 will be the patch that introduces the new battleground Zarhym hinted at a while back. Everything suggested about this new battleground so far is it will be something those who enjoy Alterac Valley will like.

Quick summary of the interview, along with some interesting quotes-

A new battleground is being introduced in 3.2!
The Argent Tournament was designed as an "Azerothian event" because the team felt the game lacked enough events true to the story; most are for real world holidays.
3.2 is going to expand on the Argent Tournament, but what extent it plays beyond that is undecided.
3.2 is also going to add more content for the Argent Crusade (Ashbringer storyline?)
Don't expect tri-specs or anything else; dual specs were added because it felt like a necessity due to how many different end-games people participate in
New dances and druid forms are still being worked on
They're both happy and unhappy with Wintergrasp. It's the direction they want to go with world PvP, but they're not quite there yet in being able to support such drastic differences in player numbers at one time.
Housing is something Kalgan likes from other MMOs, but they still aren't sure it fits in WoW.

Quotes from: Tom "Kalgan" Chilton (Source)

We feel like one of the things we didn't do so well in the past was to deliver content for everyone, we would deliver content for different parts of the player base at any given time like a 25-person raid or a 10-person raid or here's a new battleground, back in the day of Arathi Basin. However we didn't really hit everyone at the same time so we're trying harder to do that while at the same time maintain our pace of Expansions ... our blindingly rapid pace of Expansions.

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As far as tri-spec goes, I hope not! From a design perspective, just because I still want to maintain as much integrity as I can regarding how having a spec and choosing what you're going to do is important. Also the UI gets more and more cumbersome and the game gets more complex. Again, from a design standpoint, the game begins to feel like you have three specs, why not just have all the talents? Once you have everything, it stops being about character customization, which is what it was always intended to be.

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The expansion, as a whole, we all had a really good feeling about right from the start. We felt like, you know, it was a great package that it was going to be really feature rich. We had high expectations for ourselves and it would be unfair to say that we didn't expect it to do well.

At the same time, it's humbling how strong a response it's gotten from the fans. Also I'm very pleased to how the introduction to the new class has gone. There was a lot of concern, both internally and by the player base, that adding a new class could potentially mess up the game and we tried to make sure we were diligent about paying attention to things which could lead to problems for the game.

To read the whole interview, head over to WoW Insider.

Latin American FCMs to Drakkari (PvP)

Quote from: Bornakk (Source)

Based on the community's feedback and the current population of Drakkari, players that have characters on any of the eligible realms will be able to begin transferring by selecting the Free Character Move link in the account management section of our web site (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account). Please keep in mind that this is a Latin American realm and people may speak a language other than your own.
The transfer process will be comprised of four (4) phases, each phase will last approximately ten (10) days and will include many realms from both the North American (US) and Oceanic regions. Please keep in mind that certain realms will not be eligible for transfers due to population balance, among other variables.
Note:

Please keep in mind that character transfers can be disabled at any moment should our goals of population balance are met. If you plan on transferring over, we recommend that you do so as quickly as possible. Once the transfer period is over, no characters will be eligible to transfer for free and players will be required to go through the normal transfer process.

Third Phase: May 5th – May 15th at 1:00pm PDT
For a list of eligible realms, please see below.
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Transferencias Gratuitas de Personaje (TGP) – Drakkari (JcJ)
Con base en las peticiones de la comunidad y para atender la situaciÃ³n actual de poblaciÃ³n de Drakkari, aquellos jugadores que tengan personajes en alguno de los reinos elegibles podrÃ¡n comenzar a transferirlos gratuitamente a travÃ©s de la secciÃ³n de gestiÃ³n de cuenta de nuestro sitio (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/na).
Las transferencias se llevarÃ¡n a cabo en cuatro (4) fases, cada fase durarÃ¡ diez (10) dÃas aproximadamente e incluirÃ¡ a varios reinos de la regiÃ³n de NorteamÃ©rica (US) y OceanÃa. Tengan en cuenta que ciertos reinos no serÃ¡n elegibles por cuestiones de equilibrio de poblaciÃ³n, entre otras cosas.
Nota:

No olviden que las transferencias pueden ser deshabilitadas en cualquier momento en caso de que nuestras metas de equilibrio de poblaciÃ³n se cumplan. Les recomendamos que si planean transferirse, lo hagan lo mÃ¡s pronto posible. NingÃºn personaje podrÃ¡ transferirse gratuitamente despuÃ©s de que sean deshabilitadas.

Tercera fase: Mayo 5 – Mayo 15 (terminara a la 1:00 PM PDT, aproximadamente)

La lista de reinos elegibles para transferirse a Drakkari (JcJ) es: Click to toggle display of source realms

Blue Posts

More Val'anyr Explanation (Source)

If it helps to explain it, the blessing is triggered by healing being done. If you cast a heal on a fully-healed target, you are doing no healing. The bubble itself is triggered by a heal spell being cast. The proc then looks for how much your spell would heal and makes a bubble of 15% of that number. The amount actually healed by the spell isn't a factor for purposes of the bubble. That is why we tried to explain that hots that tick but don't heal cannot cause the blessing on you (the healer) but can contribute to the bubble on the target.

If the bubble goes down (because it took enough damage or 8 sec have elapsed), then you next heal will cause another bubble for as long as the blessing lasts (which is 15 sec).

Glyphed Power Word: Shield can trigger Val'anyr's proc (Source)

The glyphed Power Word: Shield will allow for the blessing and the bubble to proc, however, trinket heals and such will not work.

PvP Balance (Source)

Honestly, it is a very difficult task. Beyond that though, many players tend to look at PvP in the 1 v.s. 1 sense, which is not what we are aiming for in our balance philosophy. We would like the game to be balanced on a more battle-oriented scale.

This ideal for balance reflects our goal to get PvP back into the BG environment and de-centralize arena as what players feel is the current PvP capitol. That is not to say that we aren't trying to make sure that there is balance in all arena brackets, because we most assuredly are.

So in the one on one sense is PvP 100% balanced probably not, but in the mass sense combat battle or war is it balanced, we think it's pretty close.

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