What we learned from the World of Warcraft Forever Deep Dive

Many things were announced during the World of Warcraft Forever Deep Dive (see the video here).

Some of the things mentioned:

• Serendipitous interactions: Placing a cooking causes it to become a campfire, which in turn makes the area into a campsite. This gives benefits for the player and other players; things like vendors, repairs, trade skill workspaces can be applied. Some buffs (like exp and stats) can be applied for 1 hour. All we need to do is /sit there for a few moments (up to three crafted objects can be applied).

• Recipes:Over 600 new recipes over all professions and level ranges! Many existing recipes have been overhauled. Cooking and food have also been overhauled. Almost all food will have some kind of extra XP buff and extra stat increase. Even more recipes will be constantly added to the game over time.

• Transmog system: this has been overhauled for WoW Forever. Players have the choice to have the mogs visible across the game. There are a few different ways to apply or remove this effect, by the transmog vendor, when logging into the game for the fiest time by choosing the mode (SD or HD), and more.

• Legacy system: There will now be trees to drop points which we earn in different ways. Some depend on achievements found while leveling. Different tres exist, with the nodes deeper in the trees being more better. Different characters will be be able to have their own trees with the points earned. Each character can spend points equal to the amount gained by the whole account!

• Realmless: Everyone plays together with their friends a large realm, one each for Normal, PVP, Roleplay, and Hardcore (added at a later date).

• Factions: are still separate (so cannot team up with the other faction in dungeons and raids, although here guilds were not mentioned).

• Hardcore is enclosed: If you die, you can transfer even to pvp now.

• Hardcore items gained are available elsewhere from the legacy system, but not to hardcore.

• Names: Two names when creating a character, everyone can have a first name and surname.

• Familiar faces and guildmates: over time we understand that names encountered will stand out more.

• Language preferences: will encounter players with same language preference as that which you choose for the game.

• Faction balance: horde vs alliance numbers will be balanced, especially for PvP. We will see how this will apply to the realm when choosing to create a character, possibly a style of sharding.

• Combat: Simple, distinct, slower, group gameplay tactical, crowd control matters, threat matters (3-4 targets at once for threat generation, not whole dungeon can accumulate threat.

• Stats changes:Hit chance (melee, range, taunts, etc. all the attacks are now unified, crit chance is now all unified. Weapon skills will be rebalanced, and will still be valuable. Bonus healing will now also grant bonus damage for solo play, expertise (reduced parry dodge. Spellcasting stat will now exist for lower players from 10 level up for spellcasters too. There will be more stats from later expansions also.

• Trinkets: will be more varied, and more specialised.

• Two extra classes of effects: biome based effects, and mob based effects.

• Items: All boss loot has been upgraded to rare quality. All bosses have been looked at, but old favourite loot still exists.

• New quest rewards added: something for every class now, not just specific classes.

• World drop epics: these are now stronger and more valuable. The auction house was mentioned here so we’re excited to see when this is discussed a little more in depth. There are also now thrown weapons in this category.

• Racials: are now stronger and more different. There are a mix of two active abilities, and two passive abilities. There is an equal mix of unique utility, throughput, and survivability.

• Dwarf priest was mentioned here: for example, an increase armor for armor specialised classes will instead apply decrease in damage for cloth wearing priests.

• Find treasure and other tracking abilities will now display and work together.

• Six new class/race combos!: Gnome priests, Human hunters, Dwarf shamans, Orc mages, Troll warlocks, and Undead paladins! More to come in future content.

• Some racials were mentioened: Undead Will of the forsaken, will instantly break effects (charm fear and sleep). Cannibalise will now restore both health and mana. Underwater breathing increased under water time. New racial Touch of the Grave has increased damage, and drain health, with healing!

• Class talent: will still be three trees, with seven rows, with important talent points at 11, 21, 31 and now the 16th marks.

• Some talents have stayed the same, but many have been updated and added, with better talents in their place.

• All buffs from 2004 are now gone, and are now baseline to the class. So now better fun stuff.

• All classes are now viable for dungeon and raid groups. No one class is superior, and none are strong to stack more than once class. All are different.

• The speaker went on to discuss thr Paladin in depth.

All in all a pretty amazing deep dive, with many things discussed. We’ll break down all the items above in more depth soon, and we’ll be back soon with the details the WoW Forever developers will share at the next panel!