Interview with Greg Street, AKA Ghostcrawler

[Kazeyonoma]

sick interview and super excited about the dragon soul encounter.

[severyn71]

So, with these nerfs coming into place... I know you guys don't like giving out dates, but should we at least be expecting to see a 4.3 PTR soon? Personally, my guild is 6/7 heroic. Should we be expecting several months of just one boss to work on, and then just farming the instance?

GS: Obviously it's going to depend a lot on when 4.3 comes out. Our hope is that we can make our patches faster and faster than we've done in the past. So, smart players might see that we're nerfing Firelands now and think that means that Firelands is coming to a close soon, but usually our patches are on PTR for a while, so there should be plenty of warning based on how the PTR is going of when that will actually end.

I like how he dodged this question about the 4.3 PTR ETA! lmao!

[severyn71]

I love the sound of some of the raid encounters and the 5 mans, though I'm really disappointed in there only being 8 bosses, I'd prefer to have had only an extra 2 heroic dungeons and to have had a minimum of 10-12 bosses.

While I agree that there needs to be more raid bosses I very much disagree w/ removing one of the already few 5 mans to get them! It is bad enough there will only be 3 to do in between raids! Not everyone has unlimited amounts of time to raid 4+ days a week but still want something fun to do that is not ZA & ZG runs non stop!

Also it wasn't stated here but T13 WILL NOT be available through the VP system(Stated at MMO-Champion), but i supposed the new LFR system is the replacement if anyone can ever manage to get lucky enough to have 24 other, somewhat competent ppl in their LFR group!

[Krenian]

Was pretty much a great, badass read. Always fun to see what our Lead Dev is thinking about the future.

I particularly like, as a Frost DK, a melee buff. XD

[Szilia]

Great interview Lore. I've been reading the 4 new 4.3 interviews I could find and this was by far the best. You had some good game design and mechanic questions that I really loved.
I hope you'll get more into the "interview business" if you can keep up this standard

[Loganisis]

Is there more info on Epic gems? I still have a few questions - seemed to tease more than answer

Will these be BoP or BoE? (If it's an individual reward it would seem to lean more to BoP?)

Will these epic gems be pre-cut or raw?

Interesting comments all around.

[Bakayaru]

Great interview and thnx for asking the epic gem question because it is something that i have been wondering about for awhile now.
I really hope that they do not go with the geode off of bosses idea i see too many problems with that system. The randomness of the gem drops will make it much harder to fill out a set of gear and with the amount of tiers that will be present in 4.3 that means replacing gems often to prep for the higher level raids.
This would also create a dramatic influx in the price of these epic gems in contrast to their blue equivalents and with the randomness of the drop would make getting money even more difficult. I know that there is a large random factor in the current system of prospecting however we prospect items that we can farm, if we feel inclined to devote the time, but asking us to farm bosses in 5 mans or raids for an item that will be in high demand is a bit over the top. Not to mention if you couple that with making the patterns world drops (please don't!)
Please consider leaving the system the way it has been because this is one aspect of the game that I feel happens to be fine the way it is, and if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Love the rest of the information btw again great interview.

[Theotherone]

It sounds like the epic gems will be BoP so no chance of price inflation; the stat bonus seems to be good, not great. If they're raw BoP, I wonder if JC's will get something like a vellum or other mechanic so that they can cut them for others.

Hopefully, come patch time Chaos Orbs will no longer be soulbound and there will be an alternate way to get Living Embers - right now people are asking 13k for a Living Ember on my server.

[Bakayaru]

I cant see them making the epic gems from a dropped geode BoP because what do you do with gems that your toon doesnt use...vendor?? that would just create a huge waste of gems.

[jason1975]

Finally, they're actually giving a story to everything we're doing, and linking it all up. I hope we'll see some of the backgrounds of the main antagonists. Thus far Cata has been like the big budget summer movie with no plot . . . all special effects wrapped around a boring, disjointed story that nobody cares about.

Hopefully they learned their lesson and realized that players don't feel epic just in doing something overly technical or graphical, they feel epic when they feel like they're invested in the story and the outcome.

[Outbackjack]

L: Will we be seeing epic gems in 4.3?

GS: Great question, and yes, you will! The way we're hoping to set it up, and we kind of have this working but things could change before we go live, is when you kill a boss on normal or heroic mode, each player gets a geode, and when they open the geode there's a chance they may find an epic gem inside. If not, it'll have blue gems or something like that. We really want it to feel like an individual reward, and not something that the raid leader gets to have fun in deciding who gets the gems, or they all go to the guild bank or something. We really want it to feel like an individual reward.

They'll be somewhat rare. It may take the entire content cycle before someone has replaced every red gem they have, but they won't be so rare that you won't see them.

L: How is that going to work with profession bonuses? Blacksmithing with its extra sockets, assuming that you could get ahold of a full set of epic gems, seems like it would all of a sudden become the best profession.

GS: I think the epic gems are like 10 stat points over the current ones, so it's a nice boost, but hopefully it won't push everyone towards Blacksmithing.

L: So you'd only end up with like 20 extra Strength as a Blacksmith.

GS: Yeah, something like that.

I don't see where the gems would be BoP. It sounds like the boss drops a goody bag for every person in the raid and each bag has a chance at getting an epic quality gem. It kinda reminds me of the bag you got in ICC when you did that little weekly quest inside the Citadel.

[Helo]

And what about Looking for Raid gear… how powerful will it be?
Ghostcrawler: Yeah, like I said, it should be slightly above the 5-player dungeon gear but not as powerful as the normal raid. The Deathwing raid is called The Dragon Soul; it should be weaker than The Dragon Soul tier.

Is it just me that does not see this question or answer anywhere? Am I missing something.

[Loganisis]

Is it just me that does not see this question or answer anywhere? Am I missing something.

T11 normal was 359, T12 normal was 378 - 19 ilvls - so Dragon Soul is probably going to be 397? That'll be ballparkish.

So it's going to be slightly lower - probably the same gear, just lower item level, either the same difference as between normals and heroic (13) so it'd be 384 ilvl? Or maybe just a half-tier,6 or 7 ilvls.

It'll be interesting, but a guess would put it somewhere around 384-390 for LFR? Based on what he said with it being slightly less.

[artie]

MMO-Champion has it among blue posts beneath the summary of the Ghostcrawler interviews.

[Theotherone]

Finally, they're actually giving a story to everything we're doing, and linking it all up. I hope we'll see some of the backgrounds of the main antagonists. Thus far Cata has been like the big budget summer movie with no plot . . . all special effects wrapped around a boring, disjointed story that nobody cares about.

Hopefully they learned their lesson and realized that players don't feel epic just in doing something overly technical or graphical, they feel epic when they feel like they're invested in the story and the outcome.

I've been saying this too; there's no hook to the story to bring the player into it. Yeah Deathwing is a bad actor and needs a beat down, but there's nothing that motivates me here like there was in the LK. What the hell did Vash'jr and Uldum have to do with anything. At least for me the story (not so much the lore) but the story is important.

[Bovinity]

Vashjr felt exactly like Zangarmarsh did in TBC. You're just left wondering, "Wait, what was supposed to happen there?"

It's like they always cut out the Naga stuff.

[Theotherone]

I really thought they'd put a raid in Vash'jr, but guess not. It's a really pretty zone and I did do the whole thing on one of my toons, but learned that doing that just f'd me for Molten Front. So on the Shammy I dinged 85 on on Saturday, I made sure I did Hyjal so that MF would be opened. I went to Vash'jr just for the mount and left.

[Reev]

I've never completed Vashj'ir. I don't like the way it looks, don't like swimming, and don't like fighting in a 3D environment.

[Loganisis]

I've never completed Vashj'ir. I don't like the way it looks, don't like swimming, and don't like fighting in a 3D environment.

It actually has one of the better quest lines deeper into the zone - but everything you pointed out I agree with.

Wasn't the Abyssal Maw raid supposed to be there?

Uldum - yeah, what connection did that have at all?

[Theotherone]

Just read we can't buy Tier 13 with VP; has to all come from raid bosses. That's gonna really suck if you have more then one other of your class in raid. I raid with 2 other Pallies in my raid group and I'm the new guy.