Poster: Paullock at 3/26/2005 10:10:22 PM PST
Subject: Tigole - new dungeon development? |
| |
I was just curious how exactly the development team works on new dungeons. It's obvious they are released 1 at time (1 per content patch that is). However, it seems that they are not worked on 1 at a time, but rather in pairs.
Dire Maul and Blackwing Lair were first mentioned rougly the same time, however Dire Maul was just recently released and Blackwing Lair seems atleast a month away (but probably well into development).
Is the "dungeon staff" now fully devoted to working on Blackwing Lair? Or are they also developing the dungeon that will be released after that.
Also, what sort of insights can you give on the upcoming dungeon? How many bosses can we expect? Just Lord Nefarius?
My final question pertains the outdoor raid mobs. Are these encounters designed by the same people who designed Dire Maul and now Blackwing Lair?
Thanks for any answers, and good work on Dire Maul -DZ
|
| | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-dungeons&t=11522&p=#post11522 |
| |
Poster: Tigole at 3/28/2005 9:05:24 AM PST
Subject: Re: Tigole - new dungeon development? |
| |
The dungeon team works on more than one dungeon at a time. And then some.
Dungeons have many stages of development:
--concept
--rough level design/layout
--art/lighting pass
--rough spawn layout
--pull testing
--creature design
--quest design
--boss design
--itemization
--countless playtesting, bug fixing
--polish
--additional polish, bug fixing and exploit prevention (once live)
So at any one time, there are lots of different dungeons being worked on at one time. In the process of development, we often run into various roadblocks. Perhaps we're waiting on some new code or art that has us held up on a certain dungeon. If we have more than one dungeon in the pipeline, we can switch over and make progress on something else while we wait.
The dungeon team is also responsible for other tasks in development as well. For example, we do a lot of work on the PvP battlegrounds. We also were responsible for Lord Kazzak and Azuregos.
There's a lot of iteration that takes place in the dungeon design process. Some people would be interested to know that Blackrock Depths used to be about 1/5 the size and included Ragnaros's Lair at one time. Or that Blackrock Spire used to only consist of the area known as UBRS, which also included a part of Blackwing Lair. Hordemar city was added later. Or you know the little chapel in Stratholme? That's where the Scarlet Bastion used to be -- and it only had 1 room inside...
So right now our primary focus is to get Blackwing Lair out but we are very actively working on other zones as well. For example, we have a very casual raid zone in the works. I hope this answers your question ;)
|
| | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-dungeons&t=11522&p=#post12431 |
Poster: Tigole at 3/28/2005 9:31:07 AM PST
Subject: Re: Tigole - new dungeon development? |
| |
By casual, I mean something that won't require an excessive amount of time.
Personally, I don't define casual as meaning easy. Casual to me, implies that someone has less time to devote to any one play session.
|
| | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-dungeons&t=11522&p=#post12454 |
Poster: Tigole at 3/28/2005 9:40:17 AM PST
Subject: Re: Tigole - new dungeon development? |
| |
Q u o t e:
Please try and get content to bridge the gap between the 40 man stuff and the 10 man stuff out ASAP.
My guild is spinning its wheels, and has been for over a month, because UBRS is trivial and everything rots except the uber rares but we dont have the manpower to tackle MC or Onyxia.
This is exactly our target for the content after Blackwing.
|
| | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-dungeons&t=11522&p=#post12470 |
