wow Blizzard Interviews on Allied Races & Level Scaling

[Zadina 923]

Three community sites had the chance to sit down with Blizzard and talk about the beginning of the Battle for Azeroth pre-orders and the Allied Races that are coming along. We've summarised these interviews.

Venturebeat exclusively revealed yesterday about Battle for Azeroth pre-purchase becoming available later that day, as well as the pricing of the new expansion. The standard digital edition of BfA will cost $49.99 or 49.99 EUR, while the digital deluxe edition will cost $69.99 or 59.99 EUR.

Meanwhile, both MMO-Champion and Wowhead interviewed Senior Game Designer Paul Kubit and Game Producer Shani Edwards on the Allied Races and the new leveling scaling system.

Starting with MMO-Champion, we learn that the devs considered a huge list of races to be added in Battle for Azeroth ("pretty much anything on two feet"). The four Allied Races, that are now available with pre-purchases, tied well into the Legion storyline. There aren't plans to add any more classes into the Allied Races, but they are always keeping an eye on community feedback on this matter. Moreover, they thought that it was best that Allied Races started at level 20, since they will be played by players that are already familiar with WoW and have already gone through the starting experience.

On a similar topic, the team has talked about finding ways to allow players to level alts faster, but they have nothing to announce yet. There are also no plans to let players blacklist dungeons while leveling. Lastly, Worgen and Goblin model updates are still planned for some time during the Battle for Azeroth expansion.

An important piece of information from the Wowhead interview is that Dark Iron Dwarves and Zandalari Troll will have different unlock requirements and they won't be available at the release of Battle for Azeroth. From the currently available Allied Races, additional hair colours are planned for the Nightborne, since they only seem to have boringly white hair at the moment! There will be no updates, in contrast, to the base races in BfA.

Different colour tints of the Heritage Armor, that have been datamined, are aimed for NPC-use only, although the team may add ways for players to eventually acquire them. Finally, even if you don't plan on playing an Allied Race, it's still worth unlocking them to get your hands on the racial mounts.

Moving on to the leveling changes, the team is keeping an eye on the pacing of leveling and will make adjustments, if there's a need for them. Heirlooms are also on their radar, although they have no plans to tone them down. They may potentially extend scaling to Heroic only dungeons, like Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub.

Looking into the future, there are still quests to wrap up Legion in the next several weeks, culminating to the release of the Seething Shore battleground which will set the final tone for Legion and the introduction to Battle for Azeroth. Lastly, there was a small hint regarding upcoming improvements to profession leveling in Patch 8.0.

[Caeren 44]

2 hours ago, Zadina said:

Starting with MMO-Champion, we learn that the devs considered a huge list of races to be added in Battle for Azeroth ("pretty much anything on two feet").

So no Naga then :-(

[Valks 2,375]

18 hours ago, Caeren said:

So no Naga then :-(

We might have to wait until we defeat Azshara to have Naga considered :p

[Amit 17]

I'm expecting Naga too!, since these cool Slitherblade Charm quests on Desolace :'3

Edited February 1, 2018 by Amit

[Caeren 44]

But they said everything with two legs... :-)

[Valks 2,375]

2 hours ago, Caeren said:

But they said everything with two legs... :-)

The naga had legs too, just a bit of time ago!

[Shade476 3]

59 minutes ago, Blainie said:

The naga had legs too, just a bit of time ago!

If we defeat Azshara as a raid boss and have to put a foot or two up her ass does that count?  ;P

[Valks 2,375]

1 hour ago, Shade476 said:

If we defeat Azshara as a raid boss and have to put a foot or two up her ass does that count?  ;P

I'm still hoping to turn her into my camera stand, at least judging by the datamined pictures :p