It's not often that we get access to one of the most important game designers in the world, and you guys probably get these opportunities even less than us. So last week, when Blizzard offered us an interview with Tom Chilton, Game Director and Grand Poobah of World of Warcraft, we thought we'd turn the opportunity over to you guys. Read on for Tom's replies.

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Tom Chilton, God of the WoW Universe
Commander Boom: The Goblin and Worgen Racials (1% Haste, and 1% Damage) seem so powerful as to almost be unbalanceable. Can you tell us what changes the racials of the existing races are likely to take, and how you hope to balance them with those of the new races?

Tom Chilton: I don't know - people said the same thing about the Blood Elf racials back when there were in early alpha and beta testing. I would just urge that people not worry about that too much. We haven't even started our beta testing process yet and things are definitely likely to change in some way or another. Actually I've heard more than anything else that the Goblin rocket jump is likely to be overpowered. There's a lot of different opinions out there. We'll definitely be keeping an eye on it during beta and will make changes if necessary. This could take any number of different forms - it could be changes to the other racials to bring them more up to par.

Capt.no0b: How much time raids will require? Will it be in the same format as ICC ie. Broken up into lots. Are they catering for the more casual WoW player?

Tom Chilton: No, I would say that in a lot of ways the raids will be more similar to the way in which we did raids in Lich King than anything else, with some evolution and changes. I wouldn't say that they are more catered to casuals - we're still going to have the heroic modes on every raid encounter and those modes will still be as challenging as they are in today's raids like Icecrown and stuff like that, which happens to be very challenging. There aren't very many guilds in the world who have beaten Lich King on heroic mode.

Freeride: How many new battlegrounds are planned for Cataclysm and are they smaller than the two brought out in WOTLK?

Tom Chilton: By smaller, it depends on what you mean - in terms of numbers of players or in terms of actual physical size? I'll try to answer that from both angles. We are going to have at least two battlegrounds. We already have two that are deep in production and will be available at some point during the beta testing process. One of those is a 10 vs 10 capture the flag style map, and another one of them is currently slated as a 25 vs 25 player map that is more like Arathi Basin kind of style. I would say that the 10 vs 10 is similar in size to Warsong Gulch in terms of physical size, and the 25 vs 25 is physically somewhere between an Arathi Basin and an Isle of Conquest.

Tamiel: With the recent announcement that Restoration Druids will no longer be healing in tree-form (at least not as they have in the past) and the earlier WOTLK modifications to feral forms, is there anything further planned for Balance druids in Cataclysm with regard to the outdated lazer-chicken models?

Tom Chilton: Well we definitely plan to take another look at the balance tree and take another look at how the Moonkin works. We have a handful of different ideas, one of those things that we already talked about is the Eclipse thing that we have going where it helps players alternate between nature and arcane damage. But beyond that and how extensive that is going to change the Moonkin form itself is still unknown. It may not change very much, it may change a lot - it's too early to say for sure what the final form will be by the time we're done with our beta test.

Freeride: The new LFG dungeon system improved the game for a lot of players drastically, is the new LFG system going to be turned off when Cataclysm is first released so that rather than people just dungeon grinding to 85, they experience the new quests and environment?

Tom Chilton: No we're definitely not going to turn it off when Cataclysm comes out. The way we're going to encourage people to do quests is to make sure that the quest experience feels very rewarding. We still feel that solo questing should be the fastest way to level up, so we're going to try to make sure that remains the case. And even though doing dungeons should be a viable way to level up - and we definitely want people to experience the dungeons while they're levelling up at least once if we can - we don't plan on just repeatedly doing dungeons to be the most effective way to level up.

coder611: Have Professions been updated in Cataclysm?

Tom Chilton: We certainly are updating professions in Cataclysm. All the professions will be able to increase in the amount of skill they can get, and make new recipes, new things, all that kind of stuff. Much like we did in Burning Crusade and WOTLK.


coder611: Will you change the PVP areas such as Arathi Basin, Warsong Gulch and Alterac Valley in Cataclysm?

Tom Chilton: Only when absolutely necessary. Cases where I would say it could end up being absolutely necessary would be when once we're doing testing on raided battlegrounds there are certain things that appear to create really bad gameplay for whatever reason, that doesn't normally emerge in the pickup group battlegrounds that we have today, that would be about the only scenario. Really we want to make sure that we keep those as true to their existing form as we reasonably can, and make sure that any new and crazy things that we try are in the newer battlegrounds. More than anything else with battlegrounds, we need more content.

Talamur: With such a positive response to the introduction of the Death Knight do you now feel that the three main class functions (tanking, dps and healing) are well-proportioned enough not to warrant any new classes in the future?

Tom Chilton: No, not really. I still think there's room for new classes in the future and it's likely I would say that at some point in some expansion we'll do that again. But it won't be just because we have a need for more tanks, or healers, or dps. Even though that helps us make that decision, it isn't the only thing that makes that decision. You can definitely make the argument from the standpoint that people are using the new dungeon finder system that there seems to still be a shortage of tanks and healers relative to dps. I could definitely hear the argument that we need more of those types of classes.

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games.on.net: On that point, what kinds of classes do you think could be viable in future?

Tom Chilton: Oooh, that's hard to say, there are a tonne of different ideas out there, from different Warcraft III heroes to all sorts of other ideas, from other versions of Warcraft games, like the pen and paper RPG. There are a lot of different ideas out there and it will really come down to what makes the most sense for the expansion that we end up putting it in.

Zanakin: A fair few people like myself have 10 high level characters on the main server they play on. Will you ever be increasing the amount of character slots per server above ten?

Tom Chilton: I would be hesitant to say never, but we don't currently have plans to do it. It could be - who knows - six months after the expansion, a year, never. I don't know.

Preator Artanis: Since World of Warcraft was first released, we have seen continuous visual improvements to the game. Do you have any plans to update the player character models to better suit the visuals which have improved around them over time?

Tom Chilton: At times. We have to be extremely careful about how we go about doing that, if we do it at all. Because players are very sensitive about how their characters look and even when we make really, really minor changes by accident - like accidentally shrinking the size of somebody's shoulder pads, or the size of the weapons that they hold - little tiny changes don't tend to be well received by the community. They're used to the way their characters look, and even though any given player might imagine that they may like to see their character updated, usually for every player that wants to see their character updated and would be happy with some change in its look, there would be a lot of players that wouldn't be happy with visual changes. It's a very dicey and difficult ground to cross.

Preator Artanis: In other MMO's character armour has actual geometry, and is not simply a texture on the body. I have noticed with the updated heroes such as Sylvanas and others you have done it. Can we expect this improvement for players as well?

Tom Chilton: Yeah, I would expect to see continued improvement in how the armour looks, both in terms of number of polygons we use and whether or not it uses actual geometry. Recently we started introducing geometry for belts in WOTLK so it's one more slot that has geometry that didn't before. We also started to do a little bit more with the leggings, we have heavy leggings, whereas before those never had any special geometry to them. I think that as we continue to move forward, we'll keep seeing more diverse types of geometry that weren't there before, and all that combined with high resolution textures contributes to characters looking better in the end, without really changing the way their base model looks.

Preator Artanis: Since there is a "water" aspect to this expansion, did you ever consider Horde vs Alliance naval battles reminiscent of Warcraft 2?

Tom Chilton: Yeah definitely. Horde vs Alliance battles are a big part of this expansion, and we're trying to emphasise that more by doing more with Battlegrounds than we have before. Trying to emphasise it more by doing more with Tol Barad than we were able to do with Wintergrasp. And there's potential for more stuff beyond that. We always talk about the idea of city raids and that kind of thing, what would it be like and how could we make it an interesting and fun experience. I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up doing a little bit more on that front too.

treeko11 Q: Will heroics be more like their TBC counterparts, with actual skill required, and less AoE? Or will we find a completely new way of doing heroics?

Tom Chilton: We are tuning the AOE spells going forward. I would expect to see crowd control play a bigger role in heroics than it did in the past. We've also considered the idea of adding more difficulty modes to the heroics over time. I think a lot of what happens is that if you look at the heroics in Lich King today, it's a very different bag of beans than when we first launched Lich King. The gear the players have access to right now - pretty easily have access to - is far more powerful than it was when players were first hitting level 80 when we first launched Lich King and it just wasn't in the game yet.

It makes the heroics a lot easier than they even would have been a year - and even a couple of months ago - when we first launched Lich King. That's part of it, and then also part of it is the tuning and we've definitely talked a lot internally about increasing the base difficulty of the heroics so that it's kind of somewhere in between the Lich King difficulty and the Burning Crusade difficulty. I wouldn't go as far as to say that they'll be as difficult as they were back in the day with Burning Crusade; at least not unless we add another difficulty mode, like legendary difficulty setting or whatever you wanted to call it.

s1elite: Are there likely to be any incredibly expensive, but ultimately necessary purchases in Cataclysm? I'm talking about things like being able to fly in Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms or being able to move around in water a bit easier.

Tom Chilton: Not really. We don't have anything that's slated to be super-expensive that players have to get, at least nothing that I would compare to epic flying mounts in Burning Crusade. I would say the stronger parallels are more things like there are some expensive mounts that players can get if they want them, kind of like the chopper, but those are completely optional - they're just cool prestige items to have. I would expect to see some items in the game, like the Dalaran signet rings, those are pretty special items that cost a hefty amount of gold. I wouldn't be surprised to see more stuff like that. Nothing along the lines like epic flying though, where you have to pay 5000 gold.

jelly goose: Any plans to upgrade the almost unused in-game voice chat?

Tom Chilton: Yeah we do have long-term plans to overhaul that system. I wouldn't expect that to happen with the launch of Cataclysm. We have a lot of ideas in mind, especially that relates to the Battlenet service and how it ties into Starcraft II and chatting with your friends through Battlenet, that implies some long-term changes and improvements to that system. We definitely have a ways to go just in terms of making it a better system overall, to make sure players really get value out of it.

games.on.net: Are there any timelines on this?

Tom Chilton: Nope.

jelly goose: Will there be 'entry level' PVP weapons in cataclysm, by this I mean PVP weapons that don't require an arena rating?

Tom Chilton: There are definitely going to be weapons that don't require an arena rating. In fact, nothing in the game will specifically require an arena rating. Essentially we're going to have multiple tiers of weapons, and players are going to be able to get those weapons by doing any form of the organised PvP, be it raided Battlegrounds or Arenas. Players can take their pick about how they want to get that. For all the avid Battleground players out there, they'll definitely have access to weapons that are really good and don't require any kind of arena play.

Sabbath Void: Will heirloom items work (in particular the shoulder and chest pieces) in Cataclysm? For example since they stop at level 80 will the experience bonus stop at 80 or will the gears improvements just be limited at 80 and the experience bonus continue?

Tom Chilton: The experience bonus also stops at 80. The reason we do that is because we wouldn't want to encourage players to use an item that is drastically underpowered and continue to use it because of the XP bonus - we think that would feel kind of crappy. We will have new heirlooms that players can get once they hit 85 that will last all the way up to 85 for all the subsequent characters that they level up.

Tamiel: Phasing will obviously play a major role in Cataclysm - will this experience be limited to the 78+ content, or will lower level players experiencing the new and stream-lined Azerothian experience also be involved with phased content?

Tom Chilton: It's definitely for lower level players too. We use it pretty extensively in both the Goblin and Worgen level 1 to 10 zones. We also use it in lots of old world zones that we've been redoing like Stonetalon Mountains. There are a lot of old world zones between level 1 to 60 where we're using some phasing. It's definitely something that players who aren't max level will get to enjoy.

Tamiel: Will players interact with Deathwing as they make their way through Cataclysm (in a similar way to the confrontations with Arthas in WOTLK)?

Tom Chilton: Yeah, there will definitely be similarities, players will encounter Deathwing and experience him in a lot of similar ways to Lich King. We were very happy with that and will make sure to continue to do that.

Novocaine: Do you feel that with the additions to make the game more accessible to the casual player base, that the risk vs reward and teamwork factors in the game have diminished significantly over the course of the five years WoW has been around?

Tom Chilton: I wouldn't say so. I think in a lot of ways that's a misconception. We still have a lot of difficult, challenging content that is as challenging as the content we've ever made, or more challenging. I think that the difference is that in the past, hardcore players use to have a bigger gear disparity over non-hardcore players, so it was definitely true that in WoW before Burning Crusade launched, and even during the Burning Crusade, that there were vast power differences between a player that was more hardcore and a casual player. These days, while the hardcore content that the hardcore players do is just as hardcore as it used to be, they aren't many tiers ahead of other players in terms of their gear quality.

games.on.net: Finally, the obligatory Australian interview question. Local servers, where are we at?

Tom Chilton: I really don't have a good answer for you. It's not really something that I deal with directly, it's a better question for our production director and some of our operations people. I know that they continue to discuss it on a relatively regular basis to try to figure out whether or not it's something they can do, and they re-evaluate that somewhat consistently.

games.on.net: Finally, anything else you'd like to add Tom?

Tom Chilton: I would just like to say thanks to the Australian players out there, I've certainly appreciated that they play on North American servers. I've gotten to meet players from Australia and play with them when I otherwise maybe wouldn't have been able to.

games.on.net: And how would you rate the Aussie players versus Americans?

Tom Chilton: A great bunch of guys. The Australian players I've played with have often been very funny dudes, always a pleasure to play with.

games.on.net: Thanks very much Tom, good luck with Cataclysm.

Tom Chilton: Right on. Take care.