Recently, an interview with Ghostcrawler and some indiscretions on Twitter foreshadowed that there would be a patch 5.5 for Mists of Pandaria, changing recent World of Warcraft habits in terms of major content updates (I was talking about it here. ).
But a new interview with QQ magazine brings slightly different information. This information should be taken with a grain of salt, as it is a translation from spanish, made from English, itself a translation from Chinese!
- Object level compression should be put in the future expansion in order to fix this concern of exponential statistics
- there is still no launch date for the DotA style battlefield
- the Hearthstone game board is in the game just for decoration. There are currently no plans to add the Hearthstone game to World of Warcraft.
- lower charms will be available for sale in the Asian store. They are considered as comfort items, for players who have not had time to do their daily quests or who just want to save time. There are no plans to add items that will increase player statistics.
- patch 5.4 is the last content patch (with a raid?) but there will be other patches to fix bugs and balancing as well as a pre-expansion patch
- if a 4th role were to be implemented it would be a support or buff class, but it would be a big change in the game and it is unlikely
Another interview was given, PlayersCut checked in:
- patch 5.4 is the final raid patch for Mists of Pandaria. It ends with victory over Garrosh and the setting of events for a new Warchief. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait a bit longer to see that happen.
- The developers aren't ready to talk about WoW 10th Anniversary events, but they are working on plans for it.
- The team thinks more about the long term before implementing changes now. They're not only thinking about the next expansion, but the next one as well.
- The amount of class spells has continued to increase over the years, so with Mists of Pandaria they have made an attempt to reduce the excess. Future expansions will go in this direction.
- Adding extra spell effects for classes is nice, but it needs to be balanced and not add too much noise during raid encounters. Boss and player skills that are seldom used are more likely to have the most impressive effects, compared to spells used in cycles.
- There are a few leveling areas that need stronger guards, such as around the Dark Portal in the Blasted Lands.
- Adding a new class should be done with caution, but adding a second class of heroes in the future is always a possibility.
- Monks are not a hero class because the low level story of the Wandering Island suits them very well, but their population is still low because they have to be shown from level 1.
- WoW won't go free-to-play anytime soon as Blizzard is happy with the current business model. Even if they wanted to make it a micro-transaction based game, they couldn't because of the way the game works today.
- The developers want people to be able to level up faster so they can play with friends, which is why they are testing experience boosts and other comfort items in the Blizzard Store. There is no desire to move towards a Pay To Win style game
Sources
- http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/3321-Ghostcrawler-Interview-Timeless-Isle-Armor-5-4-Notes-Update-Blue-Posts-TCG-Art
- http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/3320-Patch-5-4-Stormcrow-Mount-Ghostcrawler-Interview-Blue-Posts-News-Recap
