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‘World Of Warcraft’: Blizzard Talks Altering Mechanics To Fit Demon Hunters, Horde-Alliance Communication, & More

By Bryan Star
Published on: 18:13 PST, Aug 27, 2016

World of Warcraft: Legion is set to release in just a couple of days.

The last expansion, Warlords of Draenor, released in 2014. With Legion around the corner, Blizzard is putting the finishing touches on revealing key information about the game.

We’ve been introduced to the Demon Hunter in World of Warcraft: Legion. A new type of character that players can make, the Demon Hunter is a class that can make use of both tanking and DPS (damage per second) roles. Players have already had a chance to get their hands on the class, and Blizzard makes mention of having changed mechanics in order for this special type of character to fit the standards of World of Warcraft.

In a report by Gamespot, Blizzard discusses how they had to change the game mechanics in order to fit the Demon Hunter into Legion. Lead game designer Luis Garraga, technical game designer Chad Nervig, and character designer Genevieve St-Michel all went into detail about how Legion was altered so that the Demon Hunter’s skills fit right in.

Garraga had this to say in regards to how the Demon Hunter’s mobility was incorporated into Legion.

“Our game was never designed with any sort of movement ability system for player-based movements, so it’s very conservative in that end,” Garraga began. “A lot of our engineers had to basically look at the game, the way our engine worked, and make it do what an action game would do: double jumps, glides, and all sorts of almost twitch-based gameplay.”

As stated, character movement in World of Warcraft was not a large focus for Blizzard in terms of what the player could accomplish. Certain classes, such as a druid or rogue, had different means of getting around. Demon Hunters are capable of double jumps and can also float. Garraga continued to weigh in on the movement system, specifically the fact that they managed to include the various movements that Demon Hunters can execute.

“We didn’t even know if it was going to work. There was a moment when an engineer said, ‘Well, I got everything you wanted except the ability for you to change direction mid-double jump.’ I was like, ‘Okay, well, I guess we can’t win them all.’ Then I went in and played it and I’m like, ‘What are you talking about? It did work.’ It was almost supernatural that we got it all in there.”

It’s easy to tell that the Demon Hunter will be a unique experience to World of Warcraft: Legion. A report by Heavy outlines key facts about Demon Hunters, further bringing players to see just how unique they will be to the game.

When asked about why Legion was chosen for such mechanics and not earlier expansions, Nervig made mention that it was technical limitations that kept them from executing such a reinvention prior.

“Pretty much a technical limitation. Doing that is a new concept to us. It’s been considered and brought up before, but it’s been like a neat dream. But how would we even make that work? But we finally looked at it and did the due diligence on it to figure out how it would work, what the implications would be, what impact it would have, and said, ‘Hey, we can do this.’ So we did.”

Blizzard has also stated that Demon Hunters will be able to communicate in World of Warcraft: Legion. Horde and Alliance races are usually not able to communicate with one another. When two Demon Hunters transform, another ability that they will have, their new forms will be able to speak to one another.

Nervig weighed in on the ability to do this, stating that it makes sense for such communication to be possible.

“Correct. Actually, on that note, Pandaren and Demon Hunters are able to communicate cross-faction now. When Demon Hunters metamorphosize, they speak Demonic. So two metamorphosized Demon Hunters can talk to each other. It was just an edge case where we were like, ‘Yeah, okay, that makes sense.’ And Pandaren have always been an oddity. They know neutral Pandaren, and as soon as they choose Horde or Alliance, they forget the other one? So we were like, ‘Fine, we’re letting that line be crossed. Let Pandaren all speak Pandaren.'”

All in all, World of Warcraft: Legion is breaking barriers. The game will release on August 30.

How do you feel about the new expansion for World of Warcraft? Will Demon Hunters be your new favorite class? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

[Image via Blizzard]

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