‘World Of Warcraft: Tomb Of Sargeras’ Update: Developers Discuss Patch 7.2 Details
World of Warcraft recently released a huge update, The Tomb of Sargeras. Since then, players have been able to explore its ins and outs in detail.
Whether you’re a Retribution Paladin or an Enhancement Shaman, The Tomb of Sargeras has much to offer. From class quests to a new dungeon, every aspect of the update caters to fans. Players also get to see new features that make item sets easier to manage. Overall, the Tomb of Sargeras update makes World of Warcraft a simpler affair to engage in.
It’s been said that the Tomb of Sargeras update is one of Blizzard’s biggest updates yet. According to a report by GameSpot, the developers discussed patch 7.2 and had much to say in regards to its development and release.
We learned that the planning for the Tomb of Sargeras update went into effect as early as February or March.
Senior Producer Travis Day had this to say when asked about the update and its conception.
“Things are very smooth right now. We’re actually feeling great, things are in a really good place from a production standpoint. I started the initial planning for this and the whole patch schedule for Legion back around February or March. Part of our effort is trying to get things planned early and make sure we can actually meet the cadence that we have been trying to get the content out. And that’s so we can avoid having to do any kind of crazy crunches or anything along those lines.”
An update of this size and magnitude involves much work on Blizzard’s part. There are tweaks to artifacts that give them new empowered traits. Items, classes, and professions have also received updates. We even see that there are tweaks to how targeting works – players no longer subject to locking onto adversaries that are not visible on-screen.
The Fallen Avatar of Sargeras is the penultimate boss inside the Tomb raid. https://t.co/B8kXxsSW5W #WorldofWarcraft pic.twitter.com/K0hNzuWSUS
— Icy Veins (@icyveins) April 9, 2017
How does Blizzard balance such big changes with their own gaming windows? According to Day, there isn’t much that changed during such a large World of Warcraft update. It’s not unusual for developers to feel the exhaustion of working on content.
When asked about it, Day had this to say.
“Of course, everybody looks at me, as the producer,” Travis laughed.
“I think it’s a couple of different things: we’ve been growing the team over time, so the team is continuously getting bigger, and so it’s able to, obviously, support more content. The other thing we’ve been doing is really focusing on improving our skills and improving our planning on how we lay these patches out and how we develop for them.”
Day stated that the team was getting larger and more efficient, aiding in updates rolling out with as much smoothness as possible.
“So the team is getting more efficient and it’s getting larger. But with a product like WoW; some of us have worked on console games before, and you have everything leading up to ship and there’s the big release, and then the whole team figures out what to do next. But there’s always something to do next for WoW. There’s always some big important story to tell or content to deliver. And so, it’s really important to us, from a production standpoint, that we set a realistic and acceptable pace, both for the players and for the dev team, because this is definitely a marathon and not a sprint.”
World of Warcraft's biggest patch ever The Tomb of Sargeras goes live! – Flickering Myth (blog) https://t.co/CIV0xN9vr8
— World Warcraft (@WorldWarcraft36) March 31, 2017
Alongside the tweaks to World of Warcraft, the developers discussed points of the update that they wanted to focus on. Specifically, the devs discussed points of the world changing.
Ryan Shwayder, senior designer and content supervisor, chimed in with his own thoughts toward The Tomb of Sargeras.
“Really one of the things we haven’t exactly highlighted is the idea of, on Broken Shore itself, the idea of a dynamic environment; like a dynamic ebb and flow of the content on the Broken Shore.”
Some of the Broken Isle locations of World of Warcraft are consistently changing, though Shwayder wanted to expand on this.
“One of the things we always wanted to do with the world quest system, which we weren’t able to do throughout the entire Broken Isles–we were able to do it in some spots–is make the areas that the world quests take place in, change out their population, change out what is happening in that area at the time of the world quest,” Ryan began.
“And that is one of the things we’ve been able to do on Broken Shore, because it’s not a level up zone, we don’t have to worry about the population changing out and making it impossible to do the quests you are supposed to be able to do.”
If you’re looking to find a starting point in The Tomb of Sargeras, a report by Polygon lists to-do items that will ensure a spring into the new content. From obtaining the ability to fly to exploring the NPCs and a new dungeon, there’s plenty to keep players occupied. Blizzard is most likely going to continue rolling out tweaks and fixes to the new update, so players can expect to see much more in the way of World of Warcraft and its transformation.
Let us know your thoughts on the Tomb of Sargeras update in the comment section below.
[Featured Image by Blizzard]
