Eternity's End, eller måske snarere Patch 9.2, vil markere konklusionen på Shadowlands-sagaen, hvor spillere, og spillets hovedkarakterer, skal stå ansigt til ansigt med den mægtige Jailer. Den store opdatering til spillet lander i dag, men før det skal vi gøre ophold andetsteds. Vi snakkede nemlig med Blizzard om hvad der er på alle spilleres læber i disse dage - nemlig Horde- og Alliance-faktionernes mulighed for at raide sammen. Det er første gang i spillets lange historie at begge faktioner faktisk vil kunne spille side om side.
I et større interview, hvor blandt andet Gamereactor, og adskillige andre europæiske medier, var til stede, så sagde hovedesigner Morgan Day og Narrative Designer Steve Danuser følger om hvordan dette samarbejde vil fungere:
Steve Danuser "The ability for Horde and Alliance players to play instanced content together is coming in the 9.5 update, the one after Eternity's End. The emphasis for it certainly comes in the aftermath of the Fourth War that took place in Battle for Azeroth, at the end of which Horde and Alliance signed an armistice. They are kind of in a bit of a détente at the moment, if you will. It's not that they have become allies, but they agreed that war is bad for Azeroth as a whole."
"The rivalries have not gone away, and if your an Alliance player, you're still not welcomed at Orgrimmar and vice-versa. In a story sense they are still weary of one another, but as we've seen time and again in World of Warcraft and the various expansions that we had, there have been many times Horde and Alliance had to put their differences aside to band together against some greater threat, and in Shadowlands they are doing so to face off against the Jailer."
Morgan Day "There's a real focus on our part of Horde and Alliance identity, in terms of how they solve problems, what their philosophies are, and that's still very much something we talk about and want to keep intact moving forward. This is also based on feedback we heard many times, like 'hey, I have a buddy on Alliance, why can't I raid with them, why can't I do that, Blizzard?' Well, there's all this history and lore, and we want to stay true to that."
"But we feel this is an opportunity to take a small step forward, as this is only regarding instanced play, and will help solve some real problems our players have identified with. Maybe you're an Alliance player that loves doing Mythic+, and that player might have a harder time finding like-minded players to play with. This is something we felt was an opportunity, both in world building and the story, there's desire from our players perspective, and we felt like it solved some problems. We'll see where our next step might take us."
Tager man i betragtning at dette vitterligt er et skridt i den rigtige retning for spillet, så undrede vi os lidt over hvad de næste par skridt i samme retning egentlig er. Vil en Horde-spiller kunne valse ind i Stormwind inden længe? Det lyder næsten blasfemisk, men det kan være med til at åbne spillet op på en mere konkret måde.
Morgan Day "I wouldn't want to close the door on that, and things like this do lead to questions like that. What's potentially the next step? What will this look like in five years or in ten years? There's also some great opportunities as we'll see in the Eternity's End update, with some Horde and Alliance characters working together, and those are moments that our players always love to see and to participate in. The Jailer's threat has been looming throughout all of Shadowlands, and we've seen Covenants banding together, and Horde and Alliance also feel that they need to work together to solve this problem."
Steve Danuser "If we were to ever see progression along these lines, there's going to be a lot of history to overcome. The Night Elves for example have some very unresolved feelings towards the Horde, and that's not something that will simply stop overnight. There's a long road to go before there can be a true bond between these storied factions."
Shadowlands er den ottende World of Warcraft-universet, og der er efterhånden mange aspekter, myter og fortællinger der er blevet godt dækket ind af spillet siden 2004. Så vi spurgte lidt mere ind til disse designeres tilgang til universet, og om det er blevet sværere at finde noget nyt, og at overraske spillerne.
Steve Danuser "Well, it's not hard at all. Warcraft is such a rich universe of characters, places, and ideas, to explore, that it's not a matter of what's next, but which of the many things we have planned will we go to next. The characters that we have that fans have developed such deep feelings and appreciation for, or in some cases, hatred for, that's just so exciting to tell stories with. The whole team is energized by what lies ahead, and we're all storytellers, not only the story folk, but also the quests people, the artists, the engineers, and the system designers. There's just no shortage of ideas and inspiration out there."
Nu hvor Shadowlands er ved at lukke og slukke, og dermed synes vi det var rammende at se nærmere på Blizzards følelser omkring udvidelsen, udviklingen og hvordan det samlet set gik. Ikke bare det, vi ønskede også at få et hint om hvad der skal ske nu.
Steve Danuser<em> "When we set out years ago to tell this Shadowlands story, we knew that we were building this drama in three acts, and we knew there would be twists and turns along the way. We didn't know that there would be a pandemic that would cause some delays, and how quickly we could get content in players hands, but we always stuck to the story we were building and this world we were crafting, and we wanted to give it our players in the highest quality possible."
"We are very pleased to see the story come to this conclusion in Eternity's End, and all these storylines that have been building up with Sylvannas, Anduin, the Jailer, and other characters. We're very excited to see that coming into a conclusion, but in every story there is that genesis of the next one. Some of the events that you'll in the epilogue, in the last chapter of this campaign, that will have some little hints as well as a little bit of a story that will come in that 9.5 update that we will talk about more down the road. But yes, we always think ahead when planning the Warcraft universe and which expansions will be next, and we have some really exciting things that we think players will really get into."
Morgan Day "It's really fun to kind of reflect on the road of how we got to the Shadowlands, all the way back to Garrosh in Mists of Pandaria and how he went to Draenor, and if we didn't went to Draenor we wouldn't have found Gul'Dan, and if we didn't find Gul'Dan we wouldn't have gone to Legion... the consequences of someone's actions have been leading to quite a few expansions, so this is an opportunity for us to have a closing act, but also have something to lead us to something new and exciting."
Vi kommer til at udforske Eternity's End yderligere, bare rolig.