“I think World of Warcraft has changed,” begins Greg Street. We’re in a poky cubicle on the second floor of the Anaheim Convention Center in California. Below us, more than 26,000 attendees are taking in BlizzCon, Blizzard Entertainment’s annual community celebration of its Diablo, StarCraft and Warcraft franchises. Only 10 minutes earlier, Street was on stage presenting the game’s new expansion, Mists of Pandaria, to thousands of fans from around the world.

Set on a pan-Asian-themed island that has been hidden from the world since the Sundering, Pandaria is a land inhabited by a society of Panda-like creatures. It’s Five Deadly Venoms and Pokémon; it’s Kung-Fu Panda and Confucius.

Street, known to players by his handle “Ghostcrawler”, is the lead systems designer on World of Warcraft, and as such is intimately involved in nearly all facets of the game’s development. If for long-standing subscribers Ghostcrawler’s opening remark is a statement of the obvious, it’s one worth repeating all the same. Before anything else, Mists of Pandaria is a response to change – one that plots a new course for Blizzard’s billion-dollar leviathan.

 

Blizzard's Kaéo Milker.

Gameplanet: We last saw Heart of the Swarm in May and at that time much was still up in the air. What’s changed since then?

Kaéo Milker: All you saw then was a part of the campaign and the core two missions demoed in May are playable here again today, there are some changes – polish and cosmetic changes that have gone into the missions itself. But we’ve made some more dramatic changes to Kerrigan’s progression and the unit progression. We’ve continued iterating as we always do, just trying to improve the overall experience of playing through the campaign. We’re experiencing Kerrigan gaining powers and evolving as campaign missions progress, but as we’re getting into the later missions we’re having to make adjustments to make sure that the arc she’s growing through in the campaign fits together well and plays nicely from the beginning to the end.

Gameplanet: On Kerrigan, when we saw her she was using Battle Focus load-outs, that were caveated strongly. Are they still in the game?

 

Gameplanet: What are your main objectives for the Diablo III beta?

Wyatt Cheng: Definitely a big one was the installer: the launcher, patcher and server stability. Those were really the big things that are really difficult to do on our own. Beyond that, knowing that we’re headed in the right direction, validation. We always have a sense of what’s working and what’s not, certainly the beta confirmed some of those things. When people are asking to see more, or [asking] when does it come out – getting more excited – or [asking] if we’re going to add more content to the beta, those kind of questions all speak to me as, “I’m really excited about what you’re doing, and I can’t wait for it to come out!”

Andrew Chambers: “Keep doing that, and give me more.”

 

Greg Street, Lead Systems Designer for World of Warcraft.

Gameplanet: How do the Pandaren go from a Samwise Didier April Fool’s joke to full-blown expansion?

Greg Street: Every BlizzCon we get asked the question: When are you going to do Pandaren? It’s funny, it’s one of those things where we're asked a lot, and we’re like, ‘what are you talking about? That was an April Fool’s joke!’

We did a poll asking what would you most like to see in World of Warcraft and the number one feature was Pandaren – not even the number one race, but the number one feature. So we thought, gosh players are really passionate about this; we should take it seriously.

 

Of all the new additions to the Diablo franchise expected to appear in Diablo III, few have been as contentious as the real-money auction house.

Game Director Jay Wilson took to the stage this afternoon to reveal more details, primarily based on the desire to provide gamers with a safe trading option. Most of the information imparted has already been in the public domain for several months, however a short example of a Demon Hunter selling an unwanted Legendary Mace for USD $7.50 hinted at what kind of value items at a higher level may fetch.

In addition, Wilson confirmed that stackable items such as gold, gems, tomes and crafting items will also be valid auction items.

 

Blizzard today announced World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. Blizzard’s objective is to create new gameplay experiences. Whereas previous World of Warcraft expansions have always focused on an apocalyptic enemy, Mists of Pandaria wants to get back to Warcraft II – focusing on the conflict between the Alliance and the Horde.

The expansion introduces a new continent, Pandaria. It has a pan-Asian theme and is home to the Pandaren race. It is a single, unified continent much as Outland and Northrend were before it.

Following Deathwing’s fall, the Horde and Alliance resume their hostilities. After a devastating naval battle, both factions wash up on the shores of a new continent, Pandaria. The land had been shrouded in mist ever since the Sundering. The objective in the expansion is to save Pandaria from being consumed by the Horde and Alliance war machines.