World of Warcraftturned over a new leaf in many different ways with Dragonflight. The expansion introduced tons of new quality of life improvements, including a complete overhaul to the UI, tons of accessibility options, and ways to make playing the game easier. It also added popular new gameplay features, such as the Trading Post, Dragonriding, and expanded race and class combos. However, among this new content, none have affected the gameplay loop ofWorld of Warcraftas profoundly as the introduction of public events.
Game Rant spoke toWorld of Warcraftgame designer Laura Spreitzer and associate design director Maria Hamilton about public events in Dragonflight. These activities have ensured there is always something to do, but the events haven’t always landed how devs wanted them to. The developers discussed the good and bad parts of these past events, and how they improved the public events in Patch 10.2 based on the feedback they received.
Public Events - The Social Experiment of Dragonflight
WhileWorld of Warcrafthas featured public events in past expansions, like Legion Assaults and pre-patch activities, Dragonflight has iterated on the idea in a big way. The base expansion introduced Tuskarr Feasts, the Grand Hunt, and the Siege of Dragonbane Keep, while Zskera Vaults, Researchers Under Fire, Time Rifts, andDreamsurges were added in later Dragonflight patches. Each new zone also came packed with tons of world quests and rare elites players could farm in what Spreitzer affectionately referred to as a “murderball.”
The abundance of public events in Dragonflight means there is no end of content to do. There are tons ofnewWorld of Warcraftachievementsand rewards to be earned in each section of content, meaning there are plenty of reasons to log on each day.
That said, there can always be too much of a good thing.Dragonflight has been making content at an impressive rate, and while it is great to give players tons to do, each new public event dilutes the crowd working on previous ones. “[We heard] a lot of feedback about other public events recently [saying they] have not been soloable, and [that they were] difficult in smaller groups and low population servers,” Spreitzer admitted. Once hype over an event dies down, or a new one comes out, completing the old content can become extremely difficult.
“We started, however, to see a shift that people were feeling the strain of needing a lot of players to complete both Researches Under Fire and the rare elites, so there wasn’t as much content for solo players to do.”
All in all, public events are a great addition to the game, but they are not perfect yet. Luckily, Spreitzer seemed certain they could only improve upon the formula going forward. “Even beyond the public events themselves, the endgame loop in general, we iterate a lot,” Spreitzer said. “Our process is extremely iterative.” In Patch 10.2,public events inWorld of Warcrafthad plenty of room to grow.
How Patch 10.2 Improves Upon World of Warcraft’s Public Events
Enter the Superbloom–one-half ofWorld of Warcraft’s new public event for Patch 10.2. During the event, players will travel alongside an ancient named Sprucecrown and protect him as he performs rituals to empower Amirdrassil and grow Dreamfruit, which grants special powers to players across the zone.
“For Superbloom, we wanted to do what we could to make sure it would be soloable,” Spreitzer explained. “Different amounts of enemies will spawn based on how many players are around.” However, for the final stage of the event,World of Warcraftis future-proofingthe Superbloom using an interesting new innovative trick that should allow it to be completed with any number of players.
“[Sprucecrown] gives you this buff called Lone Wolf’s Courage. You’re trying to do this alone? Good for you! Have this massive buff. You get really strong and really powerful so you’re actually able to solo the elite. It only happens if you have a couple of people, or if you’re completely alone–as soon as there’s more people around, the buff doesn’t happen. It’s just to help those smaller groups still have that epic moment, so we don’t take that huge battle away by spawning a weaker creature. Instead, you get to be even cooler.”
The Emerald Bounty is another duo of micro-eventsWorld of Warcraftplayers can find in the Patch 10.2 zone. While the Emerald Frenzy is a farming event triggered by the end of the Superbloom, Dreamseed planting can be done at any time. “You can plant the seed in the dirt, and it will sprout a sapling that grows and starts a public contribution,” Spreitzer said. “People can contribute to the sapling, it will sprout little activities around it for just a couple of minutes…[And once it’s done,] It will drop a chest that gives a bunch of rewards for anybody that contributed to the event.” In many ways, the Superbloom and Emerald Bounty sound like they combine many of the most popular parts of previous public events in Dragonflight.
Spreitzer also saidWorld of Warcraftis trying to move away from the mandatory rare elite murderball in Patch 10.2, and hopes Dreamseeds will give players a fun and engaging alternative to it. “This activity is always available,” she explained. “When you run out of everything else to do, instead of going to fight rare elites, this time you will hopefully want to do the Emerald Bounty, plant some seeds, and get some people together.”
The public event experiment has been a long and interesting journey since Dragonflight’s release, but it is one thatWorld of Warcraftis committed to perfecting. “It can be a little challenging to scale down from a solo player all the way up to like 80 players, which is why we don’t often try to do it because it’s hard,” Spreitzer admitted. Even so, it is clear the Superbloom and Emerald Bounty events have been built with past criticism in mind, so hopefully,World of Warcraftwill be able to take what it learns from these new events to improve future endgame activities.
World of Warcraftis available now on PC.
MORE:World of Warcraft Developers Talk Tonal Balance of the Patch 10.2 Narrative
