The War Within is simply a solid expansion so far, and Blizzard is preparing for the first major patch, which will take players to the trade capital of the goblins. The goblins have been part of Warcraft’s past since the real-time strategy games, but we haven’t always had the time to delve into their past or culture. With the next patch, dropping present and focused entirely on goblins, their capital, and yet getting to fight longtime antagonist Jastor Gallywix, it’s an breathtaking respite from the greater cosmic war we’ve been waging on Azeroth so far.
Polygon sat down with 2 Blizzard developers to dive deep into the fresh patch, its major features, and what players can anticipate from Undermined, a patch built around exploring Undermine.
Polygon: I’m personally excited for Undermined, as I have a couple of goblins and Kezan is 1 of my favourite starting zones. That should be my first question — back in Kezan, during Cataclysm all those years ago, Gallywix got 1 over on us. Now, we’re taking the fight to him. What was it like preparing for this patch with that sense of anticipation?
Jordan Powers, lead prop artist: We haven’t had a chance to dive into goblin society or culture since Kezan, so this was truly a large chance for us. We’re very, very eager to dive in and see what that looks like, due to the fact that we haven’t done it in so long. We wanted to make certain we made something vibrant, distinct, and with the large payoff players are expecting visually erstwhile they think of goblins. There was definitely that sense of nostalgia we wanted to hit in the art and visuals we were crafting in the space, but we truly wanted to crank it to 11 as well, due to the fact that that’s something I think players have come to anticipate erstwhile they think of goblins. They tend to be kooky, crazy, zany, leaning into the fun aspects of storytelling, and we definitely see that in Undermine and the Liberation of Undermine raid.
Sean McCann, elder game designer: Just to contact a small bit on the build-up there, I think you’ll announcement we have any more hints that underline what’s going to happen in the basic expansion. There are goblins moving around in certain parts of the Ringing Deeps, any lead-up in the Siren Isles of a goblin presence, so I feel like we’ve gotten a lot better at building the anticipation of events in-game. If you don’t read anything at all, erstwhile Undermined does release, you’re like, Oh, that makes sense. They were doing these things all over the place, and now we get to see what’s going on.
Some players love the goblins, but they’ve besides drawn any criticism as being a comic relief faction, in the margins compared to the elves and humans. Now that they’re getting their time in the sun with this full patch, how did the squad solidify the goblin fantasy and respond to that feedback from fans?
Powers: We definitely wanted to make certain we had a good balance of, Are these inactive the goblins that you know? I think if we abruptly had them all be very serious, people would be like, This isn’t the goblins I’ve done my goblin communicative experience with. But we have any examples, like a truly large short communicative about Gazlowe that came out, that let us research the humanity of these goblins without removing the zaniness and the inventiveness.
So we had to go, OK, what are the implications of Gallywix? What are the implications of Gazlowe, who wants to make any good gold but realizes that you do that with these various things that go into making society better? He’s inactive a goblin at heart, but we fundamentally dive into fleshing out these kinds of quirks that make them little of a caricature and more of a full formed character. I think we’ll see quite a few that with Undermined.
Something else we’re seeing brought forward from Kezan is the DRIVE system. In the goblin starting zone, you have your own car. It’s a small basic compared to the ones we get access to in Undermined, but erstwhile did the squad decide to have cars be a central mechanic and a major part of the patch? Were there any things that were possibly a small besides ridiculous and had to get cut?
McCann: It was a blast bringing the cars to life. We knew very early on that we wanted to research the goblin connection, their affinity, their love for all things vehicular and mechanical. The more we started fleshing out the Undermine space with streets and alleyways, it felt like a natural inclusion, and it was something we really, truly wanted to explore. This is the industrial trade capital of the goblin empire, so cars and vehicles felt like a very natural fit into this.
When we were playtesting this stuff, very early, there were any times the hot rods did go a small besides fast. We had to tweak that and tune it to find the right balance of it inactive feeling fun to zip through the streets or do donuts outside the Gallagio, but not snap-your-neck-back in terms of the velocity they can reach.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
The cartels are a very interesting part of Undermined, where they offer different business philosophies and takes on things. What can players anticipate from these cartels and making the choice to work with 1 of them?
Powers: The cartels do have their own unique theme, colour identity, and form language. There’s besides the Darkfuse faction, which players will experience as they dive deeper into the Liberation of Undermine raid. Many of these factions have cool, unique themes. any of them will be acquainted to players, like the Steamwheedle and Venture Company have both been in the game since the beginning, but this was a cool chance to dial up their visuals and communicative in a different light. For example, this is the first time we’ve worked alongside the Venture Company; they’ve exclusively been an enemy faction. With another factions, like the Bilgewater and Blackwater cartels, the players will gotta see what happens as they dive into the story.
The Worldsoul Saga is just starting off, and we’re in the first expansion with The War Within. In a conventional expansion, I think people would anticipate we’re going to go after and face Xal’atath and proceed the “main story” in a very straightforward way. Does the current three-expansion arc give everything more area to breathe? Is there more time to halt and research Undermine?
McCann: I think the benefit of this is, everyone kind of knows the trajectory of where we’re going with this, but we do have more freedom to research Undermine. There’s excitement of, Oh, OK, how is [Xal’atath] going to fit in? How is this going to tie in to the main storyline? It’s cool, interesting, and different, and I think it gives us quite a few excitement to play with these things at a more casual pace. We get to focus more on how we get there through all the expansions, and little of getting there as fast as humanly possible.
Liberation of Undermine is the upcoming raid, and I’m curious what the squad has learned from the past fewer expansions of competitive raiding, the race to planet first, and the fresh communicative mode feature. What are you bringing forward into this fresh raid?
McCann: Story mode was us experimenting, due to the fact that historically, solo players didn’t get to experience what happens at the end of the raid. We saw the reaction from the erstwhile patch, and people liked it a lot. We wanted to make certain we carried that over and continued with communicative mode.
Powers: We took quite a few feedback from players about things feeling samey, or moving the same raid over and over again. There’s quite a few visual uniqueness to each encounter throughout the Liberation of Undermine, not just in the enemies you face but the areas you visit as you venture forward. It’s an eight-boss raid, and each space is incredibly unique. There’s quite a few really, truly cool visuals that players are going to see as they venture in, and quite a few cool ambient storytelling tidbits.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
I gotta ask, how many times will we get to fight individual in a giant mech? I do feel as though that’s been a large goblin thing, and I’m curious how many fights are designed around that fantasy.
Powers: I can’t talk to specifics; I’m not an encounter designer. I will say there are respective enemies in mechs: a giant mecha T. rex that fights a giant gorilla — which is simply a conviction I did not anticipate to be uttering present — and there’s Rick Reverb, who’s in a hovering DJ mount. There’s a giant scrapyard boss as well.
Something else I’ve noticed from players on the test realm is that there are goblin-specific lines and encounters. What kind of goblin content and conversations can we expect?
McCann: We have quite a few things flavored around goblins, both in delves and with the goblin civilians in Undermine having fun reactions to what people do in the area. For instance, if you start dancing in Undermine, goblins will walk over and start dancing with you and you can start a large dance party. If you die and you lie there, and don’t release, they’ll run over and see what happened in the area. And if you’re a gnome, we know there’s a full past of goblins and gnomes clashing, so you’ll see reactions while you’re walking around all now and then if you’re a gnome.
The goblins are known for their large personalities. What’s your favourite character who isn’t a major NPC, but a humble shopkeeper or quest giver?
McCann: In 1 of the Delves with an underwater subject we have a insignificant character that will effort and sale you a water-breathing potion for a very advanced price. It’s meant to aid the players realize that there are things you can do to get around water-breathing, but you can ask them, “Hey, this is simply a truly advanced price,” and they’ll tell you “Well, I definitely didn’t go to the auction home and jack up the price.”
Powers: The goblin you talk to to customize your G-99 Breakneck. He’s my favourite NPC to talk to, due to the fact that erstwhile we were playtesting over and over, I kept going back to him to tinker my ride, to effort and perfect my drifting, to do donuts, or zip through the streets way besides fast.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Customization on the vehicles sounds fun, and I imagine it as akin to the Dragonflight strategy of upgrading your dragon. Will players be able to trick out their DRIVE car to suit their peculiar play style?
Powers: The upgrades aren’t strictly cosmetic. There are respective different colors you can unlock that my squad was fortunate adequate to work on and aid bring them to life, which are cool, but as far as kitting out your engine and fuel tanks, there’s no associated visuals.
Is there area for quite a few skill expression while driving? Will there possibly be players who make clutch maneuvers to get fresh records? Or is it meant to be very accessible and players will be moving at a akin level?
McCann: I think we definitely are looking for the goal of a skill level where quite a few people can get in and enjoy it. You want to make certain that the drive strategy isn’t a thing erstwhile you hop in and it’s something you gotta watch a million tutorials to be able to enjoy. You should be able to hop in and realize it. But just like with dragonriding, you’ll start to kind of learn the ins and outs of things. So there will be a curve, but the goal is that right away, it should just feel fantastic to zoom around and drive in.
The planet quest strategy has become a bit of a chore to any players, with feedback about the amount of steps they can take. erstwhile it comes to Undermined and the day-to-day of people playing in it as an endgame zone, what does that look like?
McCann: We learned quite a few lessons from all the experiences you’ve had with planet quests. I’ve been there for the feedback of, ‘We don’t like planet quests that are 5 steps long.’ I think any of the benefits for endgame is that we have planet quests, we have working with the different cartels, we have the DRIVE system, we have improvements to delves, and so you can experience Undermined by having a good breadth of things you can participate in if you’re focused on solo play. For group content, we have the raid, the fresh Mythic Plus dungeons coming out, and so the goal is to have a very good breadth of things and take all the learnings we’ve had from our erstwhile endgame activities, and punch it up a bunch for Undermined.
Delves have been a popular feature so far. Can you share anything as to what scenarios players can expect?
McCann: We learned a lot from the delves in period 1; there’s quite a few goblin-focused delves right now, like there are goblins in the Waterworks, and while there’s no more poison in the air, they made things worse due to the fact that there’s poison spewing in another places. There’s besides any off-the-wall ones, like, we did a Dark Iron Dwarf who is trying to get any treasure with a mole device to attack your enemies in the area, due to the fact that the goblins are besides trying to get to that treasure. There’s another truly fun 1 we have, with the shenanigans of goblins trying to snake into the Underkeep and get to a shady black marketplace business in that area.
Something I’m truly excited about in delves is Brann being able to tank, due to the fact that we now have the full spectrum of heal, DPS, and tanks specs for him. I’m excited to get in there with my Holy Priest and heal Tank Brann, or my Retribution Paladin with Healer Brann. That’s 1 of the things I think we did a truly large occupation with.
This is more silly, but we have a communicative for period 2, with a fresh nemesis called the Underpin who believes he bought the deed to all the delves from individual named “Gallywax” and so on, but 1 of his biggest crimes is that he stole Brann’s hat. We can’t have Brann go around hatless. He just can’t do that! That would be obscene! So we randomized, like, 15 different hats he could wear, and with the way our tech works is that if you wipe in a delve, Brann changes hats. I’m truly excited about seeing people’s reactions to what you can do erstwhile he does get his hat back and you defeat the nemesis.
Powers: On the art side of things, Undermine is simply a massive, sprawling urban metropolis and the heart of the goblin trade empire. There’s so much that goes into making a city for World of Warcraft, an incredible amount of item that the art squad has put into Undermine, and I hope that players will halt and — well, smelling the roses isn’t the right thing to say. odor the fake plants and trees.
