During our time in Irvine, California, visiting Blizzard HQ, we had the opportunity to sit down with Associate Design Director Maria Hamilton and Lead Prop Artist Jordan Powers to chat about World of Warcraft’s latest expansion, the War Within. In particular, we learned about the expansion setting, the brand-new zone of Khaz Algar. We discussed the development team’s goals, design processes and what to expect when players descend and discover the incredible expanse below the Azeroth’s surface.
For new and returning players, can you introduce the new Zone and how it fits into the existing World of Warcraft and the new expansion, the War Within?
Maria Hamilton: So, Khaz Algar is this area off the coast of Pandaria and Kalim Dor, sort of in the southwest corner of our World Map. It has been isolated for a very long time. A very, very long time.
The first creatures we meet in Khaz Algar are the Earthen, who we’ve met before. These Earthen have been isolated; they’ve been here since they were given edicts and told by the Titans what to do before they left. Since they left, these Earthen have been trying to follow the Titans’ instructions as faithfully as possible, but time has caused their society to fracture a bit. There are Earthen who want to follow the Titans, but there are some who want to do their own thing, and there are others who are just frantically trying to keep the machines going, and they are struggling as a group.
So, the Isle of Dorn is the first Zone with the City of Dornogal, and we will be mainly based out of there.
Jordan Powers: The Zone directly beneath Dornogal is the Ringing Deeps, and this is the first step that players will take underground as they venture deeper and deeper into the War Within. This is a beautiful zone; openings in the cavern ceiling unleash these God Rays and make these beautiful cenotes into lush mineral pools and whatnot.
It’s a cool juxtaposition next to the heavy industry that takes place here, where the Earthen have their big Titan machines.
We encounter a variety of cultures and characters down here. Of course, one of the returning fan favourites is the Kobolds. They’ve been around since World of Warcraft Vanilla, and fans are going to be really excited to dig deeper into the stories that we have woven for them.
Directly beneath that is Hallowfall.
MH: Hallowfall is pretty cool because the Ringing Deeps are a little tighter and resemble more natural caverns, but as you come into Hallowfall, it’s just this huge, vast cavern that opens right up; you can barely see the boundaries of the walls.
A huge crystal embedded in the ceiling projects down shining light but occasionally goes dark. When it does, it becomes very dangerous and horrible things come out of the endless sea stretching into the distance.
The airships are one of the most notable things as you enter this Zone. You have to wonder why there are airships so far underground – which is good because we want you to wonder and ask questions here.
In Hallowfall, you’ll find the City of Mereldar, where the Arathi live and where they have been engaged in this ongoing war with the Nerubians. The Nerubians have been attacking non-stop, and the Arathi have been trying to push them back, but the Arathi are few, and the Nerubians are many, so it has been a serious battle for them, and they are getting worn down and getting tired.
From there, we go down into Azj-Kahet.
JP: Azj-Kahet is really the big pay-off that fans have been looking for in regards to the Nerubians, an older race that we encountered back in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King.
This is their civilisation and their city that we get to explore, so there are a lot of cool opportunities for us to not only give a nod to the ones that we encountered in WOTLK but also shed new light on how they live as a society, the different echelons of their culture. Things that we weren’t able to explore in previous expansions, we are able to explore now.
It is a vast city that feels otherworldly and has dark elegance. It’s full of fun, cool stories and lots of creepy crawly things, and we think players will be really excited to explore this place.
When designing the new expansion, where did you start, and what were your goals from the beginning?
MH: We’re in the first chapter of the World of Warcraft Worldsoul Saga, so we’re setting things up for that larger story arc. We’re also telling a story within the War Within that should feel and be satisfying by its conclusion.
The first thing we thought about is ‘what are the important pieces that we need to see using that runway and across the entire Saga?’ What were the cultures? What were the creatures? What art kits would we need? How would we build this descent into the Earth?’
There was a lot of pre-production creative thinking and visual development, which included some amazing art made by our artists. Sometimes we have one idea and somebody will show up with a painting and we’ll be like ‘oh, nope! We want that, that’s better!’ and there was a lot of that going on as we talked about how we would build this out and where we wanted to have our moments of surprise and delight. I can tell you that vista, as you come into Hallowfall for the first time, we have a painting of that, and when we first saw it, we went, ‘Let’s do that!’.
Early on, there was a lot of inspiration and conversation about narrowing down the story and figuring out what kind of structure we wanted. For the art processes themselves, they do a 2D map, and once they like the layout, they’ll go to 3D, and then it gets artsy and fancy. Jordan can tell you about that.
JP: Everything we do in World of Warcraft is a team effort. It’s a very creative and collaborative process, and a lot of those early talks that Maria mentioned start with a lot of ‘hey wouldn’t it be cool if…’ and ‘Yeah, it would be cool if…’ and then we explore that.
Our amazing visual development team creates these beautiful concepts that fuel our discussions about what we’re doing and where we’re going and the themes and stories we want to tell.
When designing a new continent, do you already know how many Zones you want to include?
MH: We experiment a bit. We tend to target a certain amount, but sometimes it doesn’t feel right. A couple of our Zones, during early development, change size or parts of one might get moved to another one when there are times that we go, ‘That’s an amazing space, but you know what, this other area needs it more’.
Now that we have Skyriding, we have to consider how players traverse space and how quickly they can do so because that also contributes to how long or deep we want the zone to be.
Generally speaking, it’s not so much a count of zones as it is a
Dragonflight was huge, the largest we have ever done, and it was pretty hard to fill all that space. We’ve been trying to find the right sizes to make it exciting and fun to fly through, but at the same time, we need to fill it with interesting activities.
JP: From an art perspective, it’s a very organic process. We have different biomes that we want to fit into each Zone, but there are times when we plan for a certain number or types of biomes in a Zone, and it’s really cool, but it feels too cramped, so we’ll pull it aside for another Zone or see if we can use the same themes to balance out a different area.
Can you tell us more about the process of designing the defining elements and unique visual essence of each Zone?
JP: We have broad strokes whenever we’re designing things. We have a big picture of what we’re trying to achieve collectively. As the World Art Team, we make a list of biomes and a bestiary of the types of creatures that occupy each of them.
How did the Isle of Dorn become the introduction point for the War Within?
MH: We wanted to start you with something more familiar because we want you to be increasingly surprised as you go down.
Isle of Dorn is the most normal of our Zones, and when we go down to the Ringing Deeps, you are maybe surprised by the lush greenery and the cenotes – you probably expect the heavy industry, but it’s still interesting and exciting because it’s Titan Works and that’s cool. Then you go down to Hallowfall, and it’s like, ‘What is going on here?’ it’s very surprising, with airships and ocean and crystals that change colour. It’s weird. When you go down to Azj-Kahet and it’s like ‘Wait a minute, there’s a spider city down here that’s been hidden for a really long time?’
We were intentionally going for a more familiar to less familiar vibe and an increasing feeling of danger as you go down.
What about your personal favourite areas or experiences and elements in those areas?
MH: Oh wow, how do you choose? It’s like picking a favourite child.
JP: For me, it’s got to be Hallowfall. Mereldar is so cool, there’s giant DaVinci-esque machinery going on, there are airships, there is a lot of lore for players to discover and Easter Eggs that we’ve sprinkled throughout the art to support those bits of lore. Every area of New Mereldar just feels lived in, it feels alive and I think that’s a real triumph. I’m really proud of that.
MH: I really like Hallowfall as well, but I’ll go with Azj-Kahet. In Azj-Kahet we have this concept of a city that has built upon itself for generation after generation after generation. As you go down underneath the City, you see the decaying ruins of what was there before and I like that feeling of ancient past and danger down there. It’s not great for people who are afraid of spiders – though we do have an arachnophobia mode – there are places where there are just holes that creepy things come out of, and there are pits you can fall into where there are spiders. It’s just a hit of creepy horror and I think the artists have done a phenomenal job in creating that atmosphere.
We have these blooms, odd, almost alien-looking flowers down there, that are interesting shades of magenta that go well with Nerubians. When you think of Nerubians, you think of purples, magentas, burgundy, and those kinds of colours, so we’ve got that in the foliage as well, and I really like the vibe.
There are some beautiful places in what is essentially a terribly creepy place.
The World of Warcraft development team is notoriously on the pulse of community feedback. Have you had any particularly interesting or unexpected feedback so far?
MH: You’re right; we’re listening to feedback very much. We do a great deal of collection of that and it gets sent out in regular reports to our team so that we can get both anecdotal statements people are making as well as a variety of statistics around different things, for example ‘a lot of people are dying in this spot, it seems like trouble’ or ‘not many people are taking this path, they’re taking that path’ and other things like that that are very helpful to us.
We expected the big reaction we’re getting for the Hallowfall and its crystal. We’re enjoying hearing people geek out over moments in Ringing Deeps. The Kobold Village in particular, has inspired a fair bit of feedback because of course, it’s all about candles and wax, so the idea that there are big brutish Kobolds with bigger candles and the Candle King has a snuffer that he carries around to snuff out people’s candles.
I don’t know if I was expecting people to be so enthused about Azj-Kahet to be honest. It’s creepy, and that’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but players seem to really like it.
When the story takes you through there, we’ve got some humour that I think helps lighten the mood a little bit, which is good because there are some very scary optional stories there, too.
JP: From an art perspective too, we always try to keep a pulse on feedback. One of the big things we’re mindful of when we get these reports that Marie mentioned is player navigation. Often, we’ll work on a Zone for an extended period of time so we’ll have the luxury of knowing where everything is, but players don’t always have that, so we get feedback to brighten certain assets or make landmarks easier for players or more distinct. We always try to be mindful of those sorts of things and address feedback where we can.
MH: One really good example is that our Zones are stacked, and because it’s contiguous, there isn’t a load in between. Sometimes, when you’re trying to go up or down, the transitions between Zones are less clear than you might expect, and it might not be obvious where exactly you need to go to leave a Zone. For this expansion, we had to improve our map so that it was easier for players to look at it and know how to transition between different Zones.
World of Warcraft: The War Within is available now via Battlenet for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. You can access World of Warcraft and WoW Classic, including Cataclysm Classic, Season of Discovery, and Hardcore Realms with a single subscription. Purchase the War Within separately to journey through never-before-seen subterranean worlds of Khaz Algar, investigate the malevolent plans of the Harbinger of the Void, and deliver justice upon the servants of the Shadow.
The Author of this article travelled to the USA as a guest of Blizzard.
