World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Interviews

Three new World of Warcraft interviews have surfaced, with two of them focusing primarily on Cataclysm and another that looks back at Wrath of the Lich King’s development.

The Cataclysm Q&As are on GamingShogun and IGN, though only the former is in text form:

GS) Also, something that has been bothering a lot of purists is that Taurens will be able to become Paladins when it is not in keeping with their usual lore. Why was this decision made?

GregS) We knew that a big part of Cataclysm is giving players a chance to go back and see their old content in a brand new way and a great way to do that is to re-roll a new character and a great way to encourage that is to give them new things they could be. So we tried to find some new classes we could put on the old races. We picked some safe ones – no one is objecting to the Gnome Priest but when we got to the Taurens we though the story of Cataclysm is about change – everything is different now. So we wanted to pick a few that were a little controversial just to sell the fact that the rules you knew are different.

We actually have already started selling the idea of a Tauren Paladin. There are NPCs now in Thunder Bluff that are starting to have conversations about ‘You know, we have always been traditionally Druids but maybe there is another way’. They are starting to talk about the sun in addition to the moon which has always been tied to Druid magic.

And the Wrath of the Lich King Q&A is on GBASE:

Q: Do you share the feeling that the Deathknight overshines the other classes a bit? And if so, what would be the plan to give the rest of the show a bit more sex appeal?

A: I definitely think that this is true to some degree. There were a couple of areas in the game where the Deathknight had been overpowered, and we have taken measures over the last two patches to tone that down a bit. For example they had been tanking a bit too good. They had too many good mitigation buttons to stop incoming damage. They were a little bit too strong in PvP due to those abilities, and at the same time dealing a little bit too much damage. So to bring that back into line with the other classes is what we need to keep doing.