The first major patch of World of Warcraft‘s tenth expansion, The War Within, brings us to the goblin city of Undermine. Aptly named Undermined (stylized Undermine(d)), the champions of Azeroth dive deeper underground to help the different cartels free themselves of Gallywix’s control. The Undermined update brings a whole casino-sized bundle of new content at a level we’ve rarely seen with a major patch.
Some features could even be back-of-the-box features that expansions would make one of its tentpole items. We sat down with Associate Game Director Morgan Day and Associate Encounter Designer Katrina Yepiz to discuss everything in Undermined patch 11.1.
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Kicking things off, D.R.I.V.E, the new system that is set to revolutionize ground transportation in WoW. Ground mounts have seen next to no changes in the twenty years of the game’s existence. But, in 11.1, we are given a new set of wheels that can go faster than flying mounts and drift around the streets of Undermine. But is this a one-off feature to enhance the patch’s flavor?
Day explained why D.R.I.V.E. was added in the first place. “We knew we wanted to fulfill that fantasy of the mean city streets of Undermine and having it feel like this hustling and bustling city street where there are cars honking.” And with skyriding not being enabled, Day added, “Skyriding available down in the Undermine would very much undercut that fantasy and that experience we were looking to go for.” D.R.I.V.E. and the G99 Breakneck are intentionally not considered a mount.
“The G 99 breakneck is not a mount, right? It is a unique item that you interact with and use while you’re in the Undermine”, Day clarified. This leads to the ultimate question: what’s next for this system that could easily be a back-of-the-box feature for any expansion? Day explained, “In terms of, ‘is D.R.I.V.E. something that’s going to be in future updates? TBD. We’re always listening to player feedback. If that’s something that players are excited to see, we’re always open to those recommendations”. But for now, Day did confirm that in addition to street races, we will have “drifting courses as well.”
In addition to the D.R.I.V.E. system, the Undermined Update is introducing some fantastic music.
Battle, ambiance, and event soundtracks in themes and styles we’ve rarely ever heard of in World of Warcraft. We talked about what kind of work and collaboration went on between the design teams and the music teams to really bring the Undermine to life in this unique way. Yelpiz spoke specifically on her involvement with the music team and her work on the Liberation of Undermine raid, “talking to them (the music team) on their initial plans, during Rick Reverb’s exploration, we were talking a lot about his sound design and the music going into the patch, just what their ideas were.”
He continued, “A lot of them were like, ‘Oh, we just want to invoke that really fun city feeling. You’re in the mean streets of Undermine. What kind of sound invokes that best, other than some jazzy tunes. I think it just really matches the key fun in that.” For those curious about an in-depth look at what work went into the creation of [the Undermined Updates‘s] music, Day hinted that that wish would be granted soon.
“There’s a behind-the-scenes video that our community team is working on. We’ll dive into the creation of the sound of the Undermine.” While we don’t have a release date, at least we know that a video is forthcoming that the team will share with players, and I always appreciate these behind-the-scenes looks at how aspects of WoW are made that we really don’t regularly get a look at.
Along with major updates to the UI with quality of life changes and massive changes to crests since the launch of The War Within, one major gripe has been haunting players. Valorstones. The required currency to upgrade any piece of gear regardless of item level. We’ve seen Blizzard overhaul how crests, the sister currency to valorstones, are obtained. But what about this nuisance that always feels like there is never enough to quickly get to upgrade that fresh piece of gear?
Day confirmed, “Valorstones are something that we know as a hot topic in the audience right now. But a lot of our focus, especially mythic plus, has been on crest, because we know that often that becomes a limiting factor.”
Blizzard has heard the players’ feedback about valorstones with Patch 11.1.
To put into context how Blizzard views Valorstones, Day explained, “Where valorstones are, we recognize they’re definitely in a bit of a weird space where they matter so much early on in a season. Especially before you’ve gotten all the crests that you need, you’re mostly leaning on your valorstones to get your upgrades. Then, you get a saturation point where you don’t need those anymore. And your crests are your limiting factors. So you care a lot about them at the start, and that very much tapers off.”
But that doesn’t mean that they’re ignoring valorstones. Day explained, “We really recognize that that’s not the healthiest place for them to be. So we feel like there’s a lot we can do from a tuning perspective going into Season Two.” While not mentioning Mythic+ valorstone acquisition, Day did confirm that they will be dropping more in raids. ” I want to say we’re making some increases to them from raids; for instance, you’ll get quite a bit more.” But for now, Day finished this topic by confirming, “We definitely hear the community feedback and understand the problem space there.”
Finally, we talked about just how much content we’re getting in the Undermined Update. Quantitatively and qualitatively, it’s more than we’ve received in most recent major patches. How do decisions about what is added to a major patch get made? For a focus on Undermine, Day said, “this is such an iconic location. This is an area that you have heard about for years and have played Warcraft or any Warcraft IP. We wanted to make sure we met that expectation for the players and fulfilled the fantasy.” The additions in 11.1 aren’t all Undermine-focused, either.
“Even some of the UI features, like that event scheduler; that’s something that players have been asking for for a while. We wanted to continue to update and support these evergreen features that we’ve added in past expansions or added in this expansion.” Day elaborated further on the evolution of warbands, like the addition of Warband screens and how those came about.
“When we first announced warbands, I want to say the very next day, on community websites, they were just flooded with people like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t wait for other Warband screens.’ That was something that inspired the team. We almost immediately said, ‘Well, we have to add this, right?’ As for the sheer amount of content, Day finished this summary, “So it’s just really a commitment to developing and continuing to support World of Warcraft and provide players with awesome stuff that our team is inspired and energized by our community’s excitement.”
The Undermined Update, Patch 11.1, is poised to be one of the most exciting patches in quite some time. At the end of it, I believe it’ll go down as a top-five patch through its theming and letting the WoW team run with ideas to make this area come to life. For the future, I hope this excitement, internally and externally, continues. Because when we can feel the excitement of the developers when they make cool stuff, that just makes us players even more excited to play our favorite game.
World of Warcraft: The War Within is available now on PC. Patch 11.1, Undermined, launches on February 25th.
