The developers of World of Warcraft: Forever would very much like it if you would create multiple characters, please.

There are a number of reasons for that, including that having lower level characters means you'll be well set up to welcome new friends to the game, as well as to experience the new leveling zones and dungeons and encounters coming in future patches, the developers tell us in exclusive interviews. So they're building in a bunch of incentives.

"There will be reasons to play alts and to unlock Legacy points, to have new journeys," vice president and senior game director Ion Hazzikostas says.

The newest flavor of the juggernaut MMO launches November 4, and executive producer Holly Longdale says it's expected to be Warcraft's flavor of choice for people joining the game for the first time.

"If you're new, this is the one, right?" she says. "This is the lowest barrier to entry that we have going."

Part of the game is the Legacy System, which awards achievement-style points for major accomplishments that players receive in the game. Those points can be placed in talent-tree-style options that give players major quality of life improvements. Alts, additional characters, make stacking them up much easier.

Now I can say, 'You know what? I've got this level 20 guy I've been leveling. You can get there pretty quick. Let's group up and play together.'

Principal designer Kris Zierhut says he created elaborate spreadsheets attempting to guess what progression-minded players would choose as options for amassing those points, and creating alt characters to snag some of the easier low-level ones makes perfect sense versus aiming for all of the most-difficult points possible.

Source link