Welcome to the Maw. Once a place for the worst souls in the Shadowlands, World of Warcraft’s version of the afterlife, the region is now the place where the Jailer plots his domination over all realms. WoW fans have already explored the Maw and the fiendish tower of Torghast, but now the dark realm is expanding.
The Chains of Domination update is coming to World of Warcraft on June 29. Patch 9.1 adds a new region, Korthia, a city of secrets for you to plunder. It also adds a second Shadowlands raid, the sinister Sanctum of Domination, where you will face the Jailer’s worst creations and his lieutenant, the former Horde Warchief Sylvanas Windrunner. Those are the main events, but Chains of Domination also includes new Legendaries, the Shards of Domination items, and a new mega-dungeon.
To gain a deeper understanding of what’s coming next week, I spoke with two members of the World of Warcraft development team: lead game designer Morgan Day and lead narrative designer Steve Danuser. The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
PCMag: From a story perspective, players are gearing up to tackle Sylvanas Windrunner, which feels like a 9.2 or 9.3 addition. What has the team learned from concluding Vol’jin and Garrosh arcs, and how will that factor into Chains of Domination?
Steve Danuser: Sylvanas and Anduin’s arcs have been key areas of focus for us. We’ve done so much buildup over the years of Sylvanas’ arc, all the way from her pursuit of Arthas in Wrath of the Lich King to instigating the war between factions in Battle for Azeroth. So, we were very mindful of wanting Shadowlands to finally reveal those motivations that she’s had all this time.
Why has she done the things she’s done? Well, it’s been in service of this larger plan, where she feels this balance between death and life is broken and she wants to remake that. The Jailer is her conduit for doing so, and thus she formed that partnership with him.
But as we’ve seen through Shadowlands, there’s been cracks of doubt coming in. In the process of trying to convert Anduin to their cause, he has raised some uncomfortable questions for her that she’s had to ponder. We’ve seen that come to light in some of the amazing cinematics that we have for 9.0, and that storyline continues in Chains of Domination. As we get closer to understanding the Jailer’s full plan, we can see Sylvanas’ role in that come into the light. She’s going to face those things that have been gnawing away at the corners of her mind through the course of her interactions with Anduin.
So, we really wanted to make that Sylvanas story something that was clear and understandable for our players. Whenever you have a lot of mystery about the motivations of a character, it can lead to lots of speculation. Now she’s dropped her mask, she’s shown what her goal is. And now it comes down to: Is she going to go through with it? We feel like this encounter in the Sanctum of Domination raid is really a moment to pull all those threads together. Once you understand what the Jailer’s trying to achieve, her being caught up in that is a really pivotal story moment for Chains of Domination and the rest of the Shadowlands story to follow.
Morgan Day: One of the exciting things for us when we’re talking about the fight itself, the encounter…there’s so much inspiration to draw from. We really wanted to make sure we nailed that, and that’s been a lot of fun to chase and execute.
It is a very epic encounter, to say the least. Not to get too deep into the spoiler territory, but one of the things that I think is really exciting is we may fight her at the precipice of the Sanctum of Domination, at the very top looking out upon the Maw, but that doesn’t mean that’s where the fight ends. It goes through several different locations as you engage with her, and there’s a lot of story to tell; not only with her, but in that encounter itself.
Steve Danuser: We definitely try to learn from the lessons of the past, and get better at storytelling. So that’s been a focus this time: telling a very clear story about the afterlife, the characters that are there, the menace that the Jailer poses, and what Sylvanas’ role in this is. We’re really excited about the story implications of Chains of Domination, and beyond.
PCMag: The raid loot now looks to make more diegetic sense, with Sylvanas dropping her bow. How did you handle complaints that some specs don’t get that super legendary weapon?
Morgan Day: It’s definitely one of those things that’s discussed, especially when you think about it from the perspective of the really high-end. A lot of people are like, “Oh, why don’t I get the legendary bow?” But everyone, first of all, has a legendary, right? With the addition of Runecarving in the Shadowlands, everyone has an opportunity to get really cool legendaries. With the Chains of Domination update, we’re adding several new legendaries, one for each Covenant class combination. If you’re a Venthyr Priest and you love Mind Games, there’s now a legendary that you can go out and craft that will make Mind Games even better.
When it comes to storytelling, when it comes to people’s expectations, it’s “I want that bow.” It didn’t start out as a legendary when we were discussing it in the development process. But we really loved the idea of, “I want to wield that bow, I want to pick that up,” and “what if it was evocative of [Sylvanas] as a very skilled archer?” If I’m a hunter, I want to have some of that power. So we thought, “Well, what if we grant you an ability?” That sounds awesome. That led us down the rabbit hole of, “This is way cooler than just a normal epic, right?”
There’s a whole separate conversation about the tuning of it. We talked about [Dragonwrath, Tarecgosa’s Rest] way back when casters had that in a different raid tier. We’ve definitely learned some lessons about that, but we felt like this was too cool of an opportunity to pass up.
PCMag: The addition of a visible Mythic+ rating is an intriguing idea. What was the thought behind this, and are you worried this will make pre-made groups more exclusionary?
Morgan Day: So in the Chains of Domination update, we’re adding what we’re calling Mythic+ score. There was a lot of discussion around this, and I can kind of step you through what we’re thinking and our goals there. I’m sure you’re aware, but there’s a very popular add-on called Raider.io and a lot of people use that to help find like-minded, like-skilled people to do Mythic+ with.
We were looking at this, and discussing it in a very similar light to something that’s come to pass before. There was a Gear Score add-on, which at the time was also very popular, and we had since then integrated that in our game with Item Level. It was a similar idea back then, as well; people were looking for some way to try to gauge a player’s interest and skill.
With our own Mythic+ rating, one of the things that we’re really excited about is the fact that we can also add additional elements to help incentivize the behaviors that we think would be more healthy and more social. Let’s say the group of us are going to go to our Keystone for the night, and we’ve all done this dungeon a bunch of times. If we bring someone to our group who’s actually going to gain rating from completing the dungeon—maybe the four of us wouldn’t get any rating because we’ve done it a bunch of times—we’ll get additional benefits. You’ll gain bonus [Valor Points] for completing that dungeon. Maybe you can cap your Valor for the week with fewer dungeons by bringing along people who could use a hand.
This is definitely something that we’re going to keep a close eye on, but we feel like there’s a lot of interesting and compelling things that this opens the door for us to explore. I just mentioned Valor; we added that system in our 9.05 update, and, right now, it runs completely off of achievements, which can feel a little opaque to our player base. So we wanted to draw a parallel to what we added with [Conquest Points]. Very clear ratings that you can earn, and when you hit a rating, you can upgrade your gear. It’s a very clear one-to-one. You see it in the UI, and the little NPC tells you what you need. We can use a similar rating for our Valor upgrades moving forward.
PCMag: Another plot gaining steam is the Night Warriors, with Tyrande at their helm. Is that a 9.0 plotline, or something we can expect to bleed into future expansions?
Steve Danuser: She took on that power during Battle for Azeroth in the Battle for Darkshore update. Then in the 9.0 portion of Shadowlands, we delved into the implications of that power that she had taken on, and we saw what a toll it was taking on her. This power of a goddess channeled into a mortal—even one as powerful as Tyrande—has dire consequences.
If you played the Ardenweald campaign, you got to meet other Night Warriors from other worlds that had taken on that power and paid the ultimate price. It killed them all. That kind of set the stakes for what was happening with Tyrande. Shandris, her daughter, tried to help her and we went on an adventure with her to pull Tyrande back from this brink. She’s so driven by that power, she’s so driven by her need for justice and vengeance against Sylvanas. That desire is threatening to consume her, and that storyline comes to the fore again in Chains of Domination
Now players of all Covenants get to partake in this storyline. There’s a quest line that deals with the implications of that, and there are some really tremendous cinematics that haven’t been leaked yet on our [Public Test Realm]. Once the update goes live next week, players will be able to see it for themselves. There are really satisfying answers that come to the fore when you play through that quest line and we get to see Tyrande have something of a resolution with that power.
PCMag: Given the data mining and the PTR, World of Warcraft stands in a pretty unique position in that players are constantly engaging with work that’s not finished. How do you handle development under that kind of process?
Steve Danuser: First and foremost, it’s a testament to how excited players are that they want to look ahead at things that are a work in progress. They’re so hungry for that knowledge of the story and where it’s going, that they’re willing to go to those data mining sites. So, in that sense, it’s an honor that people are that invested that they’re willing to do that.
We deliberately put our content on the PTR so that it can be played through and tested. In that sense, we know that people are going to experience the content. That’s a benefit for us because they are great partners in helping us find ways to improve that content and fix bugs. We’re tremendously grateful to those players who engage with it on PTR.
Unfortunately, when little snippets of content are taken out of context, they cause confusion or lead people to draw incorrect conclusions. We put our character dialog and cutscenes on PTR so those players can actually play through the content and see that stuff in context, rather than getting random lines from a data-mining site and trying to put the puzzle pieces together in often incorrect ways.
I’m totally fine with that stuff coming out as long as there’s the correct context for it. That said, in Chains of Domination, there are some little bits, like cutscenes, that players haven’t experienced. We kept a little epilogue chapter from going to PTR, because it had a lot of story spoilers in it. We wanted to save that for people to experience for themselves as they played through the content.
Morgan Day: Hitting the quality bar that our players expect is paramount for us. Leveraging our PTR and our excited player base to give us feedback, and potentially find bugs while we’re still on a test realm environment, is extremely valuable for us.
PCMag: Shards of Domination are the new socket from the raid. Is there another way for non-raiders to acquire them, or are they raid-only gear? Some people see them as a replacement for tier sets; is that the intention?
Morgan Day: Shards of Domination is us taking a crack at addressing some of that feedback by adding something that feels very unique to the raid itself. We really wanted to grasp on to that fantasy, of the different elements that we’ve seen of the past, like Shadowmourne, Frostmourne, and a lot of this rune carving that takes place within Torghast. The way that those work is there are gems that will drop out of the raid, off of individual bosses, that are unique. There are also specific, fixed items; it’s not a random chance to get a socket. There are certain items that will have sockets on them, and then you’ll acquire gems from different raid bosses.
When you socket three of the same type of gem—there are three new types: Frost, Shadow, and Blood—there will be a unique effect that becomes active. I guess you could call it a socket bonus, and it only becomes available while you’re within the Maw. That includes Korthia, which is our new area that we’ve added within the Maw in the Chains of Domination update, the Maw itself, Torghast, as well as the raid. It won’t be active in say, Mythic+, PvP, or things like that, but then there are much smaller bonuses on the individual gems themselves. It’s more themed to the fantasy of those gems, so the Blood gem might give you some Leech.
This is mostly our attempt at creating really cool, unique itemization within the raid, where people can say, “We’ve killed all the bosses. Why are we doing the raid? Well, we still have our Shards of Domination and we want to keep powering them up.”
In terms of your second question: We’ve definitely talked about tier sets as something that we want to revisit. We’ve heard tons of feedback from our player base about really enjoying tier sets. Not only from an aesthetic perspective, but also from the idea of changing a rotation because you got a four-piece set. Different people are compelled by different things.
We’re not wholesale replacing that. This is a case of, “What’s the fantasy we’re working with? What makes the most sense here? What would the Jailer do with the weapons that he’s forging within Torghast?” Really chasing that fantasy.
PCMag: The Sanctum is the main patch focus, but players are also getting a mega-dungeon called Tazavesh, the Veiled Market. Narratively, how are you handling these mega-dungeons? They seem almost wholly self-contained, but will we see more them weave in and out of the “main” plot?
Steve Danuser: When we introduced the mega-dungeon concept in Legion, we chose Karazhan as the kind of place that felt like an epic setting where you could have that longer-form experience. It was kind of its own story within the setting of Legion. With Mechagon, we took a similar approach. We wanted it to be a standalone story that was linked to the zone outside, but it was separate from what was going on in Nazjatar, at the time.
Tazavesh is a story that is very much connected to what’s going on in the Shadowlands. We’ve met the Brokers from the beginning. They were kind of filtering around in Oribos, and we could tell that they were up to something. They were very interested in information and artifacts that we the adventurers had been uncovering and collecting through the course of our adventures, but we never quite knew what they were up to. Now with Chains of Domination, we delve into a really cool Broker-themed story.
It stands on its own tonally, because it’s a bit more of a fun, heist adventure. You learn of this Broker that’s on the trail of super-powerful artifacts that were created by the First Ones, the progenitors who created the Shadowlands and other cosmic realms. We find out that if this Broker requires these artifacts, it’s going to be very bad, and it’s going to upset the balance of power between the various Broker cartels.
We get plunged into this storyline that takes us into the streets of Tazavesh and, as the name implies, it’s this shady market where all kinds of deals are being brokered. We get to see a speakeasy. We see this mailroom that has portals bringing in packages of illicit goods from all corners of the cosmos, and we’ve got to deal with the craziness that ensues there. We’ve got that Broker on the trail of these artifacts and using portals to jump from location to location, even outside of Tazavesh to some other spots that may be familiar to players of World of Warcraft.
It’s been a really fun kind of change of pace. We want Tazavesh to be a breath of fresh air.
PCMag: WoW will be 17 years old this year. The idea of an MMO has even changed, with games like Destiny and The Division. What’s it like finding the spaces for excitement and innovation in a 17-year title?
Morgan Day: Yeah, that’s a fantastic question. I think WoW is always evolving. Something that we joke about, even within our own team, is we’re almost onto WoW 3.0, at this point. The game is so different, and it’s all constantly evolving. We’re constantly chasing new ideas and expanding the universe.
Shadowlands was almost like a twinkle in people’s eyes. When you die, you go into that weird realm. With such a broad universe and deep characters that we all care about, and in some cases, have literally grown up with, there’s always inspiration. Not only from our really awesome, excited community, but also from our team.
One of the greatest things about working on this game and on this team is that we are also passionate players of World of Warcraft. I’ve been playing it since, I think, the second alpha, where the level cap was level four. There’s tons of people with a similar story to mine on our team.
Steve Danuser: As storytellers, the whole tapestry of the Warcraft universe is so rich to draw upon. It gives us so many memorable characters and moments that we can reference. Shadowlands was a great opportunity to have lots of callbacks to some of that content that’s come before, because we had the advantage of characters who died in the past like Uther the Lightbringer.
Shadowlands also represents kind of a pivotal chapter in the story of WoW because it brings to a conclusion some threads that have been set up for a very long time, but it also opens the door to all-new chapters of the story. Shadowlands gives us an interesting cosmic road map to the powers of the universe. We’ve learned a lot of secrets, and there are many more mysteries yet to uncover that will affect the future of Azeroth and the heroes who fight for it. It’s a very exciting time to be a storyteller in the Warcraft universe, and to be a fan, as well.
Once you’ve torn through Tazavesh and the Sanctum of Domination, you might be on the hunt for more MMO goodness. Check out our list of the best MMO games, or listen to us talk about the latest trends in the world of video games on The Pop-Off.
