Taliesin & Evitel Narrative Interview with Maria Hamilton - Dalaran, Xal'atath, and Azeroth

wowhead.com:

In an interview with Associate Design Director Maria Hamilton, Taliesin & Evitel discuss the challenges of planning a narrative over three expansions in the World Soul Saga, where each expansion is at in terms of development, who Xal'atath really serves, and whether or not Azeroth is really a Titan!

A Story in Several Parts

• The world soul saga is a very large story to tell, with a lot of pieces from previous expansions. Telling it as a trilogy allows each expansion to have a satisfying individual story, while progressing through the overall story arc.

• It's new for them, but creates an opportunity for better pacing and foreshadowing, since they know what story is coming ahead of time… though they're very busy working on three expansions at one time!

• They'll still have an engaging and entertaining story in each expansion, but it will also set up elements to resolve later over a longer period of time. They're planning to provide the expansions faster than in the past, so it might not necessarily take six years to get through all of them, but the hope is that building it as a trilogy causes players to look forward to what comes next. They want to get the pacing right.

• The biggest challenge is continuity, which is to be expected. Coordinating such a large team means a lot of meetings to make sure everyone is communicating and on the same page.

• The art team is already going nuts on the third expansion, The Last Titan, creating phenomenal creature and environmental concept art. Meanwhile, the world builders are very hard at work on Midnight, building maps for other designers to start building quests and spawning creatures. The narrative designers want to make sure they're building spaces that can be used to tell the stories they have planned, and sometimes they all have to adapt if plans change.

• Maria does know the ending of the World Soul Saga already, but she's not telling us! They know where they're starting, they know what stakes they're