World of Warcraft looks like it’s going to keep plugging along and talk up the upcoming arrival of Update 9.2: Eternity’s End in spite of a generally disinterested reaction to the patch and the recent revelations of its ongoing harassment and pay inequality problems. To that point, we’re now getting an interview with lead game designer Morgan Day, who was brought on to The Starting Zone podcast to talk about several of 9.2’s features.
Day talked about the zone of Zereth Mortis and the Cypher of the First Ones that helps players understand the First Ones’ musical language. Interaction with this zone will largely involve working with Poke Poke, a highly customizable automata, while the Cypher is described as similar to the Box of Many Things in Torghast. For those who don’t care about sing-songy First Ones, they can choose to ignore the Cypher entirely, since it has no connections to raid power.
Speaking of raids, Day also talked about the Sepulcher of the First Ones’ raid design, calling out mistakes learned in the Tomb of Sargeras raid and the fight with Sylvanas that are being applied to the Sepulcher. The raid features a flight network within the encounter that expands when bosses are defeated, which will reset when the raid resets though shortcuts are being planned.
Day also talked about the upcoming gear tier sets that are arriving in 9.2, confirming that there will be new legendaries that require a currency called Cosmic Flux to upgrade them. Cosmic Flux is inspired by Echoes of Nyalotha, and can be earned from nearly every endgame activity including raids, M+, World Quests, and even Torghast. Cosmic Flux can also be used alongside a Creation Catalyst to create tier set pieces from other activities such as M+ or raids. As for previous legendary ranks, those will still require their old upgrade materials, but getting those goods is said to be easier.
The interview further talks about timegating and its importance to story, some steps to address the problems with Conduit acquisition, and updates to Torghast and Tazavesh. The full interview is embedded below while Wowhead has some bullet points.
