A new user interface is coming in World of Warcraft: Dragonflight. The patch, which includes skill trees, professions and a brand new user interface for all classes in the game, is waiting for game lovers on October 26, that is, today. The names in the team that designed these innovations in the game talked about new developments and designs.
Job Design, Symbols, Logos
Joanna Gianulis – User Experience Designer:
“We really wanted to reflect some of the professional fantasy in the game directly in the user interface. We had wonderful coats of arms representing parties and classes, but until now we had never had crests for our professions! We were mostly inspired by in-game objects, moving them into the user interface so that they represent each profession. Our goal here was for each coat of arms to depict vehicles and items with an air of mystery that would lead people to discover whatever their profession was.”
Xiaodong Xu – Supporting UI Artist:
“The professions in the game are a phenomenon that I personally feel very close to (I collected almost every Engineering scheme with my Gnome Warrior in Classic). So, when I had the opportunity to make a new design for each of them with our professions update, I knew I had to do my best. My main goal for each table was not only to create a separate production area specific to each profession, but also to make people who identify themselves as master craftsmen feel at home. Along with the designs, I tried to offer the opportunity to approach this fantasy. I tried to sprinkle as many attractive visuals as I could for each profession, and even to place small surprises on all of them. For example, there is an image of Runed Copper Rod on the Enchanting table and Arclight Spanner on the Engineering table. As someone who has selected and developed Engineering in many characters over the years, this job has not only given me tremendous nostalgia, but it has also been a fun opportunity to add new and beautiful technologies to the aesthetics of Engineering. I hope these tables will give some enjoyment to all our professionals and craftsmen in Azeroth!”
Jordan Powers – Decor Supervisor:
“When designing the banner symbols of shops and professions, we focused primarily on their legibility. All symbols can now be easily distinguished, even when flying over the skies of the city of Thaldraszus. When designing depictions for culture sets, it’s always challenging to make each one instantly recognizable and unique and different.”
Niko Gesell – Assistant Decorator:
“I wanted the Herbalism set to look quite ordinary and like the kind of garment that every gardener on Azeroth would wear, rather than a very extreme depiction of fantasy. In WoW, we have fancy armor enchanted with spells, but I always like to make such modest equipment.
I hope players can fulfill their fantasies of becoming the grass-picking explorers of Azeroth with this set!
Sukjoo Choi – Senior Character Artist:
“While we have many kinds of fishing rods in WoW, we’ve never had a mechanically themed Goblin fishing rod. The mechanical engineering of the goblin race represents a fairly advanced technology in the World of Warcraft universe. I hoped that if I could combine this phenomenon with Fishing skill, I would make players feel that they were reaching a high level of expertise in their passion. “
Tailoring is a very basic craft. The purpose of this concept was to give a visual identity to the players who had chosen Tailoring. In short, this concept is a set that depicts a tremendous-looking craftsman in the style of Warcraft. The tailor’s scissors visual was inspired by an anime. I don’t remember his name, but one of the characters was using a pair of scissors for the purpose of a gun. So I thought it would be nice if this was a weapon typical of the Tailoring profession. For the robe, we were inspired by the clothing of a medieval royal tailor.
Jay Nam – Character Artist
When creating them, our goal was to capture a visual that was consistent with glasses created in the past, with fun animations and effects. When I started sketching, we thought the light bulb image could be an attractive element. The bulb was also a highly functional idea for engineers working in a poorly lit place. So we focused on this idea, and I polished and simplified the design, and then modeled the material and added texture. In the end, we had two different varieties themed Goblin and Gnome in turn.
Jon McConnell – Senior Character Artist II
Our original idea behind the helmet of this set was that we didn’t want to design a pair of glasses for Engineering players again. So we walked from the idea of a welding mask and designed a small gap for long-nosed breeds as well.
I wanted something like a bolt wrench for the purpose of a power tool. Ultimately, we settled on the duo of hammer and bolt wrench. I hope this set will be of great use to Engineering players of all races, especially the Vulperas.
Kaylee Gifford – supporting character artist
Talent Tree and Dashboard UI Concepts
We wanted the new Talent trees to be brand new and exciting, but also to have a familiar feel. We’ve used shapes to transfer different types of Talent to the player: squares for active abilities, rounds for passive abilities, octagons for the parts where we can choose between two Talents.
We’ve also included some quality of life improvements. For example, the formation system and the search bar. But at the same time, we have made a lot of effort to keep the interface clean and not to put too much burden on the player.
For the background, we carefully selected visual designs that would depict the actor’s chosen class with an epic feel.
We want the visuals to make the player crave to play their character!
Jeff Liu – Senior User Experience Designer
With the user interface refresh, the designs of the action bars have also been upgraded to 4K resolution. Gryphons will decorate the action bars of Alliance players, and Wyverns will decorate those of Horde players. Through the new Edit Mode, both designs can be turned off for a simple action bar view. These visuals were originally designed by UI Artist Casey Graham, and then I was asked to polish and finalize them.
Mats Myrvold – Senior Artist
When revamping the dashboard design, my main goal was to modernize the overall functionality and aesthetics of the user interface. We’ve made plans to get rid of unnecessary details in the gaming space and add some visibility to World of Warcraft. The user interface design has been designed to use customizable options in sync with Edit Mode, and has been updated to support 4K resolution.
Casey Graham – User Interface Artist
press release
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