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Gameplanet: Speaking of phasing tech, the Worgen and Goblins have phasing starting zones, are you planning to add phasing tech to the other starter zones?

Stockton: You’ll see some, in some of the starter zones. It’s not in every one. The big thing about the phasing tech is that we can now do it on an individual basis. It doesn’t have to require a building or something to change, we can now take a player and just throw them into a phase.

For example, on a quest we might send you to go kill a specific quest mob. When we do that now, we can phase you and have that mob act like you’re the only person there – no other players are visible. It creates a much more customised experience, we can do a cinematic, you’ll get more of an individual set up. So you’ll see a lot of that happening, as well as what you saw in the [new] starter zones where the whole world actually changes.

Gameplanet: And obviously that’ll cut down on crowding on quest mobs.

Stockton: Well that’s the biggest thing! We have a population control system already that says ‘Spawn X mobs based on the number of players in the area,’ but sometimes that’s just not enough – like on the day when the game goes live – so that’s when that individual phasing will be really useful.