The Future of Warcraft - Growth and Future Plans Interview with But Why Tho?

WoW Posted 2023/11/20 at 3:06 PM by Jezartroz

interview with But Why Tho?Worldsoul SagaThe Birth of Warcraft Rumble
“Well, the way we approach it is, we look at any genre, and we’re like, ‘hey, is there a game that we can create there that could really either define or redefine that genre?’ We start with the player. In this case, Tom loved action strategy games. He felt like he could have a different voice there, have a different new twist on it.”

Hight continued, “Not many strategy games and mobile have a very robust PvE experience, for instance. That’s how we will distinguish, hopefully, and that’s how we’ll add more depth to this genre. And so it’s the same thing when we look at targets, and we are looking at new projects all the time. That for the fun part of my job is people pitched to me. It’s like they have ideas for things they want to do. But I always look for, ‘Okay, is this literally going to be genre-defining? Is it one of our pillars? What’s the gameplay? What’s going to make this something people really want to do?”
The Classic Conundrumrecent announcement of the Season of Discovery Season-specific Runes
“We want to support . We do wrestle with the question of we start an alternate history or put new content in classic. We’re still kind of confining ourselves. We want to create a lot of cool gameplay and moments, and we’re willing to explore some variants, as you’ll see in raids that we’re doing. But we’re going to stick to the storyline that played out. That doesn’t mean that that’s completely off the table. The classic community has guided us in many ways. We thought we were just gonna do classic, and that was gonna be it. But they clearly love it, and we want to make them happy. So we’re continuing to support them. But we’ll continue to try and think of cool things, new things for them to do”.
Cosmic Threats and Player Safeguards
On the topic of future expansions and World of Warcraft‘s story returning to a more cosmic threat in the void, Hight talked about what safeguard are implemented to make sure that the player character and the overall story doesn’t go off the rails. Describing the team’s guidelines, “It’s not only Chris, we have a creative director for World of Warcraft itself. That’s Chris Robinson, was Senior Art Director for a long time. He actually works very closely with Chris, and he’s looking at literally every zone, every character, every quest line and reviewing it with that lens. It’s like, ‘Is this being consistent’ with who we believe this place or these individuals are?’ ‘Are we empowering the heroes in the players in a natural way, not in a way that feels wrong?'”

Hight gave a little more details on how these new zones are being implemented while also preserving their past usage in the game, “We’re giving our world builders some free rein to expand. Those areas may be geographically larger than they were. That’ll give them more opportunities to introduce some of the smaller points of interest where you’ll have a culture or a local tribe and give them the ability to have storylines that center on that. We don’t want people to feel like, oh, wait a minute, it’s that same place I know. It’s gonna feel like the same place; it’s just that it is literally going to be a little bit larger than what you’ve experienced. Flight being much more accessible, we need to have a larger landmass for people to be able to explore.”

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Comment by LandaiSounds like Quel'Thalas and Northrend will be getting more than a revamp. They may even make the zones larger. Cautiously optimistic about that.Comment by DekardcaiinI just cant wait to get into beta and see what all these "Hero" talents are all about.Comment by pawpurrYes, give me dragon isles style level design in quel'thalas and northrend, and I will throw my money at my monitor aggressively.Comment by ShikikanChanSounds like Quel'Thalas and Northrend will be getting more than a revamp. They may even make the zones larger. Cautiously optimistic about that.Comment by rezzykI'm starting to think we need to put Steve Danuser on the side of a milk cartonComment by AshleyOh cool, good for Chris Robinson. He used to field questions on the various panels pretty well.Comment by SoeroahGlad to hear they're boosting the sizes of the zones.

Scaling in WoW has always been a bit inconsistent. In terms of lore, the Broken Isles and Dragon Isles (not to mention Kul'Tiras and Zandalar) are much smaller than, say, Pandaria, but in gameplay terms they're the same size or bigger, because that leads to a better gameplay experience. It's like how Stormwind is meant to house tens of thousands of humans, but there are like 50 houses.

So when they said Quel'thalas was going to be a 'focus' for an expansion, it makes sense for them to revamp Eversong, Ghostlands and Silvermoon, maybe even Zul'aman, and turn them into four full-sized, Dragon Isles big zones. It wouldn't really be retconning anything, it'd just be scaling them more accurately to how the lore portrays them - where it can take a day to traverse, instead of minutes.

I'm eager to see what they add to the zones. When they do Northrend for TLT, I wonder if they'll finally have 'outdoor' Ulduar?Comment by LandaiGlad to hear they're boosting the sizes of the zones.

Scaling in WoW has always been a bit inconsistent. In terms of lore, the Broken Isles and Dragon Isles (not to mention Kul'Tiras and Zandalar) are much smaller than, say, Pandaria, but in gameplay terms they're the same size or bigger, because that leads to a better gameplay experience. It's like how Stormwind is meant to house tens of thousands of humans, but there are like 50 houses.

So when they said Quel'thalas was going to be a 'focus' for an expansion, it makes sense for them to revamp Eversong, Ghostlands and Silvermoon, maybe even Zul'aman, and turn them into four full-sized, Dragon Isles big zones. It wouldn't really be retconning anything, it'd just be scaling them more accurately to how the lore portrays them - where it can take a day to traverse, instead of minutes.

I'm eager to see what they add to the zones. When they do Northrend for TLT, I wonder if they'll finally have 'outdoor' Ulduar?Comment by MikeMJGThis really has to end. To real WOW players, we see time and money spent on something that already exists in live WOW. Only vanilla content is inaccessible to us. And now we see that every xpac will be released as classic on its own separate servers. So players that actually enjoyed vanilla content on live servers cant even revisit that content, yet people who start new characters on classic can. So thats a big FU to all veteran players.

I also can't comprehend how they deleted the TBC realms. The whole point is having each xpac separate right? But they removed TBC saying "well players can access TBC on the WOTLK realms" - which is ridiculous, since players can experience both the TBC content and WOTLK content in real WOW anyways (live WOW, that is).

Any new content added to a classic realm is a slap in the face for veteran players who play on live WOW. Good thing is when Cata classic comes, many will come back to retail/live WOW.

I will never understand why listening to 10,000 vocal players is more important than doing what millions of players want. Lets all hope classic realms get shut down, vanilla content is accessible in live WOW again and then players can enjoy every bit of content on one realm type, as it always should have been.Comment by aaron000This really has to end. To real WOW players, we see time and money spent on something that already exists in live WOW. Only vanilla content is inaccessible to us. And now we see that every xpac will be released as classic on its own separate servers. So players that actually enjoyed vanilla content on live servers cant even revisit that content, yet people who start new characters on classic can. So thats a big FU to all veteran players.

I also can't comprehend how they deleted the TBC realms. The whole point is having each xpac separate right? But they removed TBC saying "well players can access TBC on the WOTLK realms" - which is ridiculous, since players can experience both the TBC content and WOTLK content in real WOW anyways (live WOW, that is).

Any new content added to a classic realm is a slap in the face for veteran players who play on live WOW. Good thing is when Cata classic comes, many will come back to retail/live WOW.

I will never understand why listening to 10,000 vocal players is more important than doing what millions of players want. Lets all hope classic realms get shut down, vanilla content is accessible in live WOW again and then players can enjoy every bit of content on one realm type, as it always should have been.Comment by Drakknfyre“Well, the way we approach it is, we look at any genre, and we’re like, ‘hey, is there a game that we can create there that could really either define or redefine that genre?’Comment by AusteresThis really has to end. To real WOW players, we see time and money spent on something that already exists in live WOW. Only vanilla content is inaccessible to us. And now we see that every xpac will be released as classic on its own separate servers. So players that actually enjoyed vanilla content on live servers cant even revisit that content, yet people who start new characters on classic can. So thats a big FU to all veteran players.

I also can't comprehend how they deleted the TBC realms. The whole point is having each xpac separate right? But they removed TBC saying "well players can access TBC on the WOTLK realms" - which is ridiculous, since players can experience both the TBC content and WOTLK content in real WOW anyways (live WOW, that is).

Any new content added to a classic realm is a slap in the face for veteran players who play on live WOW. Good thing is when Cata classic comes, many will come back to retail/live WOW.

I will never understand why listening to 10,000 vocal players is more important than doing what millions of players want. Lets all hope classic realms get shut down, vanilla content is accessible in live WOW again and then players can enjoy every bit of content on one realm type, as it always should have been.Comment by FartyJoeThis really has to end. To real WOW players, we see time and money spent on something that already exists in live WOW. Only vanilla content is inaccessible to us. And now we see that every xpac will be released as classic on its own separate servers. So players that actually enjoyed vanilla content on live servers cant even revisit that content, yet people who start new characters on classic can. So thats a big FU to all veteran players.

I also can't comprehend how they deleted the TBC realms. The whole point is having each xpac separate right? But they removed TBC saying "well players can access TBC on the WOTLK realms" - which is ridiculous, since players can experience both the TBC content and WOTLK content in real WOW anyways (live WOW, that is).

Any new content added to a classic realm is a slap in the face for veteran players who play on live WOW. Good thing is when Cata classic comes, many will come back to retail/live WOW.

I will never understand why listening to 10,000 vocal players is more important than doing what millions of players want. Lets all hope classic realms get shut down, vanilla content is accessible in live WOW again and then players can enjoy every bit of content on one realm type, as it always should have been.Comment by deathtolifeYes, give me dragon isles style level design in quel'thalas and northrend, and I will throw my money at my monitor aggressively.Comment by CognateClockworkI'm starting to think we need to put Steve Danuser on the side of a milk cartonComment by CognateClockworkThis really has to end. To real WOW players, we see time and money spent on something that already exists in live WOW. Only vanilla content is inaccessible to us. And now we see that every xpac will be released as classic on its own separate servers. So players that actually enjoyed vanilla content on live servers cant even revisit that content, yet people who start new characters on classic can. So thats a big FU to all veteran players.

I also can't comprehend how they deleted the TBC realms. The whole point is having each xpac separate right? But they removed TBC saying "well players can access TBC on the WOTLK realms" - which is ridiculous, since players can experience both the TBC content and WOTLK content in real WOW anyways (live WOW, that is).

Any new content added to a classic realm is a slap in the face for veteran players who play on live WOW. Good thing is when Cata classic comes, many will come back to retail/live WOW.

I will never understand why listening to 10,000 vocal players is more important than doing what millions of players want. Lets all hope classic realms get shut down, vanilla content is accessible in live WOW again and then players can enjoy every bit of content on one realm type, as it always should have been.Comment by TigerAceRay“Well, the way we approach it is, we look at any genre, and we’re like, ‘hey, is there a game that we can create there that could really either define or redefine that genre?’Comment by LautnerQuel'thalas is on the BC map currently. I would love to get rid of the loading screen and just merge it into the old world but triple the size. :D

Everything in wow is smooshed anyways. You think Orgrimmar could house millions of people with the way it looks in-game? Of course not. In lore it would be much MUCH larger. As would every zone, technically.

So just imagine of Quel'thalas was the size of the Dragon Isles....

Hoo boy, dream come true.

And then Northrend after!

I'm here for it all.Comment by serangelif they could make something that wasnt a cash grab or minimal viable or remaster it would give me more faith that blizzard still had it.Comment by OldGrommI'm starting to think we need to put Steve Danuser on the side of a milk carton

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