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The Future of Warcraft - Growth and Future Plans Interview with But Why Tho?
WoW
Posted
2023/11/20 at 3:06 PM
by
Jezartroz
In an
interview with But Why Tho?
, Warcraft General Manager John Hight expanded on the growth of the Warcraft franchise, from newer additions such as WoW Classic and Warcraft Rumble to the core of World of Warcraft and its future with the
Worldsoul Saga
.
Read the full interview on But Why Tho?
The Birth of Warcraft Rumble
Creating a new game that dovetails into an existing franchise is never easy, and Warcraft Rumble is no exception. With a world as vibrant and rich in lore as the Warcraft universe, tentpoles have to be selected carefully to ensure they support the overall vision, as Hight explains in the But Why Tho? interview.
But Why Tho? reports that Blizzard takes the decisions to add any potential new game very seriously, with conversations held on many topics, including the players themselves.
“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 Conundrum
While Warcraft Rumble explores a new take on Warcraft lore, WoW Classic has been a stroll down memory lane - but this nostalgia comes with its own problems. Players are very loyal to the Classic community, but the question always remains: how far is too far when it comes to bringing changes and brand new content to Classic?
With the
recent announcement of the Season of Discovery
and the addition of
Season-specific Runes
, it's clear that Blizzard isn't afraid of trying to teach an old dog new tricks. The balance between old and new, however, is a delicate one, as But Why Tho? reports.
“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
For most World of Warcraft players, the announcement of the Worldsoul Saga is raising just as many questions as it has answered. With three expansions being announced years ahead of time for the first announcement of its kind, it's easier than ever for the grounded, player-centric storylines to get lost in an epic cosmic battle of Light vs Void. Hight had this to say on the matter of safeguarding the story so it doesn't completely spiral out of control:
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?'”
In the long term, these guidelines and the attention to detail will be needed more than ever - with three expansions being developed, both old zones and new will be in the spotlight, bringing a mix of freshness and nostalgia to players that many have craved for years. Fan favorites such as Northrend and Quel'thalas will once again be front and center for players, and Blizzard is making it a priority for players to experience the content with fresh eyes and new storylines.
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
azqswxzeman
on 2023-12-04T13:22:03-06:00
I don't mind cosmic conflict, I want the story to make sense, forshadowing to pay off, and feel what WoW used to be.
That being said, I don't understand how Kurog Grimtotem releasing Raszageth for being mad that he wasn't invited to Lor'themar's and Thalyssra's wedding, but inviting Wrathion and Kalec, makes sense. What about Magatha? I don't get how people think this is a good storytelling. This is not even mentioning the recent winx club raid cinematic, this is about a chain of events that lead to whole xpac.
Old WoW storytelling was literally stringing things together by rule of cool or punching some god/dragon/demon in the face, and somehow the bad guy would still win or get mad at us "meddling adventurers" for ruining their plans. It was very much Saturday morning action cartoon shenanigans from the start.
The only difference between the "old WoW" and "new WoW" is that now you can be a dragon who punches other dragons in the face.
No, no.
The difference between classic and retail is this:
Classic ->
"Jaina; I can't believe this is happening. I'm distraught."
"Uther: Snap out of it, girl, this is war and Arthas won't care about your tears."
Retail ->
"Nozdormu: I am an aspect, an immortal being, but I am distraught"
"Chromie: Awwww, want a hug?"
"Nozdormu: Thanks I feel much better now"
"Chromie: Hug your friends, kids!"
Have you any idea how different are Warcraft and WoW Classic ?
DF is WoW as it worst, nostalgic WoW. The tree first expansions were full of random things and devs and movies references, Cata too was a pinacle but at least did something new, literally, we saw actual new things, and good stories, or potential out of this, not just a literal obliteration of everything the str has built, for marketing. It was Metzen's return, but there had so much content, like DF, most devs just are unable to make interesting thing if they're not precisely led, like in BfA, and especially MoP by far. DF is TYPICAL WoW, but it ost importantly shows how much progress we managed to get in the last expansions, and that it was not easy or obvious task at all, nor acquired forever... As we lost everything in %^&*ty side quests, no, worse, even side quests do better than some main quests, there is barely no lore development, while SL had several arcs for each congregations. We still don't more specific Dragon's lore than the few Vanilla dared to throw to us in some random item hidden by Kaplan, but at least we took cute ducks in photo.
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