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WoW Developers Share Design Philosophy, Stance On Old Dungeons, and Computational Addons

Ion Hazzikostas and Josh Augustine share plans for the future of WoW
by Tit Krajnik on April 28, 2023   

On Friday, April 28, World of Warcraft game director Ion Hazzikostas and lead quest designed Josh Augustine held a group interview and shared more details about WoW's future plans. The main topics of discussion included the design philosophy, old dungeons and their place in the current game, and stance towards computational addons.

 

Design Philioophy – Players' Feedback Matters

In an interview, where Ion Hazzikostas and Josh Augustine shared a bit more details about the current state of World of Warcraft and future plans for the MMORPG title, they first talked about the design philosophy in WoW: Dragonfligh, which introduced a lot of transparency and responsiveness to players' feedback.

This change of mentality, which was accepted well by the WoW community, was already on full display with recent WoW patches which touched on issues players openly complained about, namely the overturning of Paladins following the rework.
Ion Hazzikostas and Josh Augustine explained that the mindset change was sparked by the realization that Blizzard's old approach didn't work anymore, as it led to the developers failing to connect with the player base.

"Not undermining character investment is just one of those things they've always done, but it led to not making things too broadly accessible, and it took a couple wake up calls to realize that none of that investment matters if they're not connecting with the player base."

By changing the mentality and approach to the design philosophy, Blizzard decided that tun every change by the community and establish a new norm – listening to the community and feedback before making any significant adjustments to the game to ensure all the goals Blizzard is chasing is something the players want.

Dragonflight Situation – Huge Success, With A Lot More To Come

In an interview, Ion Hazzikostas and Josh Augustine also touched on Blizzard's views on WoW: Dragonflight, which the company views as a massive success. 

"It's felt incredible, even refreshing to listen to player feedback, adjusting, and questioning some things they've taken for granted. Several designers have felt the opportunity to pitch new ideas as well, such as the Centaur hunts and Tuskar feasts. In that sense, it's been really rewarding to see players get excited about it. Seeing the players love the game is a huge uplift for the team in general."

But despite the expansion's initial success, Blizzard doesn't plan to stop there. By working closely with its design team and listening to the community feedback, Blizzard intends to refine and try new ideas to introduce something new and something the player base will enjoy with Patch 10.1 and onwards.

Old Dungeons – Old But Not Forgotten

Earlier this year, it was said that Mist of Pandaria would be the final cutoff for old dungeons; however, Blizzard did not stick by this plan with 10.1 by introducing Vortex Pinnacle to the Mythic+ rotation. This sparked an interesting question of how far back Blizzard intends to go with reviving old dungeons and whether we can expect to see the return of any Cataclysm, WoTLK, or even Classic dungeons.

Ion Hazzikostas and Josh Augustine explained that drawing the line in the first place was a mistake since they wanted to remain flexible.

Initially, it was believed that MoP was the perfect cutoff line due to the artistic fidelity with creaturs and visual effects, which Blizzard wanted to hold up in the modern game. Likewise, the mechanical complexity was an issue when trying to re-add older dungeons, which are incredibly simple compared to today's standards.

However, as seen with the re-introduction of Vortex Pinnacle, even older dungeons can work in a modern game, granted with some revamps, which help the dungeons feel a bit better and more in line with newer dungeons.

Auras & Addons – They're Too Powerful 

In March, Blizzard shared the idea of privatizing debuff information, which would protect it from being read by addons and weak auras. However, as revealed, the situation is not as severe or damaging as it may seem.

As shared, the debuff information will be privatized only in a couple of places in Aberrus since Blizzard doesn't want to set unreasonable expectations for players. However, the intent is to reclaim a "bit of territory in the arms race between designers and the community."

Computational addons are designed to do things which would otherwise have to be done by raid leaders and via pre-planned assignments. In the past, players had to reach quickly to raid mechanics and do some pre-planning, whereas now, the addons and weak auras do all the job for them without the need for communication.

Blizzard's main intention is to re-introduce the need for communication and planning as well as increase the mechanical difficulty, which should be achieved by "nerfing" the benefits addons and weak auras provide.

Dragonriding & Cross-Faction

Besides talking about old dungeons, addons and weak auras, and the design philosophy, Ion Hazzikostas and Josh Augustine also touched on whether Dragonriding will be added across the Azeroth, which is still undecided, but ultimately unavoidable.

And lastly, Ion Hazzikostas and Josh Augustine touched on the effect of introducing cross-faction Guilds to the game, which Blizzard believes can help with server imbalance, where some servers are essentially faction servers. However, this process might take a while.

"With a game like WoW, there's never a never. They think it's a different opportunity - in the past, the Horde and Alliance were so cutthroat that it was difficult to tell stories about them working together. Dragonflight is showing them working together, but there are still opportunities to show that not everyone is getting along."

The cross-Faction servers also raise the question of whether it will further bring down the wall between Horde and Alliance. The Alliance vs Horde faction conflict was the main idea around which WoW was built; however, after 20 years, it's time to start exploring options for bringing the two factions together.

"Anduin and Baine can be out there holding hands, but it doesn't mean the grizzled war veteran out in a cave somewhere has changed his mind. There's lots of opportunities to still tell those stories, even immediately in Dragonflight, and War Mode also gives another avenue to explore that with special world quests and such."

While possible, Blizzard believes it has to be done carefully as there is more to it than just who you can and cannot play with.

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