Game news Blizzard made this radical decision for World of Warcraft in order to put the spotlight back on “mystery and discovery”
World of Warcraft: Classic, the “old-fashioned” version of WoW, managed to attract players at the end of November. An enthusiasm rediscovered by subscribers thanks to the season of discovery, a whole new way of playing the game. It is thanks to a very specific decision that Blizzard succeeds in exciting its players.
A time that those under 20 can experience
Game Director Ion Hazzikostas and Vice Executive Producer Holly Longdale warned us during our interview with them: the future of World of Warcraft involves, above all, the rediscovery of areas already created for the first versions of the game. In the wake of their words, Blizzard launched the season of discovery. A revisited version of WoW Classic where players rediscover their favorite classes. For the first time in gaming history, it is possible to make mages who heal or warlocks who serve as punching ballsL. A concept that hits the mark.
In addition to being innovative, this concept is spread over several phases. Phase 1 limited players to level 25 and included dungeons and raids. The same goes for phase 2 and phase 3, deployed since April 4. Something that can be explained by a very simple, but radical, decision taken by Blizzard.
“We don’t test in advance”
The developer teams have decided to stop testing content deployed on public servers in advance. In other words, no public test realm (or PTR) for WoW Classic and its season of discovery. This is in an interview delivered to PCGamer that the studio, through associate production director Clayton Stone, explains its decision:
It was a radical change. Maintaining this level of mystery and discovery for Season of Discovery, through each phase that we roll out, has truly created a time each time for the entire player base to come together and experience something new together in same time.
An initiative that contrasts with the mode of operation operated on World of Warcraft Retail (the current version of the game, with Dragonflight) where all patches are tested in advance. Something that Blizzard wasn’t doing when its game was released. All the more reason to stick with it:
This effort is worth it to give a real feeling of discovery. It’s one of the things that added charm to the original Warcraft, (…) It’s almost a win-win situation. Our players love it, and we learn a lot from it. – Nora Valletta, Lead Software Engineer
It’s that feeling of discovering the world that drives us. This is a game that’s been solved for so long, and we say there are some very powerful secrets to discover. We’re not going to tell them where they are, and even though some players are turning to things like datamining to try to find them, they’re still hiding there.
Deciding not to test in advance makes things more uncertain and sometimes forces Blizzard to react quickly. But as Nora Valletta rightly says, it’s a win-win trade. The bet to return to its origins is therefore paying off for Blizzard. To see if such a philosophy will prevail in the long term. The first elements of answers could be provided with the release of WoW Cataclysm on May 22, or the adventure Mists of Pandaria remixed during the release of patch 10.2.7 this spring. Only “old-fashioned” experiences that are modernized.