Full Interviews on ScreenRant
Below we've highlighted part of the interviews. We always recommend reading the full article for context on any highlight.
First Interview
One of the ScreenRant interviews was with Senior Game Director Ion Hazzikostas about systems, dungeons, and the future of WoW. This interview is the last in the article, but we decided to highlight its contents first.
Midnight Content
Before Midnight, Ion's high-water mark was Legion. He believes Midnight can surpass Legion's accolades.
According to Ion, Midnight's high-end content is as challenging and deep as it's ever been at any point in WoW's history.
On top of high-end content, Midnight also adds a slew of more approachable ways to experience the game so that you can play with any friend or family member.
A lot of people play WoW and love the game, but no longer have all the free time they had 10 or 20 years ago. This is what motivates Blizzard to create more forms of content to keep these players connected to the game.
" an equal number playing LFR as their primary form of raiding, as players do Normal, Heroic, and Mythic combined."
Dungeons
Before M+ was introduced in Legion, Blizzard struggled with what space dungeons had in the end-game content of WoW.
WoW's development mindset has evolved together with the players. Back in TBC, you'd have players CCing and avoiding mobs, but now, looking at TBC Classic, that was rarely a thing with players just AoEing everything down. These changes in mindset also affect the development of future content.
New and Returning Players
Blizzard has tailored the New Player Experience to slow down things for new players, allowing them to take it one step at a time. The first being dropping them in the Dragon Isles instead of Orgrimmar/Stormwind, so they can run the Dragonflight campaign to level and learn the game and their class.
For returning players, they've created the Arathi Highlands experience to help those who haven't played in a while catch up to systems and lore that they might've missed in the past expansions.
Future of WoW and Housing
Ion sees WoW "still around, still kicking" in 10 years. Their focus is more on the next five years. However, the main thing is that they want to be guided by the players on where to go, and not the other way around.
Looking back at housing, Blizzard will be closely monitoring what happens in the next few weeks to know what they need to do to empower players in this new form of content.
Blizzard has been working on Player Housing in some capacity since before the pandemic, with a lot of work being done in parallel with Shadowlands.
Second Interview
The second interview was held with Jay Hwang, Principal Artist & Garth DeAngelis, Associate Production Director, about Midnight zones and limits of what Player Housing can provide to players.
Your house should reflect what you want to show, be that either "Welcome Home" or "Welcome to the Void War".
The new Eversong Woods experience continues a lot of threads from the original TBC zone.
Zones for Midnight are larger than The War Within's, but smaller than Dragonflight zones.
Housing is a long-term project from Blizzard, and they want to know what the community wants next.
The sky is the limit for content in housing. During the interview, they mentioned that maybe one day, they could allow players to automatically reward others if they complete something in their house. For instance, if someone clears a parkour course they created, it could trigger an automatic reward from the course's creator. A type of player created a fake quest. No promises here, just a cool idea.
Third Interview
The final interview was with Jesse Kurlancheek, Principal Game Designer, and Joanna Gianulis, Senior UX Designer, where they discussed Player Housing origins at Blizzard and its goals. This interview is the first in the article.
Player Housing is a new pillar of WoW Gameplay, built with that in mind. There will be players who will complete Exile's Reach and then go straight into their House.
Housing had been an idea in Blizzard's mind for a long time, almost 15 years, but it always presented a lot of challenges, both in the Tech and in the Art categories.
The road to Housing wasn't clear; it had a lot of twists and turns, projects scrapped, and features reinvented over the past 3 years or so of development.
"We knew from early on that everyone was going to be able to get a house. That was, I think, one of the first things you said, Jesse, was like, this is for every player. Everyone's gonna get one."
The concept of Housing universality meant that Blizzard spent a lot of time on accessibility; it was crucial that every player could decorate their houses with a simple, yet powerful UI.
Housing won't be mandatory for anyone. However, there will be rewards here and there, like a quest that rewards some decor, that might pique someone's curiosity about Housing.
WoW has always been a social game. Now, with Housing, there is even more to explore. How is sharing a space with your friends or with your guild work? Blizzard is excited to see what the community does with this canvas.
