Windows Central Interview on WoW: Forever
Windows Central had an interview with:
Ion Hazzikostas (Game Director)
We've summarized the interview below, but you can see the original piece on Windows Central.
Interview Summary
Forever
Ending the opening ceremony at BlizzCon with Forever was Blizzard's commitment to the BlizzCon audience, as they knew that many players were waiting for Classic+.
Forever is a third pillar alongside Retail and Classic and will shape WoW in the future.
World Buff farming for raids will be removed from WoW Forever.
Fragmenting the Playerbase
They always have to consider fragmenting the playerbase, even for smaller experiences like Plunderstorm.
They don't see any perceived withdrawal from the social systems of Retail WoW as desirable.
There are strong communities in Retail, but a lot of it happens in Discord, outside of the game.
Friction vs Social Experiences
When you reduce friction and offer more solo content, you end up with a more solitary experience for players.
Friction and the lack of auto matchmaking typically lead to more social connections.
Friction is a big part of Classic, but for players who can only play for a short duration, it means they can't run a dungeon, so there are trade-offs.
There will be a very large difference between Retail and Forever.
Retail Problems
There are real problems in Retail WoW and things they want to fix.
They are thinking about offering something like a Heroic World Tier in The Last Titan for players who want challenging world content, more friction, and more rewards.
They should not be telling players to go play Classic if you want friction and rewarding open world content; all versions of WoW should have that.
They have a lot more work to do on the new player experience for Retail WoW to help players learn the class fantasy and the story.
Horde vs Alliance
On the topic of faction-specific leveling zones or quests, when the dev team has to build two different leveling storylines with the same resources, that means they're making half the experience on both sides.
It's also related to the story and the feedback from players, and if players want the faction conflict, then they might do more faction conflict.
Right now, they hear that players want more cross-faction gameplay.
However, they want to preserve Horde and Alliance identity.
Right now, there's a need to cooperate, but there's still a deep history of enmity. It's something that they intend to return to down the road.
