World of Warcraft is one of the longest running MMOs of all time, and Blizzard Entertainment constantly updates the game with new content to keep it enjoyable. The devs at Blizzard also constantly change the update schedule to best please the playerbase. Blizzard recently started rolling out patches more frequently for the game’s current expansion, Legion, and has doubled down on a promise to continue to deliver worthwhile content to players.
Speaking with Gamespot, a panel of Blizzard developers made it clear the company doesn’t plan to repeat past mistakes. Senior Designer Paul Kubit states, “When working on WoW, we constantly learned from the past expansions — we learned things from Cataclysm going into Pandaria, Pandaria into Warlords, and so on. The big one that we learned from Warlords is we just need to do more patches. We need to keep the game vibrant with content, and the way we do that is by making sure, every couple of months or so, we have something new to do.”
Despite providing updates more frequently, Kubit, Lead Class Designer Adam Kugler, and Class Designer Jay Gill agree that they can maintain their current work pace. Kugler explains that the latest patch (patch 7.1.5) demonstrates the capabilities of the dev team and is an example of what players should expect in the future.
“With micro-holidays it shows these silly things that we can do, or time-walking which pays homage to things that players remember fondly,” says Kugler. “Even micro-holidays calling attention to AQ; I love that WoW has just had so much content over the years and we’re continuing in that tradition of providing things for players to do that are new that we’re excited about.”
Kugler goes on to say that the most important aspect of regularly updating the game is that each new patch allows players to experience the game in ways they couldn’t before, giving players more flexibility and playstyle choices.
“In general, not just allowing our players to play through all the new content that we have, but in addition to that, allowing the players to see the game through a new lens of maybe playing an alt or playing a different spec or something. We’re breaking barriers down to allow players to experience the game in new ways and just keep it fresh consistently.”
Kugler believes that the key to keeping players engaged is constantly updating World of Warcraft with worthwhile content that players can explore from multiple viewpoints. He, Gill, and Kubit promise to constantly release patches that go beyond the base content to give the playerbase the best experience available in any MMO.
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