For the next adventure in World of Warcraft, the developers have taken a close look at the Classic version. They want to design some systems very similarly.
At BlizzCon 2019, the next chapter for all fans of World of Warcraft was revealed. It goes to the Shadowlands, a previously largely unknown area with a lot of fresh story, new features, and mechanics. However, not all ideas are really brand new, as some core concepts come from WoW: Classic – which the developers have looked at very closely.
What was said? In an interview from Kotaku with developer John Hight at BlizzCon, the insights from WoW: Classic were also discussed. Hight stated:
It was very informative to see how well players played together, even in the face of the fact that there are “no rules.”
In doing so, Hight refers to the queues that formed around quest items or special enemies. Here, players often stood in line politely, waiting for their turn.
You could simply cut in line, click the box, and run away. And still, you see those queues forming, because everyone is polite to each other. This social system – I help you if you help me – is so present in Classic and showed us that we don’t need to shove players’ noses into something for them to understand things.
It’s best if they talk to each other and help one another. A little bit of complexity is fine, and a little bit of friction between them is okay as long as we have a good social system that supports this.
What does this mean for Shadowlands? The conclusion from the developers’ observations is that they are trying to incorporate these casual social interactions into Shadowlands. One of the key elements here is a choice for players on whether they want to tackle content together or alone. Because Hight further revealed:
If you have a forced system that brings players together, then players are reluctant to stick together. But if they have a common goal and we create opportunities where they meet each other, then it often ends with a “Oh, so you’re doing this here too? Do you want to do this together?”
One of these examples is Torghast, Tower of the Damned. Here, players can either set off alone to face the challenges of the tower or team up with up to four other players. At least on paper, this is suitable for both solo players who simply want to play alone for a while, as well as for friends who want to do something together.
More incentives from Classic: But Torghast is not the only element where developers have looked to Classic. At BlizzCon, it was also announced that many of the old abilities would return to give classes more personality again.
It seems that Shadowlands will take a lot of good incentives from Classic and further develop them.
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