The head of World of Warcraft admits that they waited many years until a problem completely spiraled out of control. Now they are taking action.
With the upcoming expansion Midnight, one of the largest transformations in World of Warcraft’s history is about to occur. This is not only due to the housing feature but also significantly because of the change in addon philosophy. Future interface addons will be able to do much less and will not offer any advantage in combat. Some players are wondering if now is the right time for this. However, in an interview, the Game Director of WoW states: They should have acted many years ago.
What kind of interview is this? In the interview with Game Informer (on YouTube), the Game Director of World of Warcraft, Ion Hazzikostas, primarily discusses the lengthy blog post he published a few days ago. The interview partner poses several questions, some from the community, and asks for a more detailed explanation of certain points.
Now, because the perfect time was years ago
When asked why Blizzard is imposing the addon restrictions precisely now, Hazzikostas goes into a bit more detail:
To put it a little differently: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is exactly today.
We probably should have done more of this 8 years ago when we first saw addons that not only made it easier to process what was actually happening during a raid boss but also very directly attempted to solve problems. You know, things that simply told players: “Run to the star, run to the diamond” or “This is how the mechanic is solved.” We should have seen back then where this would lead.
The interview then addresses the community’s concern that this decision regarding addons came hastily and suddenly. Therefore, people would like to know how long the developers have been discussing and planning this. Hazzikostas responded:
This is something we’ve been thinking about and then really saying, “We need to do this” – certainly for two to three years now. We started planning and designing what our version [of addons] would look like and we were trying to figure out how we could realize this transformation. Late last year, we then started to talk publicly about it – about our philosophy and the direction it could go.
Viewed this way, the change does not come out of nowhere, but has had quite a while of lead-up. There is just no gradual phasing out of features – instead, it is a radical cut.
The community feedback provided the final push
Hazzikostas explains that even then, not everything was set in stone. The announcement and release of the plans served another purpose. It was not only meant as a “warning” to addon authors that changes will soon be necessary and to prepare players, but they also wanted to ascertain another aspect:
One thing we wanted to do with this was to get a feel for the mood in the community.[…] If we had heard from players: “Don’t touch my addons. That’s perfect. We don’t want anything to change.” – if we had heard that from most, we wouldn’t have pursued this matter further.
But what we heard from many players was: “Yes, I shouldn’t have to download addons to feel like I’m playing the game ‘correctly.’ I hate joining a guild or a group and then having to download and set something up because that’s expected by everyone. And so on.”
With this, Hazzikostas seems to express that for him and the entire WoW team, feedback from the community is of utmost importance and the developers act based on this feedback. This is something that has become increasingly clear since Dragonflight and has already led to many positive changes in the game, even though there are still some issues. Because especially the “new story writing” of some characters repeatedly attracts harsh criticism.
