The former WoW streamer Preach is back – with a very long and interesting video. He has seen everything at Blizzard and has plenty to tell.
What happened with Preach? Over a year ago, we reported that Preach turned away from World of Warcraft and no longer reported about the game. This was partly due to the ongoing scandals surrounding Blizzard, but also to the development of World of Warcraft. “The passion is gone,” he explained back then.
A few weeks ago, Preach surprised everyone on Twitter with a short video. He was seen sitting with the Game Director of World of Warcraft, Ion Hazzikostas, in front of the large Orc statue on the Blizzard campus.
Now Preach has released the nearly 70-minute video from this visit and provides some interesting insights from the Blizzard studio.
What kind of visit is this? Preach visited Blizzard – motivated by his own initiative. He was neither paid for the trip by Blizzard nor was it initiated by the developers. Instead, he wanted to get a firsthand impression and asked if he could get a look inside the studio. To his surprise, Blizzard agreed and allowed him “more insight than any streamer has had before.” He spent a week on campus, conducted many interviews, and experienced numerous changes at Blizzard itself.
A NDA (“Non-Disclosure Agreement”) was still necessary for Preach to sign for some things – as he got to see many contents from WoW and other games that are not meant for the public yet.
Preach emphasizes at the beginning of the video that, unlike usual interviews and visits, this time it involves “unprepared interviews” – meaning that the questions were not discussed beforehand and Preach speaks freely about what is important to him.
Who did Preach talk to? Even though not all conversations are included in his first video and not everything was filmed, Preach was able to talk in detail with some of the “key” figures around World of Warcraft. These include:
- Holly Longdale, Vice President and Executive Producer for World of Warcraft
- John Hight, General Manager for World of Warcraft
- Ion Hazzikostas, Game Director of World of Warcraft
The WoW team has reinvented itself, changing many things
The usually very critical and doubtful Preach seems to be greatly impressed by the visit to Blizzard. Consequently, he also titled the video with the grand name “A New Era for World of Warcraft” – and he clearly stands by this statement.
Return to old strengths: The return to a talent system was heavily inspired by WoW Classic. After the launch of Classic, it became clear that players love the regular distribution of talent points and that there is inherent value in such a system that has been lost over the years.
Content that lasts long-term: They want to move away from the “modular game design,” where each expansion brings new features and content that often become irrelevant by the next patch. While there will still be features tied to an expansion – like dragon riding in Dragonflight – they want to make much more content permanently accessible, turning it into “evergreen content” that doesn’t require reinventing the wheel every time.
Time should be valued: In recent expansions, WoW has tried through various systems to encourage players to log in every day or week. Missing catch-up systems created a “compulsion” to play if one didn’t want to fall behind. While this has already changed in the last patches, it is still prevalent in Dragonflight across nearly all content. A major negative example here was Torghast, which many saw at the beginning of Shadowlands as an obligation and necessity.
According to Ion Hazzikostas:
It’s Tuesday when you play in Europe. You had a long day at work, then went out to dinner with your friends and come home pretty exhausted. And then you realize: “Damn, I haven’t done my Torghast for the week yet.”
Do you have a good feeling about World of Warcraft then? Absolutely not. So… why are we doing this? One solution here is catch-up mechanisms. If you know you can just catch up next week, the psychology suddenly becomes very different. Maybe it’s more flexible, you can do more in a week, or the reward isn’t so exclusive that you can’t get it from other sources. […]
Then it’s suddenly okay. You don’t have to log in if you don’t want to.
Preach keeps emphasizing how much he felt the passion of the Blizzard employees. They really seem to love World of Warcraft and “the only times he should turn off the camera” were when employees enthusiastically talked about what they are currently working on that is not yet meant for release.
For WoW fans who are proficient in English, the entire video is definitely worth a watch.
The third era of World of Warcraft
In another part of the interview, Hazzikostas explains some exciting details – such as why Shadowlands ended up as it did. A WoW expansion is usually in development for much longer than players are able to see. Hazzikostas says that they already “knew what the features for Shadowlands would be before the launch of Battle for Azeroth”.
Regarding the game’s design philosophy, Hazzikostas sees three eras of World of Warcraft.
- The first era lasted from Vanilla to Mists of Pandaria: Until then, developers always added new, complex content to the game and brought constant innovations – whether game systems, classes, or abilities.
- The second era lasted until Shadowlands: Blizzard created a “modular system” that others refer to as “Borrowed Power.” Each expansion introduced features that then completely disappeared with the end of the expansion, leaving the character weaker.
- The third era begins with Dragonflight: The focus on lasting, permanent systems in World of Warcraft is once again greater. There are fewer new systems, but they should be supported over the long term.
Whether Dragonflight will ultimately satisfy not only Preach but also all the other fans will likely be shown in the coming weeks and months. Now the developers must prove that they truly understood the community’s wishes – and push out plenty of content to somehow satisfy the insatiable hunger.
What do you think about this visit to Blizzard? Are you as optimistic as Preach? Or do you consider it to be “a lot of talk”?
