Tom Chilton's interview/Future of WoD

#1 - Aug. 18, 2014, 6:10 a.m.

Hello,

I love WoW it has done justice for me I love the game I really do. Every single expansion that has launched I have liked the customer service is great, the game play is outstanding, there is a lot of things to do in this game. In fact blizzard has kept me running my subscription for almost all of Mists of Pandaria that usually doesn't happen for me but it did and I have no regrets.

Lets rewind back to Blizzcon 2013 having announced the new expansion for WoW... Warlords of Draenor. Everything about this expansion is almost perfect I only wish we had gotten a new class but that's completely understandable why we didn't. All these things that were said at Blizzcon 2013 had me extremely hyped for the new expansion I even want to buy the collectors edition because it is so god damn cool!

Now lets go to June 2014, Corey Stockton tweeted that Karabor and Bladespire were no longer going to be faction hubs in Warlords and instead the Ashran bases will be. This threw A LOT of people off including myself I even tried to give blizzard a chance to see how the Ashran bases would be like. I don't necessarily hate the fact that Ashran bases are now the faction hubs (Although I would prefer Karabor/Bladespire) what got me extremely furious is the tweet from Bashiok I believe his name was. To sum it up he pretty much said "Making Karabor/Bladespire would take months of artwork and we really need to release an expansion fast so people don't die of boredom because of no new content." To me this was complete BS but that's opinion i'm sure people understand and people do agree that 13-14 months of Seige of Orgrimmar is a bit too much.

July 2014, Chris Robinson states that Blood Elf models won't be making it at launch. I completely understand this, I for one don't care much because I only play alliance.

Now lets go to Tom Chilton's interview at gamescom a couple of days ago. This interview has really got me worried about this expansion as a whole... He keeps saying "We don't know yet, Maybe this.. Maybe that, Its up to the community". I am sorry but Tom.. How can you even answer these questions like this? You even said that some of the blizzard workers are starting to work on the next expansion after Warlords. How can you have no clue about the future of Warlords we are almost at launch for Warlords and yet you "Don't know" anything about future patches for Warlords.

I love WoW but this interview really.. got me confused and kinda angry. I think he was just either really tired or nervous but who knows.

Bashiok

Community Manager

#10 - Aug. 18, 2014, 5:51 p.m.

08/18/2014 10:19 AMPosted by Madia
I am still of the opinion that saying "I don't know" on anything is unprofessional. Say "We cannot discuss that yet" or "We are still working on that."

"I don't know" should never be acceptable. Period.

We always leave room for adaptation and iteration. We have a plan of the patches and content we'll be seeing, but all of the specifics are kept purposely malleable as we respond to the current climate of those playing the game.

We embrace our ability to develop based on player feedback and how the game progresses as people play it. If people are enjoying a particular feature, we'll pour more resources toward that feature. If people really dislike something, like say dailies, we can change course and develop future content based on that response. "Will people like how dailies play out? We don't know, we think so. Oh, they didn't, let's not do that again."

Knowing exactly what we're going to do with every single feature for every future patch and being absolutely sure of ourselves sounds confident, sure, but our confidence as developers comes from our ability to adapt and iterate content and direction to create the best game possible.

We don't know how people will react to each specific feature or piece of content in the game once it's released. Beta tests are helpful but a released game is a completely different animal. We make best guesses, take testing feedback, and go on gut and our own outlook for what we think could be fun, but it's ok to say "I don't know" sometimes.

People in general would probably do well to say it more often, instead of believing they have the right answer all of the time.