-We had talked about, for many years,
how would we do "Classic"?
There was a huge amount of fan interest as well.
During that time, you know,
everything operated on bare metal.
And, so, if you think about, just from a server
infrastructure and how it all worked,
it's very different today than it was at launch
and it was hard for us to figure out,
"How are we going to make this"?
And we found a way to unify a lot of the backend technology
and have two separate MMO teams
that are driving these two separate things.
-We went in with a mind-set of this
was meant to be a love letter to the fans,
something where players really wanted it,
we heard them, and we wanted to deliver on what that true,
authentic experience of "WoW Classic" was.
We didn't expect that it would be anywhere
near as popular as it ended up being.
-To have these communities really migrate
and be separate, I think, has been a big surprise to me.
-I do expect, when "Burning Crusade" comes out,
now we're adding a third, large, massively multiplayer game
that we're going to have to support
and that is a difficult thing to do.
Given that they are two separate games with two separate rules,
there isn't really a path forward
where they both can coexist simultaneously
in the same community.
-You can think of them, essentially,
as two different games.
They are going to be discrete clients.
So when I log in, we'll go into our pre-patch.
Every character, at that time,
will create a snapshot of the character
as it exists in pre-patch.
I will log in and I will be presented with a choice:
Do you want to create on into 'Burning Crusade Classic'
or do you want to choose 'Classic Era'"?
And I will have a third option, which will be a paid service,
where I can unlock both.
-The options we would've had would be to convert
all of the players to "Burning Crusade,"
but that's not really a pure "Classic" experience.
That's not delivering on the promise
of what "World of Warcraft Classic" is.
Because it would be technically impossible for us
to provide one environment for both,
this is the solution we came up with,
to make sure we're serving both groups of players.
-We love both communities
and we love the people who play both.
We are all part of the same "World of Warcraft" team,
but they're kind of serving a different game than we are,
so, there's not a lot of cross-development [indistinct].
-We always want to try to do something brand-new
and unexpected.
So some of the things that we're talking about right now include,
you know, systemic changes that are things
that you maybe haven't seen in "WoW" before,
so it feels like, definitely, a fresh experience.
-What we want to deliver on is really hitting what people
remember about "The Burning Crusade".
-Part of the education since "Classic"
launched is that delicate balance between no changes,
like everything was a faithful recreation
of the original game and quality of life
and having the most fun possible,
and there are some things we can lift from that
without damaging the overall nostalgia
and the experience of "Classic".
-Really getting that older data to talk to modern code,
that's what we're currently working on now.
-There's definitely interesting discussions that come up,
though, about, you know, what is the right solution
for their game may not be the right solution for our game.
Just having the "Classic" team around
and discussing all the things they're discussing
is always super interesting
because I think it often takes us back
to those nostalgic first days that we had back in college,
or whatever, playing "World of Warcraft".
And that can help drive design decisions
and discussions about, you know, "What are the popular things in
'WoW Classic' and what are elements
there that we feel like we can incorporate into modern 'WoW'"?
-If you had, you know, asked, "Hey, how long is this
'World of Warcraft' thing going to be going"?
I don't think anything would've predicted
that we'd be in our 16th year.
-We get asked this a fair amount,
which is amazing and delightful,
that people are already looking at,
you know, where we're going to go next.
We're always going to be open-minded.
If "Classic" continues on its current trajectory,
and we hope it continues to grow and grow and grow
and stay really vibrant and healthy,
then, of course, we'll look at options as we go,
but we want to focus on making this moment
the most epic we can make it.
-But this team solves problems
and that's what they're really good at
and it's been really good to see how well they've done,
given the circumstances, especially.
-The interesting thing about game design
is that your job is never really done.
You never really get to be an expert at it.
You just have to kind of guess what the next cool thing can be.
That's always kind of the fun part about working on
"WoW," is thinking about what comes next.
-From our perspective, we're also players of the game,
so we're part of the community that we're trying to please
and we're probably some of the hardest ones
in that community to please.
-But we need the community to help keep us on course
and so, as we continue to experiment
with these things, if we get one where it's like,
"That's a terrible idea. You shouldn't be doing that,"
it really causes us to reconsider our choice.
We're blessed with, not one, but two, of the biggest MMOs
on the planet and there are operational challenges
around making that run smoothly.
Blizzard's been very great at responding to that,
to make sure that we have the resources and people
that we need to be able to serve the community well.
It can go forever, and I'll tell you why.
-Yeah. -It's a game unlike any other,
in that it brings people together into communities,
to the point of where it feels almost like a family.
People make long-lasting friendships,
playing these games, that are real.
-And we're happy to keep making "WoW" as long as people
want to keep playing it.