---
title: 'Blizzard Explains the Entire History of World of Warcraft | WIRED'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=vvrzZgZ2ZDw'
video_id: 'vvrzZgZ2ZDw'
date: 2026-06-18
duration_sec: 0
---

# Blizzard Explains the Entire History of World of Warcraft | WIRED

> Source: [Blizzard Explains the Entire History of World of Warcraft | WIRED](https://youtube.com/watch?v=vvrzZgZ2ZDw)

## Summary

World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in the high-fantasy world of Azeroth. Launched in 2004, it became a global phenomenon, uniting millions of players in a shared, social adventure. This article traces the game's entire history, from its initial vision and early challenges to the revolutionary features introduced by each of its major expansions.

### Key Points

- **Vanilla WoW Launch & Composition** [01:59] — World of Warcraft launched in November 2004 in North America, with eight playable races and nine character classes. The Horde could play as orcs, tauren, or undead, while the Alliance had humans, dwarves, elves, and gnomes. Classes included warrior, rogue, hunter, mage, warlock, druid, priest, with shaman (Horde-only) and paladin (Alliance-only) being faction-specific.
- **Art Style Differentiation** [04:05] — The game's art style was intentionally colorful and exaggerated, differentiating it from 'realistic' medieval fantasy settings. This was a deliberate choice to create a memorable, heroic world.
- **Struggling with Success** [05:14] — The launch was met with unprecedented demand. Servers were overwhelmed, leading to frequent downtime, long queues, and lag, proving the game's immense appeal.
- **The Burning Crusade: New World & Features** [08:37] — The first expansion, The Burning Crusade (2007), took players to Outland. It introduced the first new races (Blood Elves for Horde, Draenei for Alliance), the arena system for structured PvP, daily quests, and flying mounts.
- **Wrath of the Lich King: Villain & Dungeon Finder** [15:00] — The Wrath of the Lich King expansion (2008) featured the iconic villain Arthas and introduced the Death Knight class. Key features included the Dungeon Finder for automated group matching and the phasing system for dynamic storytelling.
- **Cataclysm: Remaking the World** [20:14] — Cataclysm (2010) remade the original 1-60 leveling experience, demonstrating an ambitious redesign of nearly the entire game world. It introduced new features like transmogrification and the Raid Finder.
- **Mists of Pandaria: Peace and War** [27:25] — Mists of Pandaria (2012) took a storytelling approach without a main villain, focusing on exploration. It introduced the Pandaren race, the Monk class, scenarios, and the pet battle system.
- **Warlords of Draenor: Garrisons & Tokens** [35:23] — Warlords of Draenor (2014) introduced the Garrison system, a player-owned base, and the WoW Token, a system for trading game time for gold.
- **Legion: Class Fantasy and Artifact Weapons** [40:33] — Legion (2016) focused on class identity, introducing artifact weapons, class order halls, and the Demon Hunter class. It featured a regular cadence of content updates.
- **Battle for Azeroth: Return to War** [47:13] — The upcoming Battle for Azeroth expansion re-centers the narrative on the faction war between Horde and Alliance. It introduces island expeditions and new continents to explore.

## Transcript

hi my name is ian has a hostess I'm the
game director on world of warcraft hi my
name is Patrick McGruder hi my name is
Jim Edo I'm the lead gameplay engineer
on the world of warcraft team and I am
the visual development supervisor we are
here to take you through the history of
world of work
I joined the team in the summer of 2008
I've been at Blizzard for just shy of 10
years now I've been playing well the
Warcraft
since day one back in November 2004 all
the Warcraft presents players with a
vast world to explore to adventure in to
meet friends potentially to make enemies
it's a place where players can play out
their fantasies of being a hero and do
so alongside millions of other players
from around the world it's set in the
world of Azeroth the home to the
Warcraft franchise going all the way
back to the RTS games of the mid-90s it
places players in the shoes of one of
the denizens of this world it's a world
of swords and sorcery a world of high
fantasy and adventure you begin
unassuming beginnings setting off to
make your name in a world full of danger
and great glory to the errant as you
explore as you do things like humble
deeds you know helping farmers with
beasts that are attacking their crops -
unearthing plots that may have touched
upon some of the major issues of the day
in that world you gain power you gain
renown
in many ways it's a classical fantasy
role-playing game in a world full of
thousands of other people so as players
grow in stature they would take on more
powerful foes by the end of that initial
journey players were heroes in this
world players had toppled some of the
great threats facing Azeroth we're
looking for new adventures both in terms
of the confines of the story but also as
human beings playing the game they
wanted to see what was next what great
foe awaited around the corner
Masek world of warcraft was the base
game before any expansions existed this
was just world of warcraft as a
standalone product that came out in
North America in November 2004 it came
to Europe some months later in the
spring of 2005 and the rest of the world
to follow it really was this moment that
united people who has the war effort yes
franchise seized this excitement for the
MMO genre really opening up what had
been a relatively niche genre to the
broader audience of gamers from all
walks of life all ages all backgrounds
it became something of a cultural moment
back at launch at the very start of
World of Warcraft there were eight
playable races and nine playable classes
these races half court members of the
Horde half members the Alliance the
Horde side you could be an orc control a
tauren or a member of the undead
forsaken on the alliance side you could
be human
dwarf elf or no and these were the
canonical Warcraft races the players
have seen and interacted with going back
to the realtime strategy roots of the
franchise and then there were character
classes it were a mix of you know sort
of traditional fantasy archetypes and
abilities that have been seen in the
realtime strategy games so you have the
warrior wading into toe-to-toe combat
wearing heavy armor wielding my weapons
or shield the stealthy rogue hunter with
an animal companion spellcasters a mage
master of the arcane arts or the
elements warlocks who are summoning
demons and binding them to their will
hybrid classes like druids who commune
with nature can turn into various animal
forms that they're in touch with and
then back then there were two classes
that were limited to specific factions
only horde players could be shamans who
were sort of hybrid melee combatants who
also could harness the power of the
elements as well as totems with a
certain ritualistic shamanistic vibe and
then on the Alliance side paladin's
warriors of light who combines a mighty
sword arm with invoking light for
healing and support of magics and so all
in all there were nine character classes
playable eight available for the Horde
eight available for the Alliance which
was better between shaman and paladin
was a major point of contention
back then and it depended on who you
asked and most would say the grass was
greener on the other side
it's one of the pillars from what world
crafts was having a largest broad appeal
a lot of games were pretty realistic in
terms of that aesthetics a lot of MMOs
were based off of token fantasy
realistic medieval kind of setting and
we knew we wanted to develop a style
that was different than what was being
done we had Warcraft which is the roots
of what a World of Warcraft is and they
had established a style that was very
colorful it pushed a lot of exaggerated
shapes created heroic characters epic
environments to craft adventures and
epic stories and so we knew okay if
that's the root of Warcraft we would
take that and use that for the
aesthetics of World of Warcraft making
something that was very memorable for
the players from the first moment when
it came out back in 2004 there were
indications that it was going to be
somewhat different game and the ones
that had come before there were
countless people lining up around the
world on release night to get their
hands on the very first boxes Blizzard
actually found themselves quickly unable
to meet the demand
just from a server perspective just in
terms of the sheer load Blizzard had
planned for conservatively actually what
if more people come to play this game
than any other past MMO games such as
EverQuest and competitors at the time
even those expectations and projections
weren't enough to meet the initial
demand when wow first came out it was a
hundred percent what server are you on
was everything if you were on mal Ganis
you could only interact with people who
were on mal Ganis and we realized very
quickly that while mon gannets itself is
overloaded that's okay we're gonna get
that capacity up and then people are
gonna want to do more so we wanted to
figure out how to cook them in able
players to play because World of
Warcraft is about playing the game with
your friends it's about doing things
together in a shared world and how could
we get that experience moving forward a
lot of those first months were spent
really just trying to keep up with
demand just trying to stabilize the
service to get to a point where players
could just come home from work login and
I'll have to wait or not have their
servers be down due to load I was just a
player back then I bought the game the
very first day I came out I want to say
it was Thanksgiving weekend coming up I
remember coming home excitedly logging
in that first night playing and then
could not wait to get back to the game
the next day only to discover that my
server was offline and was one of five
servers that were going to remain
offline for the next two days they were
so hopelessly overpopulated they
couldn't run with any sort of stability
so we had a little enforced initial
break from the game once they got up and
running again
we all jumped back in and picked up
where we left off in many ways that was
the story it was a testament to how
magical that experience was back then
despite pretty frequent down times long
periods of lag and instability poor
responsiveness not because of any
technical shortcoming of the game but
because of the unprecedented player
demand and the load that was hitting the
server's everyone realized they're a
part of something magical that we had
never seen before in a game we
definitely got bonus points as a game
just for those unique social elements
whereas now the ability to interact with
others in your gaming experiences has
taken for granted almost every console
PC mobile game you pick up in play is
gonna have some of those interactive
social elements what World of Warcraft
has done over the years is add new ways
new modes of engaging new places to
visit in the worlds to explore and has
really provided just this ongoing
engaging gameplay experience that leans
on the uniquely social nature of the
experience so whether you are joining up
with four players 20 friends or making
new ones to go take on powerful dragon
explore dungeons or test your skills
against other players it's a game that's
really been able to build itself from
the ground up as a fundamentally social
game at the same time it's a game for
everybody it's a game that from its
earliest days was one that could be
played alone if you were looking for
just meditative peaceful exploration if
you didn't want to deal with others you
want to come home after a long day of
work and explore tranquil elven forests
do good deeds there that was the game
that it could be for you 13 years ago
it's the game that it still can be for
you today in many ways that really is
the story of classic world of warcraft
before any of the expansion the first
year was one of stability then the next
year was content updates that were more
traditional in the sense of modern
content updates adding new environments
to explore new bosses to defeat new
dungeons to conquer and some balancing
to the game and adding some additional
features like fleshing out player versus
player combat all of those things came
in with a course of the base game that
really just set the stage for the
expansions to
[Music]
first expansion we created was the
Burning Crusade and it was pretty
challenging from a visual art direction
standpoint because it was very different
than what was created for classic Wow
this was the first major expansion to
World of Warcraft players journeyed
through the mysterious dark portal to
the broken world of outland which was
the home of one of the major races that
is found in World of Warcraft at the
orcs this was a whole new world to
explore with its own cultures multiple
zones and dungeons new enemies it
massively increased the scope of the
game we spent a lot of time thinking
about that aesthetics of it we got the
story and the design and oftentimes
that's the first inspiration for the
artist and we get a rundown ok what's
the kind of the gameplay for the
expansion the story arc and maybe some
of the characters and then once we find
out about that our imaginations start
going wild we start to imagine how could
these worlds look like it was coming up
with like all these brand new worlds
literally another planet was really cool
really fun to do it was a lot of
opportunity visually to create different
experiences it also brought with it new
features such as much more formalized
structured competitive player versus
player combat new races to play from
blood elves and the drew nigh for the
horde and Alliance respectively access
to new classes that hadn't been around
before new abilities in the truest sense
a significant expansion of the base game
on all vectors along all lines of
progression there was more to do more to
earn more to seek more to explore a lot
of the initial systems of the game had
been fleshed out over the course of the
classic World of Warcraft period Burning
Crusade really formalized them into
permanent structures rating was an
activity that involved you know groups
of back then 25 players getting together
and taking on from the most challenging
foes in the game Burning Crusade also
introduced 10 player raid size so it's
somewhat smaller groups could still have
that epic experience about needing to
get together a full number of 25 people
the arena system was added in Burning
Crusade which allowed players for the
first time a chance to mash themselves
and match their skill against others
from around their region to determine
who was the best truly and get rewards
in the process that was actually also
the beginning of World of Warcraft
eSport
Warcraft World Championship back then a
fledgling eSport league started to
broadcast while arena tournaments resto
druid and keep a few barely alive crazy
deep into damp Ania there's a lot of
excitement or on seeing the best from
different countries go head-to-head
against each other determine who the
best World of Warcraft players were in
the world rewards became more
streamlined better tuned and balanced or
as it had been the Wild West previously
and one subtle addition to the game that
really laid a foundation for the next
decade to come was a system that the
World of Warcraft team called daily
quests previously quests had been
something to guide players through the
game's context a lot of massively
multiplayer games prior to World of
Warcraft didn't have much structure to
them you would go out into his own and
be expected to just find enemies and
defeat them often repetitively for long
stretches of time to get stronger to get
items and grow in power
well the Warcraft overlaid a thorough
network of level up quest lines but not
all have not forgotten it's telling
stories state your business giving you
purpose to your actions the reckoning is
at hand in guiding you through the world
as you explored it in the classic game
those quests pretty much came to an end
once you've reached level 60 the maximum
level in the base game Burning Crusade
raised that to 70 but it also added this
whole new set of daily repeatable quests
they were only available at max level
that were randomized and varied and will
give players a new thing to do new
quests to explore and pursue in a
regular basis when they were logging in
it made outdoor gameplay a staple of the
end game experience in World of Warcraft
rather than something that you just did
while leveling up that's something that
the team has really continued to expand
upon and it's now really a core pillar
of what makes the franchise what it is
introduced for the first time in Burning
Crusade was the ability to fly around
you could at max level are flying mounds
that let players for the first time soar
through the skies get around the world
bit more quickly a bit more easily it
also opened up literally a whole new
perspective on looking at this expansive
world that before had been seen you know
from beneath the tree canopies and much
closer
[Music]
flying was fun for both of our team oh
yeah we had to figure out how to let
characters fly one of the mute methods
of art that we did was introduced sky
boxes because in out man you literally
saw great dark beyond you saw energies
raking through base and creating these
nebulous clouds in the sky and it was
very fantastic and we had to kind of
develop a new technique to sell that and
we had done a lot of really awesome
visual development on how that stuff
could look like now it was time to kind
of translate that and actually execute
on it so we implemented this new Sky box
system that we didn't do in classic Wow
that was very exciting come one of the
big question was how fast can they fly
at the time our servers had a whole lot
of interaction limitation that how fast
a player could go if you fly too slow it
feels kind of lame so you wanted to go
nice and fast but how fast is too fast
well how fast can we fly you go through
this world how can we make it feel good
cuz if you fly too fast you end up and
there's nothing below you and then
things are loading and it's not a great
player experience right and you miss all
the cool stuff that we all write and all
the cool stuff that arts put in until it
loads in or whatever and classic wow you
know we created a lot of cool cool
worlds like different zones biomes
each were their own very distinct
aesthetic feel and look but we never
really had to think too much about
transitions when you transition from one
zone to the NEB there was certain paths
that we know players would take to go
from one zone to the next and we could
control that and make that a very nice
blend and transitions like I say a snowy
forest two more icy mountains and there
were areas where we didn't have to
really worry about transitions at all
because players never were able to get
up there unless they were somehow like
climb all the way up to the mountains
but with the introduction of fly mounts
right now it's a huge it really changed
the way we built zones and different
landscapes and design visually the
landscapes too we now had to actually
think about transition zones and how one
last gate transitioned into the next one
get it to feel right and feel correct in
order to sell the fantasy of what we're
trying to do all the way down to what
the view distance when you're here how
do we deal with fog how do deal with
lighting all these things suddenly
became more of a problem once the player
was elevated and able to see from Taric
our forests over to Hellfire and see the
line and see the between them you had to
make these beautiful transitions first
before it was kind of hidden
where my personal story begins as a
member of blizzard as a member of the
World of Warcraft team was on the eve of
Wow second expansion Wrath of the Lich
King you shall be someone who had played
the game ardently it was an honor to be
able to come work on the team to help
shape the game that I'd look for so long
ratha Lich King took players to the
frozen wastes of northrend an area also
introduced and with its roots in the
lore of the realtime strategy games to
face off against Arthas the Lich King
probably the greatest most notorious
villain ever introduced in Warcraft this
also introduced an all new character
class the death knight as well as
systems such as vehicle combat which
played out in this massive battleground
called winter grass advancements to the
rating game the expansion of daily
quests as a system integrated cinematics
in some cases having powerful
single-player moments where you could
see the world around you and transform
there was new technology that the team
had invested in around this time called
phasing that let players actions in
effect influence the world around them
so whereas before there was always a
pretty heavy element of suspension of
disbelief where you would rescue a
prisoner from the villains lair and have
the prisoner thank you but then because
of the conceits of the massively
multiplayer world a couple of minutes
later the prisoner we back in their cage
for someone else to rescue because it
was just a shared world whereas now for
the first time you could take over an
enemy base and have it turn into a
friendly one for you yourself you can
see the results of your actions played
out in the world at large this was used
to great effect in storytelling in
elements such as the death knight class
starting experience and elsewhere
throughout Wrath of the Lich King so a
live game with such a rapid iteration
cycle is the ability to come in do
something at my desk put something into
the game and then literally see players
reacting to that thing ten days later in
our public test environments or back
then our beta servers that's an
incredibly rare privilege I didn't
realized the time as someone that was
sort of new to the industry new to the
environment just how rare a privilege
that was to have such a tight creative
iterative loop and rapid feedback over
the course of Wrath of the Lich King we
continued to expand
the pond features and try to create new
ways for players to play the game with
each other and one of the biggest
changes ever introduced to World of
Warcraft was the dungeon finder feature
that was added in patch 3.3 it was a
matchmaking service it was something
that's probably pretty routinely found
at games today it allowed you to quickly
find other players interested in doing
the same content that you are looking to
do rather than standing around town
looking to manually form a party of
adventurers to go into a dungeon you
could just say I'm a damage dealer
looking to do a dungeon into yourself
into the system and the game would find
you for other players of the right group
composition looking to do a dungeon as
well and put you right into the action
we have you know various character
classes in world of warcraft that occupy
different roles we have tanks whose job
it is to sort of stand up in the front
and absorb the brunt of the enemy's
attack healers who keep the tanks the
rest of the group alive and then damage
dealers who the ones who dish out the
damage to defeat the enemies that are
confronting the players a balanced group
requires one tank one healer three
damage dealers and putting that group
together could often take manually
upwards of thirty forty minutes you'd be
standing around saying all right there's
four of us ready to go we just need to
find one healer and then we're good
and then maybe someone has to go or
someone has their internet go out and
you're back to square one but the
dungeon finder was and what its promise
was was automating this process it
massively decreased the barriers to
entry for this content led to far more
players than ever before participating
in the dungeon gameplay that is some of
what makes will the Warcraft special
field World of Warcraft does it just
about the best there is
this revolutionized the way people
played the game and it remains a
linchpin of the game for the past 10
years
I'm shortly at the dungeon finder was
added the world Warcraft was integrated
into blizzards battlenet platform which
is its cross game communications
platform allowing players for the first
time to chat with their friends who are
planning at the time starcraft 2 wings
of Liberty is just about to come out
that would later expand to include
Diablo 3 overwatch etc so today players
do battlenet can chat with their friends
and other servers not functionalities
only continuing to expand as people play
games throughout the Blizzard ecosystem
another feature that we added in Wrath
of the Lich King is the dual spec system
or a dual talent system that one was
born of many folks realizing hey you
know this is kind of a pain point
because especially the hybrid class
when you talk about their paladins in
your druids in other classes as well who
can play different roles do you want to
go to a dungeon and you want to have a
good group and to have a good group need
to have that balance of the one tank one
healer three damage dealers so a player
would go hey I'm playing the druid I'm
currently a resto druid I'm a healer but
we need a tank
I'm gonna go switch hold on everybody
I'll be back in fifteen to twenty
minutes
that really wasn't fun cuz you had to go
back to town and spend a lot of money
and suddenly all your spell's are
different so you have to change your
action bar all over the place my
solution for action bars was I had
screenshots on my desktop of this is
what I look like as holy this is what I
look like his pride and this is what I
look like his rent I was playing a
paladin I'm just hitting the one two
three four key it's all you know wired
in my head at this point for playing I
don't remember what that spell is I just
know the two does what I wanted to do
and then I'm like we can do better than
that
so we eventually envisioned dual spec
start it is how do I save action bars
and it turned into what it is now
Deathwing has returned
[Music]
Cataclysm was the most ambitious
expansion blizzard had ever made up
until that point
Cataclysm set out with a massive
undertaking of actually breaking the
world the so told the story of this
great dragon Deathwing who burst forth
from within the earth and unleashed
chaos and catastrophe across Azeroth
areas were flooded areas were broken
apart massive crevasses appeared but
what this did what this provided was a
vehicle to remake the original world
they had been crafted in 2004 and in
fact in many cases back in 2003 during
the pre-production development of the
game to embrace some more of the modern
conventions and Technology and the way
that the team had come to build content
by 2010 as Cataclysm raised the level
cap has it introduced some new features
new professions interest yeah and that
bite it also took the unprecedented step
of going back and remaking everything
that had come before so the entire level
1 through 60 experience in all of those
zones were fundamentally transformed
both visually art wise but also in terms
of the stories that were being told
there the timeline had advanced there
were new characters occupying those
spaces with a truly radical
transformation of the world art we had
to look at the old zones okay now it's
all being destroyed how do we actually
make it look cool and chaotic but not
too chaotic now that we're going back to
some of the classic zones that was the
start of actually upgrading some of the
aesthetics of the classic areas so we
started looking at all the assets that
we paid on the trees and all the tile
sets and we started to slowly update
some of the zones and that is kind of
like the start of the art in world of
warcraft where we slowly started to
update more and more that was when we
decided you know it's time to start
upgrading all this stuff yeah yeah and
engineering has been big on that because
they've worked on how to you know
streamline the bow engine so it could
run more smoothly more efficiently and
allow us to actually have more polygons
and more high-res textures and now we
can upgrade the visuals
when the initial trailer was announced
at Blizzcon seeing side-by-side
juxtapositions of areas like the
thousand needles dry barren area dotted
with tall stone spires turned into
essentially a giant lake or the blasted
lands that had been utterly ruined by
the opening of the Dark Portal the
potential that it created in terms of
revisiting and re experiencing content
that have been around for years the
players may have thought of is something
in the past some of the other challenges
we face is one of those things you don't
tend to think about as a player but we
have all this data for the world as it
is in Burning Crusade in in Lich King
and now we have all this data for the
world that is very different in
Cataclysm how do you get some of that
data to what we call propagate when you
make a change here because we're still
supporting the live game as we're
developing Cataclysm and making changes
but that was one of the bigger technical
challenges that we faced was how do we
manage all of this data because the
tools team they did a great job of it
because we literally just changed
something like 90% of the world
thousands of quests numerous NPCs you
name it bit changed in Category that's
pretty big yeah
the most difficult thing that making
Cataclysm really was revamping and
rebuilding the outdoor world they're a
bunch of maps where the team went
through drew up maps of all of the
existing zones that had been the game
from its earliest days and they
color-coded them green yellow red green
zones were okay these are the ones that
were they're pretty fine actually we're
not going to do much to them they do
some minor tweaks here and there we're
gonna leave them as is yellow will see
some more heavy overhaul and red is
pretty much complete redo from the
ground up including our level design and
the stories being told there but once
the team embarked down that road and
started with the red zones they realized
one was that it was very challenging
both visually but also storytelling wise
to have the old and the new side-by-side
and second that once we cracked open
that door the team as a whole had an
appetite in through perfectionists and
suddenly before he knew it some of those
green zones were becoming yellow some of
those yellow zones were becoming red at
the end of the day almost the entire map
ended up being completely redone so
what's set out to be something more
surgical ended up being an almost
complete reinvention and recreation of
the base game outdoor experience that
was even to this day I would say
probably the single largest task the
World of Warcraft team is everyone
there definitely some technical
challenges the process of actually Sun
during the world
out from under players basically needed
to have two separate versions of the
world in parallel how do we sunder the
world out from under the players make it
believable and not mess everything up in
the process because when they logged out
they were above the ground and when they
log in the secretary position is now
inside of a mountain or inside of a fire
pit or their high up in space because
there's now a crater where they were one
of the original requests from design was
kill all players on login told me hey
hey patty we get to kill all the players
wait what so one of the initial thoughts
was why don't we just kill everybody and
move into a graveyard I'm like I'll come
up we can do better than that so we did
there was a lot of challenge in handling
that situation the transmog system
transmogrification transmog for short
that was introduced in Cataclysm this is
something that has made appearances
later on in Diablo 3 it's been recently
expanded upon during our Legion
expansion it's a core part of the way
players experience the game today the
basic premise of the system was the
ability to take the armor the weapons
equipment that you're wearing as a
character apply the appearances of other
pieces of equipment that you have
whereas previously people strove to
obtain the most powerful items in the
game this is a limited set of gear that
might come from the most challenging
dungeons the most challenging raids the
long run most players looked pretty much
the same as each other maybe some
differences here there everyone's long
term goal was this fixed state that
negated and undermined a lot of the
sense of individuality and
self-expression that is part of what's
most exciting about the MMO genre
transmog it's ultimately glorified
dress-up but it's awesome
now suddenly rather than a whole bunch
of identical looking clones standing
around the city you saw a mix of colors
and looks for many players collecting
outfits and collecting appearances is
one of the major motivating factors they
have in playing the game they will go
back and do old content they will do
things not for the story but for the
cosmetic rewards and the appearances
that content yields it's just a reminder
of how profoundly important the concept
of self-expression is to the genre the
raid finder were looking for read system
those introduced and our 4.3 dragon soul
content update that was essentially an
expansion of the dungeon finder that
have been introduced late in the Wrath
the Lich King that allowed players to be
match made into forming even larger
groups to tackle our raid content which
let more players than ever before
experience some of the game's most epic
battles
course than easier difficulty setting so
that they could see the story
face the villains that were the ultimate
antagonist in the world unlike some past
expansions that had only had one raid at
the start cataclysm came out with three
separate red zones when the expansion
first released and now this is the 10 or
25 player large-scale group content
intense collaboration people proving
their skills proving their ability to
work together to overcome the challenges
in front of them but I think back to the
first few months of Cataclysm I think
back very fondly to the time that was
spent with my friends with my guild
mates going through those red zones for
my kind the truth
question is what is worth fighting for
[Music]
Mists of Pandaria was in many ways it
was a deep breath it was an interlude
following on the heels of a series of
expansions where there's a great villain
and an existential threat to the world
mists of pandaria was getting back to
the original spirits of world of
warcraft a vibe of exploration and
discovery
there wasn't any immediate villain or
existential threat facing the world it
was about this mysterious new landmass
Pandaria shrouded in mist s-- that have
been discovered and yes the great forces
of Azeroth the horde and alliance both
mobilized they wanted to explore it they
wanted to understand its secrets they
wanted to lay claim to its treasures
they were both embarking upon a journey
of discovery mists of pandaria marked an
advance in our storytelling weaving
months long in fact years long narrative
arcs through our content through the
many content updates that mist had we
introduced brand new characters develop
them into villains introduced new heroes
it was a time that began with peace and
tranquility but ended with all-out war
Missa Bend area was one of our strongest
expansions in terms of art direction
oftentimes we play off of classic motifs
whether it be classical fantasy
archetypes or real world archetypes just
from the very beginning we knew we
wanted it very heavily influenced on
Asian landscape but you know that wasn't
to be enough right we kind of like put
in the Warcraft flavor in it and just
took it to another level so that players
could just get immersed in it and craft
their own adventures in this new
fantastical world first time I saw jade
forest I couldn't believe that I was
looking at World of Warcraft yes
whoa these mountains oh my goodness that
was Jim cannibal what a work I've
already has a very colorful aesthetic so
this one we just pushed it even further
and we were able to do like these really
nice blends and transitions that weren't
possible with this new tech you're
looking like unlined mountains and such
wouldn't look the same without that yeah
and that's just a constant evolution of
not just the art style but our technique
and our how we work too because with the
M diffusion now artists didn't have to
paint shadows and fake shadows within
our textures we actually allowed the
engine to do that for us so say that's a
lot of time so now you know it's awesome
tell them all the tricks mr. pan area
had for content updates and in any way
is looking back that served as a model
what we've done most recently with
Legion what we'd like to continue to do
going forward after initially exploring
the confident of Pandaria the first
content update
five one took players to the coast of
Pandaria as horde and alliance forces
had both set up small bases there and
were clashing with each other for
control of the territory their resources
within the second patch the thunder king
took us to the Isle of Thunder off the
coast of Pandaria where we were
introduced to an all-new villain the
leader of the Mogu race called Thunder
King and the Zandalari trolls who were
his allies this was a huge chunk of
content with many quests for players to
explore guided linear scenarios that
were used as a storytelling device that
had not previously been done probably
the biggest or second biggest raid zone
we've ever made in World of Warcraft's
history as its capstone from there over
the course of the next two content
updates the story veered backed asura to
the conflict growing within the Horde as
the forth fought against the Alliance in
the final update of mists of pandaria
Garrosh Hellscream the war chief the
leader of the Horde one of the two major
factions in world of warcraft and a
character the players had first met back
in Burning Crusade and Outland he had
taken his pursuit of power in the name
of the Horde a few steps too far and
wittingly or not had turned into a
tyrant and sparked all-out war were not
only the Alliance his own faction worked
to overthrow and oppose him to the final
rain zone of the expansion the siege of
Orgrimmar was an epic 14 boss journey
into the depths of the fort capital of
Orgrimmar culminating in a battle
against Garrosh Hellscream himself
Garrosh Hellscream was the first that
was born entirely within World of
Warcraft all of the others Billiton the
demon lord kil jaeden the Lich King
Arthur's who I mentioned earlier all of
those had their roots in the realtime
strategy games and especially in
Warcraft 3 Garrosh Hellscream he was
born in Outland in 2007 and that was a
poignant and important character arc it
marked the first time that a major
villain like that had been created
within this world and played out that
full story arc within it when we build a
new expansion in world of warcraft first
and foremost we're creating a world the
players are star of the story but the co
star is the world it's not about any
specific character any hero and a
villain it's about the setting it's
about the mood the atmosphere the
environment what comes with that of
course are new types of races new allies
new cultures and so there's definitely a
lot of Asian inspiration behind the
content of Pandaria players met races
like the mischievous monkey like hosen
the wise Jinyu and of course the
sagacious
but occasionally boys
and are one of the strengths one of the
unique things about the expansion was
that didn't have a villain that actually
makes it harder to convey to players in
some ways to introduce from the outset
it's much easier more approachable to
wrap your head around well there's the
bad guy who's on the box purpose this
expansionist to go kill him or her it's
more challenging when it's just go to
this place making sure the players
didn't feel purposeless without the
clear objective in front of them and
instead felt encouraged to just explore
and destroy come to them secondly in
mist of pandaria we added an all new
gameplay type that we call scenarios
previously we'd have five player
dungeons we'd had 10 to 25 player race
scenarios were meant to be a bit more
bite-sized and organized for three
players because and didn't have specific
role requirements I mentioned earlier
the concept of tanks or healers or
damage dealers scenarios could be done
with any group of people that you had
the idea was grab a couple friends jump
in have some fun one of the hardest
things we can ever do in World of
Warcraft is pioneering an all new type
of content I think once we have gotten
experienced making a sort of content we
learn lessons we learned from experience
we'd build upon that we were fine we'd
try some new things within the confines
of a structure that we know but when
we're setting out to break those rules
and try something all new there's a lot
of challenges that took a lot of
iteration and they really a process in
many ways that continues to this day
that began back then to nail the right
gameplay for this scenario there were a
number of people who were turned off by
the theme by the motif of the expansion
they saw mists of pandaria they saw
these pandas that and Dharan race but
though in fact they dated back to
Warcraft 3 they looked at it and said
this isn't the Warcraft I know the
Warcraft I know is about orcs and humans
and Dragons and this feels like a
different game this feels almost
childish in retrospect and many of those
players would say those who passed on
the expansion for that reason made a
mistake players who gave it a chance we
got into the story quickly discovered
that it actually was one of the most
complex narratives and beautiful
environments that World of Warcraft has
ever presented to this day as players
today discuss what was your favorite
expansion was the best expansion mister
Pandaria tends to figure prominently in
those discussions what an expansion
means is more of everything that you
like but also something new a new angle
a new approach a new way to spend your
time in Azeroth new zones to explore new
quests to complete new dungeons to
conquer but for a long time we had had
these little companion past critters
scattered around the world and in many
cases players could collect them and you
could summon your pets we had the idea
of making a fully fleshed out system
that incorporated those companion pets
and gave you something to do with them
and that something was training them
raising them battling them against each
other battling them against your friends
pets and bound them against ones in the
underworld it was this whole separate
meta progression that really gave some
legs and some depth to the collection
game that had just been purely
superficial up until that time and it's
something that you know was a big hit
and mists and that we've continued to
expand upon to this day one of the
challenges that the engineering team has
been working towards solving for years
as removing barriers between players we
started with cross-server powder grounds
we move forward with what's called cr-z
cross chromosomes instead of being on
only your home server you could
potentially end up on another server and
if you invited a player to your party
suddenly bang you're in the same group
together cross realm dungeons with the
introduction of the looking for raid
looking for dungeon tools we realized it
didn't make a lot of sense to limit
those only to your server we want you to
be able to pull from the region populous
so that your queue isn't as long
official if you're out on the highest
population server you might be waiting a
while for that tank to show up or that
extra DPS to shovel what must we give in
return
increase warlords of draenor it came out
in the fall of 2014 it was technically
visiting the same space as we visited in
Burning Crusade just in a different time
period in a different timeline this
marked the beginning of story arcs that
weave from one expansion into the next
but the end of mists of pandaria we the
heroes toppled Garrosh Hellscream leader
of the Horde but we didn't kill him he
was imprisoned was going to stand trial
instead he managed to escape with the
aid of some powerful allies opened this
portal back to drown on the origins of
his race to the origins of the orcish
people who would later become the
backbone of the Horde he was disgusted
by what he'd seen around him and was
resolved to take a different path this
time to achieve the destiny that he felt
he deserved as I mentioned earlier the
star of an expansionist is the world
this was a case where the story was an
excuse for us to get players into the
world we wanted to share with them this
is the world of Draenor the homeland of
the orcs as described in instruction
manuals written by Chris Metzen 23 24
years ago and an awesome place that was
at the heart of Warcraft lore that we
never been able to show players the
orcish race that they now know it has
iraf originated in this world scattered
across a harsh climate mix of desert
frozen tundra lush jungles different
tribes that had their alliances have
their conflicts and a whole new host of
enemies and allies Clara's Worth plunged
into the heart of this world as they had
to navigate its dangers be the heroes
that they're always meant to be the
major feature of worlds of drown or was
what we call the garrison system no the
conceit here was the players at this
point are not just regular heroes
they're actually commanders they've
risen in stature in the world of Azeroth
to the point that they're actually in a
position to set up a fort set up a
defensive emplacement and band others
lead a literal army in pursuit of their
shared goals one of the first things
players did when they arrived in Genoa
was flame a plot of land and begin to
construct a few buildings and recruit a
few followers a garrison was a
persistent space of your own in the
world that you could customize as you
saw fit it also introduced some
asynchronous gameplay elements where you
would have an army of followers that you
would send off to complete missions you
would choose to customize and level up
your followers and pick the best ones to
counter the threats posed by certain
missions to maximize your likelihood of
success you might send them to explore a
cave or to assault some naval outpost
somewhere and that would take 12 or 18
hours real time you might go to work
come in come back home log in at the end
of the day and your followers would have
returned from the mission you could see
the results for the first time there was
a way of having events in the game
unfold while you were away from the game
it was used to further both the
storytelling and players fantasy as not
just a hero when their own right but a
commander of other heroes late in
warlords of draenor this is really tied
to a specific expansion we introduced
something called the WoW token the while
token is it's a way for players to
exchange with each other time for
in-game currency or token is real-life
asset that can be purchased and listed
on the auction house in within our game
you sell it to another player the player
gives you gold that player can consume
the token and add a month of game time
to their account now the reason why this
exists the purpose that this serves is
twofold first off with the popularity of
World of Warcraft over the years there
was a lot of interest in in-game assets
in-game currency there was real world
value to the time the players had
invested in making their characters
wealthy or more powerful in the game
world
there was no literal illicit black
markets selling in-game currency for
real-life currency the way a lot of the
bad guys got this in-game currency was
by hacking accounts compromising
accounts and a bunch of activities that
were really negatively impacting the
game for all players we recognized that
there is this demand there are players
who want to buy gold they want to buy a
game currency but the only options
available for them to do it were harming
the game so the while token effectively
killed two birds with one stone
it gives players who want to spend money
to get some in-game gold a way to do it
by transacting securely and safely with
other players on the other hand it lets
players who have a lot of gold
effectively playing the game for free
they can subsidize their game time by
spending gold and Wow tokens and what is
ordinarily a subscription-based game
they can effectively earn their right to
play it for free at least for some given
number of months depending on the goal
they have well the largest feature of
warlords
has been mentioned was Garrison's it was
also one of the most significant
technical challenges because up until
then in the server technology side we
had a thing called an instant server
which is where you would go to run your
dungeon they were set up to handle five
person ten person 25 person 40 person it
had a bit of an overhead for that
suddenly the
design realized we were going to need
millions of Garrison's at the same time
that's a big technological challenge
that we number what embraced and I think
we succeeded at but it really laid the
groundwork actually for the future
sharding technology they came in in
Legion and 7'o that led to such a smooth
launch we have been successfully driving
the technology so that players never
feel like they're waiting for the world
to catch up and ever waiting for the
world to populate there's always people
in the world yet we can launch a massive
success like Legion with its millions of
players on day one and it doesn't feel
overpopulated we just split him apart
[Music]
Legion passion came out in end of August
2016 Legion is head-to-head
confrontation with one of the core
enemies in the Warcraft franchise the
Burning Legion there's their demons we
bought them in the Burning Crusade that
first expansion over ten years prior
they've been a primary villain
throughout the realtime strategy games
so Legion saw them assaulting our world
as opposed to us going elsewhere rifts
opened and powerful demons came through
and we were fighting for survival across
our option do this to have a chance of
even standing up to them we needed to
seek out new aid that we never got our
hands on before in the forum first and
foremost of artifact weapons which all
players began their journey through
Legion by seeking out and claiming now
these were 36 fabled weapons with unique
backstories unique arc and a deep
progression system the players could
seek out and claim as the special weapon
for their class and it would be you know
their source of aid and strength in the
face of the Legion the artifact weapon
served two main purposes in our minds
first off it's incredible fantasy these
are some iconic weapons in the Warcraft
universe that we wanted to get into
player hands there's a reason why when
you look at legends you think about the
sword Excalibur and the number of
fantasies and stories that have been
told around mighty weapons is something
that resonates but second the way we
crafted this feature in some ways
reflected lessons learned from the past
dozen years making old-world crafts
prior to that we build artifact weapons
as a feature that was going to be tied
to the Legion expansion players will not
carry the art
was forward into battle for Azeroth and
expansions beyond what that meant was we
could really double down on the amount
of depth and complexity and power that
could be earned through this system in a
way that we never would be able to if we
were signing up to continue to support
this for further expansions and the
concern there isn't effort on our part
it's more about the complexity of the
game the game's balance just how overall
bloated it might get with years of
layering new systems upon new systems
upon new systems we've decided to make
more of our mega features limited to
specific expansions like the garrison
that you built up in wallow to drown or
that's still back in drown or you can go
visit it whenever you want but it's not
something that you brought forward with
you we're not updating garrison as we
release new content updates your
artifact weapon was your trusted
companion throughout Legion now of
course we're always looking to learn
lessons and take the most successful
elements of those features and carry
them forward in the design of the thing
that comes next
just as the garrisons from drown or
heavily inform the design of the class
order halls in Egypt these were shared
spaces these are effectively club houses
for members of a given class so all the
warriors would go hang out together the
Rogues would scheme and plot in their
secret lair beneath the city streets the
classes would work together to overcome
Legion threat Legion was an expansion
that doubled down on class identity like
never before
we own the visual aesthetic side
revamped a lot of mechanics of our
in-game combat to make them just feel
more dynamic punchy more visceral we've
course introduced a brand new hero class
the demon hunter if we were ever gonna
make this class in World of Warcraft
this was the time to do it their purpose
in life is to fight demons they're elves
who sacrificed great things they've
sacrificed everything in order to gain
the power to fight demons they try their
own powers against them the most dynamic
highly mobile almost action gameplay
class that will the Warcraft has to
offer they attack by dashing through the
battlefield leaving blazing trails in
their way offer in some ways an all new
way to play the game playing a new class
like that and in the case of even hunter
that was one that was paying off really
15 years have build up going back to
Warcraft 3 and seminal moments in world
Warcraft history like our Burning
Crusade expansion where we first
introduced non-player character demon
hunters that players could see and fight
against one of the significant additions
to Legion was a legion companion app it
was one of the first times that the
World of Warcraft team had made an app
for iOS and Android it allows you to
lay your order halt while not playing
Wow we thought this is a very reasonable
but awesome extension to the game itself
back in 2004 he was perfectly normal for
a person playing an MMO to sit down for
four hours that was kind of expected
these days a lot of folks don't
necessarily I was much time they got
families they got kids sometimes they
wanted more bite-sized play experience
World of Warcraft has so many ways to
play you can play everything from these
short bite-sized experiences to those
long epic sessions if you'd like it is
all about playing the game how you want
to play it one of the most stunning
visual aspects I believe for Legion is
the significant improvement we've made
to the draw distance and what I mean by
that is how far you can see this is any
player of all - Warcraft
playing Legion you stand in Dollar on or
you fly over to Dollar on now and you
look out towards high mountain and you
see all of sirum are beneath you as you
look towards their that distance is
really far and all that stuff that
you're seeing that would not have been
possible in an earlier version of World
of Warcraft there's just too much stuff
there it was through some significant
engineering effort and significant
artifice to make that possible and I
think really sells some of the most
fantastic vistas I've ever seen in world
of warcraft when you're flying in from
the north over high mountain and you see
the Turin city down there that valley
surrounded with the river yeah that just
goes to show like this a constant
evolution of just like the tech in the
art now that you could see far like you
know two zones away it really changed
the way we design zones and just
aesthetically how we come up with
visuals for for the different zones we
emphasize more time and effort into just
art direction and visual design for our
landscapes now cuz we knew as players
they can actually see into the distance
and see if we could compose shots better
because I each one you could actually
see literally the transition from the
zone you're in to the next zone that's
right next to it to the zone that's next
to that one so that was one of the big
challenges for that just be able to come
up aesthetically designs that work in
tandem légion effectively had six
content updates patch seven one seven
one five seven two seven three without
fives in between alternating between
major content releases that took players
to new outdoor zones gave them the new
raid to tackle a new dungeon smaller
releases added
and more evergreen background ways of
playing the game with systems such as
micro holidays periodic events that
happen throughout the calendar year the
diff players unique ways of engaging at
the game or an expansion of her time
walking system that lets players revisit
old content for current rewards
massively multiplying the number of
dungeons or raids that you might have
available to do and a given gate we were
able to deliver content updates in a
pretty regular cadence throughout the
lifetime of Legion with the goal of
players always having something new to
do or something just around the corner
to look forward to that was an ambitious
challenge that we took on as a team but
I couldn't be more proud of the team's
effort in delivering on those goals we
have paid the price for sharing this
world and we have forgotten
battle froth is the upcoming next
chapter in world of warcraft
it's coming out this summer and if
Legion was an expansion in many ways
about character classes battle for
Azeroth is a return to the roots of the
franchise it's an expansion about
factions it's an expansion about horde
and alliance this binary identity that's
been at the heart of the franchise and
going back to the RTS games in the 90s
players are going to venture to new
continents of coal Terrace and zandale
are in search of aid and new allies as
Azeroth as a whole is plunged into war
hoardin alliance are at each other's
throats they're fighting for control of
the planet on which they live and
they're at a stalemate they've reached
an impasse players were at the forefront
of this conflict but working at the
upper hand will control the fate of
Azeroth the same time there are dark
threats that aren't necessarily in the
foreground right now they threaten to
destroy the world that were fighting
over even as we're fighting over it and
so as players ventured to these new
lands in search of allies they're also
going to begin to uncover mysterious
threats and secrets that will need to be
explored and understood otherwise we
risk losing the earth beneath us even as
we're fighting to claim control of it
one of the things in the new expansion
they're working on is the islands
expeditions I think they're going to be
a truly remarkable new experience for
the World of Warcraft player and for the
player who hasn't played World or
workout before - one of the things that
I'm super excited about is the new
artificial intelligence we're adding
when you start up an island expedition
it will be with you and to other people
harkening back to the mists of pandaria
three person scenarios where role
doesn't matter you and two other friends
get together you sign up you get on your
island exposition and it'll be you three
against three
cunning smart well depends on how smart
you want them you actually can choose
artificial intelligence BOTS they're
trying to beat you to the same objective
you're trying to get to the other thing
that's truly exciting about them is it's
in randomized at content and we've
worked very closely with the art team
using assets that we have developed over
the entirety of World of Warcraft to
make these islands be populated by
buildings and creatures that will feel
familiar but not always be the same
they'll be different every time one of
the really exciting things we're doing
for this one is going back to what is
the foundation of Warcraft and that is
essentially Alliance and horde coming
together and being able to go back to
the just the foundations of what makes
Warcraft but also updating it so
modernizing it
old Warcraft look now with you know the
new stuff designs in the new art
direction yeah it's definitely about the
Horde comes in and they're establishing
a base and the Alliance says no you're
not a sad-looking that base we're going
to burn it down or the Horde says we're
going to build a base here Alliance get
the heck out I'm going back and forth
like that it's all about the war and
that's what we're front it's gonna be
twenty players and you and 19 other
people get together and go take out the
other faction we're putting the war in
local there you go world Warcraft it's
been an incredible journey me personally
it's been the lasts and 13 and a half 14
years of my life first supplier limo
recently as a developer and could not be
more excited as a team you to push the
boundaries of what we can do in the
MMORPG genre to create worlds to explore
new adventures to have we have
incredible stories left to tell each new
expansion we add to the game we're
looking to expand the core of the game
the players have come to know and love
over all these years but also a brand
new ways of playing the game new
features new types of gameplay new
challenges to undertake and a fresh look
at you know game that seeks to reinvent
itself every couple of years as we
update again
[Music]