The 5th anniversary press continues -- this time it's
a site called Techland, where our friend Tracey John (who
also writes for Massively) interviews Jeff Kaplan about his reflections on the last five years of the game. It's surprising to hear that early on, Blizzard wasn't so sure of their success. Despite the fact that even before
WoW, they had made some of the most classic PC games of all time, they weren't sure that going the subscription route was a good idea. But one of the companies' founders stood up and gave a pep talk, and promised a whole million subscribers, apparently. Of course, they'd go on to
make many times that, but that was good enough to get the team going again.
Kaplan also says that he is a little bummed that
Blizzard didn't scale back raiding earlier -- 40-man raids were a little unwieldy, he admits now, and smaller raids would have meant more content in the vanilla days. But he does say that since the game has been updated so much, most of the stuff they wish they'd done different has actually been done differently. And in the future, he says that better technology will play a big role -- bigger instance capacity, and things like
cross-server instances and other innovations. The next five years, he seems to hint, should be just as interesting as the first.
[via
HolyPaladin]
Tags: 40-man, 40-man-raiding, blizzard, cross-server-instances, differently, game, gaming, interview, jeff-kaplan, raiding, subscribers, techland, technology, tracey-john, updates
Filed under: Patches, Fan stuff, Blizzard, Raiding
Nov 24th 2009 at 5:00PM 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
(cutaia) Nov 24th 2009 5:15PM
For some reason, when I read "bigger instance capacity" I couldn't help but think of a gigantic 5-man dungeon where the party receives a buff that greatly boosts running speed throughout it. Like a hyperspeed dungeon on crack.
Juanin Nov 24th 2009 5:23PM
There's five more years of stuff! Man, this is gonna be craaaaaaaazy!
/buy [Mountain Dew]x2000000
Cowy Nov 24th 2009 5:50PM
Having played since original WOW, I have to say I think they made a mistake (to me at least) with shifting the focus to dungeons, battlegrounds, and arenas. I remember a game that used to focus on exploring and adventuring inside its vast realm, not its repeat content played out in tiny mazes. I miss the living breathing world that used to be WoW at times, as well as its epic quests that would take you across the world...and back again. I'm really hoping the next expansion breaths some life back into a vast land that many people have forgotten.
Eric Nov 24th 2009 6:34PM
bump!
Rodrigo Nov 24th 2009 6:55PM
Unfortunately, the exploration part will come a bit short again, I think....
Flying mounts really ruined that in the first place...
I remember climbing mountains and walking walls just to find hidden dwarf villages and holes to jump down to land in Old Ironforge.... Man, those were experiences....
sarkune Nov 24th 2009 6:37PM
You don't bump comments like that.....
No.... Just... no.
WoWie Zowie Nov 24th 2009 6:56PM
bump
Grendalsh Nov 24th 2009 6:51PM
I want a reason for open world faction raids again. Battlegrounds are cool and all, but raids on Crossroads and SouthShore will always be more memorable.
One of the flaws with WoWs model is there's no tools for us to spontaneously create our own events.
Imagine being able to post a challenge in-game to a rival guild, either faction, to a custom BG or open world scenario. Give us open ended tools like that, and we'll be entertained for far longer than any finite-content dungeon or repeatable BG.