Blizzard is celebrating 10 years of “World Of Warcraft” and Lead Game Designer Ion Hazzikostas expects more anniversaries to come.
Hazzikostas spoke to CNET about the empire Blizzard is continuing to expand on a decade after the title’s first release. Developers are constantly creating expansion packs and new content for WoW, and do not plan on slowing down any time soon. Check out a few interesting quotes from Hazzikostas’ interview with CNET below.
Hazzikostas on where the title will be in another 10 years:
“I definitely can't tell you what our 20th anniversary is going to be. I can tell you there is definitely going to be one. I have no doubt saying that. We're definitely planning into the future, talking about what the next expansion is going to be, and what the one after that is going to be, just in terms of big picture storylines, how can we start setting things up now, where do we want the game to go. Ultimately it's all one step at a time.”
Hazzikostas in the secret to WoW’s massive success:
“I think there are two key things. First, we've continued to increase the breadth and accessibility of the game over the years. We've recognised our player base has changed over the years. The person who picked up the game in 2004 who was a student with tons of free time is now a career person with a family, and they're trying to fit in 60-90 minutes of game time after the kids go to bed at night. The game that they want is not the same game that they played 10 years ago.
“At the same time there's a new generation coming in. So we've had to increasingly expand the ways in which you can interact with the game. We still offer content that is still very much aimed at the hardcore organised player who wants to sit down with guild mates and spend four hours a night banging their heads against an encounter.”
Hazzikostas on evolution of the title and if there will be a “World of Warcraft 2”:
“It's a smooth curve. It's clearly not the same game it was 10 years ago, right? The engine is different, all the graphical assets are different, a lot of core combat mechanics have changed. It's hard to pinpoint one turning point when it changed, but we definitely have taken an incremental approach to the pressing problems the game has that we feel we need to solve and what we can add to it that will make it better and deliver the most value to our players. That's what we do each step of the way. You take small steps and then you look back and see you've come a long way.”
Read more of CNET’s interview with WoW developer Hazzikostas here.
