As Patch 9.1.5 pulls into World of Warcraft’s port today, it encounters an MMO that is battered and a studio that is heavily bruised. The game itself has struggled through a lackluster expansion cycle with far fewer content releases than normal, so there’s more than the usual pressure for this mid-tier patch to perform.
One thing’s for certain: Patch 9.1.5 is aiming to mollify and please as many disgruntled WoW players as possible. Among its many offerings, the update adds new character customization options for older allied races, makes many class adjustments, allows for free Covenant switching, trots out a solo island expedition mode, changes many questionable references, and introduces Legion timewalking dungeons.
And if you’re looking for some light reading while your game patches up, head over to VentureBeat, where Game Director Ion Hazzikostas was interviewed about World of Warcraft’s future and how the team is coping and changing in the wake of the scandal. He said that today’s patch is just the beginning of a shift in design: “A lot of what goes into 9.1.5 isn’t a one-off. It’s a reflection of us changing a lot of the underlying philosophies that have motivated our approach to designing WoW.”
Hazzikostas, who hasn’t addressed the WoW community since the scandal broke this summer, did address the feedback over the company’s recent edits to the game.
“There were a number of jokes and references made a dozen years ago about how feminine male blood elves were, mistaking male blood elves for women, just poking fun at that in a not necessarily good-spirited way. That doesn’t sit right in 2021. That’s the sort of thing that was reviewed by a broad group that reflects the diversity of our team today. We made decisions on whether to leave some things standing, because they’re borderline, but we’re not looking to reinvent everything, turn over every single stone and rewrite 17 years of WoW. It might be a little bit juvenile. It might be off-color. But this isn’t something that is really making our game feel less welcoming for people, which is what we’re aiming to change. Those things we left. Others were removed, others were rewritten or changed accordingly. Because of the nature of the feedback loop in the community and the way we publish new builds during the public test realm cycle and fan sites data mining them, every one of these changes ends up getting a huge spotlight shone on it alongside class balance changes or new systems we’re adding. […] But they’re things that were important to the team, and we’ve heard from many in our community that they’re important to them.”
He also says that things like cross-faction raiding – things Blizzard has traditionally been quite stubborn about – are on the table.
As for specific future plans, Hazzikostas said that World of Warcraft’s Patch 9.2 “is coming” and there is “more planned after that,” although no specifics were given.
Yesterday, Blizzard announced that it is forming a community council to provide additional feedback for the game. This afternoon, we’ll hear all about Activision-Blizzard’s third quarter financials.
