A big patch every four months: Blizzard talks about the future of WoW: Forever

Just before launch, IGN sat down with Principal Game Designer Kris Zierhut and Lead Classic Designer Tim Jones for a long interview about WoW: Forever. Here is what matters for us.

One big update about every four months

Blizzard experimented a lot with the speed of updates in Classic. Six to eight weeks without new content feels bad, but the eight to ten week rhythm of Season of Discovery felt too fast. Their conclusion: about once every four months, three times a year.

• That counts for raid tiers: about four months between them.
• PvP seasons are coming too, also four months apart.
• In between, content unlocks step by step through an event calendar, one, two or three months into a patch. So no fire hose on patch day followed by four months of silence.

Smaller, local stories make that possible: Blizzard doesn't need half a year for one huge story.

Where can we go?

Zierhut sees three kinds of places:

• The road we know: Molten Core, Blackwing Lair and Ahn'Qiraj. Forever goes there too, but stretches the timeline. Our overview of the launch raids: https://legendsofazeroth.com/news/the-three-raids-of-wow-forever-and-the-horde-road-to-onyxia
• New places that feel like they belong, like the Riverglades. Future dungeons and raids can fit there too.
• Something very different, like the Skyborne and Zephras Isle.

Places they would love to visit one day:

• The Emerald Dream.
• Grim Batol, explored from the depths to the tops of the towers, the way we know Blackrock Mountain.
• Gilneas: the terrain is already in the game. There will be a whole new story there, before the Cataclysm destroys it.
• Parts of the Caverns of Time that were never explored.
• Silvermoon eventually, but not soon, since it's the focus of retail now.

The Dark Portal, Northrend and Pandaria exist in Forever's world. A dungeon or quest might take you there one day, but you will always come home to Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. And that won't happen soon.

Talents: dual spec at launch

• Dual spec is in the game from day one.
• A third spec is not off the table.
• Changing talents freely for every boss is not coming. Blizzard doesn't want that expectation, but it is looking at making respeccing easier when you really need it.

No player housing

There are no plans for player housing in Forever right now.

Fighting griefing with friendly design

Blizzard calls it pro-social design: the camping system, elite quests in the open world, and four group sizes (5, 10, 20 and 40). If you're a few people short, you'll think of that nice player you met earlier and invite them. A strong social network makes people less likely to be jerks.

What this means for Legends of Azeroth

Four months between raid tiers gives us time to clear content as a guild without rushing, with something new unlocking in between. And dual spec at launch means our healers and tanks can keep a damage spec for questing. Gilneas and Grim Batol? We're already curious.

Source: IGN, The Big World of Warcraft Forever Interview at https://www.ign.com/articles/world-of-warcraft-forever-launch-interview-blizzard-azeroth