Between the new housing system and removal of combat mods, Blizzard has been preparing World of Warcraft for its big Midnight expansion – the second chapter of the Worldsoul Saga – but it hasn't just been looking at new content.
The developers have also been reworking old areas and expanding on the decades-old lore that has kept the community so dedicated to the MMO since its 2004 release date.
They state as much in a new interview with PC Gamer, with associate game director Paul Kubit saying, "It would be a shame for us to say that every story has to be told entirely within the context of a new continent or island or liminal space, wherever we're going."
That's why Midnight – and The Last Titan, the third part of the Worldsoul Saga that's set to launch some few years from now – will build upon all of Wow, revamping past content.
"We've got this whole huge world with decades of world-building inside of it, and to have places like Light's Hope Chapel that we can't go back to, or Wyrmrest Temple, or Orgrimmar, or Stormwind – all these places that have such strong memories for us," as Kubit puts it.
"We should be able to use them, and we want to." And so they will – and no, it doesn't matter too much that older zones feature a more "aged" aesthetic, so to speak. "They were built with different art parameters and possibilities at that time," Kubit explains. "But when you're telling the full story, none of that really matters for most players."
I suppose that does make sense. Most of the visuals, old or not, are core to what makes WoW… well, WoW.
Game designer Jake Shillan has been hard at work on Midnight and its zones, likening the expansion of older parts of the MMO's story and world, particularly the Amani, to, uh, pizza.
"We got to flesh out Zul'jin and the Amani out of this little ball of dough – I don't know why it's the metaphor I'm choosing, but stick with me – this little ball of dough, and now it's a whole pizza, okay? Toppings, sauce, cheese."
Heads up, though. "There is no pizza in Zul'Aman. I'm gonna spoil that for you right now." There's plenty elsewhere, however, and I love how Shillan describes Blizzard's process.
"We sort of have to play Mad Libs, right? What happened in the interim between that moment [many] years ago and now, and how can we use that to launchpad into whatever comes next?" Mad Libs it is, I suppose – although I'm sure it's a bit more structured than that.
With the pre-Midnight patch 12.0 in mind and everything else Blizzard has going on before its expansion pack's release date next week on March 2, World of Warcraft is shaping up to boast some massive changes alongside its entirely new content.
