MrGM Interview with Holly Longdale - Plunderstorm, Experiments, Cross-Region

The War Within Posted 2024/04/17 at 11:27 PM by Anshlun

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Dragonflight target was an 8-week patch cadence.

Dragonflight was a learning experience on how to make content sustainable for the team and the players.

Plunderstorm outperformed Blizzard expectations.

Blizzard is fortunate to have a healthy community to support all these different game versions.

Warbands, Delves, and Follower dungeons are answers to what the community has asked over time.

Blizzard feels like they have underserved "casuals" and "midcore" players and are working to address it with all different play modes and content being added.

EU x NA crossplay? Blizzard would like it to happen. But there are many barriers like regulatory issues from different countries.

Do release cycles hurt one another? i.e., with y being delayed because x is launching now? Yes. At BlizzCon, when talking about Cataclysm and SoD, it was a deliberate decision to announce them together since many players might not enjoy Classic going to Cataclysm, so SoD provides them a home. Blizzard plans on releases and tries to not have them cannibalize one another. But at the same time, they see that the crossover between some versions, like SoD and modern isn't too big.

Did plunderstorm panned out like intended? No. It didn't go at all how Holly planned it. They admit they overplayed it way too long, maybe would be better to not said anything at all. Lesson learned. Blizzard is willing to take more risks now.

Plunderstorm is limited time due to a design decision. Its design isn't one of long-lived game mode. Blizzard is now going back to take a look at lessons learned from it and how they can improve for the future

Jeremy Feasel (Muffinus) is leading the experimental team and has much in store for the future.

Will we see more stuff like Remix? Yes. As long as the community likes it, they will keep doing it.

War Within was "made for Holly", it has so much "casual" content, content to keep players engaged from follower dungeons to delves, it allows players not looking to group up or only do content with a close-knit group of friends.

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Comment by MyhaniPlunderstorm outperformed Blizzard expectations.Comment by Gleem"EU x NA crossplay? Blizzard would like it to happen. But there are many barriers like regulatory issues from different countries."
Screw regulations. Stop being stuck up, EU! Just let loose and play with us already. The internet does not belong to any country! Comment by Cultel Do you think PvP wouldn't be completely dead if it didn't have rewards? Do you think M+ would perform the way it has if it wasn't a lucrative source of rewards? Comment by ChenentanoPlunderstorm Duo was a blast, honestly. Hopefully there'll be a ranked mode in the future. Don't know why people are always hating.Comment by Myhani Do you think PvP wouldn't be completely dead if it didn't have rewards? Do you think M+ would perform the way it has if it wasn't a lucrative source of rewards? Comment by markdall"Will we see more stuff like Remix? Yes. As long as the community likes it, they will keep doing it."
Community, do your one job and like it. We need more Remix content, and we only had a weekend of testing that proved that it was fun with stunning success. DON'T LET THIS FAIL.Comment by JyndormiScrew regulations. Stop being stuck up, EU! Just let loose and play with us already. Comment by Hoazl"Plunderstorm outperformed Blizzard expectations."
In come the justified and unjustified hate messages lol. Of course the numbers looked good when we had to grind our butts off for level 40. I'm ready for this to become past tense and forgotten.Comment by ChanchiPlunderstorm outperformed Blizzard expectations.Comment by ChaosMonkeyI love reading comments from people who "had to play Plunderstorm" because of cosmetics.

If you are playing a game mode that you hate for 50+ hours in order to get some cosmetic rewards in a video game, you do not respect your own time. Why would you expect a video game based on a subscription model to respect your time more than you do? It is a video game. If something 100% optional in the game is not enjoyable for you, don't do it, or at least do it in silence.Comment by ChaosMonkey"Plunderstorm outperformed Blizzard expectations."
In come the justified and unjustified hate messages lol. Of course the numbers looked good when we had to grind our butts off for level 40. I'm ready for this to become past tense and forgotten.Comment by LudicrousDragonflight's been a blast (aside from the #$%^ up of zaralek caverns rares that they still did not fix and some rares like Talthonei Ashwhisper having both incredibly low spawn rate and incredibly low drop rates, which is just not fun).
Plunderstorm has been an absolute blast (Yes I have the 1m plunder FoS, and actually enjoy playing plunderstorm, sue me).
Remix looks like it is going to be an absolute blast as well, though I wish they would return FOMO stuff like the korkron wolf. Just make it so people still have to earn it by doing SoO on mythic or something. I already have it myself, I just think FOMO stuff sucks and after the 10+ years it's been it should be possible to earn it somehow. People like me have been able to show off with it for more than long enough, I'm sure that for most if not all of us it has just been collecting dust in our collections for the past few years as we moved onto other special mounts we have anyways.
TWW also bringing some of the most hype (for me, at least) changes in all my time playing WoW with warbands.
All that to say... Blizzard is on *!@#ing fire lately and I'm all here for it, and that's coming from someone that was about to quit after how much of a disaster shadowlands was (aside from Castle Nathria, that raid was goated).Comment by saiadarWar Within was "made for Holly", it has so much "casual" contentComment by LudicrousI love reading comments from people who "had to play Plunderstorm" because of cosmetics.

If you are playing a game mode that you hate for 50+ hours in order to get some cosmetic rewards in a video game, you do not respect your own time. Why would you expect a video game based on a subscription model to respect your time more than you do? It is a video game. If something 100% optional in the game is not enjoyable for you, don't do it, or at least do it in silence.Comment by Solenia"Plunderstorm outperformed Blizzard expectations."
In come the justified and unjustified hate messages lol. Of course the numbers looked good when we had to grind our butts off for level 40. I'm ready for this to become past tense and forgotten.

"Warbands, Delves, and Follower dungeons are answers to what the community has asked over time."
If they add a warband stable, then they'd appease me. That's all I desire now from these features since I still have unobtainable pet models on alts I don't want to repeatedly level separately. Just let me move all my pets over to one hunter!

"EU x NA crossplay? Blizzard would like it to happen. But there are many barriers like regulatory issues from different countries."
Screw regulations. Stop being stuck up, EU! Just let loose and play with us already. The internet does not belong to any country!

"Jeremy Feasel (Muffinus) is leading the experimental team and has much in store for the future."
I trust this guy. He's a good guy.

"Will we see more stuff like Remix? Yes. As long as the community likes it, they will keep doing it."
Community, do your one job and like it. We need more Remix content, and we only had a weekend of testing that proved that it was fun with stunning success. DON'T LET THIS FAIL.Comment by Solenia"Plunderstorm outperformed Blizzard expectations."
In come the justified and unjustified hate messages lol. Of course the numbers looked good when we had to grind our butts off for level 40. I'm ready for this to become past tense and forgotten.

"Warbands, Delves, and Follower dungeons are answers to what the community has asked over time."
If they add a warband stable, then they'd appease me. That's all I desire now from these features since I still have unobtainable pet models on alts I don't want to repeatedly level separately. Just let me move all my pets over to one hunter!

"EU x NA crossplay? Blizzard would like it to happen. But there are many barriers like regulatory issues from different countries."
Screw regulations. Stop being stuck up, EU! Just let loose and play with us already. The internet does not belong to any country!

"Jeremy Feasel (Muffinus) is leading the experimental team and has much in store for the future."
I trust this guy. He's a good guy.

"Will we see more stuff like Remix? Yes. As long as the community likes it, they will keep doing it."
Community, do your one job and like it. We need more Remix content, and we only had a weekend of testing that proved that it was fun with stunning success. DON'T LET THIS FAIL.Comment by FlanellI cant hear that stupid sentence "leassons learned" anymore. We all know they do bad decisions on purpose and are blatantly lying.Comment by Flanell.Comment by ElunarioSome EU x NA cross region playing is not practical. Consider in the EU there are over 25 languages spoken, compared to NA, which is English and Spanish primarily, maybe a few French in Canada.

E.g when we do guild raids, we require TeamSpeak, mainly in the first weeks when new boss tactics are played. Because some guild members cannot speak English, the language in our Teamspeak is German only.

So the cross region playing does not help here, if people from other regions cannot understand the raid lead.Comment by LudicrousSome EU x NA cross region playing is not practical. Consider in the EU there are over 25 languages spoken, compared to NA, which is English and Spanish primarily, maybe a few French in Canada.

E.g when we do guild raids, we require TeamSpeak, mainly in the first weeks when new boss tactics are played. Because some guild members cannot speak English, the language in our Teamspeak is German only.

So the cross region playing does not help here, if people from other regions cannot understand the raid lead.

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