World of Warcraft devs believe WoW’s longevity isn’t because of legacy, but because of the game’s willingness to evolve

Blizzard is moving World of Warcraft forward again with Undermined, a new update that takes players deeper into goblin culture and adds a new D.R.I.V.E mechanic. Over twenty years of release, World of Warcraft is still bringing in players, but what is it about WoW that has gamers coming back two decades after release?

Speaking to VideoGamer prior to the release of Patch 11.1, World of Warcraft senior software engineer Emily Berger and assistant lead quest designer Mark Kelada discussed the longevity of Blizzard’s iconic MMO. As for why WoW still exists as so many MMOs, such as Wildstar, have died? Well, it’s because of the team’s willingness to keep evolving.

“As an engineer, but as a fan as well, I think a lot of this is part of like the evolution and adaption to player preference and feedback that we’ve been working with, right?” Berger told us. “I think that’s something that’s really exciting: to watch the design team and see kind of all the things that they come up with, see the players experience that and see the feedback that we do and then we kind of expand upon them.”

“It really is just that evolution of design and then just making sure that, at these opportunities, we’re asking the question of ‘well, why did we do it this way? And where can we go in the future’?” they continued. “I think that allows for WoW to have the longevity that it has today. I don’t know if we would have kept everyone wanting to play if it was stuck in one time period versus another versus now we offer all types of things to people.”

For the team behind WoW, it’s about making sure that players get to experience fresh ideas, even if they don’t immediately work. For example, Dragonriding released in Patch 10.2, but the team continually listened to fan feedback and improved upon the mechanic.

“The joys of WOW and especially like being sort of empowered to experiment and sort of push the design in directions is, yeah, there are going to be times where we don’t get it right,” Kelada added. “But what we do get is we get feedback. So what are the things that people do resonate with?”

After joining the WoW team all the way back during Cataclysm, Kelada admits that it’s “impossible to always be correct”, and the strength of the World of Warcraft team is being able to admit its mistakes, listen to player feedback and try their best to improve it.

“It’s like lessons learned. We try something out. We see what excites people. Not only just in our game, but what excites people in other games,” they said. “I feel our longevity has really been [because of] one, player trust in us over the many, many years and, two, just being able to experiment on the design space.”

With Patch 11.1, Blizzard is continuing to experiment. It’s new D.R.I.V.E system adds extreme speed to the game as well as drifting, and the densest environment in the game to date. Will it work for fans? The team hopes so. And if it doesn’t? Well, the team will work to improve it.