Blizzard worried about hardcore’s reaction to Pandaria

World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Mists of Pandaria, is due out this year but the MMO’s lead systems designer Greg Street is currently concerned about how hardcore players will react to some of the features it promises to include.

Speaking to Gamespy, Street explained there has been general confusion over the path Blizzard is taking with Pandaria:

“I worry about the perception. I think after BlizzCon we faced this misperception that we were somehow forsaking our hardcore players. Which is not at all what we were doing.”

Despite the seemingly cutesy nature of the new panda-like race, he says World of Warcraft is not stepping away from its roots.

“There’s plenty of violence and sadness and death still going on in World of Warcraft. We’re not trying to dumb it down or shoot for a lower age demographic or anything like that. We’re just trying to offer more varied ways for players to play the games.”

In order to keep users from getting bored, the expansion offers alternatives to grinding, he adds.

“If someone logs in and says, ‘I’m tired of PvPing, I’m locked out of my raids for this week, but I still want to play,’ you can go work on your factions. We have seven factions that all have these little mini-games you can do rather than just ‘I’m gonna kill Furbolgs until I’m exalted.’ That’s not the kind of gameplay we can keep asking players to do year after year.”

And regardless of the casual tendencies of the expansion, Street promises the game will never change that wildly.

“We’re not going to significantly change up WoW at any point in the future. I think there’s an expectation when you play WoW. Honestly, I think our combat game is really fun.”

Users interested in checking out the beta can visit the official World of Warcraft FAQ for information on how to join.