BlizzCon 2023 World of Warcraft Interview: Linny Cooke Saverline & Timothy Jones

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When World of Warcraft Classic released in August of 2019, it served a very vocal player base who insisted that, contrary to popular belief, you can go home again. Earlier doubts about this retrograde design concept were roundly dashed when countless WoW fans, new and old, entered the game as it manifested back in 2006, running on modern technology and infused with MMO nostalgia. It was a hit.

Since then, later expansions have trickled in wearing WoW Classic’s clothing, with Wrath of the Lich King’s release last year continuing to update and adapt the MMO offshoot to contemporary tastes. Sometimes, this results in new features or forged comparison points to WoW Retail, but other substantive changes or nuanced renovations are entirely Classic’s own, like the fan-favorite, nigh-masochistic World of Warcraft Classic Hardcore Realms.

It all forms a developmental journey which has now led to the announcement of Season of Discovery at BlizzCon 2023, which features its own unique aspects, challenges, and touches on the WoW Classic formula. Game Producer Linny Cooke Saverline and Assistant Lead Designer Timothy Jones delved further into these details with press, expanding on how the game has changed alongside community feedback and reworked perspectives. The time it takes to hit max-level might have changed, and the quality-of-life improvements continue, but the feel of the game hopefully remains the same (or even better than players remember).

Generations of WoW Players

In line with the constant refrain at BlizzCon 2023’s Opening Ceremony, community feedback remains essential to the success and evolution of its company’s properties. Nearly every presenter discussed at length how player response continues to shape their games, and the minds behind World of Warcraft recognize not only how tastes have changed along the years, but how parental responsibilities affect MMO investment. But what will happen when Classic eventually “catches up to” modern WoW? Will that happen?

Timothy Jones: I think we continue to evaluate what people want to do on progression servers on a case-by-case basis. Does it make sense that we eventually land on Classic Dragonflight? I’m not sure. But we’ve had some special moments with attendees here today. Some of us, we’ve been playing World of Warcraft when Classic was what was out at the time; we’ve been playing WoW for 20 years at this point.

Just like Chris Metzen talked about, there’s different generations who’ve played World of Warcraft, they’ve started at different points in time. For some of our players, Cataclysm was the very first World of Warcraft that they ever got to experience. To them, that’s sort of like, their vanilla. And I think it’s our responsibility and our duty on the Classic team to allow people to relive those moments in the best way that we can recreate that nostalgia.

We talked with the community, we sent out polls and surveys, and there was a fair amount of people who desired Cataclysm and really wanted to play it. And there’s so much amazing content in Cataclysm; there [were] some rough edges at the time because the old world got destroyed, I think that was one of the biggest points of contention. But now we’re in a world where people still have access to Era, there’s a version of the game where you can go back and you can play through all the original story, so there’s not that moment of friction that people have now.

We will continue to ask our community. So much of what we do on the Classic team is community-driven — Hardcore, a case in point — the pure passion and excitement and nagging of our community. Classic itself is born of community, just directly from them.

So, yeah. Nothing’s off the table. We’ll continue to look at Mists of Pandaria and beyond to see what’s appropriate, [to see] what players want.

The two incarnations of the game can’t help but feed each other, providing heightened context and, even, inspiring contemporary influences that may reshape the nostalgia-led basis of World of Warcraft Classic. Consider significant upgrades like the Warbands system, as well as other QOL additions to the game.

Timothy Jones: I think there’s constant lessons to be learned between the modern World of Warcraft team and Classic. We’re learning from each other. People love the old Talent system in World of Warcraft. There’s definitely influence from the old World of Warcraft talents system in the new talents system that was built in Dragonflight.

Are there things that we can learn from the accessibility that modern World of Warcraft is incorporating? In terms of transmog accessibility, I think there are definitely lessons from that. We’ve gone to great strides to incorporate account-wide toy collections, mount collections, transmog, going into Cataclysm. A lot of that’s already available in Wrath of the Lich King. So, we’re definitely open to lessons learned and changes in philosophy that aim to respect players time. You know, as we grow older … I’m a much different gamer than I was 10, 15, 20 years ago. I’ve got a two-year-old and a five-year-old now, so most of my gaming time is playing Mario Kart and Kirby with my girls.

But yeah. We mature as gamers, and as developers, we have to take into consideration our entire audience, and make sure that our philosophy is aligned with respecting players’ time. So, there’s definitely stuff to learn.

Linny Cooke Saverline: We definitely want to make sure we’re preserving that nostalgic feel, that you go into the game and it feels like Classic. But, if there are quality-of-life things that will make your life a little bit easier and not disrupt that Classic feel, like having a new collections UI, that’s the kind of thing where we love to bring it in. If you don’t have to cart all your items over to the transmog guy. Instead you can just have it in collections.

Season of Discovery and Level Bands

The level bands system breaks up the upcoming seasonal server, adding phases to the new level caps for players. For now, we’re only aware of the level 25 cap, but content and access to new base-game raids and content will arrive in waves, and Phase 1’s level band connects to the Blackfathom Deeps raid.

Timothy Jones: Seasons are such an exciting sandbox for us on the Classic team. We get the chance to take risks, and we get the chance to experiment with different gameplay features that might have a really positive reception with players, that might have a negative reception with players. But the goal is to take risks, and learn from those lessons, and use that to continue to make better decisions for the future of WoW Classic.

We were super excited to be like, how do we build on the old world? There’s so much content, there’s an insane amount of content in Vanilla. Where the heck do you start? And really keying in on the artificial level bands that were in the original WoW Classic Beta, and how people sort of created their own endgame, their own meta, their own best-in-slot lists. How do we give them more to do?

And so, putting those level bands in Season of Discovery let us focus on smaller portions of Classic to look at, at a time, and that’s where we’re like, well, what’s the endgame of level 25? Well, what are some of the endgame zones? Can we transform a dungeon into a raid? Can we add more outdoor content, whether that’s PvP content, whether that’s new world bosses, whether there’s new discoveries that you can find that aren’t necessarily tied to the new rune engraving system?

The level-banded system allows us to compartmentalize Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, to an extent, and allow us to build upon the existing the world in all its richness.

So, yeah, we’re excited where Season of Discovery will take us. We have some plans that we’re not ready to announce yet, in terms of, what are the next level-up raids? There will be more level-up raids. And I think that there’s definitely a desire on my part and our team’s part to build truly new content. Whether that’s some of the stuff that we hinted at on accident or on purpose in our What’s Next panel, you’ll have to wait and see.

But that’s part of the excitement. We want every phase release, every patch of Season of Discovery to be an epic moment for players, to have the opportunity to not know things together. That’s really special. And to share in those few days or weeks of finding new stuff together, sharing information, whether it’s in Guild chat, or forums, or YouTube videos. Really give people a chance to discover things together, and that’s the spirit of the season.

Still, veterans should expect surprises along the way.

Linny Cooke Saverline: And we also want it to feel natural in the Classic WoW world. We really like the concept of, you’re running around, and you see a mob, and you’re like, wait, was that, was he there in original Classic? I don’t remember. No. And literally have the arguments of, no, wait, I’m pretty sure he was here before, and just have everything fit that well into the world.

Timothy Jones: Let me go to WoWpedia, let me check really quick, did that NPC exist before? I’m not sure

Linny Cooke Saverline: The concept that we’ve kind of talked about was “the found photograph.” Like you’re going through your parents’ place, and you find an old photograph of them in Italy. And you’re like, they went to Italy? It doesn’t change how you see them or how you view them, but it gives you more in-depth background to their world. And we want to do the same thing in WoW.

The Balance Between New and Familiar Content

Of course, it isn’t just Season of Discovery that’s on the way, as Cataclysm Classic has been formally announced for release next year. The panel skirted around any details for the substantive expansion, but a creative design approach and continued integration of community feedback ensures a different experience this time around.

Timothy Jones: The Classic team has evolved a lot since the announcement of Classic to where we are now. There have been huge philosophy changes. And a lot of that has been just in response to what the community wants and what the community needs.

I think a lot of people originally wanted the no-changes version of Vanilla, and they got that. And a lot of people were really satisfied with that. Is that what we want to continue doing?

I think we’ve experimented with some no-changes. And, like I said, we’re all about learning lessons and trying different things. We’ve tried. Through Burning Crusade Classic and Wrath Classic, we started experimenting with the pre-nerf systems. And it’s like, with no-changes, can we provide the original challenge that people had to face in these raids? And there are some people that that really resonates with.

But then, at the same time – Ulduar is a great example of this – we went to great lengths to make pre-nerf Ulduar is true to its ridiculous difficulty levels. And some people really enjoyed it. But then, the lessons from that are like, okay, well now we have divergent difficulty paths. The raids originally in Classic WoW were sort of a place for everyone; like, 40-player raids. There were no alternative difficulties in original Vanilla.

And so, your most hardcore players who wanted to get their orange parse could potentially coexist with a dad who’s trying to help his baby fall asleep, and he’s literally clicking click-to-move, and no hotkeys, doing his rotation, and they could kill those bosses together. And they can both fulfill what objectives that those players – and those goals that those players – set for themselves.

But, in the case of Ulduar, it’s like, okay, we’re making something that’s incredibly difficult, and this version of the game is sort of splitting the player base in two. And so, the casual player and the competitive player, their communities are diverging. Is that healthy? And that’s something that we definitely see. We have data and analytics that show us this player behavior, and we’re learning from that, and we’re making sure that we try to make the correct choices when it comes to preserving and nurturing our communities as best as possible.

So, whether that is some changes, a lot of changes … Sometimes it’s appropriate for a lot of changes, too. I think the Titan Rune Dungeon system is a great example of that. Dungeons are an incredible piece of content, and for them to become completely irrelevant once you’re in a specific raid tier, is that a good use of content?

I think, Modern WoW? they do a fantastic job of maintaining the relevance and excitement of being able to participate through dungeons through the Mythic+ system. Now, is Mythic+ the system that we want in Classic? Not necessarily. But is there a version of that sort of philosophy that we can apply to our content? Definitely.

I think what Mike [Ybarra, Blizzard President] was saying in the opening ceremonies, it’s incredibly relevant to how we’ve changed on the Classic team, going from a hardcore no-changes philosophy to, what’s best for players? How do we respect players’ time? How can we make something that’s fun and exciting?

Linny Cooke Saverline: Honestly, Cataclysm and the upcoming Season of Discovery has given us the chance to be kind of creative and playful with things, and that’s really exciting going forward.

Discover What’s New, Alongside Everyone Else

When players log onto Season of Discovery, there will be no preliminary Public Test Realm. The team wants players to literally “discover” what’s different or brand new before it hits a wiki, filling forums with their encounters and theories as they walk the path together. All the same, the PTR has its place.

Linny Cooke Saverline: Season of Discovery specifically is very unique in that, because we want to make sure that the discoveries are completely brand new surprises that really give players that moment and pull the community together. Oh, wait, did you see where this one is? Oh, wait, have you tracked that one down yet? We really are excited about that community moment, and going to PTR would kind of make that sad.

We definitely highly, highly believe in the value of PTR, that’s something we absolutely want to do, but when it makes sense. And when it makes sense not to do it, we’re experimenting and seeing how it goes.

Timothy Jones: There was an immense amount of value in having PTR for Icecrown Citadel in Wrath of the Lich King Classic, that’s definitely something we’re going to continue to do.

There will be a PTR for Ruby Sanctum. It definitely helps. The people and the raiders who participate help us find critical bugs that help make the launch of those patches as clean and as bug-free as possible, so that the race to world-first – which is so exciting to watch – is as bug-free, and as competitive, and fair as possible. So, like Linny said, PTR is super important to us.

There are going to be some [elements] that are simple discoveries. Like, maybe there’s a chest in a location that maybe you’ve overlooked before. We really want people who are going through zones and leveling through, let’s say, Elwynn Forest, to really take the time. It’s like, I’ve been to Stone Cairn Lake before, I’ve seen the rock monument, and maybe there’s something around the perimeter where the gnoll camps are that I’ve never really explored before. Is there something that I can click on?

But also, on the flip side of that, there are definitely going to be discoveries that are more epic quest-related, where marquee spells will have a good amount of ceremony, and exploration, and traversing the world, and going between continents, required to either find NPCs or materials and stuff like that … There’s going to be a good mix of small-scale to epic-scale for these discoveries. It’s going to be exciting for players to see.

The Dance Between Hardcore Classic and Accessibility

The WoW Classic panel also discussed Hardcore, a new Realms variant which released earlier this year and delivered the unthinkable: a dangerous single-life play style for an MMO. Hardcore players get no resurrection opportunity, can engage in duels to the death, and have even inspired a competitive event, where participants max-leveled fresh characters and fought in deadly brackets.

World of Warcraft Classic wants to make space for newcomers, despite its nostalgic trappings. In certain ways, the variety of play styles on offer, the multitude of Realms available which are informed by generations of players, offers a unique proposition for curious neophytes who’ve never played WoW before.

Linny Cooke Saverline: It’s actually been really interesting recently with Hardcore, and how popular Hardcore has been, both for playing and for streaming; that’s something that’s actually gotten new players interested. Because they’re like, oh, hey, I’m on YouTube, I’m on Twitch. Oh, wow, this is really fun to watch, I’m going to go do this. So, that’s something that’s actually been really neat for bringing in players.

Timothy Jones: Yeah. It was super interesting to see data that showed us that there was actually a lot of people who had never played any version of World of Warcraft before come and try Hardcore out. And that might be counterintuitive, because you’re like, oh, well, Hardcore is only for the most dedicated and craziest of the World of Warcraft players, but it’s interesting that it’s the exact opposite. Because, in Hardcore, you’re encouraged to play the game more slowly, take your time, emphasize leveling up your professions, really take the time to analyze combat. There’s no rush to endgame, that’s not the purpose of Hardcore. Hardcore is the leveling journey.

And also, everyone’s dying all the time, so the low-level zones are constantly populated with new players, so the capital cities and the low-level zones feel alive. And so, you really get that MMO community feel in Hardcore. Just like Phil Spencer and Mike were talking about, how just making games accessible to everyone in however they want to play. I think the future of classic WoW, it’s going to be super exciting, because Hardcore makes it really interesting for new players.

I think Cataclysm Classic is actually an excellent way for new players to start. There’s a lot of changes in the questing zones and the starting zones that are actually incredibly player-friendly. We have our quest POI system that helps people out without the use of add-ons to find where quest objectives are. There’s the new talent and spell system in Cataclysm Classic, where you lock yourself into a specific specialization, and you get key abilities super-early on, so you have access to Mortal Strike as a warrior at level 10. Having a complete class where you don’t have to wand 40 levels as a priest in order to actually feel like your class is semi-complete.

So, yeah, there’s going to be a lot of opportunities for new players to jump in and have a have a really great time in the Classicverse.