The Queue: Progress
Welcome back to The Queue, the daily Q&A column in which the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.
Happy Monday, everyone!
@sourceelement asked:
What lessons do you hope Blizzard has learned with Mists of Pandaria and how do you think they will apply them to Warlords?
Every player is likely to have different opinions here. Raiders will feel differently from PvPers and so on. Personally, most of my focus in Mists of Pandaria was decidedly casual -- dungeons, questing, and so on. From that perspective, I hope Warlords of Draenor continues to add new 5-mans throughout the expansion and they spice up the questing experience, especially the saturation of daily quests they had early on.
The questing experience is something they've already gone to certain lengths to fix in Mists. Patches implemented endgame solo content beyond daily quests. And from what we've seen so far in the Warlords alpha, the leveling experience isn't simply quests. There's an exploration aspect, too.
As for the 5-mans, we'll have to wait and see. We don't exactly have access to Blizzard's release schedule, so we don't know how many dungeons we'll get. I hope there's a good selection of them, though, and they continue to add fresh ones.
Devin asked:
I just got wished a Happy Father's Day at Circle K by someone I've never met. How should I feel? Yes I am a dad and no I didn't have anything on me suggesting I have a kid.
I've noticed some people wish people a Happy Whatever to everyone in an attempt to be nice. I'm a young guy with no kids and I've been wished a happy Father's Day a few times. Honestly, I think I even look younger than my age, and I still get it sometimes. I don't mind, they're just trying to be nice, but it has the potential to create some awkward situations. It's dicey trying to say those things when you have no idea about that individual's family life.
@Gendou asked:
Do you think Blizzard is taking the call for diversity seriously?
It's hard to say whether or not an entire company is taking something seriously. Is every department taking it seriously? Do the execs care? Who knows!
As far as the WoW developers are concerned, I think they've heard loud and clear that it's an issue. I know there are some developers who are actively trying to do better and have said as much. The problem with Blizzard, however, is they never do anything quickly. They move at a glacial pace with just about everything, for good or for ill. Even if they started taking it seriously two years ago, we're only going to start seeing it in Warlords of Draenor. And it's probably going to happen in baby steps while they learn what diversity/representation in their game even means and how to do it well, so Warlords isn't likely to have a huge impact on that front. With Blizzard's pacing, World of Warcraft might feel like more of the same for years to come.
@BrendanHighway asked:
How long really is too long between expacs?
The time between expansions isn't as much of an issue as the time between content. Whether it be a patch or an expansion, I think going more than 6 months without a content release is unreasonable for a game that operates on a subscription. And even 6 months can feel like too long. Long gaps in content breed contempt for the game itself. In an MMO, where the social aspects are often so important, players feel compelled to continuously grind through the same things and repeat the same content over and over to maintain their spot in their guild, their raid, and so on. Players could just unsub during these droughts, but doing so means cutting many of the ties that kept those players in the game in the first place.
I obviously don't have Blizzard's metrics, but I'm willing to guess these interim periods is when they lose players permanently at the highest rate. Sometimes, when players leave, they lose everything they had to come back to.
Have questions about the World of Warcraft? The WoW Insider crew is here with The Queue, our daily Q&A column. Leave your questions in the comments, and we'll do our best to answer 'em!
