Blizzard planning new WoW expansions every year
Speaking to Gamesindustry.biz, everyone's favorite frigidly named developer has revealed an intention to release more World of Warcraft expansions on a yearly basis. "Starting with The Burning Crusade, every year thereafter we plan on bringing out a new expansion set - so every 12 months," says Blizzard COO, Paul Sams. More expansion packs to a game that's more or less played by everyone ever? Not surprising. A commitment to yearly releases from a developer whose release dates are often born on top of a rain soaked hill? That's a little more interesting.
Still, it seems Blizzard is dedicated to achieving annual releases. Earlier this month, Jeff Kaplan (WoW's lead designer) told Joystiq that Blizzard's plan for expansions are "a little bit more ambitious than one every two years. We have to weigh that against the quality of the product and how much content we want to put into it. We won't put something out until the quality level is there. So, our goal though is to provide content quicker than we have been up until now. We've really beefed our team up -- we have about 100 now and when we started we had around 50."
It looks like the developer has given WoW fans plenty to look forward to in the coming months and years, though some may interpret this as series of bear traps being laid on the path of escaping a sordid addiction. Mind your step.
