This Is EXACTLY What I Wanted From WoW Forever | Worldbuilding & Content Design

There's a pretty interesting panel that I I mean I didn't even know about this one. It's the WoW Forever the classic plus found photographs. Let's check it out. >> People said this one's really good. >> It's time to discover the creative vision behind World of Warcraft Forever. Well, hello Blizzcon. We're going to get a little cozy for this one. Yeah. So, welcome to the found photographs panel. My name is Josh Greenfield and I help lead the content and narrative direction for WoW Forever. And my name is Evan and I'm the lead content designer on the World of Warcraft Classic team. Today, we're going to dive into our team's approach for developing the content, stories, and characters within this world. We'll kick things off by talking about the setting of WoW Forever and how it fits into the larger World of Warcraft narrative. Simply put, WoW Forever begins at the same time original WoW begins. The game contains all of the original quest content from the original game and builds on top of it. We will expand upon events, characters, and locations that exist or could exist in the original WoW time frame to further flesh out the original world. This is before Kasich reopened the Dark Portal at the start of the Burning Crusade and before we traveled to Northrren to stop Arthus and Wrath of the Lich King. We are focused on this year 1 period of WoW's history and we intend to occupy this space and expand upon it indefinitely. So this panel is called found photographs. What do we mean by that? Well, this was a term by Chris Mson in our earliest conversations talking about adding new stories in our season of discovery game mode of WoW classic. >> Okay, I got to ask, where the hell was Chris Metson this entire BlizzCon? Did anybody see him? He was in the fog. I saw Metson a few months ago. I didn't get to talk to him. I just saw him with binoculars. So, he still exists. I don't understand why they didn't have Chris Metson at BL. Like, I feel like he should have been like, you want a guy who's going to come out and like bring the freaking juice. Bring the freaking thunder. Like, everybody goes, "It's Chris Metson." Oh, apparently he had a surgery. He was recovering. Oh, that sucks. Okay. Well, anyway, let's continue. >> The simple idea behind found photographs is that most of these new stories are things that could have happened. Hello. Stop. What is this? >> Feasibly during the vanilla era of Azeroth's history or again year one of World of Warcraft. For the classic team, it also refers to how we approach the stories as well. For many of those stories, we also want to maintain original WoW's focus on what we call local story. This is things along the lines of unraveling the mysteries and motivations of the Defas Brotherhood and helping Tyrion Forgering rediscover his lost purpose. This groundle view of localized stories is what makes the world of Azeroth feel large and textured. We are building these stories just like we used to in the early days of World of Warcraft. We will have big epic narratives, but we'll tell these stories at the ground level, and large linear campaigns that focus on major Warcraft characters aren't really our focus. So, what opportunities does found photographs approach afford us? The first big opportunity, and my favorite as a longtime WoW lore nerd, is the ability to glow up existing but perhaps underutilized characters and giving them an interesting story. Take the former paladin Gregory the truth bearer raised into service of the scourge as a death knight in Warcraft 3. He was a minor named paladin NPC that went by the honorific title of sage truth bearer and was only featured in a single mission in the scourge campaign. We continued his story in Season of Discovery and fleshed him out as a character greatly bringing him full circle back to the light. This is the kind of glow up we'd like to pursue for other characters in WoW Forever as well. We'll also be able to see characters who were active but offscreen during vanilla. What were they doing at this time? Mol Earth Fury of the Earth and Ring is a great example here. He was the leader of the Earth and Ring but was largely absent from original WoW. He will be present in WoW forever and have a role to play in new stories. We also get to visit places that may have been hinted at or mentioned but never got screen time. Or maybe we go to places that we maybe have seen in a version of WoW, but were presented in a much different way than we plan to feature them in WoW Forever. The magical city of Doeran is a great example here. Dooran has always has always been seen as a flying city in the sky in World of Warcraft. But it wasn't always flying in the sky. After being destroyed in Warcraft 3, Dooran was rebuilt but existed underneath its protective magical barrier nestled in the Arthur Mountains for several years. And while forever we'll get to see Dooran in all of its freshly rebuilt glory as part of the world. >> I think I think so. >> Why the protective barrier around >> I forgot to mention Deleran. I forgot to mention that in one of my pre-classic videos, but Deleran was one that I was always big on. This segus into talking about the continuity of WoW Forever. The million gold question I'm sure a lot of people have when it comes to WoW Forever is how does it fit into the larger WoW continuity and timeline? And the short answer is that WoW Forever does not exist in the same continuity as modern World of Warcraft. Meten likes to call this our little time bubble. So why do we do this? Well, the main impetus of this approach is to ensure that we have the creative freedom to do what we want to do with the game without creating problematic situations that require a direct response in the modern game. This does mean that this does not mean that we are going to completely upend the foundational lore, especially the established events from the RTS games. We aren't going to suddenly say in this universe, Jana was a dreadlord all along or Arthus never became the Lich King. Our approach to the new stories we add is to paint inside the lines of established foundational lore as much as possible, but also to build on what comes next in a way that makes sense first and foremost for WoW Forever. >> Okay. >> And to continue onto that thread, let's take a look at our content goals for this project. When we're looking at the world and discussing what content to pursue, we tend to break down the content into three categories. The first is the anticipated. These are the types of things that you may be aware of, the things that did not exist in the original release or may have been inaccessible at the time. The example shown here is Mount Hydrol, which we've added as a new experience, as a new zone for you to explore at higher levels. More on that in a minute. These are the comfy and the expected, the wish fulfillment of seeing some of these places that you were aware of in the original release, but we haven't been able to explore yet. If there's a piece of well-known content you really want to see, the chances are pretty good it's on a whiteboard back at the office or perhaps even in production right now. The second type is something we call new but familiar. These are the areas with new concepts or stories that are grounded in locations or with characters that hearken back to the original WoW and our early RTS games. These types of content are the things that may surprise players but really feel like they could have been here all along. Our goal with this type of content is to craft experiences that add depth to the world but fit seamlessly with taking inspiration from the rich history of Warcraft. The third type is something we call the unexpected. These are new concepts and often involve places or characters that exist within the Warcraft narrative but have not been explored previously. This is also a category of content we plan to introduce sparingly. When looking at this category, we want to be very mindful of what we're adding. So, not to upend the world, the stories, or the characters while still in creating the experiences that players want to enjoy. One of our goals for this type of content is to ensure that it makes sense within the greater fabric of WoW forever. So to continue building on that a little bit more, we've talked about where this idea of found photographs comes from, the types of content that we discussed as a team, and the inspirations in our approach to developing these experiences. So let's take a deeper look at some of the new content that you can play in WoW Forever. Whether you're starting your journey as an orc in the Valley of Trials or a night elf in Shadow Glenn, there's something new just for you. New NPCs might greet you in your journey. They might offer you quests, and others may offer you training and skills and recipes and professions, and that's only the beginning. Part of our team's journey throughout this development was to incorporate flavorful additions without, as Josh mentioned, taking away from the classic experience. >> So good, man. It really does. >> Overall, we've added dozens of new quests, characters, and stories to each of our new starting zones, along with additional content in every zone for your journey. And of course, with new stories and new adventures comes new rewards. Each of these moments along the way was handcrafted by an incredibly passionate team of individuals with the same love of this world as each of you. Let's talk a little bit about world travel. I was like, uh, waiting. >> Once you've leveled up beyond your starting zones, you'll find not only new content, but new means of world travel throughout the world. He was waiting for the He was waiting for the fog. >> We spent a lot of time discussing. We really wanted to maintain the exploration and your journey as you navigate the world, but we also wanted to offer you ways to to explore and change the way that you play. So, what do we do here? As you can see on the screens, some of these locations might seem familiar. In total, we've added three new ship routes, encouraging exploration, questing in new areas throughout the world, and really leaning into the opportunities for social play, which is an incredibly important pillar for this project. Stormwind Harbor. >> First image you see here is a connection from Stormwind Harbor to offer. >> Oh yeah, >> elves and you dwarves and gnomes. >> Dude, this is the thing that I was really big on is adding more ports. I'm so glad they're adding more ports. >> The audience who are deeprun tram enthusiasts, now you can rejoice. You can now play with your friends throughout starting zones together, whether spending hours or perhaps avoiding several corpse runs uh reaching one another. The next we have is a three-part stop. This new route begins from Menil and then on the southshore before arriving in >> who cares. >> The last here is located in Steam along the eastern shores of Tenaris. >> Now when Josh was talking about found photographs were often asking questions about the world itself, the characters and locations. These can be questions like you know what has the Seam Wheel cartel been up to? Are they expanding their operations? And where might this ship take us? And perhaps this ship takes us to somewhere new. So, thanks to our friends in Steam Weedle, our new adventures await across the sea in a brand new zone. And today, our team is very excited to welcome all of you to the Riverglades. >> Ah, the Riverglades. >> The Riverglades is an expansive new zone roughly the size of Stranglethorn Veil with an expected level range in the mid-30s to mid-40s. The zone itself was built in an area that existed in classic in the classic world, but was previously inaccessible. And so we decided to fix that. When you enter the zone, the first thing that you'll notice is the incredible level of detail our artists and worldbuilders and sound designers put into creating a zone that fits seamlessly in the world. For those of you who have played through Red Bridge Mountains, a new fork to the burning steps awaits your new journey into the Riverglades. While this zone has diverse biomes and creatures throughout, it also blends seamlessly between each of the nearby connecting zones. These null camps that you see on the screen here, they're not just a presence, but a continuation of the world story. Now, when we talk about integrating content, it's not just about carrying the stories or creatures over from one zone to the next, but it also presents us with opportunities. This is one of our new POIs where an ogre clan has established their presence. And in questing, you'll meet them and other characters and factions along the way. In total, we've added nearly 200 new quests to this zone with stories for both Horde and Alliance players. Okay, >> you'll experience new cultures throughout the zone, like the powderfused goblins who run this powderfuse port, and enemies like the Twilight's Hammer, whose presence is felt throughout the zone. >> Twilight Blade, a call back to Warcraft's history. And of course, launching your adventures from areas like Ragmar for the Horde and Farhold Keep for the Alliance, where you'll encounter one faction in particular dating back to early Warcraft, the Brotherhood of the Horse. >> Brotherhood of the Horse. >> The Riverglades is a blending of from classic historical events, new beginnings, and stories in >> Wait, what is Brotherhood of the Horse? Brotherhood of the Horse. Brother of the horse of the group in the kingdom of Stormwind predating the first war. Sir Anduin Lothar was a member of it. Oh, Anduin Lothar, Ash Gandi. He rose to the position of armsman to the brotherhood after becoming a member of King Lane's honor at night. He also been referred to as a knight errant in the brotherhood as I know the group's role was and whether or not it continually exists after the first war. Wait, so this is like a faction that they had in Warcraft one that kind of just like they just kind of stopped talking about. But Anduin Lothar was a part of it who's one of like the biggest like human lore characters. The sword Ashandi, great sword of the brotherhood is rumored to have belonged to Anduin Loar. If that was the case, its name would have be such a reference to the brotherhood of the horse. Oh, Ash Kandi, great sword of the brotherhood of the horse. Oh, so that's the brotherhood that they were talking about. That's crazy. The gate house in Karazan contains ornamentation in the form of horse heads. Chris Mson was initially skeptical towards their inclusion, but suggestion suggested that they could be connected to the Brotherhood of the Horse. Crazy. So, so for the most part, this faction just kind of like died off. Interesting. During the Horde's first assault on Storm City early in the First War, they were pushed back by mountain knights and forced to retreat. Hounded by the leaders of the Brotherhood of the Horse. This is the only mention of the Brotherhood not directly related to Andu and Lothar. Interesting, man. I kind of want to go back and play Warcraft 1 if it's possible someday. Anyway, continue. >> Created into our living world and most importantly agree. It's a love letter to all of you, to our players, and to those who brought this world to life more than 20 years ago. But this journey doesn't stop here. Beyond our new zones, our team spent a considerable amount of time going back to our roots, examining zones like the wetlands among many other areas in the world. Part of this journey was simply to explore the possibilities without taking away from these areas and what already existed. >> This guy, but I know a >> we found opportunities to build the stories within without disrupting what exists. For Wetlands, we've added all new content, including over 25 new quests and providing new opportunities to discover new stories and characters and new leveling paths in your leveling journey. Alongside areas like the wetlands, we've also updated areas like Desolus, where new centaur faction quests await. Also included new rewards. And this led us to another discussion about breathing life into the spaces that weren't used previously, but they were waiting for us for a moment that felt like it was the right time to create something new. for new stories to be told. And now, if you continue your center requesting journey and make your way all the way down into the south of Desilus, a new journey awaits. Shenderos. We've added Shenderos to the south of Desilus through the Valley of Bones. This new area offers dozens of new quests to explore the re rich deep history of Elderos, its stories, and their people. We felt it was important to bring this zone to life and the stories we wanted to tell that made sense within the fabric of WoW forever. We felt it was important to include Hyel, Mount Hyel, as one of our new zones and an opportunity to explore new stories that make sense within this project. Here you'll explore the aftermath of the battle for Mount Hyel. You'll meet new factions and build relationships along the way. You'll work with new allies and you'll encounter all new enemies and areas throughout the zone. >> Okay. And throughout this experience, you'll start to see where this journey leads you. >> So, changing gears a bit, let's talk about one of our new race and class combinations, the Forsaken Paladin. >> Man, people are really excited about this, but I kind of hate it. >> So, while Forsaken Paladins are far from our only new race and class combination, we did want to take a few minutes to give them a bit of special attention. This is an especially exciting part of I think they're going to be overpowered. >> And I'll admit, as a Paladin main, it's something I've been waiting to jump into for several years. The story of the Forsaken Paladins rolls directly off of the new Warcraft 3 campaign, Forsaken Kingdom. This campaign deals with the initial struggles for the Forsaken to find their footing as a people while the threat of the Scourge and the Scarlet Crusade looms. We don't want to spoil too much of that campaign or the story or the characters, but suffice to say, there's some direct connective tissue here that we will explore in WoW Forever. >> When WoW Forever begins, we find the Forsaken Paladins at a time where they are deeply mistrusted by the other Forsaken. You have to imagine that if you were an ordinary forsaken citizen, the only thing you know of paladins are organizations like the Scarlet Crusade, who have made it their mission to torment and destroy all undead, including the Forsaken. Making matters more complicated is the fact that some former paladins who are raised into undeath don't take the transition well. The act of channeling the light is almost maddeningly painful for the undead, which is part of why it is so hard for some to adjust to life as a forsaken paladin. Some of these maladjusted souls will lash out, attempting to destroy or torment other forsaken until they themselves are put down. So when we find our forsaken paladin heroes at the start of WoW Forever, they are facing an uphill battle to get the rest of the Forsaken and by extension Sylvanas to fully accept them. One of the new locations we'll visit in WoW Forever is Bandarion Keep. This keep is in the formerly unreachable northwestern area of the Tearsful Glades called the Whispering Wood. percented paladins will be directed here around level 10 to start familiarizing themselves with Bandarian Keep and will receive most of their class. >> This is one of the spots that we said they could do something. >> And of course, no Paladin is a true Paladin without their trusty Ste. >> Okay, so I I saw this earlier. Uh I think this looks cool, but that is a retail mount. And I think if you want to play with classic graphics, they need to make a classic version of this and everything. Everything should be like that. And this one guy, I follow him. Look at this. Look, look at what he's been making. He's been making these uh like a lower res models. I think this looks amazing. This looks like it's from Vanilla. Wow. It's actually like mind-blowing how good this is. And he just he just whipped this up in a few hours. Now, I also think this looks amazing. I think this looks fantastic. However, this doesn't look like something from Vanilla. Wow. I feel like I I I feel like they should make whenever you do classic models, you should have classic models for everything in the game. It shouldn't be like littered with random retail models. I think this is fine if you want to play like an HD or retail version of the game in the settings, but I like like I said, I just hope they do classic >> their trusty Ste. >> Yeah, clash with the paladins of Bandarian Keep are no exception. Uh, also Forsaken Paladins will also embark on their very own epic mount quest at level 60 as well. >> It's a good thing that we're playing classic and not vanilla. You realize like how many times the devs have said like what I'm talking about and like how important it is to have things be cohesive and like how they want to they want to use the art style of vanilla and stuff. like every every [ __ ] that brings up that argument and I I do think it's a moronic argument cuz it's just it's it's this this thing where like people don't realize it's it's the retail Andes and they get so mad about it and it's like look I don't give a [ __ ] you can have this I think it looks great but if if I choose classic models there needs to be like everything there needs to be a classic version of everything and there also needs to be a retail version of everything there there just does you know I'll tell you right now which one would I prefer I I would Literally, if you gave me a choice of have this one or this one, I would have this one. I think this looks cool. But if I'm playing on retic models, I want this one. If I'm playing on retail models, I would want this one. But I think this random guy on the internet who is just just a random 3D artist and he's just doing this for fun is kind of killing it. Like this is so good. And he just knocks he knocked it out in a few hours. Looks incredible. >> Whereas the Alliance Paladins claim their epic charger in the name of I don't get why uh Blizzard wants to make classic look like retail so much. The problem is is that you have people who are working on retail now working on this. So like this is my opinion. I feel like you have to have like the eye, you know, you have to have the eye, you have to have the vision. And like you may or may not have the eye or the vision for classic if you work on retail, right? It's not guaranteed that you have it. You might have it, but it's not guaranteed. You can have people that work on retail work on classic, but that they just might not have it. >> Paladins the Forsaken ride in the name of retribution. >> The year is 2026. You're a game content designer for W forever. You're asked to make a horse mount, but you can't just make one version. You need to make two versions. One is for players who like high fidelity mounts and one is for players who like the old look. You'll be forced to do this for the entire time you work this job. I Yeah, that's what you signed up for. That is what you have done. But this random dude on the internet literally whipped this up in a few hours. Literally, he posted this one and then somebody said something in the comments like, "You should do one for the undead mount. Should I try my hand at making a classic style model?" Not even a day later, like half a day later, he posts this one. He's like, "Okay, this is what I did." Doesn't seem hard. It doesn't They don't even need to make separate models. They can they can defragment HD models and adjust them. If they look bad, that's enough. Yeah, maybe. I don't know how it works. >> Let's take a look at something new and totally unexpected. The Skyborn and their home in the clouds, Zephrasile. I think it's best to start by talking about the history of this new race. The Skyborn are a race of high elves that call themselves the Shandori or the Hidden People. Their history starts in the ancient kingdom of Eldrathal, which we now know as Diremal. In the immediate aftermath of the War of the Ancients, a group of concerned citizens united to oppose Prince Torldren and his plans to harness increasingly dangerous amounts of demonic energy to sustain the highborn of Elthalos. Having just seen the destruction caused by the War of the Ancients, these rebels rose up against the prince to try and prevent him from completing his grand design and throwing the kingdom into darkness forever. The rebels interference cost Orthldren dearly and prevented him from realizing his full plan. But it was a pirick victory and ultimately the rebellion ended in defeat. Forced to flee Calumor to escape the terrible wrath of Toreldren, these wayward elves spent years on the open sea, pushing ever westward into the unknown. Eventually, the rebels ran ground on an undiscovered land ruled by ancient primordial elemental spirits. With Torthldron's fleet close on their heels, the desperate elves were forced to strike a bargain with a group of wind spirits who lifted an enormous landmass of this island into the sky in order to escape Azeroth entirely. Using powerful elemental magic, these wind spirits anchored this floating island in the realm of air, Skywall. Safe and hidden from the vengeance of their pursuers, the Sky Lawrence spent thousands of years building a small but vibrant civilization hidden in a corner of the elemental plane. Now, the elemental plane has been a core part of Warcraft history since the earliest Warcraft games. We've visited it in various realms and other versions of World of Warcraft as well. For while forever, we were excited to go to Skywall and experience this place through its slightly different lens. The Shindorai as a people have gone through many changes over the past 10,000 years of existence and the elemental plane. Much like their high elven cousins who settled in Qualos, the Skyborn developed their own unique physical characteristics after being sused with the magic of Skywalk. They are more life and agile than their caldori ancestors and the magic of the elemental plane has had other effects on their physical characterist characteristics such as hair color, eye color as well as skin tone. When we find them at the start of WoW forever, the skyborn have been thrust abruptly into crisis. After thousands of years living alongside their elemental benefactors, they have the the wind spirits have suddenly vanished. Cinder eye is first time since arriving in Skywall. The Skyborn must now fend for themselves. The absence of the wind spirits has also thrown the magic that hold Sky Zephris together in turmoil. The ancient pylon structures that anchor Zephrile into the realm of Skywall have begun to falter and fall into disrepair, causing portions of the island to fall into ruin and darkness. In this period of turmoil, several factions have gained traction and are vying for control of Zephr. >> I'll tell you, I am not a fan of the Skyborn elves. Personally, I don't think we needed more elves. I think that Blizzard wanted to put elves in because everybody loves elves and they think that they're going to sell more elves to people. Now, I did say that maybe they should put high elves in as a playable race, but high elves are an existing race. I think adding another race of elves just feels a little bit unnecessary when there's other like current races of elves to choose from. Or on another front, uh I think having one race, I know they they said they're not the same race, but they are, right? They're two factions of the same race. I feel like they should have made something else entirely. I I don't think that they should have made Skyborn elves. I think they shouldn't have had Skyborn go to both. Like let's say you wanted to have Skyborn. I think you should have two races. >> The Windshapers are the shamanistic spiritual leaders of Zephrilele and they are one of the playable factions of Skyborn. This is the faction that will ultimately side with the Horde. While all Skyborn on both factions can be warriors, druids, hunters, and rogues, only Windshaper Skyborn may be shaman. This is to reflect the deep connection that skyborn shaman have with the elements and the now departed windspirits. By contrast, the high order are the more pragmatic and forwardthinking faction and they see the departure of the wind spirits as an unprecedented opportunity for the Shindorai people to truly be independent. And this is the faction that will ultimately side with the alliance. The members of the high order are the proud descendants of the highborn magesters who joined the rebels when they fled from Elder the loss and thus the ability to play as a mage is restricted to high order skyborn only. Lastly, we have the Aketh. The Alyth are a cult dedicated to the worship of Alakir the wind lord. The wind spirits rarely spoke of Alakir in their time with the skyborn, making the elemental lords something of a taboo mystery. Some among the skyborn, however, were able to use their shamanistic skyight to peer across the elemental plane and gain a glimpse of the terrifying might of this elemental lord. Tempted by power, these Shindorai broke with the rest of society and dedicated themselves to the service of Alakir. Emboldened by the departure of the benevolent wind spirits, the Alyth have risen to prominence, using the crisis to stoke fear and seize control of a large portion of the island. When we find them in WoW forever, they are an ever growing threat to the already fragile piece of Zephris. So, while we want to keep most stories firmly grounded on Azeroth, we felt it was important and exciting to be able to ex explore Skywall a bit more, and a starting zone is a great opportunity for that. Zephris is not a major fixture in the world, and it's very self-contained. You aren't going to go here every week to raid or to farm materials. This is an example of how we plan to sparingly and respectfully create new and totally unexpected content in WoW forever. So before we wrap up talking about Zephris, I want to call attention to the screen. So this is the final in-game map of Zephris. And here is the original sketch that Chris Mson drew up for Zephris after our first meeting talking about the concept. He was very stoked and he sent this to me very excited. As someone who remembers reading the original WoW or original Blizzard game manuals and seeing Chris's sketches in these, I can say it was definitely a surreal and geek out moment when he sent this over to me and we thought it would be cool to share with you guys. Thanks, bud. >> So, speaking of sharing, we thought it would be fun for us to go on a little adventure together. So, we are going to go off script a little bit and we're going to dive into a conversation between the two of us and a few thousand of our closest friends here today and we're going to talk a little bit about the development of Wow Forever. And so, to kick that off, we're going to jump right in with our first question for Josh. tell me a little bit about how the learnings from season of discovery uh were applied to this project. Yeah. So, in Season of Discovery, we did a lot of work to try and tell stories in a very classic way, in a way that felt very diagetic to the world. And you know, I mentioned earlier talking about blowing up existing characters like, you know, Gregory the truth bearer and an the Vindicated. um and you know following their stories uh as they sort of you know there was a backdrop of this Legion invasion and they they came together to rediscover the light together and and stave off that adventure. Well, telling those stories at the ground level, focusing on those two characters that is very quintessentially vanilla and it was something that we leaned into heavily. We studied a lot of original WoW. played through all of these classic quest chains we knew and love to create those types of stories and we want to bring that forward into into uh WoW Forever. A lot of the quests from Season of Discovery are things that we sorry a lot of the questions and quest lines in WoW forever are things that we started in season forward. Um, you know, speaking of kind of like the the journey uh that we were talking about earlier, like can you tell us about the development journey of the something like the Riverblades? It's so grounded. It's so vanilla. Wow. Uh, absolutely. Uh, where do we begin? I'll take you all on a little bit of a journey. Uh, a little bit of behind the scenes about our development process. So, when the zone was we're first looking at zones, what areas do we want to develop for this project? And there was this piece of land on the eastern shores of the eastern kingdoms and it had never really been developed. It did exist on the map. If anybody wants to go look at that, you can find that. Uh and that started a discussion. We have a lot of discussions on our team. Uh and that was what could we do with this area. And that led to discussions about how could we, you know, have stories from certain zones tie into this, whether they're connected or other areas of the world. And that led us to one of our world builders, you know, coming up with a couple, you know, ideas for the zone. It started as a few different biomes. We weren't sure if we wanted to have it be one single zone. It's a very large zone. It's about 30 chunks, which is roughly the size of Stranglethorn. And ultimately, we did land on making it a single zone. And that led to a lot of other discussions about, well, now that we have, you know, our zone idea, what kinds of stories do we want to tell? And that was a very long discussion, a month's monthsl long discussion. And we whittle down about 10 or 12 ideas, I would say, to a handful. And those ultimately became some of the stories that all of you will get to experience in the river. >> Okay. Interesting. >> Yeah, we we bounced a lot of those off of Chris Mson very early on. And he was really excited to kind of revisit some of these places that we'd seen in the earliest Warcraft games, even for a single mission like some place like Sunny Glade. Super cool to go back there. Um, you know, continuing on the the topic of the journey, Evan, why don't you tell us about, you know, how we went about choosing which level bands to include new content in because that was something we really wanted to make sure that we rounded out the world. Tell us about that. >> Uh, no surprise to anybody here, a lot more discussions. Uh, what we do is we have discussions all day, every day. Yeah. >> Um, it's great because it gets us thinking about why do these decisions matter? How do they impact the player experience? For something like Riverglades, a lot of it really came down to that we wanted to provide players not only a new zone to explore with new stories, but a new level band so you don't have to stay in the areas that you're already familiar with. And that's part of the journey that we wanted everybody to be able to take on their own. Or, you know, if you want to explore the new areas, you can. If you want to stay in the old areas, you can do that as well. And it was a blending. And the blending of the stories from one zone to the next also coincide with the level blending for the spaces. So, if you're in Stranglethorn, you want to level there, great. If you want a little bit of a break, you can now go experience an entirely new zone with hundreds of new quests for both factions. And not we're not talking just only about Riverglades as well. When we look at areas like wetlands and spoilers, there's some areas uh northern Calumor that might have new questing as well. Um all of this is intended to help give you more opportunities to not only explore these stories, but change the way that you level. This has been somewhat of a solved thing for some time, and we wanted to give you different opportunities to play the way that you'd like to play. Yeah, being able to redo that journey and seeing it in it through a different lens each time is really exciting. Um, and you know, it's been it's been a joy to level a bunch of different characters in our internal tests and kind of take a different route. You know, I think vanilla players, right? Like we kind of have our route we like to go. It's the comfy kind of kind of butt groove in your leveling process. And we sort of uh we were able to kind of upend that a little bit. A lot of fun. So, when we're talking about, you know, level banding and all the zones that we want to introduce and all the new content that we're going to create, tell us a little bit about what kinds of how how do we approach story moments? >> Yeah. So, you know, I talked a little bit about telling stories in a sort of vanilla way or a classic way. I think one of the things that we all I'm going to speak for everyone a little bit here, I'm sorry, and say that I think the things most people uh agree is awesome about original WoW is the mysteries it created. 100%. This is something I talked about this. Okay, so I talked about this actually before uh I talked about this before Blizzcon. I said that's that's like one of the keys to the game that's super super important is don't explain everything. Like let some things just kind of like be what they are and just like let the mystery kind of flow, you know, >> guys. But I remember in like 2006 watching, you know, a grainy video of the first guy to go through Scarlet Monastery with a corrupted ashbrer on his back, right? That stuck with me. Talks to Fairbanks. He learns about Darien Mograin and Outland. And I spent kind of years, I feel like, wondering where that was going to go and how that was going to play out. >> The same thing about 2026. There's a website called ashbringer.com and it was a forum and and it was like all the tidbits of like like how to get the how to uncorrupt the Ashbrer was like people were tracking it constantly and then eventually one thing led to another and I think it was like Blizzcon or something they asked like what happened to the story of the Ashbrer like where is it in in Outland? They're like oh yeah we forgot about that and then they ended up just you know giving it to to Tyrion for Wrath. however, is that a lot of those questions in the intervening years have been answered. >> And so what we're really trying to do with something like Wow Forever is create opportunities for new mysteries for for everyone. You know what what how did the Brotherhood of the Horse end up in the Riverglades? Like what was their motivation um how did the uh the Boulder Rock Ogre Clan, how did they end up, you know, they were part of the Twilight's Hammer, a little bit of spoiler, sorry. and how did they end up on their own and what will that mean and their interactions with the horde? I don't know. Um, and so creating those new mysteries is really important to us. So when we're talking about all this stuff and you know we're in the office and we're talking about ideas and we're planning for current and release and future content, it it provides us a lot of opportunities. So the last question I wanted to ask today with Josh, no pressure, what does the future hold for WoW forever? >> Oh boy. So, you know, I think if you're, you know, if you if you're playing the beta next Thursday and you're feeling a little adventurous, maybe you might want to try do a little bit of a corpse run to the entrance of a place called Grim Batal in Eastern uh wetlands. Uh if you end up there, you'll notice a maybe potentially notice anyway a much larger red dragon presence outside of the the >> mountain. I'm not sure why. I don't know. I don't know what that's about. >> Weird. Anyone have any opinions about that? I don't know. Like >> Yeah, exactly. >> I think you hinted at this a little bit, Evan, but the uh talking about uh some zones that we've also added uh more things to such as Ashara. We haven't talked about it a lot. We gave Ashara quite the glow up, too. There's a lot of new quests there. I will say though, there's perhaps a cratersized hole in the content of that zone and I'm wondering if maybe at some point we might fill that. I don't know. >> Hashara Crater, >> you know, that about wraps up the time we have for today. >> We hope that all of you enjoyed this discussion and we can't wait to invite all of you to come play this journey with us throughout Azeroth. on behalf of myself and Josh, the classic team, and the World of Warcraft team. Thank you all very much. Enjoy the rest of your BlizzCon. We can't wait to see you in Azeroth. Thanks. >> Nice. Yeah, dude. I think there's so much potential for this game, man. I think there really is. I think there really is. I just I hope the gameplay is good. If the gameplay is good, the meat and potatoes are good, it'll stand the test of time. It just the gameplay has to hit. the gameplay has to be good because there's so much potential and there's so much intrigue and mystery and everything around the corner. I I I really really hope for the best, man. I really do. But yeah, so anyways, with that being said, Blizzcon was absolutely incredible. Uh getting to finally come home, react to everything. I mean, there's there's a ton of stuff we did. I mean, you can get updates on stuff or go back and look at my Twitter and and there's a lot to talk about there. But yeah, make sure to check out my stream. I'm live on Twitch, YouTube, Rumble, Kick, Twitter as well. So everything is SFAN TV. You can also join the Discord, Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, whatever it is. If it exists, it's SFAN TV, the Reddit, whatever it is. Everything is SPF TV. Come be a part of the community. I mean, we we've been doing this for a long time from years ago trying to be uh the guys pushing for classic WoW classic uh sorry for like classic WoW like legacy servers and stuff like that from from like the private server days all the way to now with like classic plus and hoping that it's like the game hoping that it's like the the the best game that we can possibly make it, the best version of of WoW that we can have. It's a big deal. Uh we're really excited for it and you know we do a lot of other things too. But if you guys like it, if you guys like the video, if you guys have something to talk about, leave a comment, subscribe, like the video, and we'll see you guys next time.