Project Lore

Interactive online magazine MMOZine recently scored an interview with one Mr. Greg Street, a.k.a. the infamous Ghostcrawler. The first part of three focuses squarely on the production and coming release of Patch 3.3, which as you all probably know by now will wrap up the whole Lich King plot-line that's been brewing since Warcraft III. Most of the questions relate directly to the design of the Icecrown Citadel raid and 5-man dungeons, but one answer caught my eye in particular, especially with this whole release date mess we've been going through lately:

MMOZine: Will all the bosses in Icecrown Citadel be made available immediately or are you going to stagger them, as you did in Sunwell Plateau? GS:Well we've not announced when it's coming out yet but we don't want to throw players against challenging raid content right over the holidays, so we're trying to avoid that a little bit.

If we've been looking for a reason as to why a Blizzard CM might tell a player that 3.3 is over a month out, then Ghostcrawler may have just given us our answer. I think a lot of us assumed that Thanksgiving would be an issue, but they might just be lumping the December holidays right in there with it. I still think that's a questionable decision to make, if it's true. However, note that Street is addressing the issue of gating ICC content specifically. He doesn't want to throw players into challenging raid content right away, which is a statement that jives with the whole idea of making only the first wing available until after the first of the year. It's clear that Blizzard wants to stretch the content, but it's comforting to know that they don't necessarily want to use that as an excuse to keep Cataclysm from coming out any sooner:

MMOZine: Are you concerned - hypothetically assuming it's going to be released around Q2/3 next year - that players are going to get a little bored waiting for Cataclysm? GS: It's definitely a challenge to make sure too much time doesn't go by. At the same time, if we stop and make a 3.4 patch, then that just pushes Cataclysm farther away. We know from the past, from Burning Crusade and Wrath, that when the beta comes out that's a really big moment and it gets people really excited again. What we've traditionally done is change the game and put in the new spells and talent trees quite a bit before the actual box goes up on the shelf. There's a couple of really big milestones along the way, even though they're not going to be playing Cataclysm as a Goblin or a Worgen right away.

So you can see there's won't be a 3.4 and that there's a good chance of 4.0 arriving at least a couple weeks earlier than Cataclysm goes retail in order to implement all of the changes that affect players across the board (inculding those that can't or don't purchase the expansion right away). In truth, that means a whole lot more than the release of 3.0 did before Wrath, because this time around, it would have to include the remade Azeroth. In other developer interview news, the WoW Community Site has put up their own interview with Greg Street (and Lead Content Designer Cory Stockton) concerning Patch 3.3. Considering it's internal nature, it's mostly fluff and softball questions. Do remember that these sorts of things are tailored to the portion of the playerbase out there that doesn't go out of their way to find out what's coming down the pike, but you still might learn a thing or two about the design philosophy behind ICC by checking it out.