“A lot of people who played WoW in the past” will be interested in its evolution and change, says Blizzard

By Stephany Nunneley

Cataclysm’s chief project manager, J. Allen Brack has said Blizzard is trying to make World of Warcraft the “best it can be” and is not focusing on subscription numbers.

Speaking with Guardian, Brack said including goblins as a playable race for Horde is something which has been asked for repeatedly by players, and the developers think “a lot of people who played the game in the past” will be interested in returning and seeing how the game has “evolved and changed”.

“You know, traditionally we are pretty terrible at predicting what happens with subscription numbers,” he said. “So the thing we try to do is focus on just making WoW the best that it can be and so far that’s worked pretty well for us. We’ve done a pretty good job in terms of players’ subscription rates.”

As far as Deathwing is concerned, the destruction caused by the denizen has reached its peak, and no capital cities will be destroyed due to the creature walking around the world.

However, when it comes to areas which are changing or will be changed around a bit, the developers are currently looking into what else can be done with the Outland and Northrend zones created in the previous two expansions.

“We have started to talk about what we need to do with Outland and Northrend because the story that we are telling in Cataclysm is kind of interesting once you get to Outland,” said Brack. “Because there’s no congruity between the two stories. It feels a little weird for you to have the whole Deathwing is back and has destroyed the world, and you walk into Outland and your like ‘Hey! There’s this guy Illidan’.

“That feels a little weird and we don’t exactly know how we’re going to tackle that yet, but that is definitely something that we do want to find a solution for.”

Cataclysm launches on December 7, which is just a week away.