A Word on World of Warcraft
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Greetings Azeroth,

2024 is underway and it’s a big year for World of Warcraft as the game reaches a milestone 20-year anniversary!

To think that 20 years ago Facebook launched, MySpace was cool, and many of us were playing on a Nintendo DS and a Playstation Portable. Friends aired its final episode and Lost delivered its first. And that same year friends, family, and coworkers started playing a game called World of Warcraft!

It fills my heart that Azeroth has become home to so many different types of people and players around the globe who have shared memorable moments these past two decades. *hugs* As Morpheus cried in Matrix Reloaded (2003, but anyway) “WE are STILL here!” I’m glad I chose this rabbit hole and have never regretted how deep it goes. WoW is my wonderland – all day, every day.




Thinking about the year ahead, and our roadmaps we remain committed to, we want to share with you three things we’re focused on as a development team:

  • #1. Continue to evolve the living world for all players.
    • Build on our learnings from 2023 to deliver content regularly for Dragonflight and Classic.
    • Update and modernize your experience and quality of life in all flavors of WoW.
    • Listen to your feedback and keep improving.

  • #2. Deliver the first installment of our most ambitious story with The War Within.
    • World of Warcraft: The War Within is preparing to invite players for testing in the coming months, and we are working hard to deliver on the epic journey of our Worldsoul Saga.

  • #3. Try new things and take risks to bring you new experiences.
    • Our development team is trying new approaches. Invention and creativity are critical to this ever-evolving world of Azeroth we craft for—and with—all of you.


All that in mind, immediately ahead of us we have WoW Classic: Season of Discovery Phase 2 launching on February 8 at 1:00 p.m. (21:00 GMT) globally. For more details, get the full scoop from our overview. You’ll notice some new approaches mentioned there that we’re trying out and (as always) we will listen to feedback. (“New runes, a new PvP experience, skill books, and more!)

WoW Classic Hardcore’s Self-Found mode is coming in late February, followed shortly after by the Beta for Cataclysm Classic. More news on that will be coming soon.

As many have noticed, this is the first period of time since Dragonflight launched that we haven’t had an active PTR and we understand that it is creating some curiosity.

For the 10.2.6 patch for Dragonflight, we created what we think is a unique event inspired by past musings from the community. We can say that it is open to anyone with a WoW subscription if they want to participate (Classic or Dragonflight players). That's all we’re going say. Sorry, not sorry? Our goal is to continue to keep it secret— and keep it safe. The speculation is great! We watched the reaction to the surprises in Season of Discovery and thought we’d try a similar, but different, approach for Dragonflight.

That means there will be no PTR (Public Test Realm) for a portion of the next content update as we have traditionally done. What we can say is that it will be coming in March. A finer point, but the update will also include everything that’s needed for Dragonflight Season 4 but will be hidden. Around (after) the launch of the update we will make Season 4 available for testing on a 10.2.6 PTR before it goes live.

Why are we doing this? We like the idea of releasing content that has some surprises and isn’t datamined or revealed in advance. We also like to see the joy the community gets out of uncovering it all together as they all jump in to play. We look forward to seeing if the community likes this type of surprise and look forward to hearing your feedback. This is risky experiment and could be a bit bumpy, though we are doing everything we can to ensure success.

The WoW team prides itself on ensuring a solid, quality launch. We are sensitive and reactive to problems and issues that can and might arise, so I hope you can forgive us if we experience some hiccups with this experiment and work alongside us as we try this out in March. ALL WILL BE REVEALED THEN!



With gratitude and excitement for the new memories we create together,

Holly Longdale
This article was originally published in forum thread: A Word on World of Warcraft started by Lumy View original post
Comments 55 Comments
  1. doledippers's Avatar
    so, 10.2.6, what we learn from this.

    -coming in march
    -no ptr
    -available for both versions of the game?
    -will be a secret until it drops

    VERY interesting. I appreciate this, now we know that we shouldnt expect anything until then.

    edit; she also refers to it as "a unique event", so i think that immediately discounts hardcore retail as an option. I wouldnt describe that as an event. Not that i thought hardcore was particularly likely to begin with, but yeah. nail in the coffin for that
  1. Julmara's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by doledippers View Post
    so, 10.2.6, what we learn from this.

    -coming in march
    -no ptr
    -available for both versions of the game?
    -will be a secret until it drops

    VERY interesting. I appreciate this, now we know that we shouldnt expect anything until then.
    no ptr so it wont be tested properly
    so i assume plenty of weird bugs
  1. johnnyd2's Avatar
    maybe it will be Retail/Classic collection integration or something like that? We did see the "Bugs" of the Arborwyrm mount and some other REtail only things appearing in Classic as well.
  1. doledippers's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Julmara View Post
    no ptr so it wont be tested properly
    so i assume plenty of weird bugs
    im cautiously optimistic, im willing to give them a shot but of course things are a lot more prone to fuckups with the lack of a PTR.

    im curious about this: "We can say that it is open to anyone with a WoW subscription if they want to participate (Classic or Dragonflight players)"
    does this read as 'available to both versions' or as 'you just need a sub, as in u dont need to be max level'?
  1. RobertMugabe's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Julmara View Post
    no ptr so it wont be tested properly
    so i assume plenty of weird bugs
    PTR's are primarily just for generating hype. I doubt that user feedback plays even a minor role for QA/development... I mean there isn't even a "proper" way to report bugs, besides just being able to write down a small note (no images, limited text size etc.)
  1. Railander's Avatar
    this has to be the "vampire survivors" game mode that was datamined previously.
    excited to try it out.
  1. Ereb's Avatar
    Sounds exciting for sure! It also sounds like everything is going according to plan in regards to their roadmap and timeline
  1. Mendzia's Avatar
    Probably some very simple additional game like Vampire Survivors will be added to the launcher but with with WoW mobs/bosses?
  1. Kathranis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Luthorite View Post
    In general given the amount of firings in recent times for Activision Blizzard I have zero faith in the future of their games anymore.
    Almost nobody on the WoW team got hit, from what has been reported. Just a few historians in CDEV which technically isn't even the WoW team.

    They actively grew the WoW team over the last few years, it's now far larger than it was before. Large enough to have several different versions of the game playable and in active development (Classic Hardcore / Season of Discovery / Cataclysm / Dragonflight / War Within / Midnight are all in full development right now).
  1. Loveliest's Avatar
    I hope it's not some "keep your eyes on your social media to get some stuff" event thing. Like secrets of azeroth...
  1. Kathranis's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by doledippers View Post
    im cautiously optimistic, im willing to give them a shot but of course things are a lot more prone to fuckups with the lack of a PTR.

    im curious about this: "We can say that it is open to anyone with a WoW subscription if they want to participate (Classic or Dragonflight players)"
    does this read as 'available to both versions' or as 'you just need a sub, as in u dont need to be max level'?
    It's only on the Dragonflight roadmap but it must be designed so that Classic players can access it, either through Classic or within Retail without having to grind out a max level toon.

    Maybe some sort of direct crossover with Season of Discovery that will build towards the Dark Heart patch?



    Since this is obviously Xal'atath hanging out in Arathi in Season of Discovery, playing with what's most likely a shard of the crystal that pierced Hallowfall.
  1. meroes's Avatar
    Twitter integration part II!
  1. Nerph-'s Avatar
    There is no doubt there will be bugs, that's a given, but often bugs can be quirky and fun too.

    Looking forward to next month to find out what they've been cooking.
  1. Ereb's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Loveliest View Post
    I hope it's not some "keep your eyes on your social media to get some stuff" event thing. Like secrets of azeroth...
    You mean, "check wowhead for complete guide" event :P
  1. jeba28's Avatar
    Finaly Blizzard wakes up, finaly a patch that isnt played to dead on the ptr and changed because raid players want this and that.
  1. doledippers's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Kathranis View Post
    It's only on the Dragonflight roadmap but it must be designed so that Classic players can access it, either through Classic or within Retail without having to grind out a max level toon.

    Maybe some sort of direct crossover with Season of Discovery that will build towards the Dark Heart patch?

    --snip--

    Since this is obviously Xal'atath hanging out in Arathi in Season of Discovery, playing with what's most likely a shard of the crystal that pierced Hallowfall.
    my bet is on some kind of scaled up content or mode, where you can just play at any level. Think a roguelike game mode where u start out naked and can collect power ups, as an example. im excited either way
  1. VoidSeeker199X's Avatar
    Why are players and devs alike so obsessed with patch numbers? All that content will be made obsolete in a few months time. So why should anyone care? And why is the game still called WORLD of Warcraft when only a small fraction of that world is being played on?
  1. Just Passing through's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by VoidSeeker199X View Post
    Why are players and devs alike so obsessed with patch numbers? All that content will be made obsolete in a few months time. So why should anyone care? And why is the game still called WORLD of Warcraft when only a small fraction of that world is being played on?
    Where is the obsession? Giving a patch a number could be down to sheer...you know..programming and release demands.

    I mean..I don't get why it isn't called 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 etc but needs to be 10.2.6 - but if you want to call that an obsession...then ok /shrug
  1. SinR's Avatar
    I'm hoping the patch is a buggy mess on day 1 because nobody tested it on PTR
  1. Zarvel's Avatar
    What's in the box, holly? What's in the boooooooooooooox?

    The 10.2.6 secret is killing me.

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