Behind the Blue Curtain: Inside Blizzard Headquarters with Wrath of the Lich King

But, I doubt the hardcore raiding guilds are at the forefront of their minds these days. Wrath of the Lich King is decidedly one of the most casual-friendly expansion I’ve ever seen.

All of that’s not to say those who prefer 25 mans will be left out in the cold. There will be entirely new tiers of loot to hoard, with the promise of much larger shoulder pads to come. I’m sure most guilds will be too busy power leveling their Death Knight alts to do much raiding, anyway.

Lastly, what about people who no longer play the game, or never got started in the first place?

One of the questions I was going to ask during the interview session but decided not to—although, I flubbed a bit and blurted half of it out anyway—was: I quit the game over a year ago, what is the expansion going to feature to get people like me back?

The answer, as far as I saw, was a whole lot more WoW.

If you enjoyed the game before, but quit because you felt like you ran into a wall without any further content to advance through, the expansion will obviously be worth your while, with ten additional levels, new siege combat, battlegrounds, and an entire new continent to explore.

However, if you found something disagreeable about WoW in general, or its overall design philosophy, nothing much will change in Wrath of the Lich King, aside from the aforementioned 10/25 raiding system.

If you were sitting on the sidelines hoping for some kind of radical gameplay overhaul that would let you shoot lightning from your eyes and solo Onyxia, you’re going to have to continue to wait awhile longer.

For those who never got started in WoW—I imagine that can’t be too many people reading this article—immediately following the release of an expansion tends to be a good time to start. Many people take it as an opportunity to reroll, and the newbie areas immediately become much more densely populated than usual.

And about that release date…

Based on the state of everything that I saw, if I were a betting man, I would advise you to pay no heed to all those rumors floating around saying that WotLK is coming out in November.

I’m sure Blizzard would prefer to release during the Christmas season when game-related sales are at their peak (along with firing a shot across Mythic’s bow, and their plans to launch WAR in the same timeframe); but, let’s face facts: November or January, Christmas, Easter, or next Memorial Day weekend, there is no possible date on which they could release the expansion when it would not sell like greased lightning.

Blizzard has always been one of the few companies that can say “We’ll release it when it’s done” and actually mean it. Keep that in mind, along with the fact they aren’t even out of friends and family alpha yet.

The Tour

To wrap up the day came a tour of the campus (or, at least, the parts of it that were open to the media). Points of interest included the company museum, cafeteria, 24 hour gym, and the WoW development area.

Stopping first back in the lobby, the tour guide took a moment to point out a large hole in the concrete walkway just outside the doors. To fill it, she said, a twenty foot tall statue of an orc riding a worg was currently being sculpted in China.

That would certainly help the office shed that “selling life insurance” image.

The museum consisted of an entire wall of shelves covered in plaques, trophies, medallions, bottles of champagne, collectable figurines and trading cards.

Interspersed throughout the remainder of the room were walled partitions hung with concept and box art from every title in the company’s lineup, including some Chris Metzen originals.

There was of course also a Korean section, featuring such things as books on how to learn English and economics using StarCraft.

On the second floor we came upon the WoW development area itself, and were issued strict instructions to not take any compromising photographs, and avoid bothering the staff, who were trying to get some work done, even while a dozen reporters wandered around.

There was a striking lack of cubicles—which was explained by their use of a bullpen office setup, in which they grouped people from separate areas of development together in the hopes of increased collaboration. They might place designers in the same office with artists, or artists with programmers, for instance.

All in all, it wasn’t really what I had pictured… mostly, it was just the striking lack of people having money fights in the hallways.

After we had made a circuit of the development floor—taking roughly ten minutes and passing less than two dozen offices in the process—I started to think that surely, this couldn’t be everyone.

There must have been some kind of clandestine subbasement where hundreds were worked around the clock like galley slaves to churn out content patches.

As the tour drew to a close and we were about to return to the demo room, the guide asked if there were any questions. After a few moments, when no one else piped up, I asked: “How many people work on WoW’s development, total?”

“You mean just in this building, or worldwide?”

“In general.”

“Right now we have between 150 and 160 working on the actual development, and around 1,500 overall when you factor in support, administration, and things like that.”

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