Produced by: Tiger Sniffing Yellow Youth Channel
Author|Commercial Consumption Chief Writer Huang Qingchun
Visual China
On August 1st, the official server for World of Warcraft returns—and the familiar Blizzard that once refused to abandon Chinese players is back.
From Blizzard's official announcement of the "breakup" of NetEase (November 17, 2022) to NetEase's smashing of the Warcraft Tomahawk, from "Blizzard Green Tea" to the player's own download of the data urn, from the official termination of Blizzard's contract with NetEase, the closure of the Chinese mainland service area by World of Warcraft and other Blizzard games to the announcement of "remarriage" with NetEase, Blizzard has never left the center of the public opinion storm in the past 500 days.
Frankly speaking, from 2005, when Jiucheng won the domestic agency of Blizzard's flagship product "World of Warcraft", to 2008, when NetEase took over the agency, many of Blizzard's games have fought their way out of the Chinese online game market, especially "World of Warcraft" is almost the belief in the hearts of many people.
However, what makes Chinese players angry is that when the negotiations between Blizzard and NetEase irretrievably slipped into a lose-lose break, the aftershocks of the capital collision completely destroyed the spiritual home of a group of people who grew up - there was no shortage of players who were displaced to the world server like refugees.
Now, Blizzard is back in the Chinese market, and even though World of Warcraft executives have revealed between the lines of their longing and reluctance for Chinese players in the past 500 days, and even though Ion Hazzikostas, senior director of games at World of Warcraft, has repeatedly mentioned that Blizzard's return will become "humble" - but the "deep love" at this moment is in stark contrast to the resolute abandonment of the past, and it is hard not to wonder whether it is the Chinese market or Chinese players that it is difficult to let go.
In recent years, Activision executives have become more and more eager for Blizzard's revenue desire, and it was not until Microsoft completed the acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October 2023 that Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who strongly advocated the heavy rain to abandon Chinese players, was out of the game.
As Mike Ybarra, former president of Blizzard, said in an interview: "There are millions of players in Chinese mainland who love Blizzard games, and everyone at Blizzard wants to make sure they can play our games." We are a global company and want Blizzard games to be available in every country and region in the world, including Chinese mainland. ”
下为虎嗅与 Holly Longdale - executive producer of WoW（《魔兽世界》执行制作人）、Ion Hazzikostas - Senior Game Director of WoW（《魔兽世界》游戏高级总监）沟通实录（为方便阅读有所删减）：
After Blizzard returned, everything was reluctant
Q: From leaving to returning, how has the mentality of the Warcraft team changed?
Holly Longdale: I've learned a lot, especially for Warcraft, we have new patches or updates every 8 weeks, which wasn't as frequent before, including now there are all sorts of ways to experience the Nostalgia Suit, including the Quest Season, Cataclysm Nostalgia, Wrath of the Lich King's Nostalgia, and now there's more flexibility to try to sense what the player wants and help them do it.
It's also important to enrich the game based on players' requests and ideas, and try to make players receptive to new content.
Q: What is the biggest challenge for the return of Warcraft?
Ion Hazzikosta: It's all about regaining the trust of your players. The return of the Warcraft server on August 1st and the global simultaneous entry of "Battle for the Center of the Earth" on August 27th is the most important thing is to listen to the voice of the community, so that players can feel our determination to return, and at the same time, we will stay here forever and provide the best gameplay experience.
Holly Longdale: Actually, a lot of things have changed in the 500 days or so that I've been away, including Blizzard itself. During this period, the release of the Dragon Legion version, the Exploration Season update, including some other content, tried the content in other markets around the world, and now hopes that more content will be experienced by players on the national server at the same time, and listen carefully to the feedback of players; On the other hand, our partner NetEase is closer to the Chinese market, and they will take the opinions of players to give us suggestions, and we will take this matter seriously, which is very important.
Q: What are the difficulties encountered in the reconstruction of the return of the Warcraft national server?
Ion Hazzikosta: If it's technically difficult, the team has technical and engineering experts, and now it's mainly about data retention and recovery, including how to get players back to the way they left the game, while also providing new players with a better experience to get into the game. It is equivalent to filling in some of the missing data and habit change difficulties that come with this year and a half.
Holly Longdale: World of Warcraft has been in operation for 20 years, and this IP has spawned a lot of new opportunities, and "Wrath of the Lich King" has received a lot of love with 2 million registrations on the first day of testing. We've been discussing what other right options we should make with NetEase in the future to bring more fun to players, including co-branding or cross-border collaborations, and hoping to discuss some new content with players, but for now, all the focus is still on re-launching.
Q: Some of the new spells and missions in the previous version are too complicated for returning players, what are the improvements in this regard?
Ion Hazzikosta: For the live server, the world is constantly expanding and there are new stories to be taught, but the difficulty of the game has to be kept up - both returning and new players must do this in order to have a better experience. The Dragon version of "Battle for the Center of the Earth", which will be launched on August 1, has been adjusted from level 1-10 to the novice island, and you can directly enter the Dragon Age expansion pack.
In terms of overall difficulty, there are various types and styles of Warcraft players, and we will provide a very wide adaptation range in the official server. From the hardest Epic Keystone dungeons (including Epic or Heroic difficulty packs) to the new Battle for the Center of the Earth, there is a dungeon feature that allows players to play with 1 person or 1-2 friends.
Q: How do you view the changes in the MMO player ecosystem during the suspension of the domestic server?
Holly Longdale: I'm very excited and happy to see some new developments on the Chinese side, and I'm very happy to welcome the competition. Because competition will force us to improve, but at the same time, we can learn a lot from it, and we can better understand the preferences of Chinese players, which helps us to improve our game. Therefore, we are not afraid of competition and are willing to embrace it.
Q: How is the AIGC landing in World of Warcraft?
Ion Hazzikosta: AI is a very new tool that needs to be fully understood in order to make a better game. A few years ago, each race of Warcraft was different, so when designing armor and armor, it was necessary to manually adjust each race each time.
For example, elf ears cannot be molded, and feet cannot be molded; In recent years, we have started to use machine learning to simplify this process, including some aspects of business warfare, which we didn't have the energy and resources to enrich before.
Q: World of Warcraft has been in operation for 20 years now, what are the next opportunities and challenges?
Ion Hazzikosta: It's a great privilege and a lot of pressure. We need to bring this game into the next 30 years, so that Chinese players and even global players want to make Azeroth want to make their home, and we want to achieve this vision. Of course, there will be a lot of celebrations, such as after the anniversary in November, and more expectations will be on the players, hoping to better meet their needs, better tell them a story, and better present World of Warcraft, so that the game can last for the next 20 years.
Holly Longdale: In fact, Blizzard has also undergone major changes, including changes in the leadership team and operation team, and I hope that in the next 10 years, we will try more courageous behaviors, better serve players, and also pay more attention to players' opinions and listen better. Both nostalgic and formal costumes need to make some new and courageous attempts, hoping to present more new content to Chinese players.
Vows to provide exclusive services for Chinese players
Q: What do Chinese players mean to World of Warcraft, and what updates are suitable for Chinese players?
Ion Hazzikosta: Chinese World of Warcraft players are probably the most passionate player base in the world, and we're humbled by their passion for World of Warcraft. Whether it's the fact that they enter a server and quickly shut it down, or the enthusiasm they showed when the nostalgic server was launched 6 years ago. Now they are willing to trust us again, and we are very touched and happy that Chinese players have given us a second chance, and we are very touched and happy to be able to return to the Chinese market.
We've missed out on about a year and a half, and we do need to have something unique and exclusive to China, but it's something to be discussed carefully, including with NetEase. The focus is still on relaunching the game in China first and putting the game in the hands of players, including the launch of "Battle for the Center of the Earth" next month, after which more content updates will be further investigated.
Q: Will the nostalgic and official servers consider developing exclusive content for Chinese players?
Ion Hazzikosta: After the re-launch of the China region, some bonus content will be updated, which is definitely exclusive to Chinese players, that is, after the re-launch of the China region, some of the bonus content will be exclusive to Chinese players, and after re-cooperating with NetEase, we will further explore how to better serve players around the world, especially in China.
Q: In the Chinese market, there are mostly male users of World of Warcraft, will there be any strategic adjustments for female players in the future?
Holly Longdale: The team has always been open-minded in this regard, and we will also pay more attention to creativity in the way we do things, including the follow-up cooperation with NetEase, and the proportion of women in the development team is a relatively healthy percentage, at least in the past 2-3 years. Of course, the team will also be more proactive in promoting some activities to better serve female players. We've made a lot of new changes in the past year and a half.
Q: What are the expectations of World of Warcraft for the Chinese market, and will the Chinese market be an important development direction in the future?
Holly Longdale: Chinese players and audiences are very important to us, and the team was very sad when they couldn't continue to run World of Warcraft in China, and now they are very excited to come back, and people may think that it is easier to get the game back online, but it's really hard to do a good job, so our focus is on how to better work with NetEase to run the game well, and at the same time provide a great and stable gaming experience.
In the future, you will see a lot of new things, including "Soul of the World Legend" is brand new content, try seasonal content on the nostalgic server, try new content on the official server, etc., some people say that the preferences of Chinese players have changed, and we hope to embrace the changes and research to bring new content to players, which is an exciting time.
Q: Can you elaborate on some of the changes in Chinese players?
Ion Hazzikosta: We were amazed by the launch of the Nostalgia Server in 2019, with a lot of enthusiasm from players in China, and a lot of different ways for Chinese players to interact with Nostalgia from other players. For example, there are a lot of full, multi-populated servers, including a lot of players who play Legion, and there may not be so many other places.
Therefore, when we do similar projects in the future, we will consider differentiating the rules when setting up a new server. As mentioned earlier, the Chinese market has changed a lot over the years, and with the return of various versions of Warcraft, we will continue to learn and study the preferences of Chinese players, while maintaining the flexibility to respond to changes.
Q: What is the focus of the follow-up operation strategy of World of Warcraft?
Holly Longdale: First of all, the Chinese gaming market is changing, and we're learning some market insights that we couldn't get on our own, and we're looking to put those things to use. At the same time, we will also open discussions with the community to see what changes should be made in the future direction to make Chinese players more satisfied. We've talked about what makes Chinese players different from other players around the world, and the results of the discussion are really different, especially in terms of game preferences, so we also need to learn how to better serve Chinese players.
Ion Hazzikosta: Of course, there's a big change in players over the last few years, but one thing is for sure, players are going to continue to change in the future, so it's important to be humble, to listen to the players, and to keep evolving the game to meet the needs of the players. The previously released Warcraft Nostalgia Costume is some of the classic experiences of the game 15 years ago, and there are still players who will enter the Nostalgia Costume to play.
But we also have to make some changes to meet the preferences and tastes of new players, when we released the nostalgic service in 2019, it was said that it must be original and not change anything, but in recent years, I have slowly understood that there are some trade-offs, and we can maintain flexibility, listen to some player feedback to make compromises, and finally make the player experience the best it can be.
#虎嗅商业消费主笔黄青春. Producer of Huang Qingchun Channel, pay attention to entertainment and social networking, games, video and other fields, industry personnel exchange plus WeChat: 724051399, news clues can also be emailed to [email protected]
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