World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

Thank you for playing Plunderstorm. Feedback was heard, Plunderlords have risen, fire whirls were nerfed, tournaments were conducted, W’s were shared. We tried something new with this, and it’s been a hell of a ride.

Working on and releasing Plunderstorm has been a dream come true. Starting from an early prototype, to not knowing exactly how a BR would work, to changing how healing worked in the mode about a million times before it launched, a lot of challenges that we needed to overcome.

The energy that our peers brought to Plunderstorm while it was in development was next level. We got so many great ideas and things changed around because of our internal playtests. Every discipline brought in their passion, from QA, to the design, to the music, to the engineering, to the art, to marketing, to many more involved. There was no shortage of good ideas thrown around.

The team working on Plunderstorm day to day was relentless, driven, and clearly cared about delivering a fun, quality experience. We had many discussions about what else we could do to juice up the game mode.

Plunderstorm’s point of entry was an important one for us. Though some may have been disappointed they couldn’t use their main characters, the low amount of clicks needed, no previous content clearing required and Dragonflight not being required was an important goal of ours. We wanted anyone, no matter who you are or what experience you have, to be able to load into a Plunderstorm match. No leveling needed, nothing. Just jump straight in and start playing.

There were a ton of first we tried with Plunderstorm. There are things we may do again, or may never do again. And all of that is ok! We learned a lot from this. There’s never been anything like Plunderstorm in WoW, and it was a huge experimental feature during a time when the expansion is winding down and kicking off a great 20th anniversary. We should never be afraid of trying something new. As a player, novelty is what drove me to WoW in the first place.

Steve Jobs once said “Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity, not a threat". WoW is a huge game, with a lot of players who all play the game differently. Innovating in WoW is something we should strive for to seek opportunities. Introducing new playstyles, new fun moments, new ways to interact and more is what game development is all about. It’s been a dream come true to be part of something so wildly different.

Someone once said “World of Warcraft players are some of the smartest players in the world”. This is a very true statement. This community should never forget how special and great it is.

Thanks for plundering with us.