Holly Longdale: How World of Warcraft Is Now Different 

100% true

Completely agree. She's so earnest and passionate about what she's doing, which will filter down into the rest of everything.

"feels like"

Probably is😊

hehe, she was famous for saying " Only hardcore raiders deserve Nagafen loot "....she was the producer for Everquest for a long time and made quite a few missteps and eventually left. I think the environment at Blizzard is better for her. Everquest had a lot of uncertainty budget limitations, very few developers.

She seems like such a sweetheart too. She gives me hope.

Yeah she feels like the heart that WoW was missing for quite a while. I hope she stays a long time

She’s kind of the ‘Yoshi-P’ of WoW imo. It’s clear how much passion she has for the game and the players.

Ion is great but you can see that he comes from a job where you shouldnt look at feelings. I think Holly is a good partner for what Ion is missing.

She’s on the verge of tears the whole time, which tells me she’s really proud of what’s going on

She worked on Everquest before this!

She was over the classic team before her current role

@@fabuloushetero1228 love it dude, that's a veteran if I've ever seen one

@@fabuloushetero1228 How well is everquest doing these days???

@@alericc1889 no clue lol I just know the fun fact of her working there

It's always good to be able to put our "demands" in the context of how the team actually operates. We can be better consumers if we actually know what we're asking for, and it lets people give more constructive criticisms and feasible suggestions, and creates less of a barrier of disdain from the devs who might disregard an idea because it sounds silly with regard to how things actually work. Anyone who's worked in any sort of customer-facing business has had those experiences of "if they only knew how it actually worked, they'd know it's not that simple." This kind of transparency from the devs being open about their actual development process has been really helpful. I remember back when the Dragonflight launch fiasco happened with the boats and portals where the actual engineers on the team were posting details about what happened and why. Put it in really interesting context and helped humanize them a little more. Does transparency excuse failure? Of course not. But it makes it feel more like we're talking to actual people when we voice our complaints.

Truly? I don’t know anything about her but that gives me hope. 🙏

@@a1pha_star she has been in the industry for a long time was orginally the everquest executive producer for alot of years

@@gingerbilly1396 Her reputation and decisions in everquest left the community very polarized...she made more than a few bad game design decisions.

@@Bradgilliswhammyman I mean, doesn't that go without saying? You can't always make the "right" decision. And even if you managed to make the "right" decision, it doesn't mean everyone will like it. Rather than focusing on the blunders or the successes, it's about getting it "right" more often than not, and making sure you can fix your past mistakes or shift direction. As long as your actions lean towards a net positive, that makes you "good" at the job.

​@@Bradgilliswhammyman That doesn't mean anything. It is impossible to always make the right decision, and it is also impossible to please every player all the time. Players have different interests and expectations. I for example would never touch PvP with a 100 meter long pole. I despise PvP not only in WoW but in general and I hate competitive gameplay. This means Plunderstorm wasn't for me and players like me and some of them have voiced their anger loud and clear that Plunderstorm was a PvP event (a frustration I don't share btw). Some people would say the devs made a bad decision by releasing a Battle Royal, but in my opinion they're wrong. Even if it wasn't for me doesn't mean its for no one - a lot of people enjoyed Plunderstorm. It wasn't a bad decision to release it. Or take Torghast - many hated it but it also had a lot of fans. It's never just bad/good.

It´s fake and business, sorry to sound negative but that´s what it is.

Hah same! Glad the RTS side was mentioned. Didn't expect that at all.

Im sure they want to fix that disgrace, so maybe we still are yet to see properly reforged campaign.

That was so stylish!

What conversation? Based on what we saw, we don't even know if Bellular actually spoke to her lol.

Actualy you are wrong. This is perfect way how you gonna end up ruining your game. You need core audience. Cuttering game to vast different players never works. I dont know if you notice but retail is in fact in terrible state and its all carried by classic.

@@jakubpelikan2393 You must be fun at parties… 🙄

@@jakubpelikan2393 source on retail being carried by classic? so far we only know that era classic and wotlk are basically dead

@@jakubpelikan2393 I primarily play SoD currently, I haven’t touched retail since Dragonflight’s launch - but classic is not carrying retail. Retail still has a lot of active players. WoW is a huge MMORPG that has been around for 20 years now, there’s multiple baskets to put eggs in. Blizzard has the means to put eggs in each basket and should be expected to do so by their playerbase (I mean cmon, we pay a monthly sub for this). Maintaining a “core audience” while providing the best experience to different styles of play can and should be done at the same time.

​@@jakubpelikan2393 Your example goes against your argument. Retail and the several different versions of classic is a great example of blizzard finding success in catering to many different types of players.

A lot of people are looking for that. Make it level appropriate to your character. It would also require a proper reward track.

I would be so down for something like this. I understand having faster ways of leveling. But an option for players to just re play the story beats would be awesome.

Doubt it mate

Agreed

No Ian never had done anything good with the game and he should have been gone long ago. On the other hand, I think decisions are made collectively and he is not solely to blame.

She knows the long tail of MMOs because she was from Everquest and Everquest II. Which may not sound that useful, as they're older than WoW (by 1-5 years) and certainly never kept updated for modern gaming, but it possibly means she knows how to maximize what resources are available, and Blizz/MS are going to have a lot more resources than EQ did.