ANAHEIM, Calif. – Has World of Warcraft jumped the shark?

One of Blizzard's strategies for continually expanding its incredibly popular massively multiplayer world has been the release of expansive add-on packages, which thus far have had serious, tortured names like Cataclysm and Wrath of the Lich King.

At its annual BlizzCon convention in October, the publisher said it would try a different tack with the next WoW package. Titled Mists of Pandaria, its primary additions to the fantasy world are a new playable race of martial artist pandas and a Pokémon-style system in which players can battle their virtual pets.

With dipping subscriber numbers (11.1 million, down from 12 million in 2009) and Electronic Arts' competing MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic coming in December, it might seem like the unconventional new Warcraft package is something of a desperation move on Blizzard's part, adding more mainstream-friendly features just to keep fans' attention.

To get some clarification on Pandaria, Wired.com spoke with World of Warcraft production director J. Allen Brack at BlizzCon.

Wired.com: Pandaren have existed since Warcraft III. Why do the Pandaren race now?

J. Allen Brack: It’s been something that we wanted to do for a long time. We’ve talked about the Pandaren for just about every expansion. That’s definitely not a new idea for us; it was super popular with the fans when we put them in Warcraft III. It was super popular with us. So it was just one of those things in the back of our mind that we wanted to do even before the original game launched.

We started talking about ideas for the next expansion, and when we were wrapping up Cataclysm someone said, “Hey, let’s talk about the Pandaren again.” We started talking about it more and more. Then one day it just became, “Wow, we’re really excited about this idea,” which eventually became the Pandaren.

Wired.com: The Pandaren are the first race to be playable for both factions [Alliance and Horde]. Why do this now?

World of Warcraft production director J. Allen Brack.

Photo: Blizzard

Brack: We talked about [doing this] a great deal back in Cataclysm for the Goblin race. We thought that Goblins could be a neutral race because they’re neutral in the game already. Players start out as neutral and then you can go Horde or Alliance with that.

Obviously we ended up not doing that [in Cataclysm]. But that was something we spent a lot of the time thinking about. The idea that was really compelling was that you start adventuring with people, and then one day, you have to choose sides. So that’s why we decided to do it this time around. It seems like it worked real well.

Wired.com: So why didn’t you end up doing that with the Goblin in Cataclysm?

Brack: We were really excited about the Worgens as well. We talked a long time about the Goblin and decided we really needed a more whimsical race on the side of the Horde, and we really need something that’s a little darker, a little more sinister on the side of the Alliance. We needed to bring a little bit more character to both those factions. We were really enamored with the idea of doing a Worgen and doing a shape-changing race. That was something that was one of our first ideas for Cataclysm. Goblin had been a fan favorite for years and years and years, and so that was on the list as well. Once we made that decision for Cataclysm that was going forward, we thought, “OK, well if we’re talking about a new race for the next expansion, then maybe we can resurrect the idea of players choosing the faction.”

You’re only neutral for 10 levels. When you get to level 10 you actually decide Horde or Alliance. When you’re in [the expansion's new in-game continent] and you’re completing those first 10 levels, that’s very much in its own kind of environment. And the Pandarens that you see out in the world as a normal player, you’re going to see as either Horde or Alliance. You’re not going to see any neutral Pandarens out in the world.

Players who want to play as the Pandaren monks in Pandaria can do so whether they are Horde or Alliance, a first for the MMO.

Image: Blizzard

Wired.com: Some critics are saying that Blizzard is “jumping the shark” by having cute “kung-fu pandas” in their expansion. What do you say to that?

Brack: We don’t really worry about that because we really feel that our fans are going to be really excited about it. We have the community that’s really excited about what we’re doing.

The team is really excited about doing it. So that’s really what’s important. When it comes out, it’s going to be great. I can understand the concept of “Why isn’t there a big bad guy?” in this expansion? But how many times can we say, “This bad guy is going to destroy the world now and this time it’s serious? No, this guy, he’s really, really, really, really bad!”

So taking a break from that was very conscious and just having a very different tone. Instead of Horde and Alliance, we team up to defeat the big evil. It’s about the discovery of this new land and how the conflict of the Horde and Alliance influences that. With [the continent of] Outland [in the Burning Crusade expansion] and then with Northrend [Lich King] we had these self-contained areas where players came for an adventure in the higher level. That was really successful.

With Cataclysm, we didn’t have that. It was very much focused on redoing the entire levels 1-60 experience. You didn’t have, “This is the high level area.” So that’s something we actually want to get back to, that kind of experience and that kind of visual.

Wired.com: As far as the Pandaren lore, clearly it was inspired by Asian cultures. How do you play to that without resorting to stereotypes?

Brack: We’ve always tried to make Warcraft very much its own thing. Certainly we have influences from all around the world. And certainly the panda is the symbol of China. Obviously, there’s a lot of influence, but it’s a very light touch of how much China it is or how much it is the rest of Asia. We just tried to take little bits here and there and incorporate it into our own thing.

How many times can we say, 'This bad guy is going to destroy the world, and this time it's serious?'Wired.com: Was there any consulting with your Chinese office, as far as that goes?

Brack: We talked with the office obviously, and they were really excited about what we were doing. The most important thing for the game is that the team making it should be excited about it. Because people who are excited about things that they’re working on they are going to put a lot more of their heart and soul into it and that’s really what makes great games.

Wired.com: Another thing that people either love or hate is the pet battle system. Would you liken it to Pokémon, as some are calling it? How would you describe the gameplay? Is it just a fun side thing, or are we going to see some serious pet PvP tournaments?

Brack: That’s a really good question. I think a lot of that is going to determine on the tuning which we haven’t actually made yet. The point of it is just to be a very fun thing that players can do. But you’d be amazed how hardcore people get about certain things. Actually, you probably wouldn’t be amazed... [laughs]

So that’s definitely a goal for us, but more importantly it has to be fun and give something to players to do with their pets. People have been collecting pets for a lot of years now. When we put the very first pet in, people were super excited. Some said “Hey, I want my pets to battle each other.” Now we’re saying, “OK, that sounds great. Your pets should be able to battle each other. Let’s build a system around that.” When we did Cataclysm, we removed pets from your actual bags and put them all in your spell book, which means there’s a lot of people who have a lot of pets.

Mists of Pandaria's new environments bring a decidedly Asian visual influence to Azeroth.

Image: Blizzard

Wired.com: You said you’re still working on the pet tuning. How are you going to balance that? Are rare pets better, or is it how players equip them?

Brack: It’s definitely going to be how players equip their pets. So you’ll be able to say, “Hey, I want this pet,” and that pet maybe is the ultra rare one that has these three or four abilities. Someone else can have a common pet that has similar abilities or different types. It’s much more a rock, paper, scissors kind of approach in terms of how the combat is going to work as opposed to, “I’ve got the one uber-rare pet and now I’m all powerful.” That’s how we’re going to do it.

Wired.com: Are you worried about farming for rare pets, then? I can see China starting pet farms for rare pets because pets are...

Brack: Pets are very special. They’re close to people’s hearts. We haven’t seen a whole lot of farms in terms of stuff like that. That’s a really interesting question. I really hadn’t thought about how that would work. We’ll definitely be looking at all the various drop rates and how people actually get all the various pets in the game. Our goal is to actually have all the pets that you currently have translate right into that system. So there will be new pets for you to get. But you’ll also be able to start using your existing pets as well.

Pets are very special. They're close to people’s hearts.Wired.com: With so many expansions out, are you worried about new players being confused about which ones they need to have and which ones they should buy and in what order? How do you solve that?

Brack: That’s something that we talk about all the time. Over the summer we actually rolled the Burning Crusade expansion into the [original game], so there is no Burning Crusade expansion. And that’s something we evaluate on a pretty regular basis. “How many boxes should we have on the shelf?” It can be very overwhelming. We don’t like that. And we want it to always be clear what players need.

Right now all of our expansions extend the level cap. So there’s really no way to just buy the brown box and Mists of Pandaria, because how would you get from level 60 to level 85? So they do need everything to get the newest content. Will we roll Wrath of the Lich King into the brown box? Eventually yes, just like we did Burning Crusade. When will we do that? I don’t think we know yet.

Wired.com: Both Diablo III and Mists of Pandaria feature the Monk class. Did you talk to the Diablo team about this? Did you get together to discuss the name or the class traits?

Brack: It’s pretty separate, honestly. Sometimes we’ll have discussions like, “Hey, we’re using the same name for this kind of system.” That can maybe cause some confusion, but that’s super rare. All the various teams are very solo. Which is not to say we don’t talk, but we don’t have the design council of Blizzard that decides, “OK, for World of Warcraft we’re doing monk. For Diablo we’re doing monk. For this game we’re doing that.”

It really doesn’t work that way. Each team decides what they want to do. On the couple times we’ve had a name collision, we’ll say, “Hey, we need to name this a little bit differently or something like that.” It’s really rare.

Wired.com: In the past, Blizzard has promised a World of Warcraft expansion every year. Has that just become too unrealistic?

Brack: A long time ago, someone made an on-the-record comment [that] it would be great if there were expansions every year. I think that would be great. That’s not really something that we can really do today. Mostly, we just try to do the best thing we can and make sure it’s a great experience. The most important thing is when players get the game that it’s a great experience. We are trying to make the expansions faster. There’s no question about that. We haven’t been really successful with that at all. Every expansion has taken about two years. In fact, Cataclysm took longer than all of our other expansions. So, yeah it’s something we’re definitely trying to get better at, but we’re not quite there yet.

Wired.com: Having worked on so many expansions, do you find the process becoming faster and easier?

Brack: Well, there’s always new stuff. What ends up happening is we get faster at making some of the content in the various pipelines. But at the same time, we add things to that pipeline. A really good example is the Encounter Journal, which we released in [patch] 4.2. It’s awesome. It lets player know about all the bosses, all the abilities and the various things that they can do. But including that increases the amount of work that we have to do for every single boss from now. So even if we made content faster, we also add things to slow us down at more or less an equal rate. It’s super challenging.

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