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National ServiceWorld of WarcraftThe official server of World of Warcraft officially returned on August 1. At the end of July, Guancha.com was invited to participate in an interview with Blizzard and NetEase about the return of World of Warcraft's Chinese server. Regarding the return of World of Warcraft's Chinese server, Ion Hazzikostas, senior game director of World of Warcraft, and Holly Longdale, executive producer of World of Warcraft, answered these questions:

The following is the content of the media interview on that day (abridged):

Q: What is the biggest challenge for the return of World of Warcraft to China? How to rebuild trust with players?

A: We are going to do it step by step. The key is to listen to the players and let them know that we have returned to the Chinese market and will stay here. At the same time, we will provide them with excellent gaming experience and jointly build and cultivate our gaming community.

A lot of changes have taken place in the 500 days since we left, and Blizzard itself has also changed a lot. We have released new versions, new content, and made many attempts in other markets around the world. We will inherit these things and bring them to the activities in China so that our Chinese players can also experience them. In China, our partner NetEase is closer to the Chinese market. They are actively conveying good suggestions from players to us. We take and listen to these suggestions seriously, which is very important to us.

Q: How is AICG applied in World of Warcraft?

A: We believe AI is a brand new tool that we must fully understand so that we can better use it to make better games for players. We think the biggest advantage of World of Warcraft is that everything in the game is highly crafted, like a handmade work of art. Using AI can reduce the time we spend on repetitive tasks, thereby freeing up more productivity for more creative parts.

For example, a few years ago, because each race in World of Warcraft had a different body shape, we had to manually adjust the armor for each race every time. For example, the ears and feet of the elves could not be pierced through the model. But in recent years, we have also begun to use machine learning to simplify the process, so that we can save more time, and perhaps use this time to make an extra set of armor. In this way, we can provide players with more in-game rewards.

Q: What do you think about the changes in the Chinese MMO player ecosystem during the World of Warcraft service shutdown?

A: Because we are also players, we are very excited and happy to see some new developments in China. We welcome competition very much, because competition can make us make better progress and we can learn a lot from it. And understanding the dynamics of Chinese players can also help us better understand the preferences of Chinese players, which will help us improve our own games. In general, we are not afraid of competition, we like to embrace competition.

Q: Xianxia themes are particularly popular among local MMO manufacturers. How does the World of Warcraft team view this kind of story with Chinese cultural core?

A: Many of the stories told in World of Warcraft also come from different cultures in different countries and regions around the world. We won't retell the complete story, but we know that there are some themes with local characteristics that can resonate with our player community, so we often absorb good parts from them to build a part of World of Warcraft. Of course, we believe that as we cooperate with NetEase, we can also get more cultural insights from it. This can help us better understand the topics that players around the world are interested in and help us better build our games in the future.

Q: What do Chinese players mean to World of Warcraft? Will there be exclusive content developed for Chinese players in the future in the nostalgic servers and official servers?

A: Some of the rewards we will give out after the Chinese region is back online are definitely exclusive to Chinese players. We will also keep an open mind in the future. After re-cooperating with NetEase, we will further explore and better understand how to serve our global players, including those in China.

Honestly, the moment we had to leave China was a very sad moment, and we were also very touched to see the sad reaction of the Chinese player community. So now we are very happy to be back, and we know that we can learn more from Chinese players. This time at ChinaJoy, we saw with our own eyes the love of players for us, so we are very excited.

Our biggest hope is that they can play World of Warcraft. Six years ago, when the nostalgic server was launched, they flooded in and filled up the server or even crashed it. The Chinese player community may be the most enthusiastic player community in the world. Every time we see their enthusiasm for us, we feel very humble. So we are very touched that they are willing to trust us and give us a second chance to return to the Chinese market.

After all, we missed about a year and a half in the past, so we do need to present some unique things to our players in China in the future. Of course, we need to discuss these contents carefully, including discussing them with NetEase. At present, our first focus is still on re-launching our games in China, and also on launching "War for the Center of the Earth" next month. After that, we will further study it.

Q: World of Warcraft has been operating for twenty years so far. What are the opportunities and challenges in the future?

A: This is an incredible honor, but it also brings us a lot of pressure because we hope to bring this game into the next decade. Players in China and around the world are willing to make Azeroth their home, giving us the opportunity to continue building this world and telling these stories. We have prepared a very grand celebration for everyone, and November happens to be our anniversary.

We are very excited to fight for another ten years. In order to better serve our players, we will also have the courage to make more attempts, which requires us to pay more attention to the opinions of players and listen to their voices. Whether it is nostalgic servers or official servers, we will make some new attempts.

Q: As a very large IP, will there be any other development plans for World of Warcraft in the future? And will it follow the example of mainstream Chinese game manufacturers to promote joint ventures?

A: We don’t have any official announcements right now. We have indeed mentioned before that we have a lot of changes, and that’s where the fun is. It took us 20 years to build the World of Warcraft IP, and naturally we also see the huge potential of this IP. We have been discussing what opportunities there are, including discussing with our partner NetEase and the Chinese team in the future how to make the right choices to bring more joy to players, and these discussions include how to better present the World of Warcraft IP. Joint and cross-border cooperation may be a new field for us, but we have not ruled out these options. We have been discussing and hope to discuss some new content with everyone, but for now our focus is still on going online again.