The State of WoW and Its Future

IGN - Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, lead systems designer for World of Warcraft, wants to bring the eight-year-old MMORPG closer to its roots. Last week's Patch 5.2 marks yet another step in that direction, bringing with it a renewed emphasis on ground travel, a sense of server-wide progression, a new raid, and an under-the-radar island that pays homage to the gameplay of WoW's past. "This game’s been out for, gosh, eight years now and while we have millions of players, we also have a lot of players who’ve stopped playing for whatever reason," he said. "It's great to give those players a reason to come back and try it again, and appealing to their nostalgia is a good way of doing that. "