IGN Interview with John Hight - Plunderstorm Could Return & Seasonal Events

In an interview with Hirumaredx, Lead Visual Development Artist Gabriel Gonzalez and Senior Narrative Designer Abigail Manuel discussed the art, story, world building, and zones coming in The World Within!

In an interview with Associate Design Director Maria Hamilton, Taliesin & Evitel discuss the challenges of planning a narrative over three expansions in the World Soul Saga, where each expansion is at in terms of development, who Xal'atath really serves, and whether or not Azeroth is really a Titan!

MrGM interviewed Warcraft Vice-President Holly Longdale about lessons from Plunderstorm, experimental modes, and NA x EU cross-region play.

The first season of the critically acclaimed adaptation Interview with the Vampire was a huge hit with fans of Anne Rice’s beloved novel. As it heads out for its sophomore season, executive producers Rolin Jones and Mark Johnson promise SFX magazine that something even bigger is in store for season 2.

Within two days of NetEase announcing a renewal of their partnership to bring Blizzard games back to China, over two million players have pre-registered, 147,000 accounts reactivated, 92,000 accounts recovered, and Blizzard China has received 1,000+ resumes! While restoring service to other Blizzard games including Hearthstone, Overwatch, Starcraft, Diablo, and Heroes of the Storm, the response for WoW has been overwhelming. Officially reported by Blizzard China and translated by NasDa on Twitter, these stats show the extreme appetite for World of Warcraft in China. While many players completely rerolled on Taiwanese realms in order to keep playing after servers shut down last year, many more still have been left in limbo, without access to the game they invested the better part of two decades into playing.

Motorola is all set to unveil its latest flagship this month, with a promise of blazing-fast 125W charging capabilities. The announcement came through a post on X on Friday, April 12, where Motorola confirmed an event scheduled for April 16 to introduce the "Edge Family" for 2024. In the teaser, Motorola revealed that its upcoming flagship will boast the same rapid 125W charging as seen in the Motorola Edge 40 Ultra.

Three months ago, a rumor suggested that NetEase was close to inking a new agreement to bring Blizzard games back to mainland China after the complete shutdown that occurred in early 2023.

A dataminer has found files hinting that the Kar98k sniper rifle and SPAS-12 shotgun may be returning to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 soon. Although some Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 fans find the two weapons to be synonymous with the franchise, neither one has made an appearance in years.

In a short interview with IGN following his GDC talk on 30 Years of Warcraft, Warcraft General Manager John Hight said that while traditional AI is useful for freeing up creative developers from tedious tasks, Blizzard isn't using generative AI in World of Warcraft. John Hight Discusses AI with IGN The key here is generative AI, which is to say the type of artificial intelligence that use machine learning models to generate brand new data, text, or images, as opposed to traditional AI, which primarily processes, analyzes, or classifies existing data. Whereas relatively new generative AI might be used to create complex characters, art, or dialogue, traditional AI has been used for years in things like algorithms helping NPCs path around obstacles or procedurally generate environments using predefined set pieces and rules. Learn more about the evolution of gaming AI to get a better idea of the differences between these two tools and how they are used.

World of Warcraft is open to bringing back Plunderstorm in the future, either as a direct repeat, or with new twists. According to Blizzard, the future of the popular new World of Warcraft game mode will rely on what fans want from it.

In a recent IGN interview at GDC 2024, General Manager of Warcraft, John Hight, discusses the future of the Warcraft IP including the possibility of another Warcraft movie, future games, and even if Season of Discovery will extend past level 60. IGN Interview We've provided a brief summary below, but be sure to check out the complete interview for more information and additional context.

World of Warcraft franchise director John Hight says Blizzard Entertainment isn't using generative AI in the massively multiplayer online game (MMO).