The funnest part of building a sandcastle? Knocking it down.
With World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion, Blizzard appears to be taking that philosophy to a whole new level. After letting players frolic about in its multi-million dollar sandcastle for nearly six years, the developer's decided to shatter Azeroth into tiny little pieces and then put it back together again. The result? Suddenly, old is new, up is down, and Stranglethorn Vale doesn't royally suck anymore. Needless to say, it's an exciting time to be a WoW player.
Perhaps even more exciting, however, is being a WoW developer. To see years-upon-years' worth of blood, sweat, and tears finally manifest into a complete experience has to be immensely satisfying, and speaking with lead world designer Alex Afrasiabi during BlizzCon, that was more than evident. It was kind of amazing, if we're being honest, to see a developer so fired up over his own game - a game that's been around for more than half a decade, no less.
Click past the break to hear Afrasiabi's thoughts on the future of WoW expansions, why Cataclysm doesn't have its own Hero Class, why MMOs and consoles don't mix, why Cryptic's wrong to call MMO content "mediocre," moving the MMO genre forward, and tons more.
[Interview by Nathan Grayson]
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