The design politics of studios in the early 2000s will always fascinate me—not the unsavory stuff, I am glad that is well and truly binned—but rather, the little elbows and feet put on other designers in studios where there wasn't a clear, clean pipeline or a mandate.
Such was the case with Blizzard where, as revealed by principal Kris Zierhut in a recent Polygon interview, there was a little cheeky in-fighting over the power of crafted gear. Zierhut, who joined the company in 2005, was reflecting on the corrections the team wasn't allowed to make during the "no changes" era of Classic in 2019. Corrections that are now possible with World of Warcraft: Forever:
