Patch day will differ by region

Game Director Ion Hazzikostas and Warcraft Vice President Holly Longdale spoke to But Why Tho? about both versions of the game. On Forever, Hazzikostas said the new server infrastructure does not mean regions will be connected, and that updates will be staggered from region to region. He put that down to time zones rather than technology: patching takes servers offline for hours, so it is timed around weekly resets and off-peak periods in each region.

Asked what surprised them most about Forever, both named the lighting and water. Hazzikostas’s example was Duskwood at night, where torches and lanterns carried by players now cast real-time light over the same classic assets. He added that the relighting was done by hand by environment artists across the zones, not switched on as an engine feature.

The modern game’s team is looking at what it could borrow, with server infrastructure, the lighting work and possibly surnames named, though none of it is a simple switch. In the September 17 live Q&A, Blizzard added that first and last names will not reach the modern game during the Worldsoul Saga.

Why it matters: expect patch times that differ by region, and bring a torch to Duskwood.