Portal Room Q&A with Executive Producer Holly Longdale

Posted 2026/03/30 at 1:07 PM by Archimtiros

Where we're going

The Worldsoul Saga was the result of a discussion with Chris Metzen on what to do for the 20th anniversary. The storyline he came back with couldn't be done justice in one or even two expansions, so this arc is the culmination of 20 years of WoW.

As for what comes next, the team generally knows where they're going, but seeing as this was a special 20-year capstone for WoW, they may move on to something different for following expansions.

Futureproofing the game is a matter of modernizing and adding new dazzling features, but they'll always stay true to their players. They're also looking at how gamers are changing - the world is a lot different than it was in 2004, so it's important to deliver the kind of value that's expected in the modern day. They've always seen WoW as a sort of third place, which they're continuing to build on with housing for relaxed players just as much as competitive elements. They want to give players a way to roleplay, live, and impact the world in a meaningful way.

The Life of Ibelin documentary really drove home the simple impact of allowing two players to interact with each other, hug, or high five, giving the developers a newfound respect for allowing players to express themselves. Ultimately though, they want to continue building out features for every player type: the casual players, the mid-core who dabbles in everything, and the hardcore competitive ones.

Social Systems

Holly is a diehard believer in creating connections with the community, firmly believing those connections between players are the reason World of Warcraft has lasted as long as it has. Everything the team makes is in service to the community, and the team does their best to try to understand how different groups of players approach the game, but everyone is unique - initiatives like the ambassador program helps them get more firsthand feedback from different perspectives.

The goal is for the Ambassador program to get bigger too, which is something they'll talk about again at BlizzCon.

In-game social systems need to be better as well, and players can expect to see some future changes.

Holly's dog is named Gimli Weirdbeard, by the way.

Accessibility and Approachability

Accessibility and approachability are very important and they do have a team focused on it. UI is often one of the longest tasks in game development, and they try to balance it as best they can, but there's certainly more to do.

Holly posed her own question to the Discord chat - how many players would be interested in experiencing the game on a controller with a fully dedicated UI? It's a very big job, with thousands of unit frames to convert, but as a player of many different games, who likes to use her laptop or relax on the couch (and as a current Warlock player, which may or may not be the reason she wants to play on a controller), she proposes that there's room for more options.

Class and System Design

The team has learned a lot from the launch of Classic in particular. It's really hard to quantify how much research the team does, they collect a lot of data on player behavior, even within classes, and then they look at player sentiment; everything they learn from both Classic and Retail can have an impact on each other. The team wants to be transparent with what works and what doesn't, but that perception changes based on how you approach the game between more casual players and high end competitive ones.

The team recognizes how popular Order Halls were, and believes race and class identities are important. They're some of the earliest defining choices in the game, which are important in an RPG, and the team is thinking about ways to refocus on those identities. Things are going to get a little challenging in Azeroth for the next while, so those connections to who we are and why we fight will be pretty important.

We'll be moving into Northrend for The Last Titan, and while a lot of the old world revamps were something of an experiment, they're going to continue evaluating player reaction to these old-world updates. Azeroth is an staggeringly massive world, and they want to find reasons to return to old places and make them meaningful again.

Holly isn't going to get into revamping old progression systems for fear of making Ion go cross-eyed, but she will say that they want to make the world feel meaningful and alive, giving players agency to have an effect on the world. There's already been a lot of discussion about building up the world, rather than just continually expanding it, but it's important that they don't take anything away, just add onto it.

Collectors, they see you and understand how important those collections and achievement are to your characters. Some collections systems have been more successful than others, so they're still trying to figure out what players want, their achievement goals and dreams, so they'll be doing a few more rounds of feedback to try to get a better idea of long-term goals.

Community and Housing

The team absolutely wants to invest further into roleplay and immersion. Roleplaying is the original user generated content, and although many players do not see themselves as roleplayers, they still build meaningful story connections, such as identifying as part of the Alliance or the Horde. The team really wants to build more communal spaces as well, whether they're used for weddings, celebrations, or memorials, so players can expect to see more focus there in the future.

Housing is a brand new space for WoW, so the team is still learning as they go. Much like the combat and systems teams do though, there's constant iteration based on player feedback, as different players want different things.

Creating a public Housing Roadmap is a goal. They already talked about what players can expect in the State of Azeroth, but they'll take a crack at creating an actual roadmap as well.

Practical limitations aside, Holly would love for the game to have more personalization and interaction. Getting a Gnome and a Tauren to high-five is harder than you'd think, but she'd love more options for players to express themselves, from hair and beards, to transmog, and activities. Personalization and customization, making your character your own, is important to WoW's future and something the team will be digging into in the future.

Hair showing under hats is definitely one of the things on Holly's radar! Holly loves playing dress-up and wants it to go further, so she's always looking for more options.

The Q&A closed with Holly revealing that her favorite pizza toppings are ham and pineapple. She's quite embarrassed over how polarizing that is though; her family never wants it, so she has to sneak around to eat it. She equates the feeling to her past maining Vulpera.

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Comment by ninjaflower1curated Q & A's are patronizing.

The Q&A closed with Holly revealing that her favorite pizza toppings are ham and pineapple. She's quite embarrassed over how polarizing that is though;Comment by NagisaStreams"She equates the feeling to her past maining Vulpera."

Well yea that is something to hide.Comment by felbloodsI always appreciate discussions on things like how to improve that feeling of this being an RPG - it's a role playing game. And current design and functionality is limiting in how many of us want to roleplay. And housing really needs to be more accessible and less of a headache of realizing you needed two more random lampost or whatever but you have to fly across continents and farm some old ass currency to get it.Comment by SansieNo mention of class/spec disparity with healers is criminal.Comment by dvisChakStill waiting for this team to be transparent about anything they do.Comment by HareticPineapple? Wth? She had me up until that point. Which was the end. Love Holly. I hope we get an evoker order hall. I've been suggesting that for months.Comment by KyrshinYo, Holly, why you swipe at me like that?Comment by HinakoHolly posed her own question to the Discord chat - how many players would be interested in experiencing the game on a controller with a fully dedicated UI? It's a very big job, with thousands of unit frames to convert, but as a player of many different games, who likes to use her laptop or relax on the couch (and as a current Warlock player, which may or may not be the reason she wants to play on a controller), she proposes that there's room for more options.Comment by SnyRNGHolly posed her own question to the Discord chat - how many players would be interested in experiencing the game on a controller with a fully dedicated UI? It's a very big job, with thousands of unit frames to convert, but as a player of many different games, who likes to use her laptop or relax on the couch (and as a current Warlock player, which may or may not be the reason she wants to play on a controller), she proposes that there's room for more options.Comment by Himea...but they'll always stay true to their players...Comment by dblanch369I listened to the entire thing. It felt like questions were cherry-picked and answers sanitized. The only thing interesting was Holly’s dog.Comment by dblanch369Still waiting for this team to be transparent about anything they do.Comment by Lostartes...but they'll always stay true to their players...Comment by Auzsi17Cool. Can we talk about QA now? The amount of class bugs are insane in midnight. There are things unplayable becasue of them, yet blizzard refuse to adress it.Comment by holdodligI am always looking for more cosmetic, so I am pleased that they are working on them even if we have yet to see them making their way to the game. I've got a big problem with this Q&A tho. The closest thing to a real element of gameplay she talked about was getting an UI for controllers. It's all about expressing yourself and cosmetics. And this is wrong.

If the game isn't funny and they doesn't adress the core gameplay elements flaws, we're rushing into a wall. I am all for being pretty, having !@#$loads of customizations. That's actually one of the things that could make me do stupid events like the trash stuff in Undermine.

But I like to do this because I am then allowed to be beautiful while in dungeons, raids or delves. Or even in PvP when I am motivated enough to do so. Right here, there's a full part called "Class and systems" and yet she doesn't mention anything related to class.

So far, cosmetic aren't the issues in WoW. We've never had this much cosmetic in game thanks to the Renown systems, to the class sets, to the delves unique cosmetics, the Trading Post or even the many minigames events like Plunderstorm or Remix. This isn't an issue, or what they want to adress isn't outside of the balding helmets situation.Comment by ns88When are you reversing the pruning? When are you fixing all the bugs? When are yo stopping with the woke bs?Comment by MillerEUI really like Holly, I think she's been a great addition to the WoW team and she's very clearly passionate about it. +1 for Holly!Comment by OsenaHolly posed her own question to the Discord chat - how many players would be interested in experiencing the game on a controller with a fully dedicated UI? It's a very big job, with thousands of unit frames to convert, but as a player of many different games, who likes to use her laptop or relax on the couch (and as a current Warlock player, which may or may not be the reason she wants to play on a controller), she proposes that there's room for more options.Comment by Ogdrolas predicted a load of nothing lolComment by PixelfoxDarn, I thought this was literally going to be about the Portal Room lol. Was hoping someone could explain how I can know which housing faction zone my main city housing portal is going to take me too, because it just seems to pick one at random based on things I have not figured out yet.

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