Wowhead's 2023 Year in Review and Happy New Year

Posted 2024/01/01 at 9:15 PM by perculia

Squishei (Retail Content Manager)It's been a great year on Wowhead in 2023 and I wanted to thank everyone who has used the site in the past year! We've expanded into Diablo, had exciting Wrath of the Lich King and Season of Discovery content, and had an exciting year of Dragonflight content!

Dragonflight has been super exciting this year and the covering everything Retail WoW has been super exciting. 2023 had a lot of awesome content that we covered from the secrets of the Secrets of Azeroth, to new PTR content, hotfixes, holidays updates, transmog and much more. The future of WoW looks very bright!

Returning to Blizzcon was amazing, and we all watched as Blizzard revealed 3 upcoming World of Warcraft expansions! I'm very much looking forward to all these expansions as we see where the story goes in the future. I'm also looking forward to all the quality of life changes that Blizzard seems to be making such as Account-Wide progression in Warbands, Dragonriding everywhere and so much more. The end of Dragonflight is sure to be exciting as well with the secretive Patch 10.2.6 and Season 4, but I'm very much looking forward to The War Within and the upcoming Alpha and Beta season.

See you all next year!Anshlun (Retail News and Class Guides)Blink and you'd miss it; 2023 has come and gone already, and what a year it was.

Starting the year with the release of my favorite raid of all time in Wrath Classic, Ulduar. It was a blast to, once again, progress through it and listen to Algalon's lines, giving chills down our spines. After that, we had Patch 10.1 and Dragonflight Season 2, which was a great time to be a Shadow Priest, making me wish I did more keys during it. Shortly after, we had the release of ToGC in Wrath Classic, which was prime alt content; I got to a point that I was running it on 7 alts every week, perks of a short raid. Then, towards the end of the year, we had three big releases with ICC, followed by Dragonflight Season 3, and Season of Discovery, the latter of which is what I've been playing the most recently.

And in the midst of all that, I cannot fail to mention BlizzCon 2023, which was amazing. Had such a good time meeting old friends and making new ones all the same. The four-year hiatus really made this Con more special than previous ones, hopefully, it will be back to its normal yearly cadence from now on.

With all that is known, 2024 is looking to be one of the busiest years of WoW, with so much content planned ahead of us that is both exciting and scary to think of.

Happy Holidays everyone and may 2024 be your best year yet for you and your families!Archimtiros (Retail News and Warrior Class Guides)
As we reflect on another great year, I'm happy to have continued bringing news and information to the playerbase, helping give a voice to community interests. This year ramped up like never before, from new projects at Wowhead, to major industry announcements, and an unprecedented explosion of WoW content - all of which promises a challenging new year, though one that I am excited and ready to face alongside this fantastic team.

So here's to another great year serving the World of Warcraft and extended Blizzard community!
Neryssa (Retail News and Guides)Thank you yet another amazing year working here at Wowhead! 2023 was an incredible year, working on detangling all the open world content and secrets of Dragonflight. The content pace has definitely picked up this year, and the excitement doesn't stop there!

My highlight of 2023 was definitely the return of BlizzCon, and seeing so many people for the first time as well as reencountering old friends was really energizing (and everyone who recognized me as the Ms. Frizzle of WoW :D) - Not to mention all the announcements! If you had told me just a year ago I'd be looking forward to three expansions worth of content to look forward to work on, I would not have believed you. Very excited to wrap up Dragonflight and put my hands on everything the Worldsoul Saga has to offer!

I wish everyone who spends their time reading this a fantastic 2024, and may we see a lot more collectible content! And a special thank you to all my co-workers here at Wowhead, working with you guys for years now has been an awesome experience.Penguin (Retail Profession Guides)2023 has been such a fun year within the WoW community. Diving deeper into the new Dragonflight professions, discovering the hidden ways to obtain newly introduced materials, prepping items for new patch releases, and of course making gold has kept me very busy this year!

I want to say Thank you! to the Wowhead team for being such an amazing group of people. I am honored to be a small part of the phenomenal team here. As we adventure into 2024, I am super excited for The War Within. I can't wait to see what profession revamps or updates Blizzard has in store for us, and I am ready for the Warbands bank!

I hope everyone has had a lovely holiday season and a great ending to 2023. Stay safe, be kind, and happy goldmaking!Paryah (Guides: Retail, Classic, and D4)DiscordianKitty (Retail News & Lore)It's genuinely hard to believe I've been with Wowhead for over three years now, and that I'm near the end of covering the lore of a second expansion. 2023 has been my best year so far, not least because it was the year where I got to attend my very first Blizzcon! I was also lucky enough to find myself in the opening ceremony, where I got to personally witness the Metzen effect as the first ever expansion trilogy was announced!

But the real highlight of 2023 and Blizzcon was being able to meet and spend time with so many of my co-workers at Wowhead - just an incredible crowd of inspiring people who I am lucky to be able to count as my friends.

As Dragonflight winds down, I've been able to focus a little more on experimental approaches to covering the lore. Some of my articles are accompanied by simple YouTube videos now, providing narration for those who might prefer it, and this is something I hope to keep doing. Otherwise, it's just so exciting to see the Worldsoul Saga approaching. Here's to 2024 - an even better year for WoW lore!Rokman, WoW Classic ManagerThank you to our readers for another great year of Wowhead Content! In 2023, we produced content for Wrath of the Lich King covering Ulduar's launch, Trial of the Crusader's launch, as well as Icecrown Citadel. For WoW Classic, we did content covering Hardcore and Season of Discovery - which ended up being a huge success and a breath of fresh air for Classic!

I had the pleasure of being a part of the live event for the Hardcore Allstars Community Event, where Blizzard announced the official Hardcore Realms. I was also a part of the production of the OTK Mak'gora Tournament, which was a huge success for the WoW Classic community! Lastly, one of my personal highlights of the year was getting to attend Blizzcon 2023 and doing live coverage from the event, getting to meet a lot of the Wowhead team in person for the first time, as well as having the opportunity to interview some amazing Developers on Season of Discovery, right after it was announced!

Linny Cooke-Saverlline, Game Producer (Left) and Tim Jones, Assistant Lead Classic Designer (Right)

For 2024, the Classic division is expanding and we'll be working hard to continue delivering the best content we can for our audience on Wowhead! We're excited for the many phases ahead for Season of Discovery as well as Cataclysm Classic next Summer. Thanks for being a part of the Wowhead community - Cheers!
Cinereus (Diablo Content Manager, Necro Class Lead)Build Tool Best Wishes for the New Year, Wanderer.

We are proud to have covered the launch of Diablo 4.

We battled demonic corruption and ravenous vampire Lords in the first two Seasons.

We built new tools and planners to aid wanderers in planning their characters.

We went from a dozen contributors to more than twice that number.

We're busy sharpening our swords and gearing up for the release of Diablo IV Vessel of Hatred late next year.

RenataKane (Guides Manager, Druid Class Lead) Diablo 4 siteBuild PlannerSeason of DiscoveryJezartroz (Diablo News Lead)CONSTVNT, (Tier List Coordinator, Barb Class Lead}Tharid, (Diablo/WoW Classic News and Guides, Sorcerer Class Lead)Diablo 4 Guide HubDiablo 4 News FeedBuild Planner toolDiablo 4 DatabasePigeonD (Datamining Team)2023 has been one of the busiest year yet for Wowhead. And now 2024 already feels like it's going to be even crazier with Dragonflight, Cataclysm Classic, Season of Discovery, and The War Within all happening. Still I always think I have one of the most interesting jobs while working with the coolest people. Also a big shoutout to all the Wowhead users and communities for supporting us and reporting bugs.

Happy 2024 to everyone! See you all in (a version of) World of Warcraft!
Stiven (Datamining Team)Dear All,

First, I like to wish you all Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I would like to inform everyone that I will continue todo my work best as I did in the past 8 years, and I can't wait to start digging into World of Warcraft: The War Within expanasion.

For me, 2023 was a really interesting year. We had a lot of Dragonflight content patches, that wasn't really hard to deal with, Blizzard just didn't give us that much of a headache with technical changes (I Hope they don't read this). We had release of Diablo IV, and thank god I didn't need to learn Chinese to datamine this game, but still was more complex and harder than Diablo Immortal.

I can't wait for all the announced stuff from Blizzcon to see in 2024, and hopefully we will together dig into that over Wowhead datamining stream!Arokan (Gnomish Engineer)Last year I generated my year-end summary using ChatGPT. I won't be doing that again, because llamas gravy boat Olivia de Havilland's typewriter uncensored Chris Metzen shouting "War Within" into a banana and four gallons of liquefied Muenster.

Instead, I'll recap my 2023:

Discovered that Murlocs talk like that because they're Welsh. If you don't believe me, just count how many consecutive L's and R's are in the average Welsh place name
Visited the timeline where chickens outsmarted humans
Confused by the fact that everyone always seems to know about the Secret Police
Took HSL classes (Horse as a Second Language)
Proved mathematically that raisins are not isomorphic to grapes
Concluded that John Mulaney looks like a cartoon mouse got turned into a real person
Coined the phrase "Mitochondrial Luigi"

I apologize for not including anything about Wowhead here. Those responsible have been catapulted into the Sun.Perc (Director of Content) and Brightpaw (Chief Morale Officer)Happy New Year from Perc and Brightpaw! The highlight of this year was getting to see most of the Wowhead content team in person at BlizzCon, after such a long absence! Our team has massively grown since the last time we met in person - we didn't have any dedicated Diablo staff, let alone WoW Classic, back in 2019! It was great to revive the time-honored traditions of Hilton breakfasts and liveblogging the chaos of the Opening Ceremony in person. Chaos definitely erupted when the Worldsoul Saga was announced!

I'm so proud of how my team continues to challenge and inspire me daily, and I look forward to working with them each day. November was especially hectic with BlizzCon > 10.2 > 10.2.5 PTR > Season of Discovery and the whole content team pulled together to pitch in with an amazing display of teamwork. I'm also proud of how we expanded our tools with our Diablo 4 calculators, kept up with Dragonflight's hectic PTR pace, and gleefully handled the surprise chaos of Season of Discovery to end 2023 with a bang. And it already looks like 2024 is off to a fun start with surprise Trading Post updates at 3am that our team was on top of!

As for Brightpaw, his biggest accomplishments for the year was learning how to climb onto the mantlepiece and activate FaceTime. I also bought him a cozy flower bed in Wowhead red!

Have a wonderful and healthy 2024! Looking forward to what's next in Azeroth and Sanctuary!

Comment by ArktaneCheers to all the awesome staff and writers. Let’s ring in the new year with a bang!Comment by WhulleHappy new year folks, and thanks for all your hard work 🎇🙏Comment by PriestessAurHappy New Year to all of the Wowhead staff!Comment by SquishyTiaMust! Cuddle! Calico cat!

😻Comment by csabeHappy new year to everyone!Comment by NightgaleHappy new year, and thanks for all your hard work.Comment by RavaneHappy New Year and thank you for all the news, info, and entertainment you provide. Cheers!Comment by Buulokialways a good article with a brightpaw pic!!