World of Warcraft Developers Discuss Challenges of Bringing Wrath of the Lich King to Classic

gamerant.com:

World of Warcraft recently announced the Wrath of the Lich King expansion is coming to the Classic servers. Wrath of the Lich King brought players to the frozen continent of Northrend, where they faced off against the Lich King and his undead Scourge on the roof of the world. The expansion was among the most beloved in WoW history, and its announcement alongside its brand-new Dragonflightexpansion gathered almost as much excitement.

Game Rant participated in a group interview with World of Warcraft Classic lead software engineer Brian Birmingham and principal system designer Kris Zierhut about Wrath of the Lich King Classic’s grand return. As members of the original Wrath of the Lich King team, Birmingham and Zierhut are as passionate about the development of World of Warcraft as they are knowledgeable. The developers shared some of the most difficult parts of resurrecting Wrath of the Lich King, and talked about the future of World of Warcraft Classic.

How World of Warcraft Classic is Keeping Wrath of the Lich King Old School in the Era of Modern MMOs

One of the greatest challenges for Wrath of the Lich King Classic comes from its coding. Consolidating the data from Classic, Wrath of the Lich King, and retailWorld of Warcraft into a singular experience is a complex endeavor. According to Birmingham, it requires importing the code from Vanilla World of Warcraft, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich Kingand aligning it with past and present Classic and retail World of Warcraft versions.

“We’re dealing with six different version formats and trying to make sure the changes that happen in one are appropriately reflected in the correct place in the version we release later. That is a challenge we are grappling with by