Blizzard is about to make a slight tweak to World of Warcraft: Forever to enhance one of the game’s most beloved features: its weather.
In an extremely simple post to the WoW subreddit yesterday, the official WoW developer account shared that “increased weather effects” would be coming to certain zones in WoW: Forever‘s ongoing beta:
Let me tell you something: WoW players, we love weather. We’re always asking for more of it! The original version of World of Warcraft had fairly intense weather effects patched in pretty early on in certain zones. Like blizzards in Dun Morogh:
And the monsoons of Stranglethorn Vale.
Critically, this weather was dynamic: sometimes it would rain, sometimes it wouldn’t. This, combined with the day and night cycle, meant that zones across Azeroth had different looks and feels to them depending on when you explored them, which added to the sense of Azeroth being a real place.
Unfortunately, as time went on, Blizzard stopped including such intense and varied effects in new zones, and in the retail version, a lot of the existing effects were removed. You can still get weather in some zones (I remember really loving the brief downpours in Zul’dazar several expansions ago), but it’s selective, and not nearly as common in the old world anymore. As such, a lot of players have been begging Blizzard for years now to bring back the old dynamic weather in retail, and with the announcement of Forever, some have been making their case for its reimplementation in that version of the game:
In addition to just wanting weather, a lot of these people’s arguments center on WoW: Forever‘s improved visual effects, which are already giving a lot of old zones more character. Dark forests are misty, the sunsets and sunrises are glorious, the water is shimmery. Why not add rain and snow and such to that?
Blizzard seems to agree, and people are thrilled. The short clip of Elwynn Forest rain posted to the subreddit is fantastic. The rain kicks up a light mist near the ground as it falls, there seem to be different sounds indoors for what the rain sounds like on different types of roofs…ahh! Peaceful! What a vibe! Right now we don’t quite know the extent to which weather effects are going to be implemented, but imaginations are already running wild. People are asking for thunderstorms, snowstorms, fall leaves, dust storms, fog that rolls in and out, and more.
Given the overall scope of WoW: Forever, it’s not impossible that we see all this implemented and more, if not now, then over time. Blizzard has stated its intention is to build the world out more horizontally than vertically, and dynamic weather would be a major part of making “Azeroth the main character,” as the studio claims it wants to do.
I’m eagerly waiting for those patch notes. Gonna hit the Mulgore plains and wait for rainfall.