{"id":1733047,"date":"2026-10-28T15:28:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T15:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vfC7ucN7Cp5SWiMfHAtuLB"},"modified":"2026-10-28T15:28:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T15:28:18","slug":"world-of-warcraft-was-meant-to-have-viable-levelling-gear-from-professions-way-back-in-2004-but-the-designers-on-raids-and-dungeons-cheated-a-little-bit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/world-of-warcraft-was-meant-to-have-viable-levelling-gear-from-professions-way-back-in-2004-but-the-designers-on-raids-and-dungeons-cheated-a-little-bit\/","title":{"rendered":"World of Warcraft was meant to have viable levelling gear from professions way back in 2004, but the designers on raids and dungeons &#8216;cheated a little bit&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<p>The design politics of studios in the early 2000s will always fascinate me\u2014not the unsavory stuff, I am glad that is well and truly binned\u2014but rather, the little elbows and feet put on other designers in studios where there wasn&#8217;t a clear, clean pipeline or a mandate.<\/p>\n<p>Such was the case with Blizzard where, as revealed by principal Kris Zierhut in a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/wow-forever-making-of-interview\/\" target=\"_blank\">Polygon interview<\/a>, there was a little cheeky in-fighting over the power of crafted gear. Zierhut, who joined the company in 2005, was reflecting on the corrections the team wasn&#8217;t allowed to make during the &#8220;no changes&#8221; era of Classic in 2019. Corrections that are now possible with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/world-of-warcraft-forever\/\">World of Warcraft: Forever<\/a>: <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The only design direction that really existed was: Don&#8217;t change anything \u2026 I was there when we made some of these decisions. I had those discussions with Tom and Jeff and Scott. And I knew some places where we made mistakes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>One such mistake, as the article gets into, is the role that crafted gear had in vanilla WoW\u2014this isn&#8217;t to say that crafted items were <em>never <\/em>on the list of best in slot recommendations, but professions were actually meant to give you good gear from the word &#8216;go&#8217;, with a series of clear outlines for how powerful gear could be.<\/p>\n<p>The problem? Some designers bumped up their gear&#8217;s power on the sly. &#8220;Eric Dodds, the crafting designer, was always very responsible and followed the rules, and other people cheated a little bit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This is, with over 20 years of hindsight and distance, really funny. The concept of a team of developers quietly bumping up their stats like they&#8217;re in some gear equivalent of The Big Short\u2014yeah man, just give those boots a few more points of stamina. Dodds isn&#8217;t gonna know a thing, the sweet fool. But we know the future of WoW is dungeons, dungeons, dungeons, baby!<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, having played the beta, I can confirm that this is indeed addressed. There are a lot of really good blue items that&#8217;re soulbound which you can craft for yourself if you&#8217;re, say, a blacksmith or a leatherworker\u2014items that absolutely compete with questing and dungeon items. Crafting is absolutely worth it for your levelling journey.<\/p>\n<div class=\"product\"><a data-dimension112=\"346a5778-d2e4-11f1-887a-89d2c9ad230f\" data-action=\"Deal Block\" data-label=\"2026 games\" data-dimension48=\"2026 games\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><\/p>\n<figure class=\"van-image-figure \" >\n<div class='image-full-width-wrapper'>\n<div class='image-widthsetter' style=\"max-width:661px;\">\n<p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:98.94%;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"6offQUY4CXebir2TC27dMd\" name=\"kingdom come 2 square\" caption=\"\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/world-of-warcraft-was-meant-to-have-viable-levelling-gear-from-professions-way-back-in-2004-but-the-designers-on-raids-and-dungeons-cheated-a-little-bit.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"661\" height=\"654\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" credit=\"\" class=\"\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/games\/new-pc-games-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-dimension112=\"346a5778-d2e4-11f1-887a-89d2c9ad230f\" data-action=\"Deal Block\" data-label=\"2026 games\" data-dimension48=\"2026 games\" data-dimension25=\"\"><strong>2026 games<\/strong><\/a>: All the upcoming games<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/the-best-pc-games\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Best PC games<\/strong><\/a>: Our all-time favorites<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/the-50-best-free-pc-games\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Free PC games<\/strong><\/a>: Freebie fest<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/best-fps-games\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Best FPS games<\/strong><\/a>: Finest gunplay<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/best-rpgs-of-all-time\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Best RPGs<\/strong><\/a>: Grand adventures<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/the-best-co-op-games\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Best co-op games<\/strong><\/a>: Better together<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/games\/world-of-warcraft\/world-of-warcraft-was-meant-to-have-viable-levelling-gear-from-professions-way-back-in-2004-but-the-designers-on-raids-and-dungeons-cheated-a-little-bit\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The design politics of studios in the early 2000s will always fascinate me\u2014not the unsavory stuff, I am glad that is well and truly binned\u2014but rather, the little elbows and feet put on other designers in studios where there wasn&#8217;t a clear, clean pipeline or a mandate. Such was the case with Blizzard where, as revealed by principal Kris Zierhut in a recent Polygon interview, there was a little cheeky in-fighting over the power of crafted gear. Zierhut, who joined the company in 2005, was reflecting on the corrections the team wasn&#8217;t allowed to make during the &#8220;no changes&#8221; era of Classic in 2019. Corrections that are now possible with World of Warcraft: Forever: &#8220;The only design direction that really existed was: Don&#8217;t change anything&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerpt-more\"><a class=\"blog-excerpt button\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/world-of-warcraft-was-meant-to-have-viable-levelling-gear-from-professions-way-back-in-2004-but-the-designers-on-raids-and-dungeons-cheated-a-little-bit\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1733048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[336],"tags":[748,135,1080],"class_list":["post-1733047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pc-gamer","tag-games","tag-mmo","tag-world-of-warcraft"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>World of 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