- World of Warcraft: Forever senior game designer Josh “Aggrend” Greenfield confirms the MMO still has "thousands" of undiscovered secrets
- Greenfield says, "There’s going to be things to discover that we didn’t surface"
- He adds that there is "really well-buried stuff out there that’s probably going to take people a long time to find"
Blizzard Entertainment has confirmed that World of Warcraft: Forever features thousands of secrets, like items, that were turned off in the beta.
In its 'End of Beta Special' podcast, senior game designer Josh “Aggrend” Greenfield, alongside other WoW: Forever developers, was asked about the undiscovered secrets in the beta, revealing that Blizzard disabled many of them for the first 30 levels (via GameSpot).
"There’s definitely some secrets and stuff that we had turned off," Greenfield said. "There’s going to be things to discover that we didn’t surface, suffice to say that."
When host Josh Corbett brought up that there are supposedly "thousands" of things hidden in the MMO, Greenfield agreed; some of those secrets include items and recipes, but the developer refrained from sharing more details.
"Honestly, it's almost kind of hard to say, because the thing is, I guess it's interesting to frame it like this, that our team has gone through this sort of evolution," Greenfield said. "We're a lot larger than we were before; we have a lot more really talented designers, really creative people working on it, and I think we've all sort of done our own little things here and there along the way of 'I'm going to hide this in this nook and cranny, and I'm going to turn it off for beta, and then we'll see what people see,' and stuff like that."
He added that there are "all kinds of things" to uncover and hinted at "fun things" like "emergent behaviors that have happened in the game based on the things that people have found" and "some of the new sort of technology tools we have to play with."
"It’s hard to talk about secret stuff," Greenfield continued. "It’s secret, right? We want people to find it. There’s some really, really, really cool, and really, really, really well-buried stuff out there that’s probably going to take people a long time to find. If we tip our hats to it too much, it’s just going to take the fun away."
Many of these secrets are so hidden that even data miners can uncover them, and lead encounter designer Michael Nuthals more or less confirmed during the podcast that some features may be used in future WoW: Forever content, such as the Manor Mistmantle, which was recently found in Duskwood.
"There might be some homes, some manors, out there that folks have found that might be something interesting in the future,” Nuthals said. "You might have seen some instance portals hiding in some inconspicuous spots. There are some things coming in the future, and we’re really excited to share those as we get there."
WoW: Forever launches on November 4, and the game's beta officially ends today after getting a short extension.
TechRadar Gaming recently interviewed Blizzard about WoW: Forever, which shared its design philosophy for creating an authentic "Classic Plus" experience and addressed the controversial new Skyborne race available to both Alliance and Horde.