Do we deserve extensive previews of upcoming content?

As we all know, there was a huge leak of information off of the alpha test that got the whole community in a frenzy. There's something not quite right about the situation, though. The alpha is under a non-disclosure agreement, as I discussed earlier, so this should be the kind of thing that Blizzard would want to prevent. As a company with the resources they have (12 million subscribers times $15 a month equals 6 million dollar A DAY to spend on this game), if Blizzard really wanted to prevent these kinds of leaks from happening, they could. For that reason, some people (such as those who commented on WoW.com's post The Failure of Secrecy: The alpha, leaks, and the WoW community, the post that inspired me to write this one) suspect that Blizzard either approved of the leak, or at least were happy it happened. As commenter CrimsonEyedDeath said, "...it's good for them, in a way. Not that there was a massive leak, but that millions of people are so bloody excited for the next bit of WoW that they're F5ing sites like WoW.com/MMO-champion/etc over and over and over again. I'm pretty sure there's at least some people who have went out and pre-ordered Cata off these screens/info alone."

But whether or not Blizzard sanctioned the leak is not what I'm here to ponder; I think we'll know in time whether they did or not. No, what I am here to ponder is the very phenomenon that created this leak in the first place: the players' desire for information on upcoming content. For the past two expansions, I remember reading up on previews of the upcoming content eagerly, but something changed over the course of Wrath of the Lich King. When the data-mined audio files from The Frozen Halls came out, I listed to them, and they were awesome. But there was an unintended consequence of doing so; when I finally worked my way into the Halls of Reflection, the story that unfolded before me was not so amazing as it should have been. Because I knew what was coming, I was much less blown away by it, and I'll even go so far as to say that it was less fun because of what I knew going in.

That experience made me look at spoilers in a new way, a way that affects how I look Cataclysm spoilers today. Now, to be honest, I don't have much self control when it comes to heading the "spoilers ahead" warnings I see anywhere, but with a leak this massive, for once, I held myself back. Though I did pour over the new talent trees, new profession recipes, and other things, I abstained from looking at the screenshots of the zones. That's one of the things I look forward to the most about new content: just seeing it, and I refused to spoil that for myself.

But I digress. There's a difference between giving someone a taste to leave them wanting more and giving them the appetizer long before the meal, and I think this leak crossed that line. And the players? They ate that appetizer greedily. The real question is, do we deserve it?

The time between the final patch before an expansion and the next expansion definitely represents a lull in the game. With no new content coming out, players are restless, especially when they know that amazing things are just around the corner. Of course, Blizzard is doing a much better job this time around trying to keep us interested. We have the Ruby Sanctum coming in patch 3.3.5, as well as Operation Gnomeragon and the retake of Echo Isles in what will probably be patch 3.9. That's better than what little we got to tide us over between Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King (which, if I remember correctly, was only the zombie infestation, something that ruined the game for me). Considering the amount of time between now and when Cataclysm will come out, that may not be enough to completely hold our interests, but it's certainly better than nothing.

Of course, the lull is an unfortunate necessity; Blizzard does need to focus on developing the expansion, after all, and they can't give us content at their usual rate if they need to focus on developing content for the next expansion. As such, we reach the point where the current expansion has taught us to expect content to be released at a certain rate, but Blizzard is unable to deliver it to us at that rate while they develop the next expansion. Sure, they have certain elements to keep us playing the game long after the content has become stale, but when we know new content is coming, those elements just don't work as well, and players lose interest. That's a problem for Blizzard, for if people stop paying their monthly subscription fee, they lose money to spend on developing new content, and if they can't develop new content, then players lose interest and stop paying their subscription fee. It's a cycle that Blizzard can't allow to happen.

But how can they keep our interest if they can't develop new content? One might say that keeping us up-to-date on how Cataclysm's development is coming along is one way, but that won't keep our interest in the game itself alive. Their current plans for a post-Icecrown Citadel raid and two pre-Cataclysm world events seem to be on the right track, but it's clearly not enough to satiate player's desires for information on Cataclysm.

But is the problem that Blizzard isn't doing enough to keep players interested, or are we, the players, the problem? As I said in my post Por que, NDA?, and as we have seen with the frenzy of discussion that the latest Cataclysm leaks have generated, players tend to overreact to information that comes out about upcoming content, especially when we don't have the full story, and that creates a headache for Blizzard in trying to placate the community while still focusing on developing content. Frankly, I don't envy Blizzard for the job they have trying to convince players that they know what they are doing and that there is plenty of time to change things that do go awry.

However, this frenzy happened because the community grew restless with the lack of Cataclysm information coming out. We went through a pretty long drought of information after Blizzcon, and it was probably that long period of little information that lead to the players so eagerly looking for alpha spoilers. I'm sure Blizzard had their reasons for keeping further Cataclysm information under wraps, but it was keeping that info under wraps that lead to the leak being so eagerly received.

Perhaps the best thing Blizzard can do for now (and in the future as they develop future expansion packs) is to release a constant trickle of little tidbits of information about Cataclysm. The Cataclysm screenshot of the day (which they currently have going on their websites) is a good example of a way to give players a taste of things to come without spoiling the whole feast with appetizers (metaphorically speaking). It also has the added benefit of not giving players as much to complain about on the forums as releasing information on talents and spells does. Once the expansion is further along in development and more of the balancing issues have been worked out, they can release information on spells, talents, professions, and other such things to keep the player-base placated. (I know they've already released information on some of the changes coming to talents and spells, but we still got more information that they didn't mention, from the leaks, so we didn't get the whole picture. As such, there is always more to the story than they tell with the initial preview.) That combined with the new content we are getting between now and Cataclysm should keep the player-base satisfied, or at least more satisfied than the drought of information did.