Whether you love it or hate it, Blizzard has redesigned its old content delivery paradigms. We're getting new patches and content at blazing speeds; they're even offering more customer feedback than before.

Longtime World of Warcraft players might have noticed a new and somewhat "un-Blizzard-like" trend that has been developing during the past six months. Newer players probably haven't picked up on it, because they don't have much past experience to draw on. But whether you've noticed the change on your own or read about it in forums or fansite blogs, you'd be hard-pressed to try and deny it: Blizzard has been releasing new content and patches at break-neck speeds, faster than ever has before.

Perhaps as proof that you'll never be able to please everyone, two distinct camps have popped up; those who love it and think the new pace is what it should have been all along, and those who feel that all this content is just too much, coming too fast. At risk of starting a flame war, I think it's a really interesting topic to consider. World of Warcraft is the world's most popular MMORPG, and Blizzard earned part of its rock-solid reputation by giving fans consistency throughout the past four years. Drastic changes to such core paradigms aren't something we'd expect from Blizzard (whether it's for better or worse). What's the bigger picture? What can we predict by examining some of these new trends? More importantly, how will it affect you as a customer?

One year ago this summer, players were about six months away from Wrath of the Lich King's release. But even back then, some people were starting to wonder if the time between expansions thus far was going to be the norm. After WOW first launched it took around two years for The Burning Crusade to get into players' hands. When we finally had a definite release date for Wrath of the Lich King, we were able to get our first glimpse at an "average" timetable for expansions; one every two years (give or take a couple months). It raised the question, "Will every expansion take two years to be developed and released?" A lot of players thought that two years was just too long, especially when you consider that WoW may have already reached its half-life.

Blizzard has always had an unspoken policy of being a little more tight-lipped than other publishers. Some game companies tend to be a little more forthcoming with their customers about release schedules, so speculation isn't necessary. But it seems like customer speculation is something Blizzard revels in. It either uses it to its advantage in building hype for a game or expansion, or the company just doesn't need to have an open-door policy because it will sell anything it releases. To its credit, Blizzard's games are of a high-enough quality that you can buy one and know it will be good, whether you've heard anything about it or not.

Still, two years is an awfully long time to wait for future WoW expansions, especially when you're paying $15 per month for an aging game. After the Black Temple was released in TBC, we had to wait months before we got a new content patch. Players were so burned out on the previous endgame stuff that they tore Sunwell Plateau apart like ravenous wolves, devouring it almost too quickly to even taste it. After a couple months, most of the high-end raiding guilds were farming it, and the zone's daily quests turned into your obligatory 100-gold-per-day withdrawal.

Things looked bleak as players were forced to wonder if six- to 12-month gaps between new content patches and two years between new expansions were going to be the norm. But then Wrath of the Lich King launched in November, offering hundreds of hours of new content, and most players forgot about the issue for the time-being. It wasn't until just recently that people started talking about it again—but this time, the arguing point turned out to be the complete opposite of what it was earlier.

Blizzard admittedly designed the endgame content in Wrath of the Lich King to be more accessible and easier to complete. Despite the fact that many players—hardcore and casual alike—had Naxxramas on farm by the time patch 3.1 was released, some of them began feeling pressured when they realized that the smaller "down-time" between WotLK and 3.1 might not have been a one-time fluke. In response to someone predicting that we wouldn't see content patch 3.2 until later this year, and Icecrown until next spring, Blizzard rep Zarhym said in the official forums, "Would it help if I told you your presumed time lines are way too inflated?"

We're probably just a month or so away from seeing patch 3.2 released, with 3.3 hot on its heels shortly after. I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard announces the next expansion at BlizzCon in August, and we end up receiving it by this time next year. On top of all that, Blizzard has been releasing update patches and hotfixes like crazy; much faster than we've ever seen before. And perhaps, most unusual of all is that we're not left to nearly as much speculation as we were in the past. Mostly through its official forums, Blizzard has made a noticeable effort to respond to its player's questions and needs, and even getting those issues worked out in live patches within just a couple months.

As I mentioned earlier, it's not the kind of thing we're used to seeing in WoW. Instead of players being worried that we're not getting new content fast enough, they're wondering if we're getting it too fast. Despite the ease with which many raiding guilds cleared Naxx, Sartharion and Malygos, there are quite a few casual players who still hadn't even cleared Naxx by the time Ulduar came out. That curve will undoubtedly widen from Ulduar to Crusaders' Coliseum when 3.2 goes live. To help alleviate that problem though, Blizzard will be changing the token rewards in all Northrend dungeons. We'll now be able to get "Emblems of Conquest" in all the Heroic dungeons; and the upcoming "Emblem of Triumph" tokens will be given out as a reward for the Heroic Daily Dungeon quest, as well as both 10 and 25-man versions of Crusaders Coliseum.

That itself is a hot topic of debate among players right now, but I won't stray down that path. The point is that not only is Blizzard giving us more content at a faster pace, it's making that endgame content more accessible than it has ever been. It might be difficult to imagine how that could be a bad thing when you're paying a monthly subscription for the game. I'm in that camp myself; I've always felt that the faster we get new content, the better. But some people feel like it's coming too fast and they're not being given enough time to complete it all at a reasonable pace. Casual players say they don't have enough time to catch up with the rest of their guild, because they're still working on getting through the previous content when the new patch comes out. Some hardcore players worry that Blizzard is homogenizing the endgame and making it irrelevant too quickly.

Personally, I think both are pretty weak arguments. But I can see where some of these issues are coming from, especially when the community isn't accustomed to this new and faster release paradigm. I think it's more important to read between the lines and ask why Blizzard making these changes, and why it's making them now as opposed to a year or two ago.

To figure that out, we have to look at World of Warcraft in relation to the rest of the MMO industry today. Even though Blizzard has a choke-hold on the majority of the MMORPG market, it still has to remain constantly devoted to customer retention. In comparison to modern MMOs and PC games, WoW has aged pretty dang well, but it's not the same game it was four years ago. Its liver spots are beginning to show, and you can hear it wheeze after every other stride. "PC gaming years" are kind of like "dog years" in the sense that one year (or even a few months) can account for vast changes in graphical standards and game innovation.

As time goes by, Blizzard has to be more vigilant, to keep its customers content. The days of a class balance problem or gameplay bug taking six months to fix are long gone. Hotfixes are coming in so fast that casual players might not have even noticed a substantial gameplay bug (like the recent "flame wall bug" in Obsidian Sanctum) because it was patched within a week or two.  As the uncontrollable, out-of-game reasons to quit WoW grow larger, Blizzard has to keep the in-game reasons that it can control to a bare minimum.

The increased feedback we've been seeing from developers and reps in the official forums is also a clear indicator of its need to stay relevant. In an editorial I wrote last month about Blizzard not showing up at E3, I wondered if the company was so content with its hold on the market that it's just resting on its laurels. It wasn't until just recently that I could say with any certainty that Blizzard can't just rest on the fruits of its labor anymore. The developers and executives at Blizzard have always proved to be forward-thinkers, and this new change in content delivery and customer interaction illustrates that. They might not be losing customers and starting to feel the heat just yet; but they can see what's over the horizon and they're not wasting any time preparing for the upcoming battle.

If you're the kind of fan who will stay with WoW no matter what—regardless of other MMOs on the market—this is even better news for you. It means that, for the time being (at least until Blizzard's next MMO is released), the developers are still striving to approach new game content proactively. Regardless of whether you think these new trends are a good or bad, it hopefully exemplifies that Blizzard will continue treating World of Warcraft as a brand-new MMO until the day it finally ends, whether that's two years or a decade from now.