World of Warcraft is releasing a wild battle royale mode today as part of the Plunderstorm 10.2.6 patch, but you don't have to fight other players to fully enjoy it, Blizzard developers said. [Orlando Salvatore, lead software engineer for Warcraft, said, "You can collect Plunder while killing monsters and opening treasure chests without directly attacking other players."

"The game is a great way for players to get their Plunder back," said Orlando Salvatore, Warcraft's lead software engineer.

The 60-player free-for-all mode, in which players live on a separate server from regular WoW characters, launches today. Looting is the currency that drops from monsters in the zone, other players, chests, and winning matches. This is similar to the level of reputation in the current Warcraft expansion Dragonflight. For each level of Renown (40 in all), players earn mounts, pets, and transmog items, which are rewards in Plunderstorm.

However, just because you can earn Plunder by killing other players doesn't mean you have to, the developers said in an interview with PC Gamer. They wanted everyone to enjoy the experience.

"We want players who just want to have a good time to play. They want to go in, have a great pirate party with friends, collect loot, fight monsters, and play for all the cool abilities that are out there," Salvatore said. 'There are gold monsters on the map that drop loot. There are treasure chests you can open. Even if you don't win, you still get something out of it and have fun. That's what we've focused on."

Therefore, balancing class versus class and ability versus ability was not a priority for the developers. Abilities are looted during matches and often come from random ground spawns. For example, Mana Sphere is a charged AOE spell that throws an orb and attacks all enemies in its path; Fiery Axe is a melee ability that attacks enemies in close proximity with a cone; Quaking Leap makes you jump up from the ground and boom when you hit again land on the enemy and deal damage. These abilities are intentionally designed to make combat fun for even the casual PvP player, says lead producer Ray Bartos." Every match is different."

"We're not so much interested in the min-max; we're interested in how much fun the player can have," Salvatore said.