Developer's Island
Next to GM Island and Designer Island, players knew of a third closed island: the developers' own sandbox. In the game data it is called Programmer Isle, and like the other test islands it is now part of a hidden map called Development Land.
Programmer Isle
From the earliest builds until the last patch of vanilla, Programmer Isle sat north-west of the Eastern Kingdoms. It was later removed from the world and placed in Development Land, a separate map that only Blizzard staff can visit. Its subzones read like a developer's notebook: Dead Man's Hole, four "Jeff" quadrants, a Chunk Test and the PattyMack Test Area. Its inhabitants include Twain The Tester, "pnagle's test dudes" and PattyMack, the test dummy, and its quests have names like Omar's Test Quest and Spawn Tracking & Spell Visuals: Do They Work?
WoW Secrets: Programmer Isle · Hayven Games
Development Land
Development Land is where Blizzard's test zones live today: Programmer Isle, Designer Island and many small test areas, packed together on one map.
From the archive
Developer Island = naga, Programmer Island = food, GM Island = the scary box. That's how you can remember them.
Destro, Nogg-aholics
Mira Duskwood is the pen name of the Lost WOW editorial team. Mira writes the secret walkthroughs and the history of the lost areas, and keeps them up to date when a patch changes something.
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