I’ve been watching various videos on the vanilla WoW content lately, and it got me thinking. Would the adventure guide be included? It ultimately really wouldn’t matter to me either way if it is or isn’t, but it could be handy for those who have never run the old dungeons in a manner that actually required knowing any mechanics. It would also be nice to quickly find out what gear drops from bosses without using an addon like AtlasLoot.
Would the inclusion of the guide negatively impact your feelings on Classic?
Thottbot and death.
The only teachers of WoW.
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I think they should corpse run their way to competency.
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I prefer giving players the opportunity to discover things themselves. There is a plethora of information outside the game.
You could be applying your argument to quests (quest helpers) which accomplishes a similar goal: “The game now gives me precise information and now there is nothing to learn.”
I’m pretty sure this reduces the potential for feelings of self accomplishment and maybe even immersion.
The Adventure Guide embodies the very definition of handholding. It removes so many aspects of discovery, like figuring out boss mechanics, even in 5 mans. People should learn from their own actions and mistakes. If you can read up on every fight and know what to expect every time, there is no unpredictability, there is only “following the instructions”. But with players who actively die and try harder, they can think on their feet, they can respond with critical thinking. They depend on their reflexes, skills and experience in dealing with fights, instead of just following instructions, and losing all cohesion when something unique happens.
Sure all that information is still out on fan sites but you have to leave the game to get to it, putting it right in our face at the click of a button in game would ruin the experience to me far more than any of the other hot topics like sharding, loot trading, new graphics, etc. I’m glad you brought this up because it would be a truly devastating addition to Classic, I’m glad it’s on my mind now.
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This is mostly why I had brought it up. I don’t recall it really being a topic of conversation previously. Personally I love diving in and experiencing things, so it wouldn’t hurt me whatsoever if not included.
Unfortunately, a not insignificant portion of new players will just google it. I do hope that word of mouth wins out over guides, though. Even though explaining things is functionally the same, it’s more in the spirit of the game to begin with. I guess it’s a bit hypocritical, but you know what I’m getting at.
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I’ll probably be googling a fair amount of things, but probably only late game if I want to know about specific items or precise information.
I’ve had a look recently and some of the major db sites are sorely lacking in several areas of detailed information. Probably due to the fact that they haven’t had access to the original game servers since BC release.
Whoever gets me in their raid is probably going to have to deal with me going in raw but all I really have to know is how to identify what the fire is and walk slightly to the left of it.
The Adventure guide provides nothing you can’t easily google. It’s known information for over a decade now. There would be no real reason to forbid its exclusion beyond the fact Classic didn’t have it. And that is a fair reason, but if they included it, it wouldn’t break the spirit of Classic WoW. People googled stuff back then, and they’ll do it now.
The more I think about it, I guess it wouldn’t be as “devastating” as I originally said, it really comes down to the kind of people playing the game, not the resources they have. If they are determined enough to learn everything ahead of time and remove any aspect of personal discovery, the tools are still there outside the game. I just can’t shake the feeling that putting the Adventure Guide in game, would only drive further away from the Classic “feeling”.
As has been stated, the Adventure Guide embodies everything about the “hand holding” direction the game took in later expansions.
The one thing I wouldn’t get over if the Adventure Guide was included in Classic are the dungeon maps. They are technically part of the AG. As has also been stated, people used addons or google searches to find information anyway, but I feel player created maps were not great at the time, often just an overhead screenshot of the minimap (such as the old Cartographer addon).
Some dungeons were huge and sprawling back then. BRD, Mara, ST (original), often had multiple paths you could take and you could easily get lost. while most grizzled pserv/classic vets know their way around these places I think a Blizzard made dungeon map (again, they’re part of the AG) would ruin the expansive feel of some of these settings.
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