Disclaimer: I do think it would be okay to introduce dungeon finder with the ICC phase in Wrath Classic. I personally don’t ever want to see it in anything with the Classic tag, but I DO want to relive the experience, and dungeon finder was a part of that experience in late Wrath. This thread is simply a case for launching Wrath Classic without dungeon finder and leaving it that way at the very least until ICC and its 5-mans are released.
If you disagree with me on dungeon finder ever being implemented, that’s not the point of this thread.
Dungeon finder isn’t being “cut” from Wrath, because (by any measure I can personally think of – please tell me if you have a different one) it can’t really be thought of as being the the de facto “Wrath experience”. In my opinion, dungeon finder in Wrath Classic should only have ever been a “maybe” at best.
- Wrath of the Lich King systems and balance were implemented during its pre-patch (3.0.2) on October 14th, 2008.
- 420 days pass.
- Dungeon Finder is introduced in patch 3.3.0 on December 8th, 2009 along with Icecrown Citadel and it’s 5-man dungeons among other things.
- 308 days pass.
- Cataclysm systems and balance were implemented during its pre-patch (4.0.1) on October 12th, 2010.
We had Wrath without dungeon finder for 112 days longer than we had Wrath with it. So if we’re deciding whether it’s truly part of the “Wrath experience” based on how long we had it, it wouldn’t make that cut.
We had more content phases without dungeon finder than we had with it. There was no dungeon finder for 3 raiding tiers (T7, T8 and T9), and then we had it for 1 raiding tier (T10). If you include non-tiers (Eye of Eternity, Obsidium Sanctum, Ruby Sanctum, Onyxia) the amount of content becomes 6 raids without dungeon finder, 2 raids with it. Either way, there’s 3 times as many raids without dungeon finder than with, whether you count non-tier raids or not. Even if you don’t count Onyxia (since it was an anniversary event), there’s still more than double the raids.
No matter which way you look at it, leaving dungeon finder out of Wrath would be more true to the Wrath experience than implementing it. HOWEVER, just as with the content phases and gated systems we’ve had in Classic up until now, I do think that dungeon finder has a reasonable place in Wrath. Just not the entire expansion. I think it’s perfectly reasonable for dungeon finder to be implemented in the ICC phase.
“But that’s not how it works!! Wrath pre-patch isn’t Wrath!”
Even if we DO pretend that an expansion only counts as an expansion while it’s actual content is live, we had 390 days without it and 363 days with it. Even with a handicap, Wrath had more time without than with it and there’s still the fact that we had much more content without dungeon finder than with it. Even being biased against the idea that Wrath officially began once we hit patch 3.0.0+, it still doesn’t make dungeon finder a necessity for an “authentic” Wrath Classic.
But that is how it works. An expansion’s major systems, engine updates and balance changes are implemented in it’s pre-patch. Hence, the Wrath pre-patch (3.0.2) starts with a 3 because that’s when the game files themselves transition from BC to Wrath. The only thing that isn’t implemented during the pre-patch is the content itself (increased level cap, quests, access to zones, dungeons/raids). Dungeon finder is a system feature that wasn’t implemented at launch (just like guild banks), not content.
“But it was available in the last patch of Wrath! Classic launches are based on the last patch of their respective content!”
Again, dungeon finder is a system feature. Classic launches are based on the last patch for balance purposes, not features, systems and content. This is why guild banks weren’t available in TBC Classic at launch even though guild banks were present in the last patch of TBC originally. It was implemented in TBC during a later phase (I think with Zul’Aman), so in TBC Classic, it was implemented in that respective phase of the game. This is also why we don’t have access to all of the raids at the launches even though they were present in the last patch of their respective expansions.