This is one of the most frequently posted things on these forums that I troll daily between horses. I’d like to offer some devil’s advocate points on why neither is a necessary thing or even a good idea.
People assume they will be full Naxx cleared, character has all the best gear in the game and so does their alt. They are wrong. Most of the people who raid at 60 will never see bosses like C’thun, Loatheb, Four Horseman or Kel’Thuzad. If they do, it will be with all the time in the world to farm gear, recruit and replace, and eventually get those bosses down.
Past Blackwing Lair difficulty, there are zero catchup mechanics in the game that are going to let you overpower content with gear. None.
A lot of people simply prefer the game played on Azeroth without flying mounts, jewel crafting, Blood Elves/Dranei and all of the things that are arguably bad about The Burning Crusade.
There are good story lines that fit neatly as “What’s Next?” type content into the Vanilla world. How do you do this though without a mass exodus? If Karazhan is just a 20 man side show with gear that doesn’t let you beat C’thun or Kel’Thuzad there will be whinging. If the gear springboards your casual scrub guild to easily clearing both, there will be whinging.
We really have no idea what the turnout and long term interest of Classic is yet. People say they want something all the time, until you make them work, they have to pay, or you make them a little dirty and sweaty. We won’t know what the real market for long term Classic is for at least a year+, whether that is Classic forever or Classic+, TBC Classic etc.
I can probably think of other reasons, but basically it’s too soon™.
If Blizzard went for “Classic+” and just added additional level 60 raid tiers after Naxx, any player unable to progress through Naxx would be unable to do the new content.
Result might be a lot of developer time wasted on new content almost nobody will ever see.
And a lot of frustrated players who are bored and want new content, but can’t do the new content that is added.
Some other points, why Classic TBC is better than Classic+:
Cost - Converting TBC to Classic would be enormously cheaper than trying to make new original content for Classic.
Volume of Content - it’s quite likely that TBC would offer players much more content than Classic+ would. TBC is a full expansion. It took hundreds of developers working on it for years to complete.
“2019 WoW Classic” is not their only product like it was from 2004 on, it’s a side-project. There is much much much less motivation for them to cater to casuals, whingers, or to establish and maintain broad appeal. Live/Retail WoW has all of the features the whingers will whinge for, and more. I would hope that those players would all be directed there.
Nah. BC/Wrath is now the new Classic. As soon as the floodgates opened and allowed for Classic, the calls for different server types are going to be endless. Forever.
I’ll play devil’s advocate. I did see a forum post in GD about potentially gating the expansion content in the future. What if they did something like:
You reach 60. You do the content you want to do. An NPC not unlike Chromie asks you the question: “you can choose to remain here in the original world of Azeroth, but if you’d like to continue on to the next adventure in Outlands, you can as well. What would you like to do?” And give you the two options, of which you can move forward at any time. But once you move forward you cannot move backwards.
This way, any player can play their favorite expansion and have gear/content gated to how it was.
Obviously, there are tons of logistics for something like that, like, what do we have the talent trees like for each expansion? What patch per expansion do we base these off of? Probably years and years and years of work to be done.
As long as they are kept separate and Classic will always be Classic, and players are not forced to go to the TBC era, there is really no good argument against TBC servers.
People that want to play it have just as much right to request that and do so as those that wanted Vanilla servers. I stood behind those players asking for legacy servers from the start, even though I had zero intentions of playing them myself. I’ll do the same for those that want other variants as well, as long as they don’t try and screw with what others have put so much time and effort into getting with Classic.
Classic + is a bit of a different beast as it’s new development, but I can’t even think of a good argument against it as long as there are unaltered Classic servers available.
Cost, and the desire not to build to “almost the same” MMO’s, in Blizzard’s eyes. That pretty much trumps it all. Retail would have to be seriously failing while Classic was going strong, for them to make Classic+.
First thing that comes to mind is the new mess Blizzard has to manage with copies of characters on different realms. That could eventually be Classic, Classic+, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich KIng * n characters.
What makes Classic special as a stand alone game is the effort and the amount of players behind it. We’ve never seen anything like it for BC or Wrath.
It would be fun to play authentic Blizzard BC again, but I won’t be surprised if the interest is about half what Classic is.
None of that matters to me when it comes to reasons why players would argue against it. I’m not concerned about Blizzards profits, I’m just concerned about people being able to play what they want to play.
Whether or not Blizzard wants to do it financially is outside of our control, just like it was for Classic players.
Whether it’s on a separate server seems irrelevant. It’s still Vanilla…but with some sprinkles and chocolate chips!! And as soon as that’s done players leave Classic to chase those new purplez and we head down the exact same path we did 10+ years ago.
At least a separate TBC server has its own identity and purpose without replacing Classic’s.
What Blizzard has to manage is of little concern to me.
I’d disagree with the interest on TBC. I think you would be surprised how many are backing Classic that are really much more interested in TBC or even later versions.
Like I said, that is something we really shouldn’t be concerning ourselves with when it comes to asking for a product. That is something Blizzard must determine, and if it is the reason then they can tell players that.
Us and individual players should’t really be using that as an argument as none of us would have the answer to that question. I thought it was silly when people were using it in regards to Classic as well.
The most important thing about Classic+ or TBC is that if they do it, there should always be a Classic server for the people who just want to play Vanilla WoW as it was in 2006.
Which if there is enough demand for a TBC server and it’s a separate option, I can’t see that as being bad for people who just want to play Classic.
Just because you have unlimited time doesn’t mean you eventually progress. If I had unlimited time I’d still never reach Gladiator PVP rank… my skills and reaction time are simply not good enough.
Most players aren’t interested in the “mythic raiding” level of difficulty where sometimes it takes weeks of progression and hundreds of wipes to get a first kill on a boss.
These players will never progress to the new tier of raiding if it’s too tough. Instead, they’ll get burnt out and either give up on raiding or more likely quit the game.
Actually, if you have unlimited time to gear, you will progress, sans truly crippling performance issues. KT is beaten by a Naxx geared team every time. No-one ever beat him in AQ only gear.
If you have unlimited resets to work your way through the dungeon, you will eventually succeed, simply by being fully (or almost fully) geared to the level.
If what you’re saying is true, everyone in Retail would full-clear every mythic raid.
But that is NOT what happens. Players get burnt out working on progression and progression slows or stalls. That happens long before the next major content tier comes out. Very few raids actually down the final boss in mythic.
Once progression stalls with no further progress being made it pretty much doesn’t matter how long you continue working on it. You could have another year and still wouldn’t progress. Especially, if the only place to get improved gear is the instance you’re currently stalled in.
![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")