It’s. Classic. It. Will. Be. As. It. Was. In. Vanilla.
Greetings, developers.
I played through the classic patch where LFG was implemented. As a player my experience was that LFG made it easier to get a group, but required a higher level than required by spamming trade channel. However, forcing LFG in trade channel forced relationship building. I lived this, and I know… Trust me, if you want to build community and force MMO relationship and partnership building no LFG. With that said, Looking for Raid (LFR) normal mode makes since. I remember, waiting while a raid member went to a city to spam Trade Chat for a classes needed for raid… Making everyone in the Raid wait for a very long time. I think, implementing a “Inn only system” for LFR where active raids could post a need for a DPS, TANK, or HEALER for a specific Raid. The Raid would be normal mode, but allow the waiting 39 people, 24, or 9 people to select a replacement easier than spamming city trade chat. The balance here is build friendship by forcing organic groups for dungeons five or less, but help raids of six or more with getting assistance from the MMO community. Balance is the key! I firmly believe this is a balance required for success for any MMO…
No just stop it #notmyclassic
First thing I must say is that I am neither a proponent nor advocate of non-vanilla content expansion of Classic, but I’m going to pull a Taliesen and express what I believe Blizzard COULD do if they go that route.
I can’t believe I’m actually suggesting this, but given Blizzard’s emerging fiscal model of selling access to STUFF rather than merely subscriptions, here goes. I now see the great potential to having a World of Warcraft Classic+ Expansion. It would have no further advancement or higher tiers, but allow players to buy into access to extra features. Purist players need not purchase the expansion. Players who want access to more toys and playful loot, perhaps a unique 30 slot bag, a few fun titles, and so on, could buy into it. Purist players would have either the option to never see the new features for not having the xpac, or not seeing them because they have a UI settings toggle to turn them off, much like the toggle for not seeing headgear. Blizz could add transmogs but players with the xpac feature turned off would see default appearances that already existed in vanilla.
Most importantly, there’s so much room to add more roleplaying features. Two of my best friends pretended that one of the farms on the Ironforge Mountain looking down upon Menethil Bay was their retirement home and venue to their characters’ wedding. I’m not much of a roleplayer, really, but even I used to decide where each of my characters lived (I had a favorite house in IF for my rogue). There’s room for NPC characters to get to know and love, like through quest series akin to the dwarf wedding in Cataclysm—that was touching. My housemates have grown weary of WoW because they say that it’s all just too epic, that there’s not enough regular-people content to experience that makes them feel more invested (I would say that BfA has provided some wonderful non-epic characterization, but they’re already over it and thus haven’t seen that content).
Finally, WoW could provide player housing in both retail and Classic+ with allowing characters to select from dozens, if not hundreds, of domiciles, some of which they might construct on a farm or in the woods somewhere, others like my rogue, who lives in IF proper. One of those tunnels of doom above IF could actually lead to a wing (subdivision?) between the farms, IF Tinkertown, and the airport. Again, purist players need never see these things because of default appearances, portals (either like SW mage tower or the tram). Blizzard incorporated layering into Classic, so we know phasing is possible. Best of all, for Blizzard, is the ton of crap they could sell for decorating said abodes—over and beyond a decent amount of stuff that comes with the xpac, much of which could be earned—think garrison and archaeology museum as they now exist in the game. Instead of a “toy” or “cosmetic”, call it “decor” and allow a person to place the item wherever they wish, usually at will, sometimes necessarily among preassigned location options, and have it persist until moved or dismissed. My garrison in retail remains in a state of Winterveil for eternity—I’m not turning off that sparkly s**t—and my best friend leaves hers in the Halloween version. Blizzard could take a note of the Sims and Second Life (gag), as well as Cities:Skylines (although they’d want to have complete control over object models somehow or other—another way for people to earn subscription time tokens, Blizzard!!). Feh on those hideous helm appearances Blizz offered in the store for a long time, but let me buy or craft a “handmade” lamp made from an actual infinite whelpling! Yassss!! A wall hanging next to my dining table that says “I defeated Onyxia and all I got was this stupid wall tapestry?” Yaaassssssss! …especially for added bosses and content that should be fun but challenging, provide plenty of material for roleplay, and say, “I did this!”
Anyway, I’m with Taliesen (https://youtu.be/5WomzdDc57w) that maybe Blizzard SHOULDN’T do a Classic+ xpac, but I have suggestions for what I know at least a few people would enjoy and spend extra to access. I figure if y’all decide to do it anyway, I might as well express what my circle of player friends would pay for and most enjoy.
this sounds great 
I’m all for new content being created for Classic. I am not however wanted to do BC all over again. I was never a fan of BC. I like a single Zone. All the things I loved about WoW was removed in BC. Wrath was a great expansion in comparison. However we don’t need flying we don’t need Cataclysm. If you want to add in some new content awesome as long as it doesn’t really impact the old. Vanilla is loved for a reason.
I’d rather content that is fun and is an alternative. Classic should be for the Hardcore raider. It should be for the love of Classic.
So Instead of going beyond Naxx. Go sideways. Add in a new Raid on Par with Naxx and maybe one on Par with ZG where the loot drops are similar in stats but look different and allow different paths for guilds to take. Do a Fire Path to Naxx starting with MC and using Fire gear… Have a Nature progression.
Or even create a Story based progression of 3 Raids that move from one to the other where the Gear needed would be Tier .5 to start and will get you to unique tier 3 gear.
This has a few advantages.
- it helps remove the boring I’ve done this 100 times before element to farming a dungeon. It means it may be easier to get high geared players to do other raids. If you have a Group of Naxx ready players in your guild and then a new crop of players come up that come up ready to do MC and Onxyia and can’t get more than 20 people because the Majority of the guild has moved on.
If the content is a little more fresh over geared toons may choose to help out more easily.
This creates a unique experience and a few routes to the top tier of dungeons without hindering the Classic experience.
Hopefully that wasn’t too rambling
I’m all for new content being created for Classic. I am not however wanted to do BC all over again. I was never a fan of BC. I like a single Zone. All the things I loved about WoW was removed in BC. Wrath was a great expansion in comparison. However we don’t need flying we don’t need Cataclysm. If you want to add in some new content awesome as long as it doesn’t really impact the old. Vanilla is loved for a reason.
I’d rather content that is fun and is an alternative. Classic should be for the Hardcore raider. It should be for the love of Classic.
So Instead of going beyond Naxx. Go sideways. Add in a new Raid on Par with Naxx and maybe one on Par with ZG where the loot drops are similar in stats but look different and allow different paths for guilds to take. Do a Fire Path to Naxx starting with MC and using Fire gear… Have a Nature progression.
Or even create a Story based progression of 3 Raids that move from one to the other where the Gear needed would be Tier .5 to start and will get you to unique tier 3 gear.
This has a few advantages.
- it helps remove the boring I’ve done this 100 times before element to farming a dungeon. It means it may be easier to get high geared players to do other raids. If you have a Group of Naxx ready players in your guild and then a new crop of players come up that come up ready to do MC and Onxyia and can’t get more than 20 people because the Majority of the guild has moved on.
If the content is a little more fresh over geared toons may choose to help out more easily.
This creates a unique experience and a few routes to the top tier of dungeons without hindering the Classic experience.
Hopefully that wasn’t too rambling
BLAH BLAH BLAH, can we just get a Warsong Gulch even?
2 Likes
No one has answered this and I can’t find the information anywhere. It’s really frustrating.
Holiday events?
I see Darkmoon Faire and Darkmoon deck drops in Phase 3, anything known on the others?
I played vanilla when I was a teen casually. Later BC came out and I got more into (raids, arena, etc). Stopped after next xpac was announced. Came back to try some WOTLK right before Cata was released. Got boring quickly and left because everything was so easy (LF group or raid… PUG everything…guilds not really needed and no community). Didn’t bother with Cata due to busy with life and didn’t even consider MOP (thought it was too silly). Came back to WoD because friends encouraged it, but that was short lived…guild started falling apart and it became more of a core/job that I didn’t find fun anyway. Didn’t even bother trying Legion, but will admit considered trying Battle for Azeroth (the more I read the more I didn’t recognize or relate to the game anymore due to so many changes).
Now I’m playing classic. For me this is the version of WOW I remembered and liked. Now that I think back, the expansions slowly changed the game to something I didn’t really like anymore. The point is that I don’t think that content should be released to fundamentally and slowly change the game with extra ‘stuff’ that takes away from this ‘classic’ design. If content is added, the fundamental design of the game should stay. To achieve this, you can’t add certain things.
No garrisons, no dailies, no wellfare epics, no LFG utility, no achievements, no funky BGs, make raids difficult, no transmog, no paying for mounts, no flying mounts, no arenas, no artifacts, no heirlooms, leveling should be time consuming and challenging, no ‘easy/casual mode’ raids/dungeons, no paid gold, don’t messing with talents, don’t make all classes equal (each should have strength/weakness), rage/mana should matter, epic items should be epic/unique, CC should be important in dungeons, raids don’t need crazy mechanics, money should mean something and not be endless, professions should be meaningful, people who spend a lot of time should be rewarded more than people who don’t, world pvp should be encouraged, rank system in BG PvP and not just honor point farming, dying should matter, choosing class spec and sticking with it at high respec costs, the world should have unique places worth going back to…can keep going but I got some stuff to do.
In summary, keep the classic theme going and focus on fundamentals of what makes a game fun. Retail had so much stuff added that eventually took away from what’s important. If content is added or changes made, it should focus on why people play classic.
5 Likes
Everybody’s got their bucket list of what they want and what they never want to happen. To say “you can’t please everyone” is an understatement. The narrower the focus of the game, the smaller the number of people will maintain interest.
I think you greatly overestimate the number of people who want the exact same things as you.
If you think everyone is playing because they are just like you you are utterly wrong.
There is retail WOW. If you want certain things, just go there.
Exactly… try to please everyone and you end up pleasing no one.
To expect you can add things like arena, flying mounts, etc to classic to please people and not fundamentally change the game is completely shortsighted.
1 Like
I’ve been debating posting my “vanilla PvP memoirs” and why this game needs to steer clear of the Rank 14 grind. I got rank 14 in vanilla, and honestly, it’s not something Blizzard should ever return to. Blizzard themselves made the argument against it when they changed the grind the first time, then made it again when they brought back the titles with rated battlegrounds. I certainly hope that the reason Blizzard hasn’t been more vocal about their plans for PvP is that they are struggling with the ethical dilemma of bringing back anything resembling even the 1.12 PvP system.
1 Like
I honestly do not understand what “ethical” view there is about any rated system. Every person is responsible for themselves, NOT you, and NOT Blizz.
If someone decides to play as much or as little when the ranking system goes online, that is up to that individual.
Honestly I don’t even take players serious on these forums when they can’t be bothered to change to their Classic character for posting in the Classic forums.
I really wish Blizz would require players to post on Classic characters in order to even post here, as frankly Retailers contribute nothing to Classic when all they do is complain or try to enforce their personal values on this community.
2 Likes
You are going to have to elaborate on the ethical dilemma. I’m not sure that word means what you think it means.
If you don’t understand what it means, you probably didn’t participate in the original PvP system to rank 14.
There is no ability for a healthy, well-functioning adult to get rank 14 without breaking Blizzard’s rules. Is it their choice to do the grind? Absolutely. But let’s take this to a similar sort of scenario: people who commit suicide also make a choice. People with terminal illness could have a legitimate argument for it, but then there are people who are mentally distressed as well. Even though there’s one potentially ethical usecase, we still wouldn’t build suicide booths that can be accessed by all of the other cases because that would not be ethical.
Blizzard made arguments like these in the past, CMs first arguing it was too tough for the well being of players, then later arguing it was so tough that they figured a lot of players just broke the rules to get it. So if it’s a system where your choices are you either break the game’s rules or devolve into a shell of a person, where are the ethics in that?
Sorry, I was a broken person myself, and I’m glad I got better, but Blizzard shouldn’t be building the booths for anyone else to crawl into.
6 Likes
I picked this character intentionally so that my stats and my experience with the system are visible. My being on some character with a classic badge next to it is meaningless. Cut it out.
2 Likes
Opinion stated as fact. It is very difficult to decide what is normal when considering any competitive activity. Was what Tiger Woods or the Williams sisters went through as children, grooming them for a career in pro-sports ethical?
Account sharing is also against the TOS. If you are saying that an individual has to beat people cheating, then you have a policing issue, not a mechanics issue.
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Will the Meeting Stone functionality be added in a phase?
1 Like