🤔 Classic+ Discussion

[Blueface-grobbulus]

I dont want bc flying and wotlk LFG all over again. We already did that

bc AND wotlk WERE PEAKS OF WOW BUT DEF RUINED CLASSIC.

[Tln-herod]

Horizontal progression.

So… no incentive to actually run the new content except maybe once.

[Codyjt-kirtonos]

I hope not. You’re asking for features that were added in TBC or WoTLK, but you want to keep classic so that you can play on an endless loop for years and years.

If it made the game better who cares when they were added? You can keep the playstyle of classic and still add new things. The current retail version has absolutely no representation of what most players want.

The general population may not want that. Blizzard may not go through with it if they don’t see it as a way to make money. They won’t always have the player interest in mind; they’ll have the interest of money and sales in mind.

So play the regular classic servers. We’re asking for classic+ servers. Ones where content will keep coming.

[Azraia-khaz-modan (Azraia)]

So you want to divide the playerbase even further by providing three separate platforms: retail, classic+, and bc, then every expansion after?

[Araharuken-altar-of-storms]

Thats actually not such a bad idea. Problem is getting everyone on board with something

[Araharuken-altar-of-storms]

Granted blizzard has stated that expansion servers are on the table but not a definitive thing. See while I’d like to go through tbc again - maybe an alternate storyline - I kind of worry that they’d eventually spread the population of the game too thin. People in classic, people in retail, people in whatever happens (if something happens) after classic.

[Codyjt-kirtonos]

So you want to divide the playerbase even further by providing three separate platforms: retail, classic+, and bc, then every expansion after?

Eventually the classic population will die out if nothing is ever added. So it won’t make much of a difference will it? Let the game die out in ~3 years or allow those whom want new content with no major game changing changes continue playing. So honestly it would be smart business plan. Otherwise all the subs blizzard just got for classic will go bye bye because most of us have absolutely no desire to play retail.

[Codyjt-kirtonos]

I kind of worry that they’d eventually spread the population of the game too thin. People in classic, people in retail, people in whatever happens (if something happens) after classic.

I don’t think they would spread it too thin. It’s not like they would release content nonstop like they do with retail. So those whom get bored with Classic will leave rather fast. This would give those people another reason to unsub and something to look forward to. Either way, classic realms will eventually become less popular if nothing is ever added.

[Araharuken-altar-of-storms]

They could take a note from Funcom with The Secret World. Both it’s old version and revamped version don’t rely on levels, and in order for you to progress you must go through each tier and people are typically still running the old tiers for continued improvement. Usually running the older content for marks in order to upgrade their current gear further, something they have thats present in each of their raids.

WoW sort of has this and I know people will still run MC, BWL, naxx etc repeatedly yet Funcom releases major patches that don’t invalidate previous raids due to the mark system they have in place.

[Amplitron-incendius]

Why are people so against raising level cap? Leveling is the main content of classic why is more of it not good?

[Araharuken-altar-of-storms]

I think it’s more so “Will it just become another retail state of WoW?”

I’m now also wondering if Blizzard is running some sort of experiment between retail and classic xD Comparing and contrasting, taking bits here and there.

we’re all guinea pigs.

[Romulus-kurinnaxx]

The story in retail is horrible, this is Classic’s chance to retcon everything and restore Azeroth.

Omg if they rebooted everything from here, it’d be awesome.

[Mcpurple-muradin]

I’m glad you guys aren’t in control of design.

Most of your suggestions have already been implemented…in retail.

What, are we in the twilight zone or something?

Classic is here… to get us away from all the little additions in retail.

[Symanoth-stormreaver]

I stopped reading at blood elves.

[Irisse-maelstrom]

The only reason to have a Classic+ would be to avoid the mistakes made in Retail that could not be reverted. Since mechanics can mostly be reverted, this means any Classic+ must correct mistakes in the lore:

• Outland, if introduced, should be Horde v. Alliance, probably based on WC2xpac. No neutral safe capital city.
• High elves on Alliance instead of blood elves on Horde. Give Horde ogres or goblins, or eredar to use existing art, instead. Or give Horde two or three of those races, and Alliance Kul Tiran humans, and maybe skinny Kul Tiran humans.
• No faction cooperation in Northrend, if introduced. Dalaran is Alliance; create a different city for Horde.
• Death knights, if introduced, are Horde only. Alliance can have monks or demon hunters. If you want balance, give Death knights the exact same mechanics as Paladins, and whatever the Alliance gets can be the exact same as shamans, but don’t call them that.
• No Cataclysm geological changes. No Pandaria. No AU Draenor, though you could use Draenor instead of Outland.

The things I think would be safe to adopt from Retail:

• Optional new models and graphics.
• Barber shop.
• Paid name changes.
• Paid transfers.
• Heirloom gear.
• Paid acceleration for alts only: once you had a level 60, you could pay to give a new character 900% extra XP or something like that. This would replace paid boosts, and would let experienced layers level alternative classes/roles with just a little time to learn them.
• Changes to classes and specs that were for the better; for example a competitive option for marksman hunter to run without a pet, or even better, a new spec or class for marksman without a pet.
• Many of the convenience options from Burning Crusade, like guild banks, since population kept growing in BC.

I don’t think old world flying is a good idea, though it could be permitted in Outland only if the Outland zones were restored. I don’t think transmog is a good idea; a key idea from Vanilla was that you could tell what gear and pets people were running just by looking. You might permit crafted gear that used dropped gear as ingredients instad. You can balance the pets so not everyone runs broken tooth. No excessively large mounts.

[Amplitron-incendius]

They don’t need to make a million different little changes. They need to add content throughout, and at the end of the expansions to bring you back to azeroth. To keep azeroth alive, and there would need to be content high, and low level characters can do together. Basically they need to add the rifts/fates that ffxiv has. So instead of making old content easier to solo, and catch-up you can just do some group content to get a boost. Something more natural that doesn’t destroy old content.

[Ziryus-doomhammer (Ziryus)]

It’s interesting reading this, because most of the changes people want are features that already exist in Retail.

Deja vu

Not really, people can look at retail and see what has worked and what hasn’t. Just like how not everything in retail is perfect not everything in classic is perfect either so it would be very effective to take things that we know do work and add them.

[Xand-shattered-hand]

A limited solution to this is to have a bit more specificity in the gear (e.g. for mages instead of having +spell damage have a set that’s +spell, +fire, +arcane, +frost). One set of gear might be really good for your frost spec, but not so good at fire spec. One might be jack of all trades and master of none.

Another way to expand upon that is to have different sets offer different types of resists/mitigation, and have those resists tested in different raids. This way instead of one really vertical progression you have a set of them, and you’re encouraged to engage in all the content rather than treadmilling the vast majority of it into obsolescence.

Depending on the scope, you can get more creative with it…but if at all possible I think it’s best to keep things basic. Set bonuses, for example, are a way to make different sets have unique characteristics, but one of the reasons classic is attractive is because it’s simple, familiar, and well, classic. Set bonuses aren’t really in line with that.

[Irisse-maelstrom]

Regarding keeping the level cap: to make this possible and keep the game fresh for PVE, I think you’d need to stat squish each time you released a new raid tier. Maybe new raids would be released at BWL gear level, and gear from old raids would be squished to MC level. Provide enough bank space to keep all the sets, and you’d have incentive to do old raid levels to provide gear variety so you could select the best fit for each new raid tier.

PVP doesn’t need new tiers, so it doesn’t need to be squished. Conveniently, GM/HWL gear is the equivalent of BWL and thus current raid tier level, but inferior for actual raiding; that would keep PVP gear best for PVP, and PVE gear best for PVE.

[Frostytoes-moknathal]

And this is where Retail started. Lets hope it does not end the same.