This first suggestion is a big change, but it actually preserves classic the best and opens the door for more content.
Create a way for people to take an existing character and enter a classic realm, where the gear matches classic and the level cap is 60, the dungeons are classic only, and they would have a certain set of gear, but then they could take that gear into a tbc realm where they would have tbc gear and go up to lvl 70. But if they went back to classic, their tbc gear would not be available but they would still have their classic progression saved - gear/gold/level. This way you don’t lose your items in the latest patch and you can work to max out your classic gear any time. Plus you can add new content to classic like zones and still have it feel like classic. And with a cata expansion you can have the new cars zones but still have classic zones untouched.
New zones for leveling
Leave existing zones untouched
HC server - have options for ssf (soloing) or regular characters where ssf characters have more restrictions (no ah, only join guilds that are ssf). Allow free transfers off to era on deaths over a certain level - 25/30?.
Implement som rules to avoid botting and carrying. Also increase spawn rates to avoid lines for certain quests.
Mega guilds- let people join a mega guild, or allow sub guilds to band together in a larger “guild” with a shared chat.
Auto boot rules to help guild management - boot eveveryone offline over 3 days if the guild pop is near the guild cap)
Have short term dungeon events with varied level of difficulty where you can get cool looking or powerful items / maybe with a challenge mode. Geared to content creators.
I love the hypothetical discussion of MMORPGs BUT I feel like Classic + is DOA.
NEW stuff cost money and Classic + is NOT going to bring in NEW players or bring back the majority of long-lost players. WE, the Classic community, are those Japanese soldiers, holding out in some cave for a couple of decades AFTER World War 2. WE are not that big a pool of money to justify any major expense.
The only reason WoW is still a thing, is the gross incompetence of ALL competitors. The industry kept churning out garbage, playing on WoW fatigue to make a quick buck and that is why we are here today, playing an old game, that was deeply flawed BUT still the BEST.
Hopefully, after Microsoft takes over, they will start thinking about the NEXT 20 years of the WoW IP and come out with a reboot or a sequel
I’ve come to feel the same.
While it might be fun to have the cut/unreleased material from Vanilla brought to life in Classic, I know it’s a pipe dream.
A lot of what the OP is suggesting sounds like it would take some major coding for new zones or for moving from an expac back to Era to make that happen. Seems like the path of least resistance (to me) would be to bring back cloning so that you could progress to a TBC-locked server (which they could open up) and keep that character in Era as well.
This however
I realize that content creators “play” the game too but they can make their own events if they need to do so for views not depend on Blizzard to warp the game to meet their goals.
I disagree about the effort and potential audience - it’s about creating a template to keep a cash stream alive that may have some upfront effort but huge long term benefits. It’s easier to tweak existing code into a framework than it is to build all new code for a new game.
Is it though?
What is your experience in the matter?
I admit I am not versed in the possible complexities which is why I chose not to assume how “easy” it may be.
This sadly is the truth I’m afraid
Just general coding from experience - building new tech is more difficult because you have several rounds of design and build where tweaking existing code skips some of the process. You would need code on the characters for item sets per expansion, code on the portals between expansions. It seems pretty simple actually.
One of the developers for Classic remarked that it look much longer than anticipated to figure out/test/implement the ability to move characters from the seasonal servers to Wrath Classic stating that it was quite complex.
Something that seemed simple to some was not.
Why is my counter to your suggestion not to your liking?
We know that tech works.
Convincing Blizz to use it again would be the toughest part.
Most clones ended up not being used I suspect, compared to those that advanced to tbc. It makes you have to choose between two characters. I am hoping for the ability to take one character between all versions of classic. Some aspects of the change seem simple when I listed the code I thought was needed. Building new raids events and zones may take longer, but you could use them in retail also. I don’t like the games where they change your level down to the zone like retail. I like being able to go back across zones I played and am have them be grey mobs. But one big problem with every expansion is having to tell people the gear they worked so hard for is now worthless.
1 Like
NO xfers from existing toons and realms. LMAO.
I envision this to be available for new characters on launch of a modified cata or reboot of classic with all expansions released at once.
Have to think about how it would work for existing characters. Would they know what gear was on hand at the end of each expansion, or would 80 characters need to start fresh in classic 1-60. Or would they be lvl 60 with greens, or maybe they would have the option to be lvl 1 or lvl 60.