Classic Plus / Classic+ - The Best Risk Blizzard Could Ever Take
Let me open by saying I know there are lots of people who have asked for Classic Plus and there are many variations of what people are hoping for. There will never be a one-size-fits-all solution to this, but I wanted to post my thoughts and see how others felt about my stance. I should also preface this by saying there are a lot of references to OSRS (Old School RuneScape) in here, but I have never actually played OSRS myself. I have a few friends that love it and I have done a decent amount of research into why it works, though.
What is Classic Plus?
At the core, it is a popular request for a standalone version of WoW that runs parallel to the Retail and Classic versions, very similar to how OSRS is a standalone version of their original game, while a newer RuneScape 3 exists. The general idea is that you take the original game, in this case WoW Classic, and expand upon that game on essentially another timeline (looking at you, Chromie!). OSRS has gone through engine and quality of life improvements, as well as continually adding new content, not necessarily in line with RuneScape 3. Nearly all of this content is decided by in-game polls, which gives the community a lot more influence on what kind of game they want. RuneScape 3 is generally received as a more casual-friendly game, as far as the leveling is concerned, along with a cash shop and many QoL changes, whereas OSRS has more challenging content throughout the entirety of the journey. As a player that enjoys challenging content, this is an important factor for me and something I would like to see in Classic Plus.
What Can We Learn from OSRS?
- After 10 years of changes, the game is still growing and the community supports their devs and the game. In fact, OSRS actually has 3x the active playerbase as RS3. This shows the âClassic Plusâ model CAN work. âProof of Conceptâ if you will.
- âIntegrity Changesâ such as bug fixes donât require polling.
- All other changes get polled, but require a 75% supermajority to pass. This would allow the community to have a much bigger impact on changes that WE want, but still emphasizes that fewer changes are usually better than too many. Once the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, itâs very difficult to put it back in.
- A special process was put in place to make a more substantial change that I would say is about the equivalent of adding a new class in WoW. They handled this in stages: First, they would poll to see if players wanted a new skill; Second, they would have the community pitch ideas to the devs; Third, they would pitch the final 3 concepts to the players; Fourth, they would refine the skill in theory and eventually post a design blog about it; Fifth, they would lock in the refined skill and see if the community will approve the design before testing; Sixth, they would finally beta test the skill and tinker with it based on feedback before officially releasing it.
What Does it Mean to be âClassicâ?
- Maintaining the spirit of early MMO design where discovery, the journey and community were driving forces
- As far as lore is concerned, threats to Azeroth or localized threats, such as Blackrock Mountain, Onyxia, the Scourge invasion, instead of intergalactic threats the likes of Sargeras (anybody see that sword in Silithus?) or the Jailer.
- Classic graphics that match what weâre used to
- Simple mechanics where the challenge of the game is more in preparation, farming, forming teams/guilds, and the RPG aspects surrounding the dungeons and raids
- Not losing the RPG in MMORPG. Focus on the journey and not the destination. Catch up mechanics are not necessary.
- Long-term progression. Old gear is not useless every patch. Previous raid tiers and dungeons still provide meaningful gear to farm for the next raid and old content doesnât become obsolete. Work your way through the tiers as progression, instead of the last patch cycle becoming completely obsolete. Reputations arenât handed to you and PvP is grindy. Thatâs ok. Classic is grindy.
- Convenience and quality of life changes arenât always a good thing. Cross-realm and portals across the globe arenât necessarily needed and arguably erode the community feel of Classic.
What Could Classic Plus Look Like?
I am intentionally going to be vague here, because specifics can be nitpicked extraordinarily and Iâd like to emphasize the over-arching themes. All of which should be guided by the community to not break the âclassic spiritâ.
- New Dungeons
- New Raids
- Minor Balancing
- New Zones
- New Quests
- New Battlegrounds
Some Specific Ideas
- The unfinished Emerald Dream. The zone is categorized in the game files as a 40-player instance. Possible raid?
- Some unfinished Battlegrounds including one themed like a MOBA and the large 40-player Azshara BG.
- The islands off the coast of Stranglethorn that were scrapped.
- What was ever behind the Gates of Uldum in Tanaris?
- Some type of Brawlersâ Guild or Unranked Arena.
- Ironman/Hardcore modes similar to OSRS. There is already a popular Hardcore scene on Classic and this could definitely be expanded in an official capacity.
All in all, I think Classic WoW holds such a dear place in my heart that Iâd like to see itâs continued success. While going the whole nine yards with the OSRS approach to include a polling system may be way outside of how Blizzard operates or even foregoing the polling, simply committing resources may be a huge risk for them. We canât ignore that we have a real example with 10 years of history to learn from that has been extremely successful. It was a huge risk back then as well, but I think this is one that could really pay off for Blizzard and for the community. Iâm not naĂŻve enough to think this is an easy task for Blizzard or that it wouldnât take quite a bit of resources, but Iâd love to see it discussed. Let me know your thoughts, as well!
