Wrong corner? 
Yep, intentionally dragged over.
Designing the game to emphasize griefing is going to pan out the way it always doesâlopsided servers that turn into ghost towns for one faction because everyone quits and rerolls on a server where their faction dominates.
Warmode is DoA though. It only âworksâ in Retail because it has incentives that make it the optimal choice, but it doesnât promote meaningful PvP. It is one sided stomp outs.
It is a frustrating problem for the devs, for sure, because if you go with PvP servers people will just quit or reroll unless theyâre on the winning side. Warmode is antithetical to a Classic experience for anyone looking for a PvP experience. There isnât an easy answer/solution, and that is going to be the friction with designing anything in a Classic+ offering. Retail is the way it is because they tried to solve real problems that cropped up with the original game. Those same changes are what made people quit the game, however, so the thought of just speedrunning the same solutions and expecting people to not quit again is nonsensical.
Every person is going to have their own personal wants out of a Classic+, but at the very least it needs outside-of-the-box thinking. There isnât going to be some magical ratio of Retail systems you can pull from without sacrificing the very experience Classic+ is aiming for. Simplest way I can boil it down to is Retail is Convenience Before Community, and Classic+ should invert that.
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No Horde Paladin/Alliance Shaman
No Collections
No New Player Model
No Pet Battles
No Wow Tokens
No Perks
No Housing
No Achievements
No Cross Realm
No Transmog
Limited Profession improvements
Limited New Class abilities
Very Limited New Class combinations
New Faction Specific Classes ie Horde Only Death Knights, Necromancers. Alliance only Tinkers, Demon Hunters.
New Zones/quests/raids
Reduced Experience
Playable High Elves
Playable Orges
Thatâs why Iâve mentioned a â3rdâ option a few times now; âdesignated PvP zones,â like in Legion. You could even have some of them make it so that itâs free for all PvP if faction balance problems are a thing. That would also make it possible for anyone to grief anyone. You could even add âoutdoor dungeonsâ like the one in the ogre area (Dalaran Crater/Arathi Highlands) that was removed during development, probably because it was âtoo gruesome.â
@Axaxxa Iâve yet to hear from the âno collectionsâ crowd why they want to have to sacrifice bag slots for mounts, or the âno horde pally/no alliance shammy crowdâ why âidentityâ should take precedence over player choice/freedom. Finally, terms like âlimitedâ are lol, limiting, and vague, like itâs going to be basically impossible to make everyone happy, especially if you canât provide specifics.
That is a solution for PvE players who want to occasionally dip in. It does not pass muster for PvP players who want the open world to maintain a competitive, dangerous element.
Because this is a two faction RPG with unique cultures and fantasies on offer for said factions. Eroding barriers between factions in service of âplayer choice/freedomâ is an argument in favor homogeneity. This isnât even some theoretical thing we can only guess aboutâRetail is right there. We see what decisions they made and we can see the affects it had on servers, population demographics, player investment, etc.
You have yet to really explain why you think that repeating Retail design is a good idea, given that you have admitted yourself that you donât like Retail.
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And to you I say, have you even actually read the points that Iâve made well over a dozen times now? Namely that the CONVENIENCE aspects of Retail are good, whereas hardly anything else is? The story, dungeons, raids, abilities, have all been lackluster/not worth playing, for basically three expansions now. There was Windspeakerâs Lava Resurgence for Ele, which at least made Shaman playable, but they even removed that, so for sure Iâm looking for something new.
As for âfaction identityâ (no horde pallys/alliance shamans), go play the RTS, dwarves/draenei have always had âelemental attunement,â and Blood elves have âblood magic.â If you think that that should play out differently as far as specific classes is concerned, like a unique âelementalistâ for alliance, and a âvampireâ for horde, then say so, Iâd be down for that.
War Mode is a tough one. Itâs just odd to be able to attack that guy but not this guy because they turned an option off. Iâm not a big PVP guy, either
I would rather they beef up guards and expand areas you canât PVP (DMT, raid entrances, etc.) than strip out open world PVP via a toggleâŚit does add flavor to the horde vs alliance tension
Thatâs actually an interesting direction. PvP servers, but with more safe zones.
This is what Iâm driving at. You have a very specific idea of what you want out of the game, and it is not in line with Classic. You want Retail with some tweaks. Frankly, I doubt even that would hold you, as it seems like youâd get bored and want something completely new again in short order.
Draenei were invented for TBC, and even in TBC they didnât âalways have elemental attunement.â Dwarves have some thunder/lightning themes but no shamanistic origins. I would rather see classes designed as mirrors to one another with flavors all their own. Something like a Tinker could go to both factions, but something like a Shadow Hunter or Warden should remain faction locked.
Draenei were in Outland with the Orcs when they came through the Dark PortalâŚ
I like the faction specific new classes though.
Draenei were retconned into existence in TBC.
Sigh, okay, you want to be pedantic? The broken.
Also, I looked it up, they were originally the race that seduced Sargeras to the dark side - this was stated in the W3 game manual.
Other people saying the same: They were mentioned in the WC2 manual as being Draenor natives that were basically destroyed by the orcs and used as fuel for Gulâdanâs ritual to open the Draenor-side Dark Portal. In WC3 there is a bit more on them with the Broken Ones being survivors who had been warped by the destruction of Draenor.
Humans and Orcs come together to destroy the elves and take over azeroth - The new horde!
Gnomes say NO! And the Tauren join forces with them and the new alliance stronghold of thunderbluff echos with tiny war cries as they assemble to push the humans and orcs out of ashenvalle.
Thereâs âretconning,â and then thereâs âretconningâŚâ
It isnât pedantic in a discussion about Classic to point out things that didnât exist.
Eredar were purely demons in WC3. There was no splinter faction that flew away on interdimensional space crystals with holy wind chimes. The Broken/Lost Ones had no connection to Eredar until TBC. Even then, Nobundo is the only reason Draenei have access to Shaman in-game. In other words, it was invented out of thin air to justify gameplay.
Oh, okay, guess he had âchosen one specific blood/attributes,â and no one else could possibly learn/be a âShamanâ thenâŚ
Sorry, are we discussing barriers to shamanism or discussing themes and systems for Classic+? It would be very easy to arbitrarily justify pretty much any race becoming any class, but as I have mentioned you are throwing faction identity out with the bath water to do so. If you want a version of the game where race/class combos are increasingly wide open, you already have that.
If Classic+ is not being designed for Classic themes, why bother? Do we really need another example of the community rejecting it to figure it out?
Iâm fine if people want âtinkersâ for Alliance, or Shadow Hunters for Horde, as long as we get stuff thatâs actually new.
My main point was that we shouldnât be imposing âarbitrary limitations,â simply because those limitations were the âstarting point.â
They werenât arbitrary limitations, they were deliberate. They conveyed a specific fantasy that has been muddied and lost over time, partly because of ongoing class and race homogeneity.