Classic wow future updates

[Eagaschan-darkspear]

so obviously theres an analog of wows current situation in runescape which im sure youve already heard about. they were hugely successful, then updated there game, kept growing, but then made some changes people didnt like or those people grew up or whatever, and there playerbase tanked over time… and now they release “old school runescape” which is just runescape from 2007. so far so good right? well… its interesting because at the time everyone thought it would just be a fad or some little side project that would fizzle out. but as of now, old school servers have on average 75% of the total playerbase. with the actual game only having 25%.

so, how did they do it? well… first lets go over some basic stuff. assuming wow classic even does well, and gets a solid playerbase, its fair to say that the first 1-2 years will be easy following blizzards current plan of timed releases of vanilla content, so thats well and good. and by that point you’ll have an idea of how popular it ends up becoming. the problem starts when you reach the end of that patch list,with naxx. or about 6-8 months after naxx. and i know thats a few years away, but its worth thinking about. what do you do then? theres 3 possibilities:

1. do nothing, leave it as it is. this solution isnt really a solution, since people will keep pushing against that glass ceiling, but it wont offend anyone.

2. start the transition to BC, and work through that, maybe even wrath. (the golden years) this would likely be implemented by offering a second new server, with forward-only transfers available, while still maintaining the old 1.12 servers.

3. keep it vanilla but start developing “new old content”. like implementing some things people did like from newer patches, while generally maintaining the classic feel. this is only worth it if you have sufficient enough players, but it is what runescape ended up doing. the problem obviously is that you can only make “harder” so difficult up to a point before you have to increase the numbers. very few people even got to naxx back in the day, let alone cleared it.

one last point that I find interesting. one of the key tools the developers of oldschool runescape has is their communication with the playerbase of oldschool. they are a seperate team and dont give 2 craps about what the current new players think. but they listen intently to the general feel of their actual players. this project is, after all an “enthusiast” type deal. people who are invested in old wow. its a specific clientelle. utilizing that passion is better than wasting it.

so yeah, they added this interesting thing, where they propose changes before spending much time developing them, and then poll the change to the general playerbase with npcs ingame or on the forums. players have to be a certain level to vote so no alt spam. if the change gets 75% yes they do it. if it gets 74% they dont and leave things the way they are.

but yeah either way I think 2 things will happen. 1. old wow will be more popular then anyone expects. and 2. everything will be hunky dory for around 2 years till the end of vanilla raiding. but hey, I did my part.

[Lesbianity-barthilas]

Dude no way i made a similar post like 2 mins before you!

Yours was better though

[Eagaschan-darkspear]

haha i read yours and I saw the same idea of new old stuff.

its mostly just food for thought at this point though. Im sure itll be awesome just with vanilla for a while. you have to remember that this event isnt unique. everyone said the same thing back when RS did it. “this will divide the players!” “this will kill the game!” etc etc… but people want what they want.

[Lesbianity-barthilas]

keep it vanilla but start developing “new old content”. like implementing some things people did like from newer patches, while generally maintaining the classic feel. this is only worth it if you have sufficient enough players, but it is what runescape ended up doing. the problem obviously is that you can only make “harder” so difficult up to a point before you have to increase the numbers. very few people even got to naxx back in the day, let alone cleared it.

YASSSS QUEEN! This is exactly what i want to happpen. Nostalgia can only go so far but IMAGINE if they added new vanilla content to the game.

KA-CHOW! KA-BOOM! Now players have even more incentive to check out vanilla because it has new old content.

WAH0KOOSH! YEAH DUDE!

[Gimm-caelestrasz]

@Eagaschan-darkspear

75%

The Old School Runescape approach?

Basically title, let players vote on things. OSRS has more players than RS3 To keep people from trolling the voting, they make you be a member. With WoW since everyone pays a sub, they could say you need to be level 15 or higher to vote.

Player voted changes

how would you feel if players could vote in changes to vanilla of course, not everyone would be able to vote, i would say people level 55+ and they would need to be active players and the vote would need at least 85% yes for the change to be added in

I don’t have anything to add that hasn’t already been mentioned in one of these.

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@Lesbianity-barthilas

new vanilla content

But then you destroy the thing that made it vanilla in the first place.

[Igotsoul-deathwing (Igotsoul)]

This thread is missing a dank budz analogy. I prefer the other one.

[Cheater-azjolnerub (Cheater)]

How many of these threads we getting per day now?

[Fateweaver-misha (Fateweaver)]

How many of these threads we getting per day now?

All of them…

[Morehwine-wyrmrest-accord (Morehwine)]

How many of these threads we getting per day now?

Game is still months from being released and people are already flipping out about what comes next. And each person who comes here acts like they’re the first person who thought about it.

Can’t we just play Classic for a while and then start worrying about this?
Guess not.

[Athensgokú-stormrage]

I am a believer that Classic WoW will be more popular then retail. And the direct cause of that will be making retail “harder” or “slower” to progress like the original game. They will then in possibly years after its release, release content, because that’s when most players would clear all the content anyway.

There is evidence of them making things harder with the BFA expansion. Limiting things and requiring getting “keyed” through a campaign, world pvp back feature, and keeping the raiding scene quite competitively as well as pvp.

While there are still many clear differences, my opinion is BFA was quite enjoyable for me. I played it many hours every day and leveled many toons. I stopped playing before this latest patch because I got really bored with the dungeon spam. Not that it was difficult, but quite boring.

Before the best gear you could obtain was from 10 mans or 25 or even 40 mans. Now you could achieve the same level of gear by spamming a 5 man that caters to a group of friends, as opposed to a lone wolf; where grouping can be challenging depending on your roll/spec/gear/experience.

PvP I find it is in a good state. Atleast at almost the intensity as Burning Crusade was. Whats not appealing is people getting geared spamming dungeons you memorize in a week if you’re doing them weekly. With that being the only end game besides the hardest bosses of the game on Mythic dropping questionable loot.

Overall i’m all in on Classic WoW and in turn what will happen retail WoW. At the end of the day I love Blizzard games. I played them religiously whether i’m playing WoW, Hots, or any other game i’m feeling really. Very well put post OP. Need more like it.

[Mup-malganis]

I don’t hate the idea of some type of seasons within old realms, maybe moving thru a few phases to release each raid and run it on an 18 month to 2 year cycle or so

[anon26013520]

They’ve stated that they don’t want to maintain two MMOs. However, they also said that Classic servers weren’t going to happen. Who knows what will happen after the Naxx block has been around for a while?

[Athensgokú-stormrage]

Yeah. I remember when they said they planned a once a year expansion release. Things change.

[Priapis-proudmoore (Priapis)]

At this point, I’m only really hoping/expecting holiday updates.
That will help break some of the monotony once classic starts to age. Maybe it will help gauge how people feel about updates and maybe they’ll add small updates.

[Gnocci-emerald-dream]

How many of these threads we getting per day now?

You can thank blizzard for not actually releasing any concrete info for months on end. What other subjects have not yet been thoroughly covered with no bliz feedback?

[Faching-shattered-halls]

no blizz feedback is expected.

[Allicka-stormrage]

Blizzard already has an excellent example of how things can go, and it’s called EQ.

They do it three different ways, and they’re still going strong. And they still get expansions on a regular basis.

If it wouldn’t be for the fact that their screens (bars, and other things that show status of things, main screen) is older than dirt, I would have tried it last year.

[Ôptimuskrayt-tichondrius]

I hope they just leave it classic. Wont be playing if they progress to other expansions so hopefully they tell us their plans.

[Berrik-dalvengyr (Berrik)]

I could see adding content that won’t invalidate the original stuff. New raids, dungeons, limited time events.

Leaving game changing mechanics up to a vote wouldn’t be a good idea though.

[Athensgokú-stormrage]

I think the 75% required to make anything game changing is good, or a higher number like 90%. Taking into account that even retail players get their opinion on it.

Which brings up a good point and another possible restriction for the vote, a max level char on classic servers.