This is not a new request or issue, it’s been brought up time and time again, but with the impending release of Classic, these issues become a source of tension. I believe this tension will only increase as Classic’s release approaches.
I agree with those who believe linking Retail and Classic would promote poor behavior (not nearly as severe as many have claimed, but it still would happen). The solution to appeasing those who want to play Classic, either solely or primarily, for the acquisition of mogs/mounts, and appeasing those who want Classic to remain a 100% authentic, pristine, museum recreation of Vanilla, is to reintroduce these collectables into Retail WoW.
I’m not a huge fan of the BMAH, because it’s a massive gold sink and an unreliable source for items, but it is at least a means to acquire tier 3 armor or removed mounts, albeit a painstaking process. Another potential avenue for reintroducing these items is to sell them at the Darkmoon Faire, as was done with the tier 0 and tier 0.5 sets. Or, my personal preference, add either an NPC (similar to the ones used to queue for old LFR’s, my vote is for Chromie ) or a portal in Caverns of Time to revisit these old raids/dunegons like Naxx, ZG, ZA, LBRS, UBRS, etc.
Someone in the Classic forum suggested a portal to ‘Old Azeroth,’ similar to how we are able to view past version of Silithis or Darkshore, which would just be the world developed for Classic integrated into Retail.
I’m interested in any other suggestions that would minimize the effort required on Blizzard’s part, but yield the same result.
That is the biggest problem the classic crowd has. They have no idea what they want and those that do, can’t agree about anything. The #NOCHANGES crowd comes to mind. That’s why it’s going to flop. No one will be happy.
Are you posting this here because you know how hostile they would react to this topic over there?
I’m posting this here partly because my attempts to get the crowd in the “Please reconsider your stance on retail/classic reward linking” over there to brainstorm helpful ideas to appease both sides have been mostly met with “Stop being so entitled and quit crying”, “Shut up! #NoCrossOver”, “Quit trying to ruin Classic”. Those active from the Classic community in that thread have not been helpful or particularly kind.
The other reason is I hope that Blizzard understands that there is a large crowd of people who continue to play Retail that don’t understand why things like old LFR NPC’s were freely given, tier armor sets have been thrown into time/gold sinks, yet no such thing has been done for the older raids.
Potentially corrupting the Classic experience isn’t the answer, but an answer would be nice.
Well from someone who wouldn’t mind some new features in classic and secretly holds out hope it could act as a spring board to a alternate time line of wow here are the biggest obstacles from linking modern to classic in terms of ways it effects game play.
The economy : Some items will have monstrously high prices and be heavily farmed in classic when the game itself doesn’t support a reason for it being like that. Take the chromatic sword why would it ever vendor for more then 30g in classic without transmog?
Progression; This comes in a few different forms with low quality weapons and armor being fraught over more despite not being all that useful in terms of bops. As well as inflating crafting materials for end game gear. I can easily see things like frozen runes and bijous being extremely expensive from people trying to get transmog items.
It makes people on current wow feel less special : While this is the least important one for me some people really love the fact they have transmog most of the current player base doesn’t have access to.
I can see why they restricted it… maybe if classic branches off one day we could see these items be obtainable in a “WoW 2” of sorts but I wouldn’t want them carried over due to the negative play experience that would cause.
The people who want classic want it in it’s unmolested form. There’s no transmog, no group finder, no guild bank. Nothing after, well, classic. Anything they introduce in addition to it will destroy the “classic” aspect of it that so many people want, which is the core target audience, so why would they ever introduce cross-linking and thus alienate the exact people who want the product?
On a further note, having anything at all affect the retail copy of the game isn’t good, you’re giving people a way to get stuff that they didn’t earn in that aspect, if you get T3 in classic, you shouldn’t be able to use it in retail because you didn’t get it the way it was intended in retail. And this applies both ways, you shouldn’t get access to mounts in classic cause you have them in retail, they’re different versions of the game, compare this to if you did stuff on PTR and got it on Live, it doesn’t make sense nor is it fair in any way to anybody.
On a side note I am actually excited for classic, pure unmolested classic and think it will be fun without any cross linking at all, I’m sure we’ve all wanted to go back and start fresh at some point without actually losing everything, if only for a little while and then go back to our normal retail lives.
Well it isn’t really not fair… the people will be doing the exact same things the first people did to earn them it isn’t like it is just gifted to them.
I agree there shouldn’t be cross over because of the negative effects on classic but that line of reasoning is a bit silly.
Didn’t mean to imply it was just gifted to them, my PTR analogy was more for boss kills etc. It has to be restricted to how it was possible to get them in the live copy of the game, even if it’s after a specific patch etc, or else it’s just not fair to absolutely everybody because it opens different avenues to get stuff, and there will obviously be an “easier” way to do it and cheapen it.
Same applies to having the mount catalog etc. If that was introduced into classic and people got the mounts they have on live, anybody playing only for classic (a lot of people do not subscribe to the retail game currently and I know will come back specifically for classic), will be unfairly disadvantaged. And that would hurt the core classic group, the people who only want to play classic, the most, which seems really counterintuitive.
What I was trying to get at. The restriction isn’t to stop people from live from “earning” it but more from stopping live from having a negative influence on classic.
The title of the thread says it all, I don’t think a cross-link between the two is a good idea for all the reasons mentioned before. The economy being a major one.
I’m interested in any ideas on how to appease both sides. The two sides being “Keep Classic and Retail 100% separate, we don’t want anyone playing Classic with an ulterior motive” and “I want to obtain Classic items, somehow. Hey, Classic would be a great way to do that!”
You see if it is successful. If it is then there might be grounds for launching a “wow 2” that isn’t marketed as classic but something new that will spin off into a new time line but with reused models and assets.
Sadly you can’t have classic stay classic without harming that experience if you link that version to modern.
Some items are a source of prestige. If they re-introduce them into the game at this level, the prestige would be gone. No matter how it is re-introduced, it will not be nearly as difficult to acquire as it was the first time around.
I personally did not grind the title, and it still bothers me that people are able to get Grand Marshall/High Warlord titles this expansion.
I think Classic would be fun to revisit. However, that being said, anything that can be done to prevent me from having to maintain multiple versions of Titan Panel would be a good thing. It’s a lot of work to keep addons updated and since Titan Panel was popular in Vanilla, I suspect it will be a highly requested addon in Classic so I’m sure my misery is nigh.
out of curiosity, if you don’t want the item because it is indeed prestigious, why do you want it?
The only honest answer you can have to that eis because it’s cool and you want it too. So why should they take away the prestige and allow everyone to have it?
I would just like the quest’s that are flagged as done in vanilla to cross over to my main char’s wardrobe. ONLY the quest’s. If I equip a cromo sword in vanilla I don’t think it should at all cross over.
I think that is a good compromise that will keep players in and playing vanilla, but not let the AH get insane.
This way I can run a few of each armor spec thru and get some cool stuff without bothering anyone.
My point is, many of the items were never intended to be prestigious in the first place. If they were, they’d be removed the subsequent expansion (TBC) and not be readily farmable in full T6.
Also, since Transmog wasn’t introduced for another 12 years, many of the items I’d like to collect are not items I want to collect for the first time. I’ve destroyed several items that I had and would like back.
You can go back and farm every other legendary weapon in the game, why not Atiesh? You can go back and farm transmog from every other raid in a trivial manner, why aren’t those armor sets prestigious but T3 is?
Not here to argue, just ask that you look at it from the point of view of people that actually busted their asses and got those items while it was current content. Again I didn’t acquire R14, but I was still upset to see people can acquire this title.
In actual vanilla I was so upset that they allowed people to buy PVP Gear/Weapons w/ honor that I actually sold my account and quit. During TBC (or wrath, can’t remember) I spent a TON of time working towards Insane in the Membrane, but was never able to complete. It is no longer available, yet I am not upset at this.
Certain items/titles in this game are prestigious and should stay prestigious.
Insane in the Membrane was never removed. Blizzard stated they were going to remove it, but public outcry caused them to swiftly revert that idea.
I agree that certain items/titles in the game are prestigious and should stay prestigious. However I don’t think, for instance, a sword transmog from ZG is on that list.
There are definitely ‘You had to have been there titles/mounts/achievements’…but I’m not sure I’d extend that to transmog.
Ah thanks for that information. I will readily admit that I dislike transmog in anyway shape or form, so the idea of making it so more people can go get these items just doesn’t sit well with me. I remember having bags full of my show off gear. Twill set, old tier sets, weapons, and then if i wanted to look cool, just swap it on. Then take it off when actual gameplay was involved. I would much prefer that transmog be disable in any kind of contested zone, but this will never happen. Anyways GL out there.
I do agree there are some negative aspects to transmog, but I am a collector at heart and transmog just opened the floodgates on WoW for ‘content’ for me because I love to collect it. It’s just unfortunate I no longer have access to some mogs I collected back in the day or raids to obtain these mogs.
![:sunglasses:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/sunglasses.png?v=6" ":sunglasses:")
) or a portal in Caverns of Time to revisit these old raids/dunegons like Naxx, ZG, ZA, LBRS, UBRS, etc.