Look, I have been extremely happy with the path the Classic team have taken the development of Classic WoW in almost every single situation. I was quite skeptical at the beginning that this endeavor wouldn’t succeed, or there would be major concessions to having an actual authentic Vanilla WoW experience.
This skepticism wasn’t always there; there was a time, for most of my life that I could say with 100% confidence that Blizzard makes my favorite games, and will always do what’s right for their community. I grew up playing Blizzard games as many people did. My Father set up 8 computers in our basement so me, my cousins, and family could play Warcraft 2 together. Each of us have bought and played every single Blizzard game. We use to talk about going to Blizcon together; we haven’t had that conversation in 5 years.
Those people, my family, my friends. All who thought Blizzard was different, have relatively recently given up on Blizzard. ‘Their’ “Blizzard has been consumed by greed, and has lost their way”. Perhaps this is hyperbolic; maybe if you’re actually at Blizzard you feel that the Blizzard today is the same as the Blizzard in the past. Sadly, something has changed. The causation prescribed by the masses may be wrong, but their emotions are not.
We all want, and wanted to love Blizzard, we grew up doing so. This is the thing that I think people subconsciously know, but struggle to reconcile with. Blizzard is looked at as a friend. Some may say that it’s crazy to think of a company as anyones’ friend. I say that is the ‘Blizzard Magic’.
Most of the ‘hate’, and ‘anger’, that is tossed at Blizzard comes from a place of love. I’m not saying the people that just sprew hate are not guilty of acting improper, or right in their delivery. What I’m saying is those people are hurt because they care, and struggle to deal with the emotions that come with that.
With this last Blizzcon you had lost me as a customer who believed in you. It wasn’t a instantaneous thing, but has happened over the past five or so years. The last Blizzcon is what sent me over the ledge so to speak. It was the nail in the coffin in my hopes that the Blizzard I grew up loving was gone. It seemed like the people who made the games I loved, and still love were leaving, it seemed like they were being replaced with people who don’t honestly care about me, or my family, or the bonds I have made with Blizzard.
The one, and ONLY hope I had was Classic WoW, and Warcraft Reforged. But I had become jaded to the hopes I so desperately wanted to hold on to. The hope was that Classic WoW, and Warcraft Reforged would show Blizzard, and their affiliates that the philosophies that were put into designing these games are still relevant today. I had hoped that if done properly, and true to how these games were created back in the day that seeing the massive amount of support from the community, not only with our words, but with our wallets, and TIME spent in the game. Would reignite the Blizzard of old. But, as I said those hopes were now buried 6 feet below ground.
But, I watched, and listened. I watched the conversations the developers had. I listened to the streamers, and influencers(hate that term fyi) who had the ability to talk to the devs, and test the game. I read the water coolers, and watched beta gameplay. And, slowly my hopes were starting to be realized. It seemed like Blizzard was actually listening to our feedback about sharding, phases, loot sharing ext. The people working on the game seem to be to some extent the same people that originally worked on Vanilla. Now, after seeing everything I had from the Classic Team I am 100% positive they’re going to do WoW Classic right. So why am I writing this post?
Well after signing up for the beta as soon as I heard about it, and checking my emails almost hourly; looking at my Bnet launcher, and seeing if a new account option appeared I later found out that you have to be subbed to gain access to the beta. My FIRST thought was that this wasn’t true, someone got the wrong information. It didn’t make sense, why would we have to manually opt in to the classic Beta if the intention was to just accept people based on active subs? But more importantly if this were true it seemed to conflict with everything else I have seen from the Classic Team. So I ignored it, for a few days at least. Now it seems to have been confirmed by a Blizzard employee.
Since when is a Blizzard Beta only available to those who are subbed? I can’t see this decision any other way than a cash grab. If I’m wrong I’d love for some clarity on the situation.
This decision hurts what I believe the Classic Team is trying to achieve. It hurts Blizzard. I will not pay for a chance to get into a beta to test a game, simply out of principle. I wonder how many Vanilla vets like myself will opt out of this beta, and from what I see it honestly looks like a beta, it needs to be tested thoroughly.
All that being said the Classic Team has earned my belief in them, so this one MAJOR speed bump won’t ruin all the good will that has come from that, but I implore you, please remove the subscription limitation for access into the Classic Beta; and, please continue to give the community your thoughts about what the team is thinking is the best with Classic.
Thanks for your time,
An perhaps naive believer in Classic WoW
![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")