It’s not that allowing one change means you have to make all of them. It’s that allowing change X gives the appearance that Blizzard can be successfully lobbied thereby encouraging another 14 thread long debate on whether or not the next change should take place.
Using your example: You might not give Billy a gun because you gave him a lollipop, but once Tommy sees that Billy asked for a lollipop and got it there’s no reason for him to think he can’t ask for cookies. And little Mikey wants ice cream. And Joey wants some gum.
As for judging changes based on their individual merits, who then is the arbiter of what makes a change “good”? Is dual-spec bad because it takes away a gold sink and potentially causes inflation or is it good because greater player flexibility will make it easier to form raid groups? Once the inevitable low pop servers start appearing, some players aren’t going to care about the economy if they can’t raid.
Flying and/or changes to the costs and level requirements for mounts will make the game more alt-friendly down the road (possibly increasing long term appeal) at the expense of potential player interaction in the open world.
Lastly
Italics mine
This is ultimately the crux of the debate. If Classic is designed to be a museum piece, then no changes should be adhered to as closely as possible. Sadly, this is where Blizzard’s tendency to say one thing and do another comes into play most. It’s all well and good for Mr. Brack to say that Blizzard doesn’t care if Classic has 10 players or a million, but I suspect that many of the players will remain dubious until we see steel to their words. After all, when art and commerce collide, it rarely ends well for the former.
This is just the slippery slope fallacy rephrased.
This is so laughably unbelievable. There’s no way in hell that actiblizzard would invest in classic if it’s audience was only 10 people. Blizzard is banking on classic being at minimum 2 things: 1 a great PR move to back peddle away from past bad PR in the light of private server success, and two a way to bolster their subscription numbers/income by packaging it with retail. There’s a good chance their exploring repackaging TBC and WOTLK as cash grabs too.
We don’t really disagree here much. My perspective differs only in two ways: (1) the only aspects of the museum piece that should be preserved are the game play and visual world (i.e. the actual game as opposed to login screens, right click reporting, guild banks etc) and (2) that no changes becomes counterproductive when it reduces classics viability due to it becoming more onerous for blizzard to maintain (hence the loot trading etc and guild banks).
I’m not going to get upset even moderately if classic was a 100% recreation of vanilla wow, nor will I get upset if guild banks and loot trading are in there because in either case the game I love will be there and be preserved.
The statement with regards to Blizzard not caring whether Classic has 10 players or a million comes from an interview posted back in 2017 with J. Allen Brack. Blizzard just informed me I’m not allowed to include links, but it’s from PC Gamer dot com and it’s called “This is how Blizzard plans to finally bring back Vanilla WoW servers” The part I was referring to comes close to the end of the interview. And like yourself and many others, I’m going to play Classic guild banks or no guild banks.
Your particular comparison would be more akin to changing the museum than the museum piece, but I understand your point. Having said that, if one went to automotive museum or car show where there was the opportunity to drive a Model T, then it’s not unreasonable to believe that those in line to do so want to drive the Model T as it was when it was created and not one with a hybrid motor due to its greater fuel efficiency.
Would those people want the same tires, seat belts, air bags, and break pedals from when it was made IF it was a known fact they were defective and unsafe when they test drove it?
That’s what this comes down to. A change being made because the original “design” was so “defective” players were using work around from day one.
The reason guild bank alts are defective and unsafe have already been shown so I won’t repeat them again.
It wasn’t “defective”. The game was designed around loot being distributed not loot being held back “for the guild”. That is a player created idea and as such it is up to the players to make it work.
Just because Blizzard later decided to run with the player system and implement more conveniences doesn’t mean the original was “defective”. It’s more like someone took their classic car and decided to add air conditioning since they live in Texas…
As Ion said, what some people perceive as little changes can cause ripple effects that they never considered. And to say, ‘But it works in Current WoW. It worked in TBC’ is to ignore the fact that Vanilla had a radically different social dynamic. And, again, Ion said they don’t want to mess with that dynamic.
Obviously the folks who gave us the ToS which outlines that they can make any change they deem a necessity. For whatever reason they deem valid.
See any of the modern solutions they are using to combat Vanilla problems.
if you’re planning on linking that video about not using modern solutions for Vanilla problems don’t bother.
They’ve already broken that.
Yet they plan to use sharding, loot sharing and bnet.
All modern solutions to Vanilla problems that do impact that very dynamic.
So sorry. I’m not putting any stock in what blizz says until I see them do it.
Blizz has said a lot of things over the years.
They claim to be gamers making games for gamers as well.
Take a good look at bfa and tell me gamers made that. LOL
I don’t blame you for not putting stock in what Blizzard says. Having said that, their words are all we have for the next 6 months or so and the watercooler has gotten mighty quiet. Do you think they’d respond if we collectively shook our fists at the sky and hollered out for answers?
They would be much more responsive if the no change zeliots (not all of the no change crowd, this is a sub division, basically the idiots who are 100% blinded by nestalgia) didn’t chased the blues away for even suggesting discussion take place of possible change.
I keep seeing pro changers making this claim, but so far those making this claim have not provided anything to substantiate that claim, despite repeated requests for substantiation.
In fact, that is very much like the repeated claims that guild banks were “supposed to be in the game at launch”, yet they ave not provided any statement from Blizzard to substantiate that claim. In fact, the only statement those claiming guild banks were “supposed to be in the game at launch” provided was an interview in which Blizzard said they were adding guild banks for the convenience they brought.
There is also the fact that it was almost 3 years before they were added. There were 12 major patches in vanilla, a TBC pre-patch and 2 major patches in TBC which did not include guild banks. Guild banks were not added until patch 2.3. That is 15 major patches and an expansion before guild banks were added.
That blues were chased off? Well they have come back, but all that drama around that one thread and how they were treated sure made them go away for awhile.
I do not disagree that there was “drama” surrounding that thread.
IMO, the “drama” was not “no changers” being rude and obnoxious to the Blue who gave his personal opinion, though.
IMO, the “drama” was caused by pro changers twisting a blue’s personal opinion into an official statement from Blizzard requesting “discussion” on every non vanilla QOL convenience change that a pro changer wanted.
No changers pointed out that it was not an official request for “discussion”. It was a personal opinion, which a different blue confirmed in a later post.
Was the absence of the blues due to an edict from above not to voice personal opinions using their Blue avatars in order to avoid their words being twisted into official Blizzard statements? We don’t know. It is, however, a distinct possibility. It is a possibility that is not at all farfetched, especially since Ysthiens has been using words like “WE” to indicate that he is speaking for the entire team rather than “I personally think…”
the problem is a blue did give his personal opinion in that thread, then A DIFFERENT BLUE gave a statement, and that statement is also being treated as a personal opinion. because it doesn’t line up with the no change zeliots personal opinions
No but i think if we all pitch in and rent some billboard space across from blizz HQ they might get the message that we want some feedback.
It could say:
Give us info! Please!-Your Concerned Classic Wow players.
JAB would love seeing that pulling into work everyday. LOL
You know, if you are going to insist on trying to label a group with a pejorative term you might want to learn how to spell it, or at least come close…
![:cocktail:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/cocktail.png?v=6" ":cocktail:")