EQ, WoW, AoC, Aion, Warhammer Online, GW2, etc. They all have two things in common: They’re MMOs, and their future was never certain. What I mean by an uncertain future is expansions and other changes. While it’s great to keep things fresh and interesting for the playerbase, the lack of permanence has always been a problem for me. Why put all this effort into the game if it’s all going to be obsolete one day? (Granted the same could be said of life in general, but let’s keep this focused on gaming)
As a long time RPGer, the idea that my research and decisions would one day be pointless never sat well with me. It was always bittersweet obtaining a legendary after months of work knowing that one day soon it would sit in the bank, never to be touched again. In the back of my mind, I always knew that I was wasting my time mastering a class / spec because the spells, rotation, and even entire play style would change eventually. But Blizzard is about to change all that.
World of Warcraft, the best MMO ever made, without patches, without expansions, and without any changes…forever?! The idea that we get to exist in a static virtual world, and that every decision we make and every feat we accomplish will remain relevant forever makes WoW Classic a new genre of game IMO. I also think that the appeal of such a world in such a well known franchise will be more popular than anyone expects.
My hope is that WoW Classic will not only be extremely popular for a long time, but also have a ripple effect on gaming as a whole, and show gaming companies that not only is the MMO genre not dead, but it can be more popular than ever if handled differently.
They could have, but realistically we don’t know what will happen to classic let’s say…5 years from now. I’m not suggesting they SHOULD do anything but we don’t know for sure where this is going either.
That is a really tough call to make right now, but I like the idea.
I remember how many people I played with that were just deflated when they heard about The Burning Crusade. Level out of all of your gear and achievements, leave Azeroth, raids cut from 40/20 to 25/10 etc. I never saw some of those people again, they had their heart broken by the perception of a reset.
New content without expansions could be fun. Some could be progression content for raiders, others could be catchup content for casuals.
I think many just want a museum that never changes though, and thats fine too.
This is pretty cool. My hope is that it also is popular, but not only to keep Classic going, so that game developers know they will make money if they make a REAL MMO. Haven’t seen one in a long time…would like a good game to come out.
Stagnation does not work in this game and genre… Content churn is the engine that drives them, and EVERY SINGLE SHRED OF ACTUAL evidence points directly to the idea that stagnation is not a viable way to run the servers long term…
This game is designed as a “museum piece”. By your own thread’s premise, trying to the game into a static one, would be changing the game to such a point that it would be an entirely different genre. It cannot be a “museum piece” and static, and we already know for a fact that is a “museum piece”.
I think expansion servers will come online. I would like the Classic servers to say Classic servers. Let people who want to stay Classic stay Classic.
If you add BC, dont just update the Classic Servers. Make new BC servers. Maybe convert some servers from Classic to BC (maybe a vote on the server?) if the players want but not all. Let players transfer from the Classic to BC servers if a player wants the old type progression.
I do agree with you at least SOME servers need to be just Classic for those that want to stay there.
I was one of those people (not that you played with, but the rest). I did get TBC and lasted about halfway through before the reality of the treadmill became too much to ignore.
Here’s the thing: All these MMOs have been predicated on permanently leveling up your character and gear. There is a nod to task-specific preparation with things like resist potions for dungeons and raids, etc., but that’s just a continual farming. If big jobs required creating big, destructible, limited-use tools, in varying combinations to keep things interesting on repeats, and with dungeons varying in layout, ordering, and such, people could get enjoyment out of “repeating” stuff for much longer, whether with their max-level main, or with a new character they are leveling, because every dungeon could be different in some way each time through. (I’m not talking about difficulty levels that just up the HP and resists of mobs, either.)
That’s more work in a sense, but heck, the original Diablo proved the appeal of that approach. Just having a different floorplan each time through kept people playing over and over!
Another possibility, more likely to be controversial, would be that nothing lasts forever, and even your legendary sword will one day wear out and break, and need rebuilding or reacquistion, possibly with new quests to do. Skills you don’t use much will diminish in power, but recover again when you start using them more. There’s lots of things that haven’t been tried much (or perhaps haven’t been done well).
But, MMOs are so expensive to design and the market is so risky now, we aren’t likely to see any of that.
Only negative I could think of is Blizz would charge for it since its 2 things they currently sell in Retail - level boost (to 60 on the new server) and character transfer. I cant see them doing it for free.
Of course Blizzard invented it. Because even if a dozen other MMOs have done it first, like Runescape as the stand out contender, people who only play WoW will assume its revolutionary.
Suppose 5 years from now, Classic only has 5,000 players on it. Blizzard might decide it’s not worth any further effort and close it. Or they might leave it up, but develop no new content for it.
