personally i’m a bit open but some things i wouldn’t want to change are:
no lfg at least not until numbers really die down IF they die down, part of the fun of vanilla is having to go out and FIND people, that’s what made a community. people talking to other people, not this queueing up and not saying a word the whole dungeon
no wow tokens. we all start broke and have to actually play the game and figure out how to make gold on our own. i’ll admit i buy all my gold on retail but still, vanilla shouldn’t have it
quest trackers, i think i’m leaning towards no. make people have to read the quests and figure stuff out
talents… gonna be honest i’m half hoping they let us keep two talent trees and then we can change between the two… bc for some classes it’s just so expensive respeccing from pve to pvp, i may be ok with them giving us two specs to build but changing those two specs that we’ve already built should cost a pretty penny. i still wouldn’t be too upset if they kept it strictly as it was in vanilla though
finally, for all the people crying saying “just wait until it gets boring or it’s too hard” part of the fun of vanilla, all the nostalgia was the community. people talking, a guild where you knew people.
haven’t had that since cataclysm it feels like, the fun in vanilla was how difficult it was and also the friendships you formed. i still talk to a lot of buddies i met back then, i’m fact we all met up in austin a few weeks ago just because.
the fun was finding people to play with, finding a good healer or tank to go farm with, run dungeons with, wpvp with, anything because in classic wow you needed friends, it was possible to play solo (mostly) but holy hell was it hard
One wants nothing more but easy mode private server official.
The other wants as close to the authentic experience as possible - making it grindier. i.e. retuning, pre 1.11 tanking mechanics, old scholo/strath. etc. But easy mode people don’t want to spend hours in a single instance except for Naxx. They want to sew their oats.
I’ve never been “dedicated to no changes”, but I have been very strongly in the camp of WOW Classic being as close as possible to an authentic vanilla experience. There are things I wish existed in vanilla, sure. I very much wish my tauren could ride a raptor, but I prioritize authenticity over personal preferences.
What that means to me is not adding in-game functionality that did not exist before the 2.0 BC pre-patch. LFG = never. Tokens in WOW Classic AH = never. Quest tracking in-game = never. Swapping talents without paying = never.
Now, quest tracking was sort of there in the realm of addons or going to thottbot or Allakazam. There were coordinate addons. There were logging addons to keep track of which quests were done. All of that is fine, but does not need to be baked into the game. Leave it in the realm of a player making an active choice how much hand-holding they want.
The ONLY thing I wish they’d done with talents back in the day was make it possible to save templates, so that I could preset builds. I remember having to pay to reset talents again because I clicked the wrong thing. I don’t mind paying every time I switch, but having to pay to switch because of a misclick was annoying. HOWEVER, this did not exist in vanilla, it does not exist now, so I don’t want the Classic team taxed with creating a function just because it would make my life easier.
I realize, but my distinction was the “dedicated” part. I tend to spend a fair amount of time thinking about and researching any possible changes. While my final answer might be “no changes”, there are some cases where it isn’t. (I happen to have no quibbles with right-click reporting or loot trading, for example, where someone dedicated to “no changes” can decide it wasn’t in vanilla, so it’s bad.)
EDIT: There are also times where my opposition to something has more to do with the expectations/demands it would make on the Classic team. Guild banks don’t bother me in a “no changes” respect, but do bother me in the amount of work to make a system with multiple changes over the years work in WOW Classic when there is no original to compare it to.
Imagine believing there’s a significant difference between having an option in the base game, or having to click install on your twitch client to have that option in-game.
Every single addon that exists is part of WoW. All the functionality that addons have is because the WoW client makes that functionality possible. The difference between all those addons being baked into the client and having to install them one by one is bloat. That’s the difference, that’s it.
Addons change your gameplay significantly, even if you don’t use them. When you’re a healer in a BG and the entire team focuses you and kills you in 2 seconds, that’s because of an addon. When you know exactly how long before Tower Point caps because someone is right clicking their capping addon, and it’s spamming your chat, that’s because of an addon.
To pretend that there’s an actual meaningful difference between an option being in the base client, or it being 10 seconds away with the click of a button on your twitch client, is asinine.
I guess you would be OK with the base game putting a great big arrow over every healer in a BG every time they cast a heal spell,right?
After all, in your own words, “to pretend that there’s an actual meaningful difference between an option being in the base client, or it being 10 seconds away with the click of a button on your twitch client, is asinine”, right?
I guess you would be OK if the base game put the countdown timer in BIG, BOLD numbers on your screen.
After all, in your own words, “to pretend that there’s an actual meaningful difference between an option being in the base client, or it being 10 seconds away with the click of a button on your twitch client, is asinine”, right?
Or, players could actually have to spend that 10 seconds in their twitch client if they want their hand held for every little thing.
I want an authentic Vanilla experience. People can call it whatever they want, assign labels, and typecast me. It means nothing to me. They can draw absurd comparisons about changes with ancillary functions like battle net. But as far as pure gameplay…I just want Vanilla. And that’s what Blizzard is delivering.
I think what should be considered when evaluating changes made to how the game existed pre-expansion should be based on whether or not it interferes with the intent and play style of the original game.
For example, I could make the argument that the LFG system in TBC is in alignment with the core concepts that made Vanilla great, however the LFG system that was introduced in WoTLK, and carried forward through BfA is antithetical to the Classic experience.
As a matter of fact, I could argue that the LFG system in TBC was better at promoting communication and group play than the /who cold calling & regional chat spam that existed for grouping in Vanilla.
In those situations, I’d be open to adopting the things that came after pre-expansion WOW.
I want as close to an authentic vanilla experience as possible. By that I mean I do not want a cut and past 1.12 version. The naxx tank changes made it easier to hold aggro, making the gap between DPS classes more noticeable. Roll out the patch stuff as closely to the original as possible, so that there is no “catch-up” gear earlier then intended. I just don’t want later patches to make early content easier to do. I know I may not get what I want as they do not want to sink alot of resources into classic. But making it as close to the original experience I believe will give us the best result.
Ideally I’d like to be as authentic as possible and even bring back a number of pre-1.12 mechanics, as by 1.12 certain aspects of the game like threat management had already been greatly nerfed.
I want everything left how it was in 1.12. AV, tank mechanics, talents, etc. There is a reason it’s used on almost every private server and considered the best / most complete patch other then it being the last actual patch. 1.12.1 and gated content is the best thing they could have done.
The only thing that I think for me personally would be up for debate is cross realm battlegrounds, if the population caps at 2500 I’d say keep it. I.D they decide to push the cap to 5000 / 7500 or whatever they decide remove it.
In a perfect world, I would have loved to actually have 1.1-1.12.1 exactly the way it was, bugs and impossible C’thun and corrupted blood and all. Obviously I know that isn’t going to happen, so at least a version that is as close to some version of vanilla as possible is the next best thing.
It’s pretty simple…what made pre-expac WoW good? Does the change threaten that, or does it enhance it?
Vanilla WOW was not perfect, despite it being the best version of WOW that existed. If people are drawn to that version of the game because it promotes things like self organized grouping, and communication…why would you immediately discount a feature that came later that promotes those core concepts?
I get the paranoia about Blizzard taking an inch, and going a mile. I also get the fact that the reasons people like pre-expansion WOW are subjective, and change requests can get out of hand. For those reasons, I’m good with a straight copy of the original game.
I just think there are some things that were later introduced to the game that are in support of the original game play aspects that would not be game breakers or detrimental to what the original game was trying to achieve.
I’m saying if you think quest tracking won’t exist in Classic, because you need to spend 10 seconds downloading an addon to turn on the functionality that already exists in the base-client, you’re arguing semantics.
Didn’t Ion mention breaking addons, specifically group finding addons? If the functionality for such an addon exists, then it becomes a part of Classic. Quest tracking, as far as we know, will be in Classic with the click of a button.
![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")