Vanilla may not have been “perfect” in the eyes of many, but Classic is not about revamping or redesigning vanilla to make it “perfect”. It is about recreating vanilla, warts and all. It is about making Classic as close to vanilla as orcishly possible.
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I expect changed that save them customer support cash but would prefer nothing change
I thought it was about Blizzard finally serving a community of players that have been abandoned by the current game design. I suppose that is where the gray area is…what does this project mean for everyone that is interested in playing it. Some are looking for a verbatim experience, some are looking for a version of WOW living its best life, and some are looking for any game that hits on those general themes that made pre-expac WOW great.
Blizzard said at Blizzcon it’s about recreating Vanilla “warts and all, for better or worse”.
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We all have different definitions of what would be “perfect version of vanilla”.
We all have a different idea of what, if any, non vanilla changes should be added to Classic.
Johnny wants X, Y and Z added to Classic, but wants A, B or C to remain out of Classic, because he thinks that would be his “perfect version of vanilla”.
Billy wants A, X and Z added to Classic, but thinks that B, C and Y should not be added to Classic, because that is his perfect version of Classic.
Donny, Bobby, Tom, Dick and Harry each want something entirely different.
No two of them want the same things.
Who’s definition of “perfect version of vanilla” should Blizzard use?
Who’s list of acceptable non vanilla changes should Blizzard use?
I think Blizzard should do things the right way… and let me decide. I promise to sit somewhere in a tiny office, clutching the Magic 8Ball, asking the tough questions and getting the right answers.
Completely.
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I don’t have to imagine because it is a simple fact.
There IS a significant difference between using the base game without “quest tracker” functionality baked in - which is that I have that option. As soon as any sort of non-vanilla “quest tracker” functions are baked in, I no longer have a way to access the base game.
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The functionality IS baked in. It’s called API functionality, you’re arguing semantics. Read what I posted, you’re going to be playing the game with players using all these addons because that functionality is present in the base client. Addons just give you an interface to enable it.
From a coding standpoint, I would not say that Vanilla had baked in functionality to have a quest tracker that included UI elements on your map to show you where the objective was.
The add-on API just lets plugin developers create interface elements, and that was used to create a primitive quest tracker.
The API allows add-on developers to expand functionality of the client, but it doesn’t have that functionality to begin with. If it did, we wouldn’t need to install add-ons.
It’s an important distinction to note because of just how much power there is in an add-on API like what WoW has and because even if people can easily install add-ons, many will go with the stock client because that’s what the game ships with.
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Remember the current version of the in-game group finder was implemented as a response to the overwhelming growth of oQueue.
If players want something, they’ll build it.
Auto-grouping like LFR won’t get added, but I’ll be damned if we don’t see groups forming just like Mythic+ forms on live, only contained to the server rather than trade-chat spam
Dual spec is about the only non-classic feature I’d want. I like healing but playing the game in the world (vs. in dungeons or raids) as a healer is pretty boring.
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We do not know yet how far Blizzard’s plans to “break” add-ons that replicate later added “social” functions will extend. Blizzard may very well “break” even add-ons such as oQueue and vQueue as they replicate a social function that was added to the game post vanilla.
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If players want it they’ll build an add-on for it.
but if Blizzard decides it goes too much against the spirit of the game, they’ll break it.
Back in WotLK there was an add-on that would show you the exact radius of boss abilities in raids. It lasted a rather short time because Blizzard didn’t like it and made a change to their API to break it.
I’d say we’re more likely to see a chat channel called world that’s a global chat/LFG channel.
Fair enough, however, I’m not sure they would take the action. In the spirit of vanilla, such an addon ensures that you’re limited to your own realm, and that you build your own group by hand. All that it changes is the requirement to sit in the capital city or zone (for visibility) and the experience of those messages flooding the channel.
I’m not saying I support one way or the other, I’m just not sure if this one is a hard enough line for them to go after, especially since they’ll be running this game with a limited team and likely have bigger fish to fry.
Good point though and thank you for that.
Changes like group buffs/soulwell/mage table and a world buff revamp would greatly improve Classic for me, but the problem is that it would open the door for changes that I don’t want. It’s not worth the risk.
Big time dedicated.
Sorry, no. Not all of the quest tracking functionality was even available via API calls in vanilla, or even data that was accessible back then. Early quest trackers required player data for a number of things - such as which mobs dropped the quest item and where those mobs could be found.
One thing I distinctly remember was having no way to find out if I’d done a quest on a particular character. There wasn’t always a simple script to say “did I do quest #______”. One addon I tried for a while would actually log when I completed quests. Any quests I did before I had the addon weren’t included. Any time I had to reset my UI or a patch broke the addon, I lost the log and it restarted from when I got it working again.
All that, and you’re skirting the simplest fact. Even if the functions are there in the API, what I want is the base game, the default interface.
Let’s make it simpler and use a HUD addon as an example. The default UI has the character image in the top left corner, with bars for health and resource extending right of that. The API functionality exists to reposition those. However, when a player without any addons logs in, they see the expected default. Now, imagine that instead of leaving it an addon (an API function call), Blizzard bakes it in. Now a player without any addons logs in and there’s no character portrait and there are curved lines to the left and right of their character on-screen to represent health and resource. What’s the solution if they want the original? To go get an addon to suppress a baked in addon function they never wanted?
Addons are preferable because one person can put the picture and bars to the right, one can put them under their character, one can have the left/right HUD look, and one can have the default base game look.
Baking in a singular idea of what is the preferred interface and functionality IS a significant difference from delivering the default base game and letting players decide whether to alter it using API functions or leave it as-is.
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Blizzard’s. They’re the ONLY opinion that matters. They’re not doing this to compete with the live game. They don’t care if nobody plays. They have other reasons for making the servers. What we want doesn’t matter.
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I’d love the 1.1 type difficulty. But, do you think people are going to stand for that? lol. Private server players will rage if they had to do 2-3 hour scholo/strath runs … and actually have Ony and FR be somewhat of a requirement for a decent part of your raid. And having to spend hours and hours in MC gear up. Tier 1 gets a bad reputation for mages, but when MC first came out, some of it WAS BiS. Mana was a big problem because we were throwing ice picks at big bad mobs.