So lets get this going, I’m boutta lay down a wall of text so vast and expansive, you’d think it was the ramblings of an insane individual that held on to many thoughts for 20 years in isolation, and you would be right. Watch that scrolling speed!
So what would be non intrusive? Updates imo that are “not vanilla” such as graphic updates, or entire storyline changes, odd races such as… fox people? Yeah. Even a few sentences in a story can of course have enormous impacts on past and future player experiences, so obviously lore friendly additions, with some good or alright reasoning behind them of course.
I can’t just bring this up without adding my own ideas that I want the entire world, especially Blizzard, too see! Obviously professionally written ideas that cannot not possibly have any flaws whatsoever. Yes sir indeed.
Of all the changes Blizzard has done, there are a few things classic has always missed. Hear me out, the game we are playing ain’t exactly classic IMO, much has been changed, rebalances, NPCs, UI or otherwise. If anything it is Classic-Lite™, I’m not sayin I don’t like these changes but it is what it is. The strangest thing is I swear summoning stones worked in vanilla, anyway moving on. (I still think the Alliance should have got Furbolgs instead Worgen, but that is a different subject)
Low-lvl pvp is absolutely dead, and I don’t mean WPvP, its fine (sorta).
However actual battlegrounds are non existent. Yeah ganks are everywhere theres a pvp flag, WPvP is a non issue and this isn’t about that. What I’m talking about are Battlegrounds, from levels 10 to 50, they are dead.
I remember doing nothing but exploring places I probably shouldn’t and queuing battlegrounds when I found out how to get in (I was young then, and didn’t exactly know how to read) thats how I leveled my character (it was slow… too slow… Almost like I was, am.), yeah I fell behind my fam and frens in terms of content (almost two expansions worth) I imagine if I was their level I’d kick their wolsh! Blood Elves were cool and all, but it wasn’t until WotLK that I actually took PVE and leveling seriously, mostly because Deathknight arrived and I couldn’t make one… my Troll also learned how to read. I always went back to my troll hunter at the end of the day (It wasn’t until the near end of WotLK for me to get my troll to max level, yeah I had a lot of help) Anyway.
I’m not sure what killed the BG scene in Era, bots, the Chinese, maybe it was us all along, you can blame minmaxing (which is the whole point of low level twinking, which also happens to be the thing that stabbed my friend in Stonetalon yesterday, they even had backup! Happened in Red Ridge as Ally too, but it was a lvl 60 that time) but throughout the expansions back in the day you could always get into battlegrounds at nearly any level, and practically level doing nothing but battlegrounds, yeah it was slow… real slow… But the gear was and still is amazing, and holds up to gear you can acquire from hall of honor or from dungeons and raids. I’m not sure what happened to them but getting into a Warsong Gulch at level 16, 30, or even 40 is near impossible.
All that said, I propose Slahtz and Behsten being added to Classic, it would bring back low level battlegrounds, and would take nothing away from the classic experience. You could of course dismiss the idea thinking that low level ganks/twinks would be rampant, but they already are, by people much higher level than the zone anyway, and Stonetalon for example is already plagued with rogues anywhere from levels 17 to 32 anyway, so having these two NPCs added would not affect WPvP or the global Gank’n Spanks™.
When I started playing Wow circa 2005 with my Mum, the one thing I always wanted to be was a troll warlock or Human hunter, so I just played a Troll hunter. Trolls are cool, but those Arathi and Hinterland trolls were cooler.
Everytime I saw a human stable master or watched my mom run scarlet monestary with her dumb elf friends, I thought “that houndmaster boss is cool as heck why can’t I do that?”
Would it not be awesome to tune into your inner monkee and tame a gorilla, and then proceed to fist your way to the top of the BG chart with your fellow hominid? Using the mighty deterrence and Aspect of the Chinchilla in Warsong Gulch while your fellow Great Ape Compadre slows down your pursuers with the mighty thunderstomp? There is plenty of room in Oldtown district where the warriors are. And in my humble opinion, it almost looks a bit too empty, as if there is somethin’ missing. There are even targets as well, which are conveniently located in an empty courtyard. Hell, you gotta go to Stormwind to learn how to use Crossbows, a perfect starting weapon for human noobs! Not to mention the Dwarves in the Dwarven district. That scarlet NPC ambassador in Plaguelands is absolutely rocking that hunter gear as well I should add.
Adding some rando named NPCs wouldn’t take much dev time, and is easy enough to implement, but if you are still not convinced, read further my fellow noobs.
There is not one human culture on our great earth that did not employ the use of wild animals, or domestic ones such as dogs, or at the very least when introduced to the trusty canine, did not immediately worship them or use their expert skillz in emotional support and most importantly, their (sometimes) bone crushing biteforce and noses to track down game animals to cook on the barbe. As an example; Tribal Papua New Guinea peoples that used to be cannibals some 80+ years ago (that one fella had a nibble in the 1960s but I digress) that by all means would have probably ate the dogs, used them instead to hunt and eat pigs and rats after we introduced them (of course the Europeans also introduced pigs at the same time so that probably helped the dogs position a little bit…) (themoreyouknow)
Lets not forget just what a great hunter the mighty crested-Ape (humans) actually are, there is an old Pomo rite that involves killing a bear, with nothing but a knife… made out of volcanic glass (obsidian), that is some risky damn business, those obsidian knives suck, but we humans do that kind of stuff, we’re bonkers. We screw with, train, and capture any and all animals we come across, some Chimp species and Baboons do the same thing with lions cubs (its really messed up). Its probably the reason why there is a mass grave of Ice-age baboons in Africa, they were probably messing with us at one point so we Annihilated them in favor.
Domestic or otherwise, our finger will wind up in places it ain’t supposed to be.
There be those who think humans aren’t connected enough with nature, and that is why they can’t be hunters. Or that humans themselves aren’t great hunters, I say they are completely false, for several reasons. However the most important reason why they are wrong and I am right, is because I always the hell am. To quote some dialogue from a quest (copypaste guide me) honorable Orc hunter trainer; “It is an admirable skill to COMMAND ONE’S AUTHORITY OVER NATURE. As a hunter, you must strive to learn to use the force and power inherent to any creature of your choosing” Sounds like some human shenanagins I can get behind.
“Gaining control of an animal is not an easy feat; it is a task that you must undertake with much determination.” Mans gotta eat.
“For your first assignment, take this TAMING ROD and use it to tame a dire mottled boar. You can find them quite close to Razor Hill. Practice your skills in BATTLE with the boar at your side, then return to me.” This could totally be them pesky boar in Elwynn.
Being a hunter isn’t about being one with nature and sniffing flowers like some Hippy Elf Druid. It is about being one with nature and hunting lesser creatures like the apex Not-Gnomish predator your ancestors made you be. What do you think they use those rods for? Putting a string on the end and playing with the kittens? Sounds fun, great even, but highly unlikely. We weren’t given the Mittens Of Bloitting Friendship, Nah, we were given the RODS OF MIGHTY BEAST TAMING, and we use them to poke those pesky Surf Crawlin Crabs into submission. Those Crabs better know who in the god damn the Boss is I tells you hwhat.
Obviously, there is a distinct lack of human trainer NPCs, but there are human NPCs that would fit seamlessly as hunter trainers, or even quest NPCs, such as a few vendors, and the lady that asks you to hunt worgs at the logging camp in Elwynn, or the many human stable masters, however I’m sure sprinkling a few in here and there wouldn’t be that difficult, and would even add to the classic experience. Lets not forget that there is not one, but two master leather worker trainers that are human, and one of them even wields a spear and hunts dragons!!! What a MANN! (must have forgot his pet at the stable, or he is gonna try subduing a dragon instead…)
My third and final suggestion is adding the Ravasaur to Era.
Many moons ago when I ended up in Un’Goro on my Troll, or watched my mum or brother go through it, and we saw the obviously hinted at mount guy, we thought “This was supposed to be the hordes Frostsaber” but we can neither tame them as hunters, or ride them. The fact it came out in WotLK proved us right and the wait for WotLK was Bad Mojo for all us Troll players. I think I still got some of that Mojo between my toes.
I know from the classic game files that various nerds have looked at, the dialogue for the Venomhide Ravasaur quest, and even the mobs themselves are all there, and for some reason only finished and released in WotLK, so my question is, after all this time, would it really hurt to move the ravasaur quest back in the calendar a bit and rerelease it in Era™?
We also know the class limit is a lie, as well as any engine limitations, afterall, they added the unanimously asked for modern UI, among other controversial things that need not be mentioned. Even going as far as to change a few unmentionable NPCs (who, and what, shall remain unmentioned because this post ain’t about that drama, they are just examples)
All I’m saiyan is, Slahtz, Behsten, the Venomhide Ravasaurs, and Human Hunters would do nothing but add to the classic experience without taking away or changing what makes classic awesome.
It would spare me the trouble of playing Cataclysm again just to go back to be being a Troll anyway because as soon as it dropped half the Alliance playerbase turned into Worgen and invaded Goldshire for some odd reason. Must be something in the water. If humans could have been hunters and discovered fire earlier, the Worgen population in Elwynn would have been lower.
… it’s a forum dang blast it, not a law text …