There’s been obvious outcry for “Classic +” and while “SoD” has felt like it has gone too far it’s roots and the recent rally against the recent changes to era, I think it’s time the Developers create 3 or 4 realms to dedicate to a what I would call a ‘lab rat cage’.
You’d would start with small changes like giving Druids the ability for polearms there, drip feeding new quest chains in zones, hell, why not take a page out of “OSRS” and poll it, I’m sure there is an audience out there that is really interested in small changes like this and eventually fleshing out a Classic + like this.
Seasons lose traction because the sun will set on them and they are too fast paced for the average Classic enjoyer. Changing era realms feel like someone has broken into your house and putting a bonsai tree next to your rock collection because that person “thought it would look nice”, while the thought was there, and it may look nice, that person barged in to change something that wasn’t welcomed to be changed.
I don’t know, maybe it is time for “Classic, Subtle Changes Edition”, I would like to see thoughts on it, even a dev to possibly explain that this a good/bad idea and why, it’d be nice!
Subtle Classic Changes, if it included a complete removal of De-buff Limit and Improvement to Meme Spec Talent Trees would be very successful. PVP Equipment of some fashion every 10 levels to bring back low lvl pvp would be cool. A Post Naxx Scarlett Crusade 40 man and 20 man raid located at Tyr’s Hand and Hearthglenn respectively. Lifetime Ban for anybody accepting gold for Boosting, GDKP, or gold buying.
What exactly is fast paced about an 8 month 1-60 in sod? The biggest problem with “Classic+” is that every single person has a different idea of what they want. I personally think wbuffs and class balance are fine, and that end can be “tuned” with later wbuffs and gear in added content; but some people are a hard pass on the current class balance or wbuffs. It’s a lose lose all around when Vanilla is the perfect product in the first place.
They can make all the subtle changes they want, they should be in a separate client. I’d probably even play it too… there are changes I actually support! However, forcing them into this client is wrong and not what was advertised to players when they signed up in 2019 and again when they paid for clones in 2021.
Well I think they did say one of the bigger mistakes they had when launching classic was going with “no changes” policy as this basically resulted in a game that had some serious known issues, where they didn’t/couldn’t deal with a number of known problem, such as buff limits or some of the severe class imbalances. Perhaps if they are moving away this we will see some of the issues corrected, while obviously any class changes will be controversial to many people who still have the “no changes” mindset or if they aren’t carefully implemented, I think some changes like removing the buff restrictions would be welcomed by most people.
Personally not ever being part of the no changes crowd, I really don’t mind careful and considerate changes, for example the polearm addition to druids, has very little impact overall, it wont change balance, that said, not sure how really planned that was.
It also might be nice to see some changes which might reduce botting/gold farming, obviously these are another challenging area, since these could impact legitimate players in a negative way so I could any changes here also causing some controversy.
“Faced paced” as in the content isn’t about leveling anymore, it’s about getting to the maximum level (at that point in time) as fast as possible and doing that patch’s end game content. And sure, everyone has a different idea what “Classic +” looks like, which is why on the client you would advertise that a new poll is out, get your votes in, so that way, sure, not everyone’s happy, but majority of people will be. Pointing back at OSRS, it’s how they keep a pretty happy fanbase is that constant community interaction.
Season of Mastery failed because not enough people played it to sustain it. I dunno about SoD.
All 5 people on the forums applauding the changes to ERA are the same 5 people that REALLY want ERA Classic+
I’m all for a Classic+(i wont be playing it) but these changes were a slap in the face to many, especially people who paid for the cloning service in 2021 on the promise of unchanged ERA servers.
What i dont understand is if they were “fixing” ERA, why not give Pallies a taunt and Spriest dispersion?
Maybe remove DF and fix boomkins mana issue?
Where does it end?
A lot of people have been saying this would have been the ideal time for a Season of Mastery.
No world buffs, etc.
We need this, but blizzard blew their wad too soon. Sad.
Revolving Seasons of Mastery would have been so fantastic. Stale Era is so obviously not the play, it’s such a disgusting farce to log into Whitemane and see what’s going on there it makes me ill.
There was just no appetite for Season of Mastery, it was too soon. So dumb.
I think the real reason why SoM failed was because all they did was increase the amount of experience you received and improved end game content, which people weren’t too excited to level up a character to try fights with subtle changes.
SoD had some interesting ideas, and kudos to Blizzard for giving it a shot, but I think they missed the mark where the ‘discovery’ was tied to player power for the most part.
It would have been better if they had more areas similar to the Illari Duskfeather quest chain, stuff that changes the world through expanding it and giving more context to certain events, just for the sake creating a more immersive world.
I’m sure it was Chris Metzen who said “the real main character of WoW, is the world”, and I feel like every time the game has been good, is when this has been true.
I think most these changes would be a good idea, PvP items at level brackets sounds pretty neat if done right, 1 or 2 new raids as filler content and even a raid that’s a step up from Naxx could be neat, even sprinkling in new dungeons could be cool. IRL transactions definitely need to be cracked down on, but I don’t actually think GDKP’s are an awful idea.
As much as GDKP’s are a catalyst for people wanting to buy and sell gold, I think having that bridge between people who are really great at the game and people who aren’t so great but do well by providing goods to the Auction House and want to experience the end game content that way isn’t a terrible thing. It’s just extremely unfortunate that a bloat of bad actors taint the scene, causing GDKP’s to be that scape goat.
Its preferable to going forward to the cash shop, transmog and the WoW token. If we are being honest thats where they make their money, so why wouldnt they “improve ERA” again?
Have a think about where it ends, given Blizzards track record.
SoM failed because its not Vanilla, and the developers of “lets throw poop at the wall to see what sticks” do not comprehend game design.
If they did, they would understand why Vanilla is popular and SoD is a dud; no I will not illustrate why in crayon how vanilla works; if “Pro AAA devs” can’t work it out in a couple of days /played then perhaps they need to quit moonlighting as “designers”.
Bro, there are literally Private Servers out there that get plenty of traction and prove my point on this. Ascension and Turtle WoW just to name a couple.
Yeah, changes will happen, but they really shouldn’t, especially to era. As stated before, people treasure those realms, and I do understand why people would be upset by them. I agree with Tubbly’s statement above that they should have them separate.
Those are all better than anything Blizzard is pushing forward, but they’re unfortunately very small communities. Hell Ascension WoW is kinda sorta the parent version for SoD if you want to look at it practically… Turtle wow is kinda crap, it has some ok ideas but overall its a big F in chat just like Ascension and SoD for many of the same reasons; they’re dev’s not game designers who really understand why a game is popular and addictive at its core.
“NEW” content and “Changes” only go so far to hold an audience and when the newness wears off they players depart and go where the game is at its core BiS; that’s unblem’d Vanilla.
