I don’t have a reference on the tip of my fingers, but believe blizzard has stated that Era is supposed to be a permanent vanilla wow place with minimal/no changes. Obviously changes have happened, but seeing the recent reversal of MoS gives me hope they will continue to honor that, and the Legacy of vanilla wow.
I truly think MoS is a good change, however Era is not the right place for that change. They realized that with the feedback given. I think they’re wise enough to realize Era needs to remain minimal changes.
I think they are also very aware of the demand for a Classic+ experience. If “no changes” is on the far left of the extremes, SoD is on the far right of the extreme. They stated so much in the interview as well, saying SoD is the most changes they’d likely ever have in a classic wow experience.
It’s good that they had a chance to test things with SoD. I think we’ll see a true classic+ coming in the next year or two, one that is much closer to the left side of the extremes. Much more aligned to what I commonly read as people’s desires for Classic+ (which I’ll again say, I do not believe there’s a true consensus of what Classic+ is despite people saying everyone wants the same thing).
My guess is this:
Era remains forever with only critical infrastructure changes (UI updates, client updates, which I hate but I understand is needed for the long term operationalization of 10 flavors of vanilla wow), or game breaking fixes (boons, PvP rehaul, which they deemed needed to stop game breaking behaviors the players introduced).
Season of X a sort of live, ephemeral beta for changes in classic wow. Clearly there’s demand for this seasonal style, and I forsee it sticking around every few years. I could see “Season of Classic+” (for lack of a better name) coming after SoD concludes, and a break happens.
Fresh Era servers I think sometime at the end of SoD, we’ll see a new fresh era server. I don’t think we’ll see a reset ever (I pray not) but do think we’ll see isolated fresh realms happen one day. I can’t see this happening until after SoD ends, and once they need a stimulus boost once Cata Classic and War Within hype/subs start to fade.
Classic+/WoW 2.0 - I really think they’ll start with Classic+ in the seasonal mold, but I could also see them going all the way with it. If they’re really confident in the balance of changes/content I could see them going through the effort to relaunch this outside of the Season of X framework and making it its own thing. What that looks like, I don’t know. Could be an entire engine/graphics overhaul with expanded vanilla wow content. Could be the same engine and graphics we have today in Era/SoD with the expanded content.
I don’t think there’s a world where they take over Era with Classic+. I could be wrong. I have a splinter of faith left in blizzard, enough to beleive they aren’t stupid enough to obliterate Era by turning it into Classic+… if they do… its over for quite a few of us. Perhaps they don’t care as Classic+ will be popular. But to destroy the last vestige of Vanilla WoW that exists in an official capacity seems so stupid, short sighted, and would destroy the legacy and preservation of the original WoW (despite some changes existing already, I know).
2c for ya