Today, I was initially inclined to resubscribe to World of Warcraft after learning that Blizzard had decided to introduce the Dungeon Finder to Wrath Classic, which I saw as a positive response to player feedback. However, my enthusiasm was dampened by a recent revelation. I came across a comment indicating that the advent of Cataclysm Classic, which I firmly believe deviates from the true spirit of ‘Classic’ and henceforth will refer to as ‘RETAIL’, will effectively replace all Wrath Classic servers, leading to the extinction of the Wrath Classic experience.
Many of us are familiar with the expansion announcements, particularly one I have no intention of playing due to its heightened difficulty, tailored for a more hardcore audience. This expansion marked a pivotal and, in my opinion, detrimental shift in the game’s direction. The staff, who seemed to disdain the casual-friendly aspects of Wrath, introduced changes that not only increased the game’s difficulty but also seemed to suggest that casual players take a hiatus from the game, a sentiment echoed in a post-cataclysm era (refer to Blizzard’s post ‘Wow, dungeons are hard’.
This decision to replace Wrath Classic servers with a version representing one of the most unpopular expansions in the game’s history is baffling. It feels like a direct contradiction to the recent improvements made to Wrath Classic, improvements that were widely celebrated by the player base. My observation is that post-Wrath expansions have not catered to the casual gamer, instead favoring a more hardcore audience. This shift has been a consistent trend with Blizzard; popular features that resonate with players are often removed, leading to a decline in subscriber numbers… a critical point to remember.
I recall when Ghostcrawler proposed making Dual Speccing a challenging and exclusive feature, requiring a raid and various other prerequisites (as discussed in search 634368-Talent-Dual-Spec-Q-amp-A-with-Ghostcrawler). Thankfully, this idea was not implemented, demonstrating that Blizzard can make decisions in favor of the player base.
if Blizzard wishes to avoid another significant drop in subscribers, I strongly advise not only retaining the Wrath Era Servers but also considering the addition of popular features like transmog for Wrath only servers.
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Okay, bye. You lost me the moment you called Cata “retail”. It was a great time doing mythic raids, world quests, m+ and AP farm in Cata.
Fun fact, its the opposite. Each expansion gave more content to casuals.
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I think you’re missing the point. Yes, new content and expansions provided more content for the casuals, but what it did, is create an even bigger gateway between casuals and hardcore players.
For example, in today’s classic, all casuals raid normal mode and the gear dropped doesn’t seem like this huge canyon in item score.
Fast forward to future expansions and you now have LFR into normal raids into heroic raids into mythic raids coupled in with mythic dungeond, and you have created a game where a casual player can no longer long in and raid for 3 hours and feel as though they are “close” to a hardcore gamer, they now have multiple multiple levels to work through to get close to a non casual level. In today’s game it’s normal and heroic, two levels. Very simple and allows a casual to play at a casuals pace while not feeling like you’re light years behind the arm chair guy who plays all week. That is why casuals have leaned towards not enjoying these future expansions, so while you’re right, you missed the point.
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We all know this though it might take some time as the increase in the cost of the wow token in terms of gold and the popularity of classic wrath compared to cata aka retail part 1 is obvious. It is the case that all that was added and improved on wrath including the gamna system was a good thing though I would do something else like maybe have trial and or ulda drop frost badges to keep people playing it. But while the dungeon gamnas in wrath classic are actually hard unlike the retail cata we can see who really benefits from cata.
The gold sellers a new expansion where the difficulty is not a factor to those selling boost carries will further make the game untenable for the casual raiders who will be stuck in raid finder and heroic raids. With the decline and decay to the player count that wrath minus aka cata will bring, gold will no doubt be harder to farm which will benefit the gold sellers.
I’m glad you enjoyed cata some people really did. Personally I was frustrated more so with the dps players when cata first dropped due to then trying to steam roll through dungeons pullin extra mobs and wiping us due to our healer running out of mana. Personally I think cata was different and ok the dungeons and raid difficulty was increased over wrath. However it seems to me that the original post is more upset blizzard has been doing changes that a type of casual player who enjoys classic does not appreciate. I personally gave up on lich king after watching people I have been tanking for stop playing ussually after a few weeks of the alpha launch. These where people that worked a lot of house and wanted to just sit back drink or do what ever relaxed them and slaughter mobs in a dungeon while chatting in discord or party chat. My guild at the time had a second ten man raid team for uldar that struggles with the first boss for gods sake. Needless to say we lost people and had to group up with other guilds to try 25 man. So please take into consideration that there are a passionate group of players that have and will leave if blizzard makes the difficulty to high in a version of classic. I really only ran tanks was gearing up my fifth when alpha dropped and wasn’t to interested in the make up gear drops in the alpha dungeons but I still ran them for awhile with people to help out. It became annoying when people got frustrated with dieing due to party members for what ever reason not being able to keep up with the new mechanics and leaving the group. As far as mythic goes I’m pretty sure that wasn’t in cata I’m not sure when it was released but I took a break during MoP and didn’t find out about mythic until I returned to legion.
All we want is for Wrath only servers. I think the issue that will come up is CATA servers will most likely be a ghost town and I think this is why they are trying to get rid of Wrath Era servers but by doing this the gamble losing subs.
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They really don’t give a crap about wrath and after this is over we’ll return the favor when we all unsub and never come back. No update since 11/9 btw unless you count 1 blue post about joyous journey, something that shouldn’t even be in the game.
I think even way back when the developers hated Wrath and how casual friendly it was. Again look at the old interview from Ghostcrawler during Wrath were dual speccing would require a raid, soul stones and a bunch of other things that would cater towards the hardcore and then look at his post, ‘Wow, dungeons are hard’ where he told people to quit the game and people did.
Counter point: The LFR of the latest retail patch has a similar item level to the mythic gear of the previous patch. Couple that with the Vault and the tier piece generation machine thing, and you can have your 4 set bonus without even stepping into a raid.
I don’t think there is a huge drive for casual players to want to get into mythic raiding. I think most people are happy with the one or two raid nights into normal and/or heroic raids.
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so you just resubbed for RDF because you just found out it was back but did not know about Cata? LOL
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I didn’t know they were going to close down Wrath ERAs servers.
The model for classic has always been to move on to the next expansion. Don’t see how you are confused. Classic refers to replaying old expansions not the definition some have as the Holy Trinity
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That was as far as I read into his post. I’m not sure you can even get to the payment pages without seeing Cata Classic somewhere on your screen.
wrath will be cata?? whaaaat? no it cant be… can u link this official info plz. because if its right im out now
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okay, bye? ure disrespectful, now a ppl cant say ur fellings? If you have nothing important to say… just dont say
People can say their feelings as much as I can. Its not an one way road.
If they start saying bs then I will response with bs.
Paix- was announced at Blizzcon
There’s a group of people who literally want every expansion to have its own dedicated and improved servers. Death by 1000 cuts to the community, and done by the community.
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Not everyone is a jobless masochist wearing rose-colored glasses. Some people actually like to see things improve for the better.