Thanks for confirming what we’ve suspected all along (that Blizzard is unwilling to dedicate the resources needed to properly manage or develop this game).
The list of issues with SoM is massive, and all of them are the direct result of poor game development (e.g., not properly estimating player base, not responding fast enough to dwindling player population, not implementing honor system properly at launch, not fixing honor system properly for weeks [players still had rank gear way above their proper RP even weeks after Blizzard said the gear would be removed], releasing pvp system and BGs at launch with seemingly no understanding that this would ruin pre-BiS dungeon farming, the list goes on and on).
So, you want constructive feedback? Tell Blizzard to hire more game developers for this product that they are actively mismanaging.
I would like to see a season in SOM where picking your race had no racial benefit, but during the character creation process there is a pool of perks to pick from whether the same or different to customize your characters function.
This would allow picking race for aesthetic and still have racial abilities that are valid for the way you intend to play.
My working hypothesis is that if a single account reports a bot in a secluded corner of the map or inside an instance but nobody else does then this does not even generate a ticket that a GM will review. I believe it takes multiple, perhaps at least 5 or 10 unique accounts to file a report to trigger an actual ticket that will then be reviewed by a GM.
I think accounts that report bots in-game could have some kind of counters attached to their account. Once an account has reported X number of accounts for “cheating” a percentage of their correct identifications could be used to increase the “reputation” level of that account.
Example: An account has reported “botting” 100 times and those accounts have been found to be correctly identified as bots 98 of those times this should boost their future single reports to be reviewed more quickly perhaps.
Accounts found to be getting false positives too often would have their reports get a lower value.
I know it’s unlikely that Blizzard would be willing to hire in game GM’s to actively identify some of these flyhacking botters that are rampant in Classic but this might help speed up their removal.
Please make my horsie neigh again when I hit space bar when it is otherwise standing still. This is the only version of wow I remember/know of where that doesn’t happen.
SoM tbc
Increased exp for killing mobs
Shorter rare spawns
Less gold needed to epic mounts
Ignore enyone whom defends wbuffs, realistically all they care is trolling.
Ignore people whom want museum pieces unless you are actually going to make a classic plus
Faster actions against bots.
And by all thats holy make premades vs premade a thing.
What makes shaman tank, no taunt pally, melee hunter,etc. appealing is the lack of fleshing out, it imposes a challenge and forces the player to actively think how they can improve their potential.
Fix battlegrounds. Would like to see same faction vs faction brought in like in tbc and also fix it so premades face premades. Right now all bgs consist of are premades vs randoms who just end in 5 minutes.
Who decided faster patches is a good idea?why would activision devs decide that everyone should be stuck in AV for the first 2 months, therefore killing dungeon farming and kiling the open world? Why would devs buff rogues(.05gear) and kill offspecs(removing world buffs, longer fighttimes)?
They turned vanilla into a instanced mess filled with cookiecutter specs, and this new cadence makes me as a player feel rushed and forced.
The dev team should really reassess their work for butchering vanilla wow. Either they dont understand what vanilla is about, they are retail guys who dont like vanilla, or they are not competent enough to make vanilla better.
Vanilla imo is about your own journey, your own pace, finding your own goals. Vanilla is about working with your guild and achieving stuff together along friends and against guild rivals. Vanilla is about passion and dedication.
Som forces you to follow activisions pace, all the hard work u put in will be gone in less than a year from now. All the friends and enemies u met are just a memory in one year. It feels abandoned by the devs because bots and flyhacking are still alive, no changes have happened since launch, no communication really.
For me, ive come to the realization that activision never cared about classic, and the devs are retail guys who think classic is inferior so they have to make it more like retail. The team has to let go all the retail mindset guys, and hire people who are actually passionate about classic. If they try to do som round 2 with these devs who dont like vanilla, even if the changes are positively accepted by the community, the execution will be botched again because they dont want to see vanilla revitalized.
People post all day long about things. Us having to go through another filter isn’t helping anyone. This is just another reason why the council does not make sense. We are not game designers and cherry-picking opinionated issues just sets us back.
Thank you for reaching out regarding SoM/Era concerns. Personally, I only became heavily invested myself when Classic split into TBCC and Era, but it is heartwarming to see a Classic Veteran on the Council who is concerned with our issues. At the moment, my focus is on Era only and my hopes are the following in order of highest priority to lowest priority:
Communication from Classic Development Team: To clarify, I am specifically asking for communication on hotfixes, patches, or changes. As an example, clearly communicated changes such as posts on the mage dungeon xp nerfs and mob snare/root immunities for SoM are excellent and even the precursor posts stating they are looking into these issues for SoM are welcoming. However, there were some changes that were not properly communicated through patch notes such as the change to hunter pet xp farming nerf as one example. I think the worst offender, and the one that set the tone for the Era-Blizzard Dev relationship, is the complete lack of communication on population issues for 4 whole months after Classic’s TBCC/Era split. If someone who had control of the game were to at least communicate that they saw server populations was an issue and they were looking into it before announcing free transfers, then I fully believe Era would be a larger population game than it currently is. Still, I am hopeful for the future and if there are announcements to the players regarding acknowledgement of issues either through blue posts or the Council, then I and many others would be grateful.
Consolidating the player base: From your post, it seems as if there is at least an acknowledgment of server population issues. I am not sure if that is in regard to Seasonal or Era, but at least it is something and gives me hope. So, thank you! Anyways, I and basically the majority of the Era community do agree that the idea of 1 PvE and 1 PvP server would be the best option to make Era a true World of Warcraft. In that, I believe many would say it is to merge all regional servers into a singular PvP and PvE option. This is not just a pipe dream of NA players on these forums either since a fair number of players on Whitemane-PvP-NA come from EU, Korea, & Taiwan to play and raid with my guild. Of course, with this idea are a few snags: As long as there is a list of other, empty servers then new players may accidentally join one of them and promptly quit the game due to the lack of people. There should be a way to also get new players to know to make characters on the two global servers. Also, I am not sure about China since they have content changes and a unique subscription model. Finally, the Rp community is adamant about being separate from the larger community. That is why I said the majority of Era and not all of Era. Their resilience is such that there are still players on Grobbulus-RpPvP-NA who do content within Era and do not want to transfer to Whitemane.
Bug fixing in the Era/SoM client: If you check my forum post history, you will see that there are multiple bugs that have occurred in the Classic Era/SoM client. These all started when the client was upgraded to 1.14 a while ago and have been exasperated with the implementation of Seasonal Servers. Some of these range from the silly like duplicate NPCs in Light’s Hope Chapel to the devastating such as Renataki’s special attack causing all players in the instance to have their game crash. Again, there is virtually no communication from Blizz on acknowledgement or fixes/patch notes of these issues as they come and go. So, I have made it my personal Crusade to document every bug that I or those within my server come across. Unfortunately my mega-thread got shut down, so I had to spread out the then current issues into 14 or so different forum posts. If there is a better way, please let me know, but I try to double up reports with both a forum post and in-game bug report. However, the in-game bug reports usually just prompt a generic email or the responder confuses the Era/SoM client with the TBCC client. So, it always is for naught.
Era being affected by Seasonal Servers: This is just a fear of mine that is slowly becoming a reality. I do not want the changes or “fixes” in Seasonal servers to change the way Era is played. As I understand from the Classic Team Dev interview a while back, there are “switches” that the devs use to turn on and off certain mechanics that should affect only Seasonal and not Era. However, some changes have leaked through. A notable example, which is probably a bug, is the pickpocketing changes in BRD from SoM affecting the Era client. However, I have concerns for the future of Era where if features that are “successful” in Seasonal servers for the sake of “convenience” bleed their way into the Era servers which will slowly change it away from what it should be, an unchanging state. An example of this is that players can cast while mounted to dismount and no longer need to manually dismount to cast. It is purely a convenience that Blizz implemented into the Era/SoM client when SoM servers were added. In theory, this is a small change that should not seriously affect any portion of the game. But for me, it is a massive change. Part of my engagement in WoW is PvP as a paladin, and when a paladin can stun a mage who is mounted, the mage cannot cast since they are stunned on mount and the paladin can get off some free damage. With this change, even if a paladin stuns a mounted mage, the mage can still blink or ice block out of the stun which then makes the engagement far less about the initiative in World PvP & Battlegrounds. Personally, I am upset about this and died a fair number of times due to this “convenience” whereas this was not the case through the entirety of Vanilla & Classic WoW up until that point. So please, vouch for no changes. I know I am in the minority on this issue, but this mindset of changing the game for convenience makes problems for Era players when there were none prior.
Reverting back to a more vanilla experience: So this is just a personal preference of mine, but I hope that some of the minor or overlooked issues from Era are fixed to make it a more accurate vanilla experience. One example is the Lordaeron’s Blessing buff from EPL not applying to raiders in Naxxramas. In old vanilla raiding footage, you can see this buff applies raiders back in the day but does not in Classic/Era/SoM. Another change that was removed from Classic/Era/SoM but was present in Vanilla was more persistent player skeletons. The reasons for Blizzard making this change was due to abuse by gold sellers or bots or trolls. However unlike literally every other version of the game, Era does not have a gold seller, botting, or trolling problem. The reasoning for this change no longer applies and to make Era a more accurate museum piece, it should be re-implemented. There was also a removal of some elements such as some notable /silly and /flirt emotes. Rather than just deleting elements from the game and creating a revisionist history, I suggest putting a disclaimer when launching Era similar to how Turner Classic Movies, HBO, and Disney have for their media stating that these elements were products of their time and to remove them is to say they never existed existed as all and would be disingenuous and those entering the game should be forewarned that these elements are present in this game.
Thank you again for taking the time to listen,
Rowaine