This isn’t a post to bring up an argument over what system is going into Classic. It’s too late to redo everything. But what I was wondering was the advantages the original Client/Server Architecture had to offer.
I imagine it was changed for two primary reasons: one, the new server side system is easier to work with, and continue to develop new content for and debug, and two, it removes most of client side hacks that could result in destroying game integrity.
But I can’t help think of things that were lost:
1.) Fake Casting was easier, since the signal that the player was casting was not sent to the server or enemy player. A cast could only be interrupted if the signal from the enemies player went to the server, then went from the server back to the caster’s pc. Now a casting state is sent to the server, and enemy player only has to send the signal of an interrupt back to the server to register an interrupt.
2.) Jumping snares/roots/stuns/sleeps. I don’t see this as being effective strategy in current Classic’s spell batching system. It used to be a potential advantage in most encounters, requiring the enemy player to predict it’s behavioir. This was due to the signals of the cc not just being generated at the server.
3.) Damage stacking in smaller window. Damage now just comes from the server. It used to come from signals from the player’s own pc, the enemy player’s pc, and the server. By mixing up your attacks, and trying to time it right, you used to be able to get more hits in to land on an enemy player than you can with current system. This mattered for pve dps too.
4.) AOE damage from aoe spells and engineering bombs. The new system has resulted in the timing of aoe’s hitting different than how it was originally. In the duels many times this was exemplified. I think it’s interesting that aoe’s in old system had different timings depending on how they were scripted. I’m not sure which is best in terms of performance in pve or reliability, or looks best.
5.) Proc’s timing is different. It is probably consistent now. But often Internal Cooldowns were defeated due to the old structure, and players’s could get double proc’s before the ICD started. Maybe seen as a bug, it added to the excitement whether you were on the receiving end or the giving side.
6.) Kiting/Juking/Leeway-I was trying to think of why these all felt different back then. It wasn’t just slower networks and pcs. Or lesser skilled players. The way movement is processed between clients and server have changed. I think they changed in pre-Wrath patch, I could be wrong though. But basically, fighting against other players each time felt like a new encounter. Not every player moved the same, because the architecture combined with networks, pc specs, player skill all combined in a larger variety of outcomes. So every fight was basically a fresh reckoning to be experienced. It wasn’t as mechanically scripted out of fear of some artificial contrived esport meta. (no offense. I just really liked each fight felt new.)
In future versions of WoW or WoW Classic or WoW Expac revisits, is it possible to examine different Client/Server Architectures to see how gameplay could feel like it did in Vanilla/TBC? Could new game mechanics be discovered by looking at the old ways? It seems that Spell Batching is basically just not generating the same game actions. So maybe more could be reviewed.
These effects I’ve described could also speed up, or slow down gameplay, which could be good or bad. They could also add a higher skill ceiling that kept players playing longer and hungrier. Which I can’t see as a bad thing.