For actual. Source: playing the beta.
Azure Span is an amalgam of all of the stuff Wrath Classic fans like. DAE Tuskar? DAE Grizzle? DAE Gurloc? Azure Span is the largest zone in the expansion and its basically “Northrend, the zone”. Nexus is remade in HD as Azure Vault - super fun dungeon by the way, but essentially the plot about the Nexus War / Maylgos’s war is somehow continued by a radical sect of blue dragons.
Ohnran Plains on the other hand is a mash-up of Nagrand and Vanilla WoW stuff. Centaurs, sleepy green dragons, flying across a large open plain, thunder lizards, ring of blood, elementals/shamans. Then the dungeon itself is literally just an instanced copy of the entire zone, sort of saying that the point of the zone is in defiance of a closed indoor space. And like Nagrand you’ve also got some spooky Necromancer type stuff as one of the tribes breaks away from the elements.
The middle 2/3 of the leveling experience in DF is a massive blast of nostalgia. And in fact, like BC and WOTLK, we’re finally getting a return to Caverns of Time type shenanigans. We really hadn’t seen Caverns of Time much since Cata wrecked the Dragonflights and then people got “soured” on time travel with WoD, but Blizzard is finally returning.
Dragon Isles is as close to a Classic+ as you could make World of Warcraft without actually throwing out the modern stuff people like.
(In fact, I would go as far as saying I think it is too much nostalgia bait - its sort of like how Warlords was a knee-jerk reaction to MoP, this is a knee-jerk reaction to Shadowlands).
Cata was a fairly bad experience, imo. For starters, the destruction/revamping of the original world was very lopsided, and especially the devastation of places like Darkshore was very disheartening from a story perspective. They did do a decent job hashing out some of the older zones questwise (Desolace and Felwood especially), and it was somewhat amusing and annoying that Silithus literally was ignored.
Deathwing as a villain was also very lackluster. Aside from his occasional firebombing a zone to kill folks, he was pretty well absent from the actual expansion until Dragon Soul. It was also annoying if you were a fan of the Knaak novels to see what was a methodical and intelligent adversary become just a MWHAHAHAHA Scooby Doo world destroyer. The lack of the Neptulon raid was also disappointing, and having Thrall/Go’el as center stage for a majority of events got a bit tiresome.
From a player standpoint, the merge of 10/25 raiding especially killed a LOT of casual raiding and PuG groups going into the expansion, along with the harsh punishing dungeon design. The “Git Gud” mentality pretty much screwed over the majority of players, and was actually what led to the introduction of LFR when Dragon Soul launched, primarily because so many players had NOT experienced or seen the raids.
Adding stuff like Vashjir as an underwater zone was interesting, but also had the challenges of having actual 3D movement and combat which could also be frustrating in terms of camera control and positioning. I’d have to say that Hyjal was probably my favorite zone overall, especially with the addition of the Firelands. Uldum was disappointing for the Indiana Jones trope that got overplayed, and focused far too less on the actual Titan mythology.
Didn’t have an issue with the leveling experience, but the initial gearing was annoying for the lack of options. Having the rep tabards were actually one of the few things I did appreciate from the expansion, which Blizzard promptly removed going forward.
MoP is such an underappreciated expansion. Had some of the best storylines and lore.
You can’t have Cata without all the destruction Deathwing caused.
I enjoyed Vashjir because it was something different then all the other zones up to that point… Once you got the hang of “swimming”, it was fine.
I’ve been a druid main since wotlk, so Vashj with aquatic form was just unfair.
Once you got a “swimming” mount, it really wasn’t that different then on land really.
so heres my two cents on cata classic
if there is a thing let it be its own server and let wrath be wrath forever
as for cata classic plus put in a Classic+ server where all the stuff Ghostclawer simplified is reversed like the talent tree being like they were in wrath
I would say skip Cata classic, but it is a horrid stain that can’t be removed. Not even club soda can remove it or a shotgun.
I was a big mount collector at almost 500 usable on a single character yet as a druid main I mostly used travel form. I remember the aquatic form in Vashj being that original incarnation of full speed at all times that you can get in retail with the Malorne’s Swiftness pvp talent now. Technically it doesnt benefit from the extra 20% you can get, but wild charge makes up for that with its leap.
It didnt matter if you were in combat or not which is the just absolute unfairness to aquatic form in Vashj.
With blizz removing LFD from Wrath classic I don’t trust them to do Cata classic. But that said, I wouldn’t play it either because Cata was literally the expac that made me quit last time. Because of just how trash Afflock was in Cata.
Yeah I don’t trust these devs not to do serious damage to the game. They’ve already compromised Wrath classic by giving into the LFD/LFR hate group that has been foaming at the mouth to remove accessibility from the game since it came out.
I wouldn’t mind a Cata Classic. I didn’t think it was as bad as everyone says, but I didn’t really want it either.
What interests me more is what Blizzard would change to make it better. I mean, if it means getting content that didn’t make it back then, I’m definitely all for it.
The underwater raid, worgen content, etc. Maybe finally a worthy raid for Deathwing.
Exactly the same game for Warlords of Draenor. Since it never had a chance to unfold, a new version with all the abridged content would be great: Shattrath Raid, Ogre Continen, Gorehowl Legendary, Horde and Alliance Citys, Ages of War Await, etc…
It would be a missed opportunity and people should calm down and that would have been the only missed opportunity because people are crying again…
Can’t get to MoP without cata, why I think they’ll end up just stopping at wrath and doing classic+ with a different direction. Who knows, maybe they add m+ and the fated system to wotlk classic after ICC so you can experience all the classic content with modern systems.
No Cata.
Do Classic+ for Vanilla, TBC, and WOTLK.
And by Classic+ I do not mean the disaster that was Season of Mastery. I mean big balance changes to make all specs great in Vanilla, potentially new dungeons/raids, Mythic+, transmog, and a graphics option in Settings to enable retail textures and models (like Diablo II: R).
THANK YOU. God I hated nonsense like that. It’s like how I loved the original version of Silverpine…nice spooky, atmospheric zone that felt like a true extension of Tirisfal where you had to look over your shoulder just waiting for a wandering elite Son of Arugal to come along and ruin your herb picking. The ‘revamped’ zones and questing with all the stupid parodies and pop culture references took a nice immersive fantasy world and dumbed everything down. About the only things I remember fondly from Cata was the Worgen starting zone (too bad they’ve been mostly forgotten about since then), Archaeology (also largely neglected since then), and a few of the quality of life improvements.
Dragonflight will be closer to the older systems, but still not “Classic +”. I have already pre-ordered and will be playing Dragonflight though.
It literally is though.
New content that comes after Classic ie : Classic+.
There’s literally no reason to add content to Classic.
No reason to re-release all the expansions for Classic then, it will just end up being Retail without LFR and LFG.
Yeah, I mean, that’s all it really is. It’s Retail, but 10 years ago. If you want new content, play retail.
All the classic variations feel pointless to me.
I’m happy for those who enjoy it, and those who didn’t get to play them seeing them for the first time. But, as funny as it sounds retail is better in every way.
Classes evolve for better or worse, things change; That’s what you sign up for with an MMO. But in “Classics” nothing is changing, nothing is new, its all boring and stagnant.
Things are looking up with Dragonflight with proper talent trees coming back and shifting away from borrowed power etc.