Allen Adham wanted concurrent players online to be something like 500. It’s amazing how they went from that kind of philosophy to how the game is now.
500 is far too low, but they still managed to get the balance just right, even if that was due to hardware limitations. They should have respected that limitation when making classic. Another thing that severely hurt classic was open realm transfers.
They obviously didn’t launch at that amount, but the fact he wanted it shows how committed they were to a small community where you know everybody on your server.
Doesn’t even mention the biggest, most fundamental changes like the max population of servers, the absence of GMs, and the lack of devs responding to changes in the meta, etc etc.
And still there are people who are like “oh classic was authentic”.
I suspect the people who say things like this never even saw the original Battle.net, so they don’t realize that Battle.net 2.0 didn’t even exist back then.
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I noticed and talked about these things many times where I agree did matter in Classic and have said so. Although I was very happy overall with Classic Servers, TBCC servers are another story entirely, and IMO are terrible, but for Classic because layering was taken out things ended up being OK, and a lot of servers had identity and many had a close to 50/50 faction balance. There was a choice for every player. It was good.
Still, I’m not the OP but Classic did have the “Vanilla vibe” to me I guess you could say, which i said to him. Yes, the world buff meta and stuff were not authentic but what actually counts for me was there. Things like community, faction wars, having fun with people in BGs and PVP etc. All of which have mostly vanished from Retail and are even mostly absent in TBCC (and the people who gravitate to Retail and even TBCC seem to be all about themselves and not the community. This is next to impossible for me to relate to and therefore it’s been very difficult to have a quality experience in them as finding like-minded people in TBCC and especially Retail is like finding a needle in a haystack).
I also think the old world is “magical” in that how it is just working to WoW better than any other since.
The UI changes and stuff didn’t change that, we used addons back then to change the Ui in raids etc. Even today i don’t talk about QoL suggestions that IMO just don’t matter, but when something does matter to me I’m all over it and will post hundreds of times about it, even when that leads to nothing.
I played open beta, Vanilla at release, and even subbed enough to get the 10 year Veteran statue. Also since I have a good memory and was in my 20s when Vanilla came out remember it well.
So while you can say stuff like “Oh the raid frames are different” or “Oh there’s battle.net integration” it’s like: OK… I know that already… but what’s your point exactly? it doesn’t really matter at all.
So going back to original post, I guess I can see why some of that stuff doesn’t matter in the same way. On the other hand Classic Era really shouldn’t have changed much, and things like bugs that result from changes and aren’t being fixed are definitely a problem.
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Didn’t list a single gameplay change to Classic.
You don’t have to hold shift to auto-loot and you can mail multiple things at once? And because of that Classic wasn’t authentic?
Talk about grasping at straws.
Imagine when wotlk launches, servers are still a total disaster, people go in with astronomical real estate, and 10 alts per player. I actually lost all motivation for wrath and know I won’t be playing. Would be a different story if it was fresh. The fact that TBC ecosystem runs the way it does now tells me it will be the same in wrath, with different scenery. Pass
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Just wanted to pop in and say thanks for the well documented post. It really puts together the issues with Classic Era post TBCC launch. I also appreciate your courteous responses to other posters as it reflects well on the Era community.
As to the matter itself, the lack of responses to players detailing issues through official channels is the heart of the issue. The unfortunate reality is that the current Blizzard culture simply does not value player feedback nor quality from it’s maintenance games. SC2, WC3, HotS, Overwatch, and Era are all deeply suffering from gross mismanagement. Our only hope is to keep documenting issues so that fixes can be made once the Blizz culture corrects itself to value player feedback again. Someday, Era will truly be the Classic experience once again. Until then, keep up the good work on detailing what is wrong and what it should be. Even for all the players seeking a classic+ experience, I am sure the seasonal WoW devs would appreciate your input.
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Being a new player in Wrath Classic will be a complete nightmare….unless they add a fresh option.
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I also expected it to be like this. But, like you mention, this seems to be the pattern of Blizzard games.
They were pretty clear that knowledge of the game couldn’t be eliminated so it was to be expected that players that wanted to could learn the most optimal and easiest way of clearing content, which led to things like this. It was stated from the beginning that since you can’t unlearn things it could not be an exact recreation of the experience. What I mostly refer to is the 1.12 reference client, not the actual players or community.
I agree these changed the overall experience, but what I mostly refer to is not the players or community but the pure gameplay/world/items and experience when using your character and interacting with the game world.
Some of the other changes mentioned in this thread, like API changes, Battle.net integration, spell queuing and other things I don’t think change the gameplay much or its mechanics. Maybe for very heaving addon users some things might change related to ease of playing and game information. Other than that you would have to spam spells a bit faster than usual. I already spam spells so not that big change for me. It would be a bit more annoying to send mail items one at the time, but that would not have made me quit playing or anything just taking longer to send items.
Thanks! It took me a while lol.
This is my hope as well. This forum is supposed to be the official channel for feedback to the devs so here I am trying to detail what is happening, even if it gets ignored, because I have to try. All I want is for Classic Era to be like what they promised… WoW Classic pre-TBCC Forever. I’ve been hearing many similar stories with their other maintenance games as well.
I only play Era but WOTLK has me very worried just thinking of all the changes that will carry over to Era.
Your observations aren’t facts and figures
I’m not sure why it’s debated whether or not Classic was a success. Only Blizzard has access to the true “figures”, but I think it’s safe to say it was a success since it spawned not only the progression server currently at TBCC but SoM seasons as well.
I literally said exactly that.
It’s an MMO. You’re trying to draw a distinction that doesn’t exist.
Also the gameplay has fundamentally changed.
crushed /10char
Authentic was better done on a very small number of private servers. Some of us had a dream but that went out the window very early on. We settled because it was an offical Blizz server - but it wasnt authentic.
Man, all I wanted was Classic with raid content. Original Classic had practically 0. I was in an admittedly trash guild and only Naxx posed any sort of challenge. I don’t know what all those changes are about, and they kind of dropped the ball on the raid content as well (Blackwing Lair with twice as much HP was very tightly tuned and overall resulted in extremely interesting fights, I tested those in the PTR). Literally all I wanted was:
- Levelling of Classic
- Economy of Classic
- Dungeons of Classic
- Classes of Classic
- The ridiculous PvP grind of Classic for the deranged among us. I actually liked the fact that there were weapons in the game I’d never, ever have. Players don’t have to do literally everything.
Basically everything from Classic with actual raids and no world buffs. That didn’t sound like too much to ask, but apparently it was.
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Even if they released a version that replicated all the various patches as accurately as possible, we wouldn’t have an “authentic” experience. Everything is different - the players, the devs, the technology and the way we play the game. IMO, hoping for a truly authentic experience is a pipe dream. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed what I played of Classic and of TBCC. If life permits, I’ll enjoy the hell out of WotLKC, as well (though I may stop after.)
Yeah it was bubba. People can’t have it both ways. If you want to raid hard classic isn’t the game and never will be. Classic is a social game which is why world buffs are fine and easy raids are fine. Mythic plus is intended to be hard.
No argument from me on the state of the modern day player. When I say authentic its with the understanding that you can never really go back. I mean the game/server side of things could have been handled better - which is only my very subjective opinion - so take that for what its worth, which is not much at all.
Im not even talking about doing a perfect patch by patch recreation which is unrealistic given what they had to work with. Releasing content in stages is plenty good enough. The decision to go with patch 1.12 in regard to player talents and the other various tweaks throughout Vanilla’s lifespan made a lot of sense.
Where I parted ways with Blizz is A. Linking Classic to retail via the client and subscription and B. their decision to go with the “newer” Alterac Valley and cross realm BGs.
IMO, Classic should have been on its own client with its own subscription. That by itself would have ensured at least a somewhat more vested audience which could have possibly played a part in reigning in some of the player habits that can ruin an individual players experience.
Old AV and server only BGs were integral to the vanilla experience and I believe the BG part in particular could have been something that lent itself in building real server communities and negated a lot of crap that normie pvpers had to deal with.
That would have taken a real commitment on part of players and Blizz and in hindsight maybe it would have been all for naught given how it played out but I cant help but wonder if things might have been different if some of those variables were more suited to Vanilla.
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