Blizzard is doing an excellent job right now and players are happy and having the most fun they’ve had with the game in over a decade. SoD is very clearly bringing about a renaissance period for WoW. “But what’s next?” is the pivotal question in keeping the upward momentum of success going for classic. I believe if done correctly, an official Classic+ version of the game WILL have the potential to succeed the subscriber count the game previously had during the original Wotlk retail era.
We want SoD to evolve into Classic+ with the following features:
Level cap remain 60
Viability for all class specs (Updated talent trees)
New class spells (e.g. SoD runes)
New playable races
New class/race combinations (e.g. Horde paladins & Alliance shamans)
Dual Spec availability
Group Finder tool (Pairs you into groups but doesn’t teleport you to instances)
Cataclysm main city visual updates
Visual updates to character models and environments
New zones (Within Azeroth continents)
New raids/dungeons
New quests and items
Tier set specializations for each class/role
New battlegrounds + Arenas
Exclusive PvP armor & weapons
And other non-essential QoL updates, such as summoning stones and extra flight masters in each zone, etc. But I believe I’ve listed the most welcomed changes wanted by the community.
Most of this I agree with, if not all, but I would like if they left the talent trees alone. There is a lot of cool, niche things you can do with them. Maybe use the runes from SoD to fill gaps that the talent trees are missing.
I think talents for certain specs could use some fine tuning without fundamentally compromising them. Some talents could be rearranged in the tree or slightly tweaked to make for better class optimization. Not to mention that the trees weren’t adjusted at all to welcome the changes that the new rune system brought to the game.
The talent trees are too much of a core system to mess with imo. I would be pretty sad if they messed with them. I love going through the talent calculator and trying to see what I can make. I feel like quite a few people here have been around for the entire history of the talent tree changes and agree these have always been the best ones by far.
If they want to change some of the talents they could add runes that change how a talent works to make it more catered to what you want to use it for. That way you would have to use a rune slot in order to make the talent more to your liking.
IMO the talent trees may not be perfect but its what allows for creativity and personalization of your spec and character.
I 100% agree. But a prot paladin for example, has the consecration talent (which is arguably their best tanking ability) in the holy tree. I think an optimal solution for pally tanks would be to either swap the “consecration” talent in the holy tree with the “improved conc aura” talent in prot tree, or to remove consecration as a talent altogether (replacing it with something else) and make it a learned ability that is available to all paladins at level 20. That would imo improve the talent trees for the class without fundamentally compromising it.
Need this. And raid finder. BUT NOT A GIMPED VERSION OF THE RAID. The regular raid. And the full raid. Not “oh you can do two bosses this week”. God, I hate that about retail.
Nor was I. If it’s okay with OP, can people be allowed to speak for themselves, rather than being assumed to agree with what you want and labeled as “we”? Because some of what you posted, I would like in SoD or Classic+, but some other things I have little to no interest in - e.g. I don’t really care much one way or another about summoning stones - or I actively do not want - e.g. LFD-style group finder.
I don’t think raid finder is a good idea, personally. I think it disincentivizes people from seeking and forming guilds that can provide them with quality raid experiences. That’s a step towards the retail version of the game we’re trying to escape from, imo.
Not to mention, LFR in retail is a far worse experience than pugging a normal raid in retail. You get like somewhere between 20 and 30 people put together randomly, then about a third of them immediately AFK, or hit one button a minute while scrolling Tiktok or something, and make the fights take significantly longer because they can’t be bothered to actually play the game they’re subscribing for. It’s often easier to pug the normal difficulty for a retail raid and clear it with just minimal communication and reading the dungeon journal.
It’s not like the vast majority of bosses in vanilla have any difficult mechanics or completely outrageous gear checks, and it’s also not like the game isn’t completely deconstructed to make almost any boss a cakewalk if you are actually paying attention to your monitor.
I disagree. I don’t think these are the changes that ruined the retail experience on their own. I think raising the level cap and leaving azeroth as the main content, difficulty nerf, dungeon/raid finder and flying mounts are what fundamentally broke retail.
New playable races are so overblown. Seems like a waste of development time when the excitement of a new race dies in a day and quickly becomes the new normal. I’d rather have their focus spent on more long lasting important issues and content like caster scaling, caster mana efficiency, new quests/zones/dungeons/raids/loot, re-itemized tier loot for all specs.
Also why would you want graphical updates to vanilla wow? Retail is a bouncy, gaudy, ugly game and those visuals were Blizzard’s idea of “better, more up to date visuals.” They’re expressive and bulge-y eyed and seriously offputting.
Also I don’t care either way about Alliance Shaman or Horde Paladins, specific faction differences is cool, and both factions having both classes is also fine. All the other features you said I agree with though.
edit: group finder should have no automation whatsoever. It should just be a UI menu to make listed groups for specific activities more visible and legible, rather than the cluster**** of reading LFG chat, or relying on addons to do it.
I have irl friends that refuse to play WoW because they feel the visuals are outdated. I think texture updates to environments and updated race models are a positive QoL change to the game.
I agree with most of this and I am a traditionist.
But here is the problem… They are still betting on the retail expansion and all the developing power (best dev) has been focusing on the Trilogy ahead. I will never play retail as its not an mmo. Retail plays more like Tekken than an MMO.
The only way they do any of this is if they release a new version of classic that we need to buy. I would love a graphical update to wow and talent tree revamps. Maybe more stuff. I just dont want flying mounts, Alliance and Horde hugfests and lets play dressup transmog.
If we can prove people would pay for an updated classic beyond a sub fee. They would build it and assemble a larger team.