I normally post from my Classic warrior, but forums are acting weird and won’t let me switch. But I figure I’ll post anyways.
At this point it’s safe to assume MoP Classic will follow after Cata Classic is done, and with that comes a very unique opportunity for Blizz to “preserve” prestige/transmog gatekeeping, while giving people a new opportunity to finally earn it & bring new players into classic t’boot.
What am I talking about?
If it wasn’t clear yet- I think any limited-time gear earned in Classic should be unlocked in Retail as a reward. For now, this only pertains to Elite PvP sets- but will apply to Challenge Mode sets when MoP Classic and maybe even Artifact appearances in Legion Classic one day.
- Some of these sets have been locked away by the sands of time for over a decade, and are in hot demand
- The requirement to unlock these sets will be balance-appropriate to the difficulty/skill needed to unlock them when they were originally available
- This serves as a healthy way to skill-gate prestigious items, while letting new players try their hand at getting them
- It brings new and old players alike to play Classic more and spice up the world a bit
As someone who has very much wanted this feature for WoW, I have done my homework to see the most common rebuttal to players who ask for these limited-time sets to return is often “Nope. Should’ve been there when it was available”.
Now, my opinion of that sentiment aside, I think Classic presents a unique opportunity for players to experience what the class design, balance, and mechanics were all like back then. To that point, if there’s a reward they’d hypothetically want on their retail characters, I feel there’s no better incentive than asking them to do the whole 9-yards; making a character, levelling, questing, grinding, joining a guild, etc.
Anecdotally, I have a few Elite PvP sets to my name that I love to mog into and /flex with. Same goes for Challenge Mode sets. I like that they feel like a cosmetic trophy that I can show off, even if nobody else actually gives a sh*t lol. But I also like the idea that anyone else can get them, but only if they go through the same rigorous test of skills that I had to do. A rite of passage. After all, once < Old Expansion > Classic passes, that unique opportunity to get those sets again goes away forever, once more.
So to that string of logic, I personally plan on grinding out for the Elite Ruthless Gladiator Warrior set when Firelands comes out. Simply because I never got it back in the day (I was a teenager who watched Swifty on YouTube because I sucked at PvP myself). But since Retail is still my main WoW game between Classic seasons, It sure would be awesome to have these classic accomplishments uniformally granted to my account.
I plan on getting that Elite set even if this feature request never happens, but I think many others would join in with a little more care if they could show off these sets and such on retail as well. Seeing as most Classic players I meet do exercise some degree of alternation between Classic and Retail anyways. Why not have your achievements across both games be displayable across either?
Something to consider. I think it’s a great compromise between “bring elite/CM sets back” and “no, you should’ve done them at the time because the game was so different back then”.
