Each expansion has had things removed from it. Some had big things such as entire expansion spanning questlines that were a big part of the story of the expansion.
It is time for blizzard to re add these removed questlines, dungeons, and raids back into WoW.
I want to play modern WoW. I want to see where the story goes. But because of the way I am wired I can’t play it because I can’t play it from the beginning. It sucks. It isn’t like all this stuff is lost to time. Classic WoW proves it. Just put it in modern WoW.
Pre-Cata Azeroth was probably a vanilla incentive but that’s kind of in the past so it coming to chromie time would be cool. I don’t know why mop-wod legendary questlines were removed.
All in all there isn’t much removed content, though.
Only Blizz knows why they remove actual story content from the game in the first place. In very few cases is it actually justified; they introduced mechanics like Zidormi to allow us to view different versions of select areas/zones if story events ever alter them.
If it’s because of rewards from these quests, I think it’s just those rewards that should be changed instead while leaving the quests/storylines in the game. MoP and WoD are missing significant sections of story with the removal of the legendary questlines and I think those expansions are worse for it.
I know why many things were removed. in past expansions this was just the way. The tech wasn’t there to have phasing to the extent they can do now. Need to revamp the old world? We got to replace it all. Battle of the undercity? We had to delete all the flags to make it actually work when cata dropped.
Legendary questlines? removed because of the rewards.
Naxxramas? Removed because it uses the same ID for wrath so there can’t be 2. same with many dungeons that got revamped.
Individual questlines cut out piecemeal in later expansions? Cut out so players didn’t have so much to do to get caught up to the new patch (some of the most egregious IMO considering they could have just made them not necessary which they later do in dragonflight with some things)
I honestly don’t see an issue at all with allowing newer players, or players who didn’t finish the quests to get the rewards. Who cares? The content/rewards are old. Millions of players already have them from playing during that time.
I think all the removed quests and rewards should be returned. Let those who wish to complete them, get the same thing I got back then.
Now the MoP and WoD legendary questlines will probably need a few things adjusted as I believe they both have PvP requirements from that time that are no longer valid.
Heck I want the Battle for Undercity event to come back on Retail. It’s been gone for greater than almost 14 years now. I’d love to be able to relive all of this old content that was removed for stupid reasons over time.
I don’t disagree that the quests should have just been left in, rewards and all, but from Blizzard’s perspective I imagine that the rewards are a factor in their removal. They’ve demonstrated time and again that they don’t want players feeling like they ‘have to’ go back and do ‘old content’ in order to be caught up. Hence why we eventually got three expansions in a row (Legion, BfA, SL) where the majority of character power was tied to temporary systems that were removed at the end of each of those expansions.
I can’t see Blizzard adding cut content back into the game, especially for much older expansions, unless they can somehow revamp it to make it work with the current expansion (that is what Siren Isle is; it was an Island Expedition from Battle for Azeroth that was cut from the game and they revamped it to tie it to the current expansion).
Maybe, and I stress the word maybe, I could see them adding some of that cut content to Season of Discovery if it progresses beyond WoW Classic and into expansion content. And then maybe they can bring some of that content into retail WoW after Season of Discovery ends so people can continue to engage with that new stuff.
Sure, some of those files still exist in the game, but they are incomplete. There is no ‘switch’ to flip, which magically makes the content playable as if it were never removed in the first place. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been cut from the game.
i doubt they will, it was a miracle for classic to even happen since almost nobody at blizz had the pre-cata version of wow working on the modern client, so i dont see all of the old stuff being put back into retail
Battle for Undercity being removed is still one of the most silly things they have done when it comes to removing content. Without it the area is still really good but if that was still in game I would recommend every new player level through and do all the quests leading up to the Battle for Undercity. The level of epic that chain had I don’t think has been repeated since.
To bad that they dont use the phasing/chromie system when it comes to removed content pre-cata.
Imagine creating a new char, lets say human, you start in Northshire but it’s the classic Northshire. You fight the Kobolds and level on as you did in Classic.
As you level up thru expansions and when you reach Cata, you’ll get a call from Stormwind that your help is needed in Northshire. Orcs are attacking, so you continue your adventure again and you get to revisit some of the old zones but they have changed to the Cata-ones.
That way, you dont have to remove old content and lore just because the new gameplay somehow demands it and you’ll get to experience how the zones are changing as you quest on.
I’ll never understand why they removed the main story line of MoP. Even if you get the cloak today, it’s still useless outdated gear. But it would give anyone that wants it access to that rare on the island, which would only be for mog purposes.
And seeing how Cromie “time travels” you to specific expansions, how about a low xp gain start at Vanilla and go through each expansion in order, like it use to be, for those that want it.
Blizzard was trying to do the cloak as a limited time reward. Instead of removing the legendary cloak and adding a questing or raid model one they just got rid of the whole quest. Maybe it was just easier to do that way. Blizzard also said they would give people another way to get to the rare on the island but never did.
Frankly I am still confused as to why they removed the og Battle for Undercity from Wrath.
Still waiting on bringing back the original Upper Blackrock Spire instance, or at the very least a way to earn the weapon and armor appearances from that raid/instance. WOD replaced it with a new version.
The elemental council even in silithus can no longer be done since the mobs do not drop the necklace and ring you need along with the twilight outfit to summon the various stage bosses of the event.
removing Battle for Undercity from WOTLK is a sad moment. The quests and story of dragonblight just sort of end on a dead note and now you have an inconsitiency where NPCs associated with the apothacary arent in UC anymore in the post cata version, but were present in the wrathgate cinematic. You dealt with Putress in the battle for undercity, now he shows up in the cinematic then just peaces out never seen again. It’s awkward.
I would also like to see Quel’delar, Rhokdelar and Benediction/Anathema returned. You could do these quests in WOTLK when you far higher level than when they were current, so why would being higher level now be a problem?
I want to see Legion and BFA style kill this 1 rare style world quests return.
Not sure if it’s still a thing, but you can’t mix and match some legion artifact appearances if you are a spec that dual wields, the game forces the offhand to be the matching pair to the main hand, whereas in Legion you could mix different MH and OHs. For example in Legion my shaman was able to have the Doomhammer archaeology reskin MH appearance for the OH while using a different doomhammer appearance for the MH. If I try use the archaeology reskin of Doomhammer now it only works for the MH, and the OH is the fiery OH model only.
X boss must die style weekly quests.
Promise of Demise and Timear Forsees Daily heroic style quests are still sort of in the game as the weekly to complete a specific dungeon from the NPC by the steps just outside the inn where you pick up the weeklies but we in WOTLK we also used to have a weekly quest to kill a raid boss in a previous tier raid. Even when TOC and ICC were the current raid you were still going into Ulduar for XT and naxxramas for Anub’rekhan for the weekly, which helped keep raids alive when they werent current anymore.
Championing a faction by doing dungeons. In MOP you used to be able to earn rep with the expansion by championing a faction for the day as a way to earn rep with them instead of doing dailies which was good for people that didnt want/like to do dailies but still wanted the rep. It wasnt as big a gains as just wearing the tabard and running the dungeons like we had in WOTLK and cata, but it was still rep you could earn by doing the content you want/like to do. I have plenty of guildies who want rep but dont do world quests but do run dungeons because they prefer that gameplay over the monotony that is quests. Also for some reason the 3rd boss in Neltharion’s Lair in Legion gives 250 rep with highmountain tauren when you kill it so maybe completing a dungeon once a day/week could give so rep.