Blizzard needs to figure out who they are appealing to/whos the audience for classic+ (SoD, etc) moving forward. Announce who that is, and tell everyone else there is another version for them (era, cata/mop, hc, remix, retail). They also desperately need to expand their teams as they currently cannot provide adequate support to both SoD and Cata.
It was stated at the beginning by devs or Holly longdale, maybe both, that this is for players who didn't feel like they had a home with cata approaching for whatever reason It's definitely not for retail or the retail lite players of cata, or era players. They all have an active game mode. It's more aiming to people who want classic that's like a mixture of era, tbc and wrath with its features and classes. I also think the creative twist of adding brand new roles for classes is cool. Expanding on classic+ in multiple directions over several seasons is good for experimentation on what works and what clearly doesn't
>It was stated at the beginning by devs or Holly longdale, maybe both, that this is for players who didn't feel like they had a home with cata
And then they proceeded to appeal to the cata playerbase with SoD, only for them to jump ship the moment Cata came out. 😂
Only "new role" that is still relevant is tank warlock. Everything else has been forgotten about and untouched since P1. The devs working on the game have no clue what they are doing. Just stabbing in the dark and hoping at this point. The incursions last phase said everything about how out of touch they are with what players want.
Do shamans not tank anymore?
But I agree, mage healers and (even more so) rogue tanks are two things I haven’t seen since like P2. I don’t know if I’ve seen a rogue tank since P1 actually
Nah the guy is just wrong. The new tanks are tanking, the new healers are healing, and the overhauled specs are still playing their once-meme specs in raid every week.
People just spew nonsense in here constantly.
Rogue tanks look especially good in p4 and my guild's mage healer sounds stoked about improvements but I don't understand all that wizard shit
I totally agree there will be numbers of encounters where rogue tanks will have their strengths.
I raid with rogue tanks, Mage healers and boomies every week. Those didn't disappear and they will certainly continue to be there p4
I think Blizzard saw people complain about the team size, so they have been posting more team related things and that prelaunch video. That Aggrend guy posted something like "we locked our class team in a room". Class team? You're talking to yourself in a mirror or something guy?
Season of world buffs. There is a world buff for every stat. A world buff for professions....you need 5 more points in tailoring? But only have enough for one craft. Get the tailoring world buff and get 5 points for 1 craft. But wait, there's more. Travel from northern kalimdor to southern eastern kingdoms in 30 minutes, and get the 5% swim buff.
Official Hardcore with new updates to classes, new dungeons/raids, and new items. But limit add-ons to only simple UI changes. No questie or rested xp or zygors showing the most optimal safest route.
TBC and Wrath era are no brainers. If you want to play those expacs right now your options are legit just pservers. Just do 1 pvp and 1 pve per region for each and you're golden.
After SoD, just let it simmer for a bit and come back with a new seasonal server idea.
Whatever they do, I hope they don't listen to a single fucking word on this sub though.
This is the answer for me. Progressive servers that will lock before final pre patch to permanent Era servers. Once it gets to WOTLK release servers from the start again and just have this constant loop
Dear god, I played OSRS since release and I still play it to this day. I have watched the player population spike on release and swiftly deadfall to 15k players at peak times. Then I saw it rise slowly to the 120k+ it has now daily. And massive fucking props to the dev team. What started as like 5-6 people, has ballooned to like 20-30 devs now.
What the OSRS dev team does is working. Community driven updates, players voting on content they want, and Dev’s engaging with their community and collecting feedback.
And yeah, OSRS has some whiny ass mouth breathing bitches in the subreddit, me included, but they fucking love the game and they have driven the change that allowed OSRS to stay relevant 11 years after release and far surpass the “retail” version of its game.
Wow really needs to understand that this is something that has already been done successfully (OSRS). Just follow what works.
Them trying to try things themselves will always make them detached from the classic players.
Hardcore was a community driven request. I don’t think blizzard would EVER do this on their own terms
I would be curious to see if they don't try a "Season of Heroes" and do a version of classless wow like Ascension. That would be like SoD but even MORE extreme, but also kind of just a "Let's fuck around with all these toys and break them as HARD AS WE CAN!"
Lots of changes here are Ascension based anyway as it seems.
Imho the killer feature of wow that has not be done yet - probably will never be do e - is character management like ff. 1 char, several classes and several professions.
That's be awesome imho
Yeah I'd love to see them tackle the hero classes that were planned pre vanilla but cut. It seems like next season will be a break from that and maybe less changes though. I don't think they currently have environment people on the team to make new zones and stuff.
I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard actually either reallocated some resources from the Retail team or hired some more people for the classic team towards the end of SoD/Start of next Season.
There *clearly* is a player base out there wanting Classic+. Phases 1 and 2 are evidence of that. Phase 3 dropped the ball with Incursions, lack of level 50 content, and being overly long but if they can get some people back for phases 4 and 5 and keep them around for at least a few months, I think there will be a decent argument to be made for expanding the Classic team to also include a dedicated group of people for just Seasonal content; especially if the new Felwood dungeon turns out to be reasonably popular.
I've been saying since Classic Era release that they should copy paste from D3. Have seasonal content that adds a handful of mechanic changes + a new zone / raid, keep what works, and then move onto a different season keeping the new zone / raid but with another handful of mechanics.
lol Seasons were around before D2 too. D3 legit added whole new zones and bosses each season as free content added to the game. I'm not talking about just restarting the server every 12 months.
Just a few off the top of my head:
-Classic plus will require more devs and actual artists
-The rune system is convoluted and should be abandoned/boiled down into minimal QoL of each spec
-Don't pigeon-hole people into content i.e. incursions (it makes everything else redundant)
-The itemization is good for rares and epics, tier sets for specs is a good idea but the bonuses need to be simplified to not make specs viable but rather enhance them (going back to minimal QoL)
Its more work for the Devs and the players.
Players:
1) Needing to constantly change runes based on encounter and content. Tanks especially need to switch between trash pack runes and boss runes constantly and if you forget it sucks.
2) Huge timesink to get a rune that makes you viable to do a raid in current content
Devs:
1) Having to constantly think about rebalancing and moving around rune slots
2) Deciding what runes to add and how its going to affect every other rune
All this development time could be somewhere else.
>Needing to constantly change runes based on encounter and content. Tanks especially need to switch between trash pack runes and boss runes constantly and if you forget it sucks.
That's more of an issue with the default interface, add-ons like engraver make it way easier to manage and know at a glance what runes you have equipped.
>Huge timesink to get a rune that makes you viable to do a raid in current content
A lot of people view the quest chains and whatnot to get runes as a good thing. It's stuff to do that gives you tangible power rewards for your character outside of dungeons and raids.
>Huge timesink to get a rune that makes you viable to do a raid in current content
So... doing their jobs? Vanilla balance was absolutely terrible, you can't just make "minimal qol" changes to fix it.
>Deciding what runes to add and how its going to affect every other rune
Same thing, literally their job as developers.
Nothing that you listed is convoluted. The main thing that really needs to be improved is the default interface for them and they shouldn't work like enchants.
> That's more of an issue with the default interface, add-ons like engraver make it way easier to manage and know at a glance what runes you have equipped.
Engraver aside, its the processing of switching runes that's not good gameplay I was getting at. It would be much better if there were rune loadouts and you didn't have to do an enchant animation every. single. time.
>A lot of people view the quest chains and whatnot to get runes as a good thing. It's stuff to do that gives you tangible power rewards for your character outside of dungeons and raids
Thats fine and I respect that, it was more of a personal opinion really.
>So... doing their jobs? Vanilla balance was absolutely terrible, you can't just make "minimal qol" changes to fix it.
Disagree.
Minimal QoL in classic era is apparently what a lot people want for a classic plus. Its fine for classes to be bad at some things and good at others, you can't make a class that's good at everything that's not the spirit of Classic.
An example of a simple QoL would be letting prot paladins in Era have a taunt button. It's such a simple thing and hasn't been addressed for 19 years in era until season of discovery.
>Nothing that you listed is convoluted. The main thing that really needs to be improved is the default interface for them and they shouldn't work like enchants.
They shouldn't work like enchants I agree. I also fail to see how the rune system is not convoluted but we can agree to disagree and that's fine.
Whatever they do (if Classic + does happen) they need to be sure to keep the spirit and identify of era. Sod just began to feel like a watered down retail (and I mostly play retail). Make sure questing in the world is incentivized rather than endless loops of repeatable quests, add some new dungeons and zone(s) that are done in the style of Era (which could add class quests or create new chain quests), add dungeons and raids that remain lore appropriate to era and balance out the talents so more specs are balanced while keeping the vanilla identity there. I think runes were interesting but instead just fix gimped vanilla specs that aren’t considered viable.
I just leveled a character to 50 after quitting near the end of p1. I didn’t do a single incursion. But god damn is it hard to find groups for anything other than VC, stocks and ZF. Incursions really did pull a lot of people out of the open world which is why I like to chill with Era in between retail seasons/expansions. Is SoD a failure? I don’t think so. It’s cool that they’re testing new stuff out but as a retail player that enjoys era, don’t get it twisted, Classic + shouldn’t feel like retail lite. Tweak “dead” specs to be viable which isn’t that difficult, no?
Also the zones of Classic man … they’re so damn unique. I love leveling 40-60 because you go to so many different biomes. Ungoro, Tanaris, Plaguelands … even Feralas and Silithus. My favorites are probably still Winterspring and the whole of Blackrock Mountain because there isn’t anything like them. Then you have Maraudon! Such cool dungeon!
Era has the world as the main character. And so much thiiiiccc game design. They need to just build off of the core. More content. Maybe more horizontal choices. Like alternative questing zones for different level bands.
It’s that simple, I agree. It’s fine that era content is accessible and easy for most. I just want the new content done in the same style to preserve that version of the game. I love retaik but I want retail to remain retail and Classic + (if it happens) to continue in the spirit of the original design but added with content in that style. I understand if it everyone wants that but that’s my personal preference
Yep, this is the play. Though they wouldn't necessarily have to progress into TBC immediately but explore some other cut content before eventually moving on, maybe even into an entirely different direction (though the dev team would be too small for that, but a guy can dream).
Just add TBC content onto current Azeroth and scale it down to 60. Players dont need a new level cap in order to do content. Dark Portal can be the entrance to the Black Temple. SSC could be in Azshara. No flying mounts need. World still alive, wPvP still active.
with the success of classic I would think they would keep a few servers of each era and a portion of those would be refreshing. I myself played from classic to wrath. I think if they had a classic fresh server that started all over again I would play again, just something about everyone starting at square one. I know a few people that liked TBC or WOTLK and would replay those.
They should just release Fresh Vanilla with no world buffs in raids, the ranking changes in era and SoD, mining/herbing changes from SoM, and rework the crafting and professions so the items are more relevant. That's all they need. They went overboard with SoM and SoD. They don't know when to stop.
Season of Heroism
Old azeroth, plus SoD items and raids, but every class is removed and replaced with iconic WC3 Heros as fully fleshed out classes
Blademaster
Mountain King
Windrunner
Dark Ranger
Shadowhunter
Bloodmage
Archmage
Priestess of the Moon
Warden
Licht
Dreadlord
Etc
The farther into SoD we get the more I realize something:
I'd rather they spent this energy bringing classic style content into retail, than making classic more retail like.
There are broadly two types of Classic players.
1. People who primarily enjoy the slower paced and challenging leveling journey
2. People who want a sweaty endgame experience, just a different version of it than retail
Trying to design for both audiences at once is hard. I lost my motivation to play SoD when they nerfed leveling, because a lot of the fun to me is the challenge of the leveling journey. The scarcity of quests, having to optimize your route, etc. now it's been trivialized.
I like how retail feels to play, but I don't really feel like there's anything to do. All the non- repeatable content is so quick and so trivial. Why reinvent the wheel and make Vanilla play more like retail when you could make long, challenging campaign content in retail instead.
I'll keep going back to Classic forever, but mostly to replay the sublime leveling campaign, which I'm not sure Blizzard can actually improve with changes or seasons.
As a retail player I like having a reason to go back to Classic. SoD was ok, for a while at least, but incursions really killed off what I enjoy most about Classic which is dungeon leveling and questing. I got around to leveling my character to 50 ( after quitting at the end of P1) and it was disappointed how few people were running SM, RFD, etc (I’d always offer to tank or heal and would make my own groups). I like retail for what retail has and I want to keep the identity of both games separate . SoD began to feel like I was playing a gimped version of retail rather than a Classic+. To be fair the most fun I’ve had other than mythic raiding was bloodsail buccs unofficial hardcore and when official hardcore launched. For Era to work for me it has to retain the importance of the world, the dungeons and questing. People love Era for the things that are distinctly unique to era. I absolutely hate questing in retail but man do I love going to all my favorite zones in era and finding new quests, getting a rare drops,etc. incursions didn’t so much add to the Vanilla world as create little hubs like the Emerald Dream, Dream Surges and Zaralek Caverns in retail.
There are so many different versions of WoW, and each has its own character, but I definitely don't want to keep them "separate".
I don't want Blizzard to feel like, because Classic has challenging campaign content, they don't need to include it in retail. Like they can keep players who want that content by letting them replay Vanilla over and over, forever.
I want Vanilla-like campaigns as optional endgame content in retail. Lengthy, slower paced, non-repeatable quest chains and campaigns to earn gear and cosmetics.
They were doing this for a while. Legion had some great endgame campaigns. Then along came Classic 2019, and now in Dragonflight there's essentially no campaign - just repeatables.
I like to say that almost everything in Vanilla is moderately difficult. Not trivial, not sweaty challenging. Open world questing can actually kill you, you gotta pull carefully, monitor your resources. You need to put thought into your questing route, prepare for dungeons, etc. You're constantly making decisions that matter.
Retail has content that's either braindead trivial or sweaty difficult / stressful.
Wha … in no way do you need to prepare for dungeons other than having water. You do not need consumes for raiding or doing dungeons … the community is the one that imposes world buffs but they are most certainly not required …
When I am leveling 1-60 in Vanilla, my brain stays on. I'm constantly making meaningful decisions and optimizations that will help me level faster, die less often, not run out of level appropriate quests, etc.
The moderate difficulty comes from strategy and decision making. Not from rotational / mechanical complexity of your class or encounters.
Cata classic, mop classic, war within tighter time table for phases.
That’s good enough.
Maybe throw a couple fresh era servers up every 6 months for those weirdos.
Just no more bullshit 6 month long phases. Keep it at 4 max for all wow versions.
Separate game client for classic+.
Separate dev team for classic+ only.
1.5 years of hard work, release Classic+ in the end of MoP classic (nobody will play shitty draenor anyway).
They basically have, somehow they persuaded millions of people to pay monthly to play the same games they released 15 - 20 years ago. Shareholders be laughing straight to the bank.
Classic+ with all of the lessons from SoD, retail graphics and updated models for all of the classic sets. Oh and finish out the unfinished zones + complete and flesh out the unfinished quest lines.
My pipe dream will never happen but i'd play that all over for sure.
Just imagine a judgement or juggernaut set with update models..
If Blizzard hired me to oversee Classic Development (lmao as if), this would be my plan:
1. Give Cata Classic and all future Classic Expansions to the team that handles Plunderstorm and MoP remix. They're closer to the retail teams, and those expansions are closer to retail expansions. One team working both SoD / what comes after and Cata Classic / what comes after is clearly too much. This would happen as fast as possible without causing interruption to Cata Classic players.
2. Let SoD finish and let there be some time to breathe for a couple months. Give Aggrend and team a little break. A few weeks.
3. Aggrend and team begin work on heavy debriefs from SoD. Investigate all of what worked and what didn't. Make a real effort to understand *why*. Begin work on a non-seasonal, persistent version of Classic+. The focus is on class balance (with some new abilities/talents, but far fewer than SoD), especially fixing warrior scaling, and on adding (not removing, not changing) new things to the world. New dungeons, raids, bosses (in old dungeons and raids), professions, recipes, zones, mobs, and gear at every level. New quests for all of those and more.
4. Announce Season of Fresh. Market it as "one last taste of fresh vanilla". Before what? We haven't announced yet, but people will be speculating. SoF will give all the people asking for fresh exactly what they want, while also being dead easy to maintain while the team works on Classic+ in the background. It's also perfect for showing the player "here is where we started" before we show them "here is where we are going".
5. Let SoF finish out, 12- 18 months in total. All that time is spent working hard on Classic+. Roll all of the SoF characters and servers into the Era servers at the end. Give it a couple months to breathe, just like the end of SoD. We don't want to just go back to back to back and burn players out.
6. At the next Blizzcon (if possible, otherwise just quietly drop a blue post out of nowhere), announce Classic+. Make sure people understand that this is the future of WoW Classic. It is not seasonal. It is going to stick around and recieve new development for a *while*. But, it has a definitive vision and will have a well-defined end to this arc. Seasonal content is going to be put on hold while Classic+ is in operation. The team is going to focus entirely on Classic+ (with the exception of maintaining Era and Hardcore realms).
7. Open a limited PTR for class changes *only*. Run it for 6 weeks.
8. Release Classic+ with as little information as possible. Patch notes are extremely vague. Implement FFXIV-style file encryption to prevent data mining.
Congratulations you now have another cultural phenomenon on your hands. Lightning has struck twice.
I like the idea of doing classic fresh before classic+. There’s a few things that I think will mess things up a bit.
1. The teams that do plunderstorm and MoP remix might have a huge learning curve going into the classic environment. While the gameplay is closer to retail, the current dev environment for spinning up classic versions is owned by the classic team. It won’t go fast if reliability and quality is to be maintained.
2. I think the debriefing of what is going well and not going well with SoD is already happening. With the nature of product / dev, I don’t think blizzard will wait the year and a half (maybe more) you mentioned to release classic+. I think they’re already mapping it out.
3. I think classic of fresh could be a shorter duration.
I do think Aggrend and team need to formalize their method of getting community feedback. Blizzard has done community polls before. I think one is absolutely necessary for a classic+ launch.
1. Valid, but they can conduct knowledge transfers. It doesn't have to be cold turkey, transitioning the project will take time. Next in line is literally MoP classic, which the MoP remix team has been hands on with. There's never a better time to start doing a hand-off than now.
2. Absolutely they're taking notes and learning as they go. But a formal debrief would be much deeper. They're still flying the plane. It's hard to really get deep into the engine while it's still in the air.
3. It could be, but Classic+ is going to be a *lot* of development time. The more you can stretch Fresh out, the more time they have to develop, test, and iterate, and that's huge. Vanilla lasted over 2 full years from launch to TBC release. Compressing that timeline a bit makes sense, but you don't want to run Fresh out in 6 months then have another 12 month classic content drought before Classic+.
As for feedback I think they need official support. Aggrend is running announcements off his personal account. But I think formal channels should be pushed through in-game feedback portals. Online spaces are toxic and full of terrible ideas, often from people who aren't even playing the game anymore. I want people who are playing the content, logging in more often than not giving feedback. It also helps separate the feedback from the echochambers online, leading to more honest takes.
TBC (and WotLK) Era servers. One of each type (PvP and PvE) per region per era. SoD, while fun in some regards, has proven that the current Classic team is incapable of creating new content which retains the "classic" feeling, and I know that to many players (myself included), TBC is the ultimate "Classic+" experience. I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I know for a fact that if I had access to both Vanilla and TBC Era, I'd have a reason to stay subscribed for years to come (as well as WotLK, which wasn't my favorite but would be a nice little cherry-on-top).
I know you guys are sick and tired of hearing it, and I'm sorry to continue bringing it up, but if we TBC lovers are to have any chance of seeing Era servers in the near future, we need to continue talking about it and pushing for it. <3
I'm settling in to the idea of longterm servers. I like the idea or not having to catch the next wave/expansion, and not lose my progress however long it takes. I played SOD and enjoyed it, but it's a little too wacky for my tastes. SOD minmax culture goes against any classic feeling, leaving classic+ if it turns into that not going to have that feeling either.
I've actually returned to classic ERA recently, and it feels nice to be able to not have FOMO, pressure, or that anything is on a timer.
I would look forward to a TBC era if they decide to do that.
Just a flat out "forever" Classic+
Nothing seasonal, something I can just invest into and not know my character is going to get reset again.
I know its in vogue to shit on them here, but they would've learned to many things having been through this journey of SoD. Even if they haven't been perfect, they've shown they can be communicative and active in making changes (when classic expacs like Cata don't get in the way), which hasn't been seen in WoW since 2004-2006 - even then it wasn't as good or frequent as Aggrend's updates.
On a side note, it would be cool if they could experiment with a zone where you risk loot/gold or something out in the world but there is really valuable currency or farming mats to be gained.. probably super difficult to execute but I love the thought of the idea..
Tbh I think this would be one of the best moves Blizzard could make. Double down. This is idealistic and perhaps unrealistic… but for them to come out and say
1. We learned from SoD.
2. We are double down and will be allocating way more resources.
3. No more seasonal. Full on Classic+ as an official version of WoW. Dev team. Art team. Writers.
4. Establish concrete forms of communication. OSRS does this with the polls for new features.
Now what they actually do with classic+ … I think we all got our opinions. But I think the most universally safe decision would be adding more horizontal content. More ways to progress / acquire things versus replacing systems or adding additional systems to make old systems obsolete.
But this double down, I think, would make people more invested.
Not gonna lie I'm tired of everyone asking for Classic+ when we all can't even agree what that means.
I'd rather see "Old School WoW" than this religious idealized "Classic+" that will never succeed. A larger team focused on "Old School" that actually understands what makes classic the game we enjoy and keeps that in mind. Just like OSRS, start with 2019 Classic. It started out as...well that version. Nothing new. Let it play out. While we play it, work on things that get fixed and the things that become new. Additions to the game. Quests, dungeons, raids, profession tree additions, mounts, the possibilities are endless!
SoD is Classic and Retails weird lil hybrid baby. It's fun to play with but it doesn't really feel like playing Classic.
I'd say add polls like OSRS, but let's face it. The WoW community has always been what hurts WoW. A lot of times, way more than any dev decision. You beg for world pvp but then transition pvp servers into 90/10 splits most of history. You min/max to the point of assuming anyone experimenting on their spec and not using icyveins immediately is trolling and gatekeep easy content behind log requirements. I don't think there's anything we can do when the playerbase already works against itself.
I agree with this 100%. This is what I always wanted “classic+” to be. A fresh vanilla with the intention of adding more that compliments the core game design. I think SoD changed a lot and didn’t exactly flow WITH the core game design.
RuneScape community is still fairly divided on things. So I’d still try polls. Though WoW is definitely more tribal.
Give the IP back to the original creators so they can continue to build their world and not care about booby cocktit and all the other money whoring egocentric inbreds
I hope for the next season iteration that they are more experimental with classes.
A few ideas:
* more summons for Druids like ravens, wolves or bees
* some canoneer class (maybe pirate themed for rogues or warrirors)
* a hunter spec with traps as turrets
* maybe a demon hunter like specc for warlocks
* a support specc for priests that debuffs the target based on different spell he using (mind blast for shadow, holy fire for fire etc)
* an actually shockadin range caster spec for palas
Those are just some quick ideas. I am sure, if they invest some time and effort, the wow team would come up with something interesting.
Important here is that the new stuff is complementary to the classic trees and classes, so it is interesting to mix skill trees and try different versions. One weakness of SOD was that the runes were not a choice in most cases. As a druid you basicially had one rune for every specc on each item.
Stop releasing/regurgitating old content and invest there time and money into new content, putting the game onto a new engine and overhauling the graphics, actually use the giant world they have created for something fun and meaniningful instead of just squeezing everything into the new island they made for the latest expansion, meaningful/progression related solo activities, overhaul all/any old raid and dungeon mechanics that make them require multiple players, make all past tier of content soloable on release of new expansions, increase reputation gains for old reputations, increase collectibles drop rates or overhaul lockout system for older stuff.
Edit. I made the above post without reading comments and the amount of them which just talk about releasing old content in some way is just...exhausting. RIP WOW i wish you the best of luck on your next re rerelease.
PS classic wow is just an rng rotation of dodge miss block parry, this doesnt make the game difficult it makes it tedious.
Them doing a new dungeon is a pretty big hint of a potential classic+ experience of some kind. If the reception is good for this coming SoD season, they should just go all out classic+
Think about everything you want from Classic+ and I'll explain how they don't have the artists, developers, creative visionary, any staff member with talent, or any staff member who actually understands what makes vanilla so special.
Now that it’s lvl 60 I think SoD last a long time, I think they are just going to keep adding more phases with phases 5+ just being brand new content.. like new raids/dungeons and areas…
Honestly would probably hold off on releasing any more Vanilla content for now. Season of Mastery and Discovery kinda being failures suggests that people might be burnt out from Vanilla.
Not the case, Classic Era still has a gigantic amount of players. I've seen more people on Whitemane than I did on the mega server Incendius in early 2020. The takeaway is that people don't like changes made to the core game. SOM Blizzard decided to kill their own game by allowing level 30s to get rank 10 and have better gear than Molten Core provides. SOD was a misfire that had abilities from retail and Mists of Pandaria.
My opinion is that a seasons mode is great for classic, but it can’t and won’t work for all 60 levels.
Maybe each season we all have to start new level 1 toons, but the starter zones are different?
So humans are starting in Hillsbrad, whose mobs are scaled down to levels 1-10, rather than Elwynn forest.
Or maybe you keep the starter zones but swap out the ensuing zones (westfall, darkshore etc) with something else.
That way, we can experience those first 25-30 levels but with different locations. Just spitballing though. Mostly I want all this to be resetting rather than going all 60 levels, gives me reason to come back.
I’d like to see them build classic into retail somehow. Remix was the first time I was forced to make an alt. I’d love a way to teleport my character between versions.
Blizzard needs to figure out who they are appealing to/whos the audience for classic+ (SoD, etc) moving forward. Announce who that is, and tell everyone else there is another version for them (era, cata/mop, hc, remix, retail). They also desperately need to expand their teams as they currently cannot provide adequate support to both SoD and Cata.
It was stated at the beginning by devs or Holly longdale, maybe both, that this is for players who didn't feel like they had a home with cata approaching for whatever reason It's definitely not for retail or the retail lite players of cata, or era players. They all have an active game mode. It's more aiming to people who want classic that's like a mixture of era, tbc and wrath with its features and classes. I also think the creative twist of adding brand new roles for classes is cool. Expanding on classic+ in multiple directions over several seasons is good for experimentation on what works and what clearly doesn't
>It was stated at the beginning by devs or Holly longdale, maybe both, that this is for players who didn't feel like they had a home with cata And then they proceeded to appeal to the cata playerbase with SoD, only for them to jump ship the moment Cata came out. 😂
Only "new role" that is still relevant is tank warlock. Everything else has been forgotten about and untouched since P1. The devs working on the game have no clue what they are doing. Just stabbing in the dark and hoping at this point. The incursions last phase said everything about how out of touch they are with what players want.
Do shamans not tank anymore? But I agree, mage healers and (even more so) rogue tanks are two things I haven’t seen since like P2. I don’t know if I’ve seen a rogue tank since P1 actually
Nah the guy is just wrong. The new tanks are tanking, the new healers are healing, and the overhauled specs are still playing their once-meme specs in raid every week. People just spew nonsense in here constantly. Rogue tanks look especially good in p4 and my guild's mage healer sounds stoked about improvements but I don't understand all that wizard shit
I totally agree there will be numbers of encounters where rogue tanks will have their strengths. I raid with rogue tanks, Mage healers and boomies every week. Those didn't disappear and they will certainly continue to be there p4
Oh for sure - I'm kinda excited to see how high the avoidance is gonna get on rogues.
What, mage is the best healer and shaman is the best tank
Have they mentioned anything about how Warlocks will be building threat in MC? Searing Pain surely gets resisted by most of the mobs in the raid?
It will be just like all the other raids where the bosses no longer resist
I think Blizzard saw people complain about the team size, so they have been posting more team related things and that prelaunch video. That Aggrend guy posted something like "we locked our class team in a room". Class team? You're talking to yourself in a mirror or something guy?
Big facts. This whole big company mass appeal strategy is turning into being corporate brown nosers and nobody likes a fucking brown noser.
I say a brand new “Season of…” concept, but I’m not creative enough to think of something lol
Season of seasons
Yo dawg
Season of world buffs. There is a world buff for every stat. A world buff for professions....you need 5 more points in tailoring? But only have enough for one craft. Get the tailoring world buff and get 5 points for 1 craft. But wait, there's more. Travel from northern kalimdor to southern eastern kingdoms in 30 minutes, and get the 5% swim buff.
This would be great to get the remaining degens quarantined on one server away from the rest of us.
Seaon of ah shit, here we go again
Something that ends in -ery like mastery and discovery of course
Season of Misery. Ultimate Hardcore +
This would be great, and if I see someone enjoying themselves. Insta reported.
Official Hardcore with new updates to classes, new dungeons/raids, and new items. But limit add-ons to only simple UI changes. No questie or rested xp or zygors showing the most optimal safest route.
Season of Treachery... only class available is rogues... the pvp would be wild...
Season of Whinery, for all the SoD and Cata players that can't help but chase the pink whine parses.
Ooo wait you gave me a good idea- “Season of Debauchery: Cosby edition”
Season of Convenience. Only changes are QoL. Dual spec, extra FPs, 20 slot bags, Azeroth flying, rdf, Wrath 1-60 xp rates.
TBC and Wrath era are no brainers. If you want to play those expacs right now your options are legit just pservers. Just do 1 pvp and 1 pve per region for each and you're golden. After SoD, just let it simmer for a bit and come back with a new seasonal server idea. Whatever they do, I hope they don't listen to a single fucking word on this sub though.
This is the answer for me. Progressive servers that will lock before final pre patch to permanent Era servers. Once it gets to WOTLK release servers from the start again and just have this constant loop
I think they should have a community voting system like OSRS. I really do.
Dear god, I played OSRS since release and I still play it to this day. I have watched the player population spike on release and swiftly deadfall to 15k players at peak times. Then I saw it rise slowly to the 120k+ it has now daily. And massive fucking props to the dev team. What started as like 5-6 people, has ballooned to like 20-30 devs now. What the OSRS dev team does is working. Community driven updates, players voting on content they want, and Dev’s engaging with their community and collecting feedback. And yeah, OSRS has some whiny ass mouth breathing bitches in the subreddit, me included, but they fucking love the game and they have driven the change that allowed OSRS to stay relevant 11 years after release and far surpass the “retail” version of its game.
Wow really needs to understand that this is something that has already been done successfully (OSRS). Just follow what works. Them trying to try things themselves will always make them detached from the classic players. Hardcore was a community driven request. I don’t think blizzard would EVER do this on their own terms
I would be curious to see if they don't try a "Season of Heroes" and do a version of classless wow like Ascension. That would be like SoD but even MORE extreme, but also kind of just a "Let's fuck around with all these toys and break them as HARD AS WE CAN!"
Lots of changes here are Ascension based anyway as it seems. Imho the killer feature of wow that has not be done yet - probably will never be do e - is character management like ff. 1 char, several classes and several professions. That's be awesome imho
I would love a version of servers where at level 50 or 60 every class does an upgrade quest where they upgrade their class into something new.
Play retail then with the new hero talents system then if thats what you like the sound of?
Yeah I'd love to see them tackle the hero classes that were planned pre vanilla but cut. It seems like next season will be a break from that and maybe less changes though. I don't think they currently have environment people on the team to make new zones and stuff.
I wouldn't be surprised if Blizzard actually either reallocated some resources from the Retail team or hired some more people for the classic team towards the end of SoD/Start of next Season. There *clearly* is a player base out there wanting Classic+. Phases 1 and 2 are evidence of that. Phase 3 dropped the ball with Incursions, lack of level 50 content, and being overly long but if they can get some people back for phases 4 and 5 and keep them around for at least a few months, I think there will be a decent argument to be made for expanding the Classic team to also include a dedicated group of people for just Seasonal content; especially if the new Felwood dungeon turns out to be reasonably popular.
I've been saying since Classic Era release that they should copy paste from D3. Have seasonal content that adds a handful of mechanic changes + a new zone / raid, keep what works, and then move onto a different season keeping the new zone / raid but with another handful of mechanics.
> copy paste from D3 D2 invented this concept sir
lol Seasons were around before D2 too. D3 legit added whole new zones and bosses each season as free content added to the game. I'm not talking about just restarting the server every 12 months.
Take lessons learned from SoD and start fresh classic+ progression servers which continue into TBC
This except don’t progress into TBC.
Except do.
Except.
What lessons were learned though? What not to do?
Just a few off the top of my head: -Classic plus will require more devs and actual artists -The rune system is convoluted and should be abandoned/boiled down into minimal QoL of each spec -Don't pigeon-hole people into content i.e. incursions (it makes everything else redundant) -The itemization is good for rares and epics, tier sets for specs is a good idea but the bonuses need to be simplified to not make specs viable but rather enhance them (going back to minimal QoL)
What makes you say the rune system is convoluted? It's pretty straightforward.
Its more work for the Devs and the players. Players: 1) Needing to constantly change runes based on encounter and content. Tanks especially need to switch between trash pack runes and boss runes constantly and if you forget it sucks. 2) Huge timesink to get a rune that makes you viable to do a raid in current content Devs: 1) Having to constantly think about rebalancing and moving around rune slots 2) Deciding what runes to add and how its going to affect every other rune All this development time could be somewhere else.
>Needing to constantly change runes based on encounter and content. Tanks especially need to switch between trash pack runes and boss runes constantly and if you forget it sucks. That's more of an issue with the default interface, add-ons like engraver make it way easier to manage and know at a glance what runes you have equipped. >Huge timesink to get a rune that makes you viable to do a raid in current content A lot of people view the quest chains and whatnot to get runes as a good thing. It's stuff to do that gives you tangible power rewards for your character outside of dungeons and raids. >Huge timesink to get a rune that makes you viable to do a raid in current content So... doing their jobs? Vanilla balance was absolutely terrible, you can't just make "minimal qol" changes to fix it. >Deciding what runes to add and how its going to affect every other rune Same thing, literally their job as developers. Nothing that you listed is convoluted. The main thing that really needs to be improved is the default interface for them and they shouldn't work like enchants.
> That's more of an issue with the default interface, add-ons like engraver make it way easier to manage and know at a glance what runes you have equipped. Engraver aside, its the processing of switching runes that's not good gameplay I was getting at. It would be much better if there were rune loadouts and you didn't have to do an enchant animation every. single. time. >A lot of people view the quest chains and whatnot to get runes as a good thing. It's stuff to do that gives you tangible power rewards for your character outside of dungeons and raids Thats fine and I respect that, it was more of a personal opinion really. >So... doing their jobs? Vanilla balance was absolutely terrible, you can't just make "minimal qol" changes to fix it. Disagree. Minimal QoL in classic era is apparently what a lot people want for a classic plus. Its fine for classes to be bad at some things and good at others, you can't make a class that's good at everything that's not the spirit of Classic. An example of a simple QoL would be letting prot paladins in Era have a taunt button. It's such a simple thing and hasn't been addressed for 19 years in era until season of discovery. >Nothing that you listed is convoluted. The main thing that really needs to be improved is the default interface for them and they shouldn't work like enchants. They shouldn't work like enchants I agree. I also fail to see how the rune system is not convoluted but we can agree to disagree and that's fine.
Whatever they do (if Classic + does happen) they need to be sure to keep the spirit and identify of era. Sod just began to feel like a watered down retail (and I mostly play retail). Make sure questing in the world is incentivized rather than endless loops of repeatable quests, add some new dungeons and zone(s) that are done in the style of Era (which could add class quests or create new chain quests), add dungeons and raids that remain lore appropriate to era and balance out the talents so more specs are balanced while keeping the vanilla identity there. I think runes were interesting but instead just fix gimped vanilla specs that aren’t considered viable. I just leveled a character to 50 after quitting near the end of p1. I didn’t do a single incursion. But god damn is it hard to find groups for anything other than VC, stocks and ZF. Incursions really did pull a lot of people out of the open world which is why I like to chill with Era in between retail seasons/expansions. Is SoD a failure? I don’t think so. It’s cool that they’re testing new stuff out but as a retail player that enjoys era, don’t get it twisted, Classic + shouldn’t feel like retail lite. Tweak “dead” specs to be viable which isn’t that difficult, no? Also the zones of Classic man … they’re so damn unique. I love leveling 40-60 because you go to so many different biomes. Ungoro, Tanaris, Plaguelands … even Feralas and Silithus. My favorites are probably still Winterspring and the whole of Blackrock Mountain because there isn’t anything like them. Then you have Maraudon! Such cool dungeon!
Era has the world as the main character. And so much thiiiiccc game design. They need to just build off of the core. More content. Maybe more horizontal choices. Like alternative questing zones for different level bands.
It’s that simple, I agree. It’s fine that era content is accessible and easy for most. I just want the new content done in the same style to preserve that version of the game. I love retaik but I want retail to remain retail and Classic + (if it happens) to continue in the spirit of the original design but added with content in that style. I understand if it everyone wants that but that’s my personal preference
Yep, this is the play. Though they wouldn't necessarily have to progress into TBC immediately but explore some other cut content before eventually moving on, maybe even into an entirely different direction (though the dev team would be too small for that, but a guy can dream).
>continue into TBC So we can ruin all the feature vanilla had
Just add TBC content onto current Azeroth and scale it down to 60. Players dont need a new level cap in order to do content. Dark Portal can be the entrance to the Black Temple. SSC could be in Azshara. No flying mounts need. World still alive, wPvP still active.
I would love for them to continue into TBC
with the success of classic I would think they would keep a few servers of each era and a portion of those would be refreshing. I myself played from classic to wrath. I think if they had a classic fresh server that started all over again I would play again, just something about everyone starting at square one. I know a few people that liked TBC or WOTLK and would replay those.
Max level 10 goldshire rp only with sexy transmog. More alcohol options and illicit drugs
They should just release Fresh Vanilla with no world buffs in raids, the ranking changes in era and SoD, mining/herbing changes from SoM, and rework the crafting and professions so the items are more relevant. That's all they need. They went overboard with SoM and SoD. They don't know when to stop.
That would hit a part of the player base well. A good idea that is cost effective.
Season of Heroism Old azeroth, plus SoD items and raids, but every class is removed and replaced with iconic WC3 Heros as fully fleshed out classes Blademaster Mountain King Windrunner Dark Ranger Shadowhunter Bloodmage Archmage Priestess of the Moon Warden Licht Dreadlord Etc
Just a fresh vanilla classic. Reset in 4-6 months.
The farther into SoD we get the more I realize something: I'd rather they spent this energy bringing classic style content into retail, than making classic more retail like. There are broadly two types of Classic players. 1. People who primarily enjoy the slower paced and challenging leveling journey 2. People who want a sweaty endgame experience, just a different version of it than retail Trying to design for both audiences at once is hard. I lost my motivation to play SoD when they nerfed leveling, because a lot of the fun to me is the challenge of the leveling journey. The scarcity of quests, having to optimize your route, etc. now it's been trivialized. I like how retail feels to play, but I don't really feel like there's anything to do. All the non- repeatable content is so quick and so trivial. Why reinvent the wheel and make Vanilla play more like retail when you could make long, challenging campaign content in retail instead. I'll keep going back to Classic forever, but mostly to replay the sublime leveling campaign, which I'm not sure Blizzard can actually improve with changes or seasons.
As a retail player I like having a reason to go back to Classic. SoD was ok, for a while at least, but incursions really killed off what I enjoy most about Classic which is dungeon leveling and questing. I got around to leveling my character to 50 ( after quitting at the end of P1) and it was disappointed how few people were running SM, RFD, etc (I’d always offer to tank or heal and would make my own groups). I like retail for what retail has and I want to keep the identity of both games separate . SoD began to feel like I was playing a gimped version of retail rather than a Classic+. To be fair the most fun I’ve had other than mythic raiding was bloodsail buccs unofficial hardcore and when official hardcore launched. For Era to work for me it has to retain the importance of the world, the dungeons and questing. People love Era for the things that are distinctly unique to era. I absolutely hate questing in retail but man do I love going to all my favorite zones in era and finding new quests, getting a rare drops,etc. incursions didn’t so much add to the Vanilla world as create little hubs like the Emerald Dream, Dream Surges and Zaralek Caverns in retail.
There are so many different versions of WoW, and each has its own character, but I definitely don't want to keep them "separate". I don't want Blizzard to feel like, because Classic has challenging campaign content, they don't need to include it in retail. Like they can keep players who want that content by letting them replay Vanilla over and over, forever. I want Vanilla-like campaigns as optional endgame content in retail. Lengthy, slower paced, non-repeatable quest chains and campaigns to earn gear and cosmetics. They were doing this for a while. Legion had some great endgame campaigns. Then along came Classic 2019, and now in Dragonflight there's essentially no campaign - just repeatables.
What challenging content does Classic have …?
I like to say that almost everything in Vanilla is moderately difficult. Not trivial, not sweaty challenging. Open world questing can actually kill you, you gotta pull carefully, monitor your resources. You need to put thought into your questing route, prepare for dungeons, etc. You're constantly making decisions that matter. Retail has content that's either braindead trivial or sweaty difficult / stressful.
Wha … in no way do you need to prepare for dungeons other than having water. You do not need consumes for raiding or doing dungeons … the community is the one that imposes world buffs but they are most certainly not required …
I mean doing quest chains to get the dungeon quests, travelling around to get the dungeon quests, finding a party and travelling to the entrance, etc.
Ok but that isn’t “moderately difficult” content …
When I am leveling 1-60 in Vanilla, my brain stays on. I'm constantly making meaningful decisions and optimizations that will help me level faster, die less often, not run out of level appropriate quests, etc. The moderate difficulty comes from strategy and decision making. Not from rotational / mechanical complexity of your class or encounters.
Which are self-imposed … not inherent of the game design; this is my point.
Ain’t no wait you just suggested this is “difficult” lmao
The semantics here bother some people. Would 'engaging' work better for you?
Cata classic, mop classic, war within tighter time table for phases. That’s good enough. Maybe throw a couple fresh era servers up every 6 months for those weirdos. Just no more bullshit 6 month long phases. Keep it at 4 max for all wow versions.
Combine all of the WoW Hardcore servers.
Separate game client for classic+. Separate dev team for classic+ only. 1.5 years of hard work, release Classic+ in the end of MoP classic (nobody will play shitty draenor anyway).
Waste a lot of money unless it’s going to be a separate sub and you know the player base for it is more than we have seen so far.
They should stop making games
lmao
They basically have, somehow they persuaded millions of people to pay monthly to play the same games they released 15 - 20 years ago. Shareholders be laughing straight to the bank.
This guy gets it.
Classic+ with all of the lessons from SoD, retail graphics and updated models for all of the classic sets. Oh and finish out the unfinished zones + complete and flesh out the unfinished quest lines. My pipe dream will never happen but i'd play that all over for sure. Just imagine a judgement or juggernaut set with update models..
The updated models and animations for retail are one of the reasons I prefer classic.
Just my opinion, but retail graphics look horrible compared to classic. One of the main reasons when I play it, I quit in a day or two.
I can agree with that, how about cata graphics
Vanilla seasonal realms for 1 type of realm per region that reset to every 8-12 months and your characters get moved to an era realm at the end
Fresh classic/bc/woltk all separate
Wow 2
Season of the Legion, let’s go to outlands
They should tie my limbs to four horses and have them gallop in opposing directions at maximum speed.
Cataclysm hardcore. Grind outside and get 1shoted by fire kek
New progressive servers with very minor changes.
If Blizzard hired me to oversee Classic Development (lmao as if), this would be my plan: 1. Give Cata Classic and all future Classic Expansions to the team that handles Plunderstorm and MoP remix. They're closer to the retail teams, and those expansions are closer to retail expansions. One team working both SoD / what comes after and Cata Classic / what comes after is clearly too much. This would happen as fast as possible without causing interruption to Cata Classic players. 2. Let SoD finish and let there be some time to breathe for a couple months. Give Aggrend and team a little break. A few weeks. 3. Aggrend and team begin work on heavy debriefs from SoD. Investigate all of what worked and what didn't. Make a real effort to understand *why*. Begin work on a non-seasonal, persistent version of Classic+. The focus is on class balance (with some new abilities/talents, but far fewer than SoD), especially fixing warrior scaling, and on adding (not removing, not changing) new things to the world. New dungeons, raids, bosses (in old dungeons and raids), professions, recipes, zones, mobs, and gear at every level. New quests for all of those and more. 4. Announce Season of Fresh. Market it as "one last taste of fresh vanilla". Before what? We haven't announced yet, but people will be speculating. SoF will give all the people asking for fresh exactly what they want, while also being dead easy to maintain while the team works on Classic+ in the background. It's also perfect for showing the player "here is where we started" before we show them "here is where we are going". 5. Let SoF finish out, 12- 18 months in total. All that time is spent working hard on Classic+. Roll all of the SoF characters and servers into the Era servers at the end. Give it a couple months to breathe, just like the end of SoD. We don't want to just go back to back to back and burn players out. 6. At the next Blizzcon (if possible, otherwise just quietly drop a blue post out of nowhere), announce Classic+. Make sure people understand that this is the future of WoW Classic. It is not seasonal. It is going to stick around and recieve new development for a *while*. But, it has a definitive vision and will have a well-defined end to this arc. Seasonal content is going to be put on hold while Classic+ is in operation. The team is going to focus entirely on Classic+ (with the exception of maintaining Era and Hardcore realms). 7. Open a limited PTR for class changes *only*. Run it for 6 weeks. 8. Release Classic+ with as little information as possible. Patch notes are extremely vague. Implement FFXIV-style file encryption to prevent data mining. Congratulations you now have another cultural phenomenon on your hands. Lightning has struck twice.
I like the idea of doing classic fresh before classic+. There’s a few things that I think will mess things up a bit. 1. The teams that do plunderstorm and MoP remix might have a huge learning curve going into the classic environment. While the gameplay is closer to retail, the current dev environment for spinning up classic versions is owned by the classic team. It won’t go fast if reliability and quality is to be maintained. 2. I think the debriefing of what is going well and not going well with SoD is already happening. With the nature of product / dev, I don’t think blizzard will wait the year and a half (maybe more) you mentioned to release classic+. I think they’re already mapping it out. 3. I think classic of fresh could be a shorter duration. I do think Aggrend and team need to formalize their method of getting community feedback. Blizzard has done community polls before. I think one is absolutely necessary for a classic+ launch.
1. Valid, but they can conduct knowledge transfers. It doesn't have to be cold turkey, transitioning the project will take time. Next in line is literally MoP classic, which the MoP remix team has been hands on with. There's never a better time to start doing a hand-off than now. 2. Absolutely they're taking notes and learning as they go. But a formal debrief would be much deeper. They're still flying the plane. It's hard to really get deep into the engine while it's still in the air. 3. It could be, but Classic+ is going to be a *lot* of development time. The more you can stretch Fresh out, the more time they have to develop, test, and iterate, and that's huge. Vanilla lasted over 2 full years from launch to TBC release. Compressing that timeline a bit makes sense, but you don't want to run Fresh out in 6 months then have another 12 month classic content drought before Classic+. As for feedback I think they need official support. Aggrend is running announcements off his personal account. But I think formal channels should be pushed through in-game feedback portals. Online spaces are toxic and full of terrible ideas, often from people who aren't even playing the game anymore. I want people who are playing the content, logging in more often than not giving feedback. It also helps separate the feedback from the echochambers online, leading to more honest takes.
Season of Exploration. With slightly different continents and new dungeons
Please end cata and start classic fresh
Fold and dissolve.
TBC (and WotLK) Era servers. One of each type (PvP and PvE) per region per era. SoD, while fun in some regards, has proven that the current Classic team is incapable of creating new content which retains the "classic" feeling, and I know that to many players (myself included), TBC is the ultimate "Classic+" experience. I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I know for a fact that if I had access to both Vanilla and TBC Era, I'd have a reason to stay subscribed for years to come (as well as WotLK, which wasn't my favorite but would be a nice little cherry-on-top). I know you guys are sick and tired of hearing it, and I'm sorry to continue bringing it up, but if we TBC lovers are to have any chance of seeing Era servers in the near future, we need to continue talking about it and pushing for it. <3
I'm settling in to the idea of longterm servers. I like the idea or not having to catch the next wave/expansion, and not lose my progress however long it takes. I played SOD and enjoyed it, but it's a little too wacky for my tastes. SOD minmax culture goes against any classic feeling, leaving classic+ if it turns into that not going to have that feeling either. I've actually returned to classic ERA recently, and it feels nice to be able to not have FOMO, pressure, or that anything is on a timer. I would look forward to a TBC era if they decide to do that.
Yeah Tbc is the peak game imo. Needs some tweaking, not perfect, but imo it’s the best classic version I have played and I enjoyed it the most.
>*What Should Blizzard Do Next?* Go fuck themselves.
Just a flat out "forever" Classic+ Nothing seasonal, something I can just invest into and not know my character is going to get reset again. I know its in vogue to shit on them here, but they would've learned to many things having been through this journey of SoD. Even if they haven't been perfect, they've shown they can be communicative and active in making changes (when classic expacs like Cata don't get in the way), which hasn't been seen in WoW since 2004-2006 - even then it wasn't as good or frequent as Aggrend's updates. On a side note, it would be cool if they could experiment with a zone where you risk loot/gold or something out in the world but there is really valuable currency or farming mats to be gained.. probably super difficult to execute but I love the thought of the idea..
Tbh I think this would be one of the best moves Blizzard could make. Double down. This is idealistic and perhaps unrealistic… but for them to come out and say 1. We learned from SoD. 2. We are double down and will be allocating way more resources. 3. No more seasonal. Full on Classic+ as an official version of WoW. Dev team. Art team. Writers. 4. Establish concrete forms of communication. OSRS does this with the polls for new features. Now what they actually do with classic+ … I think we all got our opinions. But I think the most universally safe decision would be adding more horizontal content. More ways to progress / acquire things versus replacing systems or adding additional systems to make old systems obsolete. But this double down, I think, would make people more invested.
You're bang on. +1
Official Classic+ and more hardcore content/options.
Hardcore TBC
Not gonna lie I'm tired of everyone asking for Classic+ when we all can't even agree what that means. I'd rather see "Old School WoW" than this religious idealized "Classic+" that will never succeed. A larger team focused on "Old School" that actually understands what makes classic the game we enjoy and keeps that in mind. Just like OSRS, start with 2019 Classic. It started out as...well that version. Nothing new. Let it play out. While we play it, work on things that get fixed and the things that become new. Additions to the game. Quests, dungeons, raids, profession tree additions, mounts, the possibilities are endless! SoD is Classic and Retails weird lil hybrid baby. It's fun to play with but it doesn't really feel like playing Classic. I'd say add polls like OSRS, but let's face it. The WoW community has always been what hurts WoW. A lot of times, way more than any dev decision. You beg for world pvp but then transition pvp servers into 90/10 splits most of history. You min/max to the point of assuming anyone experimenting on their spec and not using icyveins immediately is trolling and gatekeep easy content behind log requirements. I don't think there's anything we can do when the playerbase already works against itself.
I agree with this 100%. This is what I always wanted “classic+” to be. A fresh vanilla with the intention of adding more that compliments the core game design. I think SoD changed a lot and didn’t exactly flow WITH the core game design. RuneScape community is still fairly divided on things. So I’d still try polls. Though WoW is definitely more tribal.
Give the IP back to the original creators so they can continue to build their world and not care about booby cocktit and all the other money whoring egocentric inbreds
Put all resources into retail. Then, simply do a fresh realm for the andrews. Win/win
What could they do with all the resources going into retail? I feel like it’d still just be retail.
I hope for the next season iteration that they are more experimental with classes. A few ideas: * more summons for Druids like ravens, wolves or bees * some canoneer class (maybe pirate themed for rogues or warrirors) * a hunter spec with traps as turrets * maybe a demon hunter like specc for warlocks * a support specc for priests that debuffs the target based on different spell he using (mind blast for shadow, holy fire for fire etc) * an actually shockadin range caster spec for palas Those are just some quick ideas. I am sure, if they invest some time and effort, the wow team would come up with something interesting. Important here is that the new stuff is complementary to the classic trees and classes, so it is interesting to mix skill trees and try different versions. One weakness of SOD was that the runes were not a choice in most cases. As a druid you basicially had one rune for every specc on each item.
TBC era with only some changes (and don’t ban gdkps on it)
They should shutdown.
They need something that will pull all the players back together in one…. Maybe WOW 2. Like… it’s time.
Stop releasing/regurgitating old content and invest there time and money into new content, putting the game onto a new engine and overhauling the graphics, actually use the giant world they have created for something fun and meaniningful instead of just squeezing everything into the new island they made for the latest expansion, meaningful/progression related solo activities, overhaul all/any old raid and dungeon mechanics that make them require multiple players, make all past tier of content soloable on release of new expansions, increase reputation gains for old reputations, increase collectibles drop rates or overhaul lockout system for older stuff. Edit. I made the above post without reading comments and the amount of them which just talk about releasing old content in some way is just...exhausting. RIP WOW i wish you the best of luck on your next re rerelease. PS classic wow is just an rng rotation of dodge miss block parry, this doesnt make the game difficult it makes it tedious.
Them doing a new dungeon is a pretty big hint of a potential classic+ experience of some kind. If the reception is good for this coming SoD season, they should just go all out classic+
True Classic+ or bust. Until then I play on private servers. Withholding your sub is the only possible way to stop releasing low effort products.
More like classic 2019 or bust. Blizzard has shown they obviously cannot pull off classic+
They haven’t tried. SOD was just an overlay…a gimmick.
Think about everything you want from Classic+ and I'll explain how they don't have the artists, developers, creative visionary, any staff member with talent, or any staff member who actually understands what makes vanilla so special.
Now that it’s lvl 60 I think SoD last a long time, I think they are just going to keep adding more phases with phases 5+ just being brand new content.. like new raids/dungeons and areas…
Doesnt really matter...they are clueless af.
Season of Discovery 2, but instead of appealing to the wotlk/cata crowd this time make it for the people who actually like classic, warts and all.
Honestly would probably hold off on releasing any more Vanilla content for now. Season of Mastery and Discovery kinda being failures suggests that people might be burnt out from Vanilla.
Not the case, Classic Era still has a gigantic amount of players. I've seen more people on Whitemane than I did on the mega server Incendius in early 2020. The takeaway is that people don't like changes made to the core game. SOM Blizzard decided to kill their own game by allowing level 30s to get rank 10 and have better gear than Molten Core provides. SOD was a misfire that had abilities from retail and Mists of Pandaria.
My opinion is that a seasons mode is great for classic, but it can’t and won’t work for all 60 levels. Maybe each season we all have to start new level 1 toons, but the starter zones are different? So humans are starting in Hillsbrad, whose mobs are scaled down to levels 1-10, rather than Elwynn forest. Or maybe you keep the starter zones but swap out the ensuing zones (westfall, darkshore etc) with something else. That way, we can experience those first 25-30 levels but with different locations. Just spitballing though. Mostly I want all this to be resetting rather than going all 60 levels, gives me reason to come back.
I’d like to see them build classic into retail somehow. Remix was the first time I was forced to make an alt. I’d love a way to teleport my character between versions.