World of Warcraft : Classic

[Vorret]

Yep... no way I'm going back to that stupid grind though

[Blackhawk]

I'd love it if it was a 'modified vanilla.' Keep the difficulty and gameplay, but tone down the money and rep grinds.

[killbot737]

I'd go back to pre-Cataclysm. Although the Panda stuff is kind of fun. I guess I'd roll back pieces parts. Go back to actual skill trees, keep Huntard ammo non-encumbering, etc.

Don't re-add that awful Pally quest to get that stupid pearl that you can't get until like lvl 40, while you first get the q around 25. Maybe that's the Warlock one. I forget. It was awful so I've blocked the specifics from my memory. Pain In The ASS!

[Blackhawk]

Or the equivalent druid quest.

Rolling it back to BC or Wrath would be ideal in my book. Back to the times when you didn't need to grind so much, but not playing smart got you dead, with careful pulls and a ready escape. The last time I tried WoW, I played a rogue from 1 to ~35. I barely had to pay attention, and I don't think I ever got past half health, let alone worried about dying.


/edit - although the trailer seems to suggest pre-BC vanilla. I wonder if they'll do what I (think) EQ did and roll out the old expansions every couple of years.

[TheMix]

Vanilla would be interesting from a "leveling" standpoint. No way I'd even consider any "end game" stuff from Vanilla.

There are some things that would probably be nice to keep (like not having to carry ammo). I don't think I'd try a druid without mangle.

But the leveling was much more interesting. I even liked the lack of gold better. I used travel form on my druid until well after level 50. Mounts were too expensive. With travel form I could get by and spend the gold on other things... like skills. I remember having to pick between skills because I didn't have the gold for all of them.

Of course, with the prevalence of gold farming these days, the economy would likely be really messed up.

[Blackhawk]

Vanilla would be interesting from a "leveling" standpoint. No way I'd even consider any "end game" stuff from Vanilla.

There are some things that would probably be nice to keep (like not having to carry ammo). I don't think I'd try a druid without mangle.

But the leveling was much more interesting. I even liked the lack of gold better. I used travel form on my druid until well after level 50. Mounts were too expensive. With travel form I could get by and spend the gold on other things... like skills. I remember having to pick between skills because I didn't have the gold for all of them.

Of course, with the prevalence of gold farming these days, the economy would likely be really messed up.

Ammo in stacks of 200 at that.

I don't know how much of a thing gold farming would be, as I doubt that Classic would be a huge draw. It would attract a small portion of the population, but not enough to really compete with the core game. Of course, gold farming now (by 'now' I mean last time I played) was insignificant compared to what it was in the pre-Wrath days. Blizzard nipped it by making gold really, really easy and making most things other than player crafted items relatively cheap.

[Zenn7]

https://en.nostalrius.org/

There were private WOW classic servers (probably still are). The above was one of the bigger ones. It was pure vanilla wow. Played on it for a bit. It had 10's of 1000's of users at it's height. They have a note on their page about going to talk to Blizzard after the shutdown order came. This was in 2016, sounded like Bliz took them seriously.

Might not be a huge gold farming community, but if I can get sold power leveling/currency on every other MMO game out there, don't see why they wouldn't try to here. Especially if Bliz keeps the vanilla gold rates and costs.

[Sudy]

Hmm. Fans have been asking for something of this nature for years. I doubt it will be exactly what they want, but I'm curious to see.

There's a ton of nostalgia there. It was the first MMOG I played heavily. I was more excited for it than any game that came before (even Final Fantasy VIII, even Perfect Dark, etc.). I still remember when I got into closed beta on the back of an erroneous wave of 2nd keys they sent out to those already accepted. (I believe it was Zaxxon's?). Prospecting for ore and playing the auction house was a game (and a fresh one) in itself. It seemed like a living, breathing world at the time. Hearing the old themes still sends chills down my spine. When drama arose in my initial guild, I was heartbroken. On the flipside, I have extremely fond memories of playing heavily with you lot during Cataclysm.

But... that game wouldn't be fun today. There's a reason I've gone back again, and quit again, several times. It's also the reason there's not another MMOG I've truly lost myself in, despite trying my darndest. This genre never really evolved in a significant way. WoW had some of the most solid in-genre mechanics around, but they've still aged horribly.

I think I'd like experiencing a remixed vanilla-era WoW in an evolved,"WoW 2.0" engine. Not the literal WoW version 2.0, but a true successor that incorporates WoW's own advancements plus the better innovations elsewhere in the genre, and then builds on top of that. Though I suspect I'm describing the unicorn that laid the golden egg.

Still, we'll see. No real details have been announced. It may be worth a dabble.

[Blackhawk]

Oh, there absolutely will be professional gold farming, I'm just saying that it won't be anywhere near what it was like in original Vanilla.

[ColdSteel]

Holy crap! If this means the Barrens is back I may have to try to get my Blizzard account unlocked.

[Blackhawk]

Holy crap! If this means the Barrens is back I may have to try to get my Blizzard account unlocked.

OMFG (*#)&*$#! #(#@($#* and #^)& drood go back to healz lol #*()@# chuck norris!

[Greybriar]

I have decided to play World of Warcraft: Classic after it is released for the memories, if nothing else.

[ColdSteel]

Holy crap! If this means the Barrens is back I may have to try to get my Blizzard account unlocked.

OMFG (*#)&*$#! #(#@($#* and #^)& drood go back to healz lol #*()@# chuck norris!

Yeah, Barrens chat and PvP were not my thing. I just really liked the zone and the dungeons. The music was awesome and I loved the Savannah biome. Plus so many great memories. Like trying to find and tame Echeyakee there. Yeah, Greybriar, I'd be playing it for the memories too.

[Blackhawk]

Memories for me, too - but a lot will depend on the implementation. If it is a few new servers? I'm sure I'll give it a whirl. If it is a new purchase, plus a separate sub? That's a lot more iffy.

[Exodor]

I've played WoW since beta and still have an active subscription - I can't think of anything I want less than to go back to vanilla WoW.

I don't get the appeal at all. They've added so much content and quality of life improvements to the game since 2004 - why would I want to go back?

[Blackhawk]

I will give this example, based off of my own favorite ways to play. Building off of my quote earlier:

Rolling it back to BC or Wrath would be ideal in my book. Back to the times when you didn't need to grind so much, but not playing smart got you dead, with careful pulls and a ready escape. The last time I tried WoW, I played a rogue from 1 to ~35. I barely had to pay attention, and I don't think I ever got past half health, let alone worried about dying.

That rogue had a very specific quest that I remember doing in the BC/Vanilla days. There was a cabin in a field. In that cabin was an MacGuffin that you had to collect for the quest - all you had to do was get it. When I played that in Vanilla, it was hard. There were three mobs in the cabin, several smaller groups nearby, and one patrol that circled it. If you wanted to pull it off, you had to wait until the patrol passed, then kill off one of the outer groups to give you room to work. Next, you pulled the patrol when they were in the empty spot from the group you killed. Then you would line-of-sight pull the group inside the cabin and kill them. If you weren't careful with any of those pulls, you'd get multiple groups, which would mean running away to try again, or simply dying. You had to go in with a plan, and you had to play smart and pay attention. If you pulled it off, it felt great.

When I did it a year or two ago, there were two groups outside. No patrol. Nobody inside. I walked up to the group, killed them in two or three hits each (and this was on-level content with no heirlooms equipped), then walked in and grabbed the item. There was no risk, no effort, no thought, and as a result, no reward. It is even worse if you played with other people in non-group content. I played through all of BC and Wrath with a friend, and we still had to be careful in approaching a lot of the quests. It made it interesting. I can't even imagine going through the current world content that way.

The focus after Wrath changed from giving leveling players a good experience to pushing leveling players into the upper levels and the end-game as quickly and effortlessly as possible. If you actually enjoyed playing in the world, you were screwed. If you tried to finish quest lines to follow the story in the 5-11 zone, you would leave at level 16+ and would either be bored in the next zone, or have to skip it entirely. Sure, you could get up to the cap in a heartbeat, but it was a boring heartbeat. There are other things I preferred back then, too. Hunter pets were unique rather than skins on a homogeneous form. Stealth was actually useful. There were a lot of utility skills that made things much more interesting - like when Forsaken water breathing was actually relevant before everyone could hold their breath for three minutes. Crafting skills made usable stuff other than raid buffs.

There absolutely some quality of life improvements I would prefer stay - no mount grind, no bag eating ammo or soul shards, the dungeon finder, larger stacks, universal auction houses (remember when there were only three in the game? Ironforge, Orgrimmar, and Booty Bay?) But for every quality of life improvement that conquered an annoyance, there was one that took away the fun and flavor, too.

[Jaddison]

I remember that rogue quest well and you are right pulling it off provided a sense of accomplishment because it was pretty darn challlenging.

[Daehawk]

I think there are a lot of old players like me that 'think' they want this but if they try it will find it is not as rosy as they remember. Stuff like feeding pets and buying ammo would now days drive me insane but at the time were just normal parts of the game.

[Blackhawk]

I remember that rogue quest well and you are right pulling it off provided a sense of accomplishment because it was pretty darn challlenging.

I wasn't referring to a rogue-specific quest, although I remember the one you're talking about, too, I think.

[Stuie]

I've only started playing MMOs recently, and no WOW so far (except on my own private server that I set up for my family just to see if I could - that was like 7 years ago...). Having the chance to play the original sounds good to me.

[Sudy]

Holy crap! If this means the Barrens is back I may have to try to get my Blizzard account unlocked.

OMFG (*#)&*$#! #(#@($#* and #^)& drood go back to healz lol #*()@# chuck norris!

Yeah, Barrens chat and PvP were not my thing. I just really liked the zone and the dungeons. The music was awesome and I loved the Savannah biome. Plus so many great memories. Like trying to find and tame Echeyakee there. Yeah, Greybriar, I'd be playing it for the memories too.

"where is mankirk's wife??"

Worst quest ever. However, I love plugging this into chat in random other MMOs to this day. Or when I want to be more obscure, "Where's CoT in KR?" I know Blackhawk at least will remember that one.

[Blackhawk]

"where is mankirk's wife??"

Worst quest ever. However, I love plugging this into chat in random other MMOs to this day. Or when I want to be more obscure, "Where's CoT in KR?" I know Blackhawk at least will remember that one.

Took me a second, but yep! I usually go with "Will SoW for Clarity!"

[Daehawk]

Loved original Barrens back in the day. Was really fun for PVP because that one town on the shore was so close. Even as a low lvl Horde I had fun taking on higher lvl Alliance. And when I actually killed someone it was even better.

And if I was tired of the grind Id simply go to the ponds and fish for an hour or so to feed my pet cat and tell Chuck Norris sayings

[GreenGoo]

"where is mankirk's wife??"

Worst quest ever. However, I love plugging this into chat in random other MMOs to this day. Or when I want to be more obscure, "Where's CoT in KR?" I know Blackhawk at least will remember that one.

Took me a second, but yep! I usually go with "Will SoW for Clarity!"

Is that the corpse in the little burned out collection of huts, sorta in the middle but closer to Ogrimmar than the other end?

[Sudy]

Yup.

[Greybriar]

I hope Blizzard uses the old character models. I don't like the "new" ones nearly as well and had used the "old" character models as long as it was possible for me to do so.

[Vorret]

What I missed the most were the cool group quests that *could* be soloed. Like Hogger, it was soloable by some classes but easily doable with a group, nowaydays the only group quests are for dungeons. Being a mostly solo guy I really like the added challenge even if it meant I died a few times in the process.

But there's defenetly a crapload of things I don't miss, 40 players raid? No flying, ugh, the epic mount being pretty much unattainable unless you got some lucky BoE epic drop... etc.

But still, Vanilla raiding and PVP is by far the most fun I've had gaming in my life, I was young had plenty of times and we just rolled as a group in Arathi Bashing playing against rival horde guilds from the same server, it created something different, respect, when you met one of your rival in the open world and he was from a clan you respected you simply /bowed and went on your way. Now, nobody cares.

[Blackhawk]

Not to mention the wandering elites that were neutered. It made the world more intesting, especially early on when you would have to watch for the meandering badass the roamed the area you were questing in.

[Exodor]

What I missed the most were the cool group quests that *could* be soloed. Like Hogger, it was soloable by some classes but easily doable with a group, nowaydays the only group quests are for dungeons. Being a mostly solo guy I really like the added challenge even if it meant I died a few times in the process.

One of my favorite things about Legion is the shared tagging system combined with elites scattered across the world. Even this late in the expansion there are some elites that can't be soloed but because of shared tagging a group of players can find themselves near one, attack it and take it down with everyone getting credit.

If it's a world quest target I can join an organized group by clicking one button in my UI.

I"m a mostly solo guy too but with shared tagging I'm not competing with other players. If two of us are doing the same quest we can each hit the mobs and get credit instead of competing to be the first to "tag" it. Up until this expansion other players were hinderances - they took my craft nodes and tagged the mobs I wanted to kill. Now it's all shared so I'm glad to see other players and find myself working with them much more often than at any other point in this games lifespan.

[Biyobi]

So can we kite Stitches into Goldshire again?

[Vorret]

What I missed the most were the cool group quests that *could* be soloed. Like Hogger, it was soloable by some classes but easily doable with a group, nowaydays the only group quests are for dungeons. Being a mostly solo guy I really like the added challenge even if it meant I died a few times in the process.

One of my favorite things about Legion is the shared tagging system combined with elites scattered across the world. Even this late in the expansion there are some elites that can't be soloed but because of shared tagging a group of players can find themselves near one, attack it and take it down with everyone getting credit.

If it's a world quest target I can join an organized group by clicking one button in my UI.

I"m a mostly solo guy too but with shared tagging I'm not competing with other players. If two of us are doing the same quest we can each hit the mobs and get credit instead of competing to be the first to "tag" it. Up until this expansion other players were hinderances - they took my craft nodes and tagged the mobs I wanted to kill. Now it's all shared so I'm glad to see other players and find myself working with them much more often than at any other point in this games lifespan.

I agree, those elites are HARD and can'T be soloed unless you have 10 minutes to lose.
Argus difficulty is just right (imo) but I wish getting the flying upgrade was easier.

[gilraen]

What I missed the most were the cool group quests that *could* be soloed. Like Hogger, it was soloable by some classes but easily doable with a group

LOL...I remember dying to Hogger on my pally, over and over and over. I had just started playing (this was back in WotLK) and understood that the "elite" mobs were harder than normal mobs, but didn't realize just *how much* harder

[Daveman]

So can we kite Stitches into Goldshire again?

Pfft, that's weak. How about Lord Kazzak into Stormwind?



I never got to see that happen personally, but was there for many a mid-morning Azuregos kill and that was always interesting trying to get a group formed up while a few Alliance loners would try and pull him onto us when we weren't ready.

I loved those days, when there was actual travel involved and the world felt like... a world. If I had a mind to play I'd make a beeline for completing the Seal of Ascension quest and then charge PUGs whatever I want to open UBRS.

[gilraen]

WoW Classic announced for release in summer of 2019. The demo is now available to play on the Blizzcon floor and to those who purchased the virtual ticket, so there should be quite a bit more detail about actual state of gameplay coming out in the next few hours.

[Exodor]

WoW Classic announced for release in summer of 2019. The demo is now available to play on the Blizzcon floor and to those who purchased the virtual ticket, so there should be quite a bit more detail about actual state of gameplay coming out in the next few hours.

I can't help but be a little annoyed at the lack of content for current WoW and wonder if splitting the team to work on a re-launch of a 15 year old game is a waste of resources that could be spent improving the game I'm paying a subscription to play.

Ugh, I don't think I'll ever understand the appeal of Classic.

[gilraen]

I have no desire to play it but apparently people are very excited about it. Oh, and they will also be releasing a remastered version of Warcraft III next year.

[ColdSteel]

I Played WoW from launch straight up through the Wrath expansion. My account got hacked in 2011 about a year after I stopped playing in 2010 and though they recovered all my stuff, I just left the account locked because nothing has really tempted me to go back until now. Cataclysm killed the game for me because I hated what they did to the old zones and every expansion since that just seemed stupider than the one before.

I just got my WoW account unlocked and did so because I want to play Classic. I’d like to play it because I can go back to the Barrens as it originally was (my favorite zone). I can play a Hunter with the old hunter skills and pets just the way they used to be. I can play a Warlock as a drain tank again. Leveling will be a big deal again. Killing more than 1 mob at a time will be hard again. Getting a mount will be an accomplishment again. There are a lot of reasons and nostalgia is a big part of it, of course. They say you can’t go home again but this will be like going home. Even if it’s just for a visit, it’ll be worth it.

[TheMix]

I agree with much of that. The only sad thing for me is that I loved my druid, but leveling a druid in Vanilla was painful. When we got Mangle with Burning Crusade it was like the gates of heaven opened up and the angels started singing. Though I did love my travel form. Back then it had meaning.

[ColdSteel]

Though I did love my travel form. Back then it had meaning.

Yeah, I remember how I just couldn't wait to hit 20 on my hunter so I could get Aspect of the Cheetah.

[Zenn7]

I played on a classic private server (seemed like it was the biggest and most successful with well over 10,000 players). Blizzard had them shut down but they actually went and met with Blizzard to discuss setting up classic servers.

It was fun for a while, but I too love feral druids and they suck rocks in vanilla. Doesn't mean I didn't do it anyway.

Burning Crusade ROCKED! Everyone I played with was REALLY looking forward to that! (The private server was working their way through each patch w/ eventual plans to move through TBC and WotLK at least and all their patches).