Enhance Your Burning Crusade Classic Experience with the Dark Portal Pass and Deluxe Edition

Community General Discussion
289

The zones themselves are, in my opinion, the equal of any 5 zones in the original game. And the levelling experience in them is the same, again in my opinion, as any 5 zones in the original game.

To try and compare the 5 zones of the expansion to the two massive continents on original release is like comparing apples and pears. Both juicy fruits that grow on trees but different shape and taste.

I don’t know as I am not a game developer but if there was the time allowed for the development of later expansions as was allowed for the original release then other than the newer graphics these newer expansions would be on the same scale too.

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After seeing this I decided to sell my character along with my whole BattleNet account and let Blizzard go to hell.

The fact that I am most outraged by is they mess up with actual gameplay by providing a mount obtainable only via buying that bloody Deluxe edition. I’ve checked original TBC Collector Edition they sold back then:

  • World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade on both CD and DVD
  • World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade “Behind the Scenes” DVD
  • The Art of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Hardcover Art Book.
  • Exclusive In-Game Pet: Netherwhelp
  • Two World of Warcraft Trading Card Game Starter Packs, plus Exclusive Cards.
  • Map of Outland Mouse Pad.
  • World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Soundtrack
  • Blizzard Product Catalog (Burning Crusade themed).
  • 2 World of Warcraft 10-day Guest Pass Keys.

You see, even on actual TBC release in Collector’s Edition they didn’t include anything that could change a gameplay. And now here we are: character boost and unique mount. This is just unacceptable. Why should I farm gold for having a flying mount when someone could just use his or her credit card? This effectively makes this game pay-to-win.

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291

Leveling experience in 2021 should be more fluid than in 2004, absolutely. Obviously in 16+ years someone had time to do some improvements, we have been paying for this after all. And leveling experience did evolve, but it so happens that the evolution was pretty tame compared to the number of years they had and the end result is pretty boring. Voiceovers cool, better clusterization ok, multi-step quests fine, but that’s pretty small and there are negatives from excessive streamlining and artificial gates that occur because of this design, etc.

Regarding the size of the zones, sure, we shouldn’t compare SL to vanilla. But compare it to WoTLK. SL is going to lose like 2x. Compare it to MoP. Same thing. SL is damn small. It’s just cramped. The result is vastly different.

Regarding the amount of effort spent on expansions. That has been declining for a long time now. We were previously getting multiple big things each expansion. We got the entire achievement system + new profession + new class + damn vehicles + phasing all in the same expansion = WotLK. Now the new things we are getting look like: Torghast (failed due to being terribly balanced and ultimately boring) and the Maw (hard to be even calling that a new thing, it’s just a zone with rares, similar to Timeless Island). Compare. They have been reducing development effort on WoW and using money from WoW subs to fund other games. This shows.

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292

crab shag?

aaaah…enough with the flipping soup already…
how about oasis soup…‘you got a roll with it’…:stuck_out_tongue:

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293

Reading comprehension Vulpie. Acquire it.

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294

Oasis soup as in the fruity drink?

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295

im afraid i have to agree with Mellinora.

You are right Osangar from about MoP onwards really. while things started going wrong from WotLK, some of the Northrend questlines and WoD questlines were really good. also the cata quest revamp may have been good for some. for me it was bad as i found more of the quest seemed childish (go find some :poop: or whatever) and also having completed loremaster in WotLK, having to redo so many quests was very annoying.

but yeah, you are right from MoP onwards. lvling was mostly boring, the real “experience” was at max lvl, and the numerical journey for a new player/toon was very daunting.

but as Mellinora said, things were different. quests, and zones had the potential to create memories that exist to this day.

me personally ?

  • at 40 or 41 (on this toon) soloing an elite demon that i think was also 40 in Desolace.
  • just hanging around Silvermoon probably in my 60’s or maybe 70 and killing a random annoying alliance player there who kept ganking lowbies. a group of us banded and killed him. i made friends with one of them, a paladin and we stayed in touch and helped each other all the way until mid Legion when he quit.
  • standing in goldshire and seeing my first mounted player riding through the town.
  • again, in goldshire, meeting a dwarf priest (my first toon was alliance), becoming friends and joining her guild. we were both only about lvl 6 or something and just hung around Goldshire talking, then questing through Elywn. again, stayed in touch with her for about a year until i left alliance and joined horde.
  • after a brutal DM run around level 16 or so as a sorta ret pala, i forgot to loot van cleefs head! it took me several more attempts before i was able to collect the rotting head, and was around 24 by this time!
  • bumping into a warrior friend i had made a couple of lvls earlier in Darkshore, and the pair of us along with another guy doing the STV run to get to the barrens to fight the horde… … and die many times along the way and when we got there!!!

and people in general will have experienced things due to needing to group together for some quests:

  • the infamos Hogger.
  • ogres and syndicate at Stromgard.
  • the dark iron dwarves in north Wetlands.
  • the timeless Onyxia/jailbreak questline.
  • and many more.

it was these interactions along with those made during grouping up for 5 man instances, that were the core of Vanilla & TBC leveling. exploring the world, making friends/acquaintances.

that does not exist in retail for many years now.

and even just now as i write this, got into a stockades group on a a lvl 10 lock just out of exiles reach. group consists of an 11, 30, 44 & 49.

not even killed the first pack and the 44 (hunter) says skip straight to hogger for more XP. the tank (11) does so. hogger dies and group disbands.

so the playerbase is also to blame a bit for the lvling experience, but to be fair, we only act like this because of what blizzard have done to it.

3 Likes
296

i have question for you but i need to state something than i think a lot have done aswell before me:

the old leveling experience, it also doesnt even exist on classic. i leveled on the zandalar tribe server.
nobody around besides max level alliance griefers.

but world lfg channel was booming with boosts :slight_smile:

doesnt matter, times have changed, ppl cant have fun anymore and if u dare try to do it in a way that is min maxed ull get problems. i was coordinatin ppl and me at 1-2 am once to defend our low levels gettin ganked in hillbrads by alliance griefers (zanda tribe is a cesspoool on the alliance side, the griefien i went throuh while levelin was insanity) and ppl got mad at me cuz we were hidin their boost ad… at 2 am… even if it werent at 2 am i would sitll have found that ridiculous.

my point is, doesnt really matter the game, ppl wont do like back in the days. so yea while the game was different ppl also were because internet and access to technologies and gamin was just not as it is as today. ur current modern phone has more power than 2004 computer. look at this forum, no need to refresh page and u can even have notifications.

so on to the question:
you say :

so the playerbase is also to blame a bit for the lvling experience, but to be fair, we only act like this because of what blizzard have done to it.

so does that mean to you blizzard is partly/totally responsibl for the change in the way players approach the game?
i dont think so. i think we had a lot of players in classic comin from private servers, and actually a lot of people criticized their min maxin influence on the game. those people kept playing classic all this time.
or ppl who quit in past expansions and came for classic for a nostalgia trip, before realizing they have changed themselves and quitted. games too old and time consumin for so many ppl.

i think it shows that maybe you can say blizzard made this trend happen faster within their own games, but from i have observed so far in videogames and even our society, it seems to me than it would have happened regardless of what they’d have done anyway.

i view them as responsible but not guilty, they had the responsability of their game but cant be held accountable for society s and people changes

297

Play another server. I am playing on Firemaw, Razorgore and Gehennas. One med, one high and one full populated realm and there’s barely boosts. Just did a DM run and a RFC run with groups forming within 5 mins.

298

for classic my orc war ironreaver is on stonespire i think?
only spam in chat is either lfg for “write dungeon name here” or ench sells

299

I don’t play classic. I never ever even touched it once. And I wholeheartedly agree. Leveling is a huge part of what makes classic/TBC what they are. By selling level boosts they are completely altering this experience? What’s next, TBC tokens? I made a post some months back saying how I observed an increase in store mounts in BFA and how the company is getting greedier and greedier. And today here we are…

301

This is beyond. You’re actively telling people that they should be thankful Blizzard isn’t charging for both TBC and Retail sub money?
Meanwhile they reap the fruits of both audiences anyway?
You must be joking.

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302

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA :rofl:

ACTITRAAAAAASH IT BUUUUURNS :rofl:

Not even gonna log in to this “tbc” of yours ptooh (spit sound)

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303

People want the TBC experience, but the expansion’s experience itself was part of a period of time. A period of time when people played games differently, had different expectations of them and took them at a difference pace, etc.

People will get “TBC” as content, but they won’t get the original TBC experience. Instead they’ll get the modern day Go Go Go mentality and $70 mount booster pack.

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304

i think what you say is pretty much correct. although i dont think anyone REALLY expected classic to be identical to vanilla. like you said, the players, and the world has changed too much.

but it doesn’t negate the fact that leveling was a core aspect of vanilla & TBC, which pretty much hasn’t been replicated ever since.

in 2004 - 2009.

its probably as you said though, the world was heading that way anyway, blizzard just put us in a train rather then let us walk there.

but classic did have some moments which you would NEVER see in retail, like paladins who had just learnt might rank 1 standing at SW gates buffing everyone who ran/flew past them (all those clothies with might!), or people queuing up to kill a mob (the bandit in northshire) rather than all 60+ people trying to tag him the moment it spawned.

so there were elements. but yeah i do think the booster mindset is one of the things ruining both retail and classic.

HOWEVER, i will say im actually FOR a boost in TBC.

not a paid boost to 60 like blizz are doing, thats just slimey.

but there should be a way that you can copy your classic characters to TBC, whether that toon is 10 or 60. people who played vanilla, went into TBC in 2007 as 60. people who never played vanilla (like me) started TBC in 2007 as 1.

and so it should be the same with classic TBC. people who played classic should be able to go into TBC as 60. people who didn’t play classic should go as 1.

but not paid.

seriously ALL paid services should be free, but limited to say once a month, or once a quarter. no way should they be costing anything let alone £17- £35 for most things. £9 for a name change and £49 for a SL boost is just as silly.

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nice deceptive marketing with the name bli$$zard.

no dice, i aint paying for this.

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:man_facepalming:

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I haz it… with the greatest respect, take your own advice

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If thats the case you should have realized that im only salty about the clone cost and that the rest of what i wrote was a suggestion but ultimately not something i care about. Hence reading comprehension.

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Wasn’t available when I bought TBC, back in the day… and is not a requirement to play.
Ya don’t like it, don’t buy it…simples.