Legacy servers should stop at BC and not WOTLK - here's why

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

While I really enjoy playing Classic and look forward to seeing Burning Crusade servers, I think that legacy servers should stop here.

The reason for this is simple: WOTLK is where Blizzard shot themselves in the foot.

Don’t misunderstand me. This expansion still got more things right than wrong. The lore was superb - the culmination of a story arc that began in Warcraft 3. The raids (Ulduar, ICC) were some of the very best.

But most of the bad decisions that make people like me prefer Classic rather than Retail these days were taken during the WOTLK timeline.

It was in late WOTLK when the RDF tool was introduced - and it turned dungeons from something you enjoyed doing with friends to a horrible PUG experience.

Worse, during WOTLK the Gearscore culture bloomed. This was the defining moment when people weren’t judged by their skills, social abilities and the desire to learn, but were reduced to simple numbers. It got worse since then - in Cataclysm it was ilevel that mattered, and in later expansions - curve and raider io.

WOTLK also began the process of homogenizing the classes. In Vanilla the classes were diverse. They had strong points and weak points. Some were very overpowered, others were weak. The best thing we had was also faction diversity - Alliance had paladins, Horde - shamans. Burning Crusade did put an end to this diversity, yes. But classes were still distinct. Right now I don’t care about rolling another class in retail - it will be all the same, all overpowered, all easy.

Most people consider BC “a Classic on steroids”. Thus it could be said it’s the last true expansion. In these two cases - Classic and WOTLK I dare say there should be #Nochanges.

But I don’t want WOTLK back with all its flaws that continued from that moment onwards - including RDF, gear metrics. If Blizzard wants WOTLK servers, they should consider abandoning the #Nochanges mentality and instead offer the same content within the vanilla mindset.

8 Likes
2

WOTLK was the best expansion ever… Don’t like it just don’t play it then. And stay in outland forever.

21 Likes
3

WotLK had some issues derived by the “new approach” but is still in the Classic/Legacy territory and the same could be said for TBC.

Blizzard themselves said that the Classic era ends with WotLK and that Cataclysm was the first “new-gen” WoW game because of the massive changes to skills, talents, stats and the world itself.

In the end we should have Legacy servers locked on each of the 3 Classic iterations and that’s all.

4 Likes
4

At this point, I don’t believe there is any possibility that Legacy servers will end before WOTLK. WOTLK has a huge fan base and traditionally it has been the expansion with most private servers. I am not sure if Legacy servers will continue after WOTLK, there is a high chance that it doesn’t but some expansions like Pandaria have some fanbase that would want to pay for that, but I am not sure if they will be enough, especially given the fact that Cataclysm it is required before. Legacy servers will end on WOTLK or after WOTLK, but not in TBC.

5

If anything is certain it’s that wotlk is coming. It’s the most popular expansion in wows history (for good reasons, even if I prefer BC).

1 Like
6

WoTLK did get the ball rolling in terms of everything that made the game subjectively bad, but the expansion itself is still a part of the old game and still a part of the holy trinity.

For all its fault, WoTLK legacy is pretty much guaranteed at this point. Although I personally would like to see a couple minor tweaks: I.E buffed Naxxramas (The fact that Classic Naxx is harder than WoTLK Naxx says a lot.) and no dungeon finder.

4 Likes
7

WOTLK was so gooood up until Ulduar the best raid in existense and I would play easily, if only this bad bad achievement system wasn’t introduced along with LFG, Gearscore starting at ToC, or just abolish those things that were the stepping stone to killing the game.

8

Àchievements were introduced in TBC

9

No they weren’t. They were added in WotLK

2 Likes
10

They technically were added in TBC; it was the WoTLK pre-patch that gave us achievements. To some, that’s still TBC.

…Can’t imagine anybody wanting to play the WoTLK Pre-patch version of TBC though.

11

Perhaps more accurately I should have said “added with WotLK”

2 Likes
12

Wotlk is the worse expansion ever. I will be happy to play classic/TBC.

3 Likes
13

Pre-patch is part on next expansion. That is why is start with new number like 2.xxx, 3.xxx, 4.xxx and so on. In classic we were also not given TBC Pre-patch features.

1 Like
14

Diverse, but very basic to play.
At least you could play every spec in TBC/WOTLK without being discriminated against lol.

2 Likes
15

Whilst I don’t disagree with your summation, I don’t actually oppose WotLK servers. as long as there’s some clear, no-hassle way of staying in TBC if I so choose, (and obviously the same applies to TBC servers).

Despite the fact that many of the moves toward the hated QOL features began during the WotLK period, it is still a game that we are no longer able to play in it’s original form; whereas ever expansion afterward can essentially be played as originally intended, save for a few non-essential tweaks and features.

I’d definitely play WotLK again though I’d always want to come back to TBC, as that would be my ‘main game’.

1 Like
16

Gearscore existed at the end of TBC, luckily almost noone cared.

17

As a Paladin I beg to differ :rofl:

18

And it, GS, wasnt added by Blizzard but the community.

Hate or love it, the LFD-tool had its purpose in WOTLK. It complimentet both the Badge-system (“catch up”-system for PvE/PvP) and helped people access and get groups for the many Achivements that were introduced (along with the daily bonus award for the “best tier”).

As much as it later became a washed out unpersonal tool, in the context of WOTLK it added quite a dimension to the game.
I for one have never played as many Dungeons as I have in WOTLK (and enjoyed them), and I doubt I would If I had to find my own group every single time/role/character and time of day along with traveling there for every each one of them. Most of them were still with guildies and friends, so that part wasnt taken away from me.

As always the world isnt black and white.

2 Likes
19

But thb I would even play Cata. T11 was amazing content. Heroic dungeons were hard again like in TBC, problem was that with dungeon finder in place it get so much pushback. Wotlk dungeon zergfest was to difficult to push back. For me it was MoP when wow cossed line. It was first time when Blizzard made its 2002 April fool joke real…

1 Like
20

Speak for yourself.

There’re many reasons why I don’t enjoy Retail, but I don’t remember any of these happening in WotLK:

  • Botched itemization
  • Level scaling
  • Convoluted and unintuitive gameplay (talents, for example)
  • Loads of borrowed systems and daily grinds (Artifacts, Azurite, Covenants, etc)

WotLK was very much “pick up and play”, possibly more than any other version of WoW ever - and that’s why it was (and still is) a resounding success. I personally prefer TBC to WotLK, but I still vastly prefer WotLK to both Vanilla and Retail.

Blizzard would shoot themselves in the foot by not releasing WotLK Classic.

Then don’t play it. There’re many players for example who didn’t touch Classic (or quit it in a short span of time) who may come back for TBC and/or WotLK. That doesn’t mean Classic shouldn’t have released. Play what you like and let others do the same. And since there’s a lot of demand for TBC and WotLK Classic, I assure you both will happen.

5 Likes