Blizzard is watering down its own game. Classic, Classic BC, Classic Wrath, Classic Cataclysm, Season of Mastery, Classic Era, Season of Discovery, Classic Hardcore and Classic Hardcore Self Found…
Thats 9(!!) variants of a wow classic (in the sense of non-retail).
Why do we need all these variants? Why does Blizzard keep insisting to do things “their way” instead of just offering what the community wants?
Classic normal / hc (SSF based)
Classic plus (not the SoD way)
The essence of classic will be totally gone in SoD, yet players will try it out and other classic experiences will die out.
Rogue tanks? Mage healers? Warlock tanks? Class identity will suffer greatly when most classes can do most roles.
Crazy OP runes? Content will be facerolles and “gogogo AOE pull” mentality will once again be the meta.
Soon im guessing they will add modern looking spells and effects with transparrent, extensively glowing and flying characters etc etc…
Because it is not what blizzard wants. Blizzard doesnt want to polish classic, they want to create their own classic. Polishing old classic means for them accepting that they lost to 20 years old game and this hurts their ego, thats why they stubbornly want to make you play their modern classic
I’ve played on and off since Vanilla launch and I have to say that it wasn’t the game that was great, it was the community. Nowadays we’ve almost lost community members and social interaction to speed running and min/maxing YouTube content. As such I think they need to make the game more interesting early on and doing SoD does that. As a community I think there’s a huge amount we have to take responsibility for also, communicating more when out questing or using the dungeon finder would help this.
We will never get Vanilla back because Vanilla wasn’t the game, it was the experience and WE lack the community skills to replicate what we previously experienced. I learnt this during TBC (the finest expansion for me by a long way!). During Vanilla TBC, it was such a growing experience as I joined a full on raiding guild and progressed into end game content (I was on a PvP server at launch and messing about with irl friends). This time around TBC felt very different. The community was ok at best and elitism (by under achieving elitists) put a stop to most of my enjoyment and as a result the TBC experience felt flat. This really saddened me, as I was so looking forward to the great camaraderie I once enjoyed.
So TLDR: it will be nigh on impossible to replicate the true Vanilla experience, it’s gone. All that is left is to try and find new ways of enjoying old assets. Should YouTube cease to exist and people learn to learn again and value each other in game, then perhaps we may have a chance at that Vanilla experience. Sadly the Dunning Kruger effect and immaturity is rife within the gaming community.
I fully agree with your point but the reason we can never go back isn’t any one reason, yes modern ‘META’ gaming (youtube guides etc) helps nullify the whole community/discovery aspect but that happens even with new games.
Sometime between 2008-2010 WoW became “pop culture”. It originally arrived at a time when the majority of people had moved onto broadband connections. Social media wasn’t around when it released and before smartphones wasn’t as prominent as it is today. Most single player games outside of GTA were yet to be open world. This is why people from all walks of life got involved and we ended up with the community we did. It stole MMORPG gamers from literally every other game (including myself) but it also drew in people for social reasons. The graphics, lore, smooth gameplay and character/charm of the game was literally lightning in a bottle. Those “mom’s” that sit and play candycrush or facebook games with each other today? Well back in 05 they would have probably played WoW. You had kids begging for the game because someone told them a story from WoW, someone saw a picture of the corrupted ashbringer on PC Gamer, people who played D&D and wanted to roleplay etc etc.
The world was obviously different in the early 00’s, MMORPG’s were quite frankly THE version of social media. I remember telling people in real life that “MMO’s are like this big world you join, everyone’s there and it’s like real life with banks n stuff…”.
That’s the past and like I said it was just the timing. The community we are left with now is made up mostly of die-hard MMO or WoW fans. The ‘genre’ has been stale for a long time and long replaced with MOBA’s followed by Arena shooters then Battle Royale as the “in” thing. Gamer’s in general and especially those who have been playing the same game for a long time are generally of a higher calibre than back when WoW’s content was created, if you couple that with the fact that it’s way beyond “min maxed” then your left with the current “classic” experience.
I will always contend that peoples interpretation of “you think you do, but you don’t” was/is incorrect. Every time someone swipes for their next GDKP they prove him right. From the release of the 2019 version of classic onwards he has been proven right and tbh that’s not anyone’s fault… Gamers and gaming culture in general is different, so is the world. It’s not any one thing and lightning doesn’t go back in the bottle…
And why exactly should SoD ruin Classic? I dont know about Wotlk, but era is f-ing crowded… Are players going to check out SoD? Sure ( i am too ). But are they leaving era? I dont think so… I think alot of players realised how good Era is after they seen what happened to Wotlk… It’s far from perfect, just so we’re clear, but alot of players bought so much gold ( tnx to our bots ) so im not that sure they are going to leave classic for SoD.
So you just listed what you want - and left Classic Era out of the list, which is for example what I want. You see the problem?
If community wants different flavors, how can Blizzard possibly do the right version?
Because people want to play them. I would not resub now if it wasn’t for SoD.
If you ask 10 players what Classic+ should be you will get 11 different answers. YOUR Classic+ is not what someone else wants as Classic+ and Blizzard is well aware of that, they said it in the SoD Q&A even.
Rushing to 60, then boosting alts through dungeons, creating mega realms, and relying on big bot farms to provide AH welfare. “Essence of Classic” never existed.
I’m sure next season there will be 30 Warriors raid groups again.
Raids are already speedrun by those who want to speedrun them. This is a very old and very easy game.
it is what it is, and they listen to no feedback at all unlike they like to repeat every 5 seconds, its their MP5. Let’s try and see how it goes, thats all we can do
I think it’s so interesting to see how some people cry when Blizzard actually listens to the player base. Yes I said that!
Believe it or not, but a lot of people are excited about these changes. And the fact that Blizzard decides to actually go out of the safe comfort zone and stick to minor changes is great. This shows that they are willing to try out things and together with us (the community) evolve the game in to a great experience.
If you guys want to continue playing the 19 year old version go ahead, stick to that.
But I, like many many others are actually excited about SoD. It’s not perfect, but it will most definitely be a great experience to explore and discover this game mode together with the rest of the community.
Some will, especially because the content is only lvl 25. Others will play other classes of their favourite role, to understand balance better, because you don’t know what would be next runes at lvl 40 and so on. Anyway I doubd devs would go back to “drawing desks” for SoD in this year, probably in mid of January next year, so SoD would update in 1,5-2 months only.
) so im not that sure they are going to leave classic for SoD.