I’ve noticed that Blizzard are polling the players about progression of Classic servers to Cataclysm. Since this is certainly an option on the table, I’d like to share my opinion why re-releasing Cataclysm is a horrible idea.
To put it simply, it’s the world revamp that ruined the experience for me. And I suppose it ruined the experience for many players. I’m simply not interested in playing WoW in the revamped post-cataclysm zones for the following reasons:
It changed the world in a way that made capital cities unpleasant. Stormwind ruined. Orgrimmar - changed. Gone was the good old pastoral Orgrimmar with wooden huts and another one with iron architecture that I never liked appeared. Forsaken towns were changed - gone were the human buildings. Southshore was destroyed.
So many places I loved were gone forever. This is what invokes the nostalgia for me.
Questing was streamlined and made easier. Gone were the hard group quests. Gone was looking for people to help with Hogger. Yes, it got progressively easier with the release of BC and WOTLK, but Cataclysm was the final nail of the coffin. For a person like me who enjoys questing more than raids/dungeons, the experience was ruined forever. Back in Classic we had easy quests and hard quests which were doable in groups. In Cataclysm questing was affordable for everyone, thus bland and dull.
To add further salt to the wounds, class quests were removed. Back in Classic classes had identity. You as a player had to pass certain rites of passages so you could learn how to use certain skills. This was done by doing class quests which took you everywhere on the map. It was no trivial job to learn to use your skills to summon a succubus or a felhunter as a warlock. Not to mention the mounts on level60 in pure Vanilla.
Cataclysm, however, made everything purchasable with gold. Classes were … all the same and the difficulty was all the same. Only the spells on the bar differed.
The storyline was absolutely ruined. Back in Vanilla you had an authentic story and the pop-culture references were subtle. In Cataclysm however pop culture references were dictating the main storyline. You had to help Horatio Caine (Laine) in Westfall or Rambo in Redridge.
The Horde was presented as villains, plaguing and destroying Alliance cities. As for the Alliance experience … it was simply depressing. A story of loss isn’t necessary a bad story, but in the case it was bad. You never saw Alliance leaders in actions, and sometimes you even helped Horde leaders. This was especially egregious with the case of Thrall - he was turned into a Green Jesus, a Mary Sue and nobody enjoyed sticking to him all the time.
Revamping the world meant huge efforts that took away efforts from making some nice end-game zones. There’s a reason why 12 years later Blizzard never did another revamp, and there’s a reason why 12 years later Blizzard never released another expansion which didn’t have a separate continent (or world plane, or a planet). For example, Blizzard abandoned creating a compelling story in the Twilight highlands which was supposed to expose Benedictus as a traitor. Instead, the Alliance players were forced to do the Horde quests where you had to meet red dragons who were angry at you for no reason.
This is why releasing Cataclysm with all its flaws in terms of questing and the changed world is a godawful idea. Cataclysm Classic won’t be Classic at all. It will be Retail version 1.0, when Dragonflight will be version 7.0 - but the spirit will be the same.
Cataclysm certainly got some things right. Transmogrification first comes to mind and I can only be sorry it came so late in the development cycle of WoW. Maybe the separation of class spec and talent tree can also be considered a good move, heroic dungeons were good… but I don’t think it justifies re-releasing the expansion.
I’d rather embrace Classic+ : an upgraded WOTLK with transmogrification… but not the Cataclysm zones.
The Class identity for me, along with the hero complex they developed along side removing all class identity.
I remember playing ret back on wotlk and being annoyed I didn’t have a kick and could be kited forever, however, I still loved playing it.
Iit had great offheals, support, dispels, bop and insane burst. Being able to duel hunters or rogues knowing they couldn’t heal and I would trickle them down eventually was fun. Every class had issues but every class had an identity.
Then came rogues healing, paladins having a kick and ultimately every class merged into the same thing with some different animations. The big drawbacks but big positives made playing other classes different, fun and ultimately unique.
The class quests also were fun, it felt like you were following a path. You weren’t “the champion” or “the hero”, you were just some nobody adventurer. The development of the “big hero” complex and you weren’t just an adventurer was super cringe and I don’t think that was the right way to go about character development.
Wotlk is the final expansion I would call “classic”. From cataclysm onwards too many things were different, easier, dumbed down, or whatever.
It’s hilarious to see Blizzard use the design pillars of classic as arguments sometimes, when they are now thinking of releasing a “Cataclysm Classic” which kinda contradicts their design pillars completely.
They’d have to do a huge rehaul of Cataclysm to make it “classic” in their eyes, which will never happen, because they can’t and they don’t want to.
It’s going to be a disaster, and I’ll probably be around to play it because I have nothing better to do.
I remember this was a response to a common criticism in Cataclysm and MOP timeline - because the Alliance lost too many wars and people had the feeling their efforts are for nothing. People were sick of being the reactive wheel of Blizzard’s storytelling.
This is why Blizzard decided to put us on the front seats and everyone from WOD ahead shouted “Commander”, “Champion”.
Which was a far cry from what we wanted. We wanted a good story. Like the one in WOTLK. When you saw Bolvar Fordragon in Dragonblight, he remembered you and your efforts in previous expansion, acknowledged you and you continued to enjoy the story just for its own sake.
I didn’t read the wall of text, mostly because you posted it in the wrong forum.
Please … you obviously spend alot of time on that post, why not spend a few seconds checking it was the correct forum? You can move the entire thread to the Wrath forums by clicking the Pencil icon.
I genuinely agree with everything you said. In another thread I posted my own thoughts:
Well, my two cents. The word “classic” just can’t be applied to Cataclysm. It’s the Expansion that killed and buried the classic World of Warcraft world and mechanics. It is the expansion that wrecked Azeroth, removed classic talent trees, a majority of all classic quests, including lore chains (replacing them with linear over dramatic hand holding chains with cut scenes…) and generally ruined the entire 1-60 leveling experience. It is not that strange that during Cata the “Ironman Challenge” appeared - because leveling had become such a mindless process, without any semblance of challenge or need for the player to actually make choices and pay attention.
Ironically, I enjoyed Cata content - most dungeons and raids were really good and Uldum and the underwater zones were very nice questing zones. And I kinda like Archaeology.
So a Cata “classic” would be pointless, classic WoW ends with WoTLK. But I wouldn’t mind Cata and later content expansions to the classic game client. With modern phasing tech from retail you could play through 1-80 in the classic world and then boom Cata happens and the world changes - but with lvl cap still at 80. That I would play. A repeat of the original Cata, not a chance.
The development of the “big hero” complex and you weren’t just an adventurer was super cringe and I don’t think that was the right way to go about character development.
Indeed, this was a huge change of direction for how questing told stories in WoW, and (along with general dumbing down of everything) what eventually made me grow bored with retail. It kinda peaked in WoD where every damn player on the server was THE commander/champion/etc (whatever superlative nonsense title). That kind of storytelling just doesn’t work in an MMO.
WOTLK is where homogenization of items and classes actually takes over, cata just continues that trend. Rogues using AOE, next expansion we get our own heal. The items are all boring also, stat boosters with almost no unique equip effects, no randomly scaling items. Easier to balance, but it makes for some boring gameplay. And this is why Vanilla WOW is King.
while I am sad to see BC go, I can understand that there won’t be BC era servers.
I play alot of vanilla era, and it’s already a struggle and vanilla has more of a “core” playerbase than TBC judging by pserver numbers.
WOTLK era really might make sense also, since most of the longest living decently active pservers were WOTLK.
one thing you have to keep in mind: that blizzard didn’t even give one free character clone per account really hurt classic era, and it proabbly would be noticeably more active (I’m not saying it would be massive, but more active) if they didn’t get greedy with that.
