World of Warcraft: Classic

[agnes]

It's just been announced at blizzcon! As a fellow vanilla fan, having the frustrations in the drama of all the private WoW Vanilla servers up and down and changing names every few months has been annoying.

I personally thought it was a matter of time until Blizzard realised that they are missing out on 10k a month subs (going off Lightshope population daily) by being stubborn and not running vanilla servers. Their trash over not being able to do it was always tosh and I'm glad they will be supporting them.

I'd gladly pay £10 a month for vanilla as I really enjoyed it and enjoy the trip down memory lane and this day and age, £10 for 10 hours of fun in a game is a cheap price to pay!

 

[agnes]

I don't think 10k players on some of the private servers would all be willing to pay £10 a month. A fee for sure but not the rate for the main WoW game.

If not them, a lot of people who quit due to crappy expansions will come back with old friends. For sure they will get a huge hike in resubs.

 

[agnes]

This is pretty exciting for me. I might actually re-activate my World of Warcraft account for this. I quit before the first expansion came out and I'd love to go back and see what I missed and / or forgot about. I used to love doing battlegrounds for instance.

Just another slightly related question. If I wanted to play on the normal servers when the new expansion comes out if I just buy the latest expansion does it include all the previous expansions as well or do I have to buy each expansion individually? I only have the original World of Warcraft on my account as I never bought any of the expansions.

I think it includes all previous content.

 

[agnes]

It depends how "vanilla" it is.

Let's not forgot how many horrific things were part of the original game before we remember all the good stuff I'm talking about stuff like only

1 viable spec for every class - Good! No 'all classes do all things' ********, I'm all for 2 talent specs, but even that was a bit annoying. Either your a shadow priest, or a healer... Combat rogue, or assassin...
5 min Paladin buffs - Great! Work out viable rotations
farming souls on Warlocks both pre-raid and mid-raid - Warlocks had it easy leveling, only fair they had some short comings in other areas
bags and bags of Hunter ammo - Well yea, a hunter shoots a projectile, it shouldn't come out of thin air
bots farming resource nodes all day long - Yea, never a nice thing
spells needed reagents - Same as the hunter thing, as a rogue, I'd need to use some flash powder to vanish! If I forgot, my fault and I'd lose the world PVP fight
green quality resist gear to survive in raids - Never experienced this, mind you, I never did much raiding
spirit stat (on non-Mana classes as well!) - Same as above
max debuffs on targets was so low Warlocks were garbage - work out which debuffs work best in the raid then
heals-over-time didn't stack - Good, makes needing healers all the more important!
wands *shudder* - A mage is a mage, if they run out of mana or the mob is near death, then a wand is fine?
30 minute long flight paths no "constant" flight paths (you had to land, pick a new route, fly there, pick another, repeat) - This, this is what I love, a huge world, not instant teleport!
no LFG finder - THE WORST OFFENDER, this is what ruined WoW for me. It made the game feel 10 times smaller
... the list goes on.

With the above, something tells me you won't be liking it if it's pure vanilla and most won't bother if it has the above in...

 

[agnes]

In all these years you've not realised it's a bear?!

I was thinking the same haha

 

[agnes]

I think it's all way to late really. Most people have moved on to better MMORPGs. Vanilla won't hold up against modern competition, especially when asking for a subscription.

The game has been going in the wrong direction for about 10 years and bleeding subscribers the whole time.

On the contrary, no MMO has grabbed me since as they all seem to be far too easy or focused on the player, not the multiplayer side.

 

[agnes]

As a hunter vanilla hunter who had an alt specifically created to mine thorium and create thorium ammo I like the sound of this. The moment they removed ammo from the game it all started to feel a little less real (I know) and it all mattered less.
It's the little things!

I used to love getting items I needed for spells, specially as a rogue, stocking up ready for an evening in AV. Loved it.

 

[agnes]

I bet it'll be popular for a few months then fade away as the nostalgia burns out. Especially if they keep the tedious things like 5 min pally buffs.

I imagine so, but they will get a nice hike in subs and maybe some of them will continue to play normal retail...

 

[agnes]

Just curious if Naxx will be as hard as it was before, if the game itself is running better than it did back then? If they are using a version of the engine that runs smoother + modern computers running the game considerably smoother?

All entirely unknown at least for a while.

 

[agnes]

The wife and I got tickets and we are VERY much looking forward to checking this out. Fingers crossed they have not tainted it with 'modern' stuff.

 

[agnes]

Anyone else going to Blizzcon? I'm actually super excited to try it out there in November.

 

[agnes]

Best example of why the modern WoW player should stay in modern WoW ever.....

That was beyond painful to watch!

 

[agnes]

The more I think about it, the more I'm changing my mind, I have no 'go to' games to fill large voids of time, I've got a bunch I play regularly but nothing to soak up a rainy day. I WAS into WoW but the latest expansion just destroyed it for me.

If they don't **** up the ability to farm and grind, I think I'd happily get into vanilla again.

 

[agnes]

https://www.pcgamer.com/wow-classic/

Finally a release date.

 

[agnes]

Why release in summer!

Why not? I guess their thinking is they want to bring in a younger crowd to see what all the fuss is about on a game they missed out on almost 15 years ago. That's a whole new crowd to bring in, no doubt streamers will pick it up if even for a few stupid play sessions. Makes sense, the original is DAMN addictive with the grind feeling a lot more rewarding. It's a smart business move if anything.

 

[agnes]

I don't mind the waiting around or lack of mobs. It's what made it great, join random people, play with them to help capture the mobs and work on them together.

Much slower paced, more friendly. Can't wait. A MMO that actually requires player input.

 

[agnes]

I only played Vanilla (having been mostly burned out on MMOs after EQ).

What happened/changed between then and now, for WoW? Less of an MMO in what way?

There is a lot of content, and many systems skipping it. There are very few reasons to actually head out to the world with a group of friends and gain something from it. It's over saturated and forgotten what a core MMO is. Team work. Everything outside of mythic raiding can be easily obtained and completed all from the comfort of a home city.

Hell, as a mythic raider, I'd even say once you focus on min/maxing your toon, even mythic is just a 2 or 3 night grind for a couple of hours and that's it. PvP is something I don't do much of but I know it's a dieing branch of WoW as it's all normalised and boring to most people. You don't get the same rush you did running in AV with your friends on Teamspeak barking out commands and having a laugh.

Leveling is practically brain dead grinding thanks to heirlooms, or even without it's barely a challenge anymore.

A lot of achievements to chase if that's your thing. Rep grinding is now a thing of the past and professions are VERY easily maxed out by anyone with an evening to spare and a few k gold (which is NOT a lot). Nothing feels like a true progression anymore other than increasing that stupid ilvl number. You no longer chase down a bit of gear and feel amazing as all gear up until the very specifics you need have no real use/purpose other than a very short filler until you do get the gear.

It's just too easy, too saturated with a lot of content, most of which is just fluff.

 

[agnes]

I’m defo RP (better crowd in the main), but torn between PvP and PvE (if there’s even an option).

Open world PvP definitely changes the game, but I’m not sure if I could put up with the constant threat, especially levelling in STV.

You weren’t there maannn.

STV... Dear lord, my 2 mains were a rogue and hunter, every other step I'd be in stealth or laying down freezing traps and flare lol.

I think I'll go PvE simply because I want a chill experience this time round.

 

[agnes]

I didn't want to be "that guy" in this thread, but yeah. Coming from EQ (never played UO), WoW - even vanilla - was a good chunk more "theme park" and a less a "world". Without even mentioning the drop in difficultly between the two. Or the commitment required.

Ie the floating "!" to signify a quest giver. The legions of people who took quests without once reading the quest text. The GPS tracker than meant you could run to your destination just looking at the overhead map. The mobs that couldn't chase you very far before rubber-banding. Being able to see in the dark as any race. Being invulnerable on corpse runs. Soloing levelling and solo gearing up.

So it's funny to hear people talking about classic WoW compared to "easy-mode" modern WoW.

However it should be noted that modern EQ is pants-on-head crap compared to 2001 EQ, having decided to imitate WoW after the latter become wildly more successful. Whilst ~2001 EQ is a memory I will always remember fondly, I wouldn't recommend modern EQ to my worst enemy.

100% agree, but I feel it's a huge part of it's success, it open the doors to a lot of casual players, my self included at the time and was a gateway to incredible games and a passionate hobby. Current WoW is even more so of s theme part MMO as you put it, which is why so many are flocking from it. It's TOO accessible now, no real sense of achievements anymore.

I also liked the co-op aspect as it's how a lot of us new to PC gaming made friends online and then branched away from WoW.

I really do feel it will have the same impact on a lot of younger gamers today, not on the same scale as it's slow and old compared to modern games. But I certainly think they will have a lot of new players.

 

[agnes]

I'm REALLY torn on what to play when it's released...

I'm torn between hunter for ease of leveling and end game ZG bat for PvP fun against casters, rogue for sheer fun and ganking, mage for decent upkeep whilst leveling and easy mob grinding late game or warrior for easy dungeon groups, easy leveling and sheer damage.