Include Classic WoW as a version in Caverns of Time

[A Chozo]

I have a better idea.

Include a version of Classic Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms on the Caverns of Time, without the use of old tech. Terrain, physical objects, maybe npcs, QUESTS if it isn't much of a hassle, just so I can experience the world before Deathwing one last time.

Now THIS would be a more awesome idea. Old World, visible in the Caverns of Time.

[Flurryfang]

So seeing as how a great deal of people want to have classic WoW back, how about a huge undertaking:

Include the entirety of classic WoW as an alternate version which can be reached via the Caverns of Time.

If Nost still has usable code, use that code to rebuild classic. <-This is the only way to do this which doesn't require an impossible amount of dev time (if at all this is possible of course.)

This version would include all the old raids and dungeons if you travel to this alternate "Old Azeroth". Gear and abilities would not change of course.
If you are bored of vanilla you could switch back at any time using the caverns again.

So what do you think?

This would require it to be build into the current version of WoW.. Which would increase the size of them game by quite alot. Putting that together with that only a few % of the current WoW playerbase have said, that they want to even touch Classic, then its going to be a huge burden on the entire playerbase for very little bonus for the average player.

If blizzard ever wants to make a classic server or classic WOW game, then they have to make it a new game, so the current game is not unnessesarily enlarged by a Classic version.

[Typhoria]

You have to stop with that "Nostalgic desire" crap. If it was just nostalgia, there wouldn't be tens of thousands of continually active players on private servers. They are shit to their fans and its nothing more. Like hell i'd be annoyed if players loved my game that much. People need to get over the nostalgia argument, Its complete BS.

10s of thousands is a drop in the bucket when there has been over 100m accounts.

[Theoris]

If it was just nostalgia, there wouldn't be tens of thousands of continually active players on private servers.

Keep in mind they're playing for free on those servers. How many of those people would actually play on an official Classic server if they had to pay a subscription?

[vipers]

if normal fans can make classic servers maybe they should hire them to setup server where ppl can play if want to go classic

[Deleted]

You have the game was it was then, with addons available then - or someone is a hypocrite when claiming that the older experience was that much better.

Assuming that the old UI is why people want classic WoW back

[Typhoria]

if normal fans can make classic servers maybe they should hire them to setup server where ppl can play if want to go classic

Problem with that is the code they have for their servers isn't completely accurate in both mob behavior, health and damage. Also, if blizz did anything about legacy it would have to be integrated into the battle net client, which I doubt the faux-code server hosts would know how to do.

[Deleted]

Hell no.

What you don't understand is classic was good not because of old zones, but because of game design. Adding old zones to CoT would be like adding v12 engine to Prius - its not the same at all.

Old WoW was great because of game pace, because of depth, because of RPG, because of difficulty in everything. It was a completely different game. Balance sucked, but everything else was way better.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Would it be cool if I walked into a portal in CoT and could see the old world again? I guess sure. But do I think it is a much needed part of the game? No. Blizzard will release Legacy servers some day and that will be good enough. Probably after retail has ran its course and they can resell boxes and subs to milk the dead cow before it rots. Will be a long while though. I mean even certain private realms have come to admit their actions have set the whole process back. Turns out robbing the bank doesn't force them to qualify you for a loan. Who would've thought. So now we will just have to wait until Blizzard wants to do it. I know it isn't the answer some people want to hear but it just looks like the reality of the situation.

[Felaris Stormrage]

I don't see it being plausible. The best you're going to get, is the introduction of timewalking raids.

[Typhoria]

I don't see it being plausible. The best you're going to get, is the introduction of timewalking raids.

That anniversary MC went so well...

[Roadblock]

Having seen some videos when people were asking for addons, I noticed that in at least some cases there were auras above nameplates on those classic realms.
Much earlier than from my recollection we had any on live, through addons or not.
Are those modified clients - or was the functionality there, but not the demand.

Just curious because if that is the former, modified clients then that would speak volumes about just how much people actually want the original experience.
You can't as you say cherry-pick what you want, fixes or improvements which came later.

It was always possible to do through combatlog scanning and matching a predefined static database of spells to units through unit-names (guid was not available).
It is not perfect as you would expect since same name mobs will have debuffs / castbars shown, but it works decently well for pvp.

TL;DR; It's not custom clients, it's the fact that addon scene for vanilla has actually picked up in the last few years with the increased interest in that version of the game, and some nifty new addons for the old game are popping up.
They still work fully within the API restrictions and game client restrictions of 1.12.1.

- - - Updated - - -

Hell no.

What you don't understand is classic was good not because of old zones, but because of game design. Adding old zones to CoT would be like adding v12 engine to Prius - its not the same at all.

Old WoW was great because of game pace, because of depth, because of RPG, because of difficulty in everything. It was a completely different game. Balance sucked, but everything else was way better.

Exactly.
./

[Triptych]

What you're proposing, while interesting, doesn't deliver what I would actually want out of a vanilla/legacy game.

It's not just about visiting the old zones and going into the original dungeons.

It's doing those things while wearing odd bits of green gear with +Intellect and +Agility, casting Rank 2 Scorpid Sting, gathering herbs into a Cenarion Herb Satchel, carrying a stack of seed reagents for buffing Greater MOTW, spending 5/5 talent points into Wand Specialization, and so on.

You can't relive all of the things that made vanilla WoW great, just by taking a level 110 modern character back through a bronze dragonflight portal.

Sorry.

[Darsithis]

You have to stop with that "Nostalgic desire" crap. If it was just nostalgia, there wouldn't be tens of thousands of continually active players on private servers. They are shit to their fans and its nothing more. Like hell i'd be annoyed if players loved my game that much. People need to get over the nostalgia argument, Its complete BS.

The root of all desire to play classic WoW is nostalgia: remembering certain events, certain raids, the feeling of that first character, the time you got that first epic, it's all about that. That's not terrible, I don't know why people act like it's such a horrible thing to want to do something because of nostalgic reasons.

It's fine that people want to reinvest time into classic and play. Sometimes I get an itch to play a game I played before and can spend weeks on it. WoW is more unique in that it requires more time investment over a longer period, but it's all still nostalgia that drives it. As someone pointed out in another thread, that's why most private servers use "nostalgia" in their name in some fashion.

[Deleted]

What mechanics? Tank and spank bosses with tank swaps and dispells. Dps tunnel visions... Mages and Locks just using frost bolt(later fire) and shadow bolt. Warriors fury starved until AQ then fury capped because of threat. Rogues waiting on energy the whole time. 10+ specs weren't viable for end game content.

Not encounter mechanics :-P The game systems.

[Rudkobing]

It sounds great, but one instance might not be able to handle all that data.

/shrug

[Queen of Hamsters]

I'd rather they focused resources on revamping the leveling experience, enhancing it and making it TRULY demanding for seasoned players rather than spending time pandering to people with thick nostalgia goggles. There are private servers to tie those people over until such a time that Blizzard might deem it worth creating legacy servers. Until then, EVERYTHING should go into the current game and those of us that want WoW NOW.

[Thetruth1400]

The appeal of Vanilla servers is not having all the watered down content and changes that have been made since then, not just the areas as they originally were.

Players want them as a stand alone experience, unaffected by every expansion that came after it. If they can do the Caverns of Time way where the only thing updated is graphics, but it retains literally everything else that Vanilla WoW offered, then sure, toss it in there. I feel like that's a near impossibility though, especially when you consider the sheer amount of changes that have happened since.

Just one simple example, how are you going to handle hunters? Back in Vanilla, they wore leather until 40, then switched to mail. Now, they were mail from level 1. If someone chooses the Vanilla path are they locked into that path? Can they switch in and out of Vanilla CoT play and New play? If so, how do you handle gear? Does their piece of mail gear suddenly transform into leather when they get out? Do we go by old design of gear where the stats were all over the board? Do the characters themselves go by the old style of balance with stats or the new balance of stats per spec? What about specs that have changed dramatically?

Really there are just way too many changes for them to be even considered the same game. That leads me back to my first point, they need to be stand alone experiences.

All that aside, I think Blizzard is full of shit that they don't have their original source code. Considering there are dozens if not hundreds of unofficial servers that have it, for Blizzard not to would just be extreme negligence.

This would require it to be build into the current version of WoW.. Which would increase the size of them game by quite alot. Putting that together with that only a few % of the current WoW playerbase have said, that they want to even touch Classic, then its going to be a huge burden on the entire playerbase for very little bonus for the average player.

The rub there is, sites like Nost were able to do it with a few people, unpaid, as a project of love. I'm pretty sure if a few weekend warriors can keep a server going and completely managed, that a team of paid employees from Blizzard could easily do it. Nost had about 1 million subs at it's peek. Blizzard had 5.4 million at last official count release. If a huge multi-billion dollar company can't do what a small group of 4 devs and 2 admins did on their weekends, that's pretty sad.

[Heathy]

I don't see how this would work beyond timewalking, you can get scaled down but the idea of there being an old patch version of wow that you somehow load into sounds practically impossible from a programming point of view, i mean how the hell would that work, they somehow merge 2 versions of the game together, and then spend probably years debugging the resulting mess?

you've got more chance of seeing wow get an First person shooter mode or a built in RTS mini game.

how would that be marketable even if it could work, blizzard do seem to strive for consistency in their products and one thing is for sure, the way the game worked back then compared to now is anything but consistent, you couldn't go from wow then to wow now and pick up and play the game unless you already know what things were like back then.. it would essentially be like swapping between 2 entirely different games.

the amount of effort it would require to relive the glory days isn't worth it for the handful of ppl who would even bother wasting time lingering in old content vs those who just want to progress forward. I could imagine it 'hey guys we spent the last year working on a classic mode' rip the entire community. I mean ppl get pissed when they revamp dungeons and raids, if they were to revamp the whole of classic, well that would certain irritate ppl who want the game to move forward not backward.

personally i'm hoping for a revamped aq20 one day, i liked that instance and would totally run it again with upto date mechanics. perhaps i won't hold my breath but they did do zg so maybe one day. as far as i'm concerned the rest of the game can stay a memory i'm quite happy moving forward.

i mean i play mmos to continually progress once you stop progressing the game turns into MSN messenger and that isn't worth $15 a month.

[Echocho]

The root of all desire to play classic WoW is nostalgia: remembering certain events, certain raids, the feeling of that first character, the time you got that first epic, it's all about that. That's not terrible, I don't know why people act like it's such a horrible thing to want to do something because of nostalgic reasons.

It's fine that people want to reinvest time into classic and play. Sometimes I get an itch to play a game I played before and can spend weeks on it. WoW is more unique in that it requires more time investment over a longer period, but it's all still nostalgia that drives it. As someone pointed out in another thread, that's why most private servers use "nostalgia" in their name in some fashion.

That doesn't explain all the people who never actually played it and who now years later prefer it over the live version. I personally don't but a huge percentage of the vanilla supporters actually started after the cataclysm.