Classic Crowd: Do you want convenience & account wide stuff?

[Darknessvamp]

• Updated player models - Yes, hey maybe they'll update the old Vanilla armour as well and add that into retail as an incentive to run old dungeons there.
• Account wide mounts. - Nope
• Achievements in general - Yes, another way of showing prestige.
• Account wide achievements - Nope
• A Mount Tab so the actual mount doesn't take up your bag space - Nope
• Higher stack sizes for materials (vanilla it was only 20 max for materials) - Maybe doubled but certainly not up to 200.
• Larger bags (back in vanilla 18 slot bags were the highest you could get) - 20 but it requires you to run AQ and MC for the Ancient Molten Knapsack :P
• Guild banks - Maybe
• Personal Materials bank - Nope
• Mass auto loot (kill 3 mobs, loot only 1 mob and you get the dropped loot from all 3) - Nope, back to the days of ninjas being unable to steal your skin
• LFD---------------}These two depend on if the community actually goes back to how it was and isn't as elitist as it is now with as simple as running a low level dungeon.
• Group builder tool-]
• the list could literally go on and on and on for hundreds of lines, but you get the point
• Shared Mob Tags - Nope
• Learned Spell Tiers overwrite the previous spell as opposed to leaving it as separate - I'm kinda partial towards this as some of the dots classes could do stuff like put 5 different Moonfires or similar on one character and it'd be impossible to deal with.

Although I did enjoy Vanilla when I played it, even though I got lost and stuck at level 25 for months as a result, there are some minor things I think could be updated which would still keep the classic experience but make it interesting as well.

[Queen of Hamsters]

How sustainable is that from Blizzard's perspective though?

- - - Updated - - -

Live WoW pulls in billion-dollar figures without the presence of Classic servers, I think they'll be able to carry the Classic server and focus solely on recreating what the Classic following wants. Hell, they'll probably require a normal sub in order to access the server either way.

And if it does indeed have as bad or worse retention rate as a certain hyped up private server, then that's just how things are.

[Jaylock]

Every single thing that was added to the game was a welcome change by some people. There is not one feature in WoW that is officially hated by every single player.

If the game never had expansions and simple evolved slowly we would have ended up with what we have now but with less content. So people would have cried the same way but instead of saying "bring back vanilla" they would have said "bring back patch 1.12" or whatever and we would be in the same place basically.

Of course all QoL changes made the game better over time. That's why retail is so much better than vanilla and why classic (if released like vanilla) will never have as many players. It's too old and clunky and messy, and badly designed, it's horrible based on 2017 standards. (I'm not hating, I want to play vanilla as it was, but that's just how it is when you look at it from an unbiased point of view)

I just think that modifying it to please as many people kind of pulls away from what it was, what people fought for and what others need to experience to understand what vanilla was and realize the work that has been done since then. It's not JUST about making another experience but to send a message, remind people what vanilla was, not alter it.

I agree with most of your points. But you have to realize that Blizzard's goal is not to "send a message" to players to remind them of how vanilla really was. Their goal is to try to attract as many players as possible (most of them most likely coming from a pool of players who are not currently subscribed to retail wow) to make money.

To make money.

If this wasn't seen as a potential good investment, do you think they would have ever caved to the vanilla whiners? In my opinion, no. They would have never caved if it wasn't seen as a potentially good business decision.

[superhumanj]

it's that time again when Jaylock is unbanned for a few days?

[Jaylock]

Live WoW pulls in billion-dollar figures without the presence of Classic servers, I think they'll be able to carry the Classic server and focus solely on recreating what the Classic following wants. Hell, they'll probably require a normal sub in order to access the server either way.

And if it does indeed have as bad or worse retention rate as a certain hyped up private server, then that's just how things are.

Let me tell you, from a business perspective (i actually work in finance and do consulting for companies), no company would take on a project that would lose them money unless they thought that the goodwill received was enough to offset the bad investment.

Personally I don't think there would be enough goodwill created from caving into vanilla lovers to actually justify taking a financial loss on creating classic servers. They have to pay teams of people to sift through millions of lines of old code, use some of it, ditch some of it, and combine it with a better, more sustainable code base, they have to then maintain it, and dedicate gms and customer service staff to it, and other technical software engineers.

Again, if they didn't feel it had potential to actually make them money, then they wouldn't do it. Plain and simple. I don't think just slapping the old shit coded game onto a server and calling it a day is going to help them financially. It sure might "send a message", but if that message is received how you think it will be (proving to people that vanilla wasn't as good as they think it was), it will be a big financial blunder by Blizzard.

[Katchii]

I'll take it in whatever form they give it, I don't really care about the "Vanilla" experience. I played in Vanilla, and it was cool, but they improved on the QoL stuff for a reason.

I played a Hunter, and while the idea of having an actual pet that liked you and needed to be fed to keep it happy so that it WOULDN'T RUN AWAY (literally abandon you, lose your pet...permanently) was immersive, it was incredibly annoying at times because if your pets affection level wasn't that high it did less damage and you ran the risk of it abandoning you in mid dungeon if you were having a shitty dungeon run.

Also, quivers and ammo pouches that took up one of your bag slots and required refilling and cost money to refill with different grades of ammo. You could not use an ammo pouch with bows and vice versa and therefore has to have a well stocked stash of both just in case you got a good weapon upgrade that was another type. The "good" ammo was not cheap and neither were the higher capacity quivers and ammo pouches.

So...you were required to have pet food in your inventory, which takes up valuable bag space AND you have one less bagspace available because you're required to have a special ammo bag.

Yeah...I'll take the updated version where you don't use ammo (maybe compromise and have ammo be just a off hand weapon slot single item rather than a consumable) and no pet affection bar.

I did like Hunters having to teach their pet higher level skills though, and learning those skills required you to find and tame creatures/ beasts that had the higher level/ new ability. That was pretty cool.

[I Cannot Fap To That]

No. I want Vanilla

[arkanon]

Really common theme throughout this entire crowd. A huge portion of the people who think they want vanilla, ACTUALLY want a new expansion done in the vanilla style.

many want updated player models, some form of LFD etc etc, things that were not part of vanilla at all? i just dont think they even know what they are asking for. let me say it one more time :

you either want Vanilla as it was, with updates only to server stability etc, -or-

if you are asking for anything other than that, with current models, classes, lfd, bag changes, crafting changes, ANY gameplay changes or convenience, you are asking for a new expansion to be made just for you.

[Jaylock]

My memory might be failing me, but I think meeting stones were basically a really bad LFD tool. I believe in 2.0 they got rid of that feature and allowed meeting stones to summon. I know for a fact that they did not summon immediately, it was some kind of group finding tool. I also remember innkeepers getting the ability for people to access meeting stone interfaces from inns, without needing to go out to the physical stone.

It was rather bad though, I hardly ever tried to use them, so my memory is very foggy.

Hmm. I think I may have joined Vanilla a little after that then. I remember questing my way through westfall and everyone who wanted to do the dungeon in that area would spam /1 world chat to LFM VC (van cleef) *oh the good ole days *. Back then there was usually enough players questing through westfall that it was pretty quick to find a group.

The only problem is that the dead mines dungeon spanned like 7 levels in mob difficulty. So in order to complete it fully, you needed a group of level 16-19 or so. Also side note, what an epic way to start your WoW experience back then. I remember going into the dead mines and sprawling my way through it only to come to the last area with a hidden pirate ship in a huge cave... man that was amazing. Reminded me of the goonies.

[Vintersol]

I can't understand why we should ask for things that are already in the retail version? I want the classic experience as it was. Everything that differs from the patch 1.12 in the past would create another alternated vanilla version which is not my desire.

[God Save The King]

It's a simple fact so not really that surprising.

It's a simple statement that ignores all of the overwhelming complexity.

The very fact that it's running on modern hardware or will have gamebreaking bugs fixed makes it not vanilla, by that logic.

[Swalload]

I agree with most of your points. But you have to realize that Blizzard's goal is not to "send a message" to players to remind them of how vanilla really was. Their goal is to try to attract as many players as possible (most of them most likely coming from a pool of players who are not currently subscribed to retail wow) to make money.

To make money.

If this wasn't seen as a potential good investment, do you think they would have ever caved to the vanilla whiners? In my opinion, no. They would have never caved if it wasn't seen as a potentially good business decision.

Oh yeah I'm sure they don't have any message to send and they don't care about doing the right thing, there's more than one xpack to prove that. So I'm not expecting them to do the right thing here either.

[Jaylock]

I'll take it in whatever form they give it, I don't really care about the "Vanilla" experience. I played in Vanilla, and it was cool, but they improved on the QoL stuff for a reason.

I played a Hunter, and while the idea of having an actual pet that liked you and needed to be fed to keep it happy so that it WOULDN'T RUN AWAY (literally abandon you, lose your pet...permanently) was immersive, it was incredibly annoying at times because if your pets affection level wasn't that high it did less damage and you ran the risk of it abandoning you in mid dungeon if you were having a shitty dungeon run.

Also, quivers and ammo pouches that took up one of your bag slots and required refilling and cost money to refill with different grades of ammo. You could not use an ammo pouch with bows and vice versa and therefore has to have a well stocked stash of both just in case you got a good weapon upgrade that was another type. The "good" ammo was not cheap and neither were the higher capacity quivers and ammo pouches.

So...you were required to have pet food in your inventory, which takes up valuable bag space AND you have one less bagspace available because you're required to have a special ammo bag.

Yeah...I'll take the updated version where you don't use ammo (maybe compromise and have ammo be just a off hand weapon slot single item rather than a consumable) and no pet affection bar.

I did like Hunters having to teach their pet higher level skills though, and learning those skills required you to find and tame creatures/ beasts that had the higher level/ new ability. That was pretty cool.

see, its things like what you describe above that pains players a ton. If they made all that mess a little cleaner by maybe increasing the stack size of ammo and arrows, and giving it its own bag space that didn't take up the bag space that you have now, then that is a win. See, keep the spirit of vanilla without making it the tedious pos that it was.

I remember in TBC (i know TBC was not vanilla but much of the same systems were present in TBC), when our guild was progressing on Brutallus in the Sunwell raid, one of our hunters mid fight ran out of arrows. So he had to melee the rest of the fight. What a nightmare. We had to have him hearth back to town to go to the AH to buy some more high level arrows and summon him back. Increase the stack size and make an ammo bag separate from normal bags and that wouldn't happen as much, and you would still have the "spirit of vanilla"

[Eveningforest]

I agree with most of your points. But you have to realize that Blizzard's goal is not to "send a message" to players to remind them of how vanilla really was. Their goal is to try to attract as many players as possible (most of them most likely coming from a pool of players who are not currently subscribed to retail wow) to make money.

I really don't think they're trying to attract new players to Classic, tbh. It's a nostalgia playground for the vets, a side project to appease the crowds that have been asking for it (and annoying them) year after year again. I think people have been making too much out of this whole thing. Majority won't be sticking around for too long regardless of the number of qol features. Dedicated few will stay and play, those are the ones it's meant for. At least that's my humble view.

[acinos]

i wouldn't be upset if they did add achievements though id prefer a completely vanilla experience. id prefer them to be if they did more along the lines of an acknowledgement that you did something in classic but on regular retail servers. such as achievement: War never ending. win a classic server Alterac valley.

Though for me achievements aren't about bragging, more of being a checklist of things i have yet to do,experience, and achieve. though if they did achievements id also want it to be clear that any version of an achievement i obtain says its a classic server version if obtained there. achievements are about 70% of what kept me playing these last few xpacks. Regardless a never ending alterac valley is one of the biggest things on my list to do in classic. i am very much looking forward to it.

[Jaylock]

Oh yeah I'm sure they don't have any message to send and they don't care about doing the right thing, there's more than one xpack to prove that. So I'm not expecting them to do the right thing here either.

Are you saying that the "right" thing is to just slap the complete exact same vanilla WoW game on a server and call it a day?

I guess what I don't really know is, what is the right thing to do? Because if you do what I said above, you appease a very small number of purist wow people, but alienate many more. If you add some QoL features, and keep the spirit of the game the same, you will probably had a much higher retention rate and a higher rate of subscribers. Even the purist WoW people would play on the servers because its as close to what they wanted as possible.

[HuxNeva]

I can't understand why we should ask for things that are already in the retail version? I want the classic experience as it was. Everything that differs from the patch 1.12 in the past would create another alternated vanilla version which is not my desire.

For me it's reversed. I couldn't care less about it being a pristine 1.12.1. What I do care about is the type of MMO it was, in the Warcraft fantasy. If it is 'pure' vanilla: fine. If it is a game exactly in spirit like vanilla, but with different zones and quests and dungeons and raids: also fine. It is not primarily about reliving for me, it's that I rely liked that arduous game-style, and the dept of play.

[Deleted]

They never said the game would be "vanilla" the name of the game is World of Warcraft: Classic, which means they could keep the spirit of vanilla but have some of the convenience features that the game has now.

I don't think players are going to get upset that they no longer have to look in their bags to find the ram mount they bought so they can right click it to mount up, but rather all they have to do is go to their mount collection tab and put it on their bar.

Also, 3 second mount cast time vs 1.5 second cast time?

The spirit of Vanilla is not convenience.

[Viikkis]

Arent people just gonna be realise how basic classic was?

and how much they miss current conveniences.

Some people enjoy it. And if they don't they come back to current WoW. I don't see the problem here.

[Skulkesyk]

No no no!! what are u smoking? give me some!