"World of Wacraft: Classic will take a lot of community feedback"

[Novakhoro]

You will never please large enough group among those who demand those changes, while the bulk of the target group which demanded it in the first place will feel grand betrayal yet again.

The rest is kinda dribble, but I like this line. They will never appease the people who want their individual changes to be made, but it's very easy to make the majority who want the game as it was happy.

[Seanio1]

Give me Vanilla as it was. Give me the imbalanced classes, give me the bugs, give me everything that made Vanilla.. well Vanilla. Don't take that experience away from players that love the game. If you want changes please just play the live game or ask for a different version of the game. Don't change Vanilla WoW.

[God Save The King]

You don't believe the popularity of Nostralius and other moderately sized private servers didn't play a large role in influencing this announcement? I think that's slighty naive, or willful ignorance of the situation. I could absolutely be wrong, but I really don't buy that this Classic movement started from within Blizzard's walls. Maybe in a small part, but the business person in me believes they recognized a demand and want to create the supply, instead of a private entity fulfilling this demand.

This is just my belief, but I'm pretty firm in it that they saw a sizeable business opportunity and a large demand for a product that they have the means to provide. That's like basic business practices. See I don't believe this was decided by some Blizzard guys that just said, "Hey you know what, we should do a Vanilla server. It sounds good to three or four of us, let's do it!" I mean it's all speculation and I can't prove my belief, but that's pretty plain business tactics and I don't think it's a leap at all to say the demand for private servers for a Vanilla experience didn't have a large impact on Blizzard's decision.

I explicitly said that Nostralius may have had some influence, please read my whole posts if you're going to quote them. In general, yes, private servers as a whole have given Blizzard an idea for the demand of Classic. I never said otherwise - if I did, like you say I did, please quote it.

I'm not sure how you leapt from me discussing how Nost has all the means and reason to fake numbers, to think I mean that private servers have had no influence on the decision to make classic realms.

[Efficacious]

Give me Vanilla as it was. Give me the imbalanced classes, give me the bugs, give me everything that made Vanilla.. well Vanilla. Don't take that experience away from players that love the game. If you want changes please just play the live game or ask for a different version of the game. Don't change Vanilla WoW.

I don't see why everyone wants to pay hard earned money to play a broken buggy game? They should fix the bugs if they have the time and resources to. If I bought something broken, i'd want it fixed.

[DeltrusDisc]

All I really want to see different is the current water - the old water made fishing a very painful thing. Just mind-numbing on my eyes. x_x

Only being able to mail one item or stack at a time is annoying, but can be handled.

I really want them to leave it unadultered though. Iron out the bugs, of course, but give me week-long AV, give me no timer on AB and WSG. Give me Scholo, Strat, UBRS, as they were meant to be approached. Bring back old painful profession patterns. etc etc etc.

[God Save The King]

I did read your posts, in entirety.

You clearly did not, or your response would have been different. Or you simply failed to comprehend what I said, and given your writing ability, that would surprise me.

[AztechZero]

While I actually like Classic+ (class balancing and maybe cap max respec cost a bit lower - but none of the other stuff) there are actually many, many questions that they will have to figure out even if they don't go the Classic+ route - and that they might want to know the community's opinion when making decisions.

For example:

Should it be progressive patches or should it just be 1.12 from the start?

What should happen after all content has been completed? Move on to new expansions (TBC)? Create new content patches in the same spirit as vanilla on kalimdor/ek? Static forever at 1.12?

If the choice is new expansions, how should the transition be done? Should you be allowed to copy (or transfer) your character to a new realm, or should it function just like on regular realms with new expansions?

If they choose to do new content patches in Azeroth (no new expansions) - i.e 1.13 and so on, then what kind of content do players want? New BGs? Raids? Which difficulty should the raids have (same as 2004 MC or should it be upped considering the playerbase is "better" nowadays)? Should this patch contain class balancing? etc etc

All in all, that statement does not necessarily imply what you think it does.

My two coppers, I'd rather not have progression servers that move on to TBC or any class changes. Additional content patches in the spirit of vanilla? I'd be open to that but I feel Blizzard would cock it up and it would end up being Vanilla+ with a bunch of QoL changes and class balancing. If they could leave the classes alone and construct new dungeons and raids around the state of classes as of 1.12, I could live with that. I personally would love a static 1.12 realm but I don't think that's a great thing in the long term.

[melodramocracy]

Seems a lot of classic purists are quick to label anyone suggesting changes to classic as trolls, despite even blizz inviting discussion on what these realms should be. What's with that attitude?

Because classic is either what it was, or it's not classic. Plain and simple, the end. There's no debate to engage in if full authenticity is what they're after.

[Hitei]

Because classic is either what it was, or it's not classic. Plain and simple, the end. There's no debate to engage in if full authenticity is what they're after.

I mean, "what it was" when?

[Mirishka]

All these topics in which ya'll go to war with each other over what to add, what not to add, etc... they do not make me envy Blizzard.

[melodramocracy]

I mean, "what it was" when?

Any patch that is the same era of the game. What should be off the table (and won't be) are all the post-vanilla features that were established, like people stating that LFD should be added, etc

[Kyanion]

All these topics in which ya'll go to war with each other over what to add, what not to add, etc... they do not make me envy Blizzard.

*shrugs* Blizz did it to themselves when they decided to make this a reality. They opened the Pandora's Box if you will and now a vocal group of players are voicing opinions on it.

- - - Updated - - -

I'll concede I didn't give you credit for saying Nos' may or may not have. My apologies if my response indicated otherwise, I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. Forgive my poor choice of words, other topics in other threads that I'm responding to clouded my thought process.

You're right, there is no discernible metric that I'm aware of to determine Nostralius success or failure. Simply put, as a member of the pro-Vanilla community, I felt like the outrage during the legal battle shed some light on how serious the Vanilla community was. They want an experience, and will find it with or without Blizzard's help/consent. I'm from the inside looking out, so admittedly, my perspective is biased. To me it appeared highly successful as a private endeavor, but compared to retail, that comparison could be skewed by other factors. A big one being: subscription vs. F2P.

I mean it is fascinating how something can get attention of people and hold it for a time. There is no doubt that Nost did get the attention of Blizz, former players, popular E-Celebs and even small media outlets. When it didn't just instantly go away and the petition came around and Nost did a presentation at Blizz HQ which got even more attention you know it was at least heard.

I did think it was a PR move and a way to kick the can down the road on delaying answering about these servers. I mean it was pretty much a year between the meeting, Blizz saying they wouldn't discuss Vanilla at Blizzcon 2016 and all. After Blizzcon 2016 things died down quite a lot outside of some forums like this one. But they decided to make it happen so I am curious to see what comes of it. I expected the community to be quite divided on WHAT version of Vanilla, what Vanilla means to them, QoL fixes and so on so I am not surprised at that.

- - - Updated - - -

Any patch that is the same era of the game. What should be off the table (and won't be) are all the post-vanilla features that were established, like people stating that LFD should be added, etc

I mean class balancing was a thing that happened during Vanilla, and 1.8 and 1.12 fixed many issues. I do think SOME QoL would be nice, like AoE looting and I would be perfectly fine with updated graphics/spell effects and even minor class balancing. I do think it is going overboard wanting LFD and stuff but keep in mind people WILL use addons to do much of their groupmaking, it is just a fact that addons have advanced quite a lot since Vanilla.

[Hitei]

Any patch that is the same era of the game. What should be off the table (and won't be) are all the post-vanilla features that were established, like people stating that LFD should be added, etc

Meeting stones?

[ComputerNerd]

Damn you sound jaded, clamouring for an experience that will never happen again.

How long do you think it will take for Classic guides for everything to be out? 1 month, 2?

One newsletter I am subscribed to is already talking about gold-making.
And I expect content guides to come out very quickly, since the original state is well documented somewhere I expect.

[Mormolyce]

Don't you think you're being a bit of a drama queen? Obviously if this explosion of debate on the issue has proven anything it's that there's a lot to discuss on what exactly the "true Vanilla" experience is. Which patch are we talking? Should it start with the AQ gates unlocked because it's straight into Naxx or should they roll out patches over time? Should bugs be fixed? And so on.

So yeah they're asking for community feedback, so give it to them. If you have a clear vision of what you think the answer to all those questions are, TELL THEM.

[MMKing]

Community feedback is why i fear for Classic wow if Blizzard provides even a singular quality of life detriment to the game. It will set a precedent and open up the floodgates for endless whining.

It seems to me that they are currently on the right tracks however, with the sparse information we currently have.

[Daffan]

I hope they put 1.12.1 so we can speed run MC <14 days from launch.

Vanilla++ is not a terrible idea, most people like Vanilla for the core aspects. Social community, no catchup/welfare, long term relevant content that isn't made trivial nor obsolete and meaningful character progression. Just because they change something simple like mounts dismounting in water, doesn't mean it will ruin the Vanilla experience.

Damn you sound jaded, clamouring for an experience that will never happen again.

How long do you think it will take for Classic guides for everything to be out? 1 month, 2?

The funny part is, priv scene has been running Vanilla for almost 10yrs so all this stuff is already mastered and written out, these nostalgic people are delusional (Context: People who think it will play exactly the same)

[turboether]

Tfw you bandwagon for a vanilla-like experience and come to the realisation you don't actually like vanilla. FeelsClassicMan.

Tbh the Classic server(s?) should come patched up to 1.12.x and have the content rolled out over time. That's really all they need to do or the project was started on a false premise. You can squash the bugs that are already there, but adding things is not only against the spirit of the project but adds more problems to fix.

The goal should be to create a pre-BC environment that functions and very quickly transitions to operating in perpetuity with no external tinkering other than general sever maintenance and resets for content roll-outs (if it is even necessary given its closed nature and live-patching tech that exists).

[Baracuda]

One newsletter I am subscribed to is already talking about gold-making.
And I expect content guides to come out very quickly, since the original state is well documented somewhere I expect.

Yeah but I meant like MMO-champ and Wowhead (Classichead?) guides, easy to find for everything etc.

[Kyriani]

To be fair, from what I've seen discussed, some really good players can make supposedly non-viable builds competitive. I personally did not play in classic (I've played vanilla on private servers though) so I would not have witnessed this.

I wonder is the class unbalance so large as people believe or is it just that certain builds are substantially harder to skillfully play?

The balance issues with some specs are inherent or related to gearing options (or lack thereof).

Here's a few things that stick out:

Protection Paladins had no taunt, and even as Protection spec had many abilities that were "buff your allies" rather than "survive the coming onslaught".

Restoration Druids did not have an out of combat res. They only had their combat res... on a 30 minute cooldown. So if your dungeon healer was a resto druid, and someone died more than once (or the druid's res was on cooldown from prior use), they had to run back.

Feral Druid tanks had a difficult time gearing. They needed very specific pieces of gear that were often difficult (cough* Hammer of Bestial Fury) or at least inconvenient (cough* Smoking Heart of the Mountain) to get. And even with the best feral gear possible, they couldnt push crits/crushing blows off the table like warriors could.

Blizzard could make some "behind the scenes" numbers tweaks to address some of this, but its still up in the air if they will and if the community would accept it.