World of Warcraft: Classic What's Next Panel Recap

World of Warcraft: Classic What's Next Panel Recap
The World of Warcraft What's Next Panel Recap is starting. This panel dives into what to expect with the upcoming Cataclysm expansion, Season of Discovery, and changes.


  • Cataclysm Classic
    • The transmog collection system utilized in modern WoW will be available in Cataclysm Classic.
    • The pace of leveling in Cataclysm Classic will be increased.
  • Hardcore Classic
    • Self Found comes to Hardcore in 2024
      • This means you won't be able to trade until you reach level cap
  • Season of Discovery
    • You will get a quest from your trainer at level 2 to go find runes.
    • The main part of discovery is finding secrets that often involve multiple players or hidden things.
    • Encourages social and community efforts to discover new things
    • No public beta or PTR to keep everything a secret
    • New additions that feel at home in the original WoW
    • At the launch level cap will be 25. This is inspired by the Classic Beta and making it approachable.
    • New gameplay at each level cap band
    • Experience boost given to previous level band when the cap increases
    • Blackfathom Deeps will be reimagined as a 10 player raid instance at level 25.
    • The goal is full redesigns to feel like proper raid encounters with new and relevant loot.
    • Several outdoor PvP events will be included as the level cap increases.
    • Potential for new experiences at higher levels, including locations unfinished or cut from the original game.
  • Rune Engraving
    • Initially available on chest legs and gloves.
    • Permanent
    • Exist outside of the talent system
    • Runes can also provide previously unique Paladin or Shaman talents between factions.
    • Respec costs will be adjusted to be accessible.
    • You might not be pushed into one talent tree.
    • Over 100 runes in the journey to level 25.
    • The leveling process is similar to classic WoW but trying to shake up the meta.
      • Examples include a Paladin taunt or tanking Rogue
      • New abilities were assured to feel relevant to class fantasy.
      • The team wanted new abilities to feel relevant to classic and not modern WoW.
      • Example - Druids get Skull Bash.
      • Beast Mastery increases pet damage and health.
      • Ice Lance deals triple damage to frozen targets.
      • Mage - Regeneration heals the target and increases the healing done based on damage done.
      • Paladins get Hand of Reckoning Taunt, which also passively increases threat and gains mana when healed.
      • Shaman tanks
      • Warlock Tanks
    • Earning kills in Ashenvale during the Season of Discovery will trigger an event to defeat an enemy leader in the zone.
    • Various other camps will spawn across the zone for each faction. You need to take out camps to weaken the opponent leader, similar to Alterace Valley. This also gives a mount for use in Ashenvale only which also provides some of the best gear.
    • Level-up raids are 10-player raids during content phases with a three-day lockout.
    • Seven new bosses are in Blackfathom Deeps. Existing quests will give new rewards.
    • The raid will feature a new world buff.
    • Baron Aquanis - First boss with a jumping puzzle




Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
During the World of Warcraft Classic Classic: What's Next panel at BlizzCon 2023, Lead Software Engineer Ana Resendez, Senior Game Producer Josh Greenfield, Lead Software Engineer Nora Valletta, and Assistant Lead Designer Tim Jones opened the door to take a closer look at some of what's coming next to Classic Azeroth.


The Journey So Far

The panel was kicked off with a look at the Classic journey so far, with progression realms taking Classic players through Original WoW Classic, The Burning Crusade Classic, and Wrath of the Lich King Classic, where players are currently facing the Lich King in Icecrown Citadel.

As previously announced, Classic progression realms will advance to Cataclysm Classic next year, bringing players to the exciting aftermath of Deathwing's assault on Azeroth, along with playable Goblins and Worgen, new Race and Class combinations, the Transmogrification system, Archaeology, and Rated Battlegrounds. The Classic release of Cataclysm also means five new zones, ten new dungeons, and seven challenging raids to overcome.

There will also be some new tweaks to Cataclysm Classic, including new dungeon difficulties and rewards, guild progression updates, an account-wide Transmogrification system, and a faster patch cadence on the journey to 80.


Classic Hardcore Gets More Hardcore

Hardcore mode was a great success for the WoW Classic community this year, and many players wanted to know what Hardcore without trading would be like. The devs announced that a Self-Found gameplay option will come to WoW Classic: Hardcore in early 2024.


November Will See a New Season of Discovery


In developing a new twist on WoW Classic, the devs pursued four major kinds of updates: discoveries hidden throughout the world, level-banded content phases, new endgame activities, and new Rune Engraving abilities.

Discoveries

Discoveries are new, hidden secrets all over Azeroth designed to feel at home in Original WoW and bring about a unique experience of social interaction and information sharing. There will not be a public Beta or PTR for Season of Discovery to ensure that the first few weeks feel as exciting and fresh as possible.

Level-Banded Content

Level-banded content phases were inspired by the WoW Classic Beta, where level caps brought about a new and interesting take on gameplay and community. By stepping up to a new level cap after a period of time, we hope to make the season feel approachable, with lots to do but never a feeling of being left behind. To that end, we're working on low-level XP boosts for use in later phases.

Endgame Gameplay

New mechanics to familiar settings and characters are being introduced. Each Raid that marks the level cap of a phase will be fully redesigned with new loot and new experiences. World PvP events for players who'd prefer to go head-to-head are also being added.

Rune Engraving


Rune Engraving is a new set of skills for all players that exists outside of the talent system. It allows you to apply new abilities to your equipment and swap them at any time. To start at level 25, you'll have three slots to engrave: chest, legs, and hands, with additional rune slots unlocking at higher levels.

Class Design

The team's goals were to shake up the Classic meta, give each class something fun drawn from some of our favorite abilities across the first several expansions of World of Warcraft, with some fun new abilities tossed in as well, and focus on class fantasy while staying true to the Classic game.

Blackfathom Deeps


We got a big-picture look at Season of Discovery and learned about the first fully redesigned Raid for the level 25 endgame: Blackfathom Deeps. For the first three challenging bosses—Baron Aquanis, Ghamoo-ra, and Lady Sarevess—players will be pressed to learn new tactics and strategies. This was followed by a quick look at the other four bosses and then a sneak peek at some level 25 Raid loot that will drop.


Keep your eyes on the official World of Warcraft news site for more detailed information about what's next for WoW Classic.

Ignite Your Cataclysm Classic Journey with Fiery Upgrades
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
A New Age of Cataclysm
The maddened Deathwing the Destroyer will erupt from his lair once again, shattering Azeroth as we know it. With Cataclysm Classic™ 1, your journey will continue into the era of fire and destruction. This time, however, you’ll enjoy a much faster content cadence, improvements to Leveling, expanded Collections, and more!


Cataclysm Classic will require only a WoW® subscription or Game Time to play. However, these optional upgrades can heat up your experience during your adventures in Azeroth.


Blazing Heroic Pack

The Blazing Heroic Pack includes Lil’ Wrathion pet for both WoW Classic progression2 and modern World of Warcraft characters3, the Avatar of Flame flying mount2 for WoW Classic progression characters, and a Runebound Firelord flying mount for modern World of Warcraft characters3. WoW Classic progression characters will also enjoy Hammer Regalia Transmog Set4 and Town-In-A-Box Starter Set toy 4.

Blazing Epic Upgrade
The Blazing Epic Upgrade includes everything in the Blazing Heroic Pack, plus a Level 80 Character Boost and 30 days of Game Time.



Follow the official World of Warcraft news site for more information as we draw closer to the next update for World of Warcraft Classic.

  • Certain restrictions apply. Visit shop.battle.net for more information.
  • 1 Available on or before August 31, 2024.
  • 2 Available in WoW Classic progression realms (currently Wrath of the Lich King Classic™) immediately after the purchase.
  • 3 Available after the modern WoW® realms restart with the Guardians of the Dream (10.2) update anticipated on November 7, 2023.
  • 4 Available with the Cataclysm Classic pre-patch anticipated on or before August 31, 2024.
  • The toy, Transmog set, and Avatar of Flame mount only available on WoW Classic progression realms (currently Wrath of the Lich King Classic™). The Runebound Firelord mount only available on modern WoW® realms.
  • Requires WoW® Subscription or Game Time.
  • Boost only available on WoW Classic progression realms. and usable only on the WoW game account for which it was purchased or redeemed.
This article was originally published in forum thread: World of Warcraft: Classic What's Next Panel Recap started by Stoy View original post
Published on 2023-11-03 10:29 PM
38 Comments
Comments 38 Comments
  1. NineSpine's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by heinz0r View Post
    It is official - those devs have lost their minds, and touch with what players actually want. Season of discovery sounds like they simply now steal ideas from Ascension WoW, only that those guys do it way better than the official Blizzard devs.
    Ah, another person who has never actually played Ascension WoW. You know that Ascension is classless, right?
  1. Misuteri's Avatar
    In all seriousness how many ways are they going to be splitting the community?

    - Retail
    - Classic+
    - Hardcore
    - Cataclysm/MOP etc

    I mean where do you put your efforts? Where do you try and maximize your playtime?

    As I see it there is almost zero new incentive to buy retail anymore. They're giving me content with tons of nostalgia that I get to do all over again and know how to make boatloads of gold on and know all the ins and outs of. I'm not going to be microtransactioned, tokened etc.

    I mean it's like they're telling people that quit the game come back and play again, everything we've screwed up in the last 10 years you don't have to deal with. Plus! Raid at level 25!

    I know they just want the $14.99, I get it. They don't care what you play as long as you subscribe but this would offer me, as a returning player, nothing to buy the latest expansion for.
  1. dandan's Avatar
    Faster leveling in cata classic? Why? There was nothing wrong with the time it took to reach level 80, when patch 4.3 dropped the whole 1-80 leveling was already made faster, so they're making it even faster on top of that?

    One of the reasons why we got zone scaling everywhere was because they squished the leveling requirements so hard that you often saw your quests turn grey as you were leveling, forcing you to abandon them and start over somewhere else. There's clearly a limit to how much you can squish the xp requirements, and it seems they're on the way to making the same mistake all over again, except sooner this time.
  1. Wekko's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by heinz0r View Post
    It is official - those devs have lost their minds, and touch with what players actually want. Season of discovery sounds like they simply now steal ideas from Ascension WoW, only that those guys do it way better than the official Blizzard devs.
    We are only 7 years away from Classic Classic WoW!
  1. DeltrusDisc's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by korijenkins View Post
    Yeesh, they're incredibly lazy.

    Classic+? New content post-Wrath? Nah, fuck it, just do Cata again and save money.
    You commented way too soon.

    They absolutely announced Classic+ immediately after the Cata announcement. And they also said #changes so who knows maybe they'll redo some major faults of Cata.
  1. Tealghara's Avatar
    Paladins get Hand of Reckoning Taunt, which also passively increases threat and gains mana when healed.
    Shaman tanks
    Warlock Tanks
    I came a little.
  1. Ethule's Avatar
    Man, the lack of awareness in these posts. People begged for Classic Plus and they're making it and it's just not good enough.

    Either you didn't watch the presentation or you are completely oblivious to your surroundings.

    25 is the level cap because they don't want a barrier for people. People split their time between a lot of games and they have other responsibilities so they're capping it at 25 so there isn't this FoMO feeling. They will raise the cap in phases.

    They trying to make most specs viable and create new unique ways to play and discover a game that's 20 years old. BFD 10 is a new raid, there is a PVP event in Ashenvale (world pvp) and they're adding 150 rune carvings to tune specs.

    They hinted at a Gnomergon, SM and Kara raid. Which means they're probably going to raise the cap slowly so people aren't bogged down by the old leveling process.

    I'm almost positive that once we hit 60, 2 years from now, we will get new 60 raids and maybe a true classic plus that caps characters at 60 and just continues to add more content.

    This community is absolutely unpleasable.
  1. Eupitor's Avatar
    Does account-wide transmog mean transmog from retail and vice versa?
  1. loras's Avatar
    So, uh, nobody's going to talk about Ragnaros being a mount now?
  1. Sinured's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by heinz0r View Post
    It is official - those devs have lost their minds, and touch with what players actually want. Season of discovery sounds like they simply now steal ideas from Ascension WoW, only that those guys do it way better than the official Blizzard devs.
    As a Pserver connoisseur: you don't know what you're talking about, stop parroting what other losers write here.
    Ascension's skill system works completely differently.
  1. heinz0r's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sinured View Post
    As a Pserver connoisseur: you don't know what you're talking about, stop parroting what other losers write here.
    Ascension's skill system works completely differently.
    I have been playing on Ascension for years. I did not claim they copied all of Ascension. They stole ideas from them, precisely the Enchantment system and the way they described the whole mystery of finding them in the world, this is also stolen from Ascension worldforged Enchants. If you got no idea about someone, simply keep it down when it comes to acting like you know anything about them, thank you.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by NineSpine View Post
    Ah, another person who has never actually played Ascension WoW. You know that Ascension is classless, right?
    Ah you again. I never claimed they copied the classless system, where did you get that from? I have been playing on Ascension for years, also the Conquest of Azeroth alpha, so I would say I got a pretty good idea about what specific things Blizzard liked about it and seems to put in their game now.

    They took the enchantment system and the way some of these enchants can be aquired by doing quests and secrets in the world, and even by just looting rare and normal mobs for lesser worldforged enchantments.

    This is the system I am referring to : https://i.imgur.com/1cNiRDl.png

    Just logged into Ascension a couple minutes ago and took a screenshot so you do not mistake me talking about classless again.
  1. NineSpine's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by heinz0r View Post
    I have been playing on Ascension for years. I did not claim they copied all of Ascension. They stole ideas from them, precisely the Enchantment system and the way they described the whole mystery of finding them in the world, this is also stolen from Ascension worldforged Enchants. If you got no idea about someone, simply keep it down when it comes to acting like you know anything about them, thank you.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Ah you again. I never claimed they copied the classless system, where did you get that from? I have been playing on Ascension for years, also the Conquest of Azeroth alpha, so I would say I got a pretty good idea about what specific things Blizzard liked about it and seems to put in their game now.

    They took the enchantment system and the way some of these enchants can be aquired by doing quests and secrets in the world, and even by just looting rare and normal mobs for lesser worldforged enchantments.

    This is the system I am referring to : https://i.imgur.com/1cNiRDl.png

    Just logged into Ascension a couple minutes ago and took a screenshot so you do not mistake me talking about classless again.
    Yeah, that screenshot shows me a variation on the Glyph system. Try again.
  1. Sinured's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by heinz0r View Post
    I have been playing on Ascension for years. I did not claim they copied all of Ascension. They stole ideas from them, precisely the Enchantment system and the way they described the whole mystery of finding them in the world, this is also stolen from Ascension worldforged Enchants. If you got no idea about someone, simply keep it down when it comes to acting like you know anything about them, thank you.

    - - - Updated - - -



    Ah you again. I never claimed they copied the classless system, where did you get that from? I have been playing on Ascension for years, also the Conquest of Azeroth alpha, so I would say I got a pretty good idea about what specific things Blizzard liked about it and seems to put in their game now.

    They took the enchantment system and the way some of these enchants can be aquired by doing quests and secrets in the world, and even by just looting rare and normal mobs for lesser worldforged enchantments.

    This is the system I am referring to : https://i.imgur.com/1cNiRDl.png

    Just logged into Ascension a couple minutes ago and took a screenshot so you do not mistake me for talking about classless again.
    Last time I checked the enchanments on Ascencion changed/improved your skills, ascension is classless.
    So you tell me because you saw "put a skill on glove" you thought they stole it from a pserver?
    HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

    Blizzard: Paladins have taunt now
    you: OMG THEY STOLE IT FROM A P2W PSERVER!

    Like mate relax, this are just new skills added on gear because they couldn figure out another way, the best solution would be to add a 2nd skilltree like in mob where you find the skills and can unlock them via that but they couldn't figure it out.

    "If you got no idea about someone, simply keep it down when it comes to acting like you know anything about them, thank you."
    Nice selfroast there buddy.

    TL;DR
    Only thing from ascension is: that you put something on a gear slot
    literally 99,9999% else functions are different from that pserver.

    Its people like you who constantly write stuff like "omg they stole from turtle/ascension"
  1. Zephinism's Avatar
    It's a mistake to not leave WOTLK Era servers or return cloning (for free) for Classic Era servers.

    Cataclysm deletes over 5000 quests from WoW Classic, I fail to see how this is 'Classic' in any way.

    I hate what they do to many of the Kalimdor and EK zones, and I can experience all these Cataclysm EK/Kalim questlines in retail WoW right now. Once they remove WOTLK era servers, the only option to experience classic quests will be Classic Era. Most players lost their characters on Classic Era because Blizzard charged stupidly high amounts of money to clone characters, then removed the cloning system.
  1. virexnl's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Yunravel View Post
    but classic+ litterally got announced
    no seasonal classic + private server changes got announced, untill the say there wil be a era server for this version of wow it wil be NEVER classic +
  1. heinz0r's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sinured View Post
    Last time I checked the enchanments on Ascencion changed/improved your skills, ascension is classless.
    So you tell me because you saw "put a skill on glove" you thought they stole it from a pserver?
    HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

    Blizzard: Paladins have taunt now
    you: OMG THEY STOLE IT FROM A P2W PSERVER!

    Like mate relax, this are just new skills added on gear because they couldn figure out another way, the best solution would be to add a 2nd skilltree like in mob where you find the skills and can unlock them via that but they couldn't figure it out.

    "If you got no idea about someone, simply keep it down when it comes to acting like you know anything about them, thank you."
    Nice selfroast there buddy.

    TL;DR
    Only thing from ascension is: that you put something on a gear slot
    literally 99,9999% else functions are different from that pserver.

    Its people like you who constantly write stuff like "omg they stole from turtle/ascension"
    The level of teenage angst in those paragraphs is on an insane level. Seriously, you should get some proper help, or I guarantee you, that you will have real trouble functioning in social settings if this is how you communicate, especially when it comes to arguments.

    I won't even respond to anything you said, it is simply not worth it, but it had to be said, you sound borderline crazy.
  1. Adunai's Avatar
    Just to add my 0.02 USD, this Classic+ announcement has been the only thing in the past 15 years that made me seriously consider joining retail (I'm a poor Ukrainian). Like, literally everything about this seems perfect - Path of Exile skill gems, a freaking _world PvP_ focus in Ashenvale, and... a level cap at 25 for my undiagnosed ADHD? These humans (Microsoft?) are unironically putting in their best effort! (Before artificial intelligence makes game dev obsolete in 2 years, they need to hurry indeed.)

    And what do I see in the comments? The same old NPC-tier hatred of Blizzard because... feminism or something? Don't know, don't care. Only Blizzard drones deal in absolutes.

    And regarding Ascension - they have been making their custom class server for 3+ years now, with nothing to show for it. Turtle is nice, I'm actually playing there, but they too take forever to release any content. Meanwhile, when I hear such revolutionary (indeed, custom map-tier) words from the goth gf at Blizzard, excuse me my hype.
  1. wwdorumdr's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by DeltrusDisc View Post
    You commented way too soon.

    They absolutely announced Classic+ immediately after the Cata announcement. And they also said #changes so who knows maybe they'll redo some major faults of Cata.
    They need to allow us to travel back to classic zones in cata classic and probably retail as well.
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