The WoW Classic community is entering a civil war.

[sumerian999]

If you've been following the WoW Classic discussions across all media, you must've noticed that the community, which was once united in their single purpose of having Vanilla servers, is now fracturing itself between radicals, moderates and liberals (reformists).

As WoW Classic shapes up in the following 2 years, Blizzard will have to deal with many critical and possibly -very- decisive AND most of all -DIVISIVE- decisions on what to keep identical, and what to ''improve'' (distilling the purity of the game for QOL reasons).

Of course the content is going to be identical. It's just, how will they manage -systems- that could be altered for QOL reasons? That's more where I'm getting at.

Take a few tiny examples, which are just the -surface- of the hellhole the devs are going to have to decide in :

-Will there be a LFG tool for ''casuals'' (I doubt it, but hey some people are asking for it, lol).
-Will raids drop Paladin/Shaman gear for the Horde/Alliance? (lul)?
-Will channel message limit be limited to prevent spam, or will it be kept identical so we can have the ''original'' Barrens Chat cancerous experience?
-Will there be an option to use new character models?
-Will there be Dual Spec for ''ease of respec'' (LOL - Have fun spending hundreds on respecs if that doesn't get in!).
-What about connecting the NON-CONNECTED flight paths? Who wins here? QOL or PURISM?

There are TENS, if not HUNDREDS of questions like that, on so many layers to be taken care of. It's gonna be -very- lulzy to see the debates on what changes and what doesn't.

The devs are going to be torn apart by the rabid Vanillaers/Purists. It's going to be a massive drama fest, which I will enjoy watching thoroughly.
I played Vanilla. I know how it was. It was good at the time, created many good memories. But in today's standards? Terribly optimized and terribly balanced. I think about 90% of Vanillaers don't know what they're asking for and are blinded by their rose-tinted goggles of a brutal pioneering era. 90% of the people who will play Vanilla will quit shortly after, because they wont be able to handle the difficulty and the absence of many QOL features we now have.

It's like a modern civilian in an industrialized and democratic society claiming he wants to go back to Ancient Rome because of some romantic ideal of how glorious in what when in reality it was extremely harsh for about 98% of the population.

I respect the 10% who actually know what they're in for. But the rest are, in my opinion, and excuse my brutality, pampered hypocrits who wanted to feel like special snowflakes by constantly whining for Vanilla servers, because ''THE PAST IS ALWAYS BETTER AND BECAUSE NOSTALGIA MAKES ME FORGET ALL THE PROBLEMS THE GAME HAD AT THE TIME''.

That 10% of fanatical hardcore Vanillaers is what I believe is currently on private servers, and will benefit from official Classic servers. The other 90% of ''askers'' will come back to retail and wont admit Classic kicked their ass and that they couldn't handle it EVEN if they wanted it for so long.
Good on those who will benefit from Classic servers! I'm happy for them. I just can't stand the amount of hypocrisy behind most of the people who claim they will handle the game fine, when in fact they wont.

I know it's kind of cruel in a way, but I see Classic servers as a sort of asylum for insane nostalgic people, so they can leave us retail players alone with their constant complaining. Only, I know they wont really get exiled, since they can always come back x)

[deceptacon1]

I doubt most of this really matters.

Blizzard should (and I suspect they will) simply start with the most authentic vanilla experience they can create. This means zero changes or as few as possible. To make it easy on themselves they can just mimic the patch, etc. that the most popular private servers use (nost probably).

Start these servers and keep them running for 3-6 months and then they can enter into discussions with the community that is actually playing on them to determine how to proceed and if they should make any changes.

That makes the most sense to me, anyway. Then they can largely ignore most of this feedback which is not relevant.

[KOREAN DAVE]

I’m playing on one of those illegals meme servers right now that’s scripted and blizzlike and I can tell you that classic holds up very well today. Let the game come out unaltered. It will do fine, the people that want a real vanilla experience will play it, that’s who the game should be made for.

[sumerian999]

I’m playing on one of those illegals meme servers right now that’s scripted and blizzlike and I can tell you that classic holds up very well today. Let the game come out unaltered. It will do fine, the people that want a real vanilla experience will play it, that’s who the game should be made for.

You are entitled to your opinion, but remember not everyone might share it.

[Deleted]

There is no divide.

The legacy crowd have always and will always just want as true to the original experience as possible. Hence when we had to create our own private servers like Nost or Elys, they were basically exactly what we wanted. Vanilla as close as we could get it.

The other people that joined the movement can be categorised into 2 rough groups. The bitter "you'll never get legacy realm" trolls and the clueless people who never played Vanilla but jumped onto the bandwagon when the servers got announced.

[Deleted]

Nope, just a bunch of trolls asking for QoL changes.

At this point is better to ignore them.

[sumerian999]

There is no divide.

The legacy crowd have always and will always just want as true to the original experience as possible. Hence when we had to create our own private servers like Nost or Elys, they were basically exactly what we wanted. Vanilla as close as we could get it.

The other people that joined the movement can be categorised into 2 rough groups. The bitter "you'll never get legacy realm" trolls and the clueless people who never played Vanilla but jumped onto the bandwagon when the servers got announced.

So, you are a radical, who is agaisn't the ''bandwagonners'' which can be qualified as moderates or reformists? According to you, they dont belong in your community and are not welcome here?

- - - Updated - - -

Nope, just a bunch of trolls asking for QoL changes.

At this point is better to ignore them.

Are you sure they are ''just trolls''? Sure, some of them are. But what about those who claim, and feel like they belong to the community, and are actually genuine in their demands?

[KOREAN DAVE]

You are entitled to your opinion, but remember not everyone might share it.

Brack seems to be repeating the same sentiments though, Classic will be made for those who want a real classic experience and it’s oksy if that ends up being smaller than expected. I will admit that next melee attacks are still clunky as fuck but there’s a weird sort of charm to them.

[sumerian999]

There is no divide.

The legacy crowd have always and will always just want as true to the original experience as possible. Hence when we had to create our own private servers like Nost or Elys, they were basically exactly what we wanted. Vanilla as close as we could get it.

The other people that joined the movement can be categorised into 2 rough groups. The bitter "you'll never get legacy realm" trolls and the clueless people who never played Vanilla but jumped onto the bandwagon when the servers got announced.

So, you are a radical, who is agaisn't the ''bandwagonners'' which can be qualified as moderates or reformists? According to you, they dont belong in your community and are not welcome here?

- - - Updated - - -

Nope, just a bunch of trolls asking for QoL changes.

At this point is better to ignore them.

Are you sure they are ''just trolls''? Sure, some of them are. But what about those who claim, and feel like they belong to the community, and are actually genuine in their demands?

[Spiral Mage]

IMO: You want Vanilla WoW. Then that is what you should get.
No improvements, no new systems, nothing.

The only things BLIZ should do anything about are issues where the game was not functioning as it should have been. For example, some friends and I went to try and do the "mini raid" war in Eastern Plaguelands. Well .. it apparently had a nasty habit of bugging out, causing them to enter an eternal war until the next weekly restart.

Stuff like that, yes. Because that should not have been happening.
If any abilities were not scaling correctly, or are displaying unintended behavior, yes.
Nothing else.

[Deleted]

In the end, this isn't wow:nostralius. This will be wow:classic. People who don't want a blizzard quality Vanilla experience will eventually return to their old private servers, and relive the same unaltered content again and again.

Blizzard on the other hands have the resources to do sensible changes that stays true to the vanilla experience, and will follow that philosophy. If that means just a few less game breaking bugs, so be it. What is clear is that this won't be vanilla 2004 or wow:nostrailius (regardless of how fun it is).

[Brubear]

There is no divide.

The legacy crowd have always and will always just want as true to the original experience as possible. Hence when we had to create our own private servers like Nost or Elys, they were basically exactly what we wanted. Vanilla as close as we could get it.

The other people that joined the movement can be categorised into 2 rough groups. The bitter "you'll never get legacy realm" trolls and the clueless people who never played Vanilla but jumped onto the bandwagon when the servers got announced.

Which original experience?

Is it before or after Maraudon/Gurubashi were added? Should people be allowed to toggle their helms & cloaks?

Should it be before battlegrounds where the only pvp is wpvp/gurubashi or is 12 hour AV "original"?

Is the original experience before/after the addition of more raids than MC?

Are Kazzak/Azuregos the only world bosses, or are Dragons of Nightmare also part of the original experience, or is it before they added world bosses?

Are all of the original holidays part of it?

Is AQ20/40 part of it or should they only do before? How about Naxx?

Is the original experience before or after they revamped the talent tree for Druids/Hunters/Warlocks/Warriors?

That's the problem with saying you want the "original experience" when vanilla covered a period of 2+ years. There were a lot of revamps QoL improvements added during that time that I think a lot of people forget about, which a lot of purists will argue against, but they were part of vanilla. So which version of vanilla is the "original experience"?

[Jngizu]

There is no divide.

The legacy crowd have always and will always just want as true to the original experience as possible. Hence when we had to create our own private servers like Nost or Elys, they were basically exactly what we wanted. Vanilla as close as we could get it.

The other people that joined the movement can be categorised into 2 rough groups. The bitter "you'll never get legacy realm" trolls and the clueless people who never played Vanilla but jumped onto the bandwagon when the servers got announced.

I disagree, there is a group you completely missed. The people that would love to play Classic again, but not with all the tedious shit. Sitting in IF for 1h to get a group was fun when you were 15, same as farming mats for hours, but they already did that shit back then, but don't want and/or don't have the time to go through it all over. For those people, Classic is more about the world and the community aspect (as in, same server). Those people might not have cared before because they didn't think Classic would happen, but now that's it's a reality, they are voicing their opinion. And it's a valid one.

There was always going to be a divide, the same shit happened with EQ, and it was always going to happen with WoW if they decided to release Vanilla servers.

[Zeppatto]

There shouldn't be one if you want the puke you get it in its 100% pure form.

[Hitei]

There is no divide.

The legacy crowd have always and will always just want as true to the original experience as possible. Hence when we had to create our own private servers like Nost or Elys, they were basically exactly what we wanted. Vanilla as close as we could get it.

The other people that joined the movement can be categorised into 2 rough groups. The bitter "you'll never get legacy realm" trolls and the clueless people who never played Vanilla but jumped onto the bandwagon when the servers got announced.

This is a bullshit "No true scotsman". Legacy people aren't unified. There are plenty who enjoy legacy and have been playing private servers but want one or two tweaks to remove stuff that has a low amount of gameplay impact and is just tedium for the sake of tedium. Like the linked flightpaths, or current battle.net integration.

The "legacy crowd" can't even agree on how bugs should be treated.

[sumerian999]

Which original experience?

Is it before or after Maraudon/Gurubashi were added? Should people be allowed to toggle their helms & cloaks?

Should it be before battlegrounds where the only pvp is wpvp/gurubashi or is 12 hour AV "original"?

Is the original experience before/after the addition of more raids than MC?

Are Kazzak/Azuregos the only world bosses, or are Dragons of Nightmare also part of the original experience, or is it before they added world bosses?

Are all of the original holidays part of it?

Is AQ20/40 part of it or should they only do before? How about Naxx?

Is the original experience before or after they revamped the talent tree for Druids/Hunters/Warlocks/Warriors?

That's the problem with saying you want the "original experience" when vanilla covered a period of 2+ years. There were a lot of revamps QoL improvements added during that time that I think a lot of people forget about, which a lot of purists will argue against, but they were part of vanilla. So which version of vanilla is the "original experience"?

The points you lift support my point of view. So many questions, so many decisions to take. It wont be pretty.

[Amonthar]

During Vanilla, Paladin gear did not drop for the Horde and Shaman gear did not drop for the Alliance until the patch came out that redid the skill trees before TBC release. It was after they said that each faction would get the other that this was the case.

I did not run Naxx but during MC, BWL, AQ and Ony, this was the case.

[sumerian999]

Nope, just a bunch of trolls asking for QoL changes.

At this point is better to ignore them.

Are you sure they are all trolls? Some of them are, sure. But others genuinely believe they belong to your community, and feel that their QOL demands are justified and legitimate.

[Deleted]

I disagree, there is a group you completely missed. The people that would love to play Classic again, but not with all the tedious shit. Sitting in IF for 1h to get a group was fun when you were 15, same as farming mats for hours, but they already did that shit back then, but don't want and/or don't have the time to go through it all over. For those people, Classic is more about the world and the community aspect (as in, same server). Those people might not have cared before because they didn't think Classic would happen, but now that's it's a reality, they are voicing their opinion. And it's a valid one.

There was always going to be a divide, the same shit happened with EQ, and it was always going to happen with WoW if they decided to release Vanilla servers.

Guess what? Classic isn't for you. Don't have time to get a group together? No time to farm mats? Then Legion is what you're looking for.

What you consider "tidious" is what in part contributed to the rich community that vanilla spawned.

But I'm getting less worried the whingers who cry for QoL "improvements" because they don't have the time anymore will influence the classic servers. It's already been said Blizzard doesn't care how popular the servers are, they are going for the most authentic vanilla experience they can.

[Prokne]

Which original experience?

Is it before or after Maraudon/Gurubashi were added? Should people be allowed to toggle their helms & cloaks?

Should it be before battlegrounds where the only pvp is wpvp/gurubashi or is 12 hour AV "original"?

Is the original experience before/after the addition of more raids than MC?

Are Kazzak/Azuregos the only world bosses, or are Dragons of Nightmare also part of the original experience, or is it before they added world bosses?

Are all of the original holidays part of it?

Is AQ20/40 part of it or should they only do before? How about Naxx?

Is the original experience before or after they revamped the talent tree for Druids/Hunters/Warlocks/Warriors?

That's the problem with saying you want the "original experience" when vanilla covered a period of 2+ years. There were a lot of revamps QoL improvements added during that time that I think a lot of people forget about, which a lot of purists will argue against, but they were part of vanilla. So which version of vanilla is the "original experience"?

As long as it was in Vanilla, I think there can be a discussion of what to do. However, for things like dual spec, class balancing, updated graphics, ect. which weren't in Vanilla, they should not be on the Classic server.

Content wise, if it was in Vanilla, it should be there. I doubt they are going to release patches to recreate the progression of the game. Besides that will only work once and presumably the game will be out for as long as people play it.