Inevitable changes for Classic

[shifu]

Lets just be honest with one another. There will be changes done to Classic. But lets be realistic with one another on what these changes could be. Obliviously there is a large group of the community who says "No" to any changes big or small, game breaking or not. Obviously there is an equally large group of the community who are for changes no matter how much it may veer from the Vanilla experience. The vast majority of the changes I feel the community wants are QoL or Class Balancing.

We aren't here to discuss those changes.

I would like to discuss potential changes that we as a community can agree will be implemented based off reasonable compromise of implementing a 13 year old game in a much more modern gaming society. What I mean by this is. It's been said a million times before the game is old. Anyone who thinks there wont be some changes to the game. And thinks they would release the same 04/05/06 version of WoW I feel is not looking at this whole situation rationally. So below are three changes I truly believe we will see in classic and my reasoning behind each one.

1) Authenticators - Given the increase is cyber security over the past 13 years. I believe blizzard would be foolish to not integrate the classic servers into there battle net client. Thus meaning authenticators will be a thing. Given the amount of characters / items we have accumulated over these years I feel it could be an almost unanimous decisions everyone would want this feature. I personally am for this change and would love to hear some opinions of those who might be against it. Also is there actually anyone out there who does not use an authenticator? I know I have used one since 2008 when they implemented it. And it's already saved my account numerous times.

2) Updated Graphics / Models - This one I feel I might get some heat on. However please hear me out before passing judgement. Given the recent remastering of StarCraft. It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Blizzard is going through a phase of reinvestment of their product line. Meaning they just remastered one IP (Starcraft). And they just announced the desire to release a classic server. What makes people think that they would not remaster Classic and instead implement a highly outdated graphics model? I feel the game would benefit tremendously being able to explore the old zones once more. However augmented but not changed from the original version. I feel this is a pro and not a con. However I can understand the purist mentality of "No changes". That they want to experience Vanilla how it once was. However lets be rational here. It would be unrealistic for a billion dollar company to invest millions into an old IP. In an attempt to bring back the old Vanilla wow without some form of augmentation. As I personally stand I would love to experience vanilla again but through a new light. I feel experiencing vanilla wow with updated graphics would be beneficial and cannot see the negative beyond the obvious nostalgia. However I'm sure others differ from my opinion. So how would an updated graphics / models change the game play in a negative aspect?

3) WoW Tokens - Do I personally want them? Absolutely not. Do I feel WoW tokens are a good thing for WoW? As a whole yes. I believe WoW tokens benefit the community more then they take away from. I have been against and have not wanted WoW tokens since the first time they were announced. However you know what I hate more? gold farmers. And in Vanilla they were prominent. Do I think the vanilla community could benefit from having WoW tokens. Yes!. However I personally feel it takes away from the vanilla experience where it was much more difficult to attain gold. What would I like to see as an alternative to WoW tokens? No WoW tokens and blizzard would create better systems in place to better identify gold farmers and ban them for being the leaches they are. However I know this is a very unrealistic alternative. And given the success of WoW tokens in retail I feel Blizzard would be pushing in this direction. Given the pros and cons IMHO I hope blizzard stands strong and they do not implement WoW tokens and we somehow think of a more creative way to combat gold farmers.

TL;DR Lets be realistic. There will be inevitable changes to Vanilla WoW. But lets be rational in what those changes will be. Blizzard has stated they want to make sure to make no QoL or class balance changes. So lets think of potential changes that would make sense as whole and benefit the vanilla community and potentially augment a 13 year old game in a very subtle way.

[prwraith]

I'm not sure why everyone is so deadset on changing things. What's wrong with leaving it alone and as close to consistent with the original as humanly possible?

[schwarzkopf]

Authenticators are a battle.net function not a WoW function - so there shouldn't be any problems.

I don't want new models, I want to go back and visit the real Vanilla, so skip new models because they suck.
WoW tokens will be totally incompatible with the WoW classic play style and thus not suitable.

[callipygoustp]

I will be very surprised if WoW tokens are available on the new servers.

[Spartin]

Authenticators are a battle.net function not a WoW function - so there shouldn't be any problems.

I don't want new models, I want to go back and visit the real Vanilla, so skip new models because they suck.
WoW tokens will be totally incompatible with the WoW classic play style and thus not suitable.

So how do you plan to pay for your WoW Classic? Hopes and Prayers? The Tokens are a part of the Sub model because it enables more people to play the game and earns blizzard more money.

[Blamblam41]

Authenticators are a battle.net function not a WoW function - so there shouldn't be any problems.

I don't want new models, I want to go back and visit the real Vanilla, so skip new models because they suck.
WoW tokens will be totally incompatible with the WoW classic play style and thus not suitable.

You're not going to get vanilla, though. You're going to get a rereleased representation of Vanilla that claims to be authentic in its earliest of planning stages.

Just how many compromises will shake the foundation of that 'authenticity'? Blizzard and WoW development as a whole has not proven, historically, to be consistent or authentic to really any degree.

It's sort of why I get confused around some of the most hardcore of vanilla/classic purists/fanbois. What makes you think Blizzard will not fuck this up like they have a hundred times before? Just set some expectations before dropping that fat pre-order....

[ReVnX]

They won't allow to buy Classic gold with WoW Tokens. You could basically transfer gold from Live to Classic

[schwarzkopf]

So how do you plan to pay for your WoW Classic?

With tokens or $s - why ?
As long as tokens don't allow gold into or out of WoW classic - how you pay for the service is irrelevant as that's a battle.net issue, not a WoW classic issue.

[Hashtronaut]

So how do you plan to pay for your WoW Classic? Hopes and Prayers? The Tokens are a part of the Sub model because it enables more people to play the game and earns blizzard more money.

You'll be able to get them on the retail servers which will pay for classic.
There's no way you'll be buying and selling tokens on classic.

@OP Battle.net stuff will without a doubt make in on classic, and I'd be rather disappointed if they don't have new models/updated graphics. As for other things don't think much should be changed.

[azkhane]

1) no problem with that
2) for me is a no but if they dont force it i wont care much
3) BIG NO, classic was about going out in the world and fight for your thorium/mithril with that scumbag hunter from the horde you shared farming hours , so no to things that alter the economy using real money, i am okey if the sub is shared with retail and you can use your gold in retail to get "free" play time.

[schwarzkopf]

You're not going to get vanilla, though.

Well - the whole thing is a waste of time isn't it. If vanilla servers aren't vanilla - then that's just silly.

[Echocho]

I will be very surprised if WoW tokens are available on the new servers.

If the two games share a subscription it's probably more efficient to farm the gold to buy tokens on live anyway.

[Thage]

The only things they've confirmed are inevitable are out of necessity with integrating them into Blizz's current network--Battle.net integration including friends list and cross-game chat, the new auto-report features you can find on right-clicking a name in chat, and authenticators. Other than that, they seem more inclined toward limiting changes to bug fixes and seeing how the community feedback goes from there.

Ideally, if there's a population to support it, we'll get one of each server type (Normal, PvP, possibly RP if there's a community for it) that's just a straight-up Classic server with only the 'necessary-evil' (from a purist standpoint) changes, and one server pool where, a year or so down the road, Blizzard gathers up feedback on class balancing, QOL features, and potential post-Naxx content ideas and does what they can to address them while adhering to the Vanilla design philosophies, leaving one pure server pool and one 'Classic+' server pool that gets further development.

Personally, I'd be down for a choice between new and old models either way, but make it opt-in on the UI menu rather than opt-out like on live, but if it comes down to even that, put it on the 'Classic+' pool and leave it off the purist pool.

[Zaeyla]

If they included the subscription fees together I can see it where people will play Live WoW to farm gold to buy a token so they can use it for Classic time which has a knock on effect of promoting the live wow game and further creating a new spillover effect into live WoW.

Please do NOT add WoW Tokens into WoW:Classic it wasn't in Classic and it shouldn't be now, it would have extremely detrimental effects on the Classic economy that did not exist then and would massively inflate the prices of nearly everything.
There is no good reason to include a WoW token "Inside" of Classic not even from Blizzard's perspective since leaving it outside will mean promoting the Live WoW game.

[tankbug]

They will make the game secure, and perhaps fix the most game-breaking exploits, and other than that, I don't think there will be much difference from the later vanilla patches.

[HordeFanboy]

Lets just be honest with one another. There will be changes done to Classic. But lets be realistic with one another on what these changes could be. Obliviously there is a large group of the community who says "No" to any changes big or small, game breaking or not. Obviously there is an equally large group of the community who are for changes no matter how much it may veer from the Vanilla experience. The vast majority of the changes I feel the community wants are QoL or Class Balancing.

We aren't here to discuss those changes.

I would like to discuss potential changes that we as a community can agree will be implemented based off reasonable compromise of implementing a 13 year old game in a much more modern gaming society. What I mean by this is. It's been said a million times before the game is old. Anyone who thinks there wont be some changes to the game. And thinks they would release the same 04/05/06 version of WoW I feel is not looking at this whole situation rationally. So below are three changes I truly believe we will see in classic and my reasoning behind each one.

1) Authenticators - Given the increase is cyber security over the past 13 years. I believe blizzard would be foolish to not integrate the classic servers into there battle net client. Thus meaning authenticators will be a thing. Given the amount of characters / items we have accumulated over these years I feel it could be an almost unanimous decisions everyone would want this feature. I personally am for this change and would love to hear some opinions of those who might be against it. Also is there actually anyone out there who does not use an authenticator? I know I have used one since 2008 when they implemented it. And it's already saved my account numerous times.

2) Updated Graphics / Models - This one I feel I might get some heat on. However please hear me out before passing judgement. Given the recent remastering of StarCraft. It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Blizzard is going through a phase of reinvestment of their product line. Meaning they just remastered one IP (Starcraft). And they just announced the desire to release a classic server. What makes people think that they would not remaster Classic and instead implement a highly outdated graphics model? I feel the game would benefit tremendously being able to explore the old zones once more. However augmented but not changed from the original version. I feel this is a pro and not a con. However I can understand the purist mentality of "No changes". That they want to experience Vanilla how it once was. However lets be rational here. It would be unrealistic for a billion dollar company to invest millions into an old IP. In an attempt to bring back the old Vanilla wow without some form of augmentation. As I personally stand I would love to experience vanilla again but through a new light. I feel experiencing vanilla wow with updated graphics would be beneficial and cannot see the negative beyond the obvious nostalgia. However I'm sure others differ from my opinion. So how would an updated graphics / models change the game play in a negative aspect?

3) WoW Tokens - Do I personally want them? Absolutely not. Do I feel WoW tokens are a good thing for WoW? As a whole yes. I believe WoW tokens benefit the community more then they take away from. I have been against and have not wanted WoW tokens since the first time they were announced. However you know what I hate more? gold farmers. And in Vanilla they were prominent. Do I think the vanilla community could benefit from having WoW tokens. Yes!. However I personally feel it takes away from the vanilla experience where it was much more difficult to attain gold. What would I like to see as an alternative to WoW tokens? No WoW tokens and blizzard would create better systems in place to better identify gold farmers and ban them for being the leaches they are. However I know this is a very unrealistic alternative. And given the success of WoW tokens in retail I feel Blizzard would be pushing in this direction. Given the pros and cons IMHO I hope blizzard stands strong and they do not implement WoW tokens and we somehow think of a more creative way to combat gold farmers.

TL;DR Lets be realistic. There will be inevitable changes to Vanilla WoW. But lets be rational in what those changes will be. Blizzard has stated they want to make sure to make no QoL or class balance changes. So lets think of potential changes that would make sense as whole and benefit the vanilla community and potentially augment a 13 year old game in a very subtle way.

Only 1 might happen.
2,3 are hilarious, will never happen.

[callipygoustp]

If the two games share a subscription it's probably more efficient to farm the gold to buy tokens on live anyway.

I totally agree. What I don't see is tokens being available on the classic servers themselves.

[onesBronson]

This is a dead end, Classic is Classic, thats what the community wants so thats what the community gets.

[Mirishka]

I just love all these topics from people who think they have Unique and Special Insight™ on what's 'inevitably' coming with WoW classic.

[zito]

Personally I think they will release classic how it was then update it like any game would get over time.

Like duel spec will be a thing and balance changes