The Anti "No Changes" FAQ

[Deficineiron]

Actually, no, the most famous pservers don't tend to have XP turned up.

So basically you can't manage to understand that it's not "nostalgia" but "actually like the game". That inability to grasp the obvious and being stuck on stupid preconception is the thing I find incredible.
This is a very selective kind of stupidity - if I like an old movie, few people will tell me it's "nostalgia". But the amount of idiots unable to get that a design can be both older and better is just staggering.

you remind me of the people who claim to like the original star wars movie better than episode 1 - yet episode one was clearly superior in every way - techonology/spec. effects, cgi actor (jarjar), access to best the industry had to offer in talent, etc. Next you are going to claim you didn't like jar jar - the most sophisticated cgi actor ever to date, I suppose.

- - - Updated - - -

It boils down to my lack of belief that Blizzard has the expertise and insight to make changes that me, and the majority of the classic community will accept and enjoy.

During Blizzon 2005. The relation between the hunter and the pet is very much important to the developers. The loyalty mechanic, the happiness mechanic and the diet of your pet was not some side project. It was implemented, for the explicit purpose of differentiating the hunter class pets from the demon pets that the warlock has.

I don't believe for a single second, the wow developers of today would even understand why these mechanics were put in at all. All they will perceive is unnecessary mechanics that can be pruned away.

This is a much more pragmatic view of how blizzard is going to look at this class. The question is if mgmt will compel their teams to respect classic design of these 'problems' (formerly features).

[Ielenia]

But the real issue is when altering tanking specs to make them viable for raiding will cause quite a lot of problems , for one if u buff prot pala and feral tank to be viable in higher end raids, you'd be making prot warrior the inferior spec, and most likely will cause a huge uproar due to pala being faction locked only.

Why is it that whenever the subject of balancing tanks comes to the table, people tend to immediately assume that "balancing tanks" equals "making paladin and druid tanking better than warrior tanking"? I mean, the purpose of balancing is exactly to keep on the same level. Hell, the name itself means that.

[Ifeanychukwu]

Just going to echo this post a bit.

The reason why it is a bit hard for Blizzard to implement changes/upgrades to the system, is that they clearly do not recognize the things in Vanilla that people cared for. If they did, more Vanilla things would be in retail.

With that, the changes they would make would be based on what good things are in retail and proberly not on what would be good for the bubble universe that is Vanilla.

Retail is good, without a doubt, but the people who like Vanilla are looking at things a different way and if you come with the mindset of Legion/BFA, as many of the devs would be, it is hard to make the changes and upgrades that would actually be succesful.

Edit: So it is actually not idea of changes that i see as a problem, but more about what kind of people makes these changes.

You mean the people that have been at Blizzard since the beginning and players that joined Blizzard after playing WoW since the alpha don't know about what made vanilla what it was?

[chrisnumbers]

ignore the nitpicks and pay attention to everything else. there is a reason why every private server is NOT using 1.1 patch.

How do I know which ones he thinks are important and which aren't? He never says. It's all lumped together.

[Witchblade77]

How do I know which ones he thinks are important and which aren't? He never says. It's all lumped together.

its up to you to decide what's important, for the love of. yes he lumps them all together, becasue these are all the things that have been changed in later patches of the game STILL called vanilla. and what's also important is that private servers? you know the ones that are all vanilla servers? NONE of them are using release version of the game. adn that is becasue release version of the game? was a MESS.

[ydraw]

False, they would lose far more subs than they would gain by doing that. They made the game a huge handhold since Wrath to bring in new players, Wrath wasn't even so bad, but it definitely had a lot of people being called "Wrath babies". The game has been made easier and kept easier to bring in and keep new players who don't want to invest the time that Vanilla or BC required.

The game hasn't been made easier, it's been made better and more customisable.

Vanilla and BC raids were a joke in comparison to modern Mythic Raiding. "Investing time" is a furphy. There was no more time investment required in TBC than in Wrath. It's just that because of attunements you had no opportunity to progress if you weren't in a progression guild at release because of the total lack of catchup mechanisms.

[Zyky]

The game hasn't been made easier, it's been made better and more customisable.

Vanilla and BC raids were a joke in comparison to modern Mythic Raiding. "Investing time" is a furphy. There was no more time investment required in TBC than in Wrath. It's just that because of attunements you had no opportunity to progress if you weren't in a progression guild at release because of the total lack of catchup mechanisms.

The game has been made easier, I didn't say anything about raiding. It takes far less time to level, it takes far less time to farm for raids, there's far more gold floating around to buy things(and you're able to basically buy gold from Blizzard), it takes far less time to gear in order to raid. So yes the game is far easier than it was in Vanilla or Burning Crusade.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

All I can say to this is one simple phrase.

No changes.

[Deficineiron]

The game has been made easier, I didn't say anything about raiding. It takes far less time to level, it takes far less time to farm for raids, there's far more gold floating around to buy things(and you're able to basically buy gold from Blizzard), it takes far less time to gear in order to raid. So yes the game is far easier than it was in Vanilla or Burning Crusade.

I think the idea with the question is that only hard-mode raids count for comparison (even though most active accounts never reached max level in classic, much less raided). I swear some of the folks posting these setups (not you) really didn't play early versions of wow as apparently they have no idea how small the raiding community was in classic and even bc.

[Zyky]

I think the idea with the question is that only hard-mode raids count for comparison (even though most active accounts never reached max level in classic, much less raided). I swear some of the folks posting these setups (not you) really didn't play early versions of wow as apparently they have no idea how small the raiding community was in classic and even bc.

I agree, most people don't realize that while raids weren't complex, the game made them complex with the horrid frame rates and the fact that so many people playing didn't have computers that could handle 40 person groups lol.

[Deleted]

You mean the people that have been at Blizzard since the beginning and players that joined Blizzard after playing WoW since the alpha don't know about what made vanilla what it was?

you mean all the people who DONT even work on WoW anymore?

- - - Updated - - -

The game has been made easier, I didn't say anything about raiding. It takes far less time to level, it takes far less time to farm for raids, there's far more gold floating around to buy things(and you're able to basically buy gold from Blizzard), it takes far less time to gear in order to raid. So yes the game is far easier than it was in Vanilla or Burning Crusade.

here we go again with the claim vanilla was HARD...which it was NOT....

- - - Updated - - -

All I can say to this is one simple phrase. No changes.

not gonna happen.

[Zyky]

here we go again with the claim vanilla was HARD...which it was NOT....

Didn't say that, so please don't put words in my mouth, but the game has been made easier and it doesn't require as much of a time investment.

[ydraw]

Didn't say that, so please don't put words in my mouth, but the game has been made easier and it doesn't require as much of a time investment.

Tell that to the people who spent 60 hours a week grinding M+ for AP at the beginning of legion.

[Deleted]

The game hasn't been made easier, it's been made better and more customisable.

"Better" by what definition? Do you honestly think a decade from now anyone will have such powerful memories of WoD or Legion as they have of vanilla today? And if not, then how could you claim that the game is "better" by any meaningful definition?

It's just that because of attunements you had no opportunity to progress if you weren't in a progression guild at release because of the total lack of catchup mechanisms.

Why do you think that? It was completely opposite. I didn't start raiding in TBC until quite late (after BT was out, but Kara/T6 attunements hadn't been lifted) and I got to progress through all the raid content in a meaningful way all the way to Sunwell (Brutallus was my personal last kill).

In TBC all the raid content remained current for most of the xpac, so there was nothing to "catch up" to. You could simply join a new guild starting to raid from Kara, experiencing the raid content the way it was intended. One of the worst design changes in modern WoW for me is the complete obsoletion of all content except the latest raid—you can no longer meaningfully experience all the content unless you're actively playing from the release.

[Zyky]

Tell that to the people who spent 60 hours a week grinding M+ for AP at the beginning of legion.

That wasn't a requirement for raiding, there were many people who didn't spend an insane amount of time doing M+ to raid. I love when people can't tell the difference between requirement and choice.

[wholol]

Why is it that whenever the subject of balancing tanks comes to the table, people tend to immediately assume that "balancing tanks" equals "making paladin and druid tanking better than warrior tanking"? I mean, the purpose of balancing is exactly to keep on the same level. Hell, the name itself means that.

Because given blizzard's history, it is always safe to assume that buffs/nerfs are always overdone.

I would gladly accept quality of life changes for all hybrid non raiding specs, if they are properly done and doesn't impact the game drastically.

[Akka]

Well thanks for proving my point that so many vanilla pursuits are hostile.

Nostalgia is a huge part of it. It can be a good game and have nostalgia value...

Thanks for proving the reason why they are hostile.

"I like this design"
"no you're just being nostalgic, you can't have an opinion on the design, I know better than you what you think. Also, this design is bad so I'll try to make it changed"

I really can't see why they would be hostile

you remind me of the people who claim to like the original star wars movie better than episode 1 - yet episode one was clearly superior in every way - techonology/spec. effects, cgi actor (jarjar), access to best the industry had to offer in talent, etc. Next you are going to claim you didn't like jar jar - the most sophisticated cgi actor ever to date, I suppose.

It's either stealthy sarcasm or just a pretty disheartening but blatant display of the very problem we face.

[Deleted]

With all due respect, the original developers have all vanished (quit, retired, resigned, fired). Blizzard no longer has their vision (tm) that they used to have.

But you want to leave it to Blizzard to make decisions. That's nice.

I disagree. Blizzard is no longer capable of making decisions for retro fans. Keep it the same, or don't bother.

It's wonderful you like retail. Keep playing there. (You spoke highly of it multiple times in yours article)

I'm a retro fan. Keep your mouth shut if you arent capable of formulating your own opinion in a pursiasive enough way to get people to agree wtih you.

Dont automaticly asume you speak for anyone else

[Akka]

In TBC all the raid content remained current for most of the xpac, so there was nothing to "catch up" to. You could simply join a new guild starting to raid from Kara, experiencing the raid content the way it was intended. One of the worst design changes in modern WoW for me is the complete obsoletion of all content except the latest raid—you can no longer meaningfully experience all the content unless you're actively playing from the release.

Couldn't agree more.

[Echocho]

haha its funny to see people think there will be no changes when retail and classic will use the same client .d

It's called denial. Some things might not even be possible to reproduce to its original state due to changes in the two clients. This is why Blizzard in multiple interviews have used phrasing like "attempt to recreate the classic gameplay experience", not actually promising anything more than "we'll try to do our best".