How to counter retail-mentality in classic?

[Hottage]

If you go to any private server you'll see that the retail elitism and min/max mentality [with 10+ years worth of theorycrafting to back it up] has already infected those who claim to be interested in Classic servers.

It won't be the same as you remember 13 years ago. It's a simple, sad fact.

[Specialka]

Go read Blizzard's statement again.

Yes, you can read it again, seems you need it. They never said that Vanilla=Classic.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

It wasn't. Retail moved to a piece of garbage for special needs kids.

And now it's moving back away from that towards a game with endless repeatability and serious competitive elements. Classic won't have anything like this unless people stop clamoring no changes. It will NEVER have the stuff you mentioned either way.

[Mirishka]

I think it's way more important to counter private server toxicity in Classic. That's one thing that's definitely not like was in vanilla or even in Legion for that matter and what ultimately made me stay the hell away from them.

Fat chance. Have all these whiny, toxic 'retail versus REAL players' type posts and topics not clued you in?

Instead of being this fun thing that people embraced, the WoW Classic announcement became yet another splinter in an already fractured, compartmentalized community - in which the 'vanilla' players somehow became the only real WoW players, and those who enjoy retail are special needs/casuals/bads/facebook gamers/etc. It makes the 'casuals vs. hardcores' stuff (which was also idiotic) seem tame by comparison.

Stuff like this is why gamers have the kind of stigmas attached to them that we do. You don't see this petty bullshit among fans of film (even the ones with hardcore fanbases like Star Wars) or music. Only among gamers do you see this relentless need to catergorize and shit on anyone who thinks differently. It is genuinely pathetic that gamers, despite the stereotypes and ostracization we face from those outside our 'hobby', attack each other to a degree beyond anything done by non-gamers.

I was actually growing a bit excited at the idea of being able to do things like explore pre-Cataclysm Hillsbrad again, of running all the way to Scarlet Monastery to finish the 'Down the Scarlet Path' questline that I loved in classic WoW. But if these sub-forums are any indication of what kind of 'community' will be waiting on the classic servers, I'll stick to reminiscing.

[Deleted]

Yes, you can read it again, seems you need it. They never said that Vanilla=Classic.

I don't understand how people came up with this idea that there is some difference between "vanilla" and "classic"—they are synonyms and Blizzard used both in the announcement presentation. There is absolutely zero reason to believe they would mean something different, it's just that "WoW Vanilla" would be a stupid name so they went with "WoW Classic" for the official name.

[Piesor]

My general thinking:

Classic servers are made for players who spent the last years on private servers. I don't think that Blizzard will try to force retail players into classic, at least not longterm. They just want to push the overall player numbers for battle.net.
That means that any changes to classic will result in:
1. Scaring players away that should have been recruited again to spent their time in battle.net.
2. Additional costs regarding development. If classic would be included in the current retail sub they would gain more subs to polish their numbers.

Of course we could all be wrong and Blizzard could create a completely new Classic WoW on a new highend engine and add all the quality of life improvements to show everybody the current state of the art regarding MMORPGs

Hi

[...]

- What happens when people ACTUALLY realize how slow the leveling is? Will they give up? Will they complain like crazy? Will leveling be nerfed? And destroy the experience?

The majority of the players won't have a lvl60 character imo because they will concentrate on BfA. They will quit leveling at some point or just do it extremely slowly.

- What happens, when raiders, who got their fancy Cutting Edge etc, realize that raiding in Vanilla was a lot more than skill, and so much was gear depending as well as consumeable and buff depending. What happens when they realize they have to spend an insane amout of time to farm consumeables etc just to not get oneshotted and that their endless skill can't help against all of vanillas encounters.

Only few wil get there, especially because the classic raiding is not that fun anymore. I remember when I was so hyped that Black Temple will come back as timewalking raid. Have so many great memories from raiding it during BC. Rushed through one time with my guild and was totally bored. Didn't even do the Ulduar timewalking afterwards....

Regarding the preperations for the raid: Those who enjoy the classic raid content won't have issues with all the farming. If you are in a serious classic guild it should also be much easier.

- What will happen to the economy etc. Will people be able to do the grinds that we had to do back in the day? Will AH be overpriced or dead? Will this encourage more bots? And will we see a long, long delay for some raids, like Naxxramas, cause people don't complete the attunement, simply cause it takes too long and the motivation we had in vanilla to farm that is gone?

The economy should be stable. As for now there are no possibilities to get gold easily in classic (token etc.). Most players won't have much gold, so you won't be able to sell stuff extremely expansive. Should feel better than in retail right now.

[Rotted]

Well, the thing is that we purists (well many of us, I am no spokesperson) don't want to find a common ground. We have no interest in compromising at all. We play the unchanged classic game or not at all. Yes, I can tell the community is already kind of toxic, and I already find myself more toxic than I should be, cause I don't trust Blizzard to not mess this up for me. I know I should not get outraged before I get any confirmation. But yeah, if we find out they release a changed game, hell will break lose.

Well firstly, not having any interest in any compromising is wrong and counter productive completely. With that attitude nothing gets done.

In terms of changes, what you need to ask yourself is; If blizzard could of changed something at the time would they? for example, if they could of fixed the looting animation bug would they have? the answer is yes, to me that fix being in play doesn't change anything about the game. If they could of implemented better graphics at the time would they have? of course they would of. Essentially we're talking graphical and bug fixes should be fine (although I swear to god they better leave the wall climbing in).

I'm all for the amount of quests staying the same, the amount of exp, dungeon sizes like UBRS staying original. I wouldn't even mind if they don't tweek any classes what so ever etc.

Essentially, classic is going to be Vanilla remastered, we have remasters of games all the time which are usually just bug fixes, ui updates, better textures etc. But the game play is exactly the same

Also another thing,

I am very certain the non-fanboys will get bored of this eventually, even if the game has changes. While us purists could play an un-changed for years and years and years.

It isn't as clear cut as this. You will get 'non-fanboys' who will quit with and without changes, the same way as 'purists' will. None of us can be sure until the end product hits. Stop separating everyone into Pile A or B

But look at this shit,

Read your own pathetic attempt at an insult first before you go back to pokemon farming.

Some "purist" mindset is cancer as fuck and it will be probably even worse than "retail" mindset

Exactly. Retailers who will just try classic for a few days and then move back to Bfa should have no say whatsoever about how classic should be

This is what you and others are fuelling people; from 'both sides' of the argument. This is the community you're forming and this is the community that will grow when classic launches. One of the greatest things Vanilla had (and TBC as far as I'm concerned) is a help, chatty community (bar barrens chat) that is something I've never seen any other game achieve and it's slowly being ruined a bit more every week over stupidity and patheticness.

[Battlebeard]

I don't understand how people came up with this idea that there is some difference between "vanilla" and "classic"—they are synonyms and Blizzard used both in the announcement presentation. There is absolutely zero reason to believe they would mean something different, it's just that "WoW Vanilla" would be a stupid name so they went with "WoW Classic" for the official name.

Well, vanilla refers to the original game, while classic refer to servers based on the original game. Vanilla can never be again, vanilla described an era (2004-2006) more than the game. Its more the name of the period than the game. So it makes no sense to refer to it as vanilla now. Classic is the new vanilla-based game that we see in 2018-2019. And the endless discussions is how similar Classic will be to Vanilla.

If we see a changed game, it would still be Classic WoW, but not Classic non-changed WoW. It will no longer be a Vanilla replica, but a Vanilla-remake. A clear in-game example now is the god awful Timewalking dungeons. They are not replicas of what we had, but remakes due to the fact that we use abilities etc that didn't exist in previous expansions and many, many more changes.

[Eleccybubb]

I agree that the "purist mindset" might seem unhealthy, but I am prolly one of the biggest purist here. I said it before, and can say it again, these servers are ONLY for nostalgic reasons and they will exist to please those who miss the original game. If they change anything, the servers becomes completely pointless and me and thousands and thousands of people would not play at all. I would never play private servers, cause I don't wanna risk a ban, but others will, and if Blizzard want people to prio pure private servers so to speak, then yeah, make changes...

- - - Updated - - -



Well, I guess, but it's the easiest way to get a point across. I can't think of a better word to summarize the group of people, that I belong to, that want absolutely ZERO changes to the game. We purists don't want a good game, we want an original game, even if it means it will be a lot worse than it can be.

Well it's more than likely going onto Battle.net and there is supposed talks of baking it into the retail client.

So if you want ZERO changes doesn't that already kind of nullify it since it's not it's own launcher?

And what about bugs that were present in Classic? What you think they are going to leave them in for "the experience"?

What if they add a colorblind option? Will you throw a tantrum at them for helping colorblind people because "REEEE IT WASN'T IN VANILLA"?

Face it. QoL features will happen that don't impact the gameplay itself. So therefore it's already not 100% vanilla.

And no. Calling people names to get your point across and trying to actively force people out because they play a different version of the game makes you look toxic and petulant. If anything you don't speak for the Vanilla/Classic community when you actively attack those for having a different opinion or enjoying the modern client.

Your whole side calling people "retailers" and actively bashing those for enjoying the current game need to grow up and get a grip on reality.

As does the side bashing classic. Neither side is innocent in all this.

[Deleted]

Well, vanilla refers to the original game, while classic refer to servers based on the original game. Vanilla can never be again, vanilla described an era (2004-2006) more than the game. Its more the name of the period than the game. So it makes no sense to refer to it as vanilla now. Classic is the new vanilla-based game that we see in 2018-2019. And the endless discussions is how similar Classic will be to Vanilla.

But you're literally just making that up yourself. There is no indication that's how anyone else, including Blizzard, uses the terms. Blizzard used "vanilla" and "classic" interchangeably in the announcement presentation. They literally said "some people like vanilla" so we're going to do "WoW Classic realms"—that would make no sense if they thought "vanilla" and "classic" weren't the same thing.

[Battlebeard]

Well firstly, not having any interest in any compromising is wrong and counter productive completely. With that attitude nothing gets done.

In terms of changes, what you need to ask yourself is; If blizzard could of changed something at the time would they? for example, if they could of fixed the looting animation bug would they have? the answer is yes, to me that fix being in play doesn't change anything about the game. If they could of implemented better graphics at the time would they have? of course they would of. Essentially we're talking graphical and bug fixes should be fine (although I swear to god they better leave the wall climbing in).

I'm all for the amount of quests staying the same, the amount of exp, dungeon sizes like UBRS staying original. I wouldn't even mind if they don't tweek any classes what so ever etc.

Essentially, classic is going to be Vanilla remastered, we have remasters of games all the time which are usually just bug fixes, ui updates, better textures etc. But the game play is exactly the same

Also another thing,



It isn't as clear cut as this. You will get 'non-fanboys' who will quit with and without changes, the same way as 'purists' will. None of us can be sure until the end product hits. Stop separating everyone into Pile A or B

But look at this shit,





This is what you and others are fuelling people; from 'both sides' of the argument. This is the community you're forming and this is the community that will grow when classic launches. One of the greatest things Vanilla had (and TBC as far as I'm concerned) is a help, chatty community (bar barrens chat) that is something I've never seen any other game achieve and it's slowly being ruined a bit more every week over stupidity and patheticness.

Okey, I do get your point and what you mean and I have been a bit unclear.

What I want, and what others want (not speaking for others, but I'm sure others agree), is a time machine, to go back, and experience what we did back then, with all the flaws, the bugs and all other thinsg that was in the game 2004-2006. We want a pure nostalgic trip and don't want these servers to play a good game, or to improve it. We want to relive times that are long gone.

Improvements, regardless how good they are, will counter the nostalgic trip that we want. If we remove bad things, even the bugs, it will be harmful to us who want to go back in time.

I often refer to Zelda games, cause I love most of them, and there is a clear example there. We had Ocarina of Time (google these titles to see what I mean) released in 1998. I was 9 years old when the game came and I played it so many times. The last time I played it back then, I was about 12 or so. I didn't play it since, even though I loved it, cause there was so much stuff going on IRL and with other games. However, in 2011, a remake of the game came out to the 3DS. I played that game, hoping to relive my childhood, and it was a DISASTER of a game TO ME. Others loved it and A LOT are objectively better and they fixed some things from the original game. BUT to me, who fell in love with the original, it was TERRIBLE for me to play it. BUT after this, I picked up the original game from 1998 AND it was AMAZING! I felt like the super excited 9 year old me again and I LOVED every second of it.

EXACTLY this is what I fear would happen. If I play a remasted and improved Vanilla game, I WILL hate it because it will not be the same. I will not feel like I'm 15 year old me in 2004 exploring WoW, I will feel like 28 year old myself playing a meh "improved" game. Keep it original and I will love it, cause I will go back in time for real.

[Eleccybubb]

Okey, I do get your point and what you mean and I have been a bit unclear.

What I want, and what others want (not speaking for others, but I'm sure others agree), is a time machine, to go back, and experience what we did back then, with all the flaws, the bugs and all other thinsg that was in the game 2004-2006. We want a pure nostalgic trip and don't want these servers to play a good game, or to improve it. We want to relive times that are long gone.

Improvements, regardless how good they are, will counter the nostalgic trip that we want. If we remove bad things, even the bugs, it will be harmful to us who want to go back in time.

I often refer to Zelda games, cause I love most of them, and there is a clear example there. We had Ocarina of Time (google these titles to see what I mean) released in 1998. I was 9 years old when the game came and I played it so many times. The last time I played it back then, I was about 12 or so. I didn't play it since, even though I loved it, cause there was so much stuff going on IRL and with other games. However, in 2011, a remake of the game came out to the 3DS. I played that game, hoping to relive my childhood, and it was a DISASTER of a game TO ME. Others loved it and A LOT are objectively better and they fixed some things from the original game. BUT to me, who fell in love with the original, it was TERRIBLE for me to play it. BUT after this, I picked up the original game from 1998 AND it was AMAZING! I felt like the super excited 9 year old me again and I LOVED every second of it.

EXACTLY this is what I fear would happen. If I play a remasted and improved Vanilla game, I WILL hate it because it will not be the same. I will not feel like I'm 15 year old me in 2004 exploring WoW, I will feel like 28 year old myself playing a meh "improved" game. Keep it original and I will love it, cause I will go back in time for real.

And again it's not being kept original for the sake of "muh experiences"

Bugfixing is basic quality control standards. They will not leave a fatal bug in just for the experience. It's not how video game development works.

But again you harp on about wanting a 100% vanilla and yet it's not going to be. It's more than likely going to be put on Battle.net or in the retail client to keep it unified on their platform.

Colorblind features will probably be added since it would be a welcome change for those people who want to play Classic and are colorblind.

[mudley]

Activision doesn't care (on an individual level) who's a purist or who has retail-mentality or whatever other bullshit black-and-white terms people are making up and applying in this thread.

It's not the same small game company pioneering the mmo market like they were back in 2004. They're a giant business and are very good at making money from their consumers.

I'm absolutely positive they have a team of people doing a bunch of calculations and projections of their targeted market & how many people will play & how much profit they'll make.

They'd add Death Knights to classic if they thought it would bring in more revenue.

Some things you can probably expect based on this:

- updated graphics (many people want this and all of Activision's recent remakes (starcraft & soon wc3) feature graphic updates)
- updated macro system (old one was broken and abusable - you could literally 1 button some classes with the broken macro system being able to conditionally cast spells within macros)
- class balancing (people will complain enough in bulk for these to go through)
- other minor quality of life changes that are present on many private servers (talent respec changes & possibly dual spec) etc.

That being said, I'm looking forward to seeing what they've got & if I enjoy it then you can bet your ass I'll play it.

[Akka]

II would never play private servers, cause I don't wanna risk a ban, but others will, and if Blizzard want people to prio pure private servers so to speak, then yeah, make changes...

What ban ?
I played private server, and I EXPLICITELY SAID SO in the OFFICIAL WOW FORUM, with my OFFICIAL ACCOUNT. To the point of providing specific names of said private servers, and making comparison with the best and the worst.

I'm still waiting to even get a warning. Blizzard is not stupid, a private server player is a potential customer, a guy speaking on their forum is an actual customer. They might want to close down private servers, but they want to keep their customers. They will attack the owners or (what they FINALLY seem set up to do) provide their own Vanilla servers, but they won't touch customers (until probably you start to spam links, but that's going beyond discussion and entering the domain of harassment).

1. Classic =\= Vanilla afaik from Blizzcon

Blizzcon didn't made any distinction. It's only trolls on forums who try to put words in Blizzard mouth so they can pretend both are different.

[Deleted]

Blizzcon didn't made any distinction. It's only trolls on forums who try to put words in Blizzard mouth so they can pretend both are different.

No?

They clearly stated that they want to make the final product more close to vanilla as they can.

And they will listen to people feedback.


Hence it will not be like vanilla 100%

[Akka]

Well firstly, not having any interest in any compromising is wrong and counter productive completely. With that attitude nothing gets done.

In most case, I tend to agree. But when the ENTIRE POINT of doing X is to reach a very specific outcome, then compromising that outcome is making the entire venture pointless. In this case, compromising is voiding the very reason of even doing the whole thing, and shouldn't be done.

[Deleted]

I agree that the "purist mindset" might seem unhealthy, but I am prolly one of the biggest purist here. I said it before, and can say it again, these servers are ONLY for nostalgic reasons and they will exist to please those who miss the original game. If they change anything, the servers becomes completely pointless and me and thousands and thousands of people would not play at all. I would never play private servers, cause I don't wanna risk a ban, but others will, and if Blizzard want people to prio pure private servers so to speak, then yeah, make changes...

But this is the point.


Blizzard will never make the same game again, otherwise we still would have Vanilla not Legion.

Times change and people too, if Blizzard see that of the 100% vanilla crowd only 10% ( exampla) is "purist" and want 1:1 ( beside the fact that not everybody will be ok on which patch start ) game but the other 90% want ofc vanilla but with QoL that make the game better not easier eh


They will listen to them.

[Akka]

It won't be the same as you remember 13 years ago. It's a simple, sad fact.

I think I'll make a macro so I can counter this annoying terrible argument without wearing my fingers on the keyboard each time.

1) Everyone with a brain know that it won't be like the "first time" again. Nobody with a brain ever believed that. When I fire up my emulator and launch Legend of Zelda, I'm pretty well aware that I won't be 9 again and discovering the game. And yet I still play Legend of Zelda from time to time and find it fun. People wanting to play a game again don't usually expect to be ported back in time. They just want to play that game again. So this argument is pointless.

2) The reason Blizzard ended up caving in is because the private server audience became big enough they couldn't ignore it anymore. People playing private servers are playing Vanilla RIGHT NOW. How stupid can be to use the nostalgia argument to someone who is playing the game right now ?
"man, you're playing the game right now, but just in case, I'd like to remind you that well, you're not experiencing the same thing than 13 years ago. I mean, just in case you hadn't already noticed the past three years you were playing. Don't thank me, I'm sure you really needed me to enlighten you on the subject"

/facepalm

- - - Updated - - -

What I want, and what others want (not speaking for others, but I'm sure others agree), is a time machine, to go back, and experience what we did back then, with all the flaws, the bugs and all other thinsg that was in the game 2004-2006. We want a pure nostalgic trip and don't want these servers to play a good game, or to improve it. We want to relive times that are long gone.

No, I don't want a time machine or a nostalgic trip.
I want to play the same game as then. The same canva. I don't expect to see the same people, or see the same mentality (though I'm sure that after a while the mentality will adapt back to the game, as it always does). I just want the game available.

[sixeph]

The biggest mentality that is going to be hard to overcome is the fact that Vanilla was not a game meant just for max level characters. In Retail, the game starts for many at max level, because we've had max level characters for so long. I went several years where I hated leveling because I just wanted to play endgame.

That's not really want I want anymore. Classic appeals to me because I want that long leveling experience that feels rewarding and really grow as a character. And yes, I'm fully aware of how slow it was, but in that, it also wasn't a rush to level. I will taking my time to fully be enjoying every dungeon at least once or more. I'm excited to have to put in time for things like my epic mount.

[Projectmars]

Activision doesn't care (on an individual level) who's a purist or who has retail-mentality or whatever other bullshit black-and-white terms people are making up and applying in this thread.

It's not the same small game company pioneering the mmo market like they were back in 2004. They're a giant business and are very good at making money from their consumers.

I'm absolutely positive they have a team of people doing a bunch of calculations and projections of their targeted market & how many people will play & how much profit they'll make.

They'd add Death Knights to classic if they thought it would bring in more revenue.

I don't doubt they would... but I know they ain't. This is a game marketed towards a bit of a niche audience and is being redone in a way to minimize expenses needed to run. As a result, they do get that not making the game targeted more specifically towards that audience will likely result in reduced profits.

So I doubt we would have to worry about them straying too far from what Vanilla was like, meaning stuff like Class Balancing, Talent respect changes, LFR, QoL changes are less likely to make it in. They have stated they are fine with a smaller player base for Classic after all.