Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

[Gadzooks]

Let's do some math real fast.

That's the only fast thing about all of this, the math. Farming Hydraxion was bitched about constantly in vanilla - I know, I had to do it - so I'm assuming the person you're responding to never played back then, or didn't raid. EVERYONE bitched about it - and bitched about farming resist gear. And bitched about farming mats for potions. That's why we all called it a second job, because of what you had to do just to step into the instance, to spend MORE time clearing trash and not getting a drop. And pay for repairs. And dont forget running people over and over to get them geared to get to BRD to get attuned to MC itself. I was the guild guy who took aspiring raiders to UBRS to gear them, I knew that place like the back of my hand.

This is why I say, don't explain it to them. Let them experience it. I suspect the pirate servers tweak a lot of that stuff - if Classic is a straight port, then you'll hear the crying and complaining, oh, lets say 3 weeks in, because that's how long it took to level a character - and the real grind began.

Let them experience it. That's what they want. Then we can all laugh when they start complaining about everything we complained about, back then.

If they think they're stepping foot into MC anytime soon after Classic opens...lol...it's gonna take some serious shenanigans to power boost 40 people, get them geared up from bosses (You thing rng is bad now?), get them attuned, and take down even the first trash pack within even two weeks, and that's being generous...well, they'll learn. And we'll be here, pointing and laughing at them.

I did that already. It took over my life. I'm not doing that again. If you want to - go for it. You'll see.

Edited to add: let's look at some real data. Here's how long it took to get the first kills in MC in vanilla:

https://www.method.gg/raid-history

MC released Nov. 23, 2004.

First boss kill, January 20th, 2005.

First Rags kill April 25th, 2005.

And that's not scrub players, either, that was experienced raiders from Everquest and other games in those guilds.

You simply can't beat the Time Gate Boss. It's gonna take grinding content to get into new content to grind, so you can grind more content. You NEED drops from earlier bosses in MC to clear MC, and it could take months for people to get them.

These try hards who think they're gonna step into MC and clear it in one night...oh, boy, the rage quitting and sniveling is going to be epic.

[bloodmoth13]

I believe a major reason for classic servers is to realign the current WoW team with what had made WoW a success in the first place.

its not wow that really changed, its everything else. people have more games to play, less time to play them. everything has been getting faster, the OG players are settling down with families, and the grind game grinding to a halt has been absolutley necessary for the majority of the players.

Also the world was smaller and needlessly drawn out. we only had 2 condinents to condense all players into, there was a lot of friction in that environment, blizz tried to increase friction with CRZ and the majority of forum posts were overwhelmingly negative.

What made the game great was WHEN it was released as much as WHAT was released.. back in 2004 we didnt have so many ways of communicating online, wow wasnt just the game, it was the community. players wold pop on just to chat with people. the internet was a new frontier and kids and adults alike were venturing into it to discover new people, and through world of warcraft, places. that CANT be recreated because communication has been separated into social media, gaming communities have been replaced and i think that is what makes people most nostalgiac about vanilla. The dedicated servers players ran recaptured that community feel because they were pirates, i think blizz taking over and doing it commercially will ruin it because the game was objectively worse back then and it will be bringing back a poorer quality game without the community that made it good.

in my opinion, gameplay has improved dramatically over the years (give or take some specs peaking in other expansions), visuals are only improving, content (in legion) is the best it has been, and balance is the best it has been (ignoring 1 or 2 outliers, specs generally perform within 10% of eachother)

players forget how boring rotations were in vanilla, some classes could macro their entire rotation into 1 button. many abilities lacked any visuals, content was linear (Quest > dungeons > raid) balance was a nightmare with only a few SPECs viable in a few roles.

I dont think this is to realign the design team with vanilla, i think its just a side project to cash in on nostalgia.

[Gadzooks]

Considering you could kill most bosses in MC/BWL with only half the raid actually playing somewhat decently, if you'd have a full raid of somewhat decent people you would easily be able to clear both MC and BWL without having great gear.

Yeah, no. A fully geared raid could do that, and did, when they had it on farm, but they were not clearing it with half a raid before that. You simply didn't have the firepower to take down those healthpools with half a raid, unless they were completely decked out in gear from that instance, or a higher one. I remember MC farm runs when everyone was in AQ gear, half the raid was watching tv, and we still managed to wipe. But farm run - didn't matter.

You can't clear MC and BWL without gear FROM MC and BWL, unless you're in content higher, like AQ or Naxx. Sorry, not happening without either the gear from those instances, or higher.

You'll see.

[Dahij]

Yeah, no. A fully geared raid could do that, and did, when they had it on farm, but they were not clearing it with half a raid before that. You simply didn't have the firepower to take down those healthpools with half a raid, unless they were completely decked out in gear from that instance, or a higher one. I remember MC farm runs when everyone was in AQ gear, half the raid was watching tv, and we still managed to wipe. But farm run - didn't matter.

You can't clear MC and BWL without gear FROM MC and BWL, unless you're in content higher, like AQ or Naxx. Sorry, not happening without either the gear from those instances, or higher.

You'll see.

Perhaps your group was just very terrible. Pretty much every single raid that did mc/bwl had 25-50% of the raid being half afk or just autoattacking. My friends and I got a group of 10 together and killed onyxia quite easily with a few of us being in T2 and some in blues, and I'd say onyxia is harder than everything in MC except for ragnaros perhaps.

[Gadzooks]

Perhaps your group was just very terrible. Pretty much every single raid that did mc/bwl had 25-50% of the raid being half afk or just autoattacking. My friends and I got a group of 10 together and killed onyxia quite easily with a few of us being in T2 and some in blues, and I'd say onyxia is harder than everything in MC except for ragnaros perhaps.

Perhaps you're just butthurt and refusing to admit we're right. And, you're flat out lying, to prove you're right on top of that, you did not kill Onyxia with 10 people in "some" T2/blues. It just didn't happen.

Just stop. You're just digging the fool hole deeper.

[Dahij]

Perhaps you're just butthurt and refusing to admit we're right. And, you're flat out lying, to prove you're right on top of that, you did not kill Onyxia with 10 people in "some" T2/blues. It just didn't happen.

Just stop. You're just digging the fool hole deeper.

Haha, I certainly do not care what you believe or don`t believe. Vanilla raids were very easy and if you deny that it just shows how bad of a player you are/were.

[Anjerith]

I feel like of all the Classic content, the one most representative of how much of a mindless Grind it was is definitely the intro to battlegrounds patch. I hope people enjoy having to physically sit at the entrance to the various zones for hours in order to participate in a fight that takes days to complete.

[Fitsu]

I can't wait until the most insignificant and miniscule of changes is picked as the reason why classic WoW failed.

I'm calling it now, "the game was more laggy back then... that was part of the experience" Someone will make this argument at some point.

[slavetoKadie]

I used to be a fairly regular player and am looking to get back into it.

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Anyone know of how to find handles on battle.net?

[Parhelion]

Haha, I certainly do not care what you believe or don`t believe. Vanilla raids were very easy and if you deny that it just shows how bad of a player you are/were.

As much as I'd like to agree with you and say we were bad players then, it may look like it from this perspective, but we really weren't. I switched to WoW from the FPS scene (AA, CoD1) and it's not like WoW is a complex game to execute. True, there were clickers, there were mouse-movers and stuff like that, but honestly, the game was atrocious at max level. One reason was that most people suck at teamwork. The other was game was just badly designed.

If you want vanilla experience:
- create a 30-man normal raid and go to Antorus
- use only vanilla classses
- assign only 3 legacy abilities to each class, 1 dps, 1 cc, 1 utility (say frostbolt, frost nova, blink or for tank: thunderclap, shield block, last stand)
- use only 800 ilvl blue gear, no leggos, no artifact (just the blue weapon from class hall vendor)
- use only level 90 food and water
- use no addons

See how long it takes you to kill the first trash pack.

[caervek]

Why would a development team-

If you read the thread you'll see the post you're quoted misread it as 1.1.2

[Vargulf the Happy Husky]

aha. ok. maybe its time for your pills...

yep pill time wahoooooo!!!!

[Vorenos]

They said they're doing patch 1.12. I assume they mean 1.12 in every way. I doubt they start retuning raids.

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Sure, but even more so like this. Stupidly so.

World Firsts are going to take like 3-4 hours lol

[Deleted]

Current game players are bashed for how faceroll and shit game is. Most don't care, but there is minority which is very laud.

Also to people who think classic raids will be cleared day one.. how many of actuall raiders are going to play vanilla? They won the race. Current fights are much more fun. Why would they come back for something old and be compared to old guilds, bashed for using new addons and guides and being told that 1.12 is easy patch thats why they killed it.
A lot will be casuals driven by good memories and nostalgia, basically lfr hetos right now. Prepare to see corpses everywhere

[Dahij]

As much as I'd like to agree with you and say we were bad players then, it may look like it from this perspective, but we really weren't. I switched to WoW from the FPS scene (AA, CoD1) and it's not like WoW is a complex game to execute. True, there were clickers, there were mouse-movers and stuff like that, but honestly, the game was atrocious at max level. One reason was that most people suck at teamwork. The other was game was just badly designed.

If you want vanilla experience:
- create a 30-man normal raid and go to Antorus
- use only vanilla classses
- assign only 3 legacy abilities to each class, 1 dps, 1 cc, 1 utility (say frostbolt, frost nova, blink or for tank: thunderclap, shield block, last stand)
- use only 800 ilvl blue gear, no leggos, no artifact (just the blue weapon from class hall vendor)
- use only level 90 food and water
- use no addons

See how long it takes you to kill the first trash pack.

The amount of time it takes to do something is not the same as how hard something is. Sure the bosses took quite some time to kill but there wasn't really any danger during a lot of the fights as long as healers knew which abilities heal. Our Geddon strat while working through MC was to have all melee except the tank outside and just shoot with their ranged weapon. That's like 1/3 or more of the dps gone and the boss went down slow but steady.

So yeah, I agree shit in vanilla takes quite long to kill without being properly geared, but that does not mean they're hard or that you can't kill them.

[turlockmike]

This is a great idea. Trying to rebuild an old system is basically pointless. Instead, recreating the classic game from old data is much more realistic. It's probably not going to be perfect, i.e. the game engine itself is different, but from a purely feel of the leveling, questing, dungeoning, etc, it should be exactly alike.

[bloodykiller86]

hope it takes them 10yrs to complete so the classic fanboys go away.

[Shoeboots]

...

Also, no opening of Ahn'qiraj

Opening of the gates wasn't a time-specific event. It was based on the server. Every server was able to open the gates, so long as they had not been opened on that server before. This remained to be the case with new servers up until Cataclysm. You'll be able to open the gates in Classic 1.12.

[donjn]

Prepare to be surprised. Very surprised.
Classic's success will shock the gaming industry.

Absolutely. I cannot wait to see the look on peoples faces.

Those of you who think classic wont be popular, you do know that all the major streamers are going to play it right? It will be number one in Twitch for a long time.

Classic is going to be hugely popular, mark my words.

[Didly]

What a massive waste of time. No modern gamer will want the "classic" wow experience. Blizz got it right off the bat- "You think you do, but you don't." You really think the Fortnight crowd is down to grind for weeks to buy an epic mount? Forced to actually use chat systems to get a group together, waiting as people come and go? Sitting in Kargath for 2 hours waiting on 39 people to show up so you can get started?

I'm sorry, but it's not happening. So few people are even remotely interested in classic, and the ones that say they are won't last more than the first 15 levels. No heirlooms, using shitty gear, being farmed in PVP by combat rogues, I swear some of these people must have never played Vanilla. There's a reason no one goes out and buys a "classic" television, or a "classic" radio. There's a reason apple doesn't release an "iPhone Classic" with a shitty low-res display and UI lag.

So many improvements have been made over the years, and to waste precious development time on this is beyond silly, especially with a litany of necessary changes and improvements that need to be made to the current version of WoW. Classic WoW won't be popular for the same reason hardcore strategy games like EU4 and HOI are niche, because they take time and effort to play. Time and effort are two things the vast majority of modern "gamers" aren't down to put in.

I have no doubt a handful of players will love it, I'm only arguing that it's silly for Blizzard to spend their valuable development hours on pleasing the two people in this thread that would actually put in the time and effort into that "experience." Even then, the experience won't be authentic. Going back to Classic with ElvUI, healbot, DBM, and all this other hand-holding bullshit is such a stupid proposal.