The rift between Classic and BFA

[chrisnumbers]

There really is no rift. stop making shit up

[Trend]

This was a great retort and I got to learn something today, thank you (although apparently it's "No true Scotsman")

Right you are, that's funny. Evidently I need some geography lessons.

[Taenaeris]

I think this "rift" is actually a good thing and Blizzard should continue developing Classic and Retail as two completely separate products.

They both have fundamentally different core mechanics and also target a completely different player base.

Classic is based on achievement, long-term commitment, social interactions and social reputation. Even after the Naxx release, all the older content will still be relevant and once acquired, your gear also retains it's value. If I understand this correctly, then you could essentially take a one year break from the game, come back and continue where you left off content-wise - though you'll probably need to join a different guild.

Retail has - under the disguise of being more "Casual Friendly" - more and more shifted towards the SJW / Cultural Marxist ideology of "equality", with BFA even in a way focusing "equality of outcome", not "equality of opportunity". Each time a new raid tier comes out, the catch-up mechanics ensure that anybody - regardless how much effort they put in previously and regardless how good they are at the game - will get a fresh start.

However, in today's society there are a large number of people who live by those ideas - and it would be foolish from a business perspective not to offer them a product they enjoy playing. They would not enjoy Classic nor would the vast majority of Classic players want to have them playing it. As long as those people exist, there will be a business opportunity in selling to them - and Blizzard is, after all, a for-profit company.

But there is also a downside to this: those people will demand for "fresh content" far more frequently than those of us who'll enjoy playing Class, so the development cost of Retail is likely going to be much higher than what it will take to keep Classic up and running. Eventually, it could become more profitable in the long run to release completely new content based on Vanilla maybe a year or two after Naxxramas has been fully cleared by most guilds.

[Kirovsk]

For me, it's the investment in your character. Now you can boost to 10 levels below max and level in an hour or two. The sense of pride and accomplishment has been lost over the years.

[anon5123]

It will be interesting to observe how Classic affects BFA's population. And vice versa.

Most classic fans are already not playing BFA. The overlap of people playing both BFA and Classic is likely very small.

[Satelliteyears0o]

Disclaimer: I am a Classic advocate.

For some time, the community for Classic and BFA "Retail" have been creating a rift between one another. Each side has their points but I wanted to show that this "rift" could be mended if people would open there eyes on what Blizzard is trying to do for both parties.

I believe Blizzard HAS been listening to the community in a lot of aspects and has been for years. Most of the QoL changes with the game were due to this, but I believe many of the design choices made were also influenced by the community. All the changes and evolution of the game may not be exactly how we envisioned it but our influences on Blizzard are embedded into the game. This is also shown through Classic itself, as a very large community caused Blizzard to recreate the original wow in what they believe is the best way.

Lately, having these two versions of WoW has caused a huge rift between which is better or worse. Which version will make Blizzard the most money or have more subs. This rift will destroy the WoW community if we don't all come together and realize that the two games are not meant to please the same type of people.

Current WoW is a game for the casual and completionist, not for the hardcore gamer and raider. I am not saying the raids aren't hard or that Classic WoW's raids are harder, but what I'm saying is that the main focus is completing milestones and to progress the story aspect, not focusing on just raiding or gear. This is further shown through the increasing number of cut scenes, scenarios, and the campaign quests for each faction. The story itself is the main driving point.

Classic WoW is a game that focuses not just the story, but the journey leveling up, exploration, and emphasizing the importance of gear, and the raids within that iteration. Raids in Classic are more impactful to your character then BFA is currently. There are no teir sets, the azerite armors are generic, and you can get a full high ilvl set of gear rather easily through world quests. I believe this is meant to help support you through the completion of all the story-lines and quests, not the raids.

Either way, neither of these two versions of WoW are better or worse then the other. They both mean to accomplish different goals for different people and can't be compared to each other for that fact. Like me, there are people that like both and I think this is why Blizzard tied it into the subscription. No matter what you like, I hope you guys can all start to be nicer to one another and appreciate each version of the game for what it is and not for what you think it should be.

Yeh, thats why hardly anyone clears mythic when its relevant right?

[Soeroah]

Current WoW is a game for the casual and completionist, not for the hardcore gamer and raider.

I disagree with this. It may have been true in Legion, but it's not true now.

In Legion you could be a casual/completionist and make a fair amount of progress. Or a casual completionist. Whatever you want to call it, assuming by "completionist" you include "collectors".

BfA moved in such a way that "completion", at least in regards to collections, now requires a far greater time commitment to reach the same level of progression than BfA did, and as a result it stretches the definition of "casual". Almost across the board rewards for your time in BfA are slower than they were in Legion, whether you're doing Islands or Warfronts or collecting mounts or pets in Nazjatar and Mechagon. Trying to complete your collections in BfA isn't really a casual endeavor any more.

[Misuteri]

The difference is that Classic wasn't designed by the players. It was designed by game designers with a vision and several design philosophies that have since been lost due to "inbreeding".

What I mean by that is as the years went on the original designers got replaced by ones that grew up within world of warcraft itself. They didn't know or understand the original design philosophies or maybe even wanted to rebel against them and set their own mark on the game. With every new generation of designers a little bit of important knowledge got lost.

"What harm could it do to remove this annoying thing?" was probably a question that was asked many times over the years and since the new developers didn't understand why it was there in the first place and how it fit into the bigger picture they just removed it and 14 years later and death from a thousand cuts WoW no longer feels engaging and rewarding to play.

When you compare the two games side by side Classic seems so much worse on paper, but when you play it you feel the difference. It feels rewarding to play, you care about your character and the small increments that get you a bit further on your journey.

That’s probably he most cogent argument I’ve seen between the two.

Over the years you’ve had top raiders added, arena tournament players and next you’ll have streamers and “influencers”.

Every faction of those design influences chips away a bit more of the original intent. Are some QOL life changes like you don’t need to have useless talent X to get useful talent X good? Yes. Is it nice that hunters and warlocks no longer have to have a dedicated bag slot or pay for the ability to fight because of their class design? Yes. Is it nice that mounts don’t take up bag space? ABSOLUTELY

However finding random purples, getting BIS items from showing up and RNG isn’t right. The theory of bring the player not the class has absolutely resulted in homogeneous class design going against the underlying reason for picking a class in the first place.

I know the grindiness and time sink nature of vanilla is going to shock a lot of people that never experienced it but the OCD nature of WoW players will absolutely overcome that design strategy. Altaholics will be very rare because it will be years before someone has T2+ multiple classes.

[Wondercrab]

I've not seen anyone getting abrasive over this besides a few nuisance-makers on forums. Literally everyone's getting what they want.

[Trumpcat]

There will be no community destruction. What's with the Classic obsession? People blow it so out of proportion. Nobody but old veterans care about it and a bunch of curious newer players that will leave it soon after. Definitely enough people to make it profitable for Blizzard, but far from enough to cause any major ripples in the community or the gaming industry the way the original WoW did when it launched.

[Nixiuz]

Most classic fans are already not playing BFA. The overlap of people playing both BFA and Classic is likely very small.

The official Classic forums are packed with BFA players eager for Classic. I think there will be a big impact.

[anon5123]

The official Classic forums are packed with BFA players eager for Classic.

[citation needed]

[Antility]

What most people call "Quality of Life" changes are just straight up gameplay changes.


"Quality of Life" is something like being able to mail more than 1 thing at a time.


LFG is not a quality of life change. that's a gameplay change.

[Antility]

- - - Updated - - -



Well, would be nice if you quoted the guy who said LFG is a "QoL" change. Yeah...if anybody claims that...I would agree with you. Quest objectives on maps, Postmaster mailing you things you failed to loot, multi-corpse loot, sparkling nodes etc..that is QoL and I wonder how many will be in for a shock when that is lacking in Classic.

- - - Updated - - -



.

The things you listed are gameplay changes, not QoL changes.


Quest objectives on maps means you never have to go explore around to find what you need, or to read the quest objectives.

Postmaster mailing you loot is just a complete farce. Forgetting to loot something or leaving an instance without looting something should have negative consequences.

Multi-corpse looting makes AoE grinding even faster and farming gold faster. not to mention it has no place in an RPG. you should not be able to get the loot from something 10 yards away while clicking on the corpse at your feet.

Why do you even need sparkling nodes when nodes are tracked on your minimap.

[Roar-Powah]

I see it as;
Classic: Made by gamers for gamers.

Retail: Made to increase MAU's at the cost of everything else, while cutting costs at every corner. (CRZ, Sharding, Layering, zones that feel incomplete, WF/TF, systems that reduce dev time while having a massive grind attached to it. It's why WoW sees a lot of M+, AP grinds, rep grinds with no depth )

[PaladinBash]

All that'll happen population wise is BFA's pop will go down immensely when Classic launches for about a month and then return to normal. When BFA has a content lull between patches/end of expansion, Classic will see a noticeable increase.

[Charge me Doctor]

What most people call "Quality of Life" changes are just straight up gameplay changes.


"Quality of Life" is something like being able to mail more than 1 thing at a time.


LFG is not a quality of life change. that's a gameplay change.

read "quality of life" as "i'm sick and tired of that crap, why can't it be more convenient?".

Spamming chat for group members is not gameplay tho, so, no, LFG tools aren't gameplay changers

- - - Updated - - -

The things you listed are gameplay changes, not QoL changes.


Quest objectives on maps means you never have to go explore around to find what you need, or to read the quest objectives.

Postmaster mailing you loot is just a complete farce. Forgetting to loot something or leaving an instance without looting something should have negative consequences.

Multi-corpse looting makes AoE grinding even faster and farming gold faster. not to mention it has no place in an RPG. you should not be able to get the loot from something 10 yards away while clicking on the corpse at your feet.

Why do you even need sparkling nodes when nodes are tracked on your minimap.

Reading quest objectives is not gameplay. And "exploring around to find what you need" is pointless anyways, since people aren't interested in that sort of stuff, according to personal experience, history of wow and current classic subreddit, where people keep spamming "please link me a guide for leveling" threads and upvoting them.

AoE looting also doesn't change gameplay, it reduces amount of clocks you need to loot - you still have to loot. Right, now tell me how stuff like Pillars of eternity are less RPG than vanilla wow, just because it has AoE looting. And please show me a DM who requires you to directly loot all corpses of fallen enemies, that's just retarded.

You don't need them, but you want them if you wish to be more immersed in the game, instead of looking at your minimap all the time.

[Storfan]

I've not seen anyone getting abrasive over this besides a few nuisance-makers on forums. Literally everyone's getting what they want.

Mostly its BFA players that are getting worried that the game they have invested tens of thousands of hours into is about to die a slow incremental death, bleeding players to classic.

It's basic loss-aversion psychology.

[Xemioza]

LFG is not a quality of life change. that's a gameplay change.

Go play Classic on Dead Realm. Go and try to enjoy. I've been waiting for LFG tool and cross realm play since I started. There were 3 guilds on my realm clearing past MC, THREE, and lvling up a new char took 1,5 month of nolifing.

[Dhrizzle]

I see it as;
Classic: Made by gamers for gamers.

Retail: Made to increase MAU's at the cost of everything else, while cutting costs at every corner. (CRZ, Sharding, Layering, zones that feel incomplete, WF/TF, systems that reduce dev time while having a massive grind attached to it. It's why WoW sees a lot of M+, AP grinds, rep grinds with no depth )

You think Classic didn't have mechanics to keep people subbed (or boost MAUs as the kids call it nowadays?) What do you think RNG, limited loot drops and raid lockouts where for? To ensure people couldn't just finish the content and be done, they had to keep playing and paying to progress. If anything Vanilla was worse for it than more recent expansions where you can usually take a bit of a break between content patches.

- - - Updated - - -

Reading quest objectives is not gameplay. And "exploring around to find what you need" is pointless anyways, since people aren't interested in that sort of stuff, according to personal experience, history of wow and current classic subreddit, where people keep spamming "please link me a guide for leveling" threads and upvoting them.

AoE looting also doesn't change gameplay, it reduces amount of clocks you need to loot - you still have to loot. Right, now tell me how stuff like Pillars of eternity are less RPG than vanilla wow, just because it has AoE looting. And please show me a DM who requires you to directly loot all corpses of fallen enemies, that's just retarded.

You don't need them, but you want them if you wish to be more immersed in the game, instead of looking at your minimap all the time.

I only disagree about the quest-helper not affecting gameplay. Questing is a very different experience if you are reading the quest text and having to look at the map to figure out where to go rather than just having markers appearing, and whilst third-party sites and addons allow you to avoid that sort of gameplay it isn't the same as having the feature baked into the game which also affects how the quest text is written.

- - - Updated - - -

Mostly its BFA players that are getting worried that the game they have invested tens of thousands of hours into is about to die a slow incremental death, bleeding players to classic.

It's basic loss-aversion psychology.

Doesn't seem to be, Classic seems to have the same community problem as RIFT where a vocal set of the fans have ex-girlfriend syndrome over current WoW where they can't stop going on about the game they've supposedly left and making comments about people that still enjoy it.