Is how TBC is being handled an Indicator of no new Classic conent?

[Ave07]

They sent surveys if people want minimum QoL changes (i.e less cd on hs, some workaround with world buffs) or big changes like spec changes. They never said NEW CONTENT. Or rather by new content they did not mean new raids and whatnot but rather copying features from retail.

[Jewelofthesea]

They'd need an entire development team to do any new content, regardless of how "complete" any of it may be. If they were going to be doing new content for Classic I'm sure we'd hear about it. I'm sure it's not totally off the table given Classic's relative popularity, and I'm still interested in seeing where it goes.

People who want new Classic content need to keep in mind it'd be developed with a 2021 mindset. It wouldn't be like the "good old days" with all those warts, there'd be an attempt to balance, etc.

[NineSpine]

They'd need an entire development team to do any new content, regardless of how "complete" any of it may be. If they were going to be doing new content for Classic I'm sure we'd hear about it. I'm sure it's not totally off the table given Classic's relative popularity, and I'm still interested in seeing where it goes.

People who want new Classic content need to keep in mind it'd be developed with a 2021 mindset. It wouldn't be like the "good old days" with all those warts, there'd be an attempt to balance, etc.

Given that they don't need to make any new art or music, the size of the development team would be *extremely* small.

[meroko]

Blizzard literally surveyed Classic players if they would be interested in a Classic server that added new content. So don't tell me that Classic has no chance of getting new content. Clearly Blizzard sees how much players loved the Classic experience and would rather see new content added to the classic iteration of the game. I think it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. Feel free to quote this in the future when you see they have indeed developed a Classic+ experience.

[garicasha]

New content in classic would have an enormous philosophical problem with what difficulty to do it at:

--Harder Than Naxx
----Now the overpowered classes are even more needed, everyone but the most hardcore raid groups can't compete, world buff stacking is even more important, etc.

--Easier Than Naxx
----Developers spend months designing art assets and encounter debugging for content that gets steamrolled in 90 minutes

--As difficult as Naxx
----Do you design the fights as simplistic as classic ones or with more movement like modern ones? If it's simplistic, content gets steamrolled in a week by T3 gear. If not, you have this weird piece of 2004 nostalgia with a 2021 raid design mentality, which is almost certainly what people want to avoid.

The only way forward would be to re-balance the classes, and it'd make SO many people SO angry in the process for an end product that was supposed to be nostalgic but isn't anymore.

There was never a reasonable way forward for classic.

[NineSpine]

New content in classic would have an enormous philosophical problem with what difficulty to do it at:

--Harder Than Naxx
----Now the overpowered classes are even more needed, everyone but the most hardcore raid groups can't compete, world buff stacking is even more important, etc.

--Easier Than Naxx
----Developers spend months designing art assets and encounter debugging for content that gets steamrolled in 90 minutes

--As difficult as Naxx
----Do you design the fights as simplistic as classic ones or with more movement like modern ones? If it's simplistic, content gets steamrolled in a week by T3 gear. If not, you have this weird piece of 2004 nostalgia with a 2021 raid design mentality, which is almost certainly what people want to avoid.

The only way forward would be to re-balance the classes, and it'd make SO many people SO angry in the process for an end product that was supposed to be nostalgic but isn't anymore.

There was never a reasonable way forward for classic.

This is only a problem if *all* classic servers get classic+ but I have no doubt there will be a home for museum classic players that dont want changes.

[unbound]

As the title says to be cliche, with how its going and how characters are being put at a crossroads of choices or 'having' to pay to have both a tbc and a classic era character, would this mean the long long old rumours of cut conent in classic being added are even less likley now?

Content was never going to be added to Classic. The Classic+ group came up with things they'd like to see added, how they'd like new content to be added to the old Classic engine, and Blizz said, "Sounds interesting" which the Classic+ group interpreted to mean (somehow) that Blizz was going to do it.

Blizz has been incredibly lazy with the last couple of expansions, and lazy in general since at least Cata with their expansions. Every decision they've made since Cata can be interpreted (correctly) as doing something with less effort in the hopes that plenty of people will keep paying them.

Whether you love M+ or despise it, you need to acknowledge that adding random affixes to 8 dungeons was *substantially* less work than creating 8 more dungeons. Same goes for the table. Even the garrison, which started out as housing, got completely gutted into a handful of options.

New "races" are just reskins without even real starting zones.

Keeping all that in mind, even if Blizz were to decide for some silly reason to add content to Classic or BC or Wrath, you *definitely* don't want this current crew with their current corporate attitude to be doing that. You will absolutely be disappointed unless you are a mindless fanboy.

[Niwes]

As the title says to be cliche, with how its going and how characters are being put at a crossroads of choices or 'having' to pay to have both a tbc and a classic era character, would this mean the long long old rumours of cut conent in classic being added are even less likley now?

the changes they do are rather easy to accomplish. look at the pala seal thing. its literally a bool flag in a database which races can use which seal. „literally“. in reality its a slightly bit more. but what i wanna say: the combat mechanics, balancing, gfx, game engine handling, logic code, etc. even the spell icon is all already existing and in place for blood elves. „the only thing“ they have to do, is to enable using of exact the same stuff for humans, dwarfs and blue aliens.

such things or „amount of reputation required for x“ or attunements or ... are the TYPICAL stuff that can rather easy being changed, without changing the whole beast. look: in software development and game design there are 2 types of changes:

1)
the ones that affect the whole beast by creating a chain reaction like „changes to A produces changed behaviour in B that produces changed behaviour in C...“. these are the ones with high effort, produce other following changes and needs high testing effort.

2)
changes on stuff that acts relatively independent and has not much casuality to other things (decoupled independent modules or simple value changes or bool flag changes): these are the easy ones. not affecting much, easy to test.

all things Blizz change in TBC Classic are of type 2 (above).

therefore this means NOTHING for „possible Classic+ approaches“ or something along those lines.

what i wanna say is: some changes have a big impact on the surface, but are small changes under the hood. just because Blizz is ok to make that small/tiny changes, to change the surface (maybe even a lot) doesnt automatically mean: Classic+ confirmed. because that is a COMPLETELY different thing.

PS: what i described here is not solely a problem of understanding between what a Gamer (you) see and what a Blizzard Developer (them) see. its the most affecting problem in software development between developers and projectlead/management. it is difficult for a developer to explain them why some small changes can have big impact and why often heavy development investment is needed for some „small things / low gain“ on the surface, when looking at it from the outside. its a „natural problem“ i have to handle with since 20+ years

[NineSpine]

This is what I expect:

1. Progression servers that are constantly rolling through phases and expansions. At any given time, there will be servers in every supported expansion, with new servers launching every time the servers move forward to their next expansion. Part of moving to this process will involve a revamp of classic in the same way they are revamping some aspects of BC. They will fix the world buff problem, tune the content a bit harder, possibly do a small balance pass, and possibly add QOL features like the modern auction house and LFG tools (NOT THE DUNGEON FINDER).

2. Each expansion will have isolated "era" servers that you can choose to be dumped off into when your server moves on to the next expansion if you don't want to go. These servers will permanently be on the last patch of their given expansion.

3. If Classic+ happens, it will be separated from the progression system entirely and it will be its own server type.

While this sounds like a lot of different server types, it's really only four: Retail, Classic+, Progression, and Era.

These four server types encapsulate everything 99% of players could possibly want.

[draugril]

No horse in this race, but I do have to admit I wonder what WoW would be like if Horde got Ogres, Alliance got High Elves, and Drakonids joined up in the Dragon Isles level 65 zone and the like... the original cut content would be interesting to explore.

[NineSpine]

No horse in this race, but I do have to admit I wonder what WoW would be like if Horde got Ogres, Alliance got High Elves, and Drakonids joined up in the Dragon Isles level 65 zone and the like... the original cut content would be interesting to explore.

Kevin Jordan, one of the original designers, has stated that moving the level cap up with BC wasn't always the plan. There was debate about adding content and not continually scaling upward.

[guisadop]

I don't think it's that far-fetched. Classic+ with FIXED LEVEL CAP (60) but new zones and dungeons, classes and races etc is my wet dream.

[draugril]

I don't think it's that far-fetched. Classic+ with FIXED LEVEL CAP (60) but new zones and dungeons, classes and races etc is my wet dream.

In a nutshell, that's ESO's model. Horizontal progression abounds.

- - - Updated - - -

Kevin Jordan, one of the original designers, has stated that moving the level cap up with BC wasn't always the plan. There was debate about adding content and not continually scaling upward.

I recall seeing one of the original roadmaps that had plotted out more zones above level 60, sans an expansion. Alexstrasza's lair, in the Dragon Isles above Tirisfal, was one of them.

[Jacques]

Then why are they sending out surveys asking if people want new content?

Please do yourself a favour and reread the statements in the survey.

New content for the Classic experience. Not new as for WoW in general.
So they may introduce systems like the barber shop or transmog.

.

[NineSpine]

Please do yourself a favour and reread the statements in the survey.

New content for the Classic experience. Not new as for WoW in general.
So they may introduce systems like the barber shop or transmog.

.

Barber shop and transmog aren't content. They are QOL systems. They asked about QOL in a completely separate question, which means they are clearly distinguishing between these things.

Ya'll just don't want to accept that after all this time laughing and pointing at people that talked about Classic+, Blizzard appears to be actually considering it. You were wrong. Stop making a fool of yourself, take a breath, and admit it. This bizarre denial of what the survey clearly states is not fooling anyone.

[Jacques]

Barber shop and transmog aren't content. They are QOL systems. They asked about QOL in a completely separate question, which means they are clearly distinguishing between these things.

Ya'll just don't want to accept that after all this time laughing and pointing at people that talked about Classic+, Blizzard appears to be actually considering it. You were wrong. Stop making a fool of yourself, take a breath, and admit it. This bizarre denial of what the survey clearly states is not fooling anyone.

Systems like transmog are not QoL changes. Adding a new hotkey or making a menu more accessible are.
I honestly find it amusing how you people really think that Blizzard would put in the time and money to develop new raids and zones for classic instead for retail.

So take a deep breath and accept the fact, that there won't be new WoW content introduced in classic.

[NineSpine]

Systems like transmog are not QoL changes. Adding a new hotkey or making a menu more accessible are.
I honestly find it amusing how you people really think that Blizzard would put in the time and money to develop new raids and zones for classic instead for retail.

So take a deep breath and accept the fact, that there won't be new WoW content introduced in classic.

If you want to keep living under this delusion that when Blizzard said "new content" they didn't mean "new content", whatever floats your boat. If they wanted to ask if people wanted barber shop and transmog, they would have asked that. They asked about "new content" and they wouldn't use that term if they secretly meant something else.

[Katchii]

This is only a problem if *all* classic servers get classic+ but I have no doubt there will be a home for museum classic players that dont want changes.

Then the issue is how many people actually want it and will play it. That's a pretty massive time and money investment for something that possibly only a small group of players would participate in. Wouldn't be worth it to them to do that, if only a very small portion of players actually want it and would play it.

Not saying it's impossible, just that it's not likely depending on the numbers.

[NineSpine]

Then the issue is how many people actually want it and will play it. That's a pretty massive time and money investment for something that possibly only a small group of players would participate in. Wouldn't be worth it to them to do that, if only a very small portion of players actually want it and would play it.

Not saying it's impossible, just that it's not likely depending on the numbers.

I think that you are overestimating how many people they would need, and underestimating how much money they are making.

They don't need artists, sound designers, musicians, etc.. They have a decade and a half of assets to tap into.

There are freebie private servers that introduce new content using existing assets. It doesn't take a lot once you have the assets.

10 designers should be $1,000,000 per year, give or take. That's the equivalent revenue from about 70,000 subs. That's not a lot of subs that would be required to support that, and 10 designers is probably wild overkill. 4-7 is probably more realistic.

[Heathy]

its just one of those things, what new content for classic, like an expansion? they've done those. it just doesn't make sense when you frame the question as if classic ever was a stand alone game. classic got new content, tbc. any cut content was cut because it didn't make the cut for one reason or another it was likely never finished beyond some basic concept. if it was cut it would have been cut for a reason or the content simply evolved into a different or better idea. in the end I think you can't really do much to classic because its a slippery slope you change one thing, you have to change another thing, before you know it, the game just isn't classic anymore, case in point, retail vs classic. because thats what you'd get retail classic, all the qol of retail, none of the tedium of classic. so, not classic anymore. its like touching up a painting thats already been considered finished. can you add content to a painting? maybe but is it worth it? over making a brand new painting? probably not.

its quite likely that barely any of the original devs actually work on wow. let alone classic. so you wouldn't get something made by the same ppl who made classic. whilst the ppl who do work on it would have to try to make what they make match some level of consistency with what exists there.

the thing with classic is it is a journey with an end, the staff of ateish opens portals to karazhan, karazhan was obviously always going to be after naxx. at some point in this development they realised they had to do an expansion because small content patches, single raids, single dungeons gets chewed up in days. feels like an mmo needs lengthy grinds to actually create some sort of pacing. otherwise you're done with the content in a week.