Do you think Wrath Classic will be the last Classic expansion release?

[kranur]

The whole appeal of Classic was that you couldn’t experience pre-cata Azeroth. So going back to content that literally hasn’t existed since 2011 was novel. All these other “Classic branches” are an absolute waste when you consider the content still exists today in retail.

I’d rather then focus their efforts on making more retail content evergreen than continuing to fragment the entire Warcraft playerbase into a handful of different versions of the game.

Honestly, look at the state of Classic WoW, you can’t even play on vanilla servers anymore unless you force yourself into season of mastery. It’s a real shame.

Except they aren't really fragmented. Most people from classic wouldn't play retail anyway if classic did not exist.

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I don't really understand how conceptually anybody expects them to skip Cataclysm, and I don't really think they would in this hypothetical situation. Sure, Cataclysm as a whole wasn't as well received as the preceding expansions, but does anybody actually think Cata was BAD? Especially with BFA and SL to compare it to, Cataclysm had a rough raid tier, but on the whole, I think most people didn't mind it.

I'm one of those who thinks Cata was pretty bad. Outside of the Firelands patch I found it to be pretty meh and very lacking.

[RickJamesLich]

I'm amazed how many people think they will actually release Cata again.

[Beej]

Not sure what Blizz will do. They could do a few things aside from adding a new classic iteration. For one, maybe instead of releasing a new classic after WOLTK, they will look into "classic plus" servers that build content/changes into the existing classic clients on classic plus servers only. Perhaps they will add some class balance/tuning into vanilla wow on these servers, or add a new raid. Maybe even cancelled/unreleased content from the classic games could be completed and implemented.

Or, maybe they will open it up to the community to decide. It's a given that the first three are the most requested for classic, but what comes after WOLTK? Maybe Blizz will let the community vote on what the next Wow expansion classic will be, or if instead of a classic server they let the community decide on classic plus servers.

Personally, I would love a MOP classic server. I loved MOP when it was current despite the haters having issues with it. For me, its not nostalgia -- I love the theme/music/gameplay elements of MOP more than any version of WoW before or after it, with WOLTK not too far behind MOP.

[jzhbee]

The whole appeal of Classic was that you couldn’t experience pre-cata Azeroth. So going back to content that literally hasn’t existed since 2011 was novel. All these other “Classic branches” are an absolute waste when you consider the content still exists today in retail.

I’d rather then focus their efforts on making more retail content evergreen than continuing to fragment the entire Warcraft playerbase into a handful of different versions of the game.

Honestly, look at the state of Classic WoW, you can’t even play on vanilla servers anymore unless you force yourself into season of mastery. It’s a real shame.

That's absolutely not true. If I wanted to play pre-Cata WoW, I could play Wrath of the Lich King. It's got better class design, and more fleshed out systems. Why should I play Classic WoW when better alternatives are there.
The goal isn't to play WoW when the old world was there. It's to play WoW when entire systems are different. I can't play Cataclysm even though that content exists in the game; it's so distinct, Cata may as well be a separate game from retail wow, even if some think Cata is when "wow became retail".
I wanna play the game with Cata systems. With launch Cata heroic tuning. I wanna do DM Heroic when it was relevant again. I loved BWD, I loved BoT, I loved Firelands. I can't play that content in any meaningful way. The gameplay experience is way more important to me than just 'preserving pre-Cata' Kalimdor and EK.
Never once did Blizzard say that the WoW Classic project was so you could play in pre-cata zones, unless that's really how you interpreted Chromie saying "They say you can never return home".

[shoc]

They'll re-release every expansion, and once we get to Legion Classic they'll re-release Vanilla Classic all over again. And so on, and so forth, forever.

[Lionhearte0]

For those who have been following 'Classic' since it was announced, Blizzard made it clear that 'Classic' meant WoW with the old talent trees -which are Vanilla+TBC+Wotlk.

Cataclysm had the old talent trees as well.

People forget this fact, for some reason.

[Viikkis]

I think they will stop at Wrath and then just cycle Season of Mastery for each classic version until the end of WoW.

[Coffeh]

Cataclysm had the old talent trees as well.

People forget this fact, for some reason.

Uh, no they didn't. They completely gutted the talent trees. Far less talents and choices. You were locked into one tree until you maxed it out. Cata, for all intents and purposes, was the death of the old talent trees.

Cata abandoned class design for spec design.

[jzhbee]

Cataclysm had the old talent trees as well.

People forget this fact, for some reason.

Kinda. They had trees, but they were different in two large regards: You received an ability, several passives, and some other stuff right as you chose your spec, and those were locked out to the other specs, meaning that you could never be a true hybrid. Secondly, you couldn't put ANY points into another tree until you got the final (capstone) talent in your primary spec. There was some minor differences, too, like only one talent point every other level, and so on.

[mercutiouk]

I think we might see Wrath stretched a little (maybe) but... I see no reason they wouldn't keep going.

#somechanges can cover quite a bit. With MS in charge soon, there's a... little less "pride" in keeping everything as it was in a "we did nothing wrong, it was all great" kinda way, I'd expect, at least the possibility, of more stuff being tweaked for a "better" game the second time through. Allows MS to put their stamp on it a little more as well.

[Th3Scourge]

For many WotLK is the pinnacle of the classic wow era, both in class design philosophy and lore.

I can't see why they would go beyond wrath as we are still in the 'cata world'

I'd love to replay MoP as the classes felt the most complete, even if they were somewhat homogenous, but I think it's better for the game to stop at wrath

[hellinter201]

Cataclysm is the turning point in WoW's history. It went from absolute king in the MMO genre to contested game. Retail WoW is really bad and is not even a shadow of what prime WoW was. On my opinion, this means that it is not worth going beyond WotLK, after all the classic hype that made Blizzard take action and create it was the epicness aura that revolved around Vanilla/BC/WotLK.

Since retail is bad and WotLK is the last god-tier expansion, I would definitely think about ending the Classic chain on WotLK and attempt to transform retail into something that would draw from Vanilla + BC + WotLK + whatever is deemed good from retail, aka WoW 2.0. I don't see WoW returning to its success tracks (at least in comparison with the modern half-dead MMO genre) in any way unless some massive overhaul is made to the game, and I only see this overhaul being WoW 2.0, with the core gameplay derived from the aforementioned trinity. Regardless, even if they did that, the game/genre is so burnt off that it would probably not sustain high numbers.

In the end, WoW 2.0 (trinity + some aspects from retail) is the only thing that makes sense in my mind regarding the future of Classic WoW + retail WoW. Doing anything else would mean to continue bleeding subscribers on retail and diminishing hype with each passing Classic version, but who knows what goes in Blizzard's offices. Actually, I think even they don't know what to do.

[threads]

i kinda think they should stop at wrath. have classic for old azeroth and retail for post-cata azeroth.

do people really want to keep going and be playing shadowlands again in 5 years?

[Aurabolt]

It makes absolutely no sense to go beyond WotLK:C. As others mentioned, EK + Kalimdor haven't changed since Wrath. Until that happens, there's no reason or need to go past Wrath since just about all the content from Cata to now is still accessible in Retail WoW.

[Linkedblade]

I just can't see them trying to have 6 versions of WoW running concurrently. Classic era, Season of Mastery, BC Classic, Live, Arena and then what? LK Classic too? Just seems a bit much

[Hungrydingo]

I think they'd be better of skipping Cata. People really soured on that expansion by the end of it's run. The shaky Molten Front dailies started the skid and the terrible, terrible Dragon Soul raid had everyone looking ahead to MoP. I think MoP and Legion are really the last 2 classic expansions that would have an actual player base. Cata, WOD, BFA, and SL would be flops. People might play it for a little bit to revisit them but I doubt it'd have many players throughout the entire cycle of those expansions. Of course it seems like they want to keep with the trend of releasing the classic expansions at the 15 year mark of their debut.

[caervek]

I hope it's not the last because I really wanna play MoP classic

[bmjclark]

I'd assume they keep going tbh. Some of the games best expansion are after cata and it's essentially free money for them

[LionSinMaikeru]

They need to stop at Wrath. That was the last time the game was amazing. Cata was the beginning of the end, TBH.

I'd prefer they go in a different direction entirely with new concept expansions OR they implement expansions like Cata and MoP but revised and different than we actually got. A Cata / MoP without a butchered talent system, cut content, and other poor decisions.

[crusadernero]

They need to stop at Wrath. That was the last time the game was amazing. Cata was the beginning of the end, TBH.

I'd prefer they go in a different direction entirely with new concept expansions OR they implement expansions like Cata and MoP but revised and different than we actually got. A Cata / MoP without a butchered talent system, cut content, and other poor decisions.

Make Classic, BC & WotLK into one mega xpac. Take the best from each xpac and cram it into one huge long seasonal server(s). Make us level 1-60 once and at max level you get to experience all the raids from classic, bc & wotlk at a scheduled release.