Originally Posted by
Kent088
Classic Plus = A new, alternative course for WoW starting in the Vanilla era. This includes lore, gameplay, and administration, the inspiration for this idea from the widely successful Runescape approach.
ONE. THE RUNESCAPE APPROACH, IN SHORT
Runescape's most widely loved era by many of its players was in roughly 2007/8, an intermediate period between the early 00's classic Runescape and the more modern RS 3. In this iteration, the game was sort of a Star Wars Galaxies set in the fantasy world Jagex created, for the browser. This changed when Runescape decided to implement it's own "NGE", and copy many features of WoW and other MMO's. Finally, after a huge deal of bemoaning by the players, they implemented old school servers, where bug fixes are done and changes are made based on primarily player vote.
TWO. THE RUNESCAPE APPROACH, IN WOW
Begin with a Classic server. Implement bug fixes that have been implemented throughout the era of Classic Vanilla. Offer player votes for changes; Perfect RS' majority vote with a rating system with a value system: "Proposal A: Nerf Frostbolt by 20%. Select 1-10 how much you agree with this proposal. Suggest an alternative number if desired." Set changes to require a 7.5 average rating to implement. This sort of value system voting has been well studied in business and political science is one of a few optimal ways of handling mass voting. These proposals should be formulated PROPERLY, so that players do not skew their answers from their actual feelings on a proposal. Examples below:
IMPROPER Proposal
1. "Release Mount Hyjal as a new high-level open world zone, complete with two dungeons and a world boss." "Rate this proposal 1-10."
PROPER Proposal
1. "Release Mount Hyjal as a new high-level open world zone. (Levels 53-60)."
2. "Release two additional dungeons with the Mount Hyjal release."
3. "Release a world boss with Mount Hyjal."
"Rate these proposals 1-10."
Possible Results - Improper: 7.9, Results - Proper: 8.5, 6.9, 9
What these could suggest - Improper: Players want all these changes. Proper: Players want to see mount Hyjal but with an emphasis on the open-world, however they would likely prefer dungeons to no progression content at all.
So as we can see here, if I am a player who wants to see Mount Hyjal, but dislikes dungeons, in the first proposals I will possibly vote against, heavily. In the second, I can vote for 1 and 3, and its up to other players to counter or agree with me on the dungeons. This provides a more accurate match of where players' heads are.
Realistically, these votes should contain possibly 20 questions, centering on what the level ranges the new zones should be, what gear tiers they are, etc. A truly classic environment would not endlessly inflate gear scoring like mainstream WoW, which gets into another point.
THREE. PERMANENT LEVEL 60 CAP
Part of WoW's issue is this huge invalidation of previous content. All these development and game hours put into content for it to instantly become worthless overnight. This has been alleviated some by systems like Timewalking, or separating the profession schools, but why even chase your tail when you can relax the design process to just roll in new content as a part of old content, and vice versa?
Keep the cap at 60, but implement levels for talent points after that for new content where the "levels" are expanded. Here's an example scenario:
Historical Retail: Geared 60 > Outland Geared Level 62 > Level 70 > Geared Level 70
Result: Rush to 70, rush to latest raids.
Alternative: At level 60, one does new daily or Outland content, or becomes a defender of Azeroth, choosing to stay and focus on new objectives in existing content. These give experience for new talent points, up to an additional 10. Talent trees are updated to be more modern, but are ultimately the same size.
Six new raids released throughout the course of the TBC expansion: Two will be harder than Vanilla tiers - Black Temple(T4) and Sunwell(T5). The remaining four raids integrate with existing Tiers, ranging from T1-T3. Players can now choose to face C'Thun or Lady Vashj for their Tier 3 equivalent stats, though both raids will drop cosmetically different loot.
Alternative Two: At level 60, content is not released in expansions, but instead in patches. Each patch varies in size, but focus on incremental, qualitative changes to the game. Tier 4 is released as "Invasion of Outland" a new raid centered on storming Hellfire Citadel in the new single "Outland" Zone. Following Tier 4, a later patch releases an additional Tier 2 raid is released in Tanaris, focused on revisiting the Invasion of Hyjal through the Caverns of Time.
FOUR. EXPANSIONS ON NON-RAID, DUNGEON, OR PVP CONTENT
Separate combat levels from profession levels. Allow professions as an open world, solo way to get gear on par with pvp or pve'rs. The fine print here is that the top gear is always soulbound and incredibly arduous to make. It might be worthwhile to make a helmet and chest, raid for gloves, and pvp for boots, for example. Or you may choose to only interact with other players in small 2-3 person groups fighting world elites, roleplay, etc. Or you may choose to interact with players in massive 100 player raids consisting of multiple raid groups for large world events.
Professions should, simply put, do and have more. Make them alternative ways of playing just like in SWG, such as a bard profession where my combat level is five, but I spend all my time entertaining other players, or buffing them, engaging in tournaments, making me gold and awarding me items that can be used in my pursuit of other professions, or ultimately in gaining combat related items when I decide to do that content. If I have a "gig" in Felwood, I can pay other players to escort me from my large bank I've developed.
Combat professions should be expanded with more buffs, and debuffs. Alchemist or Engineer professions will even allow players to blend their professions with their combat level, in effect creating fully fleshed out Apothecary or Tinker classes.
FIVE. MORE REWARDS FOR OPEN WORLD PVP
Simply put, Open World PvP should be more rewarding. Give PvP rankings with dishonor and honor. Kill a level 10 as a 60? Gain dishonor. Choose to engage in FFA PvP and Attack your own factions settlements? Gain Dishonor. Defend a settlement from the other faction? Bonus Honor. BG's are fun and great, but they serve to push players into cities and afk, and after all this is the world of warcraft between the Horde and Alliance.