The WoW Classic community is entering a civil war.

[Mackeith]

handholding is when the game holds your fucking hand, following you through and stopping you from turning somewhere else. It doesn't happen in WoW. You can literally go anywhere at any point of time. Nothing you provided as an example is an example of handholding.

Yeah, some things because more clear, convenient, easier, but there are very little examples of handholding in wow (the only i can come up with is obligatory training session when you boost a character).

mobs are mobs, bullets are projectiles. You comparison would be true if you were talking about defias pillager fireball vs a bullet from halo 3 grunt

Hand-holding definition: "the provision of careful support or guidance to someone during a learning process or a period of change." I believe that should be enough, or do I need to elaborate on what the definition of the definition means? And before you go in to semantics, the entire time you're playing WoW unless you defeat all content, is a learning process.

"mobs are mobs, bullets are projectiles.". Geez, thanks for elaborating. Top tier debate technique right there. I guess drawing comparisons across games is just impossible in your world, can't really continue a discussion with you about this then.

[RoKPaNda]

Theres no civil war, it's just whining by the people that are hurt about the existence of classic servers trying to stir up trouble. Nobody who has actually wanted classic servers or has played on the private options wants anything other than a true vanilla experience. It's actually kind of sad that the anti-Vanilla whiners can start threads about "VANILLA NEEDS X IMPROVEMENT!" and people take it seriously. The classic server community is still as united as it ever was, we just now have to deal with all of the emos that can't post "the wall of no" anymore trying to stir up trouble.

[Florena]

Nope, just a bunch of trolls asking for QoL changes.

At this point is better to ignore them.

It's fine to not want qol changes but don't just dismiss everyone that disagrees as trolls.

[Deficineiron]

I don't want early PVE encounters to be trivialized by 1.12 talents and class balance, do you?

this is an obvious issue but people may not like some of the ideas blizzard considers, such as nerfing later pve stuff to make the difficulty consistent. This would make sure 'everyone can see all of the content' too, an activision-blizzard key philosophy.

they could do this, force manually grouping, and still claim to be 'preserving the classic game experience' in their version by avoiding all discussion of tuning., and focusing on social tools.

- - - Updated - - -

handholding is when the game holds your fucking hand, following you through and stopping you from turning somewhere else. It doesn't happen in WoW. You can literally go anywhere at any point of time. Nothing you provided as an example is an example of handholding.

Yeah, some things because more clear, convenient, easier, but there are very little examples of handholding in wow (the only i can come up with is obligatory training session when you boost a character).

mobs are mobs, bullets are projectiles. You comparison would be true if you were talking about defias pillager fireball vs a bullet from halo 3 grunt

linear questing can be argued to be hand-holding, as, at least in some zones, it removes your ability to choose quests. you take them in blizz' order or not at all in that zone. some zones even give you custom transport to a next zone so you don't have to get there on your own.

[Deleted]

It's fine to not want qol changes but don't just dismiss everyone that disagrees as trolls.

Yeah, i already changed my mind on that topic.
Not everyone who wants QoL changes are trolls BUT i still think is wrong to want them.

It's a slippery slope where after we make one change...where do we stop?
If we ask everyone whats the "one change" you would like everyone comes up with something different and before we know it...we have a game full of changes and its no longer Vanilla.

[Enkrypt]

Are you sure they are all trolls? Some of them are, sure. But others genuinely believe they belong to your community, and feel that their QOL demands are justified and legitimate.

You know what I think? People that wanted Vanilla, in a large, group effort made Vanilla private servers to enjoy that experience. I think that demand was heard, and Blizzard will answer.

People who want Vanilla + QoL changes aren't the demographic trying to be appeased here. And if they really want it, they can band together, and make their own private servers!

There's nothing justified or legitimate about overhearing a cake is being made, and feel so entitled that you can walk into the kitchen and demand what flavor it is. What's wrong with people? No individual opinion or desire is more important than appealing to the masses. And right now, the masses want Vanilla untouched. Therefore, most attempts to assert Vanilla needs changes is, in fact, trolling. It's being facetious in the face of an obvious opponent to private servers, which will be catered to appeal to a certain playerbase.

[cafecito820]

I respect the 10% who actually know what they're in for. But the rest are, in my opinion, and excuse my brutality, pampered hypocrits who wanted to feel like special snowflakes by constantly whining for Vanilla servers, because ''THE PAST IS ALWAYS BETTER AND BECAUSE NOSTALGIA MAKES ME FORGET ALL THE PROBLEMS THE GAME HAD AT THE TIME''.

The key words here are "at the time". In 2004/2005, WoW was a truly unique experience for a lot of gamers, and was unlike (or better than) anything else. The problem is that those feelings of WoW being such a revolutionary game are now 12-13 years old and are no longer necessarily true or valid.

Great memories are best left where they happened - in the past. Going back to try to relive glory days often just leads to disappointment as you're more used to modern conveniences.

[Novakhoro]

Maybe those questions never even crossed their mind because everything seemed so simple back then, since all the attention was concentrated on simply making Vanilla servers possible. The idea united the community, but now that it's going to happen, its EXECUTION divides it, because on a microscale, it is not that obvious to distinguish what is an acceptable change from what isn't in the name of purity or QoL.

No, what this did was usher in a whole group of people who were never interested in it at all that now want to try it out but without losing their hand holding features

[Deficineiron]

You know what I think? People that wanted Vanilla, in a large, group effort made Vanilla private servers to enjoy that experience. I think that demand was heard, and Blizzard will answer.

People who want Vanilla + QoL changes aren't the demographic trying to be appeased here. And if they really want it, they can band together, and make their own private servers!

There's nothing justified or legitimate about overhearing a cake is being made, and feel so entitled that you can walk into the kitchen and demand what flavor it is. What's wrong with people? No individual opinion or desire is more important than appealing to the masses. And right now, the masses want Vanilla untouched. Therefore, most attempts to assert Vanilla needs changes is, in fact, trolling. It's being facetious in the face of an obvious opponent to private servers, which will be catered to appeal to a certain playerbase.

so A/B looks at this classic server thing. a few possible market segments -

1) classic server PS crowd. they need to be placated while this goes forward so they remain supportive, so keep repeating 'classic game experience' in every interview. Try to co-opt sponsored sites and bloggers to gradually suggest 'some QoL/other changes would be good' in coming months.

2) former players not on PS - both BC and Wotlk are more well known to this group (many started then) and accordingly are benchmarks on QoL, pacing, tuning (bc and wotlk very different in that, of course). They are the key target market, there are tens of millions of them.

3) current retail players - not a source of new subs, but if they can be hooked into classic, they will be less likely to unsub during the biannual drought. They are quite accostumed to a very different game tuning/convenience/pacing/hand-holding experience in all game aspects except the latest raid on the hardest difficulty. Blizzard should really try (if they haven't) to get some feedback on how players that have started since say 4.0 or 5.0 respond to classic wow's tuning, even getting to level 10. some would log out, others might enjoy the challenge, but they need some sense of how that sorts out proportionally.

I rate 1 and 3 as of equal monetary importance to blizzard, and 2 is the most important.

path of least resistance - make a game with conveniences recognizable to bc/wotlk players. a big choice between bc and wotlk tuning - bc heroics were HARD, wotlk were aoe/faceroll. want to bet which side of that divide activision-blizzard comes down on?

I do not believe activision-blizzard is institutionally capable of release a game that does not have an 'easy' setting, and classic wow as-was was not 'easy' in any way by modern wow standards.

[socomdan]

For those asking at what point they will start in the patch cycle, I think it would be super cool if it started at Day 0 or 1 and then they can add Maraudon, other dungeons, MC, raids etc and all the patches in a period of a few months. That way I think we will have the closest experience to launch day for wow and the excitement of waiting for the content to be released.

For the rest of the people that keep saying keep this, but not that. Vanilla but with... I am sorry but apart from fixing game-breaking bugs they should not be valid concerns

[Deletedaccount1]

on what basis is a forward-looking statement on game design intent from blizzard considered 'fact?'

Yeah Blizzard making their entire philosophy for the game clear means nothing. Good point.

[Deficineiron]

Yeah Blizzard making their entire philosophy for the game clear means nothing. Good point.

Activision-Blizzard is a publicly traded corporation, not a personal relationship for each and every one of us.

They understand expectation/image management is key in this. They have framed themselves as being 'pure classic' proponents. Some blues probably are, but that is somewhat irrelevant as the company will do what it needs to do to market the game to the broadest audience possible. A/B is not going to leave money on the table for sentimental reasons.

Some people (the gullible and the naive, in my opinion) are reassured by this declaration about this being a pure classic server. I think it is a case of being the only thing they could possibly say in that situation - what was he going to say ? "we are going to build on our new engine a classic-themed version, but tuned for greater accessibility, and with some QoL and other changes we feel will increase appeal." can you imagine how that would have gone over? it is much more likely to be true, though.

[Deletedaccount1]

Some people (the gullible and the naive, in my opinion) are reassured by this declaration about this being a pure classic server. I think it is a case of being the only thing they could possibly say in that situation - what was he going to say ? "we are going to build on our new engine a classic-themed version, but tuned for greater accessibility, and with some QoL and other changes we feel will increase appeal." can you imagine how that would have gone over? it is much more likely to be true, though.

Why is it more likely to be true? Why would one of blizzard's lead designers tell an outright lie? You people are desperate as fuck.

[Deficineiron]

Why is it more likely to be true? Why would one of blizzard's lead designers tell an outright lie? You people are desperate as fuck.

I don't think he lied. You just aren't listening closely. Also, it is quite possible that names inside blizzard (maybe he is one) are actively trying to see how far they can push the envelope with a/b on how to target this game at the target markets.

think about it. brock has a boss (morhaime.) morhaime has bosses, the a/b mgmt team ending with kotick (who then reports to the board but he controls that now). we don't always get to do what we want in our jobs. usually, in fact. but we can try to persuade our boss a little on some things, some times, in some jobs.

a corporation is a complex, bureaucratic, and political environment and you are trying to simply it into black and white absolutes of 'he said' or 'he lied' or whatever. you aren't the only one of course, that is why he goes out and talks at blizzcon (and metzen before him), but the broad strategic decisions get the money folks involved.

the tuning changes on new content from 2.4 and earlier to 3.0, correlated with 'corporate events' are not a coincidence, in my opinion. Chilton even said that naxx 2.0 was not tuned as hard as they would have liked. Why not, then? It seems obvious.

[deceptacon1]

An attitude like this is very ironic. Does that also mean that they can ignore your feedback since it is not relevant to producing the experience players necessarily want?

I'm suggesting that they ignore feedback initially to get the servers up and running so they can see who will actually invest time and energy into that iteration of the game.

I fear that right now we have "feedback" coming from too many people, many who will most likely not play the game for more than 20-30 hours (I suspect anyway).

To me it makes more sense to get an iteration of the game up and running, see who ends up playing with it then get feedback from those people.

[Beet]

Blizzard will do the smart thing and just give us classic as close as possible to how vanilla was. Doing anything else is just a slippery slope for them, and will cause anger from both sides. Here's why, if they added Dual Spec, you have anger from Purists AND people who want other QoL changes. They'll ask why Dual Spec was put in but not "blank". And if "blank" is added then why isn't "blank"? It'll do nothing but cause problems. They'll have to just give people classic like they asked for. There's no way they can add shaman and paladins for both factions for example.

[Zerroth]

Activision-Blizzard is a publicly traded corporation, not a personal relationship for each and every one of us.

They understand expectation/image management is key in this. They have framed themselves as being 'pure classic' proponents. Some blues probably are, but that is somewhat irrelevant as the company will do what it needs to do to market the game to the broadest audience possible. A/B is not going to leave money on the table for sentimental reasons.

Some people (the gullible and the naive, in my opinion) are reassured by this declaration about this being a pure classic server. I think it is a case of being the only thing they could possibly say in that situation - what was he going to say ? "we are going to build on our new engine a classic-themed version, but tuned for greater accessibility, and with some QoL and other changes we feel will increase appeal." can you imagine how that would have gone over? it is much more likely to be true, though.

if this happens I'll just double down on the leading private server, NP

[Deficineiron]

if this happens I'll just double down on the leading private server, NP

so will I, already concluding that if I am right, I just have to live with the various issues that go with PS.

[BobAwesome]

How many "purists" are even supporting Blizzard financially anyways? Most purists I've seen have been playing on private servers and haven't had an active sub in years. It's hilarious reading posts from "purists" acting like they're entitled to a pure vanilla wow from Blizzard because "they fought for it." How did they fight for it exactly? By playing on private servers while constantly spamming forums with whining and demanding legacy servers? Why should Blizzard reward people who've abandoned Blizzard years ago?

To be frank, I don't really care what Blizzard does or doesn't change with Classic, save for one possibility, if they nerf Vampiric Embrace from what is originally 20% shadow damage to healing + 10% additional, 5% each rank, I'll be pretty unhappy. Regardless I'm still going to enjoy it and have fun, just as I've done with every expansion. And considering they have a separate team working on it, we most likely won't have to worry about the current retail developers imparting their lack luster design ideas on it.

Take a look at Sonic Mania for example. For years Sega had been pumping out these 3d Sonic games that just paled in comparison to the original 2d titles and finally after years of asking, they finally decided on releasing a 2d masterpiece. The game was developed by four passionate Sonic fans. Led by Christian "Taxman" Whitehead who was responsible for the mobile ports of Sonic 1, 2 (which included a secret and entirely new Hidden Palace Zone) and CD along with level designers Simon "Stealth" Thomley, Jared Kasl, and Tom Fry who worked on a bunch of Sonic fan games like the ill fated Sonic 2 HD remake and had the music made by Tee Lopes who spent years releasing high quality Sonic OST remakes. Not only did they make completely new levels, but they remixed levels from previous 2d Sonic games with new areas and parts to freshen it up and you know what? It payed off big time. It's considered one of the best Sonic games ever made.

I don't think the Classic "purists" realize that if Blizzard releases an unaltered product, it's not going to survive. It's simply left in too rough of a shape and people, including purists, will get bored and leave meaning the populations will start to decline. Blizzard isn't stupid, they know this, which is why they said "Classic Experience" you can still get the experience and feeling from something, while also polishing it up.

And if you somehow think that Blizzard is implying a pure vanilla server and it won't ever change... you clearly don't know Blizzard. How many times have they said something was NEVER going to happen and a little while later, what do you know, it happens.

[JustRob]

How many "purists" are even supporting Blizzard financially anyways? Most purists I've seen have been playing on private servers and haven't had an active sub in years. It's hilarious reading posts from "purists" acting like they're entitled to a pure vanilla wow from Blizzard because "they fought for it." How did they fight for it exactly? By playing on private servers while constantly spamming forums with whining and demanding legacy servers? Why should Blizzard reward people who've abandoned Blizzard years ago?

To be frank, I don't really care what Blizzard does or doesn't change with Classic, save for one possibility, if they nerf Vampiric Embrace from what is originally 20% shadow damage to healing + 10% additional, 5% each rank, I'll be pretty unhappy. Regardless I'm still going to enjoy it and have fun, just as I've done with every expansion. And considering they have a separate team working on it, we most likely won't have to worry about the current retail developers imparting their lack luster design ideas on it.

Take a look at Sonic Mania for example. For years Sega had been pumping out these 3d Sonic games that just paled in comparison to the original 2d titles and finally after years of asking, they finally decided on releasing a 2d masterpiece. The game was developed by four passionate Sonic fans. Led by Christian "Taxman" Whitehead who was responsible for the mobile ports of Sonic 1, 2 (which included a secret and entirely new Hidden Palace Zone) and CD along with level designers Simon "Stealth" Thomley, Jared Kasl, and Tom Fry who worked on a bunch of Sonic fan games like the ill fated Sonic 2 HD remake and had the music made by Tee Lopes who spent years releasing high quality Sonic OST remakes. Not only did they make completely new levels, but they remixed levels from previous 2d Sonic games with new areas and parts to freshen it up and you know what? It payed off big time. It's considered one of the best Sonic games ever made.

I don't think the Classic "purists" realize that if Blizzard releases an unaltered product, it's not going to survive. It's simply left in too rough of a shape and people, including purists, will get bored and leave meaning the populations will start to decline. Blizzard isn't stupid, they know this, which is why they said "Classic Experience" you can still get the experience and feeling from something, while also polishing it up.

And if you somehow think that Blizzard is implying a pure vanilla server and it won't ever change... you clearly don't know Blizzard. How many times have they said something was NEVER going to happen and a little while later, what do you know, it happens.

Purists won't leave WoW Classic if it's pure vanilla. Private servers have already proven this.

As a longtime World of Warcraft player, even I don’t know whether Classic servers will be a success. My guess is once the initial wave of tourists dies down, there will only be a small core group of people left. "That’s OK," Brack assures me. "I don’t think that’s wrong. There will be a core group of people who are really excited, and that’s the game for them and that’s the thing they want to play.

"I think there will be a lot of tourists," he adds. "But it doesn’t matter what I think because once we’re committed to doing this at a Blizzard level, which we are, whatever happens is going to happen. If millions of people show up and play for years, that’s awesome. And if just tens of people show up and play for years, we’re fine either way. What’s important to us is that we have this Classic experience people can enjoy, that people do have the opportunity to go back to. This is an important game in videogame history and there’s not a way to go back and experience that today. This is also about preserving something that we think is really important.

http://www.pcgamer.com/this-is-how-b...a-wow-servers/