Lets just be honest with one another. There will be changes done to Classic. But lets be realistic with one another on what these changes could be. Obliviously there is a large group of the community who says "No" to any changes big or small, game breaking or not. Obviously there is an equally large group of the community who are for changes no matter how much it may veer from the Vanilla experience. The vast majority of the changes I feel the community wants are QoL or Class Balancing.
We aren't here to discuss those changes.
I would like to discuss potential changes that we as a community can agree will be implemented based off reasonable compromise of implementing a 13 year old game in a much more modern gaming society. What I mean by this is. It's been said a million times before the game is old. Anyone who thinks there wont be some changes to the game. And thinks they would release the same 04/05/06 version of WoW I feel is not looking at this whole situation rationally. So below are three changes I truly believe we will see in classic and my reasoning behind each one.
1) Authenticators - Given the increase is cyber security over the past 13 years. I believe blizzard would be foolish to not integrate the classic servers into there battle net client. Thus meaning authenticators will be a thing. Given the amount of characters / items we have accumulated over these years I feel it could be an almost unanimous decisions everyone would want this feature. I personally am for this change and would love to hear some opinions of those who might be against it. Also is there actually anyone out there who does not use an authenticator? I know I have used one since 2008 when they implemented it. And it's already saved my account numerous times.
2) Updated Graphics / Models - This one I feel I might get some heat on. However please hear me out before passing judgement. Given the recent remastering of StarCraft. It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that Blizzard is going through a phase of reinvestment of their product line. Meaning they just remastered one IP (Starcraft). And they just announced the desire to release a classic server. What makes people think that they would not remaster Classic and instead implement a highly outdated graphics model? I feel the game would benefit tremendously being able to explore the old zones once more. However augmented but not changed from the original version. I feel this is a pro and not a con. However I can understand the purist mentality of "No changes". That they want to experience Vanilla how it once was. However lets be rational here. It would be unrealistic for a billion dollar company to invest millions into an old IP. In an attempt to bring back the old Vanilla wow without some form of augmentation. As I personally stand I would love to experience vanilla again but through a new light. I feel experiencing vanilla wow with updated graphics would be beneficial and cannot see the negative beyond the obvious nostalgia. However I'm sure others differ from my opinion. So how would an updated graphics / models change the game play in a negative aspect?
3) WoW Tokens - Do I personally want them? Absolutely not. Do I feel WoW tokens are a good thing for WoW? As a whole yes. I believe WoW tokens benefit the community more then they take away from. I have been against and have not wanted WoW tokens since the first time they were announced. However you know what I hate more? gold farmers. And in Vanilla they were prominent. Do I think the vanilla community could benefit from having WoW tokens. Yes!. However I personally feel it takes away from the vanilla experience where it was much more difficult to attain gold. What would I like to see as an alternative to WoW tokens? No WoW tokens and blizzard would create better systems in place to better identify gold farmers and ban them for being the leaches they are. However I know this is a very unrealistic alternative. And given the success of WoW tokens in retail I feel Blizzard would be pushing in this direction. Given the pros and cons IMHO I hope blizzard stands strong and they do not implement WoW tokens and we somehow think of a more creative way to combat gold farmers.
TL;DR Lets be realistic. There will be inevitable changes to Vanilla WoW. But lets be rational in what those changes will be. Blizzard has stated they want to make sure to make no QoL or class balance changes. So lets think of potential changes that would make sense as whole and benefit the vanilla community and potentially augment a 13 year old game in a very subtle way.