Do you think Classic will effect Expansion 9

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I think 9.0 is to soon. Its likely already got a head of steam going in the background and Classic hasn't even released yet. I would say if Classic ends up being successful enough to justify a TBC release then by the time 10.0 is in the beginning stages some influence could occur. But it would be minor. The current game is so different it's almost impossible to do a massive 180.

[Craaazyyy]

hopefully, but unlikely

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Meh, can't get worse than BfA.

yeah.. i said the same in WoD

[Rorixis]

GCD change is an example of vanilla affecting retail, so yea its already happening.

[Wyrt]

yeah.. i said the same in WoD

Well, I quit in BfA and didn't quit in WoD. If next expansion is worse than BfA then I guess I'll double quit?

[Craaazyyy]

Well, I quit in BfA and didn't quit in WoD. If next expansion is worse than BfA then I guess I'll double quit?

well i quit in both wod and bfa, but i think bfa is much worse

[Krille]

Classic has it's own team, and will end at Naxx.

So no, it's not going to effect the development of the current game.

Ion Hazzikostas is game lead for entire WoW franchise, including Classic.

[Relapses]

I don't mean launch, don't get me wrong. I figure launch won't show a sign of it, but 9.1 or 9.2 maybe.

I don't personally think we'll actually really be able to make direct correlations, though. At best they'll probably take some lesson from this like "pandering to nostalgia brings back players!"
...and they'd probably be right.

What is even the point of this post?

People are voicing opinions, I'm voicing a response of mild surprise that people think that way. I'm sorry I apparently hurt your feelings enough that you feel the need to voice passive-aggressive nonsense.
Maybe forums aren't the place for you if you can't handle people trying to discuss topics.

Your opinion, which is backed up by completely unknowable presumptions on your part. And for the record, I'm not being passive aggressive: You're flat out fucking wrong.

[docterfreeze]

Why would it? Do they expect the classic crowd to go retail, and alienate the current retail players that don't like Classic/Vanilla?

It wouldn't hurt to bring back things like server communities, PvP vendors, class trainers, and talent trees. I'm not saying that if classic becomes more popular than retail then retail will slowly turn into a classic clone, but if that happens then obviously blizzard misjudged what the majority of its fans like and don't like.

[Eurhetemec]

Classic will have an influence. That influence has already started, with things as small as Eyes of the Beast being possible to have again in Retail (even though it's not in yet, one suspects it will be before too long).

The big question is how much will that influence be, and what will it be?

In terms of what, I think Blizzard will be interested to see longer-term player reactions to Classic. In the short-term people are likely to mindlessly say it's great. This has happened with "Classic" servers for various games through history. In the longer-term, people are likely to be more critical. So when Classic has been out, say, a year, I think Blizzard will have a decent handle on what people love and what people don't. I suspect a lot of things that people are excited about will turn out to be largely the annoyances they actually were in Vanilla.

But I think it'll act as inspiration for Blizzard when updating and adding to the next expansion. Class trainers, for example, are unlikely to come back in the Vanilla form, i.e. charging you tons of money for every rank of every ability you want. But the idea of trainers you return to, in order to gain new abilities, that might well return in some form in the next expansion.

So the influence will be there. But I doubt it'll be severe.

[Unlimited Power]

I wonder.. Expansion 9 otherwise known as patch 10.0 onwards is likely more than 3 years out. By then classic will probably also have been out for some 3 years and likely undergone at least 1 full content cycle from Molten Core to Naxx. By then we'll know the true sustainability of classic servers and how well players adopt it and the servers will likely have seen a significant dropoff in player interest from the initial surge of newcomers.

I don't think classic servers will have much or any bearing on the next expansion to come, at least not initially. It'll all depend on how much Blizzard reads into subscriber numbers for classic (even if it's the same subscription, Blizzard can see who plays what). Classic is likely to surge very high initially and then gradually fall off until it plateaus with a core audience after a while, but we won't know the real sustained interest until classic servers have run a full content cycle.

[MoanaLisa]

It won't be any time soon if it does. The extent to which Classic is going to affect the other game will only be known to a few at Blizzard after six-months-to-a-year after Classics launch. If the game empties out after a few months, no.

It's as likely that if Classic becomes popular that Blizzard will still decide that the two games serve different purposes and goals and even more firmly follow the path they're on. That will be good for Classic after time passes as it might mean a B.C. release or additional level 60 content (zones, dungeons, raids) based on 1.12 parameters.

[LoLcano]

I just hope the old talent system comeback.

[Irian]

Your opinion, which is backed up by completely unknowable presumptions on your part. And for the record, I'm not being passive aggressive: You're flat out fucking wrong.

Except the fact that they've already stated in an interview that they may take design inspiration from Classic. How is it wrong to assume in the next ~4 years or so of game development they make take inspiration from classic?

The irony is that you claim I'm an armchair developer making objective statements without knowing the insights when you're literally doing that exact thing in response to someone who isn't doing that.

I'm fully aware that 9.0 is likely far into development right now and won't be changed much if at all by October. But Expansion 9 is not the same as 9.0.
If you think Blizzard is so unbelievably molasses slow and narrow-minded that they can't change game design by 9.1, 9.2 or 9.3 then you either have an extremely cynical view of Blizzard's game design or you don't actually have any clue what the hell you're talking about. 8.2 has an entire progression system that was built because they weren't happy with the Azerite design.

[Relapses]

Except the fact that they've already stated in an interview that they may take design inspiration from Classic. How is it wrong to assume in the next ~4 years or so of game development they make take inspiration from classic?

The irony is that you claim I'm an armchair developer making objective statements without knowing the insights when you're literally doing that exact thing in response to someone who isn't doing that.

I'm fully aware that 9.0 is likely far into development right now and won't be changed much if at all by October. But Expansion 9 is not the same as 9.0.
If you think Blizzard is so unbelievably molasses slow and narrow-minded that they can't change game design by 9.1, 9.2 or 9.3 then you either have an extremely cynical view of Blizzard's game design or you don't actually have any clue what the hell you're talking about. 8.2 has an entire progression system that was built because they weren't happy with the Azerite design.

The question in the OP is a bit confusing because the poll question is different than the title of the thread. The poll says "next expansion" and I'd wager most people replying are responding as such; but you are correct, expansion 9 is the expansion after the next one. I assumed you meant 9.0 when you said exp 9 and doubled down on that when you replied. I was wrong.

[irvaa]

I feel that Classic might effect Expansion 9. We are in Expansion 7 atm, so that gives Classic 1 whole expansion to get settled in.

[Byucknah The Red]

Yeah, maybe. I think that may be enough time. I doubt 8 will have much in terms of major changes but if Classic is successful and sustains that success then I bet it will have influence on retail. Here is hoping Classic is super successful and can sustain that success and popularity for a long time.

[pacotaco]

the only things they should copy from Vanilla are:
The approach to dungeons.
It was a serious thing. you had to be careful.
The warriors had to play piano on the keyboard just to be decent 5man tanks.
No aoe pull, aoe tank, aoe dps. You even see this on mythics ffs.

As you say, there's M+ for that, no need to extend it back to normal dungeons.

The lack of teleports.
It made the world more alive, and more ...gankable.

They did short of this with the removal of portals with 8.1.5. Everyone was pissed.

The lack of flying mounts. Same.
Plus it made the world feel much bigger, mysterious, and challenging.

And more tedious. Ask what people think about Argus.

The lack of LFG/LFR.
The current mentality of no talking whatsoever... and rushing everything.
I hate that.

That's not Blizzard fault. It's the community, and tehre's no going back, I'm afraid.

They could replace the LFG with a city board.
To avoid overcrowding, there would be a few boards around the city. Like one in every district, for example.
You place an add, which is removed after you log off, or form a full party.
The only thing you could write is two lines of whatever text you like.
No dropdown menus, request invite buttons, class roles, etc.
The only thing a browsing player would be allowed to do is click to whisper a person in your group.
Basically, a tidy LFG system, without the spam and super-fast-scrolling-text in the chat.

So a LFG, but more inconvinient?

And i know theres no going back, but i do miss when everyone had normal, lore abiding mounts.
and not giant out of place monstrocities.

WoW is very conservative regarding mount aesthetics. You should see what other MMOs have.

And the fact that there were no quest indicators.
So you had to actually read the quest, look around, and ask a lot.
This cant work however, since everyone will go ezmode and get an addon for it.

Yeah, quest indicators were added because the add-on doing it was highly popular.

I do think that currently classes have WAAAY too many skills.
Especially the powerful cooldowns. Wtf they got a cooldown fetish over there.
But the Vanilla situation of just spamming one skill, three if you were lucky, was also crap.
A middle groud would be best.
But at least vanilla didnt lack in flavor and RP. Lock picking, poisons, reagents, arrows, feeding pets, that was pleasant.

I think people are misremembering how many skills there actually were. There weren't too many, but some of them had several ranks.
For example, Holy Paladins had arround 70-ish skill, of which 20 were the skills, and the 50 other were just different ranks of the others.
That design seems to resemble how spells work on tabletop D&D, but it had no place on a mid-paced combat game.

Also, that i was allowed to progress on my own pace, slow or fast.
Without blackmailing mechanics, with a must-do-minimum and maximum-allowed progression per "time".
Only there to tell you how often to login and what to do while in.
Which is the same unchallenging thing repeated 100 times.
Yeah i'm talking about dailies, weeklies, world quests, profession cooldowns, etc.

The game shifted from a sand-boxy type of game to a more theme-parky story-driven one.

The old, hourly day/night cycle.
I honestly cannot remember the last time i saw WoW in daylight.
I remember it was 10 times more beautiful.
Sadly, its been a few expansions now, that it's day/night cycle follows real life. And that sucks big time.

WoW ALWAYS had a 12h day/12h night cycle. I think you're mixing it with other game.

Heroics and Challenge modes. Mythics are nice, and harder.. but having practically no ceiling is tiring to the mind as a concept.
On the first you tunnelvision your goal and get super excited when you achieve it.
While with mythics you're like.. oh good, now let's up it +1 and try again. OK good, lets +1 some more... Not as exciting.

M+ are just the natural evolution. People were always asking more challenging dungeons. Well, now they have them.
Now, if what people ask is "I want around 300 different dungeons of different difficulty", that, they could go and sit, because it's not happening ever.

Raids... Lets be honest... Todays raiders would steamroll old raids. Only thing hard about them was coordinating 40 people.

Happy to see someone that realizes it. In 2004, there were barely any on-line resources (I only remember Thottbot), and voice chat was very unusual. Now, we have lots of webs with data-bases, thousands of guides, on-line communities, voice chat is very common, etc.
Also, videogame culture is more spread, so the average skill of the players is far superior. I think what we currently have on World Bosses are on par of what Vanilla Raid Bosses offered regarding mechanical difficulty.

World design like in WoD and Timeless isle. With actually-hidden actual-treasures, urging you to explore and have pointless fun.

The problem is, once the secret is out, there's no secret anymore. And people would do add-ons for that (and they did).
I thinks what we have now is a good compromise: with some treasures giving resources and/or toys, and big secret-hunts every-now-and-then (like the Baal pet, the Lucid Nightmare, the Hive Mind, etc)

The addition of actually-challenging platform/agility puzzles would be an incredible addition as well. There were a couple toddler-level such puzzles in MoP/WoD/Legion.. but nothing noteworthy.

I don't think the game nor the community are prepared for them. I remember a simple jump-over-the-chasm at Wailing Caverns and the jump-on-the-platforms-over-the-water part at Blackfathom Deeps were hardcore obstacles for some players.

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I just hope the old talent system comeback.

Not gonna happen. It was too hard to balance for the devs, and for the players you picked the cookie-cutter build or you gimped yourself.
I preffer the current one were the focus is on enabling the player to choose from differnet ways of playing a class. They just need to improve it so all options are on par.

[Maquegyver]

Probably not. I loved vanilla and BC. No interest in playing classic. It won't replicate the naivety and culture of the time. That is gone and will never return.

The way BFA is going my sub is probably done end of this tier or next. Only way I play classic is if I'm still raiding in retail. Even then its just a side show.

[Wraethion]

Depends on what learn from Classic. If its better class balance and loot systems, then it might work. Can't wait for titanforging and warforging to kick the bucket personally.

[Flutterguy]

Depends on what learn from Classic. If its better class balance and loot systems, then it might work. Can't wait for titanforging and warforging to kick the bucket personally.

Why would you think warriors being the only viable tanks and priests being the only viable healers would be good class balancing?