As someone who has never understood the appeal of Classic....

[Qstall]

well it wouldnt be ''modern'',they would stick with classic-like aditions

exactly. just release more 40 man raids with one difficulty, obv harder than each previous raid and make them unlockable by a long-ass prechain

[Afrospinach]

How is that an admonishment of the current design team?

That they are incapable of producing content appealing enough that "splitting" the playerbase is a concern at all.

[msdos]

From what I've gathered, I think the Classic+ crowd are people who have basically given up hope on Blizzard developing a quality expansion.

Blizzard buried themselves in retail under the game rubble of constant revamps and deserted systems like garrisons and class halls. It might be easier to just have a Classic+ scenario than scrap all the rubble they're buried under, so I kinda see where the Classic+ crowd is coming from.

My thing is this game is just dated. You can't do anything more to it without it lagging out and looking like a 3D bullet hell of things flying all over the screen. The average hardcore raider's UI already looks like a screenshot of the Apex Legends HUD. Classic+ would just be honing the blade of an antique sword.

[Adamas102]

That they are incapable of producing content appealing enough that "splitting" the playerbase is a concern at all.

That makes no sense...

It’s not an issue with current content. There are plenty of players on “retail” right now that don’t consider Classic to be appealing content. The issue is that I wouldn’t expect people to split their time across multiple different retro servers. Sure, some people would come back, but WoW would be cannibalizing a lot of it’s retail and Classic playerbase as well.

[Thage]

The core idea behind 'Classic+' is that players enjoy the Classic design philosophies and want new content/expansions for Classic that follow the Classic design ethos. I don't see why that's such a bad thing, though I'm also perfectly happy sitting at 60 and exhausting everything Classic has to offer as-is (or, "as-is" once everything's rolled out).

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My thing is this game is just dated. You can't do anything more to it without it lagging out and looking like a 3D bullet hell of things flying all over the screen. The average hardcore raider's UI already looks like a screenshot of the Apex Legends HUD. Classic+ would just be honing the blade of an antique sword.

To be fair, I'd compare it more to the crossbow. The crossbow's core design hasn't changed much in the last couple hundred years, and it's still a popular choice among enthusiasts despite having so much in common with its original iteration. Retail WoW feels like it went from a crossbow to a rifle to an SMG--while the progression can be easily understood and traced, the end product still feels very different from the initial offering in many ways both significant and minor. Some folks want iterated crossbows, not SMGs, and I don't think either crowd is necessarily wrong here, it's more a matter of whether the manufacturer thinks there's enough interest among crossbow enthusiasts to warrant going down that road versus focusing on the SMGs.

[Will]

It's more a matter of whether the manufacturer thinks there's enough interest among crossbow enthusiasts to warrant going down that road versus focusing on the SMGs.

I can't say I agree with this statement -- the bolded part -- because it implies that Blizzard has to take focus away from Retail to work on Classic, which simply isn't the case because it's a separate team. It never was a case of 'this or that', but 'both'.

[Irian]

I think more specifically people are just asking for something new and unexpected using Classic as a foundation. No expansions, just additional content in the style of the original game.

I've also seen some people complaining about little flaws that render some classes just incomplete or incapable of doing their role, like paladins not having a taunt etc. I don't personally think they should change those, but I do kinda get where people are coming from.

[shadowmatrix]

Blizzard - You think you do but you don't.
Players - We want classic servers!
Blizzard - Fine, here is Classic WOW.
Player Group A - Yay, now we can play classic all we want.
Player Group B - Now give us Classic plus with certain changes and new content.
Player Group A - .....
Blizzard - ......... Well that didn't take long.

[Jastall]

Just wanted to point out that splitting the player base across separate servers for each iteration of WoW isn’t necessarily win-win. New additions like expansions and Classic bump up sub numbers temporarily, but they invariably decrease. Even now it’s way too soon to see the effect of Classic in the long run.

In 4 years when WoW is on 10.x, Classic will have had about 2 years of Naxx with nothing else on the horizon. Maybe they’ll have released TBC and WotLK servers by then, but not everyone will want to leave Classic for those. Each iteration would just siphon players from the others.

That's only mildly true I think. I won't ever go back to Classic myself and won't touch TBC with a ten-foot pole, but a Wrath server? Now you have my attention, and I'll most likely play it a decent lot.

I do agree that the playerbase would be splintered. Each server type would have their dedicated audience, and then a bunch of tourists going back and forth between live and the legacy servers. But so far Classic hasn't harmed BfA as I see it. I'm not sure where the breaking point would be; probably at a Wrath server in fact.

[Elias01]

Classic was taking old content, and adapting it to the newer platform, but there was no making of new content.
Classic+ would delve into making new content, and of course, why would a retail-hater want the retail team making new content for Classic?

Becouse classic drives sub numbers and blizz doesnt want players leave for lack of content?