Can we expect a classic version of every expansion at some point?

[MoanaLisa]

I for one would welcome a version of the original Cataclysm without the patches. Those heroics were great fun if you were in a guild. Probably the last time that out-of-the-box dungeons were difficult.

[ro9ue]

EQ Progression servers started with just the base game, but then over time they would slowly unlock each expansion. They also have multiple waves of these servers, so basically you have the "Live" servers ("retail wow"), then batches of progression servers at all different eras of the game based on when they were released.

It really just comes down to interest. For example, lots of people play EQ's progression servers when they are freshly released to experience the first ~6 expansions but the population of those servers drop off rapidly. Then they condense and consolidate.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I would imagine they release them until they stop printing money. They take next to no work or budget compared to other projects and if they just manage to live for 6 months to a year they all but pay for themselves and then some while also adding to the WoW subscription value that has diversity in why people are subbing. Not to mention it can build buzz and hype almost on demand.

[Eternal2u]

I think there will be.

Remember they only need like 1/100th of the playerbase of WoW retail to go to WoW Classic releases to make them successful. Prior to WoW it was considered a successful game if you had 100-200k users for a game that developers had to actually code program and develop assets for.

With a rerelease using a engine thats uniform between the retail and the classic variant so there's no extra time other than modifying it to work on the updated engine and copying assets over the development cost for re-relasing old expansions is almost negligible.

So yea i think they do progressive patches and expansions with it trailing retail but being a faster pace than the original release maybe for awhile.

Personally i hope they do this too because then you get a actual "complete" experience without the bugs errors and hotfix patches to fix problems. You come in knowing the score from expansion launch until the end, and I enjoy the speed running, maximizing mentality of classic. Its a different challenge than original vanilla release and i dunno just fun for me?

Kinda hope they do the legacy never progressing servers too as we go that just has many less servers than the always updating ones for classic

[czarek]

It depends of how many of will demand it. To wotlk for sure. Vanilla/TBC/WOTLK are bible :P

[Nak88]

Yes, for sure. There will be enough players to fill some servers per region. I know TBC and Wrath will be massively played (maybe more than Retail if the current xpac is not very good) but there are other expansions not so much popular like Legion, MoP, Cata and WoD in that particular order that would get enough players to make it profitable.

[Wries]

One could hope. My guess is that that they won't find the hype come Cataclysm and thus the classic saga will end with Wrath. But I would like to be proven wrong and get some Legion classic one day.

[bowchikabow]

until we get classic cata... or, even better: Classic WoD hahaha.

I really hope they don't.

[deenman]

personaly i think of ''classic'' as the pre cata are,but at this point we are so far removed from even that point,that there are more expansions post cata...idk,i guess it wouldnt be hard,the maintanance would be very low and some of the problems that they had to fix in vanila wouldnt exist for say mop or wod as much if at all

and i rly wish i could play some versions of some expansions classes again that i really enjoyed

the only issue is dividing players....but i dont rly see it as much of an issue,players leave when there is content drought anyways and play other games,atleast this way they wont leave for other games and still pay money to blizz

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until we get classic cata... or, even better: Classic WoD hahaha.

I really hope they don't.

plenty of classes in wod felt awsome and the raiding was top tier,so i wouldnt mind wod again

[Littleraven]

I think up to wrath sure. After that it makes less sense because Cataclysm is where the world actually changed. Sure the systems and stuff evolve every expansion but to me I think the point of doing "classic" was people missed the pre expansion world and how things worked. BC while a big enough change from what came before is still more or less the same game as it was. Once you start getting closer to MoP the game fundamentally changes.

Now with all that said. If there is enough demand for it I don't see why they don't just spin up servers for each dedicated expansion but I think the farther you get from vanilla the less demand there is.

[AcidicSyn]

Ideally, they'd create pristine (or whatever the term is) servers for each expansion there is demand for. Which I expect would be up to and including Wrath currently. However then the question becomes: What patch? Do we lock the patch at a certain state, or progress them like normally with all included changes each time rather than just releasing the raids? (IE: launch Blood DK gods vs later iterations)

It would be funny if they kept going though, I'd definitely make a MoP character for a good bit, that was fun.

[Stormwolf64]

Doubt it. Are you interested in a rerelease of cataclysm? no? didn't think so

[Echocho]

Hope so. I'd love to play WOD again. It got all the strengths of Classic with very little to do outside of raiding but the added benefit of challenging raids and more complicated/fun classes.

Classic is great since it's raid or die but the raids are way too trivial and the classes are slow and simple. It's simply put not challenging.

[Drusin]

I don't think that classic Cata is going to come lol, I can see classic MoP tbh skipping right over cata though

[Moi2003]

The only one I see that would have a big enough demand after Wrath would be MoP

[xpose]

Wotlk was the beginning of the downfall so I doubt they go beyond that although MoP had good content/balance/challenge mode ect.. I honestly wouldn't mind it but I think managing 4 classic versions of the game might be too much and they will just stick to three.

[erifwodahs]

I would live in classic Legion forever.

Same! Would love it.

[Darththeo]

I see Classic ending with Wrath.

[Mister K]

personaly i think of ''classic'' as the pre cata are,but at this point we are so far removed from even that point,that there are more expansions post cata...idk,i guess it wouldnt be hard,the maintanance would be very low and some of the problems that they had to fix in vanila wouldnt exist for say mop or wod as much if at all

and i rly wish i could play some versions of some expansions classes again that i really enjoyed

the only issue is dividing players....but i dont rly see it as much of an issue,players leave when there is content drought anyways and play other games,atleast this way they wont leave for other games and still pay money to blizz

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plenty of classes in wod felt awsome and the raiding was top tier,so i wouldnt mind wod again

It's the holy trinity, when wrap up of Arthas, the scourge.

[Driahtvacahtve]

I'd looove to play classic Pandaria. Quite liked launch cata and launch WoD too. No interest whatsoever in classic tbc and wrath though. Already raided quite seriously there, got my
shitty arena stun mace, Death's Demise etc. Zero replay value.
If all they're doing is that old rubbish then I'd prefer to stick to what we have now.
If they're gonna ruin my classic experience with crappy TBC they'd better go all the way so there's at least something to look forward to

The entire point of classic as far as I'm concerned is that retro gameplay without the shitty endless progress invalidation that we have in retail.
Releasing tbc would completely take away the point in re-releasing classic in the first place.
If they do go down that road then we're just getting the entire game re-released tbh. There's no reason to arbitrarily stop anywhere. Everyone's got their own favourite they want to stop at and Blizzard makes the most money from just continuously releasing shit anyway.
Nothing about a cata release undoes the wrath experience anymore than a tbc release undoes vanilla. That old world levelling content matters bugger all when you sit in Shattrath waiting for your arena queue to pop, and outland/northrend remain exactly the same either way.