Cataclysm Classic - What changes would you want?

[Mysterymask]

I mean....what's the point really?

Everything that's in cata from a world standpoint is still in wow today except those rare deathwing flybys

Everyone's like "oh the heroics" but let's be real how long are those gonna last? Might be slightly longer because if LFD still doesn't exist a good group can't spam them till they are geared and you end up out gearing them once you do the raids

Oh yeah the raids! The first 2 tiers were great but then you got Dragon Soul looming over the horizon....

[Bluespiderman57]

Either just leave the old world alone, make some kind of toggle so that you can play either or, or rewrite the updated cata zones. The re-vamped world was just not fun to play in. I really prefer the questing from the Classic-Wrath era.

Speaking of questing, do a complete rework of the Uldum zone. That place was the worst. After a really cool lead-up in Classic with the Uldaman quests, culminating with us being stuck outside a broken but chained-up door in Tanaris, all we get is a lame and unfun Indiana Jones rip-off.

Hell, rewrite Deathwing to not be so boring and 1 note. Maybe make him go a bit farther than they did with Arthas, with remnants of his previous personality breaking through and influencing events.

Don't fuck over 25 man raiding with raiding changes.

Complete the water raid to go with the Firelands raid.

Probably more things that I can't think of right now. Though I'm not sure if I would even play Cata Classic anyway so whatever.

[Mysterymask]

Nothing is impossible, just hire more devs

I love this arguenent as if like if we throw 20 more people in a room anything they need will happen

[Relapses]

Nothing is impossible, just hire more devs

...are you memeing? Like I genuinely can't tell if you're being serious with this hilariously off-topic take.

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I love this arguenent as if like if we throw 20 more people in a room anything they need will happen

Just plant more devs in the Game Developer Garden. They grow on Game Developer Trees!

[Khaza-R]

I think the only chance it really has at any longevity is to play into the whole difficult heroics thing. Of course that alone isn't enough to carry it. I think if they did something like add CM with some type of unique transmog people might stick around to give it a try.

Otherwise I am not sure how they keep people interested in Cata when most of the hype was for the world revamp. Something people either don't care about in Classic or actively despise. Its endgame is pretty forgettable outside of Firelands. Maybe they could add an Abyssal Maw or WoA raid that was initially planned but that level of effort seems unlikely IMO.

[khazmodan]

I just don't get the classic crowd. Blows my mind that people enjoy playing these old expansions over again and paying a sub for it.

That being said I doubt they will do a Classic Cata, I would bet they stop with wrath. It would be a Microsoft choice by then, they kinda already talked about only caring about mobil and console. They didn't even mention warcraft or WoW.

It does seem a bit crazy to pay for a sub to replay Classic expansions but they are really just paying for the ability to play the game with other people that love it. The community was part of the experience and that part has been almost eliminated in retail. I do think that you are right about Microsoft not really understanding pc gaming but I bet they wish they would have started Valve corp. because that former Microsoft employee that started it has done well for himself financially while just being the middle man.

Another thing to think about is that WoW and the enormous amount of money made off subscriptions over the years probably made Microsoft think about game pass. Making consistent money off a large library of games (which helps avoid stupid developers destroying the income) creates a cash cow that will continue feeding the company indefinitely.

[RoKPaNda]

I'd be way more hyped for Cata Classic than I am for Wrath Classic.

[khazmodan]

I'd be way more hyped for Cata Classic than I am for Wrath Classic.

Make a private server and see how popular it is...

[Eldar45]

I liked Cata until Dragon Soul. Everything about that patch was bad, except for Transmog.

[hulkgor]

My interest in replaying old expansions ceases after WOTLK.

I'd rather they restart the cycle with a new Vanilla\Classic -> TBC -> WOTLK rotation than keep going further.

I have no interest whatsoever in Cataclysm.

[RoKPaNda]

Make a private server and see how popular it is...

TBC private servers have never been popular either, but TBC Classic is. The popularity of private servers doesn't really have any bearing on what people play when Blizzard actually releases something. For me personally Wrath was a low point but I'll still play Wrath Classic.

Anyway, if you don't like it, don't play it, but it looks like they're interested in doing it.

[A Blue Smurf]

I wouldn't want it. If it was to come, then I'd only want to see the new 80+ zones, raids and dungeons introduced with no LFR/LFD and no lockout on the talents (Cata introduced specialisations which locked you to a minimum talent spend in your 'main tree' which complete ruined any possibility of build variances and solidified the cookie-cutter experience)

The re-vamp was terribly done as it completely ruined any sense of world consistency and made any semblance of story progression a joke. The re-vamp should have been an either been an 80+ or a 1-80 experience, not the 1-60 disjointed mess that it was.

[Kilpi]

I don't know, but I don't consider Cataclysm classic, since there's not much left of classic WoW in Cataclysm. Not that the expac was a huge failure or super bad, I just don't think it should be part of "classic". It is interesting to see though, what happens to classic after WotLK.

[saintminya]

Give us a fully realized Abyssal Maw.

[Snufflupagus]

Kind of impossible considering the name of the expansion is Cataclysm and the thing that happens to the old world is, in fact, called The Cataclysm.

The Shattering.

[Kagthul]

I dont want to see a Cata "classic" and it is, by definition, when the Classic game died. That's when we got new zoomerfied talent trees, trash-tier gear from the next raid being better than hard mode gear from the previous raid, etc.

The Classic era was defined by a totally different design philosophy than what came after.

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Nothing is impossible, just hire more devs

Not even remotely how that works. Its entirely possible to have too many people working on a project or to reach a point when adding more people does not help at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month

[Relapses]

The Shattering.

...otherwise known as "The Cataclysm."

Hello?

[Caiphon]

Wouldn't want it to begin with. Cataclysm is the expansion that basically marked the transition to 'modern' WoW - streamlined, linear questing experience more in line with JRPGs than classic WoW, huge inflation of the player's status in the world, the 'let everyone access everything' mantra (arguably started in Wrath but taken to a whole new level in Cata), loss of the original EK and Kalimdor... though there are 5 expansions between it and retail, Cataclysm is much closer in terms of design philosophy and player experience to retail than it is to vanilla, TBC or even the expansion directly preceding it.

Unless Blizzard is willing to make classic an 'alternate timeline' with its own set of expansions, I think it's best for it to just repeat vanilla-TBC-Wrath every couple of years.

[threads]

first thing would be to not fuck up ret and leave it as wrath's spec. 2nd would be an option to play in azeroth without changed zones.

[Heavens Night]

Title says it all, really.

Personally, aside from removing LFD, I wouldnt change much.

I don't want it at all. It ruined the world and changed everything.

Cataclysm is NOT classic. It ended Classic.