Are there any major concerns you have that haven't really been discussed when it comes to classic? Anything that you are worrying will drag down gameplay for you? Even at the risk of offending the #NoChanges gods?

Spill it.

I have two items.

1. I'm worried that infernal and doomguard are going to still be just as unviable as ever which is a downer because regardless I'm still really excited to go through the old methods of acquiring them again

2. Balancing. That 1st patch we get for classic I feel is going to dictate how that pendulum will swing. I'm worried about balancing down the line. Because either the #Changes or #NoChanges crowd is going to cry harder and we have no way of knowing who will win yet.

It being easy to the point of not being rewarding in regards to end game PVE.

pan0phobik wrote: ↑

5 years ago

1. I'm worried that infernal and doomguard are going to still be just as unviable as ever which is a downer because regardless I'm still really excited to go through the old methods of acquiring them again

Were they that way in 1.12? If so, that's how they'll be in Classic.

pan0phobik wrote: ↑

5 years ago

2. Balancing. That 1st patch we get for classic I feel is going to dictate how that pendulum will swing. I'm worried about balancing down the line. Because either the #Changes or #NoChanges crowd is going to cry harder and we have no way of knowing who will win yet.

There aren't going to be balancing patches. It's 1.12 World of Warcraft.

teebling wrote: ↑

5 years ago

pan0phobik wrote: ↑

5 years ago

1. I'm worried that infernal and doomguard are going to still be just as unviable as ever which is a downer because regardless I'm still really excited to go through the old methods of acquiring them again

Were they that way in 1.12? If so, that's how they'll be in Classic.

They were, but I'm also hoping that maybe fresh minds on the game might find a unique way to capitalize on them

pan0phobik wrote: ↑

5 years ago

2. Balancing. That 1st patch we get for classic I feel is going to dictate how that pendulum will swing. I'm worried about balancing down the line. Because either the #Changes or #NoChanges crowd is going to cry harder and we have no way of knowing who will win yet.

There aren't going to be balancing patches. It's 1.12 World of Warcraft.

I knew it was going to be 1.12 but did they say there will actually never be any patching?

I worry that Activision will eventually try to force additional monetization models, especially if Classic ends up being successful. Also, streamers dictating server population & economy.

Other than that, pretty optimistic about Classic, can't wait to experience it again.

That blizz fucks up the server merge and we will play only on 9k pop servers after the first wave.

Maybe not completely undiscussed, as I've seen one or two threads around the Internet about it, but the AQ War Effort. One of the (very) few changes I'd be ok with is if they randomized, or otherwise changed the required items each faction had to stockpile. I'm afraid that everyone will just stuff their banks full of the original items, blow it all on day 1 of that patch, then the War Effort will take only a fraction of the time it took back in Vanilla WoW. I'd like to use the AQ War Effort to get an orange raptor for my orcl, but if it doesn't last long, there's not a whole lot of time to get that reputation.

Another AQ concern is that people will open the gates on one server, then mass transfer to another server and open its gates as well. It'd be nice if they didn't allow server transfers until all servers have opened their gates to eliminate that possibility.

I'm worried about layering/sharding being applied later on in the life of Classic, for events such as AQ gates. I'm also worried about what their plan is for possible server population imbalances, for example if one server has significantly less people on it than every other server, will they be merged with other servers? Something I'm not too sure if they've talked about but worries me.

My biggest worry is that people will refuse to run with suboptimized builds as they do on private servers. I love grouping with ret pallys, moonkins, etc. Most people don't need to even come CLOSE to min/maxing specs, or min/maxing group composition. If you wanna pve as arcane mage, do it. I would hate to be in a 40 man raid with no shadow priests, I hate this about current private servers, and I hope it doesnt migrate to classic. There is enough room in almost very encounter to allow for sub-optimal builds.

1. Toxic community that will make me hate the game as it did on private servers. Going by the Classic WoW subreddit and the official forums, I'm not sure if things will be much different.

2. Layering, everything about it.

3. Blizzard has a huge opportunity to progress classic through custom (1.13) updates and content, but I feel the perpetually outraged playerbase will instead steer them towards TBC and implementing the same sorts of "features" that made us want classic in the first place.

Once all the human warriors get https://www.wowhead.com/item=22691/corrupted-ashbringer horde DPS won't be viable for speedraiding.

Length of Phases. I am conflicted because I really really want to have time to do all the raids as they are released, but I also know I will itch for the Honor System/Battlegrounds. I never had the opportunity to raid in Vanilla like I wanted, but I did tons of PVP and it was one of my favorite aspects.

rageplant wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Length of Phases. I am conflicted because I really really want to have time to do all the raids as they are released, but I also know I will itch for the Honor System/Battlegrounds. I never had the opportunity to raid in Vanilla like I wanted, but I did tons of PVP and it was one of my favorite aspects.

Also important since they said that the longest they're going to have layering in the game is until the start of Phase 2, but we don't know when Phase 2 will be.

Casp wrote: ↑

5 years ago

rageplant wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Length of Phases. I am conflicted because I really really want to have time to do all the raids as they are released, but I also know I will itch for the Honor System/Battlegrounds. I never had the opportunity to raid in Vanilla like I wanted, but I did tons of PVP and it was one of my favorite aspects.

Also important since they said that the longest they're going to have layering in the game is until the start of Phase 2, but we don't know when Phase 2 will be.

I do seem to remember a video where they said they'd like to remove layering within 1 month, but their max is 2 months or something like that. Either 2 months or 3...

@rageplant The exact length of layering has become lost somewhere. I've seen so many different contradicting claims of when it is ending.

I’m concerned that they will launch without a token and I’m not sure what that will mean for bots, especially when Classic sounds like it will only require a sub so the overhead for running bots is cheaper than ever. To add to this concern players have been groomed in retail to see gold buying as normal so this will likely result in a higher demand for gold buying than was present previous. I’m sure the token has been talked to death here, but this is one of my main concerns that I haven’t discussed.

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I’m concerned that they will launch without a token.

They've already stated that they wont have a cash shop in the beginning, but its interesting since both retail and classic run on the same sub, so you can buy subtime in retail for classic (if you have the gold in retail). Interesting dilemma but I think they'll probably take the OSRS approach of 'cracking down on cash bots' and then just mostly ignoring them.

Casp wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I’m concerned that they will launch without a token.

They've already stated that they wont have a cash shop in the beginning, but its interesting since both retail and classic run on the same sub, so you can buy subtime in retail for classic (if you have the gold in retail). Interesting dilemma but I think they'll probably take the OSRS approach of 'cracking down on cash bots' and then just mostly ignoring them.

This is a fair point. With them implementing sharding which was rebranded as layering, they could simply rebrand the cash shop. I'm not saying that I think they will launch with a token, because I don't, I'm concerned for what implications not launching with a token will have.

Considering the shared sub, do you think Classic could encourage a growth in population of bots on retail?

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I’m concerned that they will launch without a token and I’m not sure what that will mean for bots, especially when Classic sounds like it will only require a sub so the overhead for running bots is cheaper than ever.

How do tokens make botting harder? I dont play retail currently, but my understanding is that tokens were just alternate means to subscriptions, you can still use only a sub, as classic will have.

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Considering the shared sub, do you think Classic could encourage a growth in population of bots on retail?

I'm not really sure, since I believe Blizzard probably have a lot of anti-botting technologies in place in current WoW. I think if there was ever going to be a spike in botters, it would have been with the release of the WoW Token back in 2015. But again, I'm not too sure .

beached wrote: ↑

5 years ago

How do tokens make botting harder? I dont play retail currently, but my understanding is that tokens were just alternate means to subscriptions, you can still use only a sub, as classic will have.

Tokens dont make botting harder, but they disrupted the market and made botting less valuable. Bots create black gold which disrupts the economy as a whole. The token doesnt introduce new gold in the world, it simply allows for players that have earned gold legitimately to trade it between one another. There is no doubt that a token is pay to win. But the reality is that we will either have a token or gold farmers. While Blizz's anti-bot tech has improved, so have the programs that are being used to bot. You should see how well some of the bots on private server are mimicking human behavior! There was a clear distinction on private between shitty bots and the top tier bots. You can only imagine how good botting will get when serious programmers are incentivized to create programs for the larger playerbase of Classic. With a lower overhead for botting, and no token to disrupt competition and a higher demand for gold from retail players, I could see bots becoming a serious issue. This is all speculative and we'll have to wait and see.

My biggest worry doesn’t have much to do with classic itself, I’m worried about direction post Naxx. Ideally I’d like to experience TBC and all the neat events like the Dark Portal opening on my new classic character, however it seems the playerbase is quite divided on this aspect.

Luprecal wrote: ↑

5 years ago

My biggest worry doesn’t have much to do with classic itself, I’m worried about direction post Naxx. Ideally I’d like to experience TBC and all the neat events like the Dark Portal opening on my new classic character, however it seems the playerbase is quite divided on this aspect.

Shit, I'm divided in my own head about this.

Yeh my concerns are the eventual invalidation of my character. I hope they don't add too much extra content that invalidates my characters progress over the next two years. If they want to add more content (Patch 1.13+) or go to TBC, do it on a separate server.

Reiker wrote: ↑

5 years ago

1. Toxic community that will make me hate the game as it did on private servers. Going by the Classic WoW subreddit and the official forums, I'm not sure if things will be much different.

THIS. The feeling of the game will be different with a new generation/mentality coming to the game. My only hope is that the in-game community will police itself the way it use to and that players who feel it is their duty to ruin the game for others will be cast out and blacklisted. My initial thoughts on this were that toxic players will just leave the game when they find it not to their liking but as we all know there are those out there who love to wallow in misery and would rather hang around and troll or conduct guild-griefing operations and take pleasure in being despised by their own faction.