> citation neededBlack Monarch wrote: ↑5 years agoActually, there is as much demand for MoP servers as there is for Classic and BC, and only slightly less for Cat. The most popular by far is Wrath.
You're the first person I've ever seen claim that MoP and Cataclysm needs to be brought back. I can't accept this claim of heavy demand for these at face value without something supporting this.
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Cataclysm was the best expansion. I am convinced it would be the most popular if brought back.Pippina wrote: ↑5 years ago> citation neededBlack Monarch wrote: ↑5 years agoActually, there is as much demand for MoP servers as there is for Classic and BC, and only slightly less for Cat. The most popular by far is Wrath.
You're the first person I've ever seen claim that MoP and Cataclysm needs to be brought back. I can't accept this claim of heavy demand for these at face value without something supporting this.
there were so many things I loved about TBC, and so many things I hated. Like others here say, I wish they'd consider a C+ route instead to bring in good things from TBC without changing the world, but I doubt they will do that, it seems silly to have a Classic and a Classic+ running side-by-side, but I think there would be backlash if they attempted to start mucking with Classic servers, unless they were extremely cautious.
RedridgeGnoll wrote: ↑5 years agoCataclysm was the best expansion. I am convinced it would be the most popular if brought back.Pippina wrote: ↑5 years ago> citation neededBlack Monarch wrote: ↑5 years agoActually, there is as much demand for MoP servers as there is for Classic and BC, and only slightly less for Cat. The most popular by far is Wrath.
You're the first person I've ever seen claim that MoP and Cataclysm needs to be brought back. I can't accept this claim of heavy demand for these at face value without something supporting this.
You mean the game that launched the steady downward spiral of subscriptions?
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It is a risk worth taking. I believe Classic WoW could return WoW to the glory it once had if Classic+ is handled correctly. The best part of MMORPGs is their open worlds. Once you turn them into lobby based instance simulators, you end up competing with so many other genres and games. That is when WoW loses. It worked in TBC because there was not much outside competition. That is not the case today. MMORPGs were about open world. That is what seperates Classic WoW from the expansions. Some instancing does work, but it should not be the focus.Spelevink wrote: ↑5 years agothere were so many things I loved about TBC, and so many things I hated. Like others here say, I wish they'd consider a C+ route instead to bring in good things from TBC without changing the world, but I doubt they will do that, it seems silly to have a Classic and a Classic+ running side-by-side, but I think there would be backlash if they attempted to start mucking with Classic servers, unless they were extremely cautious.
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One of the biggest misconceptions regarding WoW. Look at the chart. There was small growth during WOTLK. A lot of players burned out in WOTLK, especially during the second half. Remember there was almost no new content after ICC. Players moved on, and new games like League of Legends took players. The release of Cataclysm could not undo the damage that WOTLK had already caused. The formula that Blizzard implemented in TBC began to wear off during WOTLK.Pippina wrote: ↑5 years agoRedridgeGnoll wrote: ↑5 years agoCataclysm was the best expansion. I am convinced it would be the most popular if brought back.Pippina wrote: ↑5 years ago> citation neededBlack Monarch wrote: ↑5 years agoActually, there is as much demand for MoP servers as there is for Classic and BC, and only slightly less for Cat. The most popular by far is Wrath.
You're the first person I've ever seen claim that MoP and Cataclysm needs to be brought back. I can't accept this claim of heavy demand for these at face value without something supporting this.
You mean the game that launched the steady downward spiral of subscriptions?
I very frequently hear the "Thrall Era" referred to as a trilogy. And yeah, WotLK was the first expansion to have a "you killed the final boss of the final raid, congratulations!" cinematic, AND that cinematic just happened to conclude the storyline that began in Warcraft 3, which was the first time a Warcraft game actually had a story to speak of. It really felt like not just the end of WoW, but the end of the whole damn franchise... or at the very least, the end of a pentalogy consisting of WC3, The Frozen Throne, WoW, BC, and Wrath. That feeling wouldn't be recaptured until the end of Legion.
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The decline started in Cataclysm, not Wrath.RedridgeGnoll wrote: ↑5 years agoOne of the biggest misconceptions regarding WoW. Look at the chart. There was small growth during WOTLK. A lot of players burned out in WOTLK, especially during the second half. Remember there was almost no new content after ICC. Players moved on, and new games like League of Legends took players. The release of Cataclysm could not undo the damage that WOTLK had already caused.
Wrath was the beginning of the end for me. It took a lot of the cancer that TBC added and amplified it. Flying mounts everywhere, AOE spam everything, push-button-receive-group fully came online. Wrath started to lose my interest, and I quit completely after picking up cataclysm. Wrath was the beginning of the end and Cataclysm threw the final dirt on the coffin. I didn't want to play cataclysm then, and I wouldn't play it now either.
League of Legends didn't steal me away, I just went outside and started lifting. I kind of quit gaming in general after Cataclysm. The only game that has brought me back since has been brief stints of D3 and now Classic. I'm only interested in a certain specific type of gameplay and Classic brings that back.
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What you said is exactly what happened. WOTLK was when the population stopped growing. I quit multiple times in WOTLK, because it was boring. Also, how could Deathwing ever be as appealing as Arthas as a final boss. The playerbase was tired of how formulaic WoW had become. TBC started this by removing the emphasis on the world. A lot of more hardcore players left WOTLK because of how casual it became. Blizzard ramped up on the difficulty when Cata launched, but that then alienated casual players who joined during WOTLK.Pippina wrote: ↑5 years agoThe decline started in Cataclysm, not Wrath.RedridgeGnoll wrote: ↑5 years agoOne of the biggest misconceptions regarding WoW. Look at the chart. There was small growth during WOTLK. A lot of players burned out in WOTLK, especially during the second half. Remember there was almost no new content after ICC. Players moved on, and new games like League of Legends took players. The release of Cataclysm could not undo the damage that WOTLK had already caused.
Wrath was the beginning of the end for me. It took a lot of the cancer that TBC added and amplified it. Flying mounts everywhere, AOE spam everything, push-button-receive-group fully came online. Wrath started to lose my interest, and I quit completely after picking up cataclysm. Wrath was the beginning of the end and Cataclysm threw the final dirt on the coffin. I didn't want to play cataclysm then, and I wouldn't play it now either.
League of Legends didn't steal me away, I just went outside and started lifting. I kind of quit gaming in general after Cataclysm. The only game that has brought me back since has been brief stints of D3 and now Classic. I'm only interested in a certain specific type of gameplay and Classic brings that back.
Cataclysm is much closer to what Post-Classic should have been.
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Cataclysm? The expansion in which WoW's population began its decline? The expansion that destroyed the old world? The expansion whose final raid boss was a dragon from Warcraft 2 that most WoW players had never heard of? Yes, that Cataclysm. No expansion brought more features to WoW than Cataclysm. It was the best expansion WoW ever had, and it was the last expansion that Blizzard truly poured their hearts into.
There is so much nostalgia for The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King. But is there nostalgia for running around in mismatched gear? What about lagging in Dalaran or Shattrah, cities that were smaller than single wings in Ironforge. Or what about how the entire World of Warcraft was shrunk into a handful of zones on single continents. The decision by Blizzard to disregard the entire World in favor of focusing everything on small continents in these expansions is largely what hurt WoW.
WoW is an MMO. Why confine your players to small cities on 7 zone continents, when there is an entire World for players to enjoy? That design decision is what irrevocably damaged WoW. Instead of expanding on the Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms, Blizzard went ahead and trivialized them.
Cataclysm expanded on the old world. Zones like Hyjal, Uldum, and Vashjir were absorbed into Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms. Vashjir is perhaps the most underrated zone in all of WoW. Like many of you I did Hyjal over and over on my level 80s. Yet, finally experiencing the underwater world of Vashjir was far more memorable. Instead of forcing players onto small continents like Outland or Northrend, they were able to now remain connected with Azeroth, and with Horde vs. Alliance backdrop of Warcraft.
Consider some of the stuff that Cataclysm added. Worgen and Goblin. Two races that were rooted in the lore of Classic WoW. Gilneas and Lost Isles which offered some of the best starting zone experiences ever in the game. Cataclysm had more dungeons than any expansion, even bringing back favorites Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep. The dungeons in Cataclysm were varied, challenging, and rewarding. Dungeons, not Raids, are the strongest aspect of PvE in WoW.
Finally, we no longer had to run around in mismatched gear or be caught wearing the exact same raid tiers as hundreds of other players. Transmogrification opened up more customization than any other feature ever implemented. The thousands of gear drops littered throughout the world could now be worn and matched, instead of discarded as you outleveled them.
Battle for Gilneas and Twin Peaks are two of the best WoW battlegrounds. Inspired by Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin, these battlegrounds restored a lot of the glory of classic BGs. While I appreciated how experimental Wrath of the Lich King's Isle of Conquest and Strand of the Ancients were, they were also hated by a lot of the PvP community. Cataclysm also added Rated Battlegrounds, which was probably a better direction for PvP than Arena.
The reshaping of the old world zones and questlines was controversial, but Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms were improved in many ways due to questline reworks and additions. Players were back in the old world once again. The repopulation of Stormwind, Ironforge, Undercity, and Orgrimarr were good things for the game. It made it feel more like Warcraft again.
While I had my gripes with Reforging, it did offer more class customization than ever before. LFR is terrible, but the group finder system that was added during Cataclysm is something that should have always existed in the game. Allowing players on your server to search for PvE and PvP groups on your own server, so you wouldn't need to spam LFG channels.
Cataclysm had its flaws. All expansions did. Many here fail to realize that games like League of Legends became popular back then and WoW's population numbers suffered because of it. The design of Catalcysm is the direction Blizzard always should have taken. Unfortunately, it was too late by then. Expand the world, don't make it not matter anymore.
Blizzard dug their own grave for WoW by focusing too much on raiding and empty progression systems. I promise you that playing TBC and WOTLK today would be very different experiences than the ones you had 10+ years ago. We all known that those raids (BT, SWP, ICC) are better than what Cataclysm offered, but they also stole from of us the "World"in Warcraft.
BC made only three mistakes:
1) stat scaling so that a level 60 character in Naxx gear would be stronger than a level 70 character in the exact same gear
2) Breaking the link between item rarity, item level, and required character level, which in turn paved the way for greens being better than purples at the same required character level
3) removing the original level 60 Kazzak
Wrath made exactly three, completely different mistakes:
1) Removing the original level 60 Naxx and Onyxia
2) Heroic raiding
3) adding teleportation to the dungeon finder.
EDIT: this is obviously not counting garbage instances like Black Morass, Mount Hyjal, The Purple Prison, and the Argent Tournament.
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@Black Monarch I honestly can't tell if you are serious or not with your posts.
And I have the same issue with your posts.RedridgeGnoll wrote: ↑5 years ago@Black Monarch I honestly can't tell if you are serious or not with your posts.
RedridgeGnoll wrote: ↑5 years ago@Black Monarch I honestly can't tell if you are serious or not with your posts.
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Wrath made more then that.Black Monarch wrote: ↑5 years agoBC made only three mistakes:
1) stat scaling so that a level 60 character in Naxx gear would be stronger than a level 70 character in the exact same gear
2) Breaking the link between item rarity, item level, and required character level, which in turn paved the way for greens being better than purples at the same required character level
3) removing the original level 60 Kazzak
Wrath made exactly three, completely different mistakes:
1) Removing the original level 60 Naxx and Onyxia
2) Heroic raiding
3) adding teleportation to the dungeon finder.
EDIT: this is obviously not counting garbage instances like Black Morass, Mount Hyjal, The Purple Prison, and the Argent Tournament.
Class homogenization.
Dumbing down of world content and dungeons.
Started the modern "this patch invalidates last patch".
Greatly amplified vendor epics. To the point you could buy tier gear.
All this is somewhat irrelevant to whether or not they should release TBC servers. A lot of people don't prefer TBC or WOTLK, and if that's the case, you could just stay on classic servers. People worry about the classic community fragmenting, but they have been forced to open more and more servers just for classic. I think they could easily keep servers populated for each of the most popular expansions if they wanted to without killing any of the others. But maybe I'm just optimistic.
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How would you quantify or empirically evaluate any of those claims?
Using currency acquired from raids. Nowadays it's all purchasable with gold because Blizzard briefly tried to cut down on the number of in-game currencies, but that wasn't always the case... was it?
As long as most of a player's gear is dropped from bosses, and purchased gear is just used to fill in the gaps caused by bad RNG, I don't see how this is necessarily a bad thing. It's certainly nowhere near the horridness of farming Timeless Isle trash for ilevel 496 epic tokens to send to alts...
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From my "How would optional TBC/Classic+ servers look like" fan ideas from few months ago:
Fan-made content below:
Time for a new adventure?Welcome back, adventurer. I am known as Chronormu, but you may call me Chromie. I am comfortable with such familiarity.
I am one of the bronze dragonflight, forever attuned to the ebb and flow of time. You could say that we have met before. Or is this the first time we've met?
I'm in so many places and times right now, I sometimes have a hard time keeping track of all of it!
I recently came across two oddly shaped discombobulators. They both allow one-way travel through time!
If you like, I can show it to you.
A Curious Discombobulator allows a level 60 character in a World of Warcraft Classic server to transfer to a World of Warcraft Burning Crusade server.
This is a one time, one way transfer. Characters who are transferred to a Burning Crusade server will not be allowed
to go back to the Classic servers under any circumstances. Your character will get to keep all equipped items and gold,
as well what is in their bags. Bank contents will NOT be carried over.
A Curious Discombobulator is available for purchase from Chronormu for 500 gold.
Going forward, you will be able to create characters directly in a Burning Crusade server 2 months after its initial release.
A Tempered Discombobulator allows a level 60 character in a World of Warcraft Classic server to transfer to a World of Warcraft Classic+ server. Classic+ servers will be updated with new content; raids, items, battleground and more! Characters who are transferred to a Classic+ server will not be allowed to go back to the Classic servers under any circumstances. Your character will get to keep all equipped items and gold, as well what is in their bags. You can opt to transfer the bank contents as well, although this will remove all bank items from the original Classic servers.
You can obtain a Tempered Discombobulator via a new, repeatable quest chain.
You will need the following reputation levels and items to be able to progress the quest chain;Reward: 5 x Tempered Discombobulator
- Exalted with the Argent Dawn, 50 https://classic.wowhead.com/item=12811/righteous-orb; quest chain #1
- Exalted with the Hydraxian Waterlords, 5 https://classic.wowhead.com/item=17203/sulfuron-ingot, 5 https://classic.wowhead.com/item=18562/elementium-ore; quest chain #2
- Exalted with the Thorium Brotherhood, 100 https://classic.wowhead.com/item=11370/dark-iron-ore, 10 https://classic.wowhead.com/item=17010/fiery-core, 10 https://classic.wowhead.com/item=17011/lava-core; quest chain #3
- Revered with the Zandalar Tribe, 25 https://classic.wowhead.com/item=12804/powerful-mojo, 5 https://classic.wowhead.com/item=19943/massive-mojo; quest chain #4
- Honored with the Shen'dralar, 10 https://classic.wowhead.com/item=18240/ogre-tannin, quest chain #5
- Honored with the Cenarion Circle, 100 https://classic.wowhead.com/item=20404/ ... light-text; quest chain #6
- Honored with either the Gelkis Clan Centaurs or the Magram Clan Centaurs, 500 gold; quest chain #7
- Honored with the Brood of Nozdormu, 10 https://classic.wowhead.com/item=21230/ ... i-artifact, 25 https://classic.wowhead.com/item=21229/ ... s-insignia; quest chain #8
As the quest chain is repeatable, and Tempered Discombobulators are not soulbound, players will be able to trade these to their friends, or sell them in exchange for gold. Players will NOT be able to create a character directly in Classic+ servers, and can only transfer from existing Classic servers by using a Tempered Discombobulator.
The long and difficult quest chain with a steep time investment requirement is intended. This gives the guilds who have cleared all PvE content something to work for, and as the quest reward is 5 Tempered Discombobulators, players can set and work in teams. The Classic+ content will have the following:
Classic+ Stage 1Classic+ Stage 2
- Karazhan Crypts: 5 Man Dungeon
- Azshara Crater; 10v10 PvP battleground
- Uldum: Explorable zone with unique quests, a new reputation, and a 5 Man Dungeon
Classic+ Stage 3
- Karazhan: 40 man Raid (requires a legendary attunement quest)
...and many more!
- Emerald Dream: Explorable zone with unique quests, new reputations, and a 40 man Raid (requires a... yet another legendary attunement quest)
Powered by https://classic.wowhead.com/item=9061/g ... ocket-fuel, our Fuel Rats go above and beyond to help out others.
Will you answer the call?
Guild Info ~ Stories ~ Discord
Saying Cataclysm was the best WoW version is like spitting in my face. How could anyone say that.
Everyone I know who played in early WoW stopped with Cata, because it was so very terrible.
There is a reason why people are called "Catababies".
Kevin Jordan, one of the creators of the original WoW told a story about how he created the greatest and best game of all time,
but then Activision took it away from him and unleashed a "cataclysm" upon it.
They took away class identity, talent trees and everything was so streamlined it was like driving a car. Total monotony.
How do i quantify homogenization?Black Monarch wrote: ↑5 years agoHow would you quantify or empirically evaluate any of those claims?
Using currency acquired from raids. Nowadays it's all purchasable with gold because Blizzard briefly tried to cut down on the number of in-game currencies, but that wasn't always the case... was it?
As long as most of a player's gear is dropped from bosses, and purchased gear is just used to fill in the gaps caused by bad RNG, I don't see how this is necessarily a bad thing. It's certainly nowhere near the horridness of farming Timeless Isle trash for ilevel 496 epic tokens to send to alts...
Equalization of dps.
Classes without cc got cc
Classes without self healing got self healing
Classes without aoe got aoe.
How do i quantify world content/dungeons.
Leveling made even faster then before. I leveled up from 70 to 80 far faster then i went 60 to 70.
Furthermore dungeons is easy. We were clearing heroic dungeons in wrath, at launch, without cc and via just chain pulling and aoe.
It was laughable after burning crusade.
The last one is the easiest
When ulduar hit you could buy new badge gear + tier pieces that let you just skip naxx.
Same with when toc let you bypass naxx and ulduar.
And icc same thing.
Using currency from raids AND dungeons.
I feel like they're going to come out with BC, perhaps even Wrath if people are tired of BC's content, but that'll probably be it as Cataclysm was the start of its downfall. They'll just have to make "WoW 2" at some point as there's only so much they can do with retail as they're already heavily pushing their engine for the very limited things it can do.
Honestly, I really enjoyed Cataclysm until Dragon Soul came out with 4.3. That was an atrocious raid and the Caverns of Time dungeons weren't much better. In fact, I'll rate DS as top 3 worst raids in WoW. Only good thing in that patch was how they removed Reforging.Pippina wrote: ↑5 years agoRedridgeGnoll wrote: ↑5 years agoCataclysm was the best expansion. I am convinced it would be the most popular if brought back.Pippina wrote: ↑5 years ago> citation neededBlack Monarch wrote: ↑5 years agoActually, there is as much demand for MoP servers as there is for Classic and BC, and only slightly less for Cat. The most popular by far is Wrath.
You're the first person I've ever seen claim that MoP and Cataclysm needs to be brought back. I can't accept this claim of heavy demand for these at face value without something supporting this.
You mean the game that launched the steady downward spiral of subscriptions?
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I cannot understand how so many people who are excited about classic scream for *insert personal favourite expansion*. Like other people have made clear in this thread, the first expansion after vanilla started the awful formulaic experience that WoW became so quickly. Vanilla has an immense world that none of the expansions come close to, and this to me is what makes WoW so amazing.
I do, however, understand why people would be excited to replay the expansion in which they saw their own WoW prime, so to speak. The nostalgia and happy memories are great, and for me this would be TBC. Still, the way expansions insta-invalidate the rest of the world with their bigger and better numbers and somewhat contained zones is downright toxic to WoW, and TBC laid for foundation for every awful expansion that ever came after.
The cool thing about redoing vanilla with classic is that we can look back, and realise exactly what things steered WoW off the line in the beginning and try to correct these. Simply going down the preset path of already made expansions is missing the point by such a longshot that I'm impressed with how many people want this.
I can only compare to OSRS when talking about Classic+, and obviously Runescape is a very different game with lots of sidewards content which can more easily be added or changed. WoW is more about progressing upwards (bigger, better numbers again), so while it is not clear to me how Classic+ should be executed, I am convinced that the best way to preserve what we love about the vanilla game is to stay with vanilla but modify it slowly and carefully.
EDIT: I also do not believe in having multiple servers which are on different expansions. This will only confuse new incoming players and lessen the player base for all games.
