not that you asked, but i’ll play. Its a huge time sink so probably wont play it enough. oh well still looking forward to leveling and stuff.
Yeah I don’t have the free time I used to and it’s hard to recreate that taste. BoA pretty much killed any faith I have in Blizzard and WoW.
all the vanilla top players are saying Blizzard are actually making all the right decisions with classic. That makes me hopeful, but i’m not gonna play it enough to cry if it sucks. I havent played since cata so i dont know anything about retail other than most people seem to hate it.
The consumable expectations even for bad guilds is going to be insane at 60. I say this as someone who cleared about halfway into naxx in actual vanilla. Hard pass. Prediction: The playerbase is going to absolutely crater when people run into the time realities of leveling beyond level 40. I could go on and on.
Its all very possible. I mainly played in BC some in vanilla and some in Wrath. I love the grind and adventure part of it all.
I made my first dude in March of 04 and played a lot. Too much. Since Classic was announced I've been semi-following the way that people on private servers who have been playing vanilla for like a decade play now. From my observations, even the best guilds then weren't using consumables on the level that's going to be the expectation now until Naxx, if even that. I haven't played much BfA, but I played a fair amount in Mists, WoD, and Legion, and the quality of the actual raiding and 5man content is 100x better now than it was then. The challenge now is that the content is actually challenging if you want to do mythic raiding or push high mythic+ keys. If 1-2 people die before execute range in mythic raids now, it's probably a wipe unless a boss is on total farm. You can adjust the margin +/- a few players depending on the fight, but it's that tight. It's not uncommon for good guilds to need 100+ attempts on hard mythic bosses before a first kill. The challenge in 40 man raids is mainly gear checks (or consumable checks) and getting 40 people to do what they're supposed to do (e.g. not afk, be prepared with maxed consumables, etc.). I'm not trying to shit on Classic/Vanilla WoW. I loved it. But it's a completely different game now, for the better. For example, Flask of the Titans will absolutely be required if you want to push content with the shitty itemization available at Classic release. This requires stonescale eels, which can only be fished during the night. And the drop rate is low enough that you're either going to need a crew of people to fish overnight, or someone like me in Vanilla who used a bot to fish all night at least 3 days a week. Also the best places for fishing eels are in pvp zones, so have fun.
For example, you're not going to have access to Dire Maul and pvp items until "phase 2," BGs until "phase 3," and ZG comes in "phase 4," which even on an accelerated timeline is going to be 6 months after release. This means the itemization is going to royally suck ass at least until then. And how do you offset this? Consumables. TONS of consumables. The playerbase is much, much better than it was then, but still, people will get impatient because the Molten Core and Blackwing Lair bosses are so easy in terms of mechanics but their tanks will be getting crushed and/or healers will be running out of mana because they're trying to push content much faster than they did originally. Again, the answer to this is consumables. People were okay with a raid taking a few months back then. I seriously doubt they will be now. Attrition and poaching will be an even bigger problem for guilds than it was then, imo.
I'll give a small anecdotal example. My vanilla guild was pretty good, but nothing special. Healer and tank attrition was a constant problem, even though we were somewhere between the 2nd and 4th best guild on a high pop server throughout Vanilla. Getting people to show up was never an issue until the end (when consumable farming was required), but when most bosses drop like 4 pieces of loot for 40 people, it becomes a major problem over time when your healers and tanks stop showing up. Our main tank ghosted the guild partway through AQ and we never really recovered. I can't say I blame him, considering the time commitment that tanking required. He wasn't even very good, but the time invested into gearing him with Thunderfury, which my guild was super unlucky with, and pretty much BiS to that point was just a total loss. With shitty droprates it could take months in Vanilla to replace someone like that from square one. How do you make up for shitty droprates? Lots of consumables. Compare it to now where it takes like like 3 weeks, give or take, of concentrated effort to gear a tank.
Classic feels like it'll be less about less about end game content and more about the journey. I haven't heard, but I'd like to see Blizzard find away from removing all competitive aspects of raiding other than gear so people just get on and have a good time with friends.
I would guess the competitive aspect will be worse, since consumables are so strong early on. Flask of Supreme Power will give at least a 1/3 boost in spell power on pre-raid bis gear for warlocks and mages, for example.
I suppose my hope is that the grind is so tough it'll discourage people from racing to 60, and no one cares who downs raids first. Hell, I'm all for not even having raiding for a long time after launch.
In keeping roughly with how Vanilla was, MC and Ony will be available at launch. Iirc ony was added after release, but only like a month later. This predates when I started by a bit and when I was actually able to do that content originally by a lot Also mc dropped tier 1 and 2 at that time, but I kind of doubt that will happen this time around https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pc...rcraft-classic-will-be-split-into-six-phases/
I get the issues. but theres also a lot of positives that i feel you glance over. Sure the hardcore raiders who play on private servers will have a totally other mindset this time around and it probably will rub off some to worse players. Its less than ideal, but thats what happens when a game is this old and people had 15 years to play around with it. But i think you overlook the fact that it will also bring in a lot of people like me that was a casual in Vanilla and who havent done any of the raids and maybe they wont get to them again. It will also bring in a lot of new players that have never done anything in vanilla. Will everyone like it? no def not, but thats okay. but some will stick around, it will be interesting to see how many do. I’ve also heard that raids are better now, but i doubt that this is all about raiding to most people. I think WoW looks dull as fuck now, no progression curve in leveling etc. A lot of people seem miss the challenge and sense of accomplishment of vanilla. Maybe they wont after a month. time will tell. What i’m saying is that i think for people who played a lot and was good at the game back then or playing private servers yea maybe it wont be so great, but thats a very little procentage of the people who’ll play. Will it be a success? I dont know. Will i play it to get some nostalgia and have fun running around and leveling. def. will i clear all end game content? probably not, but maybe.
I raided on Nostalrius in a Vanilla Guild that was on the same release schedule as actual Vanilla and it was a ton of fun. In those instances you were playing with the cream of the crop playerbase and typically with no life. I mained a combat sword rogue with a viskagg and a brut blade and it was a ton of fun. We killed C’Thun and life got in the way before they released Naxx but the game was way easier than it was in the day simply because of addons, technology, and familiarity. Gear check was a thing still, but bc it was vanilla private these were no-lifers anyway. We as a group killed Baron about 250 times to get 2 capes since they’re best in slot before the dragon patch (Puissant Cape) and the group didn’t bat an eye. It was putting a check mark by a DPS spreadsheet and that’s all that mattered. We never had trouble forming groups though I will say raids were tenuous with the egos. I remember doing BWL in vanilla and phase 3 nefarian would lag my computer to death. We wiped more because of that than anything else. Vael, Suppression room, and chromaggus were all soooo much simpler on the private server. People knew what to do and what and how to spec their characters. Looking back in vanilla, our 40 man raid probably ran with about a 28-30 man efficacy simply because of incompetence. We cruised through MC on nostalrius at release of it without hardly any FR gear just due to familiarity. Honestly the hardest PVE content was the dragons and Kazzak due to same and opposing faction griefing and world PVP and that was super fun. I’m gonna watch how it goes, but i think classic will be much easier and smoother than people think.
I’ve read people are excited that classic will still be hard unlike retail which is just throw bodies and time and you’ll get there and I’m saying it won’t be.
Well i dont really think people think raiding will be all that hard. From what i’ve seen people look forward to have progession they actually care about other than an item level number and farming mounts.
Like, individual mobs are more dangerous but that doesnt necessarily make them more challenging. You still do the same rotation dance you do in the current game, it just takes longer
while you def have a point i dont think you take into account that your kit is way more limited in classic. now everyone has crowd control, AoE, disengage etc so its a lot easier to get out of bad situations. Classic will punish you for those mistakes. Retail wont (questing leveling) You guys seem to only think end game content but from reading a lot of posts on reddit and other places. people are mostly excited because they want progression that feels like it matters, they wanna go through the old world, they wanna world pvp. Sure they will also endgame raid and sure it’ll be too easy too quickly, but i just dont think its all people care about.
ah okay so i cant add something i feel you glossed over? because you played a lot? And you didnt comment on my last part. dont you think theres a possibillity that people could find a lot of enjoyment in the game even if the end game raiding isnt “hard” enough? looks like a lot of people enjoy private servers and most of them are probably people who played vanilla a lot like you.
I mean, I was literally there. You werent. And it's not just that I "played a lot." I progressed further than 99% of the playerbase. I loved retail vanilla wow but I also think people only remember the high points and not the vast majority of playtime in between them.
Yes you definitely get punished for leveling because you have to actually level bandages and buy food, however, there’s addons like Questie and such that make leveling a breeze and minimize/skip a lot of the vanilla fat. Leveling was hard for warriors (vanilla main) because your uptime is really limited and escape is totally absent. Plus you’re gonna lose every world PvP encounter because it has very little survivability. I would pop recklessness and hope they were low on mana. Leveling fury helps some, but not enough. The admittedly hard part will be on low pop vanilla servers because there are definite leveling gear checks.
I was a mage in Vanilla as well. Doing either priest or rogue as my first character this time around.
I remember Vanilla when the server pop started to drop off before Naxx. I can't imagine Classic WoW is going to sustain a huge or even medium-sized player base. How many players were on those private servers? 12K? And that was worldwide. Classic will probably be dead within 3 months. Newer players are going to quit when they realize they have to walk everywhere, everything is expensive, aggro is no longer a joke, etc. Also have to keep in mind that Blizzard is 100% going to do something to fuck things up by trying to monetize some aspect of the game. They are a company that is struggling badly right now.
The larger private servers were in that 10Kish range. The original vanilla severs had like a 3k cap, though, so I'll be interested to see how they handle that. Sharding would go pretty much against the principle of every server being it's own little community that people enjoyed so much
They said that sharding will only happen in starting zones at launch. but they havent talked about it since blizzcon, so they could obviously go back on their word.
I'll be interested to see which bugs and "bugs" make it in and which ones dont For a time you could use the disgusting oozling to wipe all debuffs on demand. I imagine something like will be out. But if you strafe-jumped at the same time a warrior charged you, he would charge to your original location and you would be out of range for the duration of the charge stun. Although not intended, that was an essential part of higher level vanilla pvp. Same with blink really only being reliable on flat terrain
They are doing spell batching, but idk if this is the exact same as youre talking about. https://www.wowhead.com/news=290910/spell-batching-in-classic-wow
That wasn't a bug. Wish they would have removed it though. It lowers the skill cap (Vanilla already has a low enough skill cap).
Charge/intercept/intervene have always had weird bugs because I'm guessing that writing rules for those abilities gets complicated when you're dealing with such varied 3d terrain There was a time that intervene worked as long as the x, y, and z location of the target were within the specified range, but had no check on distance traveled. It wasnt super useful outside of warsong gulch, but it was fun for awhile
The "spell batching." Vanishing 3 minute cooldowns was always pretty funny though. From what I remember, blink was pretty reliable as long as you didn't do it across terrain "objects" along the Z-axis.