I believe this question is one that we'll have to confront sooner rather than later, because the WoW Classic team demonstrated in TBC Classic that they were willing to push harder and faster than the original timeline for TBC, and my opinion is they'll do the same for Wrath Classic. After all, there already has been a survey of options for a potential Cataclysm Classic, and those options skirted around one major issue: the Cataclysm and reworking of the Old World itself.
One person in the dungeon group started it off by saying that they had no interest in anything beyond Wrath Classic: this expansion was their swan song, and nothing after it would change their mind. Others held out hope for the Classic WoW team to create a divergent path from Wrath onward, thus skirting around Cataclysm and later expansions, but my suspicion is that simply isn't going to fly. Why would Blizzard create divergent timelines and double WoW's development effort when there's no real return given the current monetization of WoW Classic being part of the subscription price for WoW Retail? And if you said "Let Blizzard release new WoW Classic expansions for purchase," why would Blizz sow confusion among the ranks by having expansions for a game from the past?
I was the gloomiest of the assessments, stating that Cataclysm Classic is coming, and the WoW Classic team is trying to find a way to make it palatable to enough people to keep them playing, such as keeping the automated LFD tool in Retail only. I know of more than one person for whom they're actually looking forward to Cataclysm so they could play a Worgen**, but in general I don't know of many people who are looking forward to Cataclysm in general.
That doesn't mean that Cataclysm doesn't have its supporters, because I expect we'll hear from more and more of them the farther down the Wrath Phase release path we go. We're still in Phase One for a bit longer, and the expectation is that Phase Two --meaning the Ulduar raid-- will hit in January.
And let's be honest: Ulduar is considered a very difficult raid for the era, along the lines of original Naxx 40 or Sunwell Plateau in terms of difficulty. If the WoW Classic team steps its foot on the gas and starts burning through content once Ulduar is released, Wrath Classic might start bleeding players as they discover that Ulduar is much more difficult than Wrath's version of Naxxramas was.
So...
What are the other potential options for someone who reaches the end of their time in Wrath Classic and the WoW Classic team unveils Cataclysm Classic?
- Return to Classic Era WoW
That's a distinct possibility. I cloned several of my toons --although Linna is stuck at L26 or something in Classic Era-- but there's plenty of opportunity to continue to consume content as my players hadn't finished everything in the game. In the case of Cardwyn, she already has almost all of her BiS items --she missed out on the 1 Handed Weapon-- so she could just do whatever without any concerns for gear.
The major drawback to Classic Era WoW? No Neve or Quintalan. I mean, I'll survive, but I would miss Neve's Yang to Cardwyn's Ying. - Stay in Wrath Classic WoW Servers
This is a big question mark: would the WoW Classic team maintain some Wrath Classic servers in perpetuity? After all, they emphatically did not do that for TBC Classic when it ended; and if you think nobody cared, let me introduce you to Shintar. I personally would have been more interested in TBC Era servers myself, given that I was unable to continue raiding in TBC Classic. I'd like to get a chance to see the raids that I was unable to see --or in the case of The Eye at Tempest Keep, actually finish-- without any external pressures involved.
And hopefully on another toon than Briganaa; raiding with her has been... tainted by dealing with the pressure to do more and more DPS when I began coming up against the limitaitons of my own physical abilities. - Move to Retail
Dragonflight has gotten some good reviews from the player base, although to be fair the problems from Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands didn't really manifest until a couple of months after release. So while there's cause for optimism for Retail as an institution moving forward, I've decided that Retail is not for me. For all the people who say "try it, you might like it", Blizzard moved in a direction that was evident even back in Wrath that you are some superhero for merely doing the job asked of you, and I simply can't pick up Retail without being forced into that reality on a daily basis. My players are not superheroes, they began as raw recruits to assist Stormwind against a bunch of local thugs named the Defias. Or they were one of the few Draenei and/or Blood Elves remaining after their respective races were decimated by disasters far beyond their own control. They were there, and they began their journey to help their own people, no more and no less.
For me, this mirrors real life to a large extent. Just because I moved into management and have to deal with pushing paper and other managers and management from clients doesn't mean that I feel like I belong there. Like my toons in WoW, I'm an in-the-trenches person who does what they're supposed to do because... well, because that's what I committed to doing. And like them, I consider myself just an ordinary person doing their job. - Switch to another MMO
This is another tempting option, as I've played enough of them over the years. I've plenty of options to work with, such as SWTOR, LOTRO, ESO, and GW2. This might be the time I finally try out Final Fantasy XIV and go playing with my son.
But if I thought the "Chosen One" narrative was pretty thick in Retail WoW, that narrative is pretty much what you start out with in FFXIV.
And to be fair, just about every MMO I listed above has a "Chosen One" or "Chosen Hero" narrative to them in some form or another; it is, after all, a staple of the MMO genre.***
With one notable exception: Vanilla Classic WoW.
So... I've got some contemplating to do.
It would seem that my best option once Wrath runs out is to return to Classic Era servers, since they are going to be around for a while at least. However, I don't see clearly enough to know what it is that the Classic WoW team is thinking, and despite best intentions I also believe that this upcoming 2023 will be the last hurrah for several of my Classic WoW friends. That sucks, knowing the end is going to get here, but I understand their intentions to shut it down when Cataclysm Classic rolls out.
You can't prevent change, only deal with it.
*We were attempting the so-called World Tour, where you hit every single 5-person Wrath instance in one sitting. I suppose if you had the time and/or were fond of speed running you could do it, but we ran out of gas (and willpower) after 7 of them. We missed out on The Nexus and The Oculus, the latter of which is one of the least favorite 5-person Wrath instances among the raid team for some reason. I personally like The Oculus, but I am definitely in the minority.
**I never hear people saying they want to play a Goblin, only a Worgen.
***And video game RPGs in general.
You can count me among those people that won't go past WotLK. If they do a Cata Classic and nuke the Wrath servers, I'll be done with Classic altogether. I mean, I could go back to whatever they call the Classic Vanilla, but I'm not willing to grind up through it again, and for what?
ReplyDeleteI already play Retail. It doesn't SUCK, not deeply, but I'm like 1 out of 10 on the Engagement scale.
You know, I select "Google Account" and it never asked me for my identity. Blogspot must die.
DeleteWell, technically it's already dead. But the body is starting to become less functional.
I can actually tell you what's going on with Blogspot, and it's not what you might think: it's the antispam/anti-malware causing problems.
DeleteIn order for Google to remember who I am and allow me to comment as myself, I had to turn my Adblock Plus off on the parallelcontext.blogspot.com domain (and I think I did it for blogspot.com in general). That's because the cookies that are used to remember this stuff are being snuffed out by Adblock Plus and Chrome's own internal cookie/ad blocker (I use Firefox but I recognized similar behavior in Chrome). I don't know which of the cookies/ads are the culprit that would need to be whitelisted, but that's the reason why we're having these problems.
I use uBlock Origins for ad blocking and I don't believe I ever changed any of the defaults re google or blogspot, both of which have no problems knowing who I am when I comment. It's Wordpress blogs that give me trouble, especially those that use a lot of spam protection, some of which has blacklisted me apparently just because I commented more than once on a given blog.
DeleteuBlock seems to be better overall for me than Adblock Plus, or at least less aggressive, but yeah, it's the spam protection that is the primary culprit with these blogs.
DeleteLeaving aside the question of whether I'd play a Blizzard game at all, which could have been resolved by the Microsoft acquisition by the time CataClassic appears, Cataclysm is actually the era that most appeals to me. I've never played through those changed zones but I do know the originals just well enough to be able to make the comparisons. Having played other games that upended their worlds in similar fashion, I find it a fascinating process to observe. These days, with Classic servers abounding, there's not even the question of makeovers destroying the originals. It's more like there are cover versions by different artists and I really love a good cover.
ReplyDeleteHaving gone through the Cataclysm reworked zones, I know what to expect. I was initially excited for them all the way up until I went through them, and it was only then that I realized what the reworking actually did.
DeleteWere the quests more cohesive? Yes.
Were the quests better designed? Yes.
But did I like what the results were? Uh...
For every zone that the reworking seemed to go well, there were two that the reworking left a sour taste in my mouth. Instead of the Horde being a misunderstood bunch who were pretty good once you got to know them, Blizzard doubled down on the worst aspects of the Horde, turning them into villains of the worst sort. Additionally, changing the Horde/Alliance conflict from a cold war to a hot one meant that said conflict was front and center in all of the zones where the two met. The sheer ugliness of it all, compared to what was there before, deflated me and caused me to rethink what the hell I was doing even playing Horde in the first place. I guess you could say that Blizzard drank the kool-aid that angst and depression and hatred make for good plot devices, and while they may work for novels it simply felt in a lot of places that it was done just for the sake of doing so.
And for everybody who was surprised at how Sylvanas was portrayed in Shadowlands and Battle for Azeroth, did you not go through the reworked Tirisfal Glades, Hillsbrad Foothills, Arathi Highlands, or Felwood? For me, it seemed the natural continuation of making the Forsaken the most cartoonishly evil people you could possibly put in game. There was little to no nuance about it: the Forsaken were rotten to the core to the point where even Garrosh looked good by comparison. And as for the Alliance, well... I'm reminded of that line from Spaceballs where Darth Helmet says, "now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb." Let's just leave it at that.
Sorry about my response, Bhagpuss, but yeah you touched a nerve on that one.
Just don't do anything in Kalimdor if you play alliance. Maybe Feralas or further south, but definitely not Ashenvale or Stonetalon.
DeleteOh, and avoid Hillsbrad. That place is so f*cked up, regardless of what side you play.
Matt, you may be correct, but that entire premise is so messed up when you stand back and look at it. And to be fair, if you play Horde in Kalimdor, knowing now that Garrosh's ending to Stonetalon Mountains was a mistake by the WoW devs makes that entire storyline that began in Ashenvale even worse. You knowingly performed genocidal acts and the Warchief's response should have been "attaboy" instead of the calling to account by the Horde leaders in charge? Since this is Cataclysm and not any later expac, we haven't even gotten to Theramore and Teldrassil yet.
DeleteI’ve changed my previous thoughts about Cataclysm and beyond Classic. I hate the destruction of Cataclysm, but there were quality of life additions in Cataclysm and beyond that I am certain I will appreciate more now that I backtracked to the very beginning of Wow, as I’ve appreciated some, not all of the changes that came with TBC and Wrath. Atheren
ReplyDeleteMy argument is that I want to play all the expansions, in order, with most of the quality of life changes brought along; every spec viable, dual- or multi-spec, multi-tap nodes (*cough**Black Lotus*), aoe looting, etc.
DeleteBut of course this would probably require more investment of time and money than they are willing to put in.
Never say never, Matt. The farther along the expac chain Classic goes, the easier it is to simply pop in a previous environment in place. The data structures are more modern, and the backups of older versions of WoW were more comprehensive. I honestly think that the WoW Classic team is looking at all of the expacs as a potential source of money, since they're just sitting there, unused, in Retail.
DeleteWhile you know my frustrations and disgust with Cataclysm are pretty close to yours, I don't think those problems will have any real impact on Cata Classic.
ReplyDeleteTake removal of the old world. The only thing people will lose is faster leveling, but is there anyone under 60 in Wrath classic now? Last time I tried to get a dungeon going it was me and two other people queuing for the low 20s. The fact that they brought back the 50% boost a month ago kinda tells the story that there really isn't going to be anyone playing that content anyhow. Besides, if they want to level the old stuff for nostalgia reasons it's there in era and maybe in Wrath Classic, assuming they don't remove it too. (I still think the gutting of TBC servers was a bad choice, but what do I know?)
Or how about minimal non-raid and non-pvp content for the middle of the expansion without any real catch-up mechanics? It might hurt the overall playerbase numbers, but it seems like everyone is currently playing to raid or pvp, not run dungeons or do outdoor content.
Seems like the only real issue is the three raid tiers instead of 4. So the expansion will be over faster. Maybe a blessing in disguise lol.
I won't say too much but I will say that yes, there are people leveling in the Old World now. I see requests in LFG for lower instances, such as Strat, BRD, or even Wailing Caverns and Stocks. People aren't asking for boosts, but are looking for actual bonafide people to group with.
Delete