The other week I was in a dungeon group comprised of several raid team members* and the question of what happens after Wrath Classic came up.
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.
