WoW XIX: This is my Artifact. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

[Togath]

Hmm...
Should I record once-per-account stuff that may-or-may-not end up as part of a video guide I make later, just in case?
Like, recording every single step of all four falcosaur quest lines(which give pets, toys, and mounts, all in under a month) is possible, but it's time consuming and I keep missing stuff due to lag when in a pet battle, for instance, and I'm not sure a long video would actually be useful compared to a written guide with pictures. But I lack any knowledge of where I could make such a guide. any advice? I know very very very little about what is out there on the internet for such things.

[Delusion]

The Argus patch is looking more and more like a mini-expansion. I'm wondering if this was supposed to be the next expansion and during development someone important realized "the player base is going to be sick of the Legion by this time, we need to wrap this up".

Well when we got WoD devs said they were aiming for shorter and more frequent expansions but the players complained (esp as people didn't believe the more frequent part) and then when Legion was announced the devs said that they are doing longer expansions again. So it would make sense if originally Legion was supposed to end with Sargeras but the devs decide to merge Legion with the next short expansion.

[Sian]

Well ... they just removed most of the reputation gates the Suramar questlines

Nightfallen requirements removed from several Suramar quests, making it possible to complete the Suramar campaign without reputation gates.

[Togath]

Heads up, the Lucid Nightmare mount has been solved at last. Also the non-chinese clues for a step might have been messed up by Blizzard. Thankfully, the Chinese version wasn't. On the other hand, even then it was pretty absurd(requiring the solver to have several max level murloc battlepets). The other steps were pretty fun(as a tip, all dark iron dwarves in searing gorge drop the mask recipe, so don't drop 140,000 gold on one) aside from the maze of nightmares. Maps sorta work, but it takes some serious effort even with one.

[Psyren]

This thread seemed to have gotten buried, or is there a newer one? What are everyone's thoughts on the new expansion and the vanilla server announcements?

[Kish]

If they actually launch servers that are classic WoW, instead of, "You didn't actually want the old talent system back, surely," or, "you wouldn't want to not have the lovely cross-realm dungeon queues, would you?" I'll be amazed. Pleased, but amazed.

[Antonok]

It's a bit funny. People are already split on what they want with vanilla servers. Some want just plain servers exactly like it was, bugs and 640x480 res included, and some would at least like the major bugs and graphics brought up to date (with or without new char models). Some even want more modern things like transmog added in.

Will be interesting to see how Blizzard handles it. I'd be surprised if they didn't fix the major bugs and update the graphics at least partially to work with today's moniters/resolutions.

[Psyren]

Ugh, I could see them going back to the hideous textures too. This is the same company that murdered their own graphics and movement systems for a Diablo event.

If they actually launch servers that are classic WoW, instead of, "You didn't actually want the old talent system back, surely," or, "you wouldn't want to not have the lovely cross-realm dungeon queues, would you?" I'll be amazed. Pleased, but amazed.

I would wager a substantial sum that "Nostalrius 2.0" will indeed roll back both of those things. Some people are just down for riding out to the meting stone, and 31/20 builds.

Of course, which talents they end up putting in the tree will be another matter entirely; I doubt they'll go with the ones that were in the release version of Vanilla without any modification at all.

[The Glyphstone]

Vanilla release also didn't have lstuff like Naxx 40, which people loved. So I suspect they'll put in a base around 1.11 or 1.12, the last pre-BC patch cycle. Maybe with updated graphics.

[Sian]

Vanilla release also didn't have lstuff like Naxx 40, which people loved. So I suspect they'll put in a base around 1.11 or 1.12, the last pre-BC patch cycle. Maybe with updated graphics.

I would hope that they'd also at least make it possible for non-warriors to tank ... Don't know how many actually remember, but Feral Druid was a kitty/pvp spec and Prot Paladin was a healer pvp spec

[Psyren]

The more I think about this the more my head hurts. Will we need Int plate on our pallies again? Will mages have to stop and drink between pulls? Will Shamans be tanking with rockbiter weapon and a shield? Will hunters need to track ammunition? Will priests need to equip a wand for when they inevitably go oom while questing, and will their racial spells come back? Will we have to worry about weapon skills again? Will Paladins and Warlocks be the only ones with a mount right at 40 because theirs don't cost 100g?

Nostalrius didn't have to worry about all this because they weren't crafting a paid product - it was as much a Smithsonian exhibit as it was a game, so people were willing to overlook all the questionable design choices for nostalgia's sake. Blizzard won't have that luxury; they'll either piss off the purists or piss off the rose-tinted goggle crowd who only thought they knew what they wanted, and they won't have "it's free" as a defense.

[Seerow]

Honestly if they try to modernize the vanilla wow experience at all, I feel like it would be missing the point entirely. I am not the target audience for it at all, and don't expect to play, but the people clamoring for a vanilla server will continue to clamor if they get something with QOL changes or changed balance.


As far as the new expansion, I am more optimistic about it. I haven't logged in for the last month, and that makes me sad because I actually did enjoy Legion I just could not keep up with the grind while working and still have time for any of my other games (or really anything else). The Island Expeditions have me pretty excited though. Scenarios were my favorite form of content in MoP, and I sorely missed them since they left. The Warfronts at least sound interesting, and it sounds as though the new artifact system is going to be pretty neat.

[Kish]

Honestly if they try to modernize the vanilla wow experience at all, I feel like it would be missing the point entirely. I am not the target audience for it at all, and don't expect to play, but the people clamoring for a vanilla server will continue to clamor if they get something with QOL changes or changed balance.

Yes, this. (Except that, while I'm very much part of the target audience, I won't clamor, having given up on them ever realizing they had a market here long ago; if they try to peddle a "classic WoW, only with these changes that you surely all agree are improvements!" I'll just roll my eyes and not give them my money.)

That means yes, intellect plate for paladins and strength mail for enhancement shaman, ammunition and food for hunters, and so on. They can update the graphics to work on newer systems, as long as they don't let the shoulderpads fetishists in their current art department anywhere near it.

[Psyren]

Yes, this. (Except that, while I'm very much part of the target audience, I won't clamor, having given up on them ever realizing they had a market here long ago; if they try to peddle a "classic WoW, only with these changes that you surely all agree are improvements!" I'll just roll my eyes and not give them my money.)

That means yes, intellect plate for paladins and strength mail for enhancement shaman, ammunition and food for hunters, and so on. They can update the graphics to work on newer systems, as long as they don't let the shoulderpads fetishists in their current art department anywhere near it.

Huh. I didn't honestly believe that anyone actually enjoyed those sacred cows, but the evidence before my eyes is irrefutable.

I think your skepticism is right on the money though, they're likely going to mess with the Coke formula the minute they really start this in earnest.

As far as the new expansion, I am more optimistic about it. I haven't logged in for the last month, and that makes me sad because I actually did enjoy Legion I just could not keep up with the grind while working and still have time for any of my other games (or really anything else). The Island Expeditions have me pretty excited though. Scenarios were my favorite form of content in MoP, and I sorely missed them since they left. The Warfronts at least sound interesting, and it sounds as though the new artifact system is going to be pretty neat.

I enjoyed Legion at first too but your experience mirrors my own. I don't mind a grind if the small-scale gameplay is there - Diablo, Starcraft Co-Op and now Destiny are proving that to me - but in WoW, it felt like your only hope for the good stuff was raids and I just do not have the earthly time to commit to that particular treadmill, nor even all the treadmills leading up to that treadmill, and not the treadmills leading to those either.

Acquiring the artifacts was fun though.

[Winthur]

They left the mechanics of Starcraft Brood War entirely untouched sans for the ability to make your own keybinds when they made the Remaster, so I'm going to assume that they're going to go all the way with the "oldschool" experience and limit the rest of the game to QoL. SC:R also didn't do any buffs or nerfs in its patch cycle, just some bugfixes related to the projectile limit of the Valkyrie, which is a very minor addendum.

And also, I think that it was quite poignant to put the "You think you want it but you don't" guy as the announcer for WoW Classic. I believe they will just keep the Classic as it is and put Legion and Classic into a single subscription model, so that there is plenty of opportunity for regulars to either relive their old stuff or experience something they missed without feeling like they're investing into crap. I envision something similar to SC:BW; one-time 15$ fee to access the not-so-new-not-expansion and you keep paying the regular subscription that unlocks Legion/BfA content.

I really doubt the "rose tinted goggle" crowd that will quickly become disenchanted will be particularly substantial; people more likely to play a bit and leave are ones coming over to do some window shopping, especially if it turns out both Classic and Current will share a single subscription.

If SC:BW fans were extremely concerned about changes to core gameplay like the 12-unit limit and wonky Reaver projectiles and bad Dragoon pathfinding, it's safe to assume Blizzard won't touch the classic mechanics either. That probably means the same spec issues as vanilla WoW had, but I don't think anyone hoping for a vanilla server expected any more; plenty of people still played on Nostalrius in spite of these inconveniences and embraced the strengths of the wonky approach. And Brood War is working out pretty well for them, the Remastered ladder system has plenty of players on it, so they probably at least did not lose money on it. And I bet the revitalized interest around the Starcraft brand looks good to shareholders.

The WoW Classic announcement and the SC:R announcement prior to that were a huge beacon of hope for those who also want D2 and WC3 to gain some tracking again (and the latter does, WC3 got some QoL patch for mapmakers recently); those people still keep a tight community around those old games and I doubt they want radical changes and meta shakeups like harsh Blademaster nerfs or whatever.

[Alent]

Making the "You think you do but you don't" guy eat crow on stage with that awful icecream joke was brilliant. The fact he later claimed he didn't remember making that quote in an interview made it all the more enjoyable.

As to how they're going to do it, I'm guessing it'll just be the last pre-BC patch modified to let them open up the raid tiers like they would've opened on Vanilla. I'm also expecting them to backport the newer Lua engine and b.net integration, bad still-unfixed cata UI taint bugs and all, and I have this deep fear that they'll ruin it all by adding modern LFD/LFR and item level chokes as an intentional way to sabotage the classic community.

I missed out on Vanilla, having started mid to late BC, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what the Vanilla experience was like, really hoping for a pretty authentic experience as I will probably be playing with some old guildies of mine from BC/Wrath who told me many a tale of how their Vanilla experiences went. Also, I liked vanilla/BC gear with all it's eccentricities. I liked some of the odd builds you could do with suboptimal/bad stats, and how it kept gearscore from being a thing with how BIS was never about brainlessly equipping all your highest item level gear.

[Togath]

Sort of random... have they released many details on how the 1-80 experience will work now?
I heard something about scaling... will zones still have minimum levels and just scale up(and how far will they scale up? Could I replace part of outland with the awesome Eastern Plaguelands stuff?)? Or could I go out of order?
Also kind of curious if they'll scale for everyone or just the new races.

And on the topic of the new races... anyone else remember that leak a few weeks ago where all six plus some of their armor were datamined? Makes me think BfA may be further along than expansions normally are when they announce them. I definitely think we're looking at something earlier than November 2018, if nothing else(especially with supposedly the release date of the last Legion update coming this month).

[Morphic tide]

My view on the ideal management of Classic servers is the same as my view on Project Ascension:

Have the original, functional, version on one bugfixed engine with identical mechanics to what it started with. The hyper-jank of starting Project Ascension was hilarious(Let's give players the ability to use every ability in the game! And put talents on enchantments, too!) and pleasing vanilla purists kills a large chunk of the Private Server sector.

Then have one that keeps the central experience but fix the problems, making selection of every ability in the game balanced in Ascension's case(I do not envy the poor fools...) and making every spec's vanilla layout properly viable and not OP in the Classic server's case(Priest bubble tank, maybe?)

If I were on the team for the "fixed" fork, I'd see about reworking level range layouts. A major problem right up to cata was how the zone layout was a disgusting mess, and cata largely failed to fix this. Witness the glorious mess of the Blood Elf starting experience, being right next to a neutral level 55 zone filled with high-level players just waiting to stomp nublet face in. Had they not borked gear scaling by having level 61 greens on par with naxx 40 blues(what the hell, 2008 Blizzard?), Silvermoon raids would be right up there with Crossroads raids in severity. Also, Outland Clown Syndrome could be avoided for experienced raiders.

[Winthur]

Sort of random... have they released many details on how the 1-80 experience will work now?
I heard something about scaling... will zones still have minimum levels and just scale up(and how far will they scale up? Could I replace part of outland with the awesome Eastern Plaguelands stuff?)? Or could I go out of order?
Also kind of curious if they'll scale for everyone or just the new races.

They're aiming at making sure that you no longer will outlevel your zone and be forced to move somewhere else every few levels, which means that if you want to actually follow a questline and complete it, the game will no longer discourage you from doing so.

Levels 60-80 will allow you to quest in Outland or Northrend interchangeably, allowing you to experience those quests in whatever order you desire. That means you can stay in your favourite zone for as long as you wish, whether it is Icecrown or Hellfire Peninsula.

[Psyren]

*snip*

I dunno, I think equating Brood War to WoW may be a mistake. They are in entirely different ecosystems when it comes to niche appeal and such.

Also, the BW folks were expecting a remaster and that's what they got, so of course they were happy. Doing the same in Classic might actually piss people off, even if they just limit it to the models and textures. I'm thinking they should have left well enough alone, but I could end up being pleasantly surprised.

Also, Outland Clown Syndrome could be avoided for experienced raiders.

What's this?

[Morphic tide]

What's this?

The eye-searing mismatch of gear that Outland questing brought. People didn't level at a pace that let them finish item sets and the different quest lines had different sets. It was rare to see a person with more than one matching item.

[Psyren]

The eye-searing mismatch of gear that Outland questing brought. People didn't level at a pace that let them finish item sets and the different quest lines had different sets. It was rare to see a person with more than one matching item.

Ah right, the outfits! That takes me back.

I think the early Outland blues were just hideous in general, even when you had a full "set." Then they ran headlong in the other direction in Northrend, where every single quest and dungeon blue looked basically the same until you hit cap.

[Tyndmyr]

If they actually launch servers that are classic WoW, instead of, "You didn't actually want the old talent system back, surely," or, "you wouldn't want to not have the lovely cross-realm dungeon queues, would you?" I'll be amazed. Pleased, but amazed.

Yup, this is what I want. Modern balance is unnecessary, I wanna replicate the old feel.

I don't much care if they include a bunch of bug patches, and honestly, I have no specific patch number that I feel it *must* be, but yeah, actual functionality should be limited to things that existed in vanilla. I *liked* cobbling together half baked groups of people to say, PUG molten core before anyone had actually beaten it. Yeah, it was a train wreck, but you did actually get to know people.

I would hope that they'd also at least make it possible for non-warriors to tank ... Don't know how many actually remember, but Feral Druid was a kitty/pvp spec and Prot Paladin was a healer pvp spec

Played a bear druid in vanilla. Would disagree. Yeah, that was the common wisdom at the time, but if you optimized gear exceedingly carefully, you had ridiculous armor and hp compared to others.

Paladins, well....yeah, okay, they did have a bit of a boring playstyle in raids. Pally tanks had it rough in raiding. That said, raiding wasn't everything in vanilla. There was a *lot* of just mucking around the world.

The more I think about this the more my head hurts. Will we need Int plate on our pallies again? Will mages have to stop and drink between pulls? Will Shamans be tanking with rockbiter weapon and a shield? Will hunters need to track ammunition? Will priests need to equip a wand for when they inevitably go oom while questing, and will their racial spells come back? Will we have to worry about weapon skills again? Will Paladins and Warlocks be the only ones with a mount right at 40 because theirs don't cost 100g?

If there is a god, then yes.

The point of a vanilla server isn't all the modern improvements. If you want those things, you can experience most content in vanilla on a modern server. Just...go to the right spot. Bringing back the legacy playstyle, grinding and all, is essential. Folks who enjoy most of those things are currently playing, and throwing money at Blizzard as is. People who fell out of the game, but who'll come back for a hit of nostalgia juice, are the ones who matter. They translate into more money for Blizzard, which is of course the main motivation.

Honestly, I hadn't ever even planned to revisit WoW until I heard of this announcement.

[Spore]

Truly a hero of the common folk:

Spoiler

Show

[Kish]

Played a bear druid in vanilla. Would disagree. Yeah, that was the common wisdom at the time, but if you optimized gear exceedingly carefully, you had ridiculous armor and hp compared to others.

I think some people are thinking "WoW Classic" means the game at launch, and others (including all the people who are actually interested in it, most likely) are thinking it means just after Naxxramas was introduced.

I am continuingly discouraged by Brack having said they're debating whether to make UBRS (not LBRS) 5-player or 10-player. Hopefully it's just indicative of how little he actually remembers/knows about pre-BC WoW, and someone who knew what he was talking about and didn't mean they were already seriously considering keeping their later dungeon "improvements" would have said "15-player or 10-player."

[Tyndmyr]

I think some people are thinking "WoW Classic" means the game at launch, and others (including all the people who are actually interested in it, most likely) are thinking it means just after Naxxramas was introduced.

I am continuingly discouraged by Brack having said they're debating whether to make UBRS (not LBRS) 5-player or 10-player. Hopefully it's just indicative of how little he actually remembers/knows about pre-BC WoW, and someone who knew what he was talking about and didn't mean they were already seriously considering keeping their later dungeon "improvements" would have said "15-player or 10-player."

1.12 is pretty standard for private servers, so that's...likely. Even if initially they start somewhere earlier, it's likely that at some point they'll add in all the vanilla content. Maybe they'll do a rolling unlock similar to the real timeline, maybe something else, but sooner or later, folks are going to want to hit all the raid dungeons from pre-BC.

Honestly, it took me a second to remember that upper was 15/10. Scholo was the 10 that became 5. But it didn't click until I heard people complaining about the UBRS thing. I'm not overly worried about him not remembering a precise detail from a decade back. That's...trivia at this point. Important in re-creation, to be sure, but they have the original source code, and a running legacy server to model off of. The coders will know what number of people could go into what instance, even if a talking point got flubbed.

[Corvus]

Seems the announcement of Classic Servers is leading to a bit of fragmenting of those who wanted it from what I've seen. Everyone seems to have a different opinion on what classifies as Classic and what, if any, changes should be made.

I played WOW since open beta and I certainly enjoyed it. The only interest Id have in classic would be to go back and see the world as it was before Cata messed it up, to visit old NPCs. To hang out in Camp T again before the alliance scum massacred the place. Things like that.

The long grind, the lack of bag space, everything (ie mounts, tabards, pet, clothes, ammo etc) taking up bag space, having to run everywhere for the first 40 levels, the long runs back to bodies, especially in the Barrens, after dying, the lack of class and spec balance, the restrictions on mounts based on race, wouldn't be fun again.

Though I would be interested in the AV battles that lasted for days on end. Those were epic and fun.

Maybe I will roll up one of the god tier classic pvp specs and spend my time in AV again.

[danzibr]

I remember thinking I really wanted to play as a Tauren with a rack. Wish granted!

[Psyren]

Seems the announcement of Classic Servers is leading to a bit of fragmenting of those who wanted it from what I've seen. Everyone seems to have a different opinion on what classifies as Classic and what, if any, changes should be made.

Well there's a shocker.

The point of a vanilla server isn't all the modern improvements. If you want those things, you can experience most content in vanilla on a modern server. Just...go to the right spot. Bringing back the legacy playstyle, grinding and all, is essential. Folks who enjoy most of those things are currently playing, and throwing money at Blizzard as is. People who fell out of the game, but who'll come back for a hit of nostalgia juice, are the ones who matter. They translate into more money for Blizzard, which is of course the main motivation.

I don't disagree, but what flavor of nostalgia juice? That's the question.

Honestly, I hadn't ever even planned to revisit WoW until I heard of this announcement.

I might play for a little while just to check things out. Run through Gator Alley Wetlands again, fight outdoor elites in Stromgarde, get ganked in Stranglethorn while collecting pages, that sort of thing.

Speaking of ganking, I wonder if they'll bring in the modern PvP server idea to this (i.e. none.)

[The Glyphstone]

Everyone is forgetting the true reason to bring back classic servers:

Barrens Chat.