Classic World of Warcraft Content Progression Revealed

cageymaru

cageymaru

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For many of us, World of Warcraft (WoW) was the first MMO that appealed to us. As the MMO aged, the classic content was ignored or altered to make it easier to attract new players to the game. After years of complaints, Blizzard Entertainment is bringing back Classic World of Warcraft and Community Manager Kaivax has detailed the 6 phase content patch release schedule. For example, progression in the MMO is based on newer raids superseding older content because more powerful items drop in the new raid. In the post, Blizzard details which raids will be available at the start of Classic WoW.

Currently, based on both your feedback and our own deliberations, we're now planning to increase it to six phases. Our focus is still primarily on player power-progression, but we're also aiming to capture what it felt like to play in a realm community in original WoW. To do that, we're planning to mirror the approach taken by original WoW, with patches paired together. We haven't yet determined exactly when phases 2-6 will occur, and PvP content is notably missing from the list above. That's because we're still evaluating our options regarding PvP rewards, as they also changed over time (both in power and in terms of which PvP reward items were available).
 
Just copy the way EQ did the progression servers like 7-8 years ago.
You aren’t treading new ground here Blizz.
 
I don't like the way they word it. On private servers they mimic patches, which is what I think Blizzard is trying to do with phases but then why not just replicate the patches? Oh that's right, they're using the latest patch for the entire game. That sounds very messy and not as good as private servers. Also, what's this about PvP rewards? Can't these people just copy what was done originally in WoW?
 
I just stopped played Fall of last year. Played solid since Nov 2004. I can't see myself going back. Too much has changed. The community has completely evolved into something I don't want to be a part of.
 
Loose Nut said:
Played for many years. the addition of Panda's made me stop.
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I remember walking out into the world during one of the newer expansions and thinking... Why is everything square or circular like a treadmill? I brushed that off and continued on. Ran into a field and I was given instructions to plant some crops. Bought the seeds, and then realized that it was a mini game aka "FarmVille."

I cut the game off and never played another second.

I'd come back to play Classic though!
 
I am looking forward to this. My main motivator is to participate in the opening opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. Though a full experience of classic will be new because when I first join WoW, shortly after the AQ patch was released, I was a soloist. So I never learned about the difference between tank, dps, and magic/healing gear. Higher armor, get it. Higher dps, get it. Never understood it until, towards the end of BC, a guild of members of my church formed. I was invited and was finally taught what everything meant. My first raid was Naxx in WotLK as a ret pally.
Now that I understand gear mechanics and playing the role of dps in a raid, my experience in classic will be different than before. Hopefully I can find a non-hardcore raiding guild that does their runs on weekends.
 
NeghVar said:
I am looking forward to this. My main motivator is to participate in the opening opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. Though a full experience of classic will be new because when I first joined, I was a soloist. So I never learned about the difference between tank, dps, and magic/healing gear. Higher armor, get it. Higher dps, get it. Never understood it until, towards the end of BC, a guild of members of my church formed. I was invited and was finally taught what everything meant. My first raid was Naxx in WotLK as a ret pally.
Now that I understand gear mechanics and playing the role of dps in a raid, my experience in classic will be different than before. Hopefully I can find a non-hardcore raiding guild that does their runs on weekends.
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What sucks now is people are obsessed with wowlogs and warcraftlogs. 13/14 years ago it was just showing up, doing your best, having fun, and downing a boss. People were more focused on having fun. Now its, stats, logs, recordings, gear, gear, gear, rotations at the right moment, etc. Before each raid it feels like prepping for an SAT or something.
 
DukenukemX said:
I don't like the way they word it. On private servers they mimic patches, which is what I think Blizzard is trying to do with phases but then why not just replicate the patches? Oh that's right, they're using the latest patch for the entire game. That sounds very messy and not as good as private servers. Also, what's this about PvP rewards? Can't these people just copy what was done originally in WoW?
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Because they'd need to backport over a decade of security/exploit patches and changes to their baseline infrastructure?
 
Westwood Arrakis said:
What sucks now is people are obsessed with wowlogs and warcraftlogs. 13/14 years ago it was just showing up, doing your best, having fun, and downing a boss. People were more focused on having fun. Now its, stats, logs, recordings, gear, gear, gear, rotations at the right moment, etc. Before each raid it feels like prepping for an SAT or something.
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I remember reading an article a long time ago about how joining a top-notch raiding guild was just as, or more, complicated than writing the perfect resume to get a high paying job. And, god forbid, the guild you are in is so hardcore that the leader tells you, "I don't care if your only child just got bit by a black widow. You will tank tonight or you'll be kicked from the guild and we'll blackball you on this server.
 
Man. the good times.

But long times. Grinding out PVP ranks and sleeping (napping) for 30 minute sessions to get rank 14 was a real pita.
 
Westwood Arrakis said:
What sucks now is people are obsessed with wowlogs and warcraftlogs. 13/14 years ago it was just showing up, doing your best, having fun, and downing a boss. People were more focused on having fun. Now its, stats, logs, recordings, gear, gear, gear, rotations at the right moment, etc. Before each raid it feels like prepping for an SAT or something.
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Min/Maxing is something pretty much everyone did, even if it wasn't the primary focus. The problem started when everyone tried to be like the guys in Elitist Jerks. Most people were fairly content as you say, to have fun, but once the larger community got a hold of what Elitist Jerks were doing then the theorycrafting took over and made guilds/raiding more unenjoyable. Still, I wouldn't go near this game with a ten foot pole anymore.
 
NeghVar said:
I remember reading an article a long time ago about how joining a top-notch raiding guild was just as, or more, complicated than writing the perfect resume to get a high paying job.
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It's always been that way if you were in a top-guild. You'd farm for gold to pay for repairs. If you couldn't repair, you wouldn't raid. Everything else came second. Sometimes you'd raid for hours to down a new boss for a server first. As a DPS main, it was all about doing the most damage without dying. Raiding was very coordinated on Ventrilo. Just having a guild name carried weight within that server and sometimes others when Cross battlegrounds came about.
 
NeghVar said:
I remember reading an article a long time ago about how joining a top-notch raiding guild was just as, or more, complicated than writing the perfect resume to get a high paying job. And, god forbid, the guild you are in is so hardcore that the leader tells you, "I don't care if your only child just got bit by a black widow. You will tank tonight or you'll be kicked from the guild and we'll blackball you on this server.
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Oh, I was in a top raiding guild. Started tanking, but got swapped to a healer. Raided original Naxx and everything. Sure, the vetting process was thorough, but not to the point of running logs second by second looking for an error. Then you'd like at HP pools and check your resists. I remember being a warrior tank and wearing mail pieces to get my resists up. But this whole moment by moment analysis just killed it.
 
I still think it's rose tinted glasses. I have some fond memories of Raiding MC with 40 people or opening AQ but also of 1000 line queues and running my new toon by foot from Org to TB and getting timed out if you were idle for 15 mins. Not getting a mount until 2/3rds of the way through leveling.

Just running your ass all the way to the summoning stone for a 5 man PUG for one specific dungeon. Current system is so much better.
 
Loose Nut said:
Played for many years. the addition of Panda's made me stop.
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You didn't like Mists of Pokemon Farmville either? That was when I truly quit wow the first time, for all but the last months of the expansion. I think the game is best played in the last 4-6 months of an expansion, then you can see all the content quicker and easier and spend less monthly fees. My days of grinding away time are over. Just isn't worth it time wise. So when I played the "beta" of classic during blizzcon and basically noped out after 10 minutes upon realizing what a time sink Vanilla was. Reading about people planning vacations around Classic release has me cringing at the time wasting.
 
Played classic wow when it came out (no longer play WoW at all) and I dunno why anyone would want to play the super grind fest that was classic WoW... No thank you. Blizzard please just hurry up and finish the WC3 remaster as I never played it and would love to...
 
TonyZ said:
Played classic wow when it came out (no longer play WoW at all) and I dunno why anyone would want to play the super grind fest that was classic WoW... No thank you. Blizzard please just hurry up and finish the WC3 remaster as I never played it and would love to...
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Although it was a grind, it is a very rewarding grind. You actually felt like you were rewarded for the time you put in unlike grindfest games today (including modern WoW) where its far too RNG driven.
 
Westwood Arrakis said:
What sucks now is people are obsessed with wowlogs and warcraftlogs. 13/14 years ago it was just showing up, doing your best, having fun, and downing a boss. People were more focused on having fun. Now its, stats, logs, recordings, gear, gear, gear, rotations at the right moment, etc. Before each raid it feels like prepping for an SAT or something.
Click to expand...

As someone who raided way back in classic, I can guarantee you that is exactly what we did too. Damage meters and DKP were a thing. Competion for loot was high since a 40-man raid might have 5+ members of your class. Between raids you had to farm for repairs since money was tighter, and farm soul shards and other garbage that's since been removed.
 
Ritorix said:
As someone who raided way back in classic, I can guarantee you that is exactly what we did too. Damage meters and DKP were a thing. Competion for loot was high since a 40-man raid might have 5+ members of your class. Between raids you had to farm for repairs since money was tighter, and farm soul shards and other garbage that's since been removed.
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I really don't miss hunters running out of ammo mid raid lol.
 
Loose Nut said:
Played for many years. the addition of Panda's made me stop.
Click to expand...

Man is this tiring. The damn race was around a long time ago. It's not any more silly than cows walking on two feet, and definitely far less ridiculous than space cows walking on two feet. Besides that, it was a pretty solid story telling experience as far as voice overs and it's Asian influence. I'm not sure what people really were complaining about, everyone's a critic now.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to Classic, having played since alpha builds. I sometimes find myself thinking about running around the beginning areas of early WoW while I'm playing other games, back when I had no clue what the hell was going on in the game, and no one else did either. Those moments were one or two players figured something out that others didn't know, and the rumors spread like wildfire. Definitely a different time when it came to gaming society. It was slower paced, and it was epic. Was it a grind fest in the absolute sense of the term? Absolutely, but it was different and interesting.

Ritorix said:
As someone who raided way back in classic, I can guarantee you that is exactly what we did too. Damage meters and DKP were a thing. Competion for loot was high since a 40-man raid might have 5+ members of your class. Between raids you had to farm for repairs since money was tighter, and farm soul shards and other garbage that's since been removed.
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Share that sentiment myself. A lot of the guilds I was in were very hardcore, and if you wanted to break into the top 3 and see that content first, those were just the facts. Later on down the road in BC, it was glorious finding a guild that was at the height of progression, but didn't require 5 days of raiding (just good players, that got shit done in 2 nights, 3 max). I think that's what I'm looking for with Classic, as most people I know that played back then aren't really around.
 
I've played WoW since vanilla and still play WoW today. I have plenty of nostalgia and good memories from vanilla but nonetheless I am finding it difficult to get myself excited for classic. For one, I'm not looking forward to the WoW community becoming fragmented between Classic and the Modern game. It looks like Classic will probably be released during somewhat of a lull in the modern game, so guilds will already be struggling to keep their raid rosters full and this will only make it worse. While I think it would be fun to experience the classic content again, i'm not in any rush to give up 14 years of quality of life improvements that I feel have honestly made the game much better. I'm talking about some really simple stuff here. Many people forget about super basic stuff like how back in vanilla you had to be on the exact same server as your friend to even quest with them out in the world, there was no cross-server anything. Not to mention addons/mods that I use all the time, have used for over a decade, can't really live without, and may not even be available for the classic version.
 
Ritorix said:
As someone who raided way back in classic, I can guarantee you that is exactly what we did too. Damage meters and DKP were a thing. Competion for loot was high since a 40-man raid might have 5+ members of your class. Between raids you had to farm for repairs since money was tighter, and farm soul shards and other garbage that's since been removed.
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Hrm. I don't recall damage meters back in Vanilla/BC. I remember the Cosmos UI so maybe we did use it. Can't remember. Items were distributed via officer discretion since no one wanted DKP. People seemed satisfied with it as long as chat was relaxed, we downed some bosses, and no one dicked every fight. We were just happy to have 40 people on at once to even raid. XD
 
I have memories of leveling a prot warrior from 1-60 in vanilla wow. Where wandering elites would waffle stomp someone of equal level. Where getting 100 gold for that level 40 mount was tough and getting a thousand gold for that epic 100% speed boost mount was rough and required doing some end game content for a while before you would amass that vast amount of wealth.

I did 'enjoy' the game but it was because it was a unique experience in a world with many other players and there was a sense of community. Even without a guild. My days of playing on blackhand I suppose are long gone.
 
I am looking forward to it personally. I hope it will restore some community to at least some of the player base. Back when you had to know people on your realm, and didnt worry about all this phasing/sharding going on. While I know i will miss some of the quality of life improvements made to the game I think it will be a fun distraction 1 or 2 nights a week.
 
I've been playing off and on since vanilla as well. Currently playing a fair amount. Ill try it, but as many above stated, many QOL improvements are good, not bad. I can chuckle about it, but I never found it to be "immersive" to spend 20 minds in RL, running somewhere. that's absurd. and yes, it will further fragment the population I think.
 
XBarbarian said:
I've been playing off and on since vanilla as well. Currently playing a fair amount. Ill try it, but as many above stated, many QOL improvements are good, not bad. I can chuckle about it, but I never found it to be "immersive" to spend 20 minds in RL, running somewhere. that's absurd. and yes, it will further fragment the population I think.
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It probably will fragment the population a little bit, but if you look at the private realms i want to say they had about 500k playing on them give or take. So my estimate is initially blizzard will have over 1mil on them but after the first month will probalby hover around 3-400k people. not a big fragment but still a decent amount of folks.
 
goodrob said:
It probably will fragment the population a little bit, but if you look at the private realms i want to say they had about 500k playing on them give or take. So my estimate is initially blizzard will have over 1mil on them but after the first month will probalby hover around 3-400k people. not a big fragment but still a decent amount of folks.
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true. Im looking forward to checking it out, just the same. I also imagine it will loose some of the elitest air about the community after a month or so. the script kiddies wont stick around for the grind!
 
goodrob said:
It probably will fragment the population a little bit, but if you look at the private realms i want to say they had about 500k playing on them give or take. So my estimate is initially blizzard will have over 1mil on them but after the first month will probalby hover around 3-400k people. not a big fragment but still a decent amount of folks.
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I knew a few that played just to skirt the monthly cost of the game and just settle for older content. Not sure how impacting that is but you are probably right. THere is marketing behind this, plus a level of trust you wouldn't have using modded software on private owned servers.
 
.......and this is why people will hate it, classic, pve was pvp gear there was no resilance or any of that crap.
 
goodrob said:
I am looking forward to it personally. I hope it will restore some community to at least some of the player base. Back when you had to know people on your realm, and didnt worry about all this phasing/sharding going on. While I know i will miss some of the quality of life improvements made to the game I think it will be a fun distraction 1 or 2 nights a week.
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It's to altered people wanted the classic experience, while some will say there are qol improvements that in essence will water it down. Not really looking forward to it as it's going to be a bastardized version of the game from them, I doubt the challenge and pain with achievement will be present.
 
1Nocturnal101 said:
It's to altered people wanted the classic experience, while some will say there are qol improvements that in essence will water it down. Not really looking forward to it as it's going to be a bastardized version of the game from them, I doubt the challenge and pain with achievement will be present.
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They've already confirmed they're keeping the terrible itemization, bare basic class design, pre-buff 1.10 loot tables, and staggering content to prevent early power creep in from vanilla.
 
I'm interested in Classic for the chance to get gear that I couldn't get during Classic and no longer exists in game.
 
I like the idea of these staged progressions rather than dumping everything on us at once. It will be good. (Hopefully). All we need now is a day one server crash! lol :D
 
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