WoW Classic 8/27. Beta is May 22–Thurs May 23

I remember when the different classes had their own Blizzard representative to advocate changes on their behalf. There were lots of changes being proposed for balancing and quality of life issues. Almost every class was improved for the better and the mages finally got their major revision -- it was the level 60 water and a shiny new mage armor icon if I'm remembering it right. None of the issues being complained about were addressed and it seemed to be a complete slap in the face because one of the major complaints was that they were in the game merely for portal and beverage service. I guess I'm still jaded over that. Hopefully they at least fixed blink so that it wouldn't let you fall through the world, not move you at all, or propel you an inch before a dandelion stopped you or something.

A rework of primary stats like spirit to include a +damage/healing component could have made the game so much better with respect to itemization. I guess if people want the same game experience as before then they are going to get it.
Yeah..... I was hoping for a WoW classic 2.0 all the fun with the fixes. But if all they are going to do is basically relaunch the game with fancier graphics then walk us back through the game back to its current state then why?
 
Yeah..... I was hoping for a WoW classic 2.0 all the fun with the fixes. But if all they are going to do is basically relaunch the game with fancier graphics then walk us back through the game back to its current state then why?

Fancier graphics? Have you even been paying attention to the development of WoW Classic? They are intentionally breaking some of the code in order to give us the original vanilla WoW graphics, low-res polygons and all. They made it clear that this will, for the most part, be a faithful recreation of the game as it existed in patch 1.12, problems and all. As a vanilla WoW player (and a current player), I am very excited to see this brought back to life. I have never rolled horde, so there is an entire half of the game I am very interested to experience from a pure story perspective.
 
Fancier graphics? Have you even been paying attention to the development of WoW Classic? They are intentionally breaking some of the code in order to give us the original vanilla WoW graphics, low-res polygons and all. They made it clear that this will, for the most part, be a faithful recreation of the game as it existed in patch 1.12, problems and all. As a vanilla WoW player (and a current player), I am very excited to see this brought back to life. I have never rolled horde, so there is an entire half of the game I am very interested to experience from a pure story perspective.
Yeah but why lower the rez, I mean you can but ouch I can't imagine that would look good at 4K.
 
I'm not lowering any game settings. 4K.

World Of Warcraft Screenshot 2019.05.23 - 19.16.11.77.png
 
I loved original WOW but some of the best aspects of it in my opinion were the dungeons and not the raids. Blizzard had put a lot of effort into these but they went by the wayside once the raids were made more accessible and people were racing to max level for them. The first dungeons Wailing Caverns and BFD were way underutilized (at least on Alliance) because most of the Alliance was in the Eastern Kingdoms rather than Kalimdor so only did Deadmines and Stockade. The same can probably be said for Razorfen Kraul & Downs -- most people opted for Gnomeregan and Scarlet Monastery. Zul_Farrak and Maraudon were neglected in favor of Uldaman & Temple of Atal'Hakkar. Dire Maul (probably the best dungeon in vanilla Wow) was completely neglected because of Blackrock Depths, and upper/lower Blackrock Spire; the only reason people seemed to do DM was to help the mages get the better water. Nobody wanted to travel to do these instances or the itemization for certain classes was bad. The summoning stones were an attempted fix for it but kind of eliminated the need for a warlock. Mages had better CC, water, and portal which usually trumped the soul stone.

Speaking of itemization, it was horrible in vanilla WOW for certain classes. Blizzard wanted mages to go for int/spi gear so quest rewards and sets reflected this; Warlocks were meant to use int/sta gear. Spirit turned out to be a wasted stat so mages found the warlock gear more effective than their own (especially for PVP). Both classes needed +damage when it was introduced so that setup a situation for conflict. Blizzard seemed to make this worse when they made their +damage gear also +healing/damage so setup conflicts with the priests for both classes. And then there was the occasional paladin that wanted to roll on the same gear as the cloth wearers for healing or the balance druids . There was also the fact that Shaman and Paladin classes were faction specific but yet the gear drops were not. It was really a mess so there are plenty of areas of improvement for this remake rather than introducing the same issues.
And hunters can and did roll on everything!! (I can't wait to remake my Hunter lol)
 
Is the dead zone for hunters in the game right now? That was such a pain in the ass.

Also, what are the addons like? I remember in Vanilla I used the addon Cosmos to move my skill bars around.
 
I loved original WOW but some of the best aspects of it in my opinion were the dungeons and not the raids. Blizzard had put a lot of effort into these but they went by the wayside once the raids were made more accessible and people were racing to max level for them. The first dungeons Wailing Caverns and BFD were way underutilized (at least on Alliance) because most of the Alliance was in the Eastern Kingdoms rather than Kalimdor so only did Deadmines and Stockade. The same can probably be said for Razorfen Kraul & Downs -- most people opted for Gnomeregan and Scarlet Monastery. Zul_Farrak and Maraudon were neglected in favor of Uldaman & Temple of Atal'Hakkar. Dire Maul (probably the best dungeon in vanilla Wow) was completely neglected because of Blackrock Depths, and upper/lower Blackrock Spire; the only reason people seemed to do DM was to help the mages get the better water. Nobody wanted to travel to do these instances or the itemization for certain classes was bad. The summoning stones were an attempted fix for it but kind of eliminated the need for a warlock. Mages had better CC, water, and portal which usually trumped the soul stone.

Speaking of itemization, it was horrible in vanilla WOW for certain classes. Blizzard wanted mages to go for int/spi gear so quest rewards and sets reflected this; Warlocks were meant to use int/sta gear. Spirit turned out to be a wasted stat so mages found the warlock gear more effective than their own (especially for PVP). Both classes needed +damage when it was introduced so that setup a situation for conflict. Blizzard seemed to make this worse when they made their +damage gear also +healing/damage so setup conflicts with the priests for both classes. And then there was the occasional paladin that wanted to roll on the same gear as the cloth wearers for healing or the balance druids . There was also the fact that Shaman and Paladin classes were faction specific but yet the gear drops were not. It was really a mess so there are plenty of areas of improvement for this remake rather than introducing the same issues.
Idk man, me and my buds ran the everliving fuck out of Dire Mail, especially North. It has the best in slot crit gear you could get outside of raids. It was the go-to 5-man for pvpers among those I knew
 
ugh. DM. That was the worst. Hate that place so much. Scholomance and UBRS was where it was at.
 
Idk man, me and my buds ran the everliving fuck out of Dire Mail, especially North. It has the best in slot crit gear you could get outside of raids. It was the go-to 5-man for pvpers among those I knew

DM was about the only place you could get good pre-raid druid gear after they rejiggered the loot tables.
 
Yeah but why lower the rez, I mean you can but ouch I can't imagine that would look good at 4K.

The whole point of the WoW Classic project is to re-release WoW as it was at the end of vanilla (patch 1.12). There has been a lot of support for this for many years (just look at the popularity of all the private vanilla WoW servers). This is not meant to appeal the general gaming population. If Blizzard was trying to be more appealing, they would put all of the quality of life improvements that came with TBC/Wrath into Vanilla. You can keep asking "why don't they do X or Y or Z, it would make it better!" - but that is highly subjective. I would argue that if Classic WoW was not a faithful recreation of how the game truly existed in 1.12, the whole project is a waste of time. You will either have a true "vanilla" experience and attract/maintain a player population that wants to be a part of that (and might not even be playing modern WoW because of how different it is), or you have some kind of hybrid "vanilla-lite" experience and attract some of the current players, who will probably get bored of it within a few weeks and quit anyways. I think Blizzard understands which players they are appealing to and which players will actually stick around and make the project worthwhile, and those players want 1.12 exactly the way it was, because all of it led to the vanilla WoW experience.
 
The whole point of the WoW Classic project is to re-release WoW as it was at the end of vanilla (patch 1.12). There has been a lot of support for this for many years (just look at the popularity of all the private vanilla WoW servers). This is not meant to appeal the general gaming population. If Blizzard was trying to be more appealing, they would put all of the quality of life improvements that came with TBC/Wrath into Vanilla. You can keep asking "why don't they do X or Y or Z, it would make it better!" - but that is highly subjective. I would argue that if Classic WoW was not a faithful recreation of how the game truly existed in 1.12, the whole project is a waste of time. You will either have a true "vanilla" experience and attract/maintain a player population that wants to be a part of that (and might not even be playing modern WoW because of how different it is), or you have some kind of hybrid "vanilla-lite" experience and attract some of the current players, who will probably get bored of it within a few weeks and quit anyways. I think Blizzard understands which players they are appealing to and which players will actually stick around and make the project worthwhile, and those players want 1.12 exactly the way it was, because all of it led to the vanilla WoW experience.
Which I 100% get and respect, and also will against my better judgement probably subscribe into ..... I am just saying that I would think Blizzard capable of doing better than just recreating the original experience I hoped they would go above and beyond to create a better experience, I also want to know more about what they plan to do after Phase 6, because if all they are going to do is start re-releasing the old expansions and let everybody experience WoW from the start again and take us back through the same old path I see that as wasted potential.
 
Which I 100% get and respect, and also will against my better judgement probably subscribe into ..... I am just saying that I would think Blizzard capable of doing better than just recreating the original experience I hoped they would go above and beyond to create a better experience, I also want to know more about what they plan to do after Phase 6, because if all they are going to do is start re-releasing the old expansions and let everybody experience WoW from the start again and take us back through the same old path I see that as wasted potential.

They have gone "above and beyond" just to figure out how to recreate vanilla WoW as it was in patch 1.12. They had to figure out how to break certain things in code to get the graphics just right, because some of the things that rendered in vanilla were the result of bugs that existed at the time. However, everyone got used to how those graphics looked and expect them to return. Just figuring out how to get vanilla WoW to play on hardware that simply didn't exist 15 years ago is quite the feat. I am not sure what you are hoping for when you say that they should go "above and beyond to create a better experience." They are going above and beyond just to deliver this product as accurately as possible. You are saying something like "ya know, if Leonardo da Vinci was around and decided to recreate the Mona Lisa, I sure hope he would take advantage of modern painting methods, materials, etc. I mean, it should just be 'better' than the original." What you are asking for is antithesis to recreation of the original vanilla WoW. You are asking for a hybrid. That is not what this project is about, and Blizzard has made this abundantly clear. It is not that they are being lazy or short-sighted, they are intentionally not giving you what you are asking for because it is not the purpose of recreating vanilla WoW.
 
It is not that they are being lazy or short-sighted, they are intentionally not giving you what you are asking for because it is not the purpose of recreating vanilla WoW.
Perhaps as part of the phases they could fix some of the bugs, as if they really were working on a 1.13 patch and not Burning Crusade. I don't think that kind of thing would detract from the recreation of the vanilla experience.
 
They have gone "above and beyond" just to figure out how to recreate vanilla WoW as it was in patch 1.12. They had to figure out how to break certain things in code to get the graphics just right, because some of the things that rendered in vanilla were the result of bugs that existed at the time. However, everyone got used to how those graphics looked and expect them to return. Just figuring out how to get vanilla WoW to play on hardware that simply didn't exist 15 years ago is quite the feat. I am not sure what you are hoping for when you say that they should go "above and beyond to create a better experience." They are going above and beyond just to deliver this product as accurately as possible. You are saying something like "ya know, if Leonardo da Vinci was around and decided to recreate the Mona Lisa, I sure hope he would take advantage of modern painting methods, materials, etc. I mean, it should just be 'better' than the original." What you are asking for is antithesis to recreation of the original vanilla WoW. You are asking for a hybrid. That is not what this project is about, and Blizzard has made this abundantly clear. It is not that they are being lazy or short-sighted, they are intentionally not giving you what you are asking for because it is not the purpose of recreating vanilla WoW.
I am not even sure what I would have wanted with the WoW Classic launch, I was invisioning, the same level caps, the same classes but with the fixed gear the fixes to the spell queuing system, maybe some of the initially proposed class balances, more of a WoW reboot and less of a "faithful" recreation? I honestly don't believe that any attempt to recreate the original wow launch will successfully do so, the community has changed a lot over the last 15 years so has the internet and the MMO community as a whole and there is no way to remake something to that scale. So rather than try to remake it exactly as it was flaws and all I was sorta hoping they would use it as a starting point and do more of a reboot or an re envisioning or something. I mean what they have done is enough to get me to resub after like 8 years for pure nostalga alone but I am not sure nostalga will be enough to keep me going and that goes for a lot of people.
 
I am not even sure what I would have wanted with the WoW Classic launch, I was invisioning, the same level caps, the same classes but with the fixed gear the fixes to the spell queuing system, maybe some of the initially proposed class balances, more of a WoW reboot and less of a "faithful" recreation? I honestly don't believe that any attempt to recreate the original wow launch will successfully do so, the community has changed a lot over the last 15 years so has the internet and the MMO community as a whole and there is no way to remake something to that scale. So rather than try to remake it exactly as it was flaws and all I was sorta hoping they would use it as a starting point and do more of a reboot or an re envisioning or something. I mean what they have done is enough to get me to resub after like 8 years for pure nostalga alone but I am not sure nostalga will be enough to keep me going and that goes for a lot of people.
My own and I think most people's reservations about them "improving" vanilla wow is, well, wow itself. They've been incrementally "improving" away everything which made the game great every expansion after Wrath (imo), and so I prefer them to keep their filthy paws off it!
 
My own and I think most people's reservations about them "improving" vanilla wow is, well, wow itself. They've been incrementally "improving" away everything which made the game great every expansion after Wrath (imo), and so I prefer them to keep their filthy paws off it!
That's the whole crux of it I wish they put more thought into it, there is lots about Vanilla wow that was great, and lots that was less so but all they are doing at this point is lining up to do what? release the same 6 phases they did for vanilla then what re release BC and all its phases followed by wrath along with its and keep going until we are all caught up to date? or do they take it to phase 6 and say OK we're done now no more for this and let the classic edition stagnate and die? I mean what is their game plan? because if all they plan to do is re launch all their old expansions so people who weren't there for the old stuff can experience it like it was new then... I don't know that would be brilliant of them if they managed to pull that off just be all like "We have 15 years of content but what if... we got people to pay for the experience of playing the stuff they already have but just were ignoring...." Like seriously buy that person a cookie because they just re-invented the wheel...
 
I guess I can finally get Exalted with Shen'Dralar now.... you know how fucking close I was during WotLK before they removed the fucking place? (maybe it was removed for cata? I cannot remember)... So Angry. Running 1 Libram at a time in there over and over with no mailbox anywhere close. So exhausting. Can't wait!
 
My own and I think most people's reservations about them "improving" vanilla wow is, well, wow itself. They've been incrementally "improving" away everything which made the game great every expansion after Wrath (imo), and so I prefer them to keep their filthy paws off it!

Well, there is one common denominator to those "improvements" you speak of, and that is Ion Hazzikostas. Mr. Elitist Jerk himself was hired by Blizz before Wrath launched and one of the things he was most infamous for was working on (destroying) the talent tree (balancing, lol) in Cata. I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason they decided to release classic was so he could show everyone just how "bad" the game was before he took over. He's basically spent his entire career changing the gameplay so that it matches how he wants to play, fuck everyone else.
 
Well, there is one common denominator to those "improvements" you speak of, and that is Ion Hazzikostas. Mr. Elitist Jerk himself was hired by Blizz before Wrath launched and one of the things he was most infamous for was working on (destroying) the talent tree (balancing, lol) in Cata. I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason they decided to release classic was so he could show everyone just how "bad" the game was before he took over. He's basically spent his entire career changing the gameplay so that it matches how he wants to play, fuck everyone else.

Activision (and I mean Activision--Blizzard doesn't exist anymore) knows nothing about making good games. They haven't made a single great game or WOW expansion since the Activision buyout in 2008. The last good WOW expansion was WOTLK in 2008, mysteriously developed before the buyout went through, and mysteriously, the post launch WOTLK content (content developed after the buyout) such as Trial of the Crusader etc. was lazy dog shit. Gee. I fucking wonder what happened.

Activision poisoned the well and made them add the Real Money Auction House to Diablo 3 because they just couldn't stomach releasing a game for $60 and only getting $60 for it.

Starcraft 2 was a massive disappointment that failed to live up to the legacy of the series.

Hearthstone is a fucking Unity engine mobile game not a real PC game.

Heroes of the Storm was a failure.

Activision blows. Every company they've bought has churned out nothing but money grubbing garbage.
 
Activision (and I mean Activision--Blizzard doesn't exist anymore) knows nothing about making good games. They haven't made a single great game or WOW expansion since the Activision buyout in 2008. The last good WOW expansion was WOTLK in 2008, mysteriously developed before the buyout went through, and mysteriously, the post launch WOTLK content (content developed after the buyout) such as Trial of the Crusader etc. was lazy dog shit. Gee. I fucking wonder what happened.

Activision poisoned the well and made them add the Real Money Auction House to Diablo 3 because they just couldn't stomach releasing a game for $60 and only getting $60 for it.

Starcraft 2 was a massive disappointment that failed to live up to the legacy of the series.

Hearthstone is a fucking Unity engine mobile game not a real PC game.

Heroes of the Storm was a failure.

Activision blows. Every company they've bought has churned out nothing but money grubbing garbage.

Uou're wrong about StarCraft 2. It wasn't even close to being a disappointment.
 
That's the whole crux of it I wish they put more thought into it, there is lots about Vanilla wow that was great, and lots that was less so but all they are doing at this point is lining up to do what? release the same 6 phases they did for vanilla then what re release BC and all its phases followed by wrath along with its and keep going until we are all caught up to date? or do they take it to phase 6 and say OK we're done now no more for this and let the classic edition stagnate and die? I mean what is their game plan? because if all they plan to do is re launch all their old expansions so people who weren't there for the old stuff can experience it like it was new then... I don't know that would be brilliant of them if they managed to pull that off just be all like "We have 15 years of content but what if... we got people to pay for the experience of playing the stuff they already have but just were ignoring...." Like seriously buy that person a cookie because they just re-invented the wheel...
What they do next depends on how popular the classic server is. I do believe they'll go as far as Wrath eventually, given that is the generally agreed upon last worthy expansion among many classic WoW players. It was midway through that expansion that Blizzard started introducing features that old school players felt degraded the game and sense of community; features that would eventually lead to WoW being more of a single player game than a true MMORPG that it began as.

It was four years from launch to WotLK. Blizzard could stretch that out a bit with classic, giving quite a few more years until they have to make the difficult decision about what to do next. That's dependant on if this classic experiment is still around and popular in the future. Assuming it is, I can foresee Blizzard forking development and creating completely new expansions for classic that maintain all the old school gameplay mechanics. So no Cataclysm, but something completely different.
 
That's the whole crux of it I wish they put more thought into it, there is lots about Vanilla wow that was great, and lots that was less so but all they are doing at this point is lining up to do what? release the same 6 phases they did for vanilla then what re release BC and all its phases followed by wrath along with its and keep going until we are all caught up to date? or do they take it to phase 6 and say OK we're done now no more for this and let the classic edition stagnate and die? I mean what is their game plan? because if all they plan to do is re launch all their old expansions so people who weren't there for the old stuff can experience it like it was new then... I don't know that would be brilliant of them if they managed to pull that off just be all like "We have 15 years of content but what if... we got people to pay for the experience of playing the stuff they already have but just were ignoring...." Like seriously buy that person a cookie because they just re-invented the wheel...
Ya know that's a really good point. I kinda figured they'd end up re releasing the entire game if enough people we're paying for it. If that's how they end up doing it I guarantee they won't make it to the end lol

It would have been cool if they were able to take some new liberties and go in a new direction.

Sadly, no one trusts blizzard to not fuck shit up after what wow has become, Diablo 3, and "you don't have phones?"
 
Uou're wrong about StarCraft 2. It wasn't even close to being a disappointment.
I agree. I still enjoy playing it from time to time. The base game was also developed around the time or before wotlk. I'll bet you can blame activation for them trying to sell sc2 3 times tho lol
 
That's the whole crux of it I wish they put more thought into it, there is lots about Vanilla wow that was great, and lots that was less so but all they are doing at this point is lining up to do what? release the same 6 phases they did for vanilla then what re release BC and all its phases followed by wrath along with its and keep going until we are all caught up to date? or do they take it to phase 6 and say OK we're done now no more for this and let the classic edition stagnate and die? I mean what is their game plan? because if all they plan to do is re launch all their old expansions so people who weren't there for the old stuff can experience it like it was new then... I don't know that would be brilliant of them if they managed to pull that off just be all like "We have 15 years of content but what if... we got people to pay for the experience of playing the stuff they already have but just were ignoring...." Like seriously buy that person a cookie because they just re-invented the wheel...

The popularity of private servers running versions of vanilla WoW for the last several years and sustaining a dedicated player base is proof enough that there is some fraction of the community that will support this project in the long term, if done correctly. I am sure there are many other WoW players who would return and resubscribe just for vanilla WoW. Some people have mentioned that, if Classic WoW doesn't have any continuation, it might actually be beneficial to sustaining the game itself. Why? People stopped raiding Naxx and grinding out endgame gear the moment they knew the release date for TBC. They knew their gear would be obsolete, so why spend countless weeks grinding away BiS gear that would be pointless two months later? I see the potential for a lot of endgame raiding going for quite some time if there is no definitive continuation of the game. The people doing these raids will hopefully be generally more skilled and knowledgeable in this era, thus making the grind in Naxx more tolerable than it was initially. But, we will have to wait and see how the community develops. If it ends up being rather small, I could see Blizzard merging servers down to a handful of them and letting them run perpetually. IMO, there will always be several thousand players who want to play vanilla WoW and nothing else.

What they do next depends on how popular the classic server is. I do believe they'll go as far as Wrath eventually, given that is the generally agreed upon last worthy expansion among many classic WoW players. It was midway through that expansion that Blizzard started introducing features that old school players felt degraded the game and sense of community; features that would eventually lead to WoW being more of a single player game than a true MMORPG that it began as.

It was four years from launch to WotLK. Blizzard could stretch that out a bit with classic, giving quite a few more years until they have to make the difficult decision about what to do next. That's dependant on if this classic experiment is still around and popular in the future. Assuming it is, I can foresee Blizzard forking development and creating completely new expansions for classic that maintain all the old school gameplay mechanics. So no Cataclysm, but something completely different.

You bring up a rather interesting point I had not previously thought of. I am one of those who started playing in November 2004 and feel that WoW was at its best through Ulduar in WotLK. However, what began to be introduced after Ulduar began to diminish the quality of the game. I don't think recreating WotLK would be ideal, even if they did faithfully recreate TBC (which I would also love to see). What if they kept the game the same through TBC, and then, rather than recreate WotLK, they make an entirely new expansion arc? I know this will probably never happen because the player base will never be large enough to support such an endeavor, but what if? They would have the knowledge of how things got screwed up (at least in the view of the vanilla players, which will be the ones to carry this project IMO) and hopefully not repeat those mistakes. Who knows?

Ya know that's a really good point. I kinda figured they'd end up re releasing the entire game if enough people we're paying for it. If that's how they end up doing it I guarantee they won't make it to the end lol

It would have been cool if they were able to take some new liberties and go in a new direction.

Sadly, no one trusts blizzard to not fuck shit up after what wow has become, Diablo 3, and "you don't have phones?"

I doubt they will ever re-release the game as the support for such an endeavor simply isn't there. They are tapping into a very unique set of circumstances in gaming where there is years of evidence of several thousand players being addicted to vanilla WoW and playing on private servers, despite Blizzard's best efforts at getting them shut down. There are other players who never had the chance to play vanilla WoW for one reason or another, and unlike buying an old NES and playing Mario 3 from eBay, there is simply no easy way to play vanilla WoW even if you wanted to (I still have my original installation CDs from vanilla/TBC/Wrath and they won't get me the original game back). Until this project, your only option was to find a private server and play some rigged vanilla-lite version of WoW, and the server owners probably got many aspects of it wrong (or tweaked it as they saw fit). This is a niche project and I think Blizzard is being realistic about how many people it will attract initially, and how many will actually stick around to sustain the servers. I don't think they expect it to draw in millions of players or justify doing a re-release of TBC. I think this will be a one-off project that will eventually be sustained by a very dedicated community of players numbering in the several thousands (maybe a few tens of thousands), condensed onto a few servers, that will take Blizzard very little effort to maintain. So why not?
 
Activision (and I mean Activision--Blizzard doesn't exist anymore) knows nothing about making good games. They haven't made a single great game or WOW expansion since the Activision buyout in 2008. The last good WOW expansion was WOTLK in 2008, mysteriously developed before the buyout went through, and mysteriously, the post launch WOTLK content (content developed after the buyout) such as Trial of the Crusader etc. was lazy dog shit. Gee. I fucking wonder what happened.

Activision poisoned the well and made them add the Real Money Auction House to Diablo 3 because they just couldn't stomach releasing a game for $60 and only getting $60 for it.

Starcraft 2 was a massive disappointment that failed to live up to the legacy of the series.

Hearthstone is a fucking Unity engine mobile game not a real PC game.

Heroes of the Storm was a failure.

Activision blows. Every company they've bought has churned out nothing but money grubbing garbage.

Completely agree. Funny you should mention the post launch wrath content. The following was taken from https://wow.gamepedia.com/Ion_Hazzikostas : "Ion joined Blizzard just before Wrath of the Lich King launched and has worked on all raids and dungeons since then."
 
I don't know what people imagine when they repeat this Blizzard claim...we weren't using steam-powered computers 10 years ago.
Yea it’s DirectX 9c, it wasn’t a gaming staple for a decade or anything...
 
Completely agree. Funny you should mention the post launch wrath content. The following was taken from https://wow.gamepedia.com/Ion_Hazzikostas : "Ion joined Blizzard just before Wrath of the Lich King launched and has worked on all raids and dungeons since then."

Yup and Ulduar, basically the only raid that people really liked in that expansion, was largely done before the buyout. It's comical how strongly the line in the sand was drawn.
 
I don't know what people imagine when they repeat this Blizzard claim...we weren't using steam-powered computers 10 years ago.

Yea it’s DirectX 9c, it wasn’t a gaming staple for a decade or anything...

Oh wow. If you don't understand why code written to be optimized for hardware standards back in 2004 does not necessarily play nicely for hardware standards today, I can't help you. It is not just the graphics engine running DX9c. It is the server structure behind all of it as well that has to deal with the network. Come on guys. This is [H]. They are trying to run vanilla WoW in their current server ecosystem, which is radically different than what existed in 2004. While technically possible (and clearly they have done it) it is by no means easy. There are numerous articles around the net explaining, in detail, why what Blizzard is doing is more complicated than some random guys using some Reddit threads to get up a private server.

Here, I did your homework for you. Just one of many articles detailing the problem at hand:

https://www.pcgamer.com/why-world-of-warcraft-classic-is-deceptively-tough-to-make/
 
The reason you "can't help" is because you don't know the details of what you're talking about. You read Blizzard employees talking about how difficult it has been to do all this difficult work and then the claims get more grand and more vague the more someone asks exactly what you're referring to.

I'm mainly curious which show-stopping "hardware standards" and "server ecosystems" you think existed back then that don't exist now other than hardware issues like IDE instead of SATA which would have required finding an old Dell under a pile of clothes somewhere.
 
I doubt they will ever re-release the game as the support for such an endeavor simply isn't there. They are tapping into a very unique set of circumstances in gaming where there is years of evidence of several thousand players being addicted to vanilla WoW and playing on private servers, despite Blizzard's best efforts at getting them shut down. There are other players who never had the chance to play vanilla WoW for one reason or another, and unlike buying an old NES and playing Mario 3 from eBay, there is simply no easy way to play vanilla WoW even if you wanted to (I still have my original installation CDs from vanilla/TBC/Wrath and they won't get me the original game back). Until this project, your only option was to find a private server and play some rigged vanilla-lite version of WoW, and the server owners probably got many aspects of it wrong (or tweaked it as they saw fit). This is a niche project and I think Blizzard is being realistic about how many people it will attract initially, and how many will actually stick around to sustain the servers. I don't think they expect it to draw in millions of players or justify doing a re-release of TBC. I think this will be a one-off project that will eventually be sustained by a very dedicated community of players numbering in the several thousands (maybe a few tens of thousands), condensed onto a few servers, that will take Blizzard very little effort to maintain. So why not?
That'd actually be really cool. A vanilla that never ends. I was quite disappointed that I was never able to complete my dragonstalker set and that it became useless at about level 63, being replaced by greens.
 
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