I was hoping to watch the livestream of the BlizzCon opening ceremony only briefly to catch the WoW news but soon realised that they were doing their usual thing of starting with the smaller games, to leave Warcraft and the biggest announcements until the end. I knew we were in for something major for Classic when they actually did the retail bit first... and then had to watch the rest on my second monitor, being very distracted in the process.
Not gonna lie, that trailer nearly made me cry.
To start with the classic shot of the dwarf hunter and his bear, but then having them go in a different direction, through beautiful fields.
Dalaran in the bubble that then opens up.
An undead paladin! I don't even care about playing one, but it was like an in-universe way of saying that there'll be new class/race combos.
The beauty of classic Mount Hyjal, with the music swelling...
... and then, sky elves? Okay, that was a bit weird. There had been some datamining related to this months ago, but I thought it was going to be a retail thing. Either way, not a deal breaker.
There was also a features trailer:
New zones, new dungeons, new raids, a new battleground. New race/class combos, new talents. A toggle for whether you want to see the old models and animations or the new ones.
Other important bits were mentioned during the presentation, but I'm not sure I even caught everything. The level cap will be 60 and we'll stay in Azeroth. Transmog will exist but you decide/toggle whether you want to see it or prefer to see everyone in what they're actually wearing. Any future direction will be influenced by community feedback. Launch will be on November 4th.
Will it be perfect? Probably not, but what is? This is way closer to my personal idea of what I wanted out of a Classic+ than I ever dared to hope (I wasn't really on board with the idea until I tried out Turtle WoW and saw how lovely it was). I haven't been this excited about anything WoW-related in a long time.
This was surprising. It really does feel like Blizzard is doing their best to actually listen to the community and try to introduce something that will work for most. (A vocal few never being happy with anything.)
ReplyDeleteMaking cosmetic visuals be switchable was a great idea. That gives everyone the option they want as to how they see the game. I wonder if this stuff will eventually hit Retail, but I suspect even in Forever most will have everything turned on.
The Skyborne are a reasonable fit, lore-wise, for that time period. Shendralar were there -- as an aside, I'm torn about not having them part of the Insane title still -- and having the Skyborne be a splinter faction of the splinter faction Shendralar works as to why we don't see them in Retail Wow.
I do look forward to see how Retail and Forever influence each other, as Forever has room to breath and change to suit that community. That it is locked in that time and at level 60 helps avoid it being too much of an alternate Azeroth.
Now Classic can be a version of Vanilla and a set of servers that work through the base game with expansions without needing to have ad infinitum versions of the original. I wonder of Season of Discovery will continue or if those characters will eventually get rolled into Forever? We'll see.
All that said, we look to have a version of Wow for all tastes now.
The transmog choice is interesting. I will definitely play with it turned off to begin with, but I'm not ruling out that I might come around to using it later. It'll be interesting to see how the community sentiment around that develops (I can imagine "rolling for transmog" being contentious in dungeons for example).
DeleteNews about any other versions of Classic were definitely conspicuously absent. Maybe something will be mentioned today. To be honest I suspect that no news is bad news in that instance (if they're shutting anything down, it's probably better to keep quiet about that), but I'm not writing anything off completely until they explicitly say so.
This actually got me excited about WoW again. So excited that I went right out and bought the beta access package. I haven't played in a WoW beta since WotLK, but I really want to check this one out.
ReplyDeleteThey've already shown the new UD paladins (which, according to Wowhead there will be NE and Troll paladins as well, and they're also coming to Retail with 12.2) but they've been quiet on the most important part: Shaman tanks! Will we get them? I've heard they were a thing in SoD, so I'm eager to see them here. I definitely consider them to be "cut content" from Vanilla.
Hopefully they take all they've learned from the last 20 years and give us a Classic-like experience with updated, contemporary gameplay. I'm curious what that means for addons, too. Will they be designing encounters that don't need addons? Another reason I want to try the beta.
I went so far as to splurge on the physical CE, which is something I've never done for any game before (though having more disposable income nowadays certainly helps). I don't care about the beta though; I want to be surprised. 🙂
DeleteThe extra tank and healer roles in SoD were definitely one of the cooler aspects of that mode (and shaman tanks were super popular). If they aren't part of Forever from the start, I can definitely see Blizzard considering adding them later.
I do hope the dungeon and raid fights remain on the easy side in terms of mechanics, because that's part of Classic's charm for me for sure. That said, I'm less fussed about that aspect, as exploration and the open world will be my primary focus regardless.
It's funny that I dreamt about playing an undead palading when back in 2007 I made my first step into the Tirisfal glades. I even grinded Forsaken rep for a cool dead horse (I played as BE pally back then).
ReplyDeleteI can't believe my dream came true after 19 years. I'm still shaking; I almost cried when I saw the announcement.
---
Well, we'll see how it goes. Blizzard were the original inventors of the rigid vertical progression system; we'll see if they manage to put the train on the new rails.
Anyways, congratulations for all players waiting patiently for the Classic+ reveal. Let's hope for the best.
P.S. I'm glad Blizzard went the toggle way. I dislike the new models, but I do love transmog and making lore-friendly outfits for my characters.
I love that undead paladin is so meaningful to you! Hope you enjoy it.
DeleteThe future will indeed show whether they actually manage to not fall into the same old traps, but I was genuinely impressed with their design pillars. I went back to my old post about the Classic Plus survey and a lot of the things they highlighted aligned with how Luc summed up the essence of Classic in his comment at the bottom. We can only hope that the people always pushing for more verticality will be happy to get their fix on the rolling seasonal servers.
I was really impressed with how much work they put into making the visuals customisable! I've always loved the old models but I could see myself trying the HD models with old animations option.
See you in November!
DeleteI don't think I'm ready to buy the blue elf pack, and also I don't want to spoil the moment and get burnt out before the game is even released, so no beta for me.
I haven't seen anything about the servers. Will it be multiple servers with merging (that's why they introduced surnames, I think) or a large megaserver with sharding according to the chosen ruleset (PvE, PvP, RP)?
I haven't seen anything official about servers yet. People are reporting that in the BlizzCon demo, they can only choose their ruleset, not a server, but it's not clear whether that's just a demo thing or an indication of bigger plans.
DeleteI don't expect them to make a lot of different servers based on how SoD went, but I do hope they at least make an RP server. I know that's where I'd find my people!
I'm also thinking about the RP server, but it wasn't fun playing on Hydraxian overlords as a Horde with 300-400 population. Well, time will tell. As far as I know, two new Forever panels are incoming (Deep Dive, Evolving a Timeless World & Hardcore); I can't wait to learn the details.
ReplyDeleteA megaserver with rulesets and algorithm-based layering. Not a bad choice, imo.
DeleteI remain sceptical of megaservers and am not convinced that layering (even if it tries to be "smart") will do the trick, but I'm willing to give it a chance.
DeleteIt's a questionable decision, but the alternatives would have been worse, imo (I still have the lingering trauma from the HW Horde population). It's a pity that the "rulesetted megaserver" concept is impossible to test properly before the launch and the massive population increase. Well, time will tell.
DeleteI hope that the RP ruleset will be allowed to "draw upon" the normal ruleset if the population is unsustainable, but without losing its identity.