So, Incursions.

With my Season of Discovery main in her high forties now, I've reached the part of the game that made up SoD's phase three, which - based on what I heard about it at the time - was widely lambasted as even worse than phase two. One of the phase's main new features were so-called "incursions" around the Emeral Dream portals in Duskwood, Ashenvale, Feralas and the Hinterlands. What I'd heard about those was mainly that they were simultaneously too good (in terms of rewards) and horrible (in terms of gamplay), which both hurt the economy and frustrated people who felt that they were being shoehorned into levelling from 40 to 50 by doing endless laps around one corner of a zone.

I was very curious to check these out for myself, if for no other reason than to see whether they were as bad as everyone had said.

I initially got a bit lost, because I thought they were all level 40-50 content, but when I got to the Feralas portal the NPC there didn't want to talk to me. It was only on reading up that I found out that actually, incursions start as low as low as level 25, and different zones are targeted at different level ranges.

I eventually found out that the right place to be at my level was the Ashenvale incursion, so I made my way over there.

I've got to admit, talking to the quest giver immediately had me horrified in a number of ways. Remember that in Classic, the quest log has a limit of 20 quests at a time... and here this night elf was offering me no fewer than eighteen missions to do in the local incursion, which meant I had to almost completely empty my quest log of everything else. The quests were numbered for convenience ("Ashenvale Mission I: Defeat Satyrs", "Ashenvale Mission II: Defeat Treants" etc.) and flavour-less copy-and-pastes of each other that just told you in the most minimalist terms where to go.

It was easy to see what the pattern was: The incursion was active in three nearby sub-zones of Ashenvale: Forest Song, Satyrnaar and the Warsong Lumber Camp, and each one had five quests tied to it: one to kill mobs, one to kill a boss, one to pick up an item, one to gather a field report from an NPC, and one to escort another NPC out of the area. The three remaining quests were profession-related, asking you to collect Emerald Dream-flavoured herbs, ore and skins.

I figured with such a high density of quests it would be hard not to trip over any objectives, so I just bumbled into Forest Song and started killing dreamy whelps there. In what turned out to be a stroke of good luck, a nearby orc hunter threw me an invite almost immediately. I warned him that this was my first time doing one of these, and he reassured me that it was the same for him. While he obviously had an addon running that was showing him details about where to find each quest objective, he wasn't exactly trying to speed-run the area. He was also a skinner and therefore paused all the time to skin the various dragonkin we'd killed.

I've got to admit I was happy to defer to him in terms of setting the pace and let him take the lead. All I had to do was follow him around and focus on healing him and his pet, while occasionally throwing out small bits of damage here or there or pausing to pick a herb. Priest and hunter make for a pretty good duo, and I found myself recalling happy memories of my night elf priest questing with a hunter friend back in Burning Crusade.

I didn't look at the time, but even with the two of us it took us some time to fully clear out all the objectives in all three areas. I wasn't sure whether we'd be able to do the named boss mobs with just the two of us as they showed as level "skull" but we ended up being able to duo them just fine. At the end I traded him some spare herbs so he could also do the herbalist quest, and he gave me some of his skins in return so I could complete the skinning quest (neither of us got the mining one done, obviously). I gained more than two levels from this adventure, though I'll admit that I was rested for a good chunk of it, which undoubtedly helped.

For a different perspective, I also decided to take my level 28 mage to do the lowest-level incursion in Duskwood (questing in Duskwood as a low-level Horde character felt very weird by the way). The quests there followed the exact same pattern, but since I didn't find a friendly helper over there, it was a lot less pleasant. (All I got was Alliance players spouting gibberish at me in /say and doing incomprehensible emotes.).

I couldn't do any of the bosses by myself, and one of the field report missions was also out, as the NPC was placed literally at the feet of the local boss mob, nobody else was around to kill him, and I was unable to even have a quick chat with the NPC before the boss flattened me.

Waiting for the escorts also turned out to be a waste of time. These are not classic-style escorts where you get an NPC walking from A to B while you defend them from exactly three ambushes; instead you talk to the person and they then follow you around. This is much more convenient in many ways but has one important downside: because there is competition for the spawns and people want to be efficient, whoever sees the escort NPC up will immediately talk to them to "claim" them... just to then proceed with their other dailies until they are ready to go back to the portal themselves. The problem is that this means it can take a veeery long time for the escort to reset and respawn. My mage didn't see a single one of these NPCs up and I grew tired of waiting.

What with being able to do fewer quests by myself and not being rested, I think I only gained about a level from this particular incursion, maybe even less, though I'm not sure as I'd spent some time fighting my way through two crypts in Raven Hill Cemetery for rune stuff before starting on the incursions.

Ultimately my conclusion was that I did like the conceptual idea of incursions - going into the Emerald Dream to fight off invaders - but in terms of execution, I'm not sure I've ever seen content in any version of WoW that was created with such a seeming lack of love, with not even any attempt at lore, flavour or interesting quest text. It's like the devs figured: hey, nobody cares about that stuff anyway; Classic players just want a way to efficiently grind levels outside of dungeons, so let's give it to them.

As it stands, with the rewards supposedly nerfed considerably compared to what they were at launch and the quests being dailies instead of endlessly repeatable, I can see incursions being a fun little diversion every now and then, especially if you find yourself running low on other sources of XP in a certain level range. My team-up with the orc hunter was good fun, and I can imagine it being even better with a group of friends. When you're by yourself, it feels a lot more lacklustre though.

And I can definitely see why people hated these. When they were endlessly repeatable and also gave ridiculous rewards, they must have felt like an absolute "must-do" for a while, but who wants to spend all day grinding the same fifteen quests over and over in one corner of the same zone? I'm not surprised people were put off by that. It was also very noticeable that whenever I looked up incursion-related things on Wowhead, I was lucky to find even one comment with two upvotes on anything. People just did not care about this content at all, not even enough to complain about it in the end. They just stopped playing.

I don't expect to see the Sunken Temple raid, so I suspect I'll be moving on to phase four content pretty soon.

Rune Hunting in Season of Discovery

I mentioned in my last post about SoD that I'd decided to put levelling on the back burner for a bit in favour of hunting down more of my class runes. Yes, I know you can just buy them all from a vendor now, but that just defeats the purpose for me - I don't so much care about having the runes at this point, I just want to see what kind of content/gameplay Blizz put into SoD related to acquiring them.

Back in phase one, I actually collected all but one of the available runes for my priest; the only one I was missing was the one for which you had to grind out various junk items for a goblin in Ratchet so he would turn into a vendor and sell you a rune (this was the same for all classes). I could never be bothered with that one, and when I returned to this goblin recently, I found that while the grindy quests are still there, he's just a vendor by default. I then opted to simply return to Orgrimmar and buy the rune from the trader there for one copper, because if I'm going to just buy these from a vendor, I might as well save myself some cash (the price at the goblin was still three gold).

Then it was time to whip out the Wowhead guide and go travelling around the level 30-40 zones for the phase two runes. The common theme for these seemed to be that they required you to travel a lot, and I tried to get several things done in each location at once for efficiency, but there was pretty much always something I'd forget and that I later had to go back for after all. At least I got my master fishing quest done during these repeated round trips around the world as well.

I also found out that the devs did away with the whole "meditation" thing, a.k.a. the buff sharing mechanic I absolutely adored in phase one (and without which you couldn't actually learn many runes even if you'd found them). Honestly, I was glad. While I thought that the whole concept was an incredibly cool idea a year ago, with most people at level cap and no longer hunting for runes, I think it would've been a massive pain in the rear to acquire those meditation buffs every time I wanted to learn a new rune. 

The tooltips are now a lie. And also a bit broken.

Anyway, about half of the phase two runes were relatively straightforward and uneventful to acquire with a guide. Farm some mobs over here until they drop a thing, click on this item over there that starts a short quest, that sort of thing. However, three runes stood out as more interesting/challenging:

First there was the Dispersion rune, which according to the instructions, first required a rogue to pickpocket a scroll for you, then a mage to decipher said scroll, and then the resulting item starts a quest for the priest to do a couple of bits and bobs in Stranglethorn. Fat chance I'm going to find anyone to help with that at this stage, I thought at first, but then I noticed that the guide said that both the pickpocketed scroll and the deciphered scroll were tradeable and could be sold on the AH. And what do you know... I checked the AH and there was exactly one of the pickpocketed scrolls there, for a rather silly price of six gold or so. However, I was grateful for the opportunity to still do the quest after all, so I bought it and sent it to my mage alt to decipher, which ultimately enabled me to still unlock this rune the originally intended way. I suspect I was rather lucky to achieve that at this point.

Next there was the Spirit of the Redeemer rune, which requires you to hunt down the seven dark riders of Karazhan across the world. This was one of those things I'd heard people talk about in early coverage of SoD phase two, and the general impression I got of said coverage was that this was another task that all classes needed to do for one of their runes, that it was very time-consuming, and that it required a full group. I figured that would be another thing that might be tough to do at this point in the game, but I was tentatively hopeful based on some comments I'd read and the fact that I was a few levels past 40 at this point that I'd be able to solo this one. So I made sure to grab some world buffs before revealing the first rider... and it worked! It was still a somewhat tough fight that required me to blow all my cooldowns and I was out of mana by the end, but it was doable, so I travelled to all seven of the required zones and hunted down the rider in each one. I was also pleasantly surprised to find that each rider hunted down counted as a quest that translated into about one bar of XP at my level, so I actually got a decent amount of that just for working to unlock this one rune.

The biggest challenge however turned out to be the Pain Suppression rune. This one required you to collect items from four different zones in opposite corners of the world (naturally) which you then had to use inside one of the rooms in the library wing of Scarlet Monastery. Now, obviously people are still doing SM runs, but I'd kind of reached a level where groups wouldn't really have been too happy to take me to the library wing (plus I wasn't sure how a pug would feel about me wanting to pause in the middle to faff around with no-longer-required rune stuff), but at the same time I wasn't yet high enough to easily be able to solo the place.

I spent a little time looking for a group but quickly grew impatient and decided to give soloing it a try anyway. As it turned out, a single mob inside the dungeon was easy enough for me to take down at this point, two were doable with mind control but kind of slow, and three were a mad scramble but survivable if I had cooldowns up. So I started to slowly work my way through the first corridor and then the courtyard, with things going wrong several times and forcing me to run back out, usually when I couldn't stop a runner in time.

My little Homunculi were also a bit of a mixed bag. They were incredibly useful in terms of combat capabilities, but they are also uncontrollable and can be stupid unholy little terrors, and would sometimes randomly decide to charge off into another room to pull more when I really couldn't take any more mobs at that particular moment. I survived a lot of close calls, but one time it all got too much and I died. When I ran back in I had to discover to my chagrin that because I'd been so slow, trash at the entrance was already starting to respawn.

I almost gave up at that point, but I was so close to the room I actually needed that I persisted, carving an even narrower path through the respawned mobs to get back to where I was, and eventually I succeeded in getting to the corridor I needed and was able to place my items there to "summon" the rune.

With all the phase two runes polished off, I started to have a look at the phase three ones. There was one that was really easy, only requiring me to kill a regular one mob just outside Gadgetzan. Since it was in the area, I also tried the one that requires you to summon a voidwalker in a waste wanderer camp, but that went horribly wrong since it was an elite, immune to shadow damage (never great news for a priest) and had an absolutely horrific damage output. So I died and decided to leave that one for another day.

Time to get back to actual levelling.

Levelling Through Raiding in Season of Discovery

I've kind of stopped caring so much about my alts in SoD and have been more focused on just continuing to level my priest at the moment. I hit level 40 during a Scarlet Monastery run that was funny because in Cathedral, we had so much dps that we bugged out the last fight and Whitemane died from dots and totem damage before she could actually revive Mograine, something I didn't think was possible. This bugged out the fight so we only got one piece of loot and no quest completion, but most of the group was happy to just reset the instance and go again.

Also, I noted in my last post about SoD that buffing a full group with fortitude "still takes more than one full mana bar even in SoD", so I was rather chuffed when one of the bosses in SM dropped a priest scroll that reduced the mana cost of fort by 50% while also extending its duration by the same amount. This is the kind of change I can get behind!

Once we were done in SM, I manually legged it back to Brill in anticipation of getting my ground mount. I wasn't sure whether I was actually going to be able to afford it since I didn't have 90 gold yet, but I was hopeful that with how much certain things had been streamlined and sped up in SoD, the price might have been reduced and I would be able to afford it anyway. This turned out to be correct.

At this point I thought I should maybe start focusing a bit more on getting my professions and runes caught up before doing more questing, but I hadn't yet been fishing for half an hour when a warlock whispered me to ask whether I wanted to go to Gnomeregan (the raid). I replied that I hadn't done it before but was up for it and quickly got an invite, which was followed by a summon only a few minutes later.

We killed the first boss with no issues, but wiped on the second one due to massive AoE. The warlock (who was also the main tank - what is it with warlock tanks in SoD?!) just went "adds?!" and rage-quit the group. I thought that was quite funny, considering he'd been the one to actually put the raid together and didn't seem to have any issues with inviting people who openly said that they'd never done this before. Talk about giving up quickly.

The rest of us hung around and tried to get a replacement, but without a summon we knew it would take a while for them to arrive. We spent about fifteen minutes sitting around waiting for this shaman to make it to Booty Bay for the teleport, just for them to notice the level 60 we had in the group and go "oh, never mind, I just wanted to come for the XP" and leave again. (I think they were worried that a 60 in the group would nerf their XP too much?) We just nine-manned it in the end and had another wipe, but once people finally understood that the adds had to die, the fight was easy-peasy and we were able to move on.

Crowd Pummeler seemed pretty straightforward, and I commented that the XP was pretty good even with the level 60 in the group. That remark clearly jinxed it for everyone, as on the next boss, everybody but the level 60 died, and he shaved off the last sliver of the boss's health all by himself, which meant that none of us got any XP for it, being dead at the time.

On Menagerie (an encounter completely new to SoD) we wiped once because people didn't make sure to get the bosses down at the same time. On the second attempt we were successful, but then Thermaplugg spawned right in the middle of the room and even though we'd been warned about that, someone immediately aggroed him and we wiped again. At this point the level 60 and two others quit the group, but the new raid lead valiantly made an attempt to find a few more replacements, including another level 60. In the end we gave Thermaplugg a few more tries with nine people, but we only got as far as the third phase with basically no mana and immediately dying to massive damage at the start of the phase, so we eventually called it there.

I didn't get any loot but was still happy to have had the opportunity to see the raid. Even though I recalled Blizzard buffing XP gains in BFD when phase two launched, I wasn't sure how common it was for people to actually run the low-level raids as levelling content. The XP was indeed very good, even with the level 60 in the group and me only being alive for four boss kills, as I gained more than a full level of experience from that run. I'd kind of like to go again at some point to see whether another group might be a bit more successful (and with me having the advantage of actually knowing the fights now) but I probably won't put too much effort into finding a group since there are plenty of other sights to see still.

When You're the Bad Pug (in RFD)

Last Sunday I healed a Razorfen Downs pug with my undead priest in Season of Discovery. It went... awkwardly.

I felt chipper enough when I first joined the group - I was filling the last spot, so we were immediately ready to go. The group had been listed for several dungeons, so I asked what the ultimate destination was meant to be and was told that it was Razorfen Downs. I could see that several people were already on their way to the entrance, and the tank was a warlock, which meant that I could simply await a summon, which was nice as I was very far away.

The tank asked whether we were all okay with doing the escort quest after the first boss, and I said "sure". I mostly took it as a given that the escort and its associated boss encounter would be included in an RFD run, but there's nothing wrong with making sure that everyone's on the same page! The warlock wasn't appeased that easily though - he insisted that each individual member confirmed in writing in the chat that they were okay with doing the escort, and that they would wait for everyone to hand in the previous quest before picking up the next one (the actual escort). A rather unexpected degree of paranoia I guess, but I wasn't put off just yet because I was well aware of how much of a pain that escort could be. (I mentioned it in this post from 2011!)

Anyway, eventually a summon arrived for me, and the moment I loaded in, someone shared the quest you can pick up just outside the instance with me. I thanked everyone around me and started buffing everyone with fortitude, something that still takes more than one full mana bar even in SoD. I hadn't even buffed everyone yet when the tank was already off to the races - and thus began half an hour of me frantically chasing after him, trying to sit down to drink every now and then but barely getting above 20% of my mana at any given time.

At one point before we even got inside the instance, the tank died because he had charged so far off, I hadn't stood a snowball's chance in hell at getting in range of him in time. He put "mb" in the chat but didn't seem to learn a lesson from it as he still didn't slow down in any way the moment he was back on his feet. Eventually I did put "oom" in chat myself because I really wanted a moment to drink, but this still wasn't enough to stop the tank. One of the dpsers took pity on me and handed me a mana potion though. At one point we spotted a chest and a few people rolled on it - I won but again didn't have time to actually grab it because the tank was running and pulling again and I had to race after him in turn to keep him alive.

When we reached Belnistrasz, the tank was very firm that we should all "just accept, don't talk". Frazzled as I was from the constant running and barely being able to keep up, I quickly accepted the first quest, hit complete and then accepted the second quest, which immediately started the NPC running. "Who hit accept?!" the tank roared, and it took me a moment to process what had even happened. He'd said to just accept, not talk, which was what I'd done... but then I opened my quest log and could see that I was the only person on the escort quest. It was only then that it came back to me that of course, that's why it was so annoying, because there is no separate dialogue option to start the escort, it immediately starts the moment you accept the quest. Why had he said "just accept, don't talk" then though...?

Anyway, the tank kept demanding to know who'd ruined everything while we ran back to the entrance to reset the instance. I wanted to be honest and confess, but he seemed so mad, and someone else piped up with a comment along the lines "somebody probably had auto-accept on" (in an addon). I of course had no such addon installed, but the temptation of blaming an unspecified person's addon was just too great and I said nothing.

When we got outside, the tank again made each of us confirm individually that we didn't have any auto-accept function on (anymore) before resetting the instance. As we fought our way through the same bunch of pig people a second time, he also kept putting "alfa" in chat repeatedly. I didn't know what that meant, but already racked with guilt and nervous as I was, I worried that I was missing something important and eventually asked whether that was a SoD thing. Someone simply said yes and the tank repeated "alfa" a few more times. But who was he talking to? I searched Wowhead for "alfa" on my second screen and got no useful results. Was I doing something else wrong now? Fortunately it eventually turned out that it was the shaman he'd been pestering, namely for the buff "Spirit of the Alpha".

Anyway, we got back to Belnistraz again, and it was once again emphatically repeated not to start the escort quest until the tank officially called for it. I meekly hung my head and waited. When I noticed level-up type sparkles around people's heads as others handed in the pre-quest, I started to sweat again. What if people were paying attention and noticed that I wasn't visibly completing the pre-quest just now? Would that give away my bad deed from earlier? However, even as I wondered about that, I suddenly got the pop-up to say that someone else had started the escort quest and whether I wanted to accept it too. I clicked yes of course, and there was once again raging about how someone hadn't waited, though at least I knew it wasn't me this time. There was also no threat of a reset as only one guy had been unable to pick up the escort, and the tank was like "screw that one guy" I guess.

The silver lining of the run was that the boss at the end of the escort dropped Scroll of Shadowfiend for me, which I took with some delight. I had no idea you could even earn extra non-rune abilities like that too!

Anyway, we continued the run as before, crazy rushing included. One of the bosses dropped a really nice caster cloak, but I saw the tank roll need so I passed, guilty conscience still gnawing at me, plus I had got the distinct impression that this tank had very strong opinions about getting what he wanted.

He also died two more times on trash, even though I was able to keep everyone else alive. He hadn't run out of range either, I just... wasn't able to keep him up? He seemed to take crazy amounts of damage sometimes, but I have no experience with warlock tanks so I couldn't judge whether this was normal or whether he was effectively doing the warlock equivalent of tanking in battle stance and without a shield when you're under-levelled for the dungeon. I just felt like I was failing as a healer, even though nobody said anything. At one point after I'd resed him again, he just stood there for a minute not moving, and I imagined him telling his guild mates about how trash the healer in his RFD run was.

Eventually we got to the end of the dungeon. We ran past another chest, which nobody but me even attempted to roll for this time, so I just looted it after everyone else had left. Amnennar the Coldbringer dropped his Coldrage Dagger, on which the rogue in the party rolled need... but so did the warlock, and he was the one who won. The rogue just put a ":/" in chat, understandably not pleased with a caster needing on a melee weapon. I felt bad for him, but that last incident also made me feel a bit better about my own failures, knowing that the warlock wasn't just bossy and in a hurry but also a ninja. Didn't need to feel quite so bad about him dying then I guess.

I hearthed back to Undercity and did my quest hand-ins. I then opened the group finder one more time just to see what else was happening, and saw that the warlock was already in the process of forming another group for Scarlet Monastery, this time with a druid healer that was only level 33. I silently wished that guy good luck in my head and logged off for the day.

Classic WoW & Me in 2024

It's once again time for my by now annual look back at my relationship with WoW (Classic, there will be a separate post about retail), through the lens of which characters I've made any progress with this year and how much.

The main thing that immediately became apparent when I started putting the numbers together for this is that I spent a lot less time in Classic in 2024 than I did in 2023. Based on my 2023 review, about 50% less in fact. That still left me with more than ten days /played, which is not nothing, but for comparison: in 2019, the year when Classic first came out, I spent more time than that on a single character over the course of only four months.

When I did play Classic, my focus this year has generally been on rolling up new characters for novelty, with the occasional check-in on old favourites for some routine gameplay or the odd adventure here or there.

Season of Discovery

I'm going to start with Season of Discovery, which got the largest chunk of my play time as far as I can tell, though the numbers might be a little skewed as I'm pretty sure I created most of these characters at the end of last year and they just hadn't reached a high enough level yet for me to want to include them in my end-of-year round-up. I then still played quite intensely for the first two months or so of 2024, before getting utterly disenchanted with the state of SoD and giving up on it. It wasn't until the other month that I felt inspired to dip back in, but it's actually been quite nice to get to the party late and not feel like I have to give a fig about whatever's going on at endgame.

Shintar - Wild Growth

• Level 37 Priest
• 2 days, 23 hours played (+1 day, 11 hours)
  
• 188 Alchemy (+48), 205 Herbalism (+55), 204 Cooking (+54), 201 First Aid (+72), 174 Fishing (+52)

Raiding in SoD phase one, even if only did BFD twice or something, turned out to be an unexpected boon as I reckon the gear my priest got from it might well last her until the level cap at this point. She's currently leading the charge of my alt brigade with the goal of seeing Demon Fall Canyon some time next year.

Shintroll - WG

• Level 35 Hunter
  
• 1 day, 21 hours played
• 154 Leatherworking, 225 Skinning, 205 Cooking, 115 First Aid, 153 Fishing 

My hunter is an interesting contrast to this because she hit level 25 only just before phase two came out and has been wearing mostly the same greens since then. Levels come fast with the XP boost, but gear not so much. It's starting to become somewhat noticeable at this point, but fortunately hunters are sufficiently OP that she's still managing to get by.

Shindig - WG

• Level 28 Mage
  
• 1 day played
• 98 Enchanting, 125 Tailoring, 103 Cooking, 75 First Aid, 75 Fishing

Mages have an interesting concept going on in SoD with all the books you can find and the scrolls you can decipher, but sadly most of them haven't seemed particularly useful to me so far. We'll see whether that changes at some point.

Shikana - WG

• Level 24 Shaman
  
• 18 hours played
  
• 129 Engineering, 111 Mining, 103 Cooking, 77 First Aid, 91 Fishing

I think I created this shaman with the goal of trying out shaman tanking, but with the changes to runes I'm now too worried about being considered "suboptimal" for group content without all my runes purchased from the vendor. This was very much driven home when I did a Ragefire Chasm on another character with a shaman healer who was only level 8 (TIL that you can enter RFC at level 8; I always thought the minimum was 10) and he basically did all his healing with spells from runes. Her gear is also starting to fall behind rapidly and I'm thinking I may have to take some time out just to hunt down both some gear and runes.

Shinlu - WG

• Level 21 Druid
  
• 1 day, 12 hours played
• 89 Herbalism, 90 Skinning, 71 Cooking, 52 First Aid, 34 Fishing

This druid hasn't had a chance to do much yet... I think I've only found something like four runes so far as well. Much work to do either way.

Tirr - Lava Lash 

• Level 32 Priest
• 1 day, 19 hours played
• 104 Enchanting, 140 Tailoring, 180 Cooking, 114 First Aid, 205 Fishing

This was the character I made on the RP server with the goal of "rerolling" there for phase two, just for the server to die the "free transfer death" shortly after. I was honestly surprised to see that it was still up when I logged back in last month. I did a bit of solo questing there, but a completely empty world doesn't hold that much appeal to me right now. That was a fun experiment last year, but for the time being I'm kinda over it. 

Hardcore

Shintar - Nek'Rosh

• Level 22 Priest
• 23 hours played
  
• 96 Alchemy, 140 Herbalism, 100 Cooking, 115 First Aid, 136 Fishing 

While hardcore isn't really my (primary) jam, I did decide to revisit it briefly in spring by creating a priest on Horde side this time around. That character is actually still alive, I just lost interest in the low 20s as I so often do because I felt I should run Wailing Caverns for the quests but also struggled to find a group until my interest just kind of fizzled out.

Classic era - Alliance

Tirr - Zandalar Tribe

• Level 20 Hunter
  
• 22 hours played
  
• 141 Herbalism, 101 Skinning, 136 Cooking, 115 First Aid, 140 Fishing 

The most invested I got into Classic era this year was probably when I checked out the "community fresh" project on Zandalar Tribe in summer. Even so, that still resulted in less than a day of play time from me, so that should give you an idea of how inactive I've been on era in general this year. Also, when I logged in to check this character's /played, there were only two other people online on the entire server. No need for "community fresh" when there are actual Blizzard-run fresh anniversary servers.

My existing Alliance characters saw a little bit of... not really play, but active time as I started making money over on Alliance side at one point. Earlier in the year, a guildie needed help transferring an expensive recipe from Alliance side to Horde via the neutral AH and I was happy to help him out. He reimbursed me of course, but the whole thing did make me realise how poor my Alliance characters were in comparison to my Hordies, so I decided to try and make some easy money by actually regularly using my cooldowns to refine Deeprock Salt and create Mooncloth. Nothing to write home about, but I'm just going to list the overall stats in bullet point form for my own future reference:

• Tirr - Nethergarde Keep: 36 days, 9 hours played (+3 hours)
  
• Sarelle - NK: 20 days, 14 hours played (+1 hour)
• Faly - NK: 8 days, 22 hours played (+1 hour), 292 Cooking, 225 Fishing
• Jehna - NK: 7 days, 16 hours played (+3 hours), 300 Tailoring (+5, from making Mooncloth), 252 Enchanting (+2), 281 Cooking, 122 Fishing
• Razorr - Pyrewood Village: 2 days, 8 hours played (+4 hours... I have no idea what I did in that time as she gained no levels or skill-ups - it's possible I just made a mistake in my calculations last time), 160 Mining, 235 Skinning, 162 Cooking, 196 First Aid, 65 Fishing
• Shintar - PV: 2 days played (+0), 125 Mining, 172 Engineering, 181 Cooking, 145 First Aid, 126 Fishing

Classic era - Horde

Shintau - PV

• Level 56 Shaman (+3)
• 8 days, 18 hours played (+19 hours)
  
• 268 (Tribal) Leatherworking (+3)

My only Horde character to achieve anything noteworthy this year was my shaman, who gained three levels. Still not 60 after more than five years though, hah! I just did a bit of questing and ran both Sunken Temple and Maraudon. The Mara run didn't give me much XP, but it allowed me to play with a friend from OG Classic that had finally decided to start playing on era and we had a good time.

The rest of my stable didn't do much either, so again I'll just list them in bullet point form for my own future reference:

• Shika - PV: 33 days, 16 hours played (+1 day, 5 hours) - I think I may have attended one or two raids at some point in the year, I got to be part of Bracken's Atiesh adventure, and I did spend some time farming ore on occasion. Mostly I just logged in to put stuff on the AH though.
  
• Shilu - PV: 16 days, 7 hours played (+3 hours) - I don't even remember what I did on this one
  
• Shinny - PV: 4 days, 14 hours played (+10 hours) - my mage appears to have lost two levels since I wrote down that she was level 44 last year, and she's only 42 now; as this isn't Everquest it seems safe to say that was just me getting it wrong. She maxed out her tailoring due to me deciding to regularly craft and sell Mooncloth on Horde side as well: 300 Tailoring (+12), 143 Enchanting, 272 Cooking, 263 First Aid (+7), 178 Fishing (+1)
  
• Fooba - Mirage Raceway: 1 day, 12 hours played (+1 hour), 133 Mining, 97 Blacksmithing (-27? clearly another mistake in my notes last year), 76 Cooking (+56), 110 First Aid (+17), 77 Fishing (+70)
  
• Gemba - MR: 1 day, 4 hours played (+0), 97 Herbalism, 150 Skinning, 2 Cooking, 113 First Aid, 80 Fishing 

Once again I'm ending the year with no real idea of what next year will bring for me in Classic. Season of Discovery has given me some goals for the time being but that mode has a very uncertain future. I might revisit Hardcore again at some point, but beyond that I have no real plans, so my play time may well continue to decline until/unless we end up getting some kind of Classic-related surprise reveal that appeals to me.

More Levelling in SoD

I mentioned last month that I was getting back into Season of Discovery with the goal of eventually seeing the Demon Fall Canyon dungeon. Over the past couple of weeks, I got a bit distracted by some things in SWTOR, but I haven't forgotten about this project, so I wanted to jot down some notes about my most recent adventures.

In general, I've continued to be surprised by how not dead the SoD servers have remained after the launch of "Classic Classic". According to my census addon, there are pretty consistently about 1000 players online on Wild Growth Horde side, which is actually pretty close to my personal sweet spot in terms of server size: enough people to keep the auction house replenished, make it easy to get into a group for most dungeons and see plenty of activity out in the world, but not so many that you can no longer gather or quest without perceiving other players as a constant competitive nuisance.

The economy is a bit less good and feels quite inflated to me. People trying to charge one gold for a single Green Hills of Stranglethorn page feels quite ridiculous to me for example. I sometimes see complaints that prices on the era servers are inflated due to the servers' age, but at least on the PvE cluster, most things are pretty fairly priced even after more than five years. Occasionally someone will try to drive the price of certain goods up, but the thing with era players is: they've got time. If you charge too much, they can always wait and/or go farm for themselves. On seasonal servers there's more urgency to get stuff now and it's noticeable.

I also remember hearing that certain activities in earlier SoD phases really cranked up inflation (incursions awarding lots of gold or something?) and that's probably part of it as well. Either way the end result is that as someone returning after several months of absence, I find a lot of things on the AH quite unaffordable. If I find one of those lost supplies boxes, if I can't fill them with my own gathering and crafting skills, it's basically a no-go. I have managed to make a bit of gold by occasionally flogging some goods for (to me) rather silly prices as well, but opportunities for that are somewhat limited and partially luck-dependent so not really a reliable solution.

I think there's also bots? It's probably not as bad as on the anniversary servers, and I've stated in the past that people are way too quick to cry wolf about people supposedly botting, but sometimes you can definitely tell. (I remember one time in Elwynn when I saw a whole stream of low-level humans leave the village zig-zagging along the exact same path; that was eerie.) I haven't come across a lot of such cases on SoD myself, but definitely at least a suspicious number of hunters with unnamed or scrambled pet names.

As for myself, I continue to rotate through all my alts to use up some restedness and try to have them quest in different places for variety. My priest also healed a Razorfen Kraul and my mage did a Wailing Caverns and a Shadowfang Keep. The latter was a bit funny to me because I actually used the group finder tool for the first time and saw a group that was just missing a tank - with the three dps being a warrior, a shaman and a warlock, all three of which can tank in SoD. I sighed and just listed my mage by her lonesome... but within less than five minutes the other group had invited me anyway and we were off to the races.

It's also been fun to do more "discovering" of content and mechanics that are unique to SoD. The other day, I was in Stranglethorn Vale during the Blood Moon for the first time, and while I had the immunity buff on me, it was still a slightly odd experience. I didn't actually see any fighting for example, but lots of max-level allies running around killing my quest mobs. Does that give them rewards? I couldn't be bothered to do any deeper research on it. I did also run into this boss-type mob that was yelling and taking a swim in Lake Nazferiti for some reason.

In terms of questing, my hunter has offered the most interesting experience. I only noticed the other day that it's possible to place traps in combat now for example, something I'm pretty sure wasn't possible in the earlier phases. She also kind of struggles with the massive XP bonus, since it doesn't apply to pets, meaning her little tiger is currently three levels below her. I've tried to get him caught up by focusing a bit on mob grinding while unrested, but then I hand in one quest and bam, suddenly I'm another level ahead again. It's a bit annoying to be honest.

Another questionable adventure she had occurred around the AQ gate opening event. I mentioned previously that it worked a bit differently in SoD compared to normal, with the war effort completing automatically on a timer, but apparently the ten hour war - or at least the events tied to it - were extended significantly as well. I kept running into giant floating Qiraj crystals in levelling zones for days, which I think made farming Brood of Nozdormu rep a lot easier for people, but I'm not sure Blizzard fully took into consideration what this would mean for levellers. For example one of these crystals spawns right in the middle of Camp Mojache, so when I tried to pick up the flight path there, I swiftly got stomped into the ground. I couldn't even res and quickly click on the flight master, as I would instantly get put into combat and killed again. I think in the end I had to accept a spirit rez and use my hearthstone.

The other day I saw a video by WillE about what's new in SoD, and he mentioned that there are now vendors that sell all the runes for one copper each. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, I was a bit concerned about how much of a grind it would be to find all the runes at this point, and this is definitely a nice solution for people who want to level more alts to raid. But I'm not looking to raid, and finding more runes was kind of part of the journey I was looking forward to? I mean, I can still gather them myself over time, that hasn't been disabled as far as I'm aware, but it does make me a bit worried whether people will be shirty in dungeons if you haven't just bought all your runes. Then again, so far everyone I've grouped with since my return has been very chill, so one can hope.

Rediscovering Season of Discovery

I wanted to take some more notes on my experience picking up Season of Discovery again:

One of the first things the game reminded of was that I made a whole bunch of alts in phase one that were all between level 10 and 20. Now, playing alts won't help with my goal of getting a single character to a high enough level to be able to do Demon Fall Canyon, but it's also fun and alleviates bag space issues (since I can just send all the cloth to my tailor and so on and so forth), so I spent some time burning through restedness on all of them anyway.

The world was busier than I expected - I'd figured that pretty much everyone but me would abandon everything they were doing on other classic realms to join the rush on the anniversary servers, but Wild Growth still seems plenty busy. Also, people were dropping Rend and dragon heads in Orgrimmar at seemingly all hours of the day, which kind of surprised me.

While going out to quest, I made the odd discovery that gathering nodes and chests were respawning at absolutely stupid rates for some reason. I first noticed it when I found a chest on my druid in Mulgore. I looted it, went to kill a nearby gnoll, turned around, and it was back! I looted it again, killed another gnoll, and the same thing happened again.

Later I was questing in the Barrens on my shaman, who is a miner, and I would almost get stuck in a loop running back and forth between the same couple of ore nodes that just kept coming back almost immediately after being mined out. As this was on the night of the anniversary server launch, I couldn't help but wonder whether some hyper-spawn setting intended for the launch day crowds was bleeding through to other servers.

The launch itself certainly had an impact as I got booted out of the game with the message "world server is down" (truly a classic) multiple times. At the time I had just killed Kreenig Snarlsnout, and coming back online in the middle of a fully respawned quillboar camp was not very fun. However, before I could properly fight my way out, I got disconnected again. This happened about five times in a row, until I decided to give up on fighting and just made a run for it. As it happened, this was also the time the server finally stayed up and I was able to make a close getaway.

My shaman also got an invite to heal Ragefire Chasm, which she accepted. I was told that the tank was new, and it was very noticeable as I did a lot of face-tanking while healing, but hey, people gotta learn somewhere. Plus it was only RFC and nobody died (I'm not counting the druid who somehow managed to fall into the lava on the way out). The group asked me afterwards whether they could add me to their friends list and I said sure, though I'm not sure how likely it is that we'll meet again with me playing my alts only in short bursts.

In terms of grouping, I noticed that there's now a manual group finder in Season of Discovery that's similar to the one we had in original Burning Crusade. I was always quite fond of that one, even if seemingly not a lot of people used it, but personally I always got good results with it. That said, I haven't really had a chance to put the SoD version to the test yet.

Another thing that happened was that I realised that with the lauch of the anniversary realms, Blizzard had also launched the AQ war effort in SoD. For a brief moment I got all starry-eyed, remembering the wonderful memories I made of the AQ gate opening event on Hydraxian Waterlords, and even wondered briefly whether I'd have enough time to level up high enough to witness the ringing of the gong on Wild Growth too. Sadly I quickly found out that the war effort in SoD is "fake" in the sense that your contributions don't matter and it just auto-completes after a week. While I can kind of get wanting to speed things up on a seasonal server, I still think that fully automating the process sucks, and I will of course not be able to see the event. Though to be fair, it's not why I came back anyway; it just would have been a nice bonus.

A Return to Season of Discovery

I haven't talked about Season of Discovery in about eight months. I had an absolute blast with its launch, but almost the moment phase two unlocked, my enjoyment pretty much fell of a cliff. I seemingly wasn't the only one who felt that way either (even if many likely had different reasons for their discontent), as the mode's population continued to decline. Last week's Warcraft Direct dedicated less than a minute to talking about Season of Discovery, and the 2025 road map for Classic just kind of fizzles out for SoD, with the last item being "new endgame content..." at the end of this winter. A blue post has since reassured players that SoD characters won't be deleted, and that they'll have more to share about the future of the mode "Soon™".

Still, at least in the short term things don't look good for SoD as it feels like the announcement of fresh vanilla servers has sucked all the air out of the room, and I expect the SoD servers to see an even sharper decline in activity from tonight onwards. So what's the best thing to do if you're a Classic hipster like me who doesn't care for fresh and doesn't want to be where everyone else is? Get back into SoD of course!

To be clear, I don't necessarily expect to be playing it a lot, but I've actually been thinking about at least temporarily getting back into it for a while. Why? To see the new dungeon! If you're asking "What new dungeon?" I can't blame you, because I myself wouldn't even have known about it if it hadn't been for a complete throwaway comment in a WillE video. If you ever needed any evidence for why "Classic Plus" would never work it's that Blizzard actually creating an entire new dungeon for SoD generated so little interest that it's something most people probably don't even know about.

For me, ever since I heard about it though, I've been thinking about returning to level my characters some more, if for no other reason than to check out this dungeon. I don't know whether it's any good, but I want to find out! Unfortunately "Demon Fall Canyon" apparently requires a character to be level 55+, and considering that I left my SoD toons in their twenties, I knew I would have some work to do, but you've got to start somewhere, right?

Just returning to the SoD tab in the Classic client, I was surprised to see the Lava Lash server still there, if marked as "locked". I would've expected Blizzard to close it down and fully merge it into Wild Growth by now. Wild Growth itself was marked as having "medium" population, but when I logged into my undead priest, Orgrimmar still seemed plenty busy. She was still wearing the red winter hat she acquired last Christmas too.

I logged out again and decided to check on my dwarf priest on Lava Lash, whom I'd actually got to 30 before quitting. A quick scan revealed an active population in the single digits, but I decided to do a bit of questing on my own anyway. At least I'd have no competition for mobs (something that had been a royal pain in the butt last time I played SoD) and I could always still take the free transfer later.

I've got to admit that gameplay-wise, it was fun to have my runes back. I'd forgotten how amusing and useful my little homunculi were, making solo questing as a priest a breeze compared to regular vanilla. The rune on my chest had been marked as "faded" though, which initially confused me, but it didn't take long to figure out that some runes had just been moved to different gear slots since I last played.

I was kind of stunned by how fast the XP was rolling in. Sure, I was rested, but even so - as it turns out, the XP boost I'd bemoaned at the start of phase two has been increased to 150% bonus XP since then, meaning that less than half a dozen quests in Duskwood were enough to net me two full levels.

I later returned to my undead priest to do some questing in Hillsbrad and had a similar experience there in terms of levelling speed. While pausing to cast my line into a fishing pool south of Tarren Mill, I spotted a night elf hunter interacting with a strange crate, which summoned an elite turtle that she ended up fighting. This reminded me that disregarding the way that both community and devs have been obsessing over raiding, seeing strange new things in the world that I knew weren't there in Vanilla was one of the things I really enjoyed about SoD. We'll see whether I'll get some more of that over the coming weeks, now that I no longer feel the need to keep up with anyone else and worry about raiding.

Why I'm Not Playing as Much Classic Anymore

The launch of WoW Classic five years ago rekindled my interest in WoW in a way I didn't think was possible, and was also the event that truly revived this blog after it had more or less lain fallow for several years. That's why I added (Classic) to the blog title at the time, and updated the header to feature images of what I loved most about Vanilla... the beautiful world (and specifically parts of it that the Cataclysm had destroyed).

I had no interest in retail at the time and didn't think I was ever going to play it again, and I did stick strictly to Classic for about a year. Then I decided to at least dip my toes into BfA (when that expansion became part of the standard subscription with the Shadowlands pre-patch) and found that it was alright as something to play with the husband on a very casual level (since Classic sadly hadn't appealed to him at all).

I continued dabbling in retail throughout Shadowlands while at the same time ignoring huge swathes of the game, which is why many of the complaints people had about that expansion largely passed me by. However, then Dragonflight came out and... it was really fun! So my retail play time went up, and at some point last year the scales tipped to the point that I ended up actually spending more time in retail than in Classic.

While some of that has been due to retail improving, part of it has also been my interest in Classic decreasing a lot, and I wanted to talk a bit about why that is, and where I see my relationship with Classic going in the future.

Since there are several different versions of Classic, let's split things up by "mode":

Vanilla / Classic era

I'm inluding hardcore in this, because while permadeath changes the feel of the game considerably, it's still the same world with the same quests and the same gameplay. Either way, I think this version of the game is great and I do still love it. This is honestly what I wanted out of Classic when it was first announced: a place I can go back to whenever I feel nostalgic for the original World of Warcraft.

However, a side effect of this version's unchanging nature is that... at some point you're just kind of done. I've seen this a lot in my Classic era guild, where even the most devoted players (she had a freaking real-life tattoo of Atiesh!) eventually reach a point where they've achieved everything they wanted to achieve and want to move on to other things. And I think that's fine.

The few that stick around for years regardless usually seem to do so because of strong social ties and/or a deeper involvement with guild business, which again, makes complete sense to me. However, I'm just not in that place myself anymore. I actually do still log into Classic era almost daily, but I don't really play much and I just generally feel like I've kind of seen it all. Not literally of course, but... I was really deep into Classic for two years on Alliance side, and then again on Horde side when I moved to the era servers, so it feels like everything about the zones and dungeons is honestly still quite fresh on my mind and I'll need some time away before I'll get the itch again.

Progressive Classic

Progressive Classic ceased to be of interest to me when it was first announced that all BC Classic characters would have to transition into Wrath of the Lich King, since that was the expansion where I personally felt that things started to go downhill, and while I did have some good times in original Wrath, I tend to think of those days as the kind of experience that was good once but that I'd rather not go through again.

Cata Classic was similarly uninteresting to me, even if I feel that people tend to be a bit too harsh on that expansion. (For me it was quite similar to Wrath in that it had both good and bad aspects.) Personally I don't think that Blizzard will actually continue to ride the expansion train until Classic catches up with retail, but until they tell as otherwise it's fair to assume that they will, and when I look at the line-up of what's to come next, I don't really see much reason to get re-invested into progressive Classic either.

Mists of Pandaria: If they do make a MoP Classic, I have exactly one plan for it: to level a character high enough at the start of the expansion to see the Vale of Eternal Blossoms in its original state. I was intrigued by seeing both in-game NPCs and actual players talk about its beauty back when the expansion was current, but by the time I went to check out Mists in late 2013, the zone had already been changed to its permanently destroyed state to accommodate the entrance to the Siege of Orgrimmar raid.

That is literally all a Mists Classic could offer me though. I just spent several months levelling characters through MoP Remix earlier this year, so in terms of Pandaria quests, dungeons and raids, I've had my fill of that content recently.

Warlords of Draenor: I'm actually kind of curious what garrisons were like when they were the focus of the game, but from my understanding a lot of their appeal came from the fact that they were competely broken in terms of how much gold and resources they generated, which is something that Blizzard later nerfed, and somehow I can't see them putting them into Classic in their broken state again, so yeah... I just don't see much of interest here.

Legion: I didn't play during Legion but people mostly seemed to love that expansion, and even while playing through the content years later I could kind of see why. Still, all that content is still in the game, with the only things missing being the temporary systems like the artifact weapon grind and the randomly dropping legendaries. I wouldn't see the point in reliving a classic version just for those.

BfA: This one doesn't actually seem that long ago and I did play through that content in retail... plus again, it's still there for you to play through right now, just minus the systems that everyone hated, like Azerite power. I just don't see the point of a Classic version.

Seasonal servers / Classic+

I'm lumping these two together even though they're not exactly the same, but they are the same for my purposes.

If Blizzard were to actually release a Classic+, I would check it out for sure, but I'm not hopeful that it would appeal to me in the long term. Back in 2016 (during my private server days) I wrote a post called "Nostalgia and Other Reasons to Play Vanilla" in which I noted that people loved some very different if not outright contradictory things about original World of Warcraft. In a similar vein, after Classic was first announced, I wrote a post called "Flaw or Feature?" in which I also noted that taking away an aspect of the game that one group of players dislikes to make things smoother for them is just as likely to break the game for somebody else.

In a nutshell, I feel that this is exactly what Blizzard has done with some of their "twists" on Classic, and I don't think it's something on which they will change direction either as it seems to appeal to the people who keep the lights on on the current Classic servers. To be more specific, I cannot get over how they've merged everything into big megaservers (because players demanded it!) because those are absolutely antithetical to the Classic experience for me and playing on one just tends to sap all my enjoyment out of the game after a few weeks/months.

I'm pretty sure I'm in a minority on this as well, so again, I don't expect things to change, but the point remains that both the Classic dev team and the current community seem to want the game to go in a direction that ultimately doesn't appeal to me, so I'm not hopeful that anything that comes out of these efforts will have lasting appeal to me personally.

I will of course continue to keep an eye out for new developments and I suppose one should never say never, but as it stands, I simply need a break from Classic era and don't see the other modes of Classic producing anything that will manage to enthrall me anywhere close to the way the vanilla game did and still does.

That Classic Plus Survey

Ever since Blizzard first decided to commit to Classic, they've been surveying the community about its opinions on the matter. We first found out that Classic Burning Crusade was going to be a thing through one of these surveys, and when we were wondering what was going to come after Classic Wrath of the Lich King, once again the fact that Blizzard sent out a survey about Classic Cataclysm turned out to be a pretty big hint.

With that in mind, I've been finding it very interesting that a new Classic survey has been making the rounds, and it's not about Classic Mists of Pandaria, but rather (quoth the survey) "a new version of World of Warcraft Classic". People have been calling it the "Classic Plus Survey", which is why I chose that as my post title too, but I actually think that this is largely projection on the community's part and this "new version of WoW Classic" is just as likely to be the next seasonal server after Season of Discovery. Either way, it shows us the general direction of Blizzard's current line of thinking.

Most mentions of the survey that I've seen have been relatively vague, so thanks to Dwarflord for going through screenshots of all the questions in detail, which allowed me to transcribe most of it into this blog post. It starts by asking the player to familiarise themselves with "a mix of features that could be included in a new version of World of Warcraft Classic", consisting of:

• New or unexplored storylines and lore
• New reputations and rewards
• New/reimagined raids
• New/reimagined dungeons
• New/future races pulled back
• New/future classes pulled back
• Minor class changes
• Returning player re-entry feature
• New player experience
• New group events and rewards
• Ongoing class tuning/polish
• Guild bank
• Collections UI
• Dual talent specialisation
• New/future class & race combinations
• Improved social features
• PvP honour system improvements

Most of these are not surprising on a conceptual level, as they are things that players have been talking about for a long time. New or retrofitted classes/races surprised me a little, because even though that's something that private servers have done sometimes, I haven't really seen a lot of community demand for it in the context of Classic. The only things I hadn't thought about at all before were "new player experience" and "returning player re-entry feature", because I'm not sure how either of these would even work in Classic. In retail, the former is a tutorial island, which I guess would technically be possible in Classic but would still feel a little odd to me at least, and the latter is a button that clears your bags and gives you a free set of gear, something that definitely wouldn't work for Classic.

Later on, there are a few questions that pit four of these features at a time against each other, asking the player to rate which one would be most likely to make them want to play and which one least likely.

Another question that I thought was very interesting was the one that basically asked people to declare allegiance to what I would call several opposing attitudes towards Classic WoW. Below I've bolded the ones I personally agree with.

• "A new version of Classic should stick to the original level 60 cap and fit any new content within that cap" vs. "A new version of Classic should expand to higher level caps beyond 60"
• "A new version of Classic should find ways to incorporate entirely new continents or continents from WoW expansions (e.g. Outland)" vs. "A new version of Classic should focus primarily on the existing Classic continents of Azeroth (Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms)"
• "I prefer shorter content phases for a new version of Classic to keep things fresh and keep players interested" vs. "I prefer longer content phases for a new version of Classic so I have time to fully explore the content or level up alts"
• "A new version of Classic should focus more on the levelling journey" vs. "A new version of Classic should focus more on the end-game experience"
• "A new version of Classic should focus on raid content for smaller groups (10-20 players)" vs. "A new version of Classic should focus on raid content for larger groups (25-40 players)"

The main bulk of the survey after that are several detailed lists of new features that could be added, with the question always being whether this particular feature would make you more or less likely to want to play this hypothetical new version of Classic WoW. Several of these make reference to "Classic era", which I'm hoping is just sloppiness in terms of wording, as I don't want them to change the existing Classic era servers and I also think it's probably not what they mean either... in the context of the rest of the survey, I just interpreted "Classic era" to mean something like "the vanilla game as it currently exists in Classic era".

Anyway, first we start with some proposed quality of life changes. I'll add my own opinion after each one:

• Revamping or adding flight paths, boats or zeppelins to Azeroth to make travel around the world more efficient - I'm mostly neutral about this one. I wouldn't mind them making some of the flight paths a little quicker and less scenic, but at the same time I'm not sure I'd really want a lot of additional ones added... having to leg it through the scenery is part of Classic's appeal for me.
  
• Adjusting the way items stack in bags to make inventory management easier - Sure, why not?
  
• Introducing in-game resources to help players find the right guild for them - I never really got much use out of the guild finder in retail, but I struggle to see how this could cause any harm either.
  
• Adding guild banks to Classic era - I guess that's okay? Though there's a certain charm to always having to pester the dedicated guild bank officer for stuff.
  
• Reducing the mana cost / increasing duration of group buff spells (e.g. Prayer of Fortitude) - Sure, why not?
  
• Adding flying mounts to Classic era - Er... no, and as many others have said, how would this even work, considering they had to do Cataclysm to enable flying on these continents in the first place? Maybe they put this question in as a relative measuring stick, knowing that most people will say no to it.
  
• Adding summoning stones to dungeon/raid entrances - I guess I wouldn't mind that one.
  
• Adding chronoboons to safely store world buff effects - Well, the chronoboon already exists and I'm happy that it's there.
  
• Increasing the size of the quest log - I guess this is okay as well? Having to pick and choose your quests/having to abandon some to make room sometimes does influence your gameplay in a way, but not to a degree that I personally care about.
  
• Adding the customisable HUD from later expansions so players can customise their HUD without requiring addons - To this one I would say no, as I use the default UI and the new and customisable UI in retail looks very different.
  
• Introducing a way to help players find groups for group/elite quests - Maybe? I liked the group finder we had back in original Burning Crusade for that kind of thing. But nothing too dungeon-finder-like please.
  
• Making mail delivery between players instant - Not gonna lie, I like how the fact that there's a delay when mailing things does encourage interactions between guildies when you want something to be traded immediately, but I wouldn't mind this too much either.
  

Next we have a list of "general features":

• Introducing more seasonal servers with experimental changes that run for a limited time - After how burnt I felt by Season of Discovery, I think it's unlikely they'll come up with another temporary server project that'll interest me.
  
• Creating new servers that are fixed on certain expansions like Classic era is fixed on original Classic - This one made me raise my eyebrows: so they have heard the cries for BC and Wrath era servers! This would still be a loud YES from me, even if it would be kind of late for my OG Classic characters.
  
• Adding more crafting specialisations (e.g. Weaponsmith vs. Armorsmith) - Don't really care about that one. I think there'd be a risk of any new one instantly being much better than all the old ones.
  
• Adding more legendary weapons that can be crafted in raids - Don't really care about this one either.
  
• Introducing avenues to acquiring "BiS" loot from sources other than raids - I guess I wouldn't mind this one? Though again, there'd be a risk in terms of balancing for sure.
  
• Ongoing balancing and tuning of gear/items over time - I'd be okay with this occasionally, but not like they've been balancing things in SoD.
  
• Adding pet battles to Classic - No, that would be a bit too much whimsy for Classic in my eyes.
  
• Making more content account-wide - As much as I've been welcoming the focus on more things being account-wide in retail, I feel things being per character is part of Classic's charm.
  
• Starting new progression servers that start with Classic era and continue through the expansions sequentially - This is another one that I've seen pop up in community conversations quite often. I don't think I'd personally want to go on that whole ride again, but I think it's something enough people would like that it'd be sensible to do at least for Vanilla to Wrath.
  
• Adding the ability to craft gear that is purely cosmetic - I don't really see what the point of that would be in Classic.
  
• Adding an in-game store that allows players to purchase cosmetic items with real money - NO!
  
• Adding achievements to Classic - Please no. Achievements can be fun but are very distracting and change the focus of the game a lot.
  
• New group events or scenarios with unique rewards - Sure, though it would depend on what they are. From what I heard about incursions in SoD they weren't exactly the greatest success in terms of fun gameplay.
  
• An in-game economy for player-driven boosting/farming services - I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I'm not a fan of paid boosting (even if it's done with in-game gold) so I'll say no to this one.
  
• The ability to purchase boosts to instantly level new alts - NO!
  
• Adding expanded profession/crafting options from Season of Discovery to Classic - I never really got to see that part of SoD so I have no opinion on it.
  
• New factions to build reputation with and unlock new rewards - I guess why not? Though the details of the implementation would matter.
  
• Adding customisable instanced player housing - That this is on the list when even retail doesn't have housing yet is just wild to me. I have no real opinion on it though.
  
• Adding the WoW token so players can pay their subscription with in-game gold - NO!
  
• Adding transmogrification to let players change the appearance of their gear - No, thanks. I do like transmog in retail, but it does change the general vibes of the game a lot to have people prancing around in nothing but bikinis and silly costumes all over.
  
• Adding the Crafting Orders system from Dragonflight to Classic - Now this one is interesting to me, because even though Dragonflight's crafting changes didn't fully work for me, I did think that something like the crafting order system might actually work better in Classic than in retail, so I would be up for giving it a go.
  
• Adding the guild levelling and reputation system from Cataclysm to Classic era - No, thanks.
  
• Adding more class-specific quests/quest lines - Yes, please!
  
• Increasing enemy toughness in the open world to increase the sense of danger when exploring - I think enemies in the open world are plenty tough in Classic already? There's a reason hardcore is so deadly. Assuming you're not a warrior running around in Naxx gear.
  
• Adding new zones to Azeroth in Classic era - I'll tentatively say yes, though I'm not sure what exactly they mean by new zones. I'd like to stay in the general area of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdom, but if we're talking something like a Classic Mount Hyjal or a new island off the coast somewhere, I'd be game for that.
  
• Introducing levelling heirlooms to Classic era - Please no.
  
• Adding more group/elite quests that require multiple players to complete - I actually don't really feel that this is particularly needed... but I guess I wouldn't mind it either.
  
• The ability to toggle on "hardcore/perma-death" mode where character death is permanent - I think having the existing hardcore servers where everyone is on even footing is better. An optional toggle where some characters only have one life while others can just respawn feels like an invitation to grief.
  
• Tiered levelling phases with level caps below max level - I thought this sounded really cool in SoD, but seeing how dejected I felt at the start of phase two, I'll say no to doing this again.
  
• Completely revamping quests and quest lines in existing zones - Wouldn't that just be Cataclysm all over again? Please no.
  
• Completely revamping the layouts / geographies of existing Classic zones - Same as above?
  
• The ability to play "solo self-found" (no trading, grouping, or auction house) - Don't care, but if people like it, I don't think this would be harmful. It's already an option on the hardcore servers.
  
• Adding more race-specific quests/quest lines - Yes, please!
  
• Increased XP gain for previous tiers/expansions - No, thanks.
  
• Adding new quests and quest lines to existing zones - Yes, please!
  

Next we have a list of PvP features... I don't need to add my opinion on any of these because I don't like PvP in Classic so I really don't care either way.

• Re-balancing PvP to make it more fast-paced and tactical
• A bigger focus on open world PvP
• Adding rated battlegrounds to Classic
• Adding arenas (2v2/3v3/5v5 deathmatch) to Classic
• Re-balancing PvP to make it more slower-paced and strategic
• Revamping/re-imagining the honour system to make honour a currency like it is in later expansions
• Adding more quests focused on PvP
• Adding battlegrounds from WoW expansions to Classic era
• Revamping/re-imagining existing Classic battlegrounds (e.g. Warsong Gulch, Alterac Valley)
• Adding open world PvP events to Classic (e.g. Blood Moon, Battle for Ashenvale)
• Making it easier to track your honour/rank within the existing Classic honour system

Then we have features related to classes, races and skills:

• Giving Horde the ability to play paladins and the Alliance the ability to play shamans - I don't feel strongly about this one, but having that separation is a pretty iconic part of Classic...
  
• Adding races from newer expansions to Classic (e.g. worgen, pandaren etc.) - I think most of them wouldn't fit. I think Turtle WoW has high elves and goblins, and those would probably just about work, but I think most others would feel out of place in the Classic world.
  
• Ongoing balancing and tuning of talents and class abilities over time - I think some occasional balancing might be good, but not like the crazy roller-coaster that has been going on in SoD.
  
• Adding the ability to swap seamlessly between multiple sets of talents - Please no! This was a huge game-changer in Wrath and I was not a fan.
  
• Adding new specs to existing classes - Not really sure how that would work... maybe?
  
• Adding the rune system from Season of Discovery that allows players to gain new abilities or modify existing abilities - I think no. Runes were fun at first but got tedious quickly, and classes seemed to be more defined by their runes than anything else.
  
• Giving classes the ability to play new roles (e.g. mage healer, rogue tank etc.) - I think I'd be up for that one. Shaman tanks in SoD seemed pretty cool.
  
• Adding classes from newer expansions to Classic (e.g. death knight, evoker etc.) - Like the newer races, I think they just wouldn't fit.
  
• Adding new abilities/skills to Classic that aren't from modern WoW - I don't hate this but I think I'd rather not. Classes in Classic already have a lot of abilities as it is...
  
• Re-balancing talent trees to make weaker specs more viable - Maybe a little? But as SoD has shown, this kind of balancing is hard.
  
• Adding select abilities/skills from modern WoW to Classic - I think this is another nah. Many of the runes in SoD were like that, and it just made those new abilities way too OP.
  

Finally, a list of dungeon and raid features:

• Random raid finder that automatically finds you a group for raid content - NO! Though picturing a randomly thrown together LFR group trying to take on Vanilla Naxx is so horrifying it's almost funny again.
  
• Levelling raids designed for groups below max level - I thought this was neat in SoD, but again, ultimately ended up being a bit disappointing, so I'll vote no.
  
• Adding heroic versions of dungeons to Classic - Probably no? I'm kind of intrigued by the idea of something like a heroic Stratholme for example, but... just not convinced it would ultimately be a good thing.
  
• Updated or modified raid loot - Maybe? I mean, this could mean anything.
  
• Introducing a Mythic+ style system for dungeon content in Classic era - No, thanks.
  
• Updated or modified dungeon loot - Same comment as on the raid loot.
  
• Creating new raid content within the original Classic era - I think this is something a lot of people have been asking for, but I don't know how it would fit into the existing framework of the Vanilla raids. Suddenly having a new raid that gives better loot than Naxx would feel... odd.
  
• Adding world buffs from Season of Discovery into Classic (e.g. Blackfathom's Boon) - Neutral on this one. I thought the idea of world buffs that only work for lower levels and do things like increase your run speed was neat, but I can also do without them.
  
• Random modifiers for dungeons that change every time you enter a dungeon - That sounds like the M+ thing, so again, no thanks.
  
• Adding modified versions of raids from expansions to Classic era (e.g. Karazhan, Black Temple etc.) - Not gonna lie, a Classic Karazhan would be intriguing. Though it would also have a lot of potential to be disappointing.
  
• Creating new dungeon content within the Classic era - I think this would actually be nice. I heard the other day that there's actually a new dungeon in SoD phase four, and that alone made me consider trying to level up a character after all, just to see that.
  
• Adding more attunement quest lines that require you to finish them before you can enter a dungeon/raid - I don't mind attunements, but I don't think we need more of them for existing content.
  
• Adding heroic versions of raid encounters to Classic - Please no.
  
• Introducing the Alpha/Beta/Gamma rune dungeon system from Wrath of the Lich King Classic to Classic era - I have no first-hand experience with that, but from what I read about it, it didn't sound that great to me.
  
• Ongoing balancing and tuning of dungeon and raid encounters over time - Same response as to the other balancing questions: a little bit can be good, but the example of SoD has not been promising.
  
• Random dungeon finder that automatically finds you a dungeon group and teleports you to the dungeon - NO!
  
• Re-balancing raids to make more varied group compositions viable - Not sure what that would look like...
  
• Revamping/re-imagining existing dungeons in Classic - I think I'd rather keep the existing ones.
  
• Adding support for GDKPs (raid format where players buy gear with gold) - NO!
  
• Increasing the overall difficulty of Classic era raids - Also no! Classic raiding is meant to be easy; it's why we like it.
  

After that there are only a few more generic questions, such as about your general attitude towards changes in a new run of Classic (would you like to see none, some, a lot, or don't care), and what you look for in your entertainment in general (competitive environment, low price etc.). There were also a few more opposing opinions about WoW in general, where it wasn't clear to me whether this was still meant to be about Classic in specific or retail as well, and as such I wasn't sure how I would answer:

• "The community is friendly and welcoming" vs. "There is a lot of toxicity within the player community"
• "Provides a hub for social interactions among players" vs. "Is not a great game for social interactions with other players"
• "Does not provide an immersive story" vs. "Provides an immersive story"
• "Is for younger gamers" vs. "Is for older gamers"

All in all, I've got to say I think this is a very good survey, even if there are a lot of suggestions in it that I personally wouldn't want to see implemented. It basically feels a bit like Blizzard just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks... but words are cheap so I see no harm in it. Season of Discovery seems to have had a similar approach but with actual patches, which resulted in lots of hype at launch and then a massive drop-off in interest, with people citing sometimes outright contradictory reasons for their disappointment. As such, it strikes me as sensible to directly ask "What is it you people actually want?" instead of just continuing to implement more changes and then seeing how people react.

I'm also very curious what will come of the answers. I know what I would like and what kinds of opinions I've seen a lot on reddit, but the silent majority that doesn't post in places like that may well have very different ideas.