We all played years ago. November of 2004 was a big moment as we logged in the first night. We hit lag, a lot of it. Servers went up and down and like every other MMO launch in the last decade things were off to a rough start. It turned around quickly though and through those first few months “vanilla” Warcraft as we know it was fine-tuned and became our MMO of choice. Here we are 13 years later and the team is announcing Word of Warcraft Classic for all of us old timers. The questions came up at Blizzcon of keeping Classic true to its nature but adding in some quality of life changes for the better. Here are a list of ideas which might help all of us down the line.
Grouping
Having a Looking For Group system in place works extremely well in any MMO. Who remember standing around the Scarlett Citadel asking random strangers to group up? Or having people bail on Instances forcing the whole group to quit? Oh it happened a lot. If anything having the Group Finder system in a Classic WoW server should definitely make our lives better. Especially in the level grind of 1-60. Going back to early dungeons and exploring new areas is more fun with friends. This is something we all hope they keep in the new system. It really does make for a better game experience.
PvP
If you played on a PvP server it was deadly. This needs to stay and if anything be enhanced. We once took a huge guild raid into Darnassus and made it all the way to the main chambers. However, as our killing spree finally ended, we had nothing to show for it. It was great fun, but rewarding players on a PvP server in this regard would be a fantastic boost. It would make the Horde and Alliance war into something that started the roots of Warcraft. The zone PvP was important and hunting in certain areas was tough, it should stay this way. How many fights outside of Molten Core did you get into? How many battles over instanced entrances did you start? Remember jumping into those portals saying whew! We need that back.
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Skills and Abilities
After bloating out character skills as WoW grew over the years, the team eventually refined the traits and specializations to make your character streamlined. However, in old WoW you had options. Playing a shaman I found using a shield and dagger was a great spec and switching between spells and melee worked well. There were no fully defined skill trees, it was more of an open system. Hopefully, they can bring this back. Some classes may have suffered under this system, but those changes and small tweaks can be made to fit back into the older skill system. Keep the original design, but balanced what is needed and put it back out there.
Raids
Do not change the 40 man raid, I repeat do not change the 40 man raid. This is one area that should not be changed at all. Part of the fun in classic Warcraft was trying to get through Molten Core and Blackwing Lair with a huge group. It was never easy. The only change here might be a more generous drop system for the groups. It used to be that 1 or 2 items would drop, maybe this time around they can add a few more drops on bosses. The question here is do you include some of the other basic raids like Ahn’Qiraj? We’ll just have to wait and see.
Overall, classic Warcraft was a lot of fun, hosting fond memories for all MMO players. The gam eneeds to keep its form and design, but adding in some quality of life changes will only help the community. For now, we all sit eagerly after BlizzCon when they finally announced an official classic design. I for one will go back and make that Warlock I regret never having.
