Whether you play it now or not, chances are that your paths have crossed with World of Warcraft in the past. This is true of pretty much every MMO blogger I know, and as such, all of them have emerged over the weekend to offer their thoughts on BlizzCon’s classic server and Battle for Azeroth announcements. So what do they have to say?
On World of Warcraft Classic:
“Meanwhile, a lot of what Blizz said about WoW Classic was set in the future tense. It sounds like they had a small group do some research and found a viable path forward. Everything else, however, seemed to couched in ‘we will,’ ‘we’re going to,’ and ‘we want to.'” (The Ancient Gaming Noob)
“After I had gone past the initial amaze-balls feeling of just hearing about it, my first thoughts were — which kind of Vanilla? Vanilla was around for about two years before we got Burning Crusade, and a lot happened during that time alone. Will we get early-Vanilla or late-Vanilla? Which patch are they going from? And are they going to do it hardcore, no quality-of-life changes from later patches/expansions added whatsoever?” (Jinxed Thoughts)
“Vanilla WoW is still very much a quirky translation of the pencil and paper RPG genre into a computer screen, with items such as ammo for ranged weapons and weapon proficiency leveling coming back. If you play old school D&D and other old school-inspired games, that might not be an issue, but for people raised on the action MMO or newer pencil-and-paper RPGs this might be a bit of a shock.” (Parallel Context)
“I’m sure I will take a look at it out of curiosity, perhaps even record some videos, but it’s extremely unlikely that I’m going to pay a subscription to re-experience the days of taking 40 levels to get a slow mount.” (Endgame Variable)
“But then, when that cinematic started rolling… Oh, the feelings. Especially as I watched our beloved world of Azeroth restored. I got up and literally danced around the living room, bursting with joy. I even woke up our son (it was way pass his bedtime here, living in Europe).” (Alunaria’s Avenue)
“The biggest question is, ‘How classic is classic?’ My friends all played vanilla but I didn’t. I told them no auction house, no Crossroads chat, and no guild bank because I think that was added later.” (Coffee Cakes and Crits)
On Battle for Azeroth:
“Battle for Azeroth is probably the most uninspired theme for an expansion they’ve come up with to date. Pretty much anything people were speculating about before the announcement would have been more interesting.” (Priest with a Cause)
“So many awesome expansion ideas. So many potential plot threads. And they decide to once again flog the same dead horse they’ve been trying vainly to resurrect for over ten years. What a waste. The thing is, we know this is a story that can’t go anywhere. No faction can either win or lose.” (Superior Realities)
“Even the expansion seems to backtrack on expansion progress over the years. Mechanically getting rid of the artifacts is a good step. Level scaling across the board is good. Lots of dungeons, open groups, all good things. Ignoring the story, it looks like it can work. It’s the first expansion where I am I not curious, in the least bit. Borderline apathy I guess.” (Leo’s Life)
“Scaling throughout the world is a welcome change for me personally. I can’t remember the last time I actually managed to quest through and finish a zone properly without feeling like everything around was trivialised the moment I breathed on it. It will be a breath of fresh air to go back again and watch the story play out, and maybe level alts again instead of just dungeon farming.” (Heals n Heels)
“The Battle for Azeroth is promising epic stories, but when the dev team makes a joke about Vol’jin in the same breath, it becomes impossible to ignore the fact that plot for them takes secondary status to features in this expansion. That’s cool, I can cope with emotional detachment, as long as the features are as great as I’m told they’ll be.” (Alt:ernative Chat)
“For the very first time in a long long, while I watched the next expansion’s trailer I wasn’t excited — far, far from it in fact. Feeling utterly saddened as I watched Alliance and Horde battle each other on the outskirts of Lordaron, I wondered if this is an expansion I even want to pay for. Not really what I would have ever expected myself to feel on a Blizzcon morning.” (Z for Zeirah)
“Personally, I am cautiously optimistic about the next expansion! It’s no Legion, with its features upon features that seemed to be catered specifically towards appeasing the fanbase, but I think there will be a lot of good stuff inside. From a historical standpoint, the only other expansion we’ve had that has put the primary focus on faction conflict thus far has been Mists of Pandaria, which was one of my favorite expansions to date.” (Growing Up in Azeroth)
“Now, I’m sure there be a lot of people excited for Warcraft to get back to ‘roots’ as a Red vs Blue RTS trope, but this is literally the most generic title and expansion theme they could have done. Sequel escalation can be difficult to manage when there is no formal end planned — there are only a few more tricks Blizzard can pull once the Burning Legion itself is extinguished — but… this? ‘Battle for Azeroth’ is something you write on a whiteboard with an underline, to denote that a series of actual title ideas will follow.” (In An Age)
Every day there are tons of terrific, insightful, and unusual articles posted across the MMO gaming blogosphere — and every day, Justin reads as many as he can. Global Chat is a sampling of noteworthy essays, rants, and guides from the past few weeks of MMO discourse.
