Earlier this week, a job posting on Blizzard’s career site made it clear that the company considers Diablo III one of its “classic” games. It kind of threw a bunch of journalists for a loop, given that Diablo III is only seven years old and is still the most recent entry in the franchise. Heck, in 2017, Blizzard even patched it up with the Rise of the Necromancer mini-expansion.
Diablo III is obviously not an MMO, but I feel like we’ve allowed the word “classic” to get away from us in this zone of the genre too. I personally feel like the term should probably be for just the pre-WoW MMOs, but it’s 2007 LOTRO that often wins our polls on best classic MMO. But heck, if 2012 Diablo III is “classic,” then so are Guild Wars 2 and SWTOR, which… really doesn’t seem quite right.
What constitutes a “classic” MMO to you?
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Slower progression, more sandbox, less railroad, more mandatory group content and NO micro transactions.
Classic is Something that defined a genre or a way to do things. Also defining classic is that these things are of the past and the new is different.
So in Diablo III case, the game itself is not classic, but maybe in its original form for example before personal loot, removal of auctions and needing to progress through the story.. That might qualify for the term “classic Diablo III”.
And on that note WoW is not a classic, classic WoW is a classic because it defined the beginning of the story driven themepark mmo type.
Tab Targeting
Everything else for me is optional lol
An MMO is classic if it has a seamless world (i.e. no load screens).
(I know it’s ridiculous, but I followed the “classic is <insert fav feature>” template!)
“we’ve allowed the word “classic” to get away from us in this zone of the genre ”
That’s up to you, the media, as meme-gatekeepers. Whether you carry water for corporate marketing flacks and pass on their nonsense use of words or hyperbole is entirely on you.
We the drooling cheap seats sure, might see and repeat some marketing garbage (I mean, earworms is what they DO) but giving it concurrence and making a specific usage part of the common parlance? We frankly rely on the independent* media to push back on that crap and say “nah, we’re not calling Diablo 3 a ‘classic’ just because you claim it is”.
*ie not one of the fairly high number of gaming websites beholden to various firms PR drones, cf the sadly apparently-defunct http://www.deepfreeze.it/index.php
BTW Diablo 1 would be a “classic”. 2 is just an expansion on 1. And 3 ain’t a classic.
Pre-WoW, since that’s when creativity died.
Old games that defined the genre
I go with the english dictionary on what classic means.
So, to be a classic MMO, it has to either be judged to be very good over time, or representative of the genre in some way.
This would make, imho, UO, SWG, DAoC and LotRO classic MMOs (as in judged to be high quality for what they were aiming for), whilst FFXIV and BDO are classic examples of modern MMOs.
Ten years or more… I guess if I was forced to make that call. That said, glancing down I think Schmidt.Capela nailed what I feel would be the best qualifications for the term “Classic”. Well posted Schmidt.Capela.
Classic means for me, as someone not from the ultima/lineage generation, tab-targeting, slower pace, a wide array of skill choices, CC which is useful outside of PvP, skill trees and stats that still have some meaning.