Oh hey, Cataclysm Classic is here. You can absolutely sense the palpable excitement and community buzz over it, much the same way you can sense my sarcasm at writing this paragraph.
I mean, does anyone see this release as anything other than a brief intermission until Classic gets to a “good” expansion? I think even Blizzard would agree, seeing as how it’s condensing all of Cataclysm’s rollout to a single year. People simply want to get to Pandaria Classic ASAP and have to grit their teeth and endure until that happens.
Since we’re not really thinking about Cataclysm right now, I wanted to mull over three questions I have for the inevitable Pandaria Classic that we’ll likely see in 2025.
Is Pandaria Remix stealing Pandaria Classic’s thunder?
Hoo-boy, I think this is the big one at the moment. Pandaria Remix is a clear smash hit for retail WoW, proving to be one of the shrewdest ways to chew up the pre-expansion lull period that I’ve ever seen from this MMO. I have friends who haven’t played retail in years coming back and raving about this mode.
It’s understandable why this is a success. Mists of Pandaria is a visually pretty expansion with a strong following. Its questing and progression is straight-forward and less cluttered than what we see in modern expansions. The gear in this mode is simple, the gems fun and overpowered, and the one currency to handle refreshing. Plus, there’s the whole “speed leveling while hoovering up tons of transmogs and mounts along the way” factor to consider.
But is Blizzard stealing from the future to benefit the present? I honestly think this may be the case. After three months of gorging on Pandaria in retail, will everyone be gung-ho to do it again on Classic, only with slower progression, fewer rewards, and no zany gems to spice up the journey? I’m sure there will be fans, but I’m also confident in saying that it’ll be a much smaller event with Pandaria Classic releases than it would be if Remix never happened. Tell me I’m wrong. I don’t think I am.
Will Pandaria Classic be the end of the “Classic” line?
The reasons are now stacking up to suspect that Pandaria Classic will be the final station in the Classic progression train. We’re seeing diminishing returns for these expansion releases (Burning Crusade remains the high point thus far for community enthusiasm of these packs, weirdly enough), and as I just mentioned, what energy Pandaria might’ve had is getting sapped away.
But there are reasons beyond that. Pandaria would be a high note to end the run, still keeping this progression series somewhat in the older era (or mid-era) of the game’s lifespan rather than the newer designs that came from Warlords onward.
Blizzard’s also not talking about Classic nearly as much as it used to, which signals to me that it’s beginning to coast on this idea. It could probably draw more players in with a genuine fresh start progression server with gradual unlocks or a “Classic Plus” approach than keep trundling down this path.
What is Blizzard taking away from the Mists of Pandaria resurgence?
For the moment, at least, Mists of Pandaria is eclipsing all other WoW brands, such as War Within or Season of Discovery. With this current focus on this 2012 expansion and genuine enjoyment of it by the playerbase, are there any lessons or ideas the studio might take away from it?
One possibility is to see the popularity of Pandaria and consider making Pandaria Classic far greater by adding brand-new content on the tail-end of the content release. That would make the best sense if you were stopping the expansion rollout there and let everyone in standard Classic enjoy an extended period of fun with brand-new content.
There are other possibilities for retail, as well. Maybe the enthusiasm for the straight-forward questing design might rein in the current model which seeks to flood players with way too much to do in a scattershot order. Perhaps the studio would look at the simple pleasures of tooling around in pretty zones without always making everything about the apocalypse and bring us back to those days.
Or what about a future return to Pandaria, either in a new one-shot zone or a follow-up expansion? After all, we sort of went to Outland/Draenor twice.
And then there’s the very real possibility of future timerunning expansions that will follow this same model and give players a breather from the current expansion. I think it’d be pretty awesome to see Wrath Remix or Legion Remix.
That’s just spitballing off the top of my head, but I’m sure you all have more ideas what Blizzard could take from the current trend of Panda fever. Sound off in the comments and let’s get a conversation going!
Stepping back into the MMO time machine of WoW Classic, Justin Olivetti offers up observations and ground-level analysis as a Gnome with a view. Casually Classic is a more laid-back look at this legacy ruleset for those of us who’ve never stepped into a raid or seen more than 200 gold to our names.
