I’m about a month late to this particular World of Warcraft discussion, but I’ve had time to chew on the survey that Blizzard sent to select players (not me) about what they would like to see in a “hypothetical new version of WoW Classic.”
What’s intriguing here is that the survey is almost entirely a list of ideas for a Classic Plus iteration that builds off of the vanilla base without necessarily going into the established expansions. While we wait to hear what Blizzard decides to do with this, I thought I’d pitch my opinions on what I think are the eight best ideas from this survey.
Alliance Shamans/Horde Paladins
I think this almost has to be a must for an expanded version of WoW Classic. It’s extremely helpful to the devs to balance dungeon and raid content, and it would expand the character option pool in a meaningful way. Plus, I love both the Alliance and Shamans, which is why I’m waiting for Burning Crusade to hit the 20th Anniversary servers already.
Class talent adjustments
Probably my biggest complaint about Classic Era is how borked a lot of the classes and specs are. Sure, they have a lot of flavor and nostalgia attached to them, and I can appreciate that, but I hate that for some classes there’s only one viable build and role. Maybe not even that many. A talent tree overhaul (and probably extra skills) would make for a much better game across the board.
Opening up new zones on the old map
When people think “Classic Plus,” I imagine that this is one feature that is high up on many lists. The original game map contained a lot of gaps and “under construction” areas that were inaccessible. Crafting and opening these zones one at a time could be like mini-expansions rolled out over the course of years without taking us off the two main continents.
Achievements
Love ’em or hate ’em, achievements are undeniably powerful motivators to pursuing alternate content or special challenges that people might otherwise never do. I’d love to see an achievement system go even further than meaningless points by providing account-wide benefits (perhaps a shop that you could spend your ‘chieve points on?).
New class or class/race combos
This is probably a must at some point if the devs want to keep investing into the future of this game. They need to come up with incentives for alts that people haven’t rolled a million times before, and both new classes and special race/class combos would fit that bill. Make Bards already, Blizzard!
Visual improvements
I chewed on this one for a while because I sense that any visual upgrades to character models or the world could be extremely controversial. I reckon that for some, the chunky old design has a charm that shouldn’t be touched. But I think I come out on the side of “small but helpful” improvements that straddle the line somewhere between modern retail and 2004-era.
Transmog
Oh yeah, definitely — mog it up, already! There’s a quaint charm to vanilla loot in general, but outside of dungeon and raid sets, none of it goes together. I would love to collect and reuse some of my favorite vanilla skins, for sure. Plus, a transmog system would give greater incentive to rerun various content to collect all of the looks in the game.
New playable races
Blizzard floated only High Elves (for both factions) as a possible new addition, but there have to be a lot more options than just that for the future. Like the new class options, new races would add more value to rolling alts and serve to draw outsiders in with curiosity — especially if it’s something that hasn’t ever existed for retail.
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.
