Obviously you have Vanilla, Burning Crusade, Lich King, and now Cataclysm. Eventually will every expansion just have its own server at some point?
We continue to evaluate what people want to do on progression servers on a case-by-case basis. Does it make sense if we eventfully land on Classic Dragonflight? I’m not sure. We’ve had some special moments with attendees here today that, some of us have been playing wow was classic was at the time, 20 years at the point. Just like what Chris Mezten was talking about, there are different generations of players at this point and for some of them classic was their first expansion and to them it’s their Vanilla. So it’s our duty on the classic team to allow them to relive those moments the best way we can, recreate that nostalgia.
So we talk with the community, we send out the polls and surveys, and there was a fair number of people who desired Cataclysm. There were some rough edges at the time, with the world was destroyed, but now we have access to Classic Era, and people can still go back to play that original story. We’ll continue to ask the community what they want, hardcore case in point. The pure passion, excitement, and nagging of our community.
Classic itself is born of the community. Nothing is off the table. We’ll look at Mists of Pandaria and beyond to see what people want.
In terms of features, where do you think you’re drawing that line? For instance in Retail we can share currencies account-wide, but will that get ported to Classic?
There are constant lessons to be learned between the modern WoW and Classic teans. We’re learning from each other. Aspects of Classic that influence Retail. People love Classic talents, and there’s definitely influence in the new talent system built in Dragonflight. Are there things we can learn from the accessibility of modern WoW, like transmog accessibility? Of course there is. We’ve gone to great strides to incorporate account wide toy collections, mount collections, and transmog going into Cataclysm, so we’re definitely open to lessons learned and changes in philosophy that aim to respect players time… as we grow older!
What kind of new content are you adding to Discovery? Karazhan Depths was hinted at, for instance?
Seasons are such an exciting sandbox for us on the Classic team. We get the chance to take risks and the chance to experiment with different gameplay features that might not – that might have a positive receptions with players or maybe a negative reception with players. So we take that feedback in mind with things to add. So there’s so much content in Vanilla, and where the heck do you start? So looking at the artificial level bands in Classic Beta where players came up with their own meta, their own endgame, their own BiS lists within those bands. So putting those level bands in Season of Discovery let us focus on smaller portions of Classic to look at a time. So what’s the endgame at level 25? What are the endgame zones? Can we transform a dungeon into a raid? Can we add more outdoor content, whether that’s PvP content, new world bosses, whether there’s new discoveries that you can find that aren’t necessarily tied to the new rune engraving system. The level banding system allows us to focus on specific parts, to compartmentalize Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor to an extent, and build on the existing world in all its richness.
So we’re excited with where Discovery is going to take us. We have some plans that weren’t not ready to announce yet in terms of what are the next level up raids – there will be more level up raids, and there’s a desire to build truly new content… whether that’s something we hinted at on accident, or on purpose in our What’s Next panel… well that’s something you’ll have to wait and see. That’s part of the excitement, we want every phase, every release, every patch of Season of Discovery to sort of be an epic moment for players to not know things together. That’s really special, and to share in the few days or weeks of finding new stuff together, sharing information in guild chat or forums or Youtube videos really gives players a chance to discover things together, and that’s the spirit of the season.
‘s more coming, but we can’t talk about what happens with the next level upgrades. Clearly there will be. But will that be completely new content that got accidentally hinted at in the panel – lots of things to let people experience things and discover them together. That’s the spirit of the Season. We also want it to feel natural in the Classic WoW world, so if you’re running around in the world and you see a mob and wonder “was this here before?” time to go check Wowhead and see. It’s like finding a photograph of your grandparents in Italy and how that adds more to your understanding of them.
What’s the plan for Classic going forward?
The Classic team has evolved a lot since the announcement of Classic to where we are now. There’s been huge philosophy changes over time, and a lot of that has been in response to what the community wants and needs. a lot of people originally wanted the #nochanges version of Vanilla, and they got that, and a lot of people were really satisfied with that, but is that what we want to continue doing? We’ve experimented with some #nochanges, but we’re all about learning and trying new things. We tried through all of Burning Crusade classic and Wrath Classic, we started with the pre-nerf systems, and with #nochanges, can we provide the original challenge that people had to face in these raids? Some people really resonate with it, but we went to great lengths to make Ulduar true to its original difficulty levels, and some people really enjoyed it, but then the lessons from that are divergent difficulty paths – the original Classic WoW raids were a place for everyone. 40 player raids had no difficulties in Vanilla. Your most hardcore players who wanted their organe parse could coexist with a dad who is trying to help his baby fall asleep; he’s click to move and clicking his rotation and they can kill those bosses together, and both fulfil the objectives they set for themselves.
things have since changed. Is that what people want to continue doing? We’re all about learning lessons and trying different things. With Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King Classic, we experienced with the pre-nerf systems. With #nochanges can we provide the original challenge that people faced. And that really spoke to some people.
And we went to really crazy lengths about doing pre-nerf Ulduar, and now we have alternate difficulty paths. In Vanilla there were 40 players and there were no difficulty levels. There were both ends; people aiming for orange parses and the father trying to get his baby to sleep and clicking to move, and they could still defeat bosses. So casual/competitive players are diverging. Is that healthy?
Plenty of analytics that help us make the choices we make to preserve and nurture the communities as best we’re able to. So do we want #SomeChanges? #NoChanges? Titan Rune dungeons were a great thing. Before Rune dungeons, dungeons just went away once you got past them, but now they’re still viable. So do we want Mythic+? Not really, but there are ideas we can use to make some changes to classic. The goal ultimately boils down to ‘how can we respect players’ time?’
With the success of Hardcore mode, will it be showing up in future expansions?
Good question. Hardcore is so interesting. It’s a community-driven force of nature. The participation of people, the creation of the hardcore addon. It’s an amazing addon, creating an alternate player-driven way to play Warcraft. But they created that addon in vanilla, not in Burning Crusade or Wrath. So there’s something to the leveling experience in EK/Cata. That’s not to say that we won’t bring the hardcore ruleset to higher expansions, but it all comes to what players want. We want to make sure we put our effort and support into what players are most passionable about. Like the recent mak’gora tournament. It was super exciting and people clearly want more of that. So we’re going to make sure those key moments are available to players in hardcore. We want to find more ways to make hardcore more exciting.
What about Reforging and Dragonsoul?
Yeah, they’ll definitely be there. The panels were about the high-level stuff. Cataclysm Classic is going to have a better cadence so patches don’t feel like they’re going on for too long?
Classic+?
It’s interesting. Means so many different things to so many people. Is it making classic the way it was but with small tweaks so that Retribution Paladin or Balance Druids are in a better place, but no changes to Molten Core? Or is it adding completely new content? So there’s no way to satisfy all players. So Seasons is a way for us to experiment with things and see what resonates with players and what they’re really attached to. Maybe there’s a new forever home for those types of mechanics, like a new era server that isn’t purely seasonal. The response to the Blackfathom Deeps raid on the show floor has been astounding. Been humbling to see so many players exploring it.
Is there going to be another progression series, starting over from Classic?
Nothing to announce, but it’s all about player desire. If people want it we’ll definitely give it another look.
Season of Discovery has no PTR. Is that going to be the thing going forward?
Season of Discovery is special, trying to the community together to help find those discoveries. We def see the value of PTRs, but also the value of not having PTRs. The PTR for ICC was fantastic to help us make it as bug free as possible.
With discoveries, is it going to be a random lockbox out in the water before the fatigue zone, or will there be breadcrumbs?
It’ll be a mix of both… is that chest new? I’ve been to Stone Cairn Lake, is there anything new? But there will also be discoveries behind epic quests, where marquee spells will have a great deal of content required to do in order to learn them. So a big mix of small scale and epic scale.
In Wrath Classic, there’s both the 40-player and 25-player version of Onyxia’s Lair. What in Cataclysm Classic?
Much of the old stuff was cannibalized when it got updated for future patches. It’s hard when creatures got reused for different purposes so you can’t just copy/paste it when it has different quests/loot drops. It’s also just one subscription, so if you to play vanilla you still can.
So if runes are popular, what do you bring forward?
With Season of Mastery there were definitely some faults with the focus on endgame. The absence of world buffs definitely hurt. Players had to put in an enormous amount of effort to participate in that content. But it was fun, the people who did put in the time to participate it enjoyed it. Is there a world where some of that content gets to live again in season in discovery. Nothing’s off the table. If people were passionate about it and they’d like to see it again and it fits within the context of the fantasy of it, then maybe? We’re not going to force things in where it doesn’t make sense, but we’re open to making those changes.
Has there been any thought in breaking out the subs so people who just want to play classic?
We’re not responsible for those kinds of decisions so that’s not really something we can answer.
Warlords brought upgraded player models, is that going to happen in classic? Will there be a graphics toggle?
That toggle existed in Warlords and that gave designers nightmares. Is that what people want? We have to work with other teams and art directors from mainline wow to see what works. For instance, the new incubus model got brought to Classic and downgraded visually to make sure it fits in the context of everything else. That’s not to say we won’t…
How are new players finding Classic if they’ve never played before?
It’s been really interesting with hardcore recently with how popular it’s been with playing and with streaming. Oh hey, this is on twitch and it’s fun to watch, maybe it’s fun to play? We’ve been seeing data for players who have never played any version of WoW come in to play hardcore. You’d think that it would only be for the top-level players, but no, it’s been the opposite.
There’s no rush to endgame. The point is the leveling journey and taking your time. As players keep dying there’s always players in the low-level zones and cities. Making games accessible to everyone and how they want to play is the point. The future of Classic is exciting. Hardcore is an interesting way for new players to start. Cataclysm will be amazing, as the revamps were player friendly. The talent system makes the classes feel complete while you’re leveling and not having to wand things to death for 40 levels as a priest.
As we get newer expansions, how has it been pulling data from old builds to current Classic?
As we get progress in time we have more and more data we can pull from. So, for example in pre-nerf, we could pull up a history of how creatures’ health changed from patch to patch. Lots of engineering help to pull that off.
Seasons level bands?
First cap is 25/Blackfathom Deeps, next is 40 with a lot of keystone stuff there and a new level-up raid, next band is 50, then 60. We feel like the amount of zones that players have in each phase is a healthy amount. Same for dungeons. Then at 60 there’ll be another exploration for existing raid content and what does that mean in season of discovery? Do we make new tier sets for the new classes/specs we’ve manifested with the rune system. Do the raids play the same? In the same order? And on the topic of respecting peoples, time as we go into a new end cap, there’ll be an xp boost for older bands.
What about timeline of level bands?
Not going to make predictions, but it’ll def be faster than patches. Maybe a month? Not a desire to make you play season of discovery solely. There’s a whole menu of stuff to do. Go finish your Shadowmourne in Wrath classic. Go play 10.2. Go do other stuff. Many people have been coming up to us and saying “oh, I can level to 25” and that’s the point.
Self-found additional restrictions?
Hardcore was a player-driven ruleset, and so was self-found. If there’s another ruleset that players are really interested in, maybe we’ll do that to.
Classic has so many hooks to explore?
Why did the eranikus questline end so abruptly? What’s going on under the karazhan crypts? My producers would kill me if we tried to solve all of them, but we’ll explore a few of them and we’re excited to look into those places too.
As classic 9.0 is really far away, but we’re getting cross-faction play in retail. What about in Classic?
There’s a lot of decisions to be made about what makes sense and what still feels like Classic.
What haven’t we asked that you want to talk about?
We’ve been so jazzed that we’ve been working on Discovery for the past year. Happy to see players’ response to the announcement and that there weren’t any major leaks. So proud of the work that we do and seeing everyone’s response and excitement has been a joy. We’re so excited to see the new things we create get into players’ hands. A lot of exciting new stuff coming up and we want peoples’ feedback about it.
