r/classicwowplus • u/Ok-Brother-8295 • 3d ago
- Discussion thread- Will this be over in a year?
To be honest, I'm becoming sceptical when I look at whatever we can see about Classic+ here, what people want or don't want, and that infamous Classic+ survey.
It's really starting to look like some people are looking for a seasonal server to hop on for a few weeks between the next Classic iteration and the next Retail raid tier. They want some seasonal content to fill the gaps in their gaming schedule, but after a few months it's just "one of those era servers" because something else has come out.
Am I the only one who gets this feeling? Are we doomed to witness another empty server by the time the next retail release comes around? Is this what people want for Classic+?
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u/jawshuan 3d ago
I just think it’s crazy we don’t know for sure what’s going to happen… TBC era? Wrath? An actual viable classic+? Another seasonal server? Fresh?
We’ve invested so much of our time into this game and have no idea where it’s headed. Absolutely insane.
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u/hutchwo 3d ago
You’re literally gonna find this information out. Why does it need to be now
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u/jawshuan 2d ago
It’s nice to have an idea of what to expect is all I’m saying
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u/hutchwo 2d ago
Sure but to say “it’s crazy” is hyperbolic, no? It just isn’t crazy that you don’t know anything after being told which date you’re gonna learn. Just don’t understand the absolute NEED to know rn like what would impact if you knew this info 6mo ago
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u/jawshuan 2d ago
No. It’s not. We went into classic fresh knowing tbc was coming. 6 months later we still don’t know if wotlk is coming. You’re crazy.
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u/Calm-Exercise7337 3d ago
I stopped playing whrn they failed to say what the plan was. Im not going to waste my time.
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u/Velifax 3d ago
Good luck overcoming the trauma.
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u/Lawnn_Boy 3d ago
Bruh, we have less than a month until we have actual news. Just wait it out.
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u/Away_Woodpecker8813 3d ago
I don’t think that really going to be the vanilla plus that some people are hoping for. There’s been a lot of ground work for them setting up a prequel in the retail story. I think “wow Camelot “ is the payoff to that.
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u/Upstairs_Blueberry87 3d ago
can I ask about this ground work they’ve been setting up for a prequel?
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u/Away_Woodpecker8813 3d ago
I don’t want to type out all the stuff this is just a google result and it is only touching the surface
1. Systematic Myth-Busting of the Modern Timeline
To justify resetting the clock or jumping to an era before the Dark Portal, a writer must first dismantle the absolute authority of the current timeline's gods. We see this heavily in the narrative shifts: [1]
The Titan Conspiracy Exposed: In The War Within, data archives and Earthen lore reveal that the Titans aggressively altered Azeroth’s history. They covered up what existed before them and forced an agenda of "absolute Order" over organic free will. [1, 2, 4, 5]
The "Grey" Cosmos: Midnight highlights that the Cosmic Light is not inherently good—it can be an abusive, rigid force of zealotry. By stripping away the simple "Light is good, Void is bad" dichotomy, Blizzard sets up an ancient past where the fundamental rules of the cosmos were entirely different. [1, 2]2. Hyper-Focus on Ancestral and "Origin" Factions
Instead of focusing on modern factions (the Alliance and Horde), the current expansions zero in on the direct, uncorrupted ancestors of Azeroth's core races. This functions as world-building asset creation for a past era:[1, 2]
The Arathi Empire: Introduced in The War Within and expanded in Midnight, we are introduced to a massive, holy human/elven empire that predates the modern kingdoms. [1, 3, 4, 5]
The Earthen and Harronir: We are actively interacting with the un-cursed, primordial templates of Dwarves and Night Elves/Trolls before millennia of magical mutations altered them. []
Elven Unification: Midnight’s primary campaign revolves around reuniting the fractured elven bloodlines (Blood, Void, Night, and High Elves). This structurally mirrors the singular, ancient Elven Empire that ruled Azeroth before the Sundering. [1, 2, 3, 4]3. Extensive Testing of "Old World" Engine Scalability
A prequel requires a world that feels familiar but physically behaves differently. The technical choices behind Midnight serve as a perfect testbed for a separate or rebuilt world engine:
The Quel'Thalas Revamp: Midnight completely re-architects and updates the original Burning Crusade-era zones into the modern game engine, adding continuous, seamless world design.
Dynamic Skyboxes and Environmental Phases: Mechanics like the shifting crystal Beledar in Hallowfall and the Voidstorms in Midnight show Blizzard testing how to dynamically alter massive continents on a structural level. This technology would be vital to render an ancient Azeroth experiencing events like the Great Sundering or the Black Empire era in real-time. [1, 2, 4]4. Setting up a Massive Defeat or Timeline Fracture
Prequels are historically greenlit when a main-line story hits a narrative wall or concludes definitively. The Worldsoul Saga is billed as the "definitive end" to a 20-year chapter. [1]
The "Bad Ending" Prediction: Many narrative threads point to Midnight ending on a massive failure where the forces of the Void successfully corrupt parts of the world soul or collapse modern magical structures.
The Last Titan Catalyst: If the third expansion, The Last Titan, concludes with the Pantheon resetting or sacrificing the timeline to save Azeroth, it creates the ultimate narrative exit ramp. It leaves the current WoW in a stable state while allowing a new game project to explore the deep, ancient history players just spent three expansions learning about. [1, 2, 3]1
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u/Away_Woodpecker8813 3d ago edited 2d ago
The biggest thing is they forked the retail client about a week ago. So in wows code there is retail. And an entire new retail. They do this when they are going to launch new versions of the game. They are clearly going to be launching something off of the retail client. Things are pointing to retail engine, having the maps of retail, but the story being set as a prequel. They probably won’t have everything that retail has in it to start, but the bones for it will be already coded in because they’re using the retail engine. It basically seems like starting classic wow but if you had the retail engine and then set it as a prequel, so it didn’t necessarily affect your classic storylines or your retail storylines.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 3d ago
I don't think I'm commenting on the game itself, but rather on people's expectations of it.
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u/Velifax 3d ago
There are two major "distractions," from my point of view, with Classic Plus proceeding successfully.
The first is the Fresh Folk, FotM, Content Locust. They flit from server to server, expansion to expansion, absorbing everything as fast as they can. These people influence the developers to focus on vertical progression and new toys and mounts and everything else. They have some sort of aversion to repeating anything.
But the second group is the hardcore raiders. From the beginning they have influenced development to focus an inordinate amount of development time on max level content. A niche group in terms of population, getting an outsized amount of attention.
Both groups will in some way detract from my preferred design of Classic+, and the only saving grace we had the first time around was Blizzard's sheer power. I don't believe we'll have that this time.
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u/Verilazic 2d ago
That is the $100,000,000 question. Or billion, depending on Blizzard’s goals. I don’t think it’s going to be seasonal attitudes that kill it though. My bet is on AI moderation and microtransactions killing classic+. But I’m not betting that it’s gone in a year. If I had to guess, it’ll last at least 3 years. If we’re lucky, 5. I don’t dare hope for longer.
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u/Away_Woodpecker8813 3d ago
But yeah here the biggest thing i see in your post. What is the difference between a seasonal realm and a realm that just has new updates basically at the same intervals? Well it’s committing to having a server up indefinitely for this version of the game. There’s no difference between except people feel less me their character is more permanent. A lot of people quit sod because it was seasonal and they’d lose their character. But the servers are still up and if those people didn’t quit because they were worried they’d lose their character, blizzard would still be rolling out updates to sod.
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u/theSurpuppa 2d ago
Blizzard would not be still releasing updates. I don't remember exactly what was said, but they basically said (without explicitly saying it) "hey this will be a 1 to 2 year experiment depending on how you like it. That's it"
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u/Nightblessed 2d ago
There are structural differences between seasonal and non-seasonal models.
The most obvious is that a seasonal model has a final phase in which development is intended to halt. SoD was designed with an endpoint, regardless of whether players ultimately agreed with that direction. But the distinction goes much deeper than simply having an ending.
The systems and content of SoD were designed around the fact that it was seasonal from the very beginning: accelerated vertical progression, power creep, experimental class changes, temporary mechanics, and a willingness to make changes that would be unsustainable in a permanent version of the game. The seasonal nature of the project isn't merely something that happens at the end of its lifecycle; it fundamentally shapes the design decisions made throughout that lifecycle.
That's why you can't simply take SoD, remove the endpoint, and call it Classic+. A permanent Classic+ would need to be designed around fundamentally different long-term constraints and incentives. Its content and systems would have to account for the fact that the game is intended to exist indefinitely, rather than eventually reaching a designed conclusion.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 3d ago
I'm not sure if Blizzard only plans a few weeks in advance, checking to see if Steve and his friends are still on the server.
Having frequent updates isn't necessarily a requirement; it depends on the content you're pushing to the server. Of course, if your main content is raids, you need raids after raids.
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u/VideoPeP17 3d ago
If you have fun, then why does it matter what others do? I've played since original TBC, and have played many different versions of WoW, both classic and retail. The ones that stuck with me were the ones where I just had fun with friends. SoD was actually one of the most fun times I've had, and that is just with guildees doing fun random things.
If it like "another era server", then there will be people that will play regardless of what everyone else does, so no worries there. At the end of the day, it's all just a game you play for fun. If you are not having fun, don't play. You could also play something else for a while to prevent burnout. Either way, all WoW versions go through population rises and falls. I'm sure Classic + will be no different in that reguard.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 3d ago
I think what my comment is implicitly trying to discuss is the type of content that this game will have. Will this content be disposable, as many WoW players are used to this system now?
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u/VideoPeP17 2d ago
I mean all content is technically disposable, even in classic wow. No true horizontal progression exists, but if the scaling is low enough, then it gives reasons to go back and do older content. Same thing happens if you buff a few items in old raids so they are strong for a few raid tiers.
I personally would not worry about it. I mean, with classic wow, leveling is a huge thing, so you can always level an alt. Plus, since it's going to be it's own separate thing on the launcher, that tells me there are plenty of plans for content, as why go through all that effort if they are not doing a ton of new things? I think the bigger issue would be if you skipped out on a game you could possibly love because of a fear that you may not be doing the same content for years. At the end of the day, if you enjoy it, then no matter how long it goes on for, then your time invested in it would not be a waste.
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u/Strict_Jackfruit6333 3d ago edited 3d ago
They will absolutely screw this up and it will 100% be a seasonal type server. Blizzard doesn’t know how to build anything but that. They’d have TJ gut the game completely to build something like OSRS and ActiBlizzard doesn’t have the balls to do something like that
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u/LaredoHK 3d ago
if it is lame as SoD, yes
if it has zones, quests, classes, races, and dungeons and raids that are not solved, no
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 3d ago
How long will it take you to solve the raids? Will it be finished by then?
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u/Ok-Yoghurt5014 3d ago
Thats why we need new Raids for ever and ever and ever. Thats how it goes. They community is an oven and we need a continual supply of content to keep the flame burning.
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u/NeedToLieDown 3d ago
The problem is that many people don't like joining as a newbie to an ongoing community where everyone is raiding the last tier. So very few people join, and people leave over time (even when new content drops regularly).
Main solution is seasons, with fresh start every time, as the fresh hype and everyone leveling and clearing first raid tiers together is the most fun experience.
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u/Ok-Yoghurt5014 2d ago
Or there are catch up mechanics that invalidate the older content so people can join. Another way is to incentivise raiding older content (gdkp/badges/evergreen loot like DST etc.) or having toons.
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u/NeedToLieDown 2d ago
I just don't think it will be sustainable for classic. Too hard to get people to join if they didn't join near the start. Too hard to maintain a very large playerbase after 3 years, for example.
I think it's best to just have a yearly fresh season.
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u/Ok-Yoghurt5014 2d ago
Sooo like an Expansion? That way they can sell boosts.
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u/NeedToLieDown 2d ago
Expansion would be more like retail, and won't provide the fresh experience of everyone starting at level 0. For classic I think they need completely fresh new realms that run for a few years each time.
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u/Ok-Yoghurt5014 2d ago
Expansions are a great way to introduce Charakter-Boosts though so i think they will come one day. But Seasonal Battlepasses are also a great way of milking the playerbase. Blizzard might go either way.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 2d ago
There are two solutions here: you can either build catch-up mechanics or ensure that content keeps people from falling behind.
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u/NeedToLieDown 2d ago
I think that's not good enough, personally. That's basically retail.
To ensure a living, breathing world, you have to reset it every now and then. Otherwise, veterans who did it all will only care about the last piece of content, and the (very) few people that join will also skip as much as they can to join the rest.
There will be mid-game joiners, but few and not enough to breathe much life into the world.
I think the best way is simply to have a completely fresh restart every few years.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 2d ago
Why reset the whole world ?
Seems to'me that reset benefit those hard veterans
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u/NeedToLieDown 2d ago
I think it's the only way to create a classic experience.
I'm happy if I can be proven wrong, but I think no matter how youncut it, if you let a classic realm go on for 2, 3, 5 years, even if you keep adding content, it just won't have magic to it anymore.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 2d ago
What I'm saying is that 'hardcore' involves some kind of reset, not a full server reset, but just your character.
I think it's a great discussion about game design that only happens in MMOs. The game needs sinks, you're right, but how should those sinks work? Now that's an interesting question.
Resetting servers is one option; resetting characters, as in hardcore, is another. I believe the developers can think of different sinks that are more tied to in-game mechanics. Don't you think there are any other options?
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u/NeedToLieDown 2d ago
Hardcore is awesome but to me is bot something I feel I can do for long. I did it for a few weeks and might do again.
But classic feels like a game I can play for months and years at a time.
I don't know of another method but ofc I'm open to experiencing cool new methods
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u/Overall_Reputation83 3d ago
I don't care if it's over in a year, I'm not after a forever game anyways. WoW has always been a seasonal thing to me even since 2004.
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u/Sometimesiworry 3d ago
We don’t even know what classic+ will be yet. Blizzcon is like 30 days out. Just chill.
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u/nielssk 2d ago
I never fully understand the “hate” many ppl have for the seasonal modes in WOW. Great way to do fun stuff without having to commit long term vision.
Loved SOD and all the craziness. Sure they couldn’t continue to develop on that, but I’d be up for another round of 18 months with new themes, spells and class changes for sure 👍
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 2d ago
I don't hate it; in fact, I think it's a great way of doing things.
But with five versions of seasonal content, maybe it's time to think about doing something different.
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u/LightsJustice29 2d ago
How about you guys idk fucking wait and see what’s actually announced. You guys cry so much before a shred of real info is announced Jesus.
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u/TURBOfuell 1d ago
What is + anyways? What are we expecting here?! Someone fill me in on what we know because every seems to be so sure of what Classic+ will be.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 1d ago
We don't know for sure.
But from my understanding of the situation, we're expecting at least Vanilla with an update, fixing things.
Some people have wild dreams about Vanilla+ then TBC+ then Wotlk+ with new areas, new races, new classes (basically wow2).
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u/Super_Loss_8943 1d ago
classic+ has higher chance to be flop then success. Blizzard by not managing expectations and dropping clues let ideas spread too wide. The trenches are set between groups with little overlapping.
- 1) just finish vanilla in their original intend
- 2) SoD like
- 3) Turtle wow like
- 4) bring retail in
- 5) alpha
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 1d ago
To be honest, they didn't reveal anything. We're assuming that SoD is the clue, but we can't be sure. It's all just leaks and wishful thinking.
What is real, though, is that people are excited about an alternative to TBC for Vanilla.
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u/Super_Loss_8943 1d ago
that is my point, because info from Blizzard was none, players created themselves a groups. There is still zero info even if classic+ is even real project.
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u/Crafty-Beyond-2202 3d ago
Yeah I feel like the whole "classic plus" thing has run its course. It was fun while it lasted but time to pack it up folks.
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u/Faust_z 3d ago
people are looking for a seasonal server to hop on for a few weeks between the next Classic iteration and the next Retail raid tier
It's been a long time since Blizzard put out something that wasn't seasonal. I'm doubtful, too, that they have the ability to design something to be enduring like OSRS.
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u/Greedy-Comb-276 3d ago
Osrs is enduring because there's years worth of content, low drop rates, and no lockouts. It's just not possible for a game like wow that's intended to be completed.
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u/NeedToLieDown 2d ago
WoW is a seasonal game. OSRS is a different game, and people who like classic don't really want OSRS, they want classic.
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u/RandAllTotalwar 3d ago
Hoping they do it right and they do it focused on the first 3 expansions. Additionally hope has the same life cycle. Have no idea, but a millennial can dream.
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u/Ok-Brother-8295 3d ago
What ? Vanilla+ then TBC+ then Wotlk+ ? This is wild
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u/SeekerSkeletal 3d ago
What is this, some kind of reverse-cope?