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Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

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Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#61

Post by gthtjtkt »

feefie wrote: post #44

The one thing that I suspect will be missing is new players. One of the things I enjoyed the most was seeing in chat a player that didn't know how to get from Iron Forge to catch a boat to the other continent, and I'd have fun showing him how to get through the Wetlands to the port. The Wetlands was a higher level than we were at the time the quests wanted us to visit the other continent, so it was a dangerous journe…

> Of course everyone knows how to get there now

I like how everyone conveniently forgets that hundreds of millions of gamers never played Vanilla WoW.

Everyone does not know the game like the back of their hand. I have tons of friends who missed Vanilla and she's looking forward to playing it for the first time.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#62

Post by abakker »

tmpz22 wrote: post #56
tinco wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Said no one about WoW ever. Not disputing the fact that it was arguably the best game ever created and I did thoroughly enjoy it, but damn have lots of people lost so much playing WoW.

I thoroughly wish I had invested the 10,000+ hours I've spent on games like WOW in my social life and general well being. It wouldn't have been a 1:1 translation, some time would have been wasted regardless... but I feel like I'd be happier and an all around better person.

I know what you mean - I just have a soft spot for WOW. It really provides the escapism I needed during a difficult time in my life. It was good escapism, though. Instead of just TV and Books, I could check out of the real world and Into WOW and still talk to people, be semi social, and just forget about the fact that I had just lost one of my parents. It was sufficiently active, complicated, social and distracting. That alternate world really helped me.

Full confession: after a few years I had never actually made endgame. I had a lot of characters that were close, but I never had the “efficient play” strategy down enough to really power level any characters.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#63

Post by 4ndr3vv »

mattmanser wrote: post #36
ch0wn wrote: post #31

Reading option one made me quite anxious. Having to backport a virtually infinite number of bugfixes and support for new hardware features from over 12 years of constant development sounds like a perfect way to burn out developers. I'm glad they went for the clearly more sustainable option of adopting the old data to their new client infrastructure.

It will mean people will find loads of things that won't be the same though. Take balance. I'd be willing to bet they've done loads of bug fixes on unintended consequences of spells. So the Frostbolt of the new system might actually do a different amount of damage and slow than the Frostbolt of 1.12, once the data's been transformed. So all the classes will probably be slightly different to how they were in 1.12 and…

Don't think so. From what the article says, the majority of game defining data will remain the same, albeit modified to fit the new schema. Frostbolt will still be the same power, etc. The changes are to the global game infrastructure and how it interprets these data, so there will be some stuff that used to work that likely won't work now (eg wall walking) and things that were possible (speed hacking, water walking) that won't be possible now.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#64

Post by misnome »

feefie wrote: post #44

The one thing that I suspect will be missing is new players. One of the things I enjoyed the most was seeing in chat a player that didn't know how to get from Iron Forge to catch a boat to the other continent, and I'd have fun showing him how to get through the Wetlands to the port. The Wetlands was a higher level than we were at the time the quests wanted us to visit the other continent, so it was a dangerous journe…

> I certainly miss the days of exploring a brand new world, the likes I had never seen in a video game before, and helping others (and being helped by others) along the way. Wonderful times! :-)

A thousand times this. After trying the beta in it's last, open weeks, I played from the very start with an externally-organised guild, so there was always at least 10-20 people online, and we were able to be amongst the first wave of people to be levelling up on the server in a brand new game (certainly not the first, but in the top 30% of the server at least)

It was wonderful the sense of exploration - moving into places like Stranglethorn vale and not really having anybody higher running around, or all of the quest lines and items mapped out online. Definitely the best experience I've had in an MMO.

I'm under no illusion that this experience is replicable in a rebooted classic server.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#65

Post by 4ndr3vv »

kemayo wrote: post #60
taneq wrote: post #14

It's interesting to see them relating the trouble they've had with the old game client when thousands of us play on private servers using old game clients (1.12 is common for much the same reasons discussed.)

I suspect that their standards are different. Someone who's willing to jump through the hoops to play classic WoW on a private server likely has a willingness to deal with glitches and troubleshooting issues with running a 12-14 year old game client. Whereas Blizzard wants to provide a smooth official experience, which they're going to give to their mass market audience. They can't get away with saying "yeah, it cras…

More importantly, Blizzard want to have the same security they have currently with Battle.net et al.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#66

Post by wmil »

zajd wrote: post #33
schaefer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former vanilla player (fond memories of 1.14 jumping physics bug), and current busy adult, I'm pretty excited about the idea of an MMO with a level cap. I can't keep up with new expansions every six months, but I can and will find fun things I'm interested in trying in an MMO with locked down talent builds and static endgame. It won't matter if life gets busy and I can only log in once this week. At least I'm no…

To be fair, WoW still has a level cap. You can play right now and quite frankly it's a much better game for a "current busy adult". Expansions come out every 2-3 years, not every 6 months.

Also being able to boost to the beginning of the current expansion is a huge time saver. Leveling in late vanilla involved a lot of grinding in empty zones.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#67

Post by bcgraham »

The secret sauce of Vanilla was the sense of place and sense of community. You don't need the old patch. You need persistent identities and travel time. Small populations, no server or faction transfers, and walking to dungeons is the vast majority of it. I also really miss Vanilla dungeon design, where I felt like I was exploring a dangerous place instead of having a very scripted, linear experience. I loved Blackrock Depths, Maraudon, and Blackfathom Deeps. I get why these aren't economical for developer hours, but they are a magical experience.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#68

Post by wmil »

seattle_spring wrote: post #58

I still don't understand why they didn't go with either Diablo or Diablo 2. Much easier to make compatible with modern settings, much easier for new and casual players to get into, much easier to maintain, and arguably more people hungry to play it online over legacy WoW players.

> Much easier to make compatible with modern settings, much easier for new and casual players to get into, much easier to maintain,

I'm not sure that's true. Implementing classic wow in the modern client sounds like a straightforward data migration that will have some hiccups.

The Diablo 2 code is probably a visual studio 5 project built in direct x 5, they'd have to port all that to something modern. Their server code would need to support their current login system, and is probably not even going to build on a current is without changes.

On top of that Diablo 2 players aren't expecting a monthly charge.

I don't think the money is there.

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#69

Post by twoodfin »

aphextron wrote: post #48

It makes me really sad that they are including Battlegrounds in WoW classic. There was a magical period from release date to the first Battlegrounds patch where people actually took part in large scale, world PVP. Guilds would get together and raid towns, and it was the most fun I’ve ever had in an MMO. If you wanted to do something, it took lots of planning and working together with people, not just clicking a queue…

I remember those days. It would have been a very different game if Blizzard had decided to incentivize that kind of world PvP instead of leaving it essentially pointless.

So much weird and cool stuff was possible in vanilla. I remember someone kited a Servant of Razelikh into downtown Stormwind. It could only be killed by activating some object back in the Blasted Lands, so a crowd of dozens of guards and PC’s who didn’t know any better just whaled on it for half an hour.

EDIT: Apparently this was not just for lolz as you could level up weapon skill on the thing. Neat!

Re: Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic

#70

Post by swebs »

seattle_spring wrote: post #58

I still don't understand why they didn't go with either Diablo or Diablo 2. Much easier to make compatible with modern settings, much easier for new and casual players to get into, much easier to maintain, and arguably more people hungry to play it online over legacy WoW players.

I think "THE BLIZZARD RANT" explains it all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzT8UzO1zGQ

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