World of Warcraft: Classic
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
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WoW Devs: We don't have the original game code anymore...
Also WoW Devs:
Since we first announced World of Warcraft Classic, we’ve seen questions about spell batching. While we never really eliminated spell batching in WoW, we did change how (and how often) we process batches of actions coming from players, so you’re less likely to notice that processing in today’s game. We’ve been working to ensure that in WoW Classic, the gameplay of activating spells and effects will not differ from the experience of playing original WoW.
It was relatively common in the original game to see a warrior Pummel a mage who simultaneously and successfully Polymorphed the warrior. The mage suffered Pummel damage but no spell-school lock, because the mage didn’t get interrupted. This could seem paradoxical, but it could happen because the Pummel and Polymorph were both in the same batch, and were both valid actions at the start of the batch. For the most part, things like that don’t happen in modern WoW, but they still can. We’ve made improvements to batch frequency, and the game is much more responsive than it used to be. Still, if you manage to get both a Pummel and a Polymorph into a tiny processing window in modern WoW, you’ll experience the same behavior as in original WoW.
As with many other areas of WoW Classic, authenticity is our primary concern. It used to be the norm that combat flow and PvP balance were defined and tuned in a game where spell messages were resolved less frequently. There was a single game loop that processed all messages sent and received every server tick. Nowadays, the game processes multiple loops for messages of differing priorities. Spell casts are high priority, and have been for a long time.
For WoW Classic, we’re moving spell casts to a low-priority loop that will cause them to be processed at the frequency that best fits how the game actually played in version 1.12. Two mages will be able to Polymorph each other somewhat reliably, resulting in two sheep nervously pacing around at range. Two warriors will be able to Charge one another, and the end result will be both warriors standing stunned in each other’s original location.
We think it’ll be fun to see those sorts of things happening again.
Also WoW Devs:
Since we first announced World of Warcraft Classic, we’ve seen questions about spell batching. While we never really eliminated spell batching in WoW, we did change how (and how often) we process batches of actions coming from players, so you’re less likely to notice that processing in today’s game. We’ve been working to ensure that in WoW Classic, the gameplay of activating spells and effects will not differ from the experience of playing original WoW.
It was relatively common in the original game to see a warrior Pummel a mage who simultaneously and successfully Polymorphed the warrior. The mage suffered Pummel damage but no spell-school lock, because the mage didn’t get interrupted. This could seem paradoxical, but it could happen because the Pummel and Polymorph were both in the same batch, and were both valid actions at the start of the batch. For the most part, things like that don’t happen in modern WoW, but they still can. We’ve made improvements to batch frequency, and the game is much more responsive than it used to be. Still, if you manage to get both a Pummel and a Polymorph into a tiny processing window in modern WoW, you’ll experience the same behavior as in original WoW.
As with many other areas of WoW Classic, authenticity is our primary concern. It used to be the norm that combat flow and PvP balance were defined and tuned in a game where spell messages were resolved less frequently. There was a single game loop that processed all messages sent and received every server tick. Nowadays, the game processes multiple loops for messages of differing priorities. Spell casts are high priority, and have been for a long time.
For WoW Classic, we’re moving spell casts to a low-priority loop that will cause them to be processed at the frequency that best fits how the game actually played in version 1.12. Two mages will be able to Polymorph each other somewhat reliably, resulting in two sheep nervously pacing around at range. Two warriors will be able to Charge one another, and the end result will be both warriors standing stunned in each other’s original location.
We think it’ll be fun to see those sorts of things happening again.
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What's the consensus on the hype levels for this? Is it going to be like EQ and people want to play it to race (again) for content firsts? Are a lot of the old uberguilds like Death and Taxes making a comeback? Will it just be filled with dirty casuals? Is it just going to fall on its face because all of the original players are too old to be hardcore anymore, and younger players are too spoiled to deal with vanilla mechanics?
My own perspective is other than maybe a quick hit of nostalgia, I don't have much interest in it personally. I did the uberguild thing back then, and saw ALL of the content when it was new. I spent countless hours doing all of the old vanilla things like farming thorium ore in an endless loop in Un'Goro, farming flask mats for the guild, waiting around in Ironforge for things to happen, AFK'ing on griffins for what seemed like ages, following the rolling zerg PVP battles between Southshore and Tarren Mill, gigantic PVP battles with other guilds for azuregos and green dragons, and experiencing the high of downing bosses before anyone else on the server or even world for some. I even had the item that let you teleport from Gnomeregan to Orgrimmar as alliance that you couldn't get after a while but they didn't delete it if you had it. (My 15 year old memory thinks that it was from a neutral quest you could get in orgrimmar until they nixed it, so if you could sneak in past everyone and get it, then go on the quest, you'd get an item that let you use the teleporter in Gnomeregan to go back to Orgrimmar. Useful if you wanted to troll horde by showing up unexpectedly in Org, but probably slower than getting from IF to Kalimdor the regular way.)
No way am I putting in the time to do even a 10th of that all over again. Looking back, the time commitment to loot reward ratio was atrocious. 6 months of constant Molten Core Raid attendance to get kitted out in mediocre t1 gear. If they increased the drops per boss by about 50% it would help that out a lot, assuming they don't want the vanilla timeline to exactly mirror 2005-2007. If they do want classic to last the same amount of time, yikes.
That said, I'm sure there's lots of people who don't share my opinion, and WoW is the big dog of classic games that I'm sure lots of people would want a hit of nostalgia and who also didn't do the Nostalrius type server thing for whatever reason.
My own perspective is other than maybe a quick hit of nostalgia, I don't have much interest in it personally. I did the uberguild thing back then, and saw ALL of the content when it was new. I spent countless hours doing all of the old vanilla things like farming thorium ore in an endless loop in Un'Goro, farming flask mats for the guild, waiting around in Ironforge for things to happen, AFK'ing on griffins for what seemed like ages, following the rolling zerg PVP battles between Southshore and Tarren Mill, gigantic PVP battles with other guilds for azuregos and green dragons, and experiencing the high of downing bosses before anyone else on the server or even world for some. I even had the item that let you teleport from Gnomeregan to Orgrimmar as alliance that you couldn't get after a while but they didn't delete it if you had it. (My 15 year old memory thinks that it was from a neutral quest you could get in orgrimmar until they nixed it, so if you could sneak in past everyone and get it, then go on the quest, you'd get an item that let you use the teleporter in Gnomeregan to go back to Orgrimmar. Useful if you wanted to troll horde by showing up unexpectedly in Org, but probably slower than getting from IF to Kalimdor the regular way.)
No way am I putting in the time to do even a 10th of that all over again. Looking back, the time commitment to loot reward ratio was atrocious. 6 months of constant Molten Core Raid attendance to get kitted out in mediocre t1 gear. If they increased the drops per boss by about 50% it would help that out a lot, assuming they don't want the vanilla timeline to exactly mirror 2005-2007. If they do want classic to last the same amount of time, yikes.
That said, I'm sure there's lots of people who don't share my opinion, and WoW is the big dog of classic games that I'm sure lots of people would want a hit of nostalgia and who also didn't do the Nostalrius type server thing for whatever reason.
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a c i d.f l y
ಠ_ಠ
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Ukerric
Bearded Ape
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They always said they had the original game code and data. It's just that it would not run on any modern hardware or current servers. Which is why they backport the original behavior on the current codebase.
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Burren
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I'm excited, but not for hardcore play. My job is too demanding and there are other things I would do before this. However, my wife travels for work an average of 2.5 days per week so I'll play on those days when it's just me and the dogs. I'd like to try a class I haven't played before and do zones I never did before (I did classic until lvl 44, then quit until TBC, then quit again before TBC raids, so a lot is going to be somewhat new to me. Also, I was clueless about the game 15 years ago whereas today I have a bit of knowledge).
So, I can't wait to level, explore, do professions, do dungeons, PVP and BGs and if there is an FOH guild again, perhaps 1 raid night per week.
Calbiyum
Molten Core Raider
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The thing is you have the option to do whatever you want. You can play hardcore or you can level casually by doing quests gridning instances etc. There isnt any 1 path you are forced to take which is why itll be fun. Youre also not gping to be punished for not "capping" something in a week, besides pvp and raiding I guess. But instead of some dumb weekly quote youll be able to make up for by playing a lot more the next week
Also an actual community too is cute
Also an actual community too is cute
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Yeah I think people are vastly over estimating what it took to raid MC and shit back in Vanilla. Back before achievements, dailies, and other chore type faggot shit you could literally just log on clear MC in a couple of hours and bounce if you wanted to. Having 40 people was always hard to field back then so derpy McLazy faggot who sat in the back and out of combat rezzed was welcome, just don’t cry like an entitled cunt when you are 5th in line for your tier.
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Malakriss
Golden Baronet of the Realm
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We only had a paladin for out of combat rezzer in BWL back when taunt didn't work on the drakes. That was their purpose and DKP was their god. Got to the point where we forced most of the raid to die on purpose 1-2 times a fight.
Whatever works while beta testing new content.
Whatever works while beta testing new content.
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yamikazo
Trakanon Raider
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Yup.
Classic raiding will be much, much closer to Normal than Heroic. Hell a lot of content might be closer to LFR than Heroic.
Can you herd/box 20 sheep, 10-15 core competent players, and 5-10 McLazy lootbuckets? If so, congratulations, you win at 2005 era MMO raiding!
Leadsalad
Cis-XYite-Nationalist
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Other than getting an add on to refresh buffs, there is no other prep.
Sure, you can run ZG for the heart buff to do Naxx stuff but there’s nothing else needed for anything before Naxx.
(Well, there is getting fire resist gear for your tanks for MC/Ony/BWL, and some nature resist for wasp thing in ZG).
Yeah the private server scene has warped peoples perspectives of vanilla raiding a lot. Naxx raid guilds these days save a Ony head and Hakkar heart for turnin before raid, have everyone do dm trib runs for that buff, etc and nobody did all that shit during real vanilla. I killed cthun and everything up to 4h in Naxx with a guild where maybe half the raid ever bothered flasking at all and people were rocking pvp specs more often than not.
Just 1.12 abilities and modern knowledge of itemization is going to trivialize everything before Naxx.
Naxx itself is going to be relatively easy too since addons all exist already and game knowledge like you said.
I wonder how big the draw will be. EQ TLPs is actually fairly close to classic wow in most ways because of the QoL changes the TLPs got. I do think people have forgotten just how awful some stuff was. Boats for instance, even eq doesn’t make you use boats anymore.
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xzi
Mouthbreather
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GL doing fights like Huhuran with 0 resist gear. It should be simpler this time around given that we now know what is required but at the time? lmao that was the first real brick wall.
Or like, half the bosses in naxx.
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Leadsalad
Cis-XYite-Nationalist
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We did those to kill Loatheb because we were a shit tier guild that couldn’t get past Gothik.
I played Cataclysm at launch just to level one character up to 85 before quickly dumping it and even that felt like a chore because... I was playing Project 1999 at the time and enjoying that way more. I've since spent the last 5.5 years working on another EQ emu project.
The people who have, for many years, been proclaiming that I have 'rose colored glasses' can go fuck themselves. I want to play Classic because it has superior gameplay to 'modern' WoW. I just played the original Master of Orion (the 320x200 reso DOS game) because I never have and loved it. 40 hours to win it and it left me wanting to play another round. Good gameplay is timeless.
The problem with classic servers for MMOGs is that everything is heavily spoiled and familiar, so the joy of discovery and exploration is gone. Although there is little practical difference in regards to spoilers from new expacs anymore with data mining and youtube.
The people who have, for many years, been proclaiming that I have 'rose colored glasses' can go fuck themselves. I want to play Classic because it has superior gameplay to 'modern' WoW. I just played the original Master of Orion (the 320x200 reso DOS game) because I never have and loved it. 40 hours to win it and it left me wanting to play another round. Good gameplay is timeless.
The problem with classic servers for MMOGs is that everything is heavily spoiled and familiar, so the joy of discovery and exploration is gone. Although there is little practical difference in regards to spoilers from new expacs anymore with data mining and youtube.
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