In addition to the WoW Dragonflight announcement on Tuesday, which I covered already, there was also the announcement of Wrath of the Lich King Classic. The WoW Classic page is now dominated by the grim icy visage of the Lich King.
I suppose I could have covered both in a single post easily enough… words are words and all… but WotLK occupies a very different spot in my relationship with World of Warcraft and felt like it should get its own post.
Also, WotKL Classic is supposed to be arriving this year, which might make it a standout from Dragonflight. Blizz has to ship something this year.
I have, at various points, attempted to rank WoW expansions via various dubious methods, and I always work it so that WotLK comes out on top. Not that it is the incorrect result, it is more a matter of my metrics being less than scientific.
Still, it remains a stand out for me, the only expansion I played from the day it launched until the day the next expansion launched without a break. While there are lots of factors that play into that run, they all added up to me going all in on the expansion like no other before it. Wintergrasp, the Argent Tournament, leveling up alts, crafting, grinding faction, running the instances, building the chopper, it was my peak effort in WoW.
So I should be totally stoked for WotLK Classic, right? I was stoked for WoW Classic. There were points between beta and launch that all I wanted was just to play WoW Classic. And I was pretty excited for Burning Crusade Classic, wasn’t I?
Then why am I not feeling it?
Sure, part of that is the Blizzard malaise, the discovery that the company is problematic on many levels along with a feeling of tiredness about the whole genre at the moment. It happens. I don’t want to be down on the whole thing, I just am.
But I am also wary of going back to try and relive what might have been my peak time in the game. I worry that WotLK was great in its time, both in the state of the genre when it came out and at the point in my life when I played it, but that it might not be all that when it comes to nostalgia.
The thing is, I have been back to Northrend a few times over the years with alts at various times as the game has gone on and I have never, ever stuck it out when I didn’t have to. Even after the level squish, when getting to the level cap was suddenly much quicker and you could choose which expansion you wanted to level up in, I tried WotLK, but ended up opting for Legion or Battle for Azeroth to finish out some alts.
And then there is the practical aspect of the whole venture, the fact that we ran out of steam when it came to Burning Crusade Classic. The overland content in Outland was every bit as grindy as I had said over the years, and the four of us were not quite enough to get through five person instances without having to simply be better than we’re every likely to be.
So I have a level 62 paladin in Outland. That is a ways to go, six levels at least, before you can hope a boat to Northrend.
Yes, Blizzard will happily sell me a level 70 boost. They are even going to let death knights get an early start so they can be level 70 before the expansion drops in the land of classic. But do I want it that bad? And what awkward mount package will they sell this time around?
Meanwhile, there is some controversy about there being no Dungeon Finder available in Wrath Classic, which seems odd to me. My most popular post yesterday wasn’t about Dragonflight or CSM17. Those two weren’t even close. The big attraction here at TAGN yesterday was a twelve year old post about some early good/bad experiences with Dungeon Finder that got linked in /r/wow due to all of this.
I have been down the “where does classic end?” path before, but I think you could make a very strong argument that Dungeon Finder is the dividing line between “classic” and “modern” World of Warcraft. Yes, Cataclysm changed the world, making Azeroth a different place, but Dungeon Finder changed how we played.
We no longer had to schlep out to a dungeon in some zone, maybe use the summoning stone, then enter the instance… or, in places like Scarlet Temple, fight to get to the instance… to get rolling. We also no longer had to have our dungeon quests all lined up before we walked in. There was still some connection to the zones, still quest chains that culminated in an instance run, but more and more quests were given inside the instance, right at the start, because people were just being teleported right into the dungeon from Stormwind or Orgrimmar or where ever.
You can argue whether or not it was a good change… my recollection is almost a dozen years of non-stop complaining about its problems and being castigated for defending it now and then… but it was a radical update that changed how we played the game and, frankly, marked the end of what I would consider the classic era of WoW.
But I see a bunch of people angry that Dungeon Finder isn’t in Wrath Classic, including a column over at Massively OP which says I am a selfish gatekeeping ogre for even considering the idea, which baffles me a bit, given the above. So many years of people complaining about it has led me to expect that is the default reaction to the feature. I guess not. There is an attempt to lay the blame on Holly Longdale due to her history with EverQuest and the contested raids thing that eventually got scrapped in favor of instanced raids on retro, which isn’t even close to a parallel situation, but if you were ever seen as gatekeeping… and what is a classic server but an exercise in gatekeeping… then you get painted with that brush forever I guess.
Oh well. Just because I define classic one way doesn’t mean anybody has to agree. Certainly the comment thread on that Massively OP post seems to be completely on the side of Dungeon Finder. I expect Blizz will, if not cave, hedge on the issue due to the outcry, and then we’ll hear the other side of the issue howl.
Selfishly speaking I hope Blizz sticks to this because Dungeon Finder (and achievements frankly) would undermine the whole experience for me… should I decide to play… which isn’t even feeling likely at the moment even if they don’t include it, so I shouldn’t really care about it but I clearly DO care about it and… I don’t know, it is a mix of emotions.
I know, I am in a mood. And moods pass. Maybe, when the launch date is closer I will find some enthusiasm for Northrend again.