Blizzard is bringing back World of Warcraft’s wildly popular Wrath of the Lich King expansion, but when it arrives, it may be older than some players remember.
Wrath of the Lich King is a revolutionary expansion in many ways. Blizzard’s MMORPG peaked in terms of subscribers during the expansion, which introduced the game’s first new class, the Death Knight, added achievements, and featured fan-favorite villains as the perfect building block for the entire expansion. Base approx. While many players, and Blizzard itself, probably didn’t realize it at the time, Wrath of the Lich King also started laying the groundwork for a modern version of the game, adding convenience features like automatic dungeon matchmaking and markers on the map telling players where to go to finish. their task.
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Play now: World of Warcraft Classic – Wrath of the Lich King Movie Trailer
These two features in particular do not appear in Wrath of the Lich King Classic. It’s a conscious decision by Blizzard to preserve what Blizzard calls Classic’s “core values.” While many players consider the game’s 2010 Cataclysm expansion to be a major turning point in the game’s history, when many of the game’s classes and systems were updated to be more similar to what they are now, those seeds were actually sown in the final rage. Demon King Patch. Wrath of the Lich King Classic will still run in the final patch of the expansion, minus the features that the World of Warcraft Classic team believes are starting to erode the socially-focused experience of MMORPGs.
“We’re not going to make these changes lightly,” Kris Zierhut, lead systems designer for Wrath of the Lich King Classic Systems, said in a recent panel interview with GameSpot. “They come from the true core values of classics. We think classics are socializing, making friends, meeting new people. In order for that to happen, you have to meet these people multiple times, you have to have the opportunity to play with them, and then with them Have time to play together and say ‘oh yeah, I remember that guy, he was cool last time, maybe I should add him to my friends list. Maybe I should put him on the one I’m trying to build a dungeon group with On the list of people, ‘after you’ “We successfully ran the dungeon. We want to emphasize social, we also want to emphasize the world and immersion in the world. “
The changes to Wrath of the Lich King Classic are a good indication of how much Blizzard’s mindset has changed since World of Warcraft Classic was first released in 2019. At the time, Blizzard was trying to recreate the “original” World of Warcraft from 2006. Make as few changes as possible. But over time, especially as the World of Warcraft classic content release cycle draws to a close, and as part of Blizzard’s re-release of the game’s first expansion, The Burning Crusade, that philosophy began to change.
The WoW Classic team set out to focus on and implement player feedback, including quality-of-life updates that improve the WoW Classic player experience, while still staying true to the old-school nature of the original game and its first expansion. Some of these changes include updating the rate at which game servers detect input to account for modern internet speeds. Other changes include the ability to have same faction PvP battlefields in the Burning Crusade classic, done in the name of reducing queue times and helping with faction imbalances. Blizzard has even launched the World of Warcraft Classic Master Season, where players can create new characters and relive the original World of Warcraft, albeit at a faster pace with more challenging raids and improved loot drops rate and other significant changes.
As such, Wrath of the Lich King Classic is Blizzard’s chance to try again with the game’s most popular expansion, this time keeping in mind the social system it didn’t take into account when the expansion was originally released in 2008.
“When we originally made Wrath of the Lich King, we didn’t get people to think about how the social system should be restored, so it was a new way of looking at things,” Zierhut said. “What promotes social? What hurts? Keep an eye on this… We’re thinking hard when designing for Wrath of the Lich King [Classic] How do we facilitate socializing, how do we create environments where people can find similarities, engage in reciprocal behaviors, things that lead them to develop friendships, and avoid disrupting social proximity. This is something we didn’t pay attention to when we first made Wrath of the Lich King. “
Other changes that will be implemented come from the fact that Blizzard has already seen Wrath of the Lich King once, with Zierhut citing the death knight in the game as an example. Players who originally wanted to play Death Knight had to catch up within a few days of the expansion’s release, as the class started at level 55. At the same time, everyone else who has not been a death knight is already level 70 or above and sails to Northrend to experience the new content. This time Blizzard will avoid that and the Death Knight will appear as part of the pre-expansion patch. While Blizzard won’t commit to the exact length of the patch, the plan is for it to last anywhere from two to six weeks.
The Wintergrasp PvP Battleground, introduced as part of Wrath of the Lich King, is another opportunity for Blizzard to make positive changes to the quality of life. In the original version of Wrath of the Lich King, players were so desperate to win Wintergrasp and get the loot found in the Alkaven Vault dungeon (accessible only by the faction that controls Wintergrasp) that they were transferring servers and switch factions to ensure they win as many as possible. Blizzard will be looking for ways to reduce the importance of Wintergrasp by potentially offering different ways to obtain loot traditionally associated with the event. Double Specialization, a feature introduced in Wrath of the Lich King that allows players to swap between two different builds (for a fee) will also return, although it may happen how it’s implemented compared to the original Variety. The in-game barber shop will be updated to use in-game gold and allow players to change genders and other features that were not optional in the original version.
In recent months, both the Classic and Modern versions of World of Warcraft have made changes to various spell names, quests, achievements, and other content in the name of inclusion. The changes will also come to Wrath of the Lich King Classic, as Blizzard looks to make World of Warcraft more popular in the wake of recent sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits and an investigation alleging the company fostered a frat boy culture and inclusive approach.
As with the Burning Crusade Classic, Blizzard will be offering a single paid character boost per account when Wrath of the Lich King Classic launches so players who haven’t played Warcraft Classic or The Burning Crusade Classic can speed up and jump into the newly released. Content. When asked if Wrath of the Lich King Classic will offer a paid deluxe version similar to The Burning Crusade Classic – a bundle that upsets parts of the Classic community as it introduces microtransactions An old-school MMO that didn’t have microtransactions before — Blizzard says it has nothing to announce at the moment. However, Blizzard did note that content similar to the in-game items in the Burning Crusade Classic Deluxe Edition has been available in World of Warcraft since the beginning, dating back to the original game’s Collector’s Edition in 2004. For those lucky enough to get one of the original WoW Collector’s Editions, these exclusive pets can be used in WoW Classic.
Blizzard made it clear that many of the changes to Wrath of the Lich King Classic came directly from the gaming community, which Blizzard emphasized was a key driver of the team’s decisions on almost all of them, including future expansions that might get “Classic” next. treatment.
However, one decision players have no say in is whether they want to keep using Wrath of the Lich King. Unlike the release of The Burning Crusade Classic, Blizzard gave players the option to keep their characters on what is now known as the “Classic Age” servers, or to advance them to The Burning Crusade, all current Burning Crusade The Crusade of the Classic server will be automatically converted to the Lich King classic server with the expansion. While the Burning Crusade servers will no longer exist with the release of Wrath of the Lich King Classic, Blizzard is opening the door to revisiting the expansion.
“As for what happens after Wrath of the Lich King, we’d really like to hear from the community,” Zilhut said. “The whole project is driven by the community, and the whole project was born out of a request from the community. So we want to hear what the community wants to see next… We have our own opinions, but the community’s opinions will help us make better decision.”
Wrath of the Lich King Classic is scheduled to arrive sometime in 2022. Blizzard recently announced a new expansion pack for the modern version of the game Dragonflight. The ninth expansion of the game, it will add a new ranged evoker class (which is also a new dragon), a new dragon island continent, and revamp some “evergreen” systems like classes and talents. Dragonflight will be released “when it’s ready”.
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