What's "Classic+"?
"Classic Plus" is a community-coined term used to refer to a hypothetical "modern", expanded version of Classic World of Warcraft.
It's essentially a speculation of what Vanilla would have been like if it continued evolving technologically and adding more features, but without losing its old-school MMO feel, its Everquest-style mechanics, its low-poly Tim Burton-esque graphical style, its basic, 90s DnD-inspired aesthetic or its minimal storytelling.
Inspiration for Classic+ is drawn from unreleased Vanilla content, and how things like Karazhan, Northrend or the Demon Hunter/Death Knight classes would have been delivered (without an Expansion system to drastically rework the game's aesthetics every two years) making them closer to their Warcraft 3 iterations than what they are now.
Possible Content:
I think Classic+ could be on its own, alternate timeline to account for its divergence from how Cataclysm, Pandaria etc. took official Warcraft timeline and all the weird retcons. Maybe Illidan does end up being evil after all. Maybe the raid on Icecrown Citadel plays out differently from how it did on retail.
If C+ ever ends up being a thing, here's a list of features it might have based on unreleased Vanilla content:
Will edit to include any suggestions, feel free to speculate with us
low-poly Tim Burton-esque graphical style, basic, 90s DnD-inspired aesthetic and minimal storytelling.
Now that I'm about 28 days /played into classic, looking back on things I'm surprised by how important these points are to the look & feel of the game to me. I see clips from the modern game and it's just not the same. The modern game looks 'better' in all regards, but I don't like it. This game aged very well in the graphics department in spite of the low fideltiy textures and low polygon counts. Kudos to the guys who did the visual design for this game because it has proven to be timeless.
One of the "good" things about Vanilla WoW was the lack of documentation which resulted in a few surprises in ClassicWoW. During the TBC-era theorycrafting skyrocketed with the game being researched to the bone and nothing much left to explore. Today's TBC pservers are an absolute breeze. I am all for implementing new content in a Classic+ context.
low-poly Tim Burton-esque graphical style, basic, 90s DnD-inspired aesthetic and minimal storytelling.
Now that I'm about 28 days /played into classic, looking back on things I'm surprised by how important these points are to the look & feel of the game to me. I see clips from the modern game and it's just not the same. The modern game looks 'better' in all regards, but I don't like it. This game aged very well in the graphics department in spite of the low fideltiy textures and low polygon counts. Kudos to the guys who did the visual design for this game because it has proven to be timeless.
I like the old look, the cartoonish look, its their style, thats what i like about it!
They created this world, their own art style, their own vision! Feels unique!
Look at the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoons and comics and look at them now!
I liked their style back then, instead of trying to look more modern and with the times...just to changes things up and appeal to the new comers...
Opinions are opinions!
If C+ ever ends up being a thing, here's a list of features it might have based on unreleased Vanilla content
Sounds more like TBC than C++
low-poly Tim Burton-esque graphical style, basic, 90s DnD-inspired aesthetic and minimal storytelling.
Now that I'm about 28 days /played into classic, looking back on things I'm surprised by how important these points are to the look & feel of the game to me. I see clips from the modern game and it's just not the same. The modern game looks 'better' in all regards, but I don't like it. This game aged very well in the graphics department in spite of the low fideltiy textures and low polygon counts. Kudos to the guys who did the visual design for this game because it has proven to be timeless.
This.
Slightly off-topic but I feel this way about the Lord of the Rings vs. the Hobbit.
Lord of the Rings still looks great today, the CGI in the Hobbit just ruined the immersion, also it was pretty poorly done imo.
I'm still exhausted by a lot of the pretty pointless Classic+ speculation before launch (though I started one or two back then admittedly), and I still find it fairly unhelpful, especially because people float some really silly ideas, like new classes or whatever. I can't see a need to start a new thread on this when there's countless others.
Edit: if you're changing the level cap and adding a ton of new classes, it's not Classic+, it's an expansion.
So after seeing what they did with W3: Reforged we better hope that Blizzard never tries to change Classic in any way. :lol:
what i really would love to see is the devs targeting community feedback, open discussion - have people vote about what they want adressed/fixed/developed. the winning suggestion then gets openly discussed - what do the devs think about it? problems we dont see? technical issues to implement such things?
if a suggestion works for everybody have a "community test server" (like public test realms) where people test the new feature - and only if the new implemented change withstands this feedbackround also then it goes to live / or classic+ servers.
blizzard clearly lost the connection to its playerbase, i think thats fair, i dont mean that insulting, you become blind and only think in cooperate dimensions. they are listening to some professionals that probably have some great insights about pleasing shareholders but are disconnected from the vanilla/pre micro transaction gaming world which made blizzard/ubisoft/ea/bethesda what they are today, huge companies that forgot about the people wo made them and only focus on players that swipe their credit card and microtransaction a new cars worth gaming companies way. when in reality their brand loyalty and quality is more deeply rooted/based on the small players which dont throw huge amounts of money their way.
remember a big release that did hold what it promised, that wasnt somehow dissapointing and made you think what happened to this industry? where are the players who create games for the players? probably playing/revisiting 10-20 year old games that still feel great and hold up to this day
its sad that the companies are so out of touch that they cant even re-release their best classics in a satisfactory way
What do we want in Classic Plus? Very slightly altered versions of the same things we got from the past seven expansions!
That's gonna be a "no" from me. I'll take some modern interface enhancements like questgiver tracking and the "clean up bags" button, some server-side or account-level enhancements like an increased character limit per server, and MAYBE some new level 1-60 content, like a level 60 Kara. That's it.
If you want to create kitchen sink servers that mix the best content and features from all the expansions, then that's not even Classic Plus anymore. Those would be what I call hybrid servers. I was, in fact, advocating something like that long before Classic was officially announced, but it'll never happen.
To me, back from Wotk, (tried retail no thanks), I have sympathy for the purists. Even finding Addons is good, for example because you are improving how you play, your experience.
Obviously the graphics could be improved, but the cartoon style doesn't age. More frames, animations, effects but do not replace.
I'm back, I'm married don't have the time, but by God I love it still... hope I don't hate it again!.
I was recently questing in the Plaguelands, noticed that several areas were basically off-limits to players because they were Scarlet Crusade territory, and had an idea.
You know how the Cashbringer makes you buddies with the Crusade? You know how that lets you participate in some kind of RP event in the Monastery, but does jack-all else? Well... what if those Scarlet towns in the Plaguelands were quest hubs? What if equipping the Cashbringer let you accept quests from the Crusade, and completing those quests could increase your reputation with them until you were PERMANENTLY no longer hated? That's exactly the sort of thing that Classic was full of, and which is absent from the modern game.