WoW Classic 27th of August! All the hype.
Found a very nice interview on wowhead with the lead engineer and production director of Classic. Heres a summary of the top points from me...
Graphics toggle CONFIRMED:
We wanted to make sure that you could get the Classic look exactly right if you wanted that, so we have a Classic graphics button option, to make sure you don't see things that weren't in Classic. If you hit that button, it will turn that ground clutter all the way down, with all the objects exactly where they were too.
Addons probably not coming at launch:
I think we plan to do it, but not sure if we'll have it for launch. We're trying to make sure that API is available, but the timeline for launch we're unsure about.
It will be a different one, but I don't know if I would categorize it as completely different. We are starting with our modern codebase, and that includes the modern API, but there are addon APIs that don't make sense for Classic, and in those cases, we're trying to roll things back to reflect how the game behaved back then.
Castbars are a good example of this. Everyone remembers that they had a castbar in Classic, but that was a castbar addon, and you couldn't actually query the status except on yourself. So they were all basically guesses as to what was going on. That meant you didn't actually know what spell someone else was casting, or how long it would last--you had to figure it out and guess. As that's gameplay-affecting, we wanted to restore that functionality.
In terms of maintaining--for every content release we do for World of Warcraft today, we will change the API pretty regularly. That's not something we plan to do with Classic though. Once that API is defined and out there for the public, it's not something that's going to change. Certainly not at the cadence that the Battle for Azeroth APIs change. Hopefully maintenance won't be too terrible.
No old epic mounts (they will all be armored):
It is the current vendor mounts for 1.12. We aren't putting back the unarmored mounts. We just talked about this recently internally. We know some people are interested in them, but we don't want to put them in for a limited period of time, because we didn't want to influence people through their first leveling experience. Especially people coming back for the first time. We don't want people to feel like they have to rush. If you want to level slowly and enjoy the journey, you should. That's how I like to play--taking it slow, running every dungeon.
Old riding skills confirmed:
The modern riding system was introduced in one of the later 1.12 patches, and as we were discussing it, we felt this system was added to prepare the game for Burning Crusade, which had the ability to ride flying mounts.
For most of the history of WoW Classic, throughout 2004 and 2005, we had the older mount system. It just felt more authentic to that game, to use the older one instead of one that just laid the groundwork for another expansion.
Release dates for each phase decided on a per-phase basis:
Probably one-by-one, as Classic continues. We actually don't have them pinned down precisely yet. We're trying to figure it out as we go forward.
We want to take a look at the Classic community as it progresses through the content, and determining what seems reasonable.
Oh shit nice finds man, I will add these to the FAQ section tomorrow.
Isn't the graphics toggle just for ground texture or something? As in character models and spell particles are not affected?
Isn't the graphics toggle just for ground texture or something? As in character models and spell particles are not affected?
From the article and the screenshot yeah looks just like foliage etc. at the moment. I guess when beta comes out we'll have some more info on character models.
I would love new character models, but to be honest, they've been talking about keeping the game as faithful as possible to how it was, and well, that doesn't include new character models. If they add the toggle that was in Modern WoW when they released the new models, that would work nicely.
But they mentioned someone about the game being simpler back then in the animation side of spells, and that's why they're going to be able to put a lot of people in the same server at the same time. So forget new animations.
My question would be if the new character models also impact the game in a resource way, even being client sided? I don't know.
It's not a big deal if they don't make the new models available to be honest. :)
It's peculiar they keep the old mount system, but the old mounts they don't want to have. I guess I can understand the "don't force people to level fast to get the mounts within Phase 1 frame" but still a peculiar approach. A bit of a Frankenstein approach to much of this, which is honestly what everyone should have expected.
All in all, I like these answers.
I'm not sure how the "old riding system" was any different, pls esplane
Could someone explain no old epic mounts? Does that mean for instance no 'level 40 version' mounts without armor?
I'm not sure how the "old riding system" was any different, pls esplane
Back in the day training was cheap and mounts were expensive, thats what your getting. Training will be like 100g and mounts like 900g
Could someone explain no old epic mounts? Does that mean for instance no 'level 40 version' mounts without armor?
Before 1.4 the epic mounts had no armor, much like the winterspring saber.
Those mounts won't be available in classic.
Could someone explain no old epic mounts? Does that mean for instance no 'level 40 version' mounts without armor?
Before 1.4 the epic mounts had no armor, much like the winterspring saber.
Those mounts won't be available in classic.
Thanks for clearing that up! I was a total noob in vanilla and never even got a level 40 mount :lol:
Ravenheart You have misquoted the article. Please re-read the article and edit your post to correctly reflect it. You combined two totally different questions about two different APIs (game vs addon) into the same answer.
teebling Please refer to the above statement in the article itself before updating any FAQs. This was grossly misquoted and represented as a single answer.
agreeing with Goetia , my shit gets regulary edited but this fake news can still spread. this dude has no idea what API and Addons are.
Glad the graphics toggle is still a thing.
@Ravenheart You have misquoted the article. Please re-read the article and edit your post to correctly reflect it. You combined two totally different questions about two different APIs (game vs addon) into the same answer.
@teebling Please refer to the above statement in the article itself before updating any FAQs. This was grossly misquoted and represented as a single answer.
It sounds to me that they are clearly talking about the API that has to do with gathering information about your character such as gear, mounts, boss kills, quests completed, achivements etcs. The kind of information you can get from the retail API. So I agree, very misleading.