Collectibles that we earn on Classic realms should be added to our battle.net accounts, and should be usable on all future legacy realms that support the Collections system (so mounts and pets would only be usable on legacy MoP+ realms, WoD+ for toys, Legion+ for item appearances)
And I'm getting tired of the poorly-thought-out "reasons" why this would supposedly be a bad idea. They're all crap, and I'm going to explain why they're all crap.
1) "Oh noes, someone else has the same thing I have! My own thing is not cool anymore" or "my thing is only cool because it's not available anymore"
Tier 3 armor is cool because it LOOKS cool, not because it wasn't obtainable during Wrath and Cataclysm. Corrupted Ashbringer is cool because it whispers madness into your ears and because you can enter that one Scarlet dungeon with it and the NPCs will do cool stuff instead of attacking you. And also because it looks cool... but not because it isn't available anymore. The ZG mounts honestly aren't that cool. If I saw you running around Org with the ZG raptor, I wouldn't know that it was any more special than any other raptor. On the other hand, when I cruise the skies in my Mimiron's head, everyone is jealous because giant flying robot heads are inherently awesome, even though it was never removed from the game and I didn't get it until like a month ago. And what of those low-level greens that were removed from the game and which nobody remembers? How often do you wear your old Moon Robes of Elune and Brushwood Blade as status symbols? Never, because even though they were removed from the game, they were never cool, and being removed from the game didn't make them cool.
Bottom line: the rare shit that you earned back in 2004-2006 will not be made any less cool by the fact that other people can once again earn it just like you did.
2) "Only people who did the cool thing back in THE DAY should have the reward for it" or "my thing proves that I played in Vanilla and that I therefore have a huge penis"
This makes perfect sense for rewards that were always intended to be limited-time-only. If you were around during the Opening of the Gates of AQ, but you were too much of a scrub to bang the gong in time and get your black scarab, then sorry, but there shouldn't be do-overs for that. For everything else, this is BS. We all know that the vast majority of Corrupted Ashbringers and Tier 3 armor in existence weren't earned at level 60. Most Ashbringers were acquired by teams of level 70 characters roflpwning through Naxxramas effortlessly. Most of those ZG mounts were probably soloed at level 80. Screw doing things back in "the day". What SHOULD matter, what SHOULD give you bragging rights, is doing things at the appropriate character level and item level. A person who gets a Corrupted Ashbringer three years from now at level 60, with a raid group of other level 60 characters, has "earned" its appearance for transmog purposes far more than some bottom-feeder who got it at level 70 back in 2008.
Also, nobody cares that you played back then. And being able to advertise that fact doesn't make your penis bigger.
3) "But then Classic realms will be invaded by loot tourists who don't actually care about Classic!" Or "People will only play long enough to ninja the one thing they want, then they'll disappear back to modern WoW"
And they'll all give up after a week when they realize how much harder Classic was. I'm serious. Are there people crazy enough to invest YEARS of their lives into playing a version of a game that they don't even like, just to have one more thing on their collections tab on Live realms? Sure. And you can count them on two hands, at most. They're a non-issue.
4) "Classic WoW isn't about collecting stuff"
Yes it is. Every RPG ever has been about collecting stuff.
5) "Classic is only for diehard #nochanges purists like me, not for loot tourists"
Classic isn't just for people who think that Classic was the game's high point and that every expansion from BC onward has made it worse. Classic is for everyone who thinks that Classic is better than modern WoW.
6) "Muh #nochanges!"
This system isn't actually a change, at least not an in-game one. It's purely an account-side feature. It has no effect on gameplay at all.
7) It will warp the prices of random low-level greens just because they have unique appearances that aren't available anymore"
So? There's plenty of low-level garbage to go around for new players. They don't need the specific expensive green thing with the unique appearance. And if you happen to acquire one of those greens on a character who's too high-level or the wrong class, I bet you'd be more than happy to take the gold of the loot tourists who are buying these greens.
8) "Because Blizzard said so"
This is the traditional "is-ought" fallacy. Blizzard's current policies and beliefs are not the same as what they will be in the future, or should be. Blizzard once said that Classic realms would never happen, and look where that ended up.
9) "There should be no additional rewards for playing Classic. Classic should be its own reward"
This would be a great argument if it was applied consistently, and if Modern was the only reward for playing Modern. But it's not. You can do stuff in modern WoW that gets you extra shit in Diablo III and Starcraft II, and vice versa. Nobody is asking for "additional" rewards; we're just asking that Classic not be put at an artificial disadvantage. See point #5 in the list below.
10) "If you want modern players to have a way to get these items, put them on the BMAH - don't drag Classic into it!"
This is basically the opposite argument of "these things should be hard/impossible to get" or "these things should be status symbols to show how big your penis is". The counterargument is likewise its mirror image: these items should be for anyone who can EARN them, not for people who have nothing better to do than farm herbs/ores and camp the BMAH
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Now, here's a list of reasons why collection linking SHOULD be a thing:
1) Because some people want it and because it improves the fun and value of the game for people who like to collect stuff
This is literally the only reason that matters. Fun. Games exist because people enjoy playing them. Anything that makes the game more enjoyable and fun for some people, without making it less fun or enjoyable for others, is necessarily good.
2) Because Classic servers might die
If Classic proves to be an eventual failure, the servers are unplugged, and we're all forced back to modern WoW, then we should all have a permanent record of what we earned and accomplished during our time on Classic realms. We should be able to take all that stuff with us, not let it disappear into the void.
3) Because without it, there's no functional difference between Blizzard's servers and private servers
If I'm going to pay $15/month for Classic, I'd better be getting something for it that private servers can't offer... and no, "fireballs deal the correct amount of damage and murlocs yield the correct amount of experience when killed" is not a good enough offer. "you can talk to your friends when they're playing Hearthstone" is not a good enough offer.
4) Many people did legitimately earn rare and no-longer-obtainable shit back in "the day", and delete it before anyone knew transmog was going to be a thing
Those people should be given a way to get their shit back
5) Without collection linking, there's an asymmetric reward structure unfairly favoring modern
Right now, if I'm farming zombies in Eastern Plaguelands on modern servers and I get a Teebu's Blazing Longsword, I can equip it and its appearance will be useable forever. However, if I spend the same time farming zombies in EPL on a Classic server, well then, fuck me. I should have been playing on Modern instead. The current setup encourages people to play modern even if they believe that Classic was better-designed overall. Collection linking is necessary to even the playing field.
I will update both of these lists in response to feedback.
EDIT: If a system like this is implemented, I'd be okay with making account-wide achievements visible on legacy Wrath and Cat realms, and backporting the Legion wardrobe system to legacy Cat, MoP, and WoD realms. That is because these systems do not affect gameplay or require a collections tab, and therefore making them account-wide did not affect gameplay or the UI. Pets, mounts, toys, and heirlooms did affect gameplay (even if just by taking up inventory space) and the collections tab, and therefore making them account-wide altered gameplay and the UI, so they should be forward-port only. Riding around on a Big Love Rocket in the DK starting zone is just ridiculous.
For me there should not be any account linking. Idea about looting something with one character and then using it on another character is just immersion breaking. It is one of the many reasons I would not touch current wow again.
But if there will be "classic" expansions, I am definitely for keeping said items on your character (not account) which you would copy/transfer to those expansions. That is completely fair and I do not have any issues with that.
Now, here's a list of reasons why collection linking SHOULD be a thing:
1) Because some people want it and because it improves the fun and value of the game for people who like to collect stuff
This is literally the only reason that matters. Fun. Games exist because people enjoy playing them. Anything that makes the game more enjoyable and fun for some people, without making it less fun or enjoyable for others, is necessarily good.
2) Because Classic servers might die
If Classic proves to be an eventual failure, the servers are unplugged, and we're all forced back to modern WoW, then we should all have a permanent record of what we earned and accomplished during our time on Classic realms. We should be able to take all that stuff with us, not let it disappear into the void.
3) Because without it, there's no functional difference between Blizzard's servers and private servers
If I'm going to pay $15/month for Classic, I'd better be getting something for it that private servers can't offer... and no, "fireballs deal the correct amount of damage and murlocs yield the correct amount of experience when killed" is not a good enough offer. "you can talk to your friends when they're playing Hearthstone" is not a good enough offer.
1) firstly, games exist because they generate money, there is also possibility that by this change you would make game less fun for people, who earn those items in retail vanilla and then those items would lose value.
2) they might but we would not be forced back to modern wow, that is just wrong. We would go back to private servers ;) and that is also why they will not unplugg vanilla even if there would be 1 person playing - by functional vanilla server they have big hammer to all private servers hosted outside russia/china
3) you will actually get functioning, exactly scripted, looked after service without shenanigans. It is not a tool how to improve your character on current wow.
And as Blizz stated several times: current wow and classic wow are different services which will not be linked together.
I can see you're pretty passionate about this, but I disagree with multiple points. Especially about the importance of old gear being unobtainable to newcomers.
Collectibles that we earn on Classic realms should be added to our battle.net accounts, and should be usable on all future legacy realms that support the Collections system (so mounts and pets would only be usable on legacy MoP+ realms, WoD+ for toys, Legion+ for item appearances)
And I'm getting tired of the poorly-thought-out "reasons" why this would supposedly be a bad idea. They're all crap, and I'm going to explain why they're all crap.
Hey BM, welcome to the forum :smile:
Did you get a lot of backlash arguing for this elsewhere? I agree with most of your points and don't really take an issue with this.
However, just to play devil's advocate here - the exclusivity of certain items depends on what level they were achieved at.
For example, when WOTLK was out I solo farmed Molten Core on my level 80 paladin and eventually crafted https://classic.wowhead.com/item=17182 . This took a while but it wasn't nearly as ridiculously hard to obtain as it would be for a level 60 character in a 40-man raiding guild on a Classic server. With your collectibles idea, someone could easily go back and farm MC as a level 120 or whatever, get Sulfuras, and you'd never know the difference between him and someone who earned it on Classic.
That's just nitpicking here... really IDC too much about this. Stuff going out of 1.13 to other servers is fine - stuff going in to 1.13 from other servers ain't right though.
look modern wow can crash and burn for all i care but dont bring that philosophy to classic
Stuff going out of 1.13 to other servers is fine - stuff going in to 1.13 from other servers ain't right though.
This is pretty much how I feel about it.
For me there should not be any account linking. Idea about looting something with one character and then using it on another character is just immersion breaking. It is one of the many reasons I would not touch current wow again.
Hmmm. This is the first time I've come across "account-wide everything was a mistake to begin with" as a counterargument. It is also its own entire issue, and therefore I won't debate it here. That's a point for you :)
"classic" expansions,
This is an oxymoron. Classic, by definition, is the state of the game without any expansions. It is synonymous with "vanilla", the difference beign that one is official and correct, and the other is unofficial and stupid.
1) firstly, games exist because they generate money, there is also possibility that by this change you would make game less fun for people, who earn those items in retail vanilla and then those items would lose value.
Value is subjective. If you value an item for its own inherent properties, then those things won't lose value for you as they become more common. If you only value an item only to wave it in the faces of people who can't get it, then you're a dick and you deserve the butthurt that you experience as items become available once again :)
2) they might but we would not be forced back to modern wow, that is just wrong. We would go back to private servers ;)
Hahaha. That reminds me: there should be a way to "import" characters from the official realms to private servers, and from private servers to other private servers.
3) you will actually get functioning, exactly scripted, looked after service without shenanigans.
As i mentioned earlier, "fireballs deal the correct amount of damage and murlocs yield the correct amount of experience when killed" is not a good enough offer.
And as Blizz stated several times: current wow and classic wow are different services which will not be linked together.
Oh right, I missed the "because blizzard said so" argument. I will edit it into the original post, with the appropriate response.
Did you get a lot of backlash arguing for this elsewhere?
It has been debated many times in many paces by many people.
With your collectibles idea, someone could easily go back and farm MC as a level 120 or whatever, get Sulfuras, and you'd never know the difference between him and someone who earned it on Classic.
This is already the case. I made my Sulfuras at level 110, and I think I made Thunderfury at 100... on my hunter. Because everything is hunter loot.
Stuff going out of 1.13 to other servers is fine - stuff going in to 1.13 from other servers ain't right though.
Agreed, and I don't see anyone, anywhere, arguing that characters on Classic realms should have access to our Collections tabs. HOWEVER, I did see one semi-solid case for an exception: A few people really did earn their ZG mounts at level 60 back in The Day, and now those mounts are stranded on Modern realms. Having to do the work and earn those mounts all over again just to "break even" is really unfair and is going to suck :( but that's a necessary evil of rolling new characters on new realms.
look modern wow can crash and burn for all i care
I basically agree. I never bought BfA, and I'm now treating modern wow as a loot farm for account-wide crap in the hope that I'll one day be able to use some of it on legacy MoP realms.
but dont bring that philosophy to classic
I'm not advocating for any "philosophy" to be "brought into" Classic. Content and gameplay would not change. Classic would remain Classic. This is just advocating that an account-level function work across our entire account.
I'm not advocating for any "philosophy" to be "brought into" Classic. Content and gameplay would not change. Classic would remain Classic. This is just advocating that an account-level function work across our entire account.
transmog is a huge market on retail. prices will absolutely be affected in an unnatural way for classic. ppl will farm shit rares cuz they look good and sell to panda roleplayers.
by philosophy i mean "Oh noes, someone else has the same thing I have! My own thing is not cool anymore" or "my thing is only cool because it's not available anymore" this was literally every argument on mmo champ with people calling old school players snowflakes because they wanted to keep epics rare. it led to retail wow
ur argument should be that its fun , or makes the game more interesting somehow , not "i want this, let me have it"
forcing urself to play classic so u can get t3 is not fun if ur a retail player either
retail wow is 100% about flexing your transmog mounts achievements. no1 cares about your stats anymore
Tier 3 armor is cool because it LOOKS cool
is wrong on like fourteen different levels. ever seen someone with t2 transmog? thats right, no one uses it because it makes you look like a poor casual . anyone can farm bwl.
have you SEEN prices on ugly but rare green items from before wotlk? they go for 100s of thousands up to millions
u show a fundamental misunderstanding of why ppl play this game and how they think
I'm not against this out of spite I just think it will be bad for the game in the long run.
In a couple years time when all of the big guilds on your realm have Naxx on farm status they will probably start to sell boosts. I don't agree with this either but hey it's gonna happen.
Retail players who desperately want that https://www.wowhead.com/item=22691/corrupted-ashbringer or https://www.wowhead.com/item=22798/might-of-menethil will level to 60 and then instead of invest the amount of time required to gear up and work through every raid tier up until the point they can raid Naxx they will just buy gold from 3rd party sites and buy boosts.
I've seen the amount of gold tier 3 goes for on the BMAH, it's insane. People spend hundreds of dollars on tokens to chase those items. Imagine what they'd spend on completely unobtainable items? It's just a bad idea.
Edit: I do realize that the tone of my post is in no way better than his, but people who honestly type and think like that need to be put down in a similar manner. He is here because he is tired of getting served on official forums, he does not deserve the courtesy of a delicate or polite approach in anything, trolls are there to troll nice folk.
Please stop trying to argue with this obvious troll. He presents his opinions on what is and isn't valuable as absolute fact. His manner of presenting his argument makes it clear he's been dejected off the official forums already and is salty about the community not giving a damn about his needs and I'm honestly glad to see he's not getting what he wants.
It's hilarious to see how he goes on to explain why exclusive rewards are not as awesome as we think they are all while crying that they should be available to collectors - then he complains that letting collectors get their hands on these items will have no impact on the game, and on the next line he states that "wouldn't you want to make some good money selling these items to them though?".
His arguments for allowing this are just as retarded as the pseudo-arguments he's arguing against.
1) Because some people want it and because it improves the fun and value of the game for people who like to collect stuff
This is literally the only reason that matters. Fun. Games exist because people enjoy playing them. Anything that makes the game more enjoyable and fun for some people, without making it less fun or enjoyable for others, is necessarily good.
This opinion can be argued in favor of anything from Twitter integration to battle pets in WoW. Fun is incidentally derived from playing games and it's a subjective matter. You can't barge in and demand that Blizzard give you collectibles in their game because that's "fun" to you and a select category of people. There are things more important to the design philosophy of a game than just "fun". By that metric alone you could describe "Candy Crush Saga" as being one of the best games of all time, right? Might as well go cry on their forums asking for collectibles there if that's your idea of fun.
2) Because Classic servers might die
If Classic proves to be an eventual failure, the servers are unplugged, and we're all forced back to modern WoW, then we should all have a permanent record of what we earned and accomplished during our time on Classic realms. We should be able to take all that stuff with us, not let it disappear into the void.
Do you also keep a camera to take a picture every time you see worthwhile shit in your life? This sounds more like being insecure and wanting to have something to show for your effort rather than personal enjoyment. Most of us don't need a "permanent record" of our deeds in World of Warcraft just like we don't need a "permanent record" of anything we're truly happy to enjoy.
3) Because without it, there's no functional difference between Blizzard's servers and private servers
If I'm going to pay $15/month for Classic, I'd better be getting something for it that private servers can't offer... and no, "fireballs deal the correct amount of damage and murlocs yield the correct amount of experience when killed" is not a good enough offer. "you can talk to your friends when they're playing Hearthstone" is not a good enough offer.
That's a very stupid argument which betrays how little you know about private servers. You seem to me like your background is more on the retail side of this game and less on the private server side of things - which is, by the way, the only reason you're seeing this project come to life in the first place. It's the people like me, who want an authentic experience of Classic WoW without any cross-game bullshit to show for anything - and not the people like you, who can't get asked to enjoy something without a title or some achievement there showing others what special snowflakes they are - that convinced Blizzard to make this game, alright? Just keep that in mind next time you refer to these people in the most retarded way possible.
Just to name a few "functional" differences between Blizzard's servers and private servers for you:
* no more corrupt GMs running the game and selling gold
* no more players from three different timezones playing at the same time
* no more 100-200ms pings when playing on US/European servers (as a European/US citizen)
* no more risk of getting all your characters wiped because of Blizzard or internal corruption
* no more cosmetics/gear cash shops
* authentic values instead of the guesswork compiled off of archived pages from Thottbot
"Muh 15$ / month" make you sound like a typical retail crybaby, no different than those who felt entitled to updated graphics on the Classic WoW forums many months ago, or the guys who felt entitled to LFR many years ago.
No thanks.
Hmmm, my post seems to have disappeared. Now I have to write it all over again.
transmog is a huge market on retail. prices will absolutely be affected in an unnatural way for classic. ppl will farm shit rares cuz they look good and sell to panda roleplayers.
So? How is that a problem?
by philosophy i mean "Oh noes, someone else has the same thing I have! My own thing is not cool anymore" or "my thing is only cool because it's not available anymore" this was literally every argument on mmo champ with people calling old school players snowflakes because they wanted to keep epics rare. it led to retail wow
That makes no sense. Epics should still be rare, and not drop from random trash on Farm Island. That has NOTHING to do with the attitude of some players that making certain items available again will decrease their inherent coolness.
forcing urself to play classic so u can get t3 is not fun if ur a retail player either
No one is forcing anyone to do anything. The BMAH still exists for people who are allergic to real WoW.
retail wow is 100% about flexing your transmog mounts achievements.
Who gives a shit about retail?
Tier 3 armor is cool because it LOOKS cool
is wrong on like fourteen different levels. ever seen someone with t2 transmog? thats right, no one uses it because it makes you look like a poor casual . anyone can farm bwl.
T2 paladin is one of the most praised and most common paladin mogs in the whole damn game.
have you SEEN prices on ugly but rare green items from before wotlk? they go for 100s of thousands up to millions
Yes, I have, and no, they don't sell for anywhere near that much.
u show a fundamental misunderstanding of why ppl play this game and how they think
People play this game for all kinds of reasons and have many different ways of thinking.
In a couple years time when all of the big guilds on your realm have Naxx on farm status they will probably start to sell boosts.
Not possible. Only Blizzard can sell boosts.
Retail players who desperately want that https://www.wowhead.com/item=22691/corrupted-ashbringer or https://www.wowhead.com/item=22798/might-of-menethil will level to 60 and then instead of invest the amount of time required to gear up and work through every raid tier up until the point they can raid Naxx they will just buy gold from 3rd party sites
WHAT third-party sites? Classic WoW is aimed specifically at people who want to get away from the modern environment dominated by WoW tokens, paid faction changes, paid server transfers etc... nobody is going to make a profit trying to sell gold to that market segment.
and buy boosts.
Not possible. Boosts are a modern-only feature.
People spend hundreds of dollars on tokens to chase those items.
Citation needed.
He is here because he is tired of getting served on official forums
Nothing in your post is worth reading after this. You've started out with not just a personal attack, but a demonstrably counterfactual one (my last post on the official forums dates back to early 2012). You clearly have no interest in honest discussion of this topic. Piss off.
Nah, part of the reason anything is collectible is a function of its scarcity. Not really a collectible if anyone can collect it.
So I fundamentally disagree with your notion of what a collectible is.
I think the only way it works out is adding different color versions of classic items to retail. We could get the same old item on classic but different colors on retail to diverse it from the old ones.
Nah, part of the reason anything is collectible is a function of its scarcity. Not really a collectible if anyone can collect it.
So I fundamentally disagree with your notion of what a collectible is.
And you're wrong. Lots of things that anyone can get are collectible, both in WoW and in real life.