A week before the premiere of World of Warcraft: Classic we are talking to the developers of the game

I never deny myself the pleasure of talking to the creators of one of my favorite games, World of Warcraft. This time I had the opportunity to talk to two Blizzard producers dealing with World of Warcraft Classic.

WoW: Classic is a long-awaited return to "vanilla" World of Warcraft - specifically to the 1.11 patch game. Players have heard for a long time from producers: "no" or "you don't need it." However, during Blizzcon 2017, the studio changed its mind and announced "classic" game servers.

What made Blizzard change his mind? This was my first question to John Hight, executive producer of WoW: Classic and Brian Birningham, one of the main programmers:

Why did you change your mind after years of refusing?

We were aware of the fact that fans want it, but it seemed to us more and more difficult to implement. The game has evolved, it has been encapsulated with additional services. In addition, unpatched security holes have been found in the old game client. All this meant that we were afraid of returning to vanilla.

It was only when a prototype based on modern architecture and old game data was created that we began to look at this project more favorably. Although the modern version of the classic Azeroth game was simply gone, with the help of the old version of the game data and a suitably modified modern client we were able to start working on Classic.

How will add-ons work in Classic?

The add-ons in 2004 worked as they wanted. Many things were not documented, but script writers discovered possibilities that violated the rules of the game. Practically you could write your own bots, it was also possible to read e.g. how long the buff will last on the opponent. We don't want to go back to the time of wild, undocumented script APIs.

If you somehow have a 2004 script, it won't work in Classic. However, developers of interface add-ons will be able to write scripts on modern principles, working in Classic.

What do you think players expect above all from Classica? Is it just nostalgia?

I think that the largest group of players expects Classic to be the challenge. They remember the time when the game did not offer clues as to where to accomplish a given mission, nor was it possible to search for a group to visit dungeons.

The second group are really nostalgic players - they want to recreate their experience from years ago, we also know that guilds existing 15 years ago will be formed again. They also often declare that if they played one of the factions during vanilla, now they will try another.

The last group of players interested in Classic are those who missed experience just after the game's premiere, because they were too young for that. They want to experience it for the first time. They are young enough to be brought up among video games, and World Of Warcraft is synonymous with classic games.

Do you have information on how much of those who played during Vanilla played Classica beta?

We can't share specific statistics, I can only say that it was a much larger proportion of players who have been with us since the beginning than we expected. We've seen many accounts that have been inactive for a long time and have paid for their subscription again to play beta.

Beta reception was also much more positive than we expected.

Is it true that players reported features of the classic game as bugs?

Yes (laughs)! Players confused the fact that there is no convenience added in the game with an error. For example, they reported that they couldn't see the marker where they were going on the map.

The game thanks to these "shortcomings" has a special atmosphere - you must go on a search, explore an unknown land, and you never know what will happen to you during this trip.

Thank you for the conversation.

We will play World of Warcraft: Classic on August 27. It will be a version of the game based on patch 1.12, originally published in 2006. The game will implement progression - subsequent content will be unlocked in subsequent patches, divided into six phases. The game will be available to any subscriber to World of Warcraft without any additional fees or requirements.



A week before the premiere of World of Warcraft: Classic we are talking to the developers of the game

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