Blizzard developers today gave an update on their plans for World of Warcraft Classic Wrath of the Lich King with a deep dive into their philosophy of “#SomeChanges.”
While the original goal of Classic when it was launched in 2019 was to give “#NoChanges” to the experience, it became clear fairly quickly that the philosophy, while well-intentioned, was a bit misguided.
As the game moved to the Outlands for Burning Crusade, Blizzard began to take small liberties in changing TBC from its original state to give players an experience that would make them feel like they were getting the most out of Classic without destroying the basic premise of the legacy content.
Preparing for WotLK, Blizzard explained its three pillars for the #SomeChanges mindset and gave a few examples of what players will get in Northrend. The three pillars of #SomeChanges are to “nurture and protect social experiences,” keep the game “approachable and familiar,” and make “the world” the “main character.”
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“One very big key to this is providing ‘Social Proximity’ in our game, or what some cognitive scientists call ‘Repeat serendipitous interactions,’” the post said. “You need multiple interactions over time with the same people in a way that feels happy or beneficial. … When we make changes to Wrath of the Lich King Classic, we will make changes that help maintain Social Proximity, and in so doing, nurture and protect social experiences.”
The social element of Classic is largely the reason that dedicated players of legacy servers continue to play. By trying to keep that as a cog for deciding how to develop WotLK, Blizzard is trying to maintain perhaps the most distinct characteristic of Classic in comparison to retail WoW.
Additionally, maintaining approachability and familiarity “works to limit the changes we make, as that familiarity can be easily damaged,” according to the developer. “But it also encourages us to make changes when an excessively complex system can be reworked into something more elegant and easier to understand.”
In that regard, the Emblem system in WotLK will be slightly adjusted and simplified. The final boss of each raid tier will drop one Emblem that can be used to buy a piece of gear with power equal to those raids. There will also be Emblems dropped in dungeons and older raids that can be used to get less powerful gear.
Blizzard ended its post by reasserting its pillars and how they are connected with four goals they have for itemization in the game:
- “Foster a vibrant player ecosystem engaging in all WotLK instanced content”
- “Maintain a healthy density of players enjoying Heroic dungeons throughout the entire expansion.”
- “Preserve nostalgic itemization elements.”
- “Provide a consistent itemization scheme across all expansion phases.”
The detailed post by Blizzard represents a high level of transparency by the developer as it looks to cultivate a positive relationship with its Classic player base that is filled with gamers who are often openly skeptical and critical of Blizzard. WotLK doesn’t yet have an official launch date, but it is supposed to come out sometime before the end of this year.
