The Laptop Mag had the opportunity to sit down with leading software engineers at World of Warcraft Anna Resendez and Brian Birmingham about the wrath of the Lich King Classic. The expansion has just launched and there is a lot to discuss in what is often considered the biggest WoW expansion ever.
It’s also one of the most important video game experiences of my childhood, but it’s enough to make me feel nostalgic. We discussed what to expect from the loot from Heroic+, the future of the Cataclysm Classic, and openness to inclusion Dragon FlightMinimalistic, and much more.
It’s no secret that World of Warcraft Classic is not a complete replica of the original game and its expansions. By including the store, bug fixes, and removing the Lich King’s wrath for Dungeon Finder, the Classic team puts a lot of thought into what should and shouldn’t be changed when bringing the expansion back to life.
Dungeon Finder, initially introduced in Wrath of the Lich King, allowed players to queue up for dungeons and quickly run through them with strangers. Its omission split society in the middle in terms of popularity. Some think removing it is great for maintaining the game’s sense of community; Others believe that the game lacks an important progression feature and the quality of life changes without it. Ultimately, the classic team decided to stick with its performance and keep the system out.
But the classic team didn’t commit to every change they tried to push. Birmingham discusses how the team wanted to combine 10- to 25-person raid raids for the Wrath of the Lich. “We kind of liked the idea, this kind of immersion in the place, the place is the place, you go there and that’s the situation,” he said. “There are no two different settings that you can set.”
The team also felt this change could be beneficial to the player’s “behaviour and experience”. Birmingham specifically cites the Trial of the Crusader for its four different instances in which players are constantly running around to get as much loot as possible. He talks about how if people wanted to keep up, “they had to run all four versions, especially after the first two weeks when it came out, because the loot was so much better than Ulduar.” The team felt it was ‘to the point of fatigue’, so they decided to keep things closed in one case.
However, society did not like it very much. Players were saying, ‘I really want to have my main raid guild doing 25 people,’ and then ‘I want to be able to do small raids with a different group of people in 10 player raids. ” And the [these] Different groups of people who have frequent interaction is part of building on this social fabric,” Birmingham continued.
After these comments, the team decided to undo the change. “It wasn’t really a problem until the Crusader trial, so we really like that the Ulduar model of closing is split between 10 men and 25 men, so you can do both of those in a week.” It looks like the Crusader trial will still be changing, but every other raid case is safe for now.
Of course, not every change is controversial. Resendez explains how the team decided to remove Arena Teams entirely. This was to give players “more vibrant ways to find partners”, as in the original expansion they often wouldn’t be comfortable playing with friends due to team limitations. She says “Well, I’m on the team of this arena. If I leave it, will I get enough points for this week if I try to get one of the season rewards? Can I leave and go help these friends and then come back?”
This eventually led to the removal of Arena Teams, which was not particularly controversial with the community. Giving players the opportunity to play more competitively with whomever they desire is a big change.
Where will the heroic loot + come from?
Wrath of the Lich King Classic introduces Heroic +, a third difficulty that allows players to experience more challenging dungeons. This was not available in the original Wrath of the Lich King, as there were only Normal and Heroic at the time. This raises an important question: Where will the new gear come from?
Birmingham stated: “It’s more about re-locating the loot.” Resendez delves into exactly what this means, explaining how the team’s changes to 10-man, 25-man raids meant that the loot normally dropped from 10-man raids had nowhere to go.
“We are exploring the possibility and looking into the details of creating a heroic mode a little more difficult or adding to the heroic modes we have where a portion of the 10 loot will include men who fall from these raids,” Resendez said. Essentially, what was available in the 10-man raids will turn into Heroic+.
Birmingham claims that’s not the only motive, though. “Heroic dungeons felt like they had become kind of frivolous by the end of the expansion. I got this first tier gear and I’m still motivated to go and play tournaments at the original difficulty level in order to get more badges for the first tier gear, so he kind of started creating this Feeling impressed, he said, Birmingham believes that a more challenging level of difficulty for the Dungeons will make the reboots less stressful, and hopes that the “level of strength and challenge will feel like something that will reward you appropriately.”
Sharing technology between Modern WoW and Classic WoW
World of Warcraft Classic and WoW’s retail edition don’t just exist on their own. Both teams are part of one big group, and eventually, they work on parts of the same game. It may seem like each team is doing their own thing, but that’s not often the case. Resendez described how teams “always look for things that make sense to share or bring from each other.”
This includes not only new systems, but also bug fixes. “There were a few times in the Classic team we discovered a difficult mistake that the modern team also had. We fix it and also give them the same fix,” said Resendez. Even the modern WoW Social Contract was implemented in Classic WoW because of its utility, as it puts some accountability on the player due to potential toxicity.
I was curious what this means for the new Dragonflight user interface. The newly implemented user interface takes a minimalist approach, allowing the player to focus on the world first and foremost rather than confusing the HUD parts. You can also go deeper into customizing the location of each UI element, so I was curious if we saw it made in Classic as a toggle.
Resendez didn’t dismiss the idea: “We’re definitely open to hearing what the community thinks and what they think. The amazing thing about World of Warcraft is that if you go to a stream or something, you’ll see that everyone has their own unique flavor in the UI. It’s a very unique thing. For World of Warcraft”.
Birmingham spoke about how the team was really excited to be back in the original Wrath of the Lich King UI: “I really liked what it looked like, so we worked really hard to make sure the first impression you get in the game is, ‘Oh I remember! This is what it looked like. But even then, he also didn’t dismiss the idea of bringing the Dragonflight UI into Classic at some point. He added, “It’s definitely something we will continue to think about and that will be on our radar like, is there a way we can support that, especially on a background like, make Things are movable.
However, Birmingham is sure that it will not be easy. “This is still useful for us because some of our code is fragmented so we can recreate the classic behaviours,” he said. “So we have to make sure we can identify which pieces make sense to share and which pieces make sense to stay separate.” Dragonflight’s customizable user interface will likely not be applicable to Classic technology, but only time will tell.
What can we expect from Cataclysm Classic?
Whether or not the Cataclysm Classic is still happening is up in the air. It hasn’t been officially confirmed, and there’s no denying that some people in the community would rather not see it at all. However, Blizzard recently sent out a survey to community members to gauge interest. I asked about this, wondering how far the team would be willing to go to redefine disaster if the community wanted it.
Birmingham gave a brief response: “We want to know how far we can go, whether or not this is the right path for us and what kind of community reactions are here. We really want to start this conversation early, because of course we know we’re going to have a long time to work. on it.” He went on to describe how a lot of outrage happens, but disaster will strike before they know it, so the team needs that flexibility to give them time to work on it.
He hasn’t responded directly to how far the team would be willing to go to change the game, but they seem willing to listen to community feedback and see what the players want. Perhaps if there is enough desire for something radical, then in reality it can be implemented and radically change what disaster is.
Bringing any old game back into the spotlight comes with a burning question: What bugs should be kept and which should be fixed? Birmingham comments on how the team was originally against making any changes, but something caused that mindset to change completely after dealing with an element called the ectoplasmic resonator.
It was an important element that was powerful. Players never complete a mission as a way to keep it with them at all times. It allowed tanks to gain an incredible amount of threat generation, even while in dungeons and raids, effectively breaking the game’s balance.
“So we said, ‘Yeah, that’s obviously going to be a game-breaker. “It will fundamentally change the way you play the game, so we can’t leave this alone,” Birmingham said. “It was the most obvious decision point that made us move from the ‘no change’ mindset to liking, OK, but sometimes, we really have to make a change.”
Not everyone in the community is happy with these changes, but the team is clearly confident that some bugs just need to be moved on. However, they never want to exaggerate these changes. Resendis continued, “Our main goal in Classic, in Wrath of the Lich King, is to recreate the same experience and keep the classic spirit and Rage spirit alive. So we’re not going to make changes that you’ll log in and be like ‘What is this?'” Is this angry? ”
How developers feel about revisiting the lovable expansion
Although the team is incredibly excited to revisit the Wrath of the Lich King, it was also nerve-wracking. Birmingham describes how it is one of his favorite expansions. He loves the storytelling themes and how Arthas constantly tracks the player in each area. However, he also noted that “so many people have memories so strong that we really feel this tremendous responsibility to do everything we can to make sure it’s the experience that everyone remembers.”
Resendis was nostalgic for her favorite spot, the lower abdomen in Dalaran. “When I climbed up Beta and went to the Dalaran sewers I was like, it happened again, it brings back those memories again.” Seeing the players competing and competing seemed to strike a chord with her: “It definitely brought back really good memories.”