On April 19, Blizzard announced the new WoW expansion Dragonflight, as well as Wrath of the Lich King Classic. We from MeinMMO were able to conduct interviews with the developers during the event. In the first part, we focus on the contents of WOTLK Classic, as well as the handling of Burning Crusade and the lessons learned by the developers.
Who did we speak to? Our guests in the interview were Holly Longdale, Lead Producer for Classic, and Kevin Vigue, Software Developer. Both answered our questions regarding the contents of WOTLK Classic.
A controversy was, for example, the announcement that there will be no dungeon finder in the expansion.
When will WOTLK Classic be released? The release is planned for 2022, but no exact date has been announced yet.
WOTLK Classic starts directly with Patch 3.3.5 – Death Knights are not completely OP
MeinMMO: Let’s start the interview with the most important question. With which patch will WOTLK Classic start?
Kevin Vigue: I’ll take that one. We will handle it just like we did with WoW Classic and Burning Crusade Classic. WOTLK Classic will be developed based on Patch 3.3.5. We will derive the design and balancing for the classes from it, such as which abilities and talents they have. Then we will bring new contents in phases, similar to Burning Crusade, including raids, systems, or new in-game content.
The first phase will include Naxxramas, the Obsidian Sanctum, the Eye of Eternity, and Archavon’s Chamber. Phase 2 will include Ulduar, followed by Phase 3 with the Trial of the Crusader. The final phase will lead into the Icecrown Citadel.
But yes, we start directly with Patch 3.3.5 and will adjust it so that players get the best Wrath experience.
MeinMMO: So that also means that the Death Knights are not as strong as they were at release?
Kevin Vigue: Yes, concerning their power level. I played a Death Knight shortly after the release of Wrath of the Lich King, and I remember all the different specs and talents.
Even now, you can tank and deal damage with every spec. All three are really fun. I played them all in different patches of WOTLK and had a great time with them.
The Death Knights in Classic still have these great systems, such as the original rune system with the different rune types and the powerful abilities. So there is still so much to love about the Death Knight.
But yes, we all remember the introduction of the Death Knights, and we decided that the last patch is a better and more balanced starting point.
“Dungeon Finder does not fit what we understand as Classic”
MeinMMO: What have you learned from Classic and also from Burning Crusade Classic that you can now apply and use to your advantage in WOTLK?
Holly Longdale: That’s an interesting question, as we have continuously conducted this evaluation. So we basically responded to how the community is developing with Classic. We spent a lot of time investigating what the Classic community is and what they are looking for.
We concluded that what makes Classic unique is the world as a kind of character in itself. Achievements are significant here. We want to ensure that we provide the nostalgic “World of Warcraft experiences,” both in terms of simplicity and difficulty. Players need to be able to rely on each other and know that being in a group and a team is better.
This insight from Classic has also led us to the discussion about the Dungeon Finder that we have constantly had in our team. Does it fit with what we now understand as Classic? And it is an example where we ask the community for feedback. But at the moment, our instinct and what we’ve learned tell us that it probably doesn’t fit well because a big part of the essence of Classic is about approaching people and forming lasting friendships.
We want to maintain that by improving our group search tool. But we felt that the Dungeon Finder is a bit too automatic. You get in too quickly, and you don’t have to get to know people first. That’s just one example, and we are constantly looking for new ways to involve the community.
MeinMMO: You say that quick joining and leaving a dungeon does not fit Classic. Are those the only reasons against a Dungeon Finder?
Kevin Vigue: I think the core really comes from the Classic experience that we want to offer to players. Because Classic started as a fan request, where players spoke to us and said: Please, we really want you to bring Classic back. We want to experience the world as it once was again. We want to return to that time with these simpler systems. We want to bring back the social element.
We listened to them, and that paid off for us, because these fans made Classic such a great success, and we are very grateful to them. And they continued this in Burning Crusade.
There are certainly advantages to being able to press a button during lunch and join the queue for your dungeon without having to worry about social barriers or the kind of “hop in, hop out.” That’s something many other games do, including Shadowlands, and many people love Shadowlands for those reasons. However, we want to offer something different. That’s our strength. We want to offer different flavors of World of Warcraft so that players can choose the one that suits them best. And that was really the main reason we looked at the Dungeon Finder. We just said: Yes, that’s not quite right for us. We need to protect that Classic feeling.
Burning Crusade will fully merge into WOTLK to avoid splitting the player base
MeinMMO: When Classic was announced – and especially when the announcement of Burning Crusade Classic came – there were concerns in the community that the player base would be too heavily split. Now, with WOTLK Classic, there is a fourth game. Do you share this concern about the split?
Holly Longdale: We maintained the Classic era in Burning Crusade Classic because we wanted to offer what we thought players would enjoy. We thought a healthy number of players would switch to Burning Crusade Classic, but some might want to stay in the Classic era. And then we found that the vast majority had jumped into Burning Crusade.
So we learned that this time, when we come to Wrath of the Lich King, all our live servers will switch from Burning Crusade to WOTLK. And we will not create Classic era servers from Burning Crusade. Not at this time. If there’s demand for it later, we will do that.
When we talk about our season of mastery and the possibilities we have there, there’s a chance that we could eventually have a Burning Crusade era season. There are many possibilities.
But we want to ensure that we keep our communities intact and healthy. Therefore, we are very much looking forward to responding to the wishes and demands of the community and what attracts them. We will always remain open to everything, nothing is off the table.
There are some adjustments that simply weren’t technically possible before
MeinMMO: What changes will there be to WOTLK apart from the Dungeon Finder and the changes to the PvP rating?
Holly Longdale: There are a few things we are looking at closely. These include raids and raid locks and the enormous weight of all raid possibilities. Here we will reach out to the community to help us once we enter beta. Because there are some people who want Wrath just the way it was, with all the options that were available to them back then, especially with the rating.
And then we’ve heard comments that this has led to an enormous time commitment and burnout for them. It would be great if we could slow that down a bit. So we are trying to bring the community into the beta phase and have this discussion actively with them.
There is no world where we just resurrect any code that we saved as Wrath Classic and everything works then and is fine. It’s an enormous effort to piece things back together, including entire systems like arena teams that had to be rebuilt.
So there are some elements where we can make improvements and changes in quality, but overall our task is to convey the nostalgic experience. Another factor is also what we learned since WOTLK back then and which things were not technically possible at that time due to technology limits.
We are talking about the Barbershop, which was literally a barbershop before. You could change your hair. That was a limitation back then due to technology that we do not have anymore today. So now we want to be able to change gender. We want to enable you to change your face, and we are looking at other possibilities so you can represent yourself however you want in-game.
There’s a long list of things. Kevin says every day: “Hey, we should maybe do that.”
Kevin Vigue: Another point that comes to mind is that by the end of Wrath of the Lich King, item levels became a big thing in World of Warcraft. You had to have a certain item level to sign up for certain dungeons in the dungeon finder.
That’s definitely something we don’t want to bring back in Classic because we try to capture the old spirit: “Hey, if you have friends willing to guide you through the dungeon, even if you have undergear, then you are what they are looking for. You are an important part of the team.”
Moreover, we are very fortunate that some of the original designers work in our team. And they are the ones who spark many of these discussions, like: “Oh yes, I remember that, and I remember why we did it, and we were motivated for this reason.” But we also recognize that it had impacts or changed the game in a way that we didn’t really intend. Because it’s always a balancing act to restore something exactly as it was, with all the same numbers, with everything, just copy-paste as best as possible, and then create something that captures the original emotions we had even better.
Death Knights as a class directly for newcomers
MeinMMO: Many players report that they had their best time in WoW with WOTLK. Do you believe that the Classic version is a good starting point for complete newcomers?
Kevin Vigue: Absolutely. I believe Wrath was the first expansion for many people. And it introduced many new features that simplified immersion into the world.
A new feature in Classic will be that players can create a Death Knight per account directly, without having to level a character to level 55 first. If the Death Knight is the class you know from the original WOTLK and want to dive right in, you can do that. The first one is available right away without prerequisites.
Holly Longdale: We will also offer a level 70 boost. This is for people who want to jump in and play with their friends who may have been playing for a while. What I love about Wrath is playing a Death Knight and talking to the Lich King.
We are really looking forward to welcoming back the players we have now – to welcome them in Wrath. There is so much love for Wrath of the Lich King. We will do our best to create the best version for our Classic fans that we can. And we will achieve that through community feedback. So we will definitely listen to you and observe.
MeinMMO: Thank you for your time and the interview!
What do you think about WOTLK Classic? Will you miss the Dungeon Finder? Will you miss Burning Crusade Classic? Can you understand the developers’ decisions? Feel free to write it in the comments.
More about the new WoW expansion Dragonflight can be found here:
WoW: Dragonflight Reveal – Addon brings new class, level 70 and new talents
