The Season of Discovery has reached its fourth phase in WoW Classic. This game mode changes the MMORPG and brings new possibilities for playing your class. Many dungeons have been revised and can be played as raids. The German pen & paper author Hauke Gerdes is currently having a lot of fun with it, as he says.
Who is the genius?
- Hauke Gerdes used to be part of Bonjwa, Kliemannsland, and especially Rocket Beans TV, where he is known as the game master of the pen & paper series Morrington Manor, B.E.A.R.D.S., and T.E.A.R.S.
- Many of the rule sets are written by Hauke himself. Among the probably largest is Ultracore, which was supposed to have its own MMO with Coreborn. However, Coreborn is not being developed further; the studio founded for it has been closed.
- Hauke currently lives in Tokyo, Japan, and occasionally streams on his channel on Twitch. Recently, he talked about the finished Coreborn project and WoW.
This is what Hauke says about Season of Discovery: In a conversation with his chat, Hauke brings up the topic of World of Warcraft. He says that since living in Japan, he has not really found contact with a gaming group.
Such “communities” would “consolidate” over the years, and it would be difficult to join from the outside. Now he has started Season of Discovery on an Australian server and explains what he likes about it:
This is the old World of Warcraft, into which new elements have been incorporated. You play the game from 20 years ago, but with new abilities, new content, and so on. This significantly changes the balance of the game.
Generally, one can say that you are much, much stronger than you were before. […] The classes are more fun. I find it much more enjoyable than when comparing it with modern game design in how classes are played. You achieve success moments more quickly, you level up a bit faster […]
Hauke in the stream from about 1:11:20
Here we explain what exactly the Season of Discovery actually is.
Not so good, he says, is that some of the old content is somewhat devalued. At level 60, the pace could be a bit slower. He reached the max level three days ago and completed 15 dungeons right away; now he already has his first epic.
“Not what I wished for, but very clever”
Hauke goes on to elaborate that Season of Discovery is the smartest thing Blizzard could have done with WoW Classic. Both casual players and “sweaty gamers” have opportunities to find something for themselves.
However, he does not reveal in the stream what exactly he wished for.
However, Hauke does not accept the accusation that Blizzard simply copied old content here. In response to a user’s comment that the dungeons are not new, the author replies:
I would argue that the design of a dungeon takes one to seven days […] The mechanics, the bosses, and all that is what really matters. […] As far as I know, only the map already existed, and all content, all items, all boss encounters, and all NPCs in it are new.
In the end, you play a game because it’s fun, and Hauke clearly says: “I enjoy SoD.” Hauke is not alone in this. The Season of Discovery excites many players who find in this game mode what they miss in modern MMOs: The Season of Discovery finally gives players back the true MMO feeling from the past
