
Dev Watercooler: World of Warcraft Classic - ingve
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/news/21881587/dev-watercooler-world-of-warcraft-classic
======
feefie
The one thing that I suspect will be missing is new players.

One of the things I enjoyed the most was seeing in chat a player that didn't
know how to get from Iron Forge to catch a boat to the other continent, and
I'd have fun showing him how to get through the Wetlands to the port. The
Wetlands was a higher level than we were at the time the quests wanted us to
visit the other continent, so it was a dangerous journey and you'd usually
become friends by the time it was over.

Of course everyone knows how to get there now, so I don't know how they can
recreate the fun of helping someone out that is inexperienced. The same goes
with dungeon fights, etc., -- everyone will already know all the tricks I
expect.

I certainly miss the days of exploring a brand new world, the likes I had
never seen in a video game before, and helping others (and being helped by
others) along the way. Wonderful times! :-)

~~~
wingerlang
I never played WOW in its heyday, but literally most of my friends did. I've
been considering checking WOW out without reading any guides - as I think
'optimal play' makes games boring.

So there might at least one 'new' player.

~~~
abakker
Do it, there’s really very little to lose, and a lot to gain.

~~~
tinco
Said no one about WoW ever. Not disputing the fact that it was arguably the
best game ever created and I did thoroughly enjoy it, but damn have lots of
people lost so much playing WoW.

~~~
tmpz22
I thoroughly wish I had invested the 10,000+ hours I've spent on games like
WOW in my social life and general well being. It wouldn't have been a 1:1
translation, some time would have been wasted regardless... but I feel like
I'd be happier and an all around better person.

~~~
abakker
I know what you mean - I just have a soft spot for WOW. It really provides the
escapism I needed during a difficult time in my life. It was _good_ escapism,
though. Instead of just TV and Books, I could check out of the real world and
Into WOW and still talk to people, be semi social, and just forget about the
fact that I had just lost one of my parents. It was sufficiently active,
complicated, social and distracting. That alternate world really helped me.

Full confession: after a few years I had never actually made endgame. I had a
lot of characters that were close, but I never had the “efficient play”
strategy down enough to really power level any characters.

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ch0wn
Reading option one made me quite anxious. Having to backport a virtually
infinite number of bugfixes and support for new hardware features from over 12
years of constant development sounds like a perfect way to burn out
developers. I'm glad they went for the clearly more sustainable option of
adopting the old data to their new client infrastructure.

~~~
mattmanser
It will mean people will find loads of things that won't be the same though.

Take balance. I'd be willing to bet they've done loads of bug fixes on
unintended consequences of spells. So the Frostbolt of the new system might
actually do a different amount of damage and slow than the Frostbolt of 1.12,
once the data's been transformed.

So all the classes will probably be slightly different to how they were in
1.12 and combos that worked back then might no longer work now. Some classes
might now be OP that weren't and vice-versa. Monsters that were weak might
suddenly become strong, and monsters that were hard might suddenly become
really easy.

Not that I'm saying it's the wrong solution, I think it's realistically the
best one available to them. But it will probably result in a different
gameplay experience rather than, say, just updating the visuals. How different
won't be clear till later.

~~~
4ndr3vv
Don't think so. From what the article says, the majority of game defining data
will remain the same, albeit modified to fit the new schema. Frostbolt will
still be the same power, etc. The changes are to the global game
infrastructure and how it interprets these data, so there will be some stuff
that used to work that likely won't work now (eg wall walking) and things that
were possible (speed hacking, water walking) that won't be possible now.

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aphextron
It makes me really sad that they are including Battlegrounds in WoW classic.
There was a magical period from release date to the first Battlegrounds patch
where people actually took part in large scale, world PVP. Guilds would get
together and raid towns, and it was the most fun I’ve ever had in an MMO. If
you wanted to do something, it took lots of planning and working together with
people, not just clicking a queue button while you sit in Ironforge. I feel
like the vast majority of people started joining post-BC and never experienced
this, but it was amazing.

~~~
RafiqM
Do you also remember the massive imbalances in world PVP? The majority of
servers were significantly skewed towards one faction (my own was 3:1) which
meant world PVP was super fun primarily for the overpopulated faction.

This is the entire reason battlegrounds were introduced - balanced world PVP
was unviable on almost every server. It was one of the primary complaints
about the game, and could even have resulted in the loss of the PVP orientated
player entirely if it had not been addressed.

~~~
gknoy
The new "War Mode" mechanics sound neat. It's an opt-in experience you set in
a capital city, and then when you go out in the world you are in a _balanced_
shard of only others who opted in as well.

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bcgraham
The secret sauce of Vanilla was the sense of place and sense of community. You
don't need the old patch. You need persistent identities and travel time.
Small populations, no server or faction transfers, and walking to dungeons is
the vast majority of it. I also really miss Vanilla dungeon design, where I
felt like I was exploring a dangerous place instead of having a very scripted,
linear experience. I loved Blackrock Depths, Maraudon, and Blackfathom Deeps.
I get why these aren't economical for developer hours, but they are a magical
experience.

~~~
kemayo
Some of the longer dungeons were _hard_ to run, though. I played Vanilla,
leveling several different characters to 60, and I'm pretty sure I only
managed to run Maraudon start-to-finish once. (Doing just the inner Mauradon
shortcut to kill Princess was more common, admittedly.)

I do kind of miss those things, I admit. Instances where you could find keys
that would persistently unlock shortcuts, so if you came back later you could
bypass bits of it. (Or if you were a rogue.)

That said... the time investment required was quite ridiculous, in hindsight.
I don't miss things like sitting in Ironforge for an hour saying "3DPS 1H
LFTank" every few minutes... and then spending another hour getting from
Ironforge to somewhere like Dire Maul (okay, or being the two? three? people
in the group who volunteered to sit around by the dungeon to use the meeting
stone to summon that tank when they showed up). The LFG tool exists for a
reason.

~~~
taneq
> I'm pretty sure I only managed to run Maraudon start-to-finish once.

The early dungeons had a massive range of levels, though. IIRC the mobs in
outer Maraudon were low 40s (high 30s?) whereas Princess Theredras was lvl 50.
You weren't really meant to clear the thing in one sweep.

~~~
gknoy
It didn't help that Maraudon was in Desolace, and the only place harder and
more time consuming to get to (for Alliance, at least) was Feralas. It was
something like a half hour journey to get there, counting boat travel,
gryphons, and riding yourself, so you ended up often only playing with people
who were already there, or already questing in the area.

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taneq
It's interesting to see them relating the trouble they've had with the old
game client when thousands of us play on private servers using old game
clients (1.12 is common for much the same reasons discussed.)

~~~
kemayo
I suspect that their standards are different.

Someone who's willing to jump through the hoops to play classic WoW on a
private server likely has a willingness to deal with glitches and
troubleshooting issues with running a 12-14 year old game client.

Whereas Blizzard wants to provide a smooth official experience, which they're
going to give to their mass market audience. They can't get away with saying
"yeah, it crashes a lot, and runs terribly on New Video Card X, deal with it",
because it makes them look bad.

(For that matter, I suspect things like saying "that crash bug was there in
2007 as well, so it's the authentic experience" wouldn't go over
fantastically...)

~~~
4ndr3vv
More importantly, Blizzard want to have the same security they have currently
with Battle.net et al.

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vcfg
I like wotlk better, I think it was the best expansion, and I’m sure wotlk
servers have more players than vanilla servers now. I don’t know why they
chose vanilla over wotlk. :/

~~~
hugja
This was my first thought too. Although I must admit I didn't play WoW until
the release of BC (Burning Crusade) and stopped when Cata finished. So I never
really got to experience what was special about Vanilla. More specifically for
why I'd want WOTLK is for Arena. The last season was the most balanced that I
ever experienced it and some of the most fun I've ever had playing WoW or any
game in general.

Jumping back to Vanilla one thing I hate about the current expansions is quest
helper and honestly this rings true for other games (Destiny for example) as
well. I think the lack of a quest/mission guide is a better experience for the
player. I remember playing BC and had a blast trying to complete quest. You
had to really pay attention and read the quest for specifics and clues to
figure out what was needed or where to go. The completion of quest back then
felt so rewarding. Now you just look at your map and follow the "little dotted
line"[1] then rinse and repeat. This struggling with quest is what I'm most
looking forward to with classic WoW.

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzOCkXsyIqo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzOCkXsyIqo)

~~~
kbutler
But it will be very, very hard to keep that experience. Where you used to have
to turn to other players for help, building those social relationships as they
struggled through the same challenges, now the web environment surrounding the
game has evolved with very complete documentation an alt-tab away, and all the
other players have that as well.

~~~
hugja
Oh most definitely! It's certainly not for everyone. I mean even back then, if
I'm remembering correctly. There was a site called Thottbot for exactly that.
Which I occasionally turned to when the quest was lacking in information. Even
before Blizzard officially added a quest helper to the game there was a third
party add-on. However, with sites like Thottbot you still had to investigate
to figure out what you had to do and I think this still gives you sense of
accomplishment over just being told what and where all the time.

Edit: words

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Vanit
I'm really interested to see where this leads. They got some quick wins out of
this, but they're going to need to somehow revert a lot of game systems to get
it back to something approximating the vanilla experience.

~~~
highace
Here's my prediction: if you didn't play vanilla when it was available, you're
gonna hate it. If you did play it, you'll go back for the nostalgia but will
stop when you realise how tough the grind was. Those players will be late 20s
and beyond now and won't have the time for it.

It'll be interesting to see how many of those calling for this to happen
actually stick around.

~~~
schaefer
As a former vanilla player (fond memories of 1.14 jumping physics bug), and
current busy adult, I'm pretty excited about the idea of an MMO with a level
cap. I can't keep up with new expansions every six months, but I can and will
find fun things I'm interested in trying in an MMO with locked down talent
builds and static endgame.

It won't matter if life gets busy and I can only log in once this week. At
least I'm not aiming at a moving target anymore.

Casual gaming.

~~~
zajd
To be fair, WoW still has a level cap. You can play right now and quite
frankly it's a much better game for a "current busy adult". Expansions come
out every 2-3 years, not every 6 months.

~~~
wmil
Also being able to boost to the beginning of the current expansion is a huge
time saver. Leveling in late vanilla involved a lot of grinding in empty
zones.

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dnate
I was surprised to find a game as big as WoW to have a data strucutre which
clearly violates some basic forms [1] of database formalization. Isn't
database normalizaton something that any cs program teaches in the first few
semesters?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization)

~~~
jeremyjh
You can't always run a normalized database though; often you need to
denormalize for performance reasons. In very massive systems, a normalized
database is rare.

~~~
ckaygusu
I'm yet to have the privilege to work on a database which I would call truly
"massive", so I'm oblivious to how things work in such environment in reality.
I've seen the question and the answer you've given repeats many times, but
aren't there exists a plethora of tools like table partitioning, materialized
views etc. to allow one to have the database in a normalized form and run it
fast? Don't they work in practice?

~~~
jeremyjh
Table partitioning does nothing to solve the performance problems of joins of
very large datasets. Materialized views can help but they are not a panacea.
You have to trigger the updates yourself, and because they are updated
asynchronously, you will not have a consistent view of your data. E.g. you
could write a row to the database and not see it updated in your view for
minutes.

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killaken2000
Is this too little too late?

After j Allen brack scolded the fans over how preposterous the question of
classic servers was. And Blizzard shut down the two major classic servers.

It's possible that the well is poisoned and people won't want to play out of
principle or that they just moved onto other games and the time to capitalize
on this has passed.

~~~
RafiqM
It was preposterous and still is. It just happens to also be what a vocal
minority want, so here we are.

There will be a tiny cohort of players who will play this and genuinely enjoy
it. The rest will be people who thought it was amazing (it was, in 2004) but
have not realized that for 2018, vanilla is in so many ways a bad game.

~~~
kojon99
What has happened that makes vanilla a bad game in 2018?

~~~
killaken2000
nothing. But some people who think their opinions are facts don't like it.

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sverrirs
Barrens. General. Chat... /shudder

~~~
vcfg
That will be a huge culture clash there. Current servers have a very anti-SJW
population. WoW classic really is a classic game. I expect to read lots of
angry Kotaku articles, haha.

~~~
toxicFork
Hypothesis: Talking while playing - even in the original sense, at the
playground, or at the street, but we're moving more and more to the digital
avenues - are a big factor in how children and young people form ideas and
opinions, to see what's "cool" and "lame".

The schools are where they are polished and shaped, with a tiny bit from
parents - if they even talk about these things with their children anymore.

If in the future we see "anti-swj" be the norm we could say that "well, we saw
it in barrens chat". Similar with 4Chan back in the day and probably still
now.

I wonder if there are experiments going on using the data from ancient game
chat and IRC channels (and so on) to verify this, and to check whether we can
predict what may happen next.

One scary part is some people may consider this as yet another platform and
opportunity to manipulate and control the minds of the future.

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ralusek
Does anybody else find it weird that even their _new_ data structure for
spells still has to include columns whose value is "Nothing."

Why are these spells even in a tabular database at all? It seems like each
spell could simply be in a JSON file, or at the very least this seems like a
suitable place to use a key-value store or a document database.

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seattle_spring
I still don't understand why they didn't go with either Diablo or Diablo 2.
Much easier to make compatible with modern settings, much easier for new and
casual players to get into, much easier to maintain, and arguably more people
hungry to play it online over legacy WoW players.

~~~
wmil
> Much easier to make compatible with modern settings, much easier for new and
> casual players to get into, much easier to maintain,

I'm not sure that's true. Implementing classic wow in the modern client sounds
like a straightforward data migration that will have some hiccups.

The Diablo 2 code is probably a visual studio 5 project built in direct x 5,
they'd have to port all that to something modern. Their server code would need
to support their current login system, and is probably not even going to build
on a current is without changes.

On top of that Diablo 2 players aren't expecting a monthly charge.

I don't think the money is there.

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Fire-Dragon-DoL
I know it sounds dumb, but I can't help but being confused by the domain of
the website. I expected blizzard related stuff would be ay least on a
subdomain

~~~
brod
how is this more blizz related than wow related?

