More WoW Classic Thoughts

Tuesday was raid night in BfA so I didn't play much Classic. We did log on after the raid to set up a Classic guild, which was mostly a round of collecting silver and signatures from people running to Razor Hill. I did get a chance to play more on Wednesday. Here are some random thoughts:

• It looks like Blizzard bit the bullet and drastically increased the number of layers per server. While this has greatly reduced queues, it will probably cause them grief when it comes time to collapse those layers. But I guess they're kicking the can down the road, and figuring that queues later are better than queues now.

• I find it pretty funny coming across skeletons in Mulgore. You can tell that, yup, a lowbie got jumped by a few mobs and died here.

• Speaking of which, I've seen some people claim that these deaths are evidence that Classic is hard, and I don't think that's correct. It's very easy to avoid dying in Classic. Pull carefully, don't attack more than one mob at a time, run away if a second one engages. It's more that people are impatient, and willing to push the edge. And then sometimes they misjudge and die.

• I've got Corhal up to level 10, though I haven't done the druid quest (bear form, I believe) yet. I'm not really "feeling" the druid, though. I'm not sure if I should keep going, or try a different class. After all, I will have bear and cat forms eventually, and those might be more interesting than casting.

• The one thing I really, really like in Classic is the chat. Now maybe this is just because it is launch, but it is very nice to see conversations going on. I do think that the amount of downtime does help, though. It's very easy to type something quickly while drinking or eathing to regen mana and health after a fight.

• It's funny to see much of the lowbie conversation revolve around bags. Six-slot bags are the equivalent of epics in Mulgore.

Classic WoW Launch!

Yesterday, WoW Classic launched. There were major queues on many (if not all) of the servers. I was at work during the actual launch. When I got home, there was about a 90 minute queue on Atiesh. So I left it running and went and did some chores.

When I finally got in, I made a male Tauren druid named Corhal. In contrast to many of the other posts I've seen, the starting area was fairly empty. There were a few other people, but there was plenty of space for questing. It was also fairly quiet, with no chat, which I found unusual.

It's possible that I was one of the first to be assigned to a fresh layer, as it seemed like there were more people as time went on, and chat became livelier. One positive about the chat is that people seemed disinclined to talk about current WoW. Another amusing thing about Mulgore chat is that people keep losing the ghost wolf for the Rite of Vision escort quest, and have to be directed by chat to the cave with the quest.

In any case, I did all the initial quests, and grouped up with a warrior and a hunter to do the quests in Bristleback Ravine. We even found a quest in a cave that I had never seen before!

I ended up logging off when I got to Bloodhoof village, at level 5. Fun times. Hopefully the queues calm down quickly.

Social Addons in Classic WoW

Blizzard announced that they would take steps to break a Looking-For-Group addon for Classic WoW:

We’ve been closely following the community discussion around this add-on for WoW Classic, as well as analyzing it to make sure we understand how it works. After careful examination, we believe the nature of ClassicLFG is incompatible with our social design for Classic. Thus, in an upcoming patch (in the weeks following launch), we will be adding restrictions to the Classic add-on API that will significantly limit this add-on and others like it. 

In line with what we shared at BlizzCon last year, we intend to be very careful about allowing add-on functionality that might undermine aspects of the social dynamics that are core to the Classic experience, even in cases like this where it’s clear that the addon author had no ill intent and was simply trying to provide a service to the Classic community. Ultimately, if a streamlined group-finding system was something we considered compatible with Classic, we would have kept the modern Premade Group Finder tool rather than choosing to remove it from the Classic client. 

It’s difficult to articulate a clear-cut rule for exactly when an add-on crosses the line. However, when an add-on goes beyond presenting information or providing aesthetic customization, and attempts to create an interconnected social network that relies on other players also using that same add-on, we are likely to scrutinize it particularly closely.

I did predict that the addon community would attempt to replicate the "convenience" of modern WoW. But it is very interesting that Blizzard is going to take steps to stop them. In particular, Blizzard singles out the automation of social networks as perhaps the primary difference between Classic and modern WoW.

It is perhaps ironic that this is mimicking society at large. Facebook, Tinder, Instagram, Twitter. Instead of older, more manual methods like writing letters, assemblies/dances, writing articles for publication, etc.

I'm not really sure where I am going with this. Maybe the old, manual, ways were better for social cohesion. Maybe the modern, automated, ways are better as they make it easier to find like-minded people, or just to get things done without all the social maintenance required.

Either way, Classic is going to be a very intriguing experiment.

Classic Name Reservation

My guild has decided to go Horde for Classic. We are making characters on Atiesh, one of the North American PST PvE servers. I think most people in the guild will be treating their Classic characters like an alt on retail

I jumped on and reserved three names on Atiesh. I'm not sure if they really fit Horde characters, though.

Going Horde immediately solved the dilemma of playing a paladin or not. It's simply not an option for Horde. Now, however, I have no idea what I want to play. I'm thinking about an Undead Priest, an Orc Warrior, a Tauren Druid, or maybe an Undead Mage. Or maybe a Rogue of some sort.

I am ruling out Hunters, Warlocks, or Shaman. I'm leaning against dealing with ammo, soul shards, and pets. And Shaman, seems to much like the same problems as Paladins. Though now that I am writing things down, maybe it would be nice to play one of these classes.

Heh, in some ways it would have been easier if we had gone Alliance. I probably would have just ended up with my default of Human Paladin.

Heroic Ashvane, Orgozoa, Queen's Court

We killed Lady Ashvane, Orgozoa and the Queen's Court in the Eternal Palace Heroic raid tonight.

We struggled the most on Ashvane, simply not getting enough damage before getting overwhelmed. I think that will become easier as we get used to the fight, especially breaking the coral. We were not doing well with it. I did get a new healing mace from Ashvane, though.

Heroic Orgozoa, I think is undertuned compared to Ashvane. We actually one-shot it. I think it would have been fine if it had come before Ashvane, but after Ashvane it was a little easy.

Heroic Queen's Court took us a few tries, but it's one of those fights where there are a few mechanics which absolutely have to be handled perfectly, but once you get those down, the rest of the fight is straightforward.

Perhaps it is because we didn't have a lot of turnover from last tier, but we're really moving along at a steady clip in Heroic Eternal Palace. I rather imagine the next two bosses are going to take a few weeks.