WoW’s Burning Crusade Classic will be Different

jannick
08.06.2021 @ 09.29

After the great success of World of Warcraft Classic in 2019, Blizzard is ready to republish the Burning Crusade footage, but they might have a hard time getting lightning struck twice.

Back at BlizzCon 2013, Blizzard President J. Allen Brack notoriously assured players that "You think you have it, but you don't" when asked if they had considered vanilla servers for past editions.

Five years later, Brack had to eat crows himself and announce WoW Classic on stage, which was known to be a great success. But is there any truth to his widely mocked claims?

Returning to Azeroth is like stepping into a time machine for some players, but when TBC Classic hits June 1st, it won't have the same magic, in part because the sale items are leaking.

When WoW Classic 2019 comes out, every player starts at the same point. He starts with a level 1 toon and from there must grind his way through to level 60 as if he were traveling back in time. If you want this great content, you have to take your time.

For The Burning Crusade Classic, Blizzard is offering a one-time character boost to level 58 with the Dark Gate Pass and the Deluxe Edition, as well as further upgrades and the option to take over toons from the Classic.

Sure, this feature is great for those who quit halfway through Classic and want to try again, but it only makes it more likely that the poor gaming experience many of us had in Vanilla over the past year will come even sooner begins.

For many, grinding to the highest levels is one of the best parts of World of Warcraft. You are finally able to experience the endgame content of the saga. But logging in on the day of launch and seeing that other players already have a brand new toon at TBC level 58 is sure to make some people wonder.

Sure, you're proud of the progress the draenei have made after the first week, but what's the point of continuing to grind when your mate's new character is already out and about in Matheridon's Lair or the Snake Temple's cave and you join him be able to join a simple purchase? Not only can you skip most of the game, but you'll also be given gear appropriate to the level. It might not be the best of loot, but each piece of gear gives you one less dungeon to run.

One could argue that all content prior to the World of Warcraft endgame is "boring" content, so why not skip it? Based on that logic, why not leave out everything but the one piece of equipment you need for a weekly raid? (Oh wait, that's exactly what happens at the end of Classic Vanilla).

Then there's the deluxe version of Shop Exclusive Mounts, which gives you access to two exclusive mounts that are worth around 1000 gold if you can buy them in-game. Not a terrible deal, but it makes a difference to that "wow" feeling, at least in the past, when the only way to buy cosmetics was behind a paywall.

Thanks to the users on the Icy Veins forums, we also know that SSEGold, which basically allow gold to be sold in-game, can be found on the NA / EU client. That was around before Vanilla Classic, but was only available to Chinese players, and while there's no sign of a change this time around, gold resale in one form or another is likely to continue anyway and you can always get the best wow classic gold from www.ssegold.com

WoW players will return to battle the Burning Legion for the first time since 2007, but it won't be the game they remember.
After all, one of the biggest reasons TBC Classic won't achieve the miracle we saw in Vanilla is that many of the players who quit during Vanilla likely did so for the same reasons they quit WoW in the first place, and it won't be easy to get them back long after it's released.

That means most returning players will be immersed in Classic for hundreds, if not thousands of hours, and somewhere since 2019 the need for the "real" experience we all want seems to have been lost in a community that is after everyone seeks excuse to gamble as much as possible, even if it's through microtransactions.

The classic vanilla proves that there's still a lot of magic in World of Warcraft, and I can't wait to traverse the Dark Gate myself, but with all of the new shortcuts and microtransactions available to players, it is only going to win because of all the new shortcuts and micro-transactions on offer for players, it just won’t be the same game we remember.