Im probably going to have a fairly unpopular opinion here, but what would bring me back would be a new WoW that isnt an MMORPG but a world co-op experience where me and a group of people could have our own "world" where stuff can change and there may be some cross over depending on other people's decisions in their world.
This would be a completely new iteration, one of the things i came to realize is that questing in the world and really the RPG portion is kinda brought back because the experience needs to be the same and streamlined for everyone. I love the warcraft lore and I want as a player to make world changing decisions that completely change the experience in my world. Like maybe I want to be with the bad guys and be part of the lich king army and maybe I would end up in a situation where im on the other side of the conflict for a group of other players that have chosen to fight the lich king and our experiences create a cross-over at certain points, that kind of stuff that just cant be done currently.
Basically a new RPG experience in the Warcraft world that is more tailored and changing.
Saying that I will still go back and play the new expansions for a month or two.
Classic will definitely bring me back. I liked how there was challenge in all parts of the game. You didn't just rush faceroll style through everything until Mythic+. This made the game fun all the time instead of only a tiny fraction of the time.
It was also more immersive. You had to travel to places where you wanted to go instead of being inexplicably teleported through a UI. The world felt a lot bigger due to the absence of flying mounts.
I also liked the talent trees. Every level after 10 you got a point to spend, which felt like a reward. It was also simpler to specialise your character with a single system instead of a multitude of confusing systems.
I have no desire to ever play Vanilla or TBC wow again, I played them a lot and I think bringing back classic servers will end up back firing. Sure there will be a huge initial rush of players, but the falloff will be really quick. My biggest issue with wow currently is how time-gated everything is. Even grinding rep has been time-gated behind world quests. I hear bfa is supposed to be a bit better in regards to time gating things, but we'll see.
Since I got into EVE instead of WoW, (I started playing both at the same time, and EVE just grabbed my attention better) I feel like coming in now just wouldn't be the same. I missed all of the big expansions that people creamed their pants over, I missed all of the in game cultural references, I missed the bugs and glitches that people will reference, I missed all the best raids... etc.
I would want to experience as much of the content as possible, but honestly, who is still doing raids from five years ago?
Missing more than a decade of a game is like picking up the third book in a trilogy and trying figure out what the hell is going on around you and why things are the way they are.
Classic (preferably 1.12 with content progression*), at least for a while... to make me stay they would need to do 1.13+ with additional content** (including several new 5/10 mans).
* Raw Vanilla has been and gone; even if the code was line for line, the player base and knowledge level has changed (including knowledge of what will happen with each future patch); it can never be 'exactly as it was', but at least the design philosophy has a chance to remain ‘pure’.
** TBC was OK, and had some good content (some of which could be brought over to 1.13+), but the fact that it killed all previous content was the beginning of the end, and WOTLK was the nail in the coffin (at least design wise, story was pretty good).
With either I can come and go as I please. I usually subscribe to games anyway.. but having the freedom to leave whenever I want and the freedom to pop my head back in whenever I want means there is a much MUCH higher chance I'll want to pop my head back in.
Sometimes I think.. hmmm, maybe I'd like to play WoW? Not 100% sure though.. don't want to pay for a whole month when I just want to give it a try. Nah, forget it.
Yeah i just get to the point of not wanting to pay a sub. for an old mmo. I'm a big fan of the BTP option now.
I would be interested in a classic server for vanilla up through WotLK. But to get me to be a customer of current wow they would have to bring back some sort of significant character development system and stop focusing on casual children as their main audience. Basically, they would have to undo everything they've done since WotLK and start focusing on rpg systems for thinking adults.
This says it pretty well. I'd come back for classic-wotlk assuming they did it properly and didn't dumb it down to today's standards. WOTLK was the last good expansion and then it went far to downhill for the casual kiddies who wanted instant gratification and wanted easy access to the best stuff. They won't roll back in the next expac all the horrible choices in direction they made because it would drive off the kiddies and the odds of bringing back the real mmorpger's is very low at this stage. Best to wrap it up and work on WoW2 but they have said a number of times they have no plans for a WoW2 and then they would likely not take stuff back to old school difficulty, challenge, and reward style.
Comments
This would be a completely new iteration, one of the things i came to realize is that questing in the world and really the RPG portion is kinda brought back because the experience needs to be the same and streamlined for everyone. I love the warcraft lore and I want as a player to make world changing decisions that completely change the experience in my world. Like maybe I want to be with the bad guys and be part of the lich king army and maybe I would end up in a situation where im on the other side of the conflict for a group of other players that have chosen to fight the lich king and our experiences create a cross-over at certain points, that kind of stuff that just cant be done currently.
Basically a new RPG experience in the Warcraft world that is more tailored and changing.
Saying that I will still go back and play the new expansions for a month or two.
It was also more immersive. You had to travel to places where you wanted to go instead of being inexplicably teleported through a UI. The world felt a lot bigger due to the absence of flying mounts.
I also liked the talent trees. Every level after 10 you got a point to spend, which felt like a reward. It was also simpler to specialise your character with a single system instead of a multitude of confusing systems.
My biggest issue with wow currently is how time-gated everything is. Even grinding rep has been time-gated behind world quests. I hear bfa is supposed to be a bit better in regards to time gating things, but we'll see.
Since I got into EVE instead of WoW, (I started playing both at the same time, and EVE just grabbed my attention better) I feel like coming in now just wouldn't be the same. I missed all of the big expansions that people creamed their pants over, I missed all of the in game cultural references, I missed the bugs and glitches that people will reference, I missed all the best raids... etc.
I would want to experience as much of the content as possible, but honestly, who is still doing raids from five years ago?
Missing more than a decade of a game is like picking up the third book in a trilogy and trying figure out what the hell is going on around you and why things are the way they are.
* Raw Vanilla has been and gone; even if the code was line for line, the player base and knowledge level has changed (including knowledge of what will happen with each future patch); it can never be 'exactly as it was', but at least the design philosophy has a chance to remain ‘pure’.
** TBC was OK, and had some good content (some of which could be brought over to 1.13+), but the fact that it killed all previous content was the beginning of the end, and WOTLK was the nail in the coffin (at least design wise, story was pretty good).
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Making CC, threat management and utility spells important in dungeons.
World PvP somewhat relevant again.
Slower loot progression and much less gear scaling over expansions.
Professions having some unique benefits again.
Not all raid content could be pugged.
Just instead of homogenization and streamlining everything, some interesting, challenging content.
True sense of risk and reward.