WoW Classic 20th Anniversary Edition – Reformed Classic Arrives Today

Anniversary Classic, Sudden Classic, Reformed Classic, Classic Classic, whatever you want to call it, it launches today officially as World of Warcraft Classic: 20th Anniversary Edition.

I do find it a bit odd that they are immediately playing up the progression to Outland and The Burning Crusade as part of this, given the less than stellar reception that all got back in 2021… though that reception might have been more about Blizz and its handling of it than the content.

I guess the fact that we won’t have to linger for nearly two years until it arrives is meaningful… and maybe they won’t muck it up with awful cash shop items this time around… hah, who am I kidding? I am expecting MORE cash shop items this time around.

But the whole thing will soon be off and running

The patch notes indicate the following changes for this WoW Classic experience, which is why I dubbed it “reformed classic.”

New WoW Classic Anniversary realms will go live on November 21 at 2:00 p.m. PST. In each region, the realms will be:

-Mol’dar’s Moxie (Normal)
-Fengus’ Ferocity (PvP)
-Slip’kik’s Savvy (Hardcore)

The Molten Core and Onxyia raids will open on December 12.

To support group play, Anniversary realms include a Looking for Group (LFG) tool, which will allow players to create, join, and browse parties manually.

Anniversary realms feature a Services chat channel that players can enable, specifically for advertising services such as portals, summons, and tribute buffs. All such advertising must be posted to the Services channel, and player chat of these kinds placed elsewhere are subject to player reports and actions taken by Blizzard. Additionally:

-Mail between characters on the same account is instant.
-The buff/debuff limit is removed.
-Dual Spec availability will be added soon. This will not available immediately after the launch of Anniversary realms.
-Players can now toggle between the old Guild UI and the new one as an interface option. (Under Interface -> Classic Guild UI)

First up… THREE servers?  I mean, I am sure those are just the US servers and that there will be at least three more in the EU right?

Do you know how many servers they had to roll out for launch day back then?  I had more than 50 on my list and they were adding new ones two days before launch.  And how many of them had queues all the same?

Well, this ain’t 2019 anymore, that’s for sure.

Yes, the EU forums confirm that they get their own three servers, while adding in a bit more context than I found on the US side.

Nowadays, an individual WoW Classic realm can hold many more players at a single time than ever before. For our new fresh Anniversary realms, we’re limiting the total number of realms to choose from at launch to only 1 of each ruleset (Normal (PvE), PvP, and Hardcore). This will give both new and returning players the confidence in selecting a realm with a ruleset of their choosing, knowing that it will be healthy and sustainable. We may choose to open additional realms for a given ruleset, if needed to address player demand, but it’s our intention to limit the total number of realms to as few realms as possible.

When we first launch on November 21 at 23:00 CET, we expect some queuing, as we will gradually increase realm capacity caps in real time to fit the number of players logging in. We ask for your patience and understanding if you encounter a queue right after launch time.

I guess Blizz hadn’t worked through their layers technology back in 2019.  We’ll probably know pretty quickly if Blizz has grossly under estimated the desire for a new round of WoW Classic progression.  Meanwhile, according to Warcraft Tavern, the server names have been updated since that patch note.  Here are the current choices:

• US/NA
  • Dreamscythe (PvE/Normal)
  • Nightslayer (PvP)
  • Doomhowl (Hardcore)
• EU
  • Thunderstrike (PvE/Normal)
  • Spineshatter (PvP)
  • Soulseeker (Hardcore)
• Oceania

The Pacific gets its own PvP server.

Also, will three flavors of servers… and really, it is two flavors of servers because Hardcore already has a server for that specific community… be enough to handle what I identified as the factions of classic back in 2019?  Probably not, but I guess we’re beyond caring.

And dual spec?  I mean, it helps the healers go level up, but that isn’t very “classic,” which is why I chose “reformed classic” as a possible name.  They are sanding down a few of the rough edges again.

Oh, and speaking of PvP servers, they get their own bit of layering tech:

I wanted to drop by and let you know about a new, slightly experimental, feature that is coming with patch 1.15.5, and the Anniversary realms launching on Thursday.

As many of you will know, with Season of Discovery we implemented a system for PvP ruleset realms that restrictions faction creation when one faction becomes dominant. This system worked fantastically for keeping one faction from snowballing and has maintained a healthy balance throughout Season of Discovery. We’ve already announced that this feature will be enabled for the Anniversary PvP realm.

But, one of the consistent pieces of feedback was that a faction balanced realm does not lead to a faction balanced world due to how the layering system handles player load.

With 1.15.5, PvP realms will attempt to balance faction at both the layer and the specific zone level. What this means is that if one faction exceeds our balance threshold, any additional players attempting to enter that same zone will instead transfer to another layer.

The system will work much like our Warmode system in The War Within, where we balance as many copies of the zone as possible and eventually any overflow of one dominant faction will end up on a one sided zone by themselves.

As part of this change, we are also going to heavily restrict players ability to “layer hop” on PvP realms, you will face a much longer cooldown before the system will allow you to change layer again that will also ramp up with each successive layer change. The idea behind this is try to maintain these layers faction balance and discourage a mass influx of multiple raids of one faction trying to flood a specific area.

Whenever we make a change to these sort of systems there are a ton of unknowns around quite how it will behave once real humans get involved. We will be closely monitoring how this all feels in-game and will make changes or outright disable the system if it ultimately leads to a negative play experience.

We’re excited to see how this plays out and the carnage it may lead to. One final warning however, please be very confident that you want to engage in Player vs Player combat in Classic Era (including the Anniversary realms) as this time around, there will be no escaping the other faction by switching to a layer that is dominated by your faction. If you sign up for PvP this time, you’re signing up for everything that entails.

Whether you roll Alliance or Horde, good luck, we’ll see you on the battlefield.

What that will really mean to the PvP realms… well, I guess we’ll see.

My own plans for this iteration of the classic experience is fairly limited.  As I noted last week, the whole vanilla experience is still pretty fresh for me.  I don’t feel any burning desire to run back to 2004/2019 again.  I wrote a post back in mid-August of 2019 after playing in the betas for WoW Classic about how all I wanted to do at that point was get in and start playing.

That need… apparently still fulfilled.

I will probably try to log in, if only to see people scrambling in the starter zones and to check in on the queue situation… and to be part of the problem I guess.  But I feel like I have done that.

Some people, however, missed 2004 and 2019 and will no doubt be looking forward to it.  I hope they find fulfillment as I did.  My lack of desire to go through it again isn’t a negative.  I have no regrets about playing WoW Classic.  But I’ve seen that movie or read that book too recently for it to have the same sort of effect.

Maybe the next time around.  I suspect this will become an every five year thing.  Will I be ready for a fresh start in 2029?  How about you?  Ready now?  Ready in five years?  Ready never?

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