Last week, the developers at Blizzard Entertainment announced several changes for World of Warcraft Classic‘s Season of Discovery. This seasonal version of the Classic Era realms is consistently being updated, giving the team a great way to test out new features and gimmicks in a relatively low-stakes environment. However, in a shocking move to some fans, the developers also dropped a few of those updates into the normal version of World of Warcraft Classic without communicating what was happening with the fanbase. As you might expect, the fanbase immediately started to push back when they realized the changes were intentional. Fortunately, Blizzard has reverted those changes after apologizing for its “lapse in communication.”
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On one hand, you can understand why Blizzard wanted to make these changes. WoW Classic has had a longstanding imbalance between the Horde and the Alliance because Horde players get access to the Warchief’s Blessing. The Alliance doesn’t have its version of the buff, so the team added the Might of Stormwind buff to bring the two factions on par. The team also added the modern version of the Guild UI, making it easier for guild leaders to manage their guilds.
However, by not communicating these changes ahead of time, Blizzard hit its community with a jarring patch that left many confused. Thankfully, the team has recognized its own mistakes and has reverted the changes while saying, “This lapse in communication was not in line with our values, and we need to do better here.” They also made it clear that the Classic team “has very little desire to bring gameplay-impacting changes to Classic Era.” From this, we can see that Blizzard recognizes that the core fun of Classic is playing the game in its more original state complete with its “perfectly imperfect elements.” That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for updates, but clear communication is more important than anything else. As Blizzard says Classic “has been cowritten” by its players, and working with them will help the team create the best product possible.
World of Warcraft Classic is available now on PC. Season of Discovery is currently in the thick of Phase 4, which added a 20-player version of Molten Core, along with several updates. On top of all the excitement in Classic, Blizzard is currently working on the mainline game’s next expansion The War Within which is scheduled to launch on August 22nd.
