A welcome surprise awaits World of Warcraft Classic fans, as it would seem that new information has now dropped regarding the game currently in alpha testing and development at Blizzard.
If you’ve been following the coverage so far, it has been a few weeks since Blizzard has released the PVP content plan for World of Warcraft Classic, which includes some minor tweaks and changes to be more in line with the game’s original release. A week after that, some data miners have found evidence of World of Warcraft Classic files – some of them referring to a beta – in Blizzard’s content delivery network. This prompted some reaction as to when the first playable build will drop, and as such, its discovery sparked some excitement. Sure enough, another week after that, Blizzard stated that the game is now playable – albeit in an alpha state, and only accessible by the development team.
As we are in the midst of internal alpha testing by now, we can expect news regarding World of Warcraft Classic to drop more reliably, and it would seem that it already has. Just last week, another post by a community manager went up, this time detailing the itemization in World of Warcraft Classic.
The basic gist, as pointed out by community manager Aerythlea, focuses on creating a “progression experience that resembles the original arc from when WoW first launched.” This is good news, as it would mean that the Classic experience is shaping up to be as close to the purity of the original was, in terms of both the content updates and now with itemization as well.
However, the post was also keen to address and point out what the team’s plans were for incremental changes to several items made along several updates and patches. The plan to iron these out is called “progressive itemization” and its explanation and reasoning can be found below:
“Here’s an example of progressive itemization. The Tier 2 warrior Helm of Wrath originally had Spirit and Agility on it, as well as critical strike chance. In Patch 1.5.0, the helm’s stat budget was changed to Stamina, Strength, and Defense, along with elemental resistances. Then in Patch 1.7.0, the amount of Defense on the helm was reduced. In Patch 1.8.0, the 5-piece set bonus that included the helm was fixed to work with Whirlwind, and in 1.9.0, it got a better look with an art update.”
“WoW Classic will only include that last version of the item, as it existed in our reference version: 1.12.”
The reasoning for this, according to Aerythlea, is to streamline the players’ experience by letting them focus on other aspects of the game, instead of min-maxing on items and equipment when all of these are still bound by changes in the next patches. Although not part of the pure experience, it should alleviate some of the worries of changing gear later when new updates drop.
World of Warcraft Classic is expected to be released for PC some time this year.
