World of Warcraft Classic (opens in new tab) may get a major update soon, and former lead engineer Brian Birmingham has very vaguely hinted that it could be the World of Warcraft “classic plus” that some players have been asking for. .
The original World of Warcraft has changed a lot since its launch in 2004. So that was almost 20 years ago. During that time, nine major expansions have been released, extending and improving the game in countless ways. But of course there will always be grumpy old-timers who prefer the old ways (I’m not speaking from experience or anything like that). That’s why Blizzard launched his 2019 World of Warcraft Classic.
Classic brings World of Warcraft back to the good old days of 2006. Much of that system is before being streamlined and smoothed out by subsequent expansions. Naturally, it’s a double-edged sword. (opens in new tab)“But it also helped me rediscover why I love Warcraft in the first place.”
World of Warcraft Classic Plus theoretically falls somewhere in between the two, adding new content and making some quality-of-life changes to the classic while keeping the mechanics, talents, and skills intact. . The structure is familiar, but think of Activities as a kind of remake that aims to wow both old and new players. For example, streamer Asmongold shared his thoughts on what he’d like to see on “Classic Fresh” in August 2021. live stream (opens in new tab):
Classic Flesh story coming up so Blizzard shouldn’t be making some changes but all changes here is my wishlist 🙂 @WarcraftDevs pic.twitter.com/ZU2tmFiZrPAugust 18, 2021
It became clear last weekend that something of this magnitude could actually happen. “Looks like there’s something new in the WoW Classic Era!” Streamer MrGMMore (opens in new tab) Tweeted on April 20th. “Encrypted wowdev endpoint updated to patch 1.15.0??”
Things got even more interesting a few days later when Birmingham replied, “I’m a little biased, but I think you’ll love it. It’s an incredible team working on it.” When someone asked if he was talking about Classic Plus, Birmingham said:
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Birmingham stands to know: He was lead engineer for World of Warcraft Classic until January 2023, but was reportedly fired by Blizzard (opens in new tab) For refusing to participate in the company’s employee evaluation program, Stack Ranking. Although the program requires managers to give low performance ratings to about 5% of their employees to fit a relative performance bell curve, Birmingham said in an email to staff: It encourages competition between people, obstructs each other’s work, and encourages greed.” People find underperforming teams to find teams where they can perform best, and ultimately lose credibility and destroy creativity.”
Given the length of time it took to develop an update of this magnitude, it was undoubtedly in the works prior to Birmingham’s dismissal. I don’t think Birmingham would be so sorry if something big wasn’t done.
