Blizzard remains hard at work resurrectingWorld of Warcraftcirca 2004, a return to the “vanilla” state of the MMO that waxes nostalgic for so many PC gamers. Only now it looks like Blizzard won’t be targetingWorld of Warcraftfrom 2004, but ratherWorld of Warcraftfrom 2006. In a developer update posted on Friday, Blizzard officially confirmed thatWorld of Warcraft Classicwill run on patch 1.12, better known as the “Drums of War” patch.
Patch 1.12 was the final major patch inWorld of Warcraftprior to the release of its first expansion,The Burning Crusade. Blizzard would go on to explain why this was the best starting point forWorld of Warcraft Classic:
“As many of you have noted, the classic period was two years long and full of changes. Core features like Battlegrounds were introduced in patches after WoW’s original launch, and class design similarly changed over time. After careful consideration, we decided on Patch 1.12: Drums of War as our foundation, because it represents the most complete version of the classic experience.”
This decision is already resulting in mixed feelings within theWorld of Warcraftcommunity. As Blizzard says, the “Classic” era of the MMO lasted over two years, which means that “Classic"World of Warcraftmeans a lot of different things to a lot of different players. The experience in 2004 was wildly different from the experience in 2006. Blizzard’s point stands, however, that 1.12 will offer the most “complete” version of what it’s planning to offer.
Blizzard would go on to describe what starting from 1.12 meant in terms of direction and development. Patch 1.12 allows Blizzard to retain core gameplay features like cross-realm Battlegrounds and objective-based world PvP, while also creating a foundation from which Blizzard can implement important server infrastructure that’s been grown over the past 13 years. That means thatWorld of Warcraft Classicwill work with the modern Battle.net and will have modern security features, but will otherwise preserve the classic gameplay - notransmogs or achievementsneeded.
It sounds like Blizzard has its work cut out for itself from here on. The game is there, it’s just a matter of bringing it to life. One big question Blizzard has left to answer is how it’s going to roll out content. For example,World of Warcraft Classiccould start with solely Molten Core accessible, or it could drop everything at once and let players figure it out on their own. Then there’s just the matter of whenWorld of Warcraftwill launch. But everyone already knows the answer to that: when it’s ready.
World of Warcraftis available now on PC, with theBattle for Azerothexpansion launching August 14.
