World of Warcraft has once again stolen the show at Blizzcon with a new expansion and legacy vanilla mode announced.
Executive Producer, J. Allen Brack says that ‘World of Warcraft classic’ will ‘replicate the game experience’ as it was on Day One. This will be simplified, cut-back World of Warcraft, with the intention of creating a nostalgic throwback experience.
It’s a bold undertaking but one fans have been crying out for the last several years. Various fan-made vanilla servers have been recreated only for Blizzard to shut them down. The demand is still strong, though, and thus Blizzard’s exciting decision to move forward with an authentic experience.
Don’t expect it anytime soon, though, as Blizzard have a lot of work to do in order to get it right, including finding out what features are most important to the community and making it work on modern hardware.
Meanwhile, the next major World of Warcraft expansion, Battle for Azeroth has also been confirmed. The Seventh expansion is shaping up to be one of the biggest yet, raising the level cap to 120, adding two new areas – Kul Tiras and Zandalar – with the reward of Azerite being given to players. This can then be used to gain reputation with factions, but also infused with a powerful new necklace, The Heart of Azeroth.
This artifact adds power to each new armour item, with the necklace itself gaining new abilities and leveling up using a tier-based system.
There’s also the addition of Warfronts and Allied Races.
The expansion is expected to release around Autumn 2018 with major patch 7.3.5 filling the time in between.