Blizzard did a large Warcraft Direct presentation yesterday… which I missed as a result of a few of us have day jobs you realize… however even earlier than I used to be capable of dig into the movies and such I bumped into the 2025 roadmap for WoW Traditional and went… properly… wow!
Blizzard WoW Traditional 2025 Roadmap
First up is that Cataclysm Traditional can be lingering till spring/summer season, which I longer that I anticipated I assume. However we can be getting Mists of Pandaria Traditional and all that comes with it, together with pet battles and Panderan as a race and monks as a category and them with the ability to select Horde or Alliance or… like that one individual… simply keep on the starter island and degree as much as degree cap by harvesting herbs and by no means make the selection. Will probably be a factor.
Within the absence of another information that will be nice. Positive, Cataclysm can be properly previous its prime… which is has already handed for me… and the truth that the Pandaria per-patch is within the “summer season” column, which means July on the earliest, looks like an extended good distance away… properly, I can stay with that. There are different video games to play and the group can discover issues to do any so on.
We don’t stay by Azeroth alone.
In the meantime, down on the backside there may be WoW Traditional Season of Discovery, which appears like it will wrap up with Section 7 and be achieved. That was cute for a bit, however didn’t actually do a lot for me. It wasn’t completely different sufficient from vanilla to fulfill any WoW Traditional Plus fantasies. I gained’t miss it when it’s gone and takes a number of characters with it.
However then there may be the bombshell within the center row, WoW Traditional twentieth Anniversary Version which is beginning fairly rattling quickly and is sending a variety of combined alerts to my mind. From the put up:
Relive the World of Warcraft Traditional expertise with all-new recent realms within the WoW Traditional twentieth Anniversary Version arriving November 21. Be a part of gamers on a complete new journey to degree 60, with the primary raid dungeon, Molten Core, turning into accessible a number of weeks after launch. Select to play on a PvP realm, a Regular PvE realm, or (for the very first time) a Hardcore realm progressing via content material with the opposite realms — all from the start, with recent economies, on very massive realms.
These realms will launch with among the quality-of-life options that got here later within the WoW Traditional cycle, such because the Chronoboon Displacer to save lots of your world buffs and the improved PvP Honor Rating system. The PvP and Regular PvE realms will even progress into Burning Campaign Traditional!
It’s by no means too late to return and re-experience World of Warcraft anew—simply in time to have fun 20 years of adventures in Azeroth!
On the one hand, I really feel like we simply did that… although, in actuality, WoW Traditional kicked off greater than 5 years in the past, so possibly it’s time. The runs with Season of Discovery and Hardcore Traditional make it really feel like I’ve been in vanilla much more lately that 2019, which reduces my emotional funding within the thought of beginning over recent once more.
On the flip facet although… that’s subsequent week and it might be large and possibly I ought to leap in and wasn’t this all so nice again in 2019 and can it’s the identical and a half 100 different ideas all competing for consideration in my mind as Blizzard faucets into that retro nostalgia a part of my mind with the prospect at one other bit on the apple.
So I’m a bit conflicted. There’s, definitely, some nook of my mind that desires to be in Elwyn Forest and Westfall once more struggling to search out Defias masks and what not. And there may be one other half… a a lot bigger half, if I’m sincere… that seems like that want has been sated for now. I’ve achieved the entire “each methods, uphill, within the snow” model of WoW and, whereas I loved it, I used to be additionally a lot happier once we arrived at Wrath Traditional when issues settled down and among the rougher edges had large, life threatening splinters sanded down.
That stated, it does appear like Blizz discovered a bit about pacing. The brand new WoW Traditional phases look to be a bit tighter and Burning Campaign Traditional is on the roadmap in a few yr. The primary time round we went from August of 2019 to June of 2021 to get that far. So it seems like there can be much less time lingering in expansions, which may be good or may be dangerous.
With the EverQuest retro servers they set a fairly quick tempo and I can by no means sustain, however leveling in previous Norrath is a bunch effort and a chore which requires effort and information as to the place to go. WoW is a bit completely different. If you can’t make half a dozen alts… *cough* …and simply deal with one character, attending to the cap isn’t something like a yr lengthy process, even with the extent 40 stoop. Simply grind via it.
In fact, all of which means that there can be two units of WoW Traditional enlargement development servers operating in parallel. I assume I might return to Wrath Traditional and play once more if I wished. And with the brand new one operating quicker than the previous one… I don’t think about one will catch as much as the opposite, however the hole will seemingly shut.
This additionally does really feel like a dedication to the enlargement development server thought so, in reference to my previous put up about when WoW Traditional ought to finish, the plan does look extra like Blizz will trip this out to at the least Shadowlands. We will see.
Now to go look into the plan for retail, which has some promise of participant housing… although we’ve been fed that line earlier than.
