A look into why Classic WoW felt entirely different than its expansions starting with TBC, why this is an opportunity for Blizzard to approach expansions differently, and why vanilla WoW is loved the way it is. (Reasoning with official interviews cited for reference from 1999 to 2018)

Disclaimer: Before we look into this, know that some of this is conjecture as I am not affiliated with Blizzard in any way. I so have some level of experience and understanding of the game development process, though. When it comes to future expansions, while I am basically 99% about that "#NoChanges" life (I did like the 16 debuff slot for example however), I am all sorts of on board if a minor reworking were to be done more in line with vanilla ideals, and keep its original content/appeal. (Also, I love vanilla through Wrath, so let that also be known as I am not hating on TBC/Wrath.)That being said..---------Lemme set the stage for you.So its probably a good idea to take a dive into a lot of the core design philosophy that changed from vanilla to TBC and beyond, how TBC set the precedent for all future expansions, why the majority of players enjoyed classic (whether they know why or not), and unforeseen things by developers that become loved in a game.First, lets look at the space goats in the room. Dimensions, space, and the item changes and the design choice to exaggerate in TBC. Source - Jonathan LeCraft interview - Jan 2017 The game was designed with the shock and awe factor in mind, to either bring in new players, or to put most players on an even playing field again, at the expense of the game "as a whole". At the time, it definitely didn't seem like was a bad idea at all. TBC brought a lot of success to the series, and it was fun. I fully believe that they were trying to stay true to the lore, the story, and players. However with TBC, they kind of lost their way.So if you go way back, back before WoW, there was a little game (that has recently leaked magically come into the hands of the internet) called "Warcraft Adventures." This little failed adventure game was what set the tone of vanilla WoW, but also became its development blueprint. Source - Metzen / Roper It wasn't so much the developer design document you would use in a game pitch, but more a vision. A goal. They wanted the player to go on an adventure, and tell this fantastic story. Some of you know about this already, some do not. The story was about Thrall, specifically. (Which is why he is Protagonist Orc Jesus in the expansions.) If you are curious, I have the sauce.... Also, Thralls voice is both amazing, jarring, and hilarious all-at-once. Source - Warcraft Adventures (Longplay)However, this expectation brought about a couple of things they had no way of knowing back then. The expectations of the players were betrayed in future releases, and most everyone, including devs, probably didn't know it. Which leads me into the first big point to make, about what and how WoW changed starting with TBC.Ok, so, its 2005, and hard dungeons and raids are slowly becoming a more public knowledge thing. Now, in vanilla you could love the game and play it however you want - there was no expectation set for the player to have fun. Not to mention, there was less stigma surrounding hybrid classes and gear score back then. Some of us oldies can remember that instead of rather than "Whats your iLvl?", it was more about "Are you attuned?" and "Do you have fire resist gear?"So when talking about "what was WoW back then", the devs and the community were focused on VASTLY different things compared to now, and we got a different experience because of it. Now, there is focus/worries of achievements like "First to ______" or people talking about trying to get to cap first is a great example is that even now, people are planning to or talking about rushing through content as fast as possible. Just like I'm sure you all have heard constantly since once classic WoW was annouced about the "World Firsts" and "I'mma be a Scarab Lord." But to be honest, this is mainly just the surface level of some of the issues. Its got nothing to do with hurrying through content or speedrunning. Which is fine, I hope everyone gets enjoyment out of classic and they can achieve their goals. (Except PKing me at a silver node, pls no) When when speaking on a game design/development level... well... the idea of a "journey" vs "race" goes much deeper than above. One of those was how loot (aka power) affected the drive of players in the (end)game, because...Even when referencing the acquisition of power, the approach to loot was different.Right off the rip, in comparison to all the expansions, Vanilla was a different animal entirely. Things like "the endgame" started earlier than hitting level 60. See, you could be level 60, and you were still not totally invincible in things like Scholomance, a difficult level 45-ish 10 5-man dungeon even if you were level 60 - a full 15 levels higher. Source - Vanilla Scholomance) Immune enemies and keys were a huge deal, and dungeons were definitely an event and not a amusement park attraction. Things could kill you in dungeons, even in raid gear. Also, things in dungeons could even be useful in multiple places outside of itself. Look at Stratholme. Things like a simple consumable found in Stratholme (the Holy Water) changed how you approached an area or fight (cough BWL), tanking, or even future raids. Source - Stratholme Holy Water Just in its basic usage, this was always a nice thing for classes to hang onto. So yes, even a spellpower consumable farmed in a dungeon, was desired by Warriors.But when TBC came around, the "Old content" was no good,the world where your veteran players explored was unused, and you didn't have any need to attempt anything in classic. TBC pulled you out of Azeroth, the world rich with lore that you just spent a couple of years in, and into something almost entirely unrelatable. It was an entirely different "journey." Actually didn't feel like an expansion - it felt like a different game. In this way, it could be said that it was a poor design choice. The world of Azeroth that you had just made home in, you had very little reason to spend time in. Lore was somehow connected, but it was different. TBC ran on the marketing hype, which I will address later, and while it was an immense experience I have fond memories of, it left behind so many of the things that made classic so good. The expected investment from the player was different, 95% of players sure as hell didnt have 3+ alts who were raid ready, and there is this next little point to make. So the first lets talk about the approach to the player and what it was attempting to deliver.The threatening feeling of imminent failure was gone in TBC. Otherwise known as "The Struggle." tmIf you take a look at most great RPGs and story telling, there is one word that comes up in all of its forms, and that word is "Epic." Whether it loot, an epic as in a poem or story, a grand scaling of something, it's pretty much everywhere. Vanilla Wow and TBC focused on two different kinds of "Epic." Those two things would be, essentially, "Immersion" and "Power fantasy." (Note: This is not to say that they didn't try and do both, but there was definitely a focus on one or the other.)Power fantasy is not only just pretending to be uber powerful where everything bows before you (although it can incorporate that for some). If it was just that, running old raids for loot you didn't get previously would be a fun experience, and not a chore. Power fantasy is about delivering to the player how they would like to interact with the world, not just grabbing that new sword.The other would be immersion. Often times, trying to force players into immersion by throwing big money assets at their screen (although it can help. You have to inception your players. You gotta make them think its a good game to invest in. Gotta catch their interest with the little things. Things like atmosphere, and the music, sound effects, fishing contests - "You need me to save the world?" Psh. Stranglethorn fishing contest? Some people will never miss a week."So then I guess its ok to ask, on the immersion and power fantasy front, what was offered?"Vanilla delivered on the 'World' being much bigger and badder than you are. You fought hard to overcome your fate. All content was not for everyone. (Not everyone aspired to be a raider for example, or a pvp god.)TBC delivered on the front of feeling Herculean, making you feel like you're taking the fight to them. Put in the work, and relish your hard-fought, but inevitable victory. They definitely wanted more players to see more content.The type of marketing lined up as well with this. TBC was to sell a specific empowering experience and "options" to a player Source - Jeff Kaplan - 2006 , and vanilla was simply a playground for the player and their character in the Warcarft world. Neither one of those are a bad way to approach a game, but they are inconsistent with each other. Even the change from 40 man to 25 man raids made it go from "This feels like an army of people trying to take down a giant demigod" to "We are a smaller, specialized platoon of elite forces to crush the enemy before they get to us." You finish a raid in vanilla, and you might not have gotten any gear from it, but you used consumables, materials, gold, had to repair, and even your time. But you still struggled on. You shared joy with allies. In TBC, your competition often felt like it was more your allies (otherwise known as "The Meter"), rather than the boss. The boss was expected to die so players could see content. The general player base's perception had changed when heroic dungeon content/raiding became a thing. Partly due to design from developers, partly due to players themselves.Even in the beginning, Blizzard had no idea that the game they were about to make was essentially be both Thunderfury bindings drop at the same time. They had made a game that was entirely made for the sake of their lore, 'for love of the game', and it wasn't being treated as some multi-billion dollar money printing machine it turned into. Paul Sams, who was a VP of business operations was talking about how they were being very optimistic when they brought 2,500 copies of the game to Fry's in California for them to sell, and they didn't even meet half the demand on opening night. Source - Paul Sams - 2005 When you got people tailgating on exit ramps because of game release traffic, you made a monster. So after the ridiculous success to turn into a literal gaming giant overnight, all the investors, marketing, fiance ops are about to get every bit of their hand into that cookie jar. So when your player base varies from a 13 year old kid to a 68 year old doctor arguing about Paladins needing to be nerfed (Its in the article aha), who do you cater to to make the most profit?And from this, what they developed was more guided experience and forgiving in TBC, and it only continued on so that Blizzard could tailor a controlled experience so hoping to appease everyone's playstyle needs. And... in a weird way, it actually was needed back in 2006, especially for the game to grow and gain more people. The promise of "slightly less work - same or more rewards" seemed very appealing. Vanilla didn't just require commitment... It demanded it.However at the time, they couldn't have guessed how different it was going to make the game. Let's talk good immersion and character building. Storytelling as a whole, really. In most novels, ESPECIALLY fantasy novels, readers get most invested in two different kinds of heroes, either self-insertion god-mode power fantasy, or interesting protagonist characters that have "The Struggle." The love of PC adventure games and its struggle was why vanilla WoW is the way it is Source - Bill Roper - 1999 , and why "Warcraft Adventures" game was dropped back then as well.So when you look at TBC, it was not building with the mindset of forging an adventure a player who wants to experience the Warcraft world, but instead a targeted experience to power fantasy in. You could see how corporate definitely got involved from the trailer. The desire to pull in players to keep making that money. The need to appeal to "casuals" and try and keep "hardcore" fans in by having Arena and some insane 25man raids. (Release M'uru anyone?)Even the trailer shows this marketing and directly addresses the player. Source - Burning Crusade E3 Trailer and Source - Burning Crusade cinematic trailer There is even the hype man/announcer telling you what is next for you to conquer. The game hadn't even launched, and it set the player expectation/experience on what the development was. "Kill the final boss guy - This is what to do in the expansion". The game was no longer about the world. It was about the player and getting them to play. Again, this is by no means, to put any kind of negative feedback on the work or effort or the devs, or to say TBC is a bad expansion or isnt enjoyable. But it is different than vanilla WoW.Since then, their approach to why has been massively different. Just watch the trailer above and compare to this E3 trailer Source - Vanilla 2004 E3 in-game trailer that focused solely on the world itself, or the cinematic one which focused on Lore and showed characters within again, locations in the world. Source - Vanilla cinematic trailerWith 'The Struggle' being gone and instead a roadmap to follow was placed before players, the flow of the game dramatically changed. In my reference earlier, when I said TBC was about being Herculean, it was a bit pointed. If you look at how TBC was set up (And to the same extent, Wrath as well), felt more like the Labours of Hercules, rather than saving the world from destruction. Again, not like this is some terrible thing, but it is inconsistent with the original design of the game.Tolkien is a great example of what "The Struggle" is. Just for a moment, imagine if Bilbo was actually a trained fighter, or knew magic, or was human/elf/dwarf. The investment in the character would have been different from the reader. There would be the expectation of the Bilbo the Fighter to use his skills to miraculously, heroically make his escape. Instead, Bilbo struggled. Literally in every book he was in, he did nothing but struggle. And it was enthralling.Tolkien has a famous quote of "I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit". A lot of times people often forget the rest of the quote that goes with it. "I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit (generally with meticulous care for distances). The other way about lands one in confusions and impossibilities, and in any case it is weary work to compose a map from a story.” Source - Tolkien Library From going from Warcraft 3/Warcraft Adventures to vanilla WoW, they had to do exactly what Tolkien did/said. So when Blizz was making this pseudo-new IP:They had to make the world and lore before anything else.So first, why that matters and is different is because the player was not even a variable yet when looking specifically at quests or activities for the player. Source - Jeff Kaplan - June 2004 I know people talk about questlines and how they were great (which they were), but they were not a factor for development for quite a while. This is pretty important - probably WAY more so than players might expect, because the order in which things were developed changes entirely how a game will feel, even with the same assets. Hell, even the concept art wasn't even close to done. Development of the world / lore was the sole foundation for the rest of the game without the player in mind. Source - Bill Roper - 1999So this deviated direction was why the development of the rest of the series turned out to be a different feeling game at a deeper level. The core design was fundamentally different.--------------Ok, whew. Thats a lot of stuff.So when doing some snooping around them interwebs, I have seen both yes and no on the "Would you play classic TBC" question. There might be a different approach to a classic TBC expansion. There was an interview I'm sure you guys have read with Blizz's dev-turned-president J. Allen Brack about TBC is not off the table. Source - Brack interview (Forbes) But there comes a more interesting question...If they made TBC scale in the same way as Classic, or made huge changes, would you play?I guess a better way of putting this is: If they made changes to TBC to fit Classic Vanilla's design philosophy, immersion, power fantasy and model, would you still be #nochanges to TBC? Would you even play? (Whether its an entirely different server you could transfer to, or just an expansion onto the classic server, etc.) Personally, I'd want a stat crunch on all TBC and Wrath gear if it ever came out. Huge gear jumps uninterest me and makes lower tier content completely worthless.-------------So really, what all of this was about was to take a really good look at this golden opportunity Blizzard has to kind of make amends to all the vanilla WoW lovers, and also to create a new experience for others. I believe there is a great opportunity at Blizzards doorstep. So incredibly few games ever get this much attention and a second chance. Hindsight is 20/20, and they have all of it right now with what players not only 'didn't like', but things that legitimately "ruined" parts of their game. The item level power creep is a huge problem in my book as I feel it invalidates previous content in TBC, and from wrath onwards, it flat out invalidates a simple content drop from a previous patch.The last bit I want to highlight is another part of that Bill Roper interview with Gamespot I sourced a couple of times. It was technically about Warcraft Adventures, but it's history is so tied into WoW's creation and theme, and when looking at what has happened with WoW classic, I thought it was interesting. I was searching on Gamespot's website trying to find an article to directly link as they do have some interviews / articles from the turn of the millennia, but I cannot find it. I partially blame their search engine which is about as useful as a cheese grater is for drinking water. If someone happens to find a Gamespot link, I'd be happy to change it. Until then, the 3rd party site will have to do. And when looking at this bit of the interview, not only is it relevant, but a bit ironic all this considered when looking at TBC through BFA.Here ya go: The "Hopefully at some point in the future we'll get another chance at it" 1999 irony.There is a bunch of large interaction gameplay systems change that could affect the entire game (not necessarily buffing/nerfing classes or enemy numbers - gotta think broader than this), but that's for another post if people are willing to discuss.Whether you think they should leave everything the same for all expansions, never release expansions, or you think some changes should be made, I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on this. Let me also know if you thing any of this does not line up as I feel this would make for interesting discussion. :)