Burning Crusade var som den første udvidelse til World of Warcraft en stor lancering, da den udkom tilbage i 2007. Selvom skurken Illidan Stormrage fortalte spillerne, de var "not prepared," slog udvidelsen salgsrekorder, skabe stor trængsel på serverne og gav spillere mulighed for at udforske en hel ny verden, The Outlands. Nu udkommer udvidelsen igen - denne gang til Word of Warcraft Classic - og vi fik en snak med Game Director Ion Hazzikostas, der tror spillere er bedre forberedte til at besejre Illidan denne gang.
"I think players are pretty prepared. One of the fun things about returning to Classic, and returning to Burning Crusade, is seeing what a modern player base with 15 years under their belts can make of these old encounters. What Burning Crusade offers is the exploration of the Outlands, and to many people a return to where they were in 2007, a chance to relive those days. But for a new generation, it's the chance to experience something they missed out on, something they only heard about regarding the old days, like Illidan and Kael'thas, running Shattered Halls... they can finally experience that with everybody else for the first time. It depends on the perspective that you're going in. Some people think they have the game solved, some want to go in blind and experience it for the first time. But it's going to be a great adventure for everybody."
For at opleve WoW Classic eller the Burning Crusade Classic behøver du blot et aktivt abonnement til det normale World of Warcraft - der er altså ikke behov for at købe spillet eller udvidelsen igen, selvom du kan købe et Dark Portal Pass (40 euro) eller en Digital Deluxe Edition (65 euro), hvis du vil have nogle ekstra genstande til dit eventyr. Det leder os til spørgsmålet: er der flere nye spillere eller veteraner i WoW Classic?
"Honestly, it's a mix. One of the things that surprised us when WoW Classic first came out... we thought that for a lot of people it was going to be a nostalgia trip, a chance to revisit an era of the game they missed, but what we saw was hundreds of thousands of folks coming in for the first time. It's almost equal parts people that are going back to play the game they played, people that are playing WoW Shadowlands and want to experience the Classic, and even folks coming in for the first time."
"As a player myself back in the day, I've put a tremendous amount of time into the Burning Crusade, so I know the game very well, and I remember it very well. So, there aren't really things that I've forgotten and was surprised by, but looking back at it and reconstructing it, one of the most impressive things were to realize the interconnection and progress of quests, dungeons, attunements, and raids. While the original WoW were more standalone experiences that were released over a couple of years, Burning Crusade was master-planned, designed as this multi-tiered structure, where people and their guilds worked together towards the goal of fighting Illidan in the Black Temple. It was incredibly ambitious, and as we're reconstructing that logic, we were reminded of how big an undertaking that was for the original team."
Ion Hazzikostas bekræftede, at den nye version vil have en anden udgivelsesplan. Det originale Burning Crusade lancerede med en masse endgame-indhold, men spillerne måtte vente længe på efterfølgende opdateringer. Denne gang bliver indholdet en smule mere jævnt fordelt, så endgame-indholdet i stedet bliver spredt ud på flere opdateringer, hvilket ifølge Hazzikostas giver hvert raid "a moment to shine." Udgivelseskalenderen er dog ikke definitiv og kan ændre sig alt afhængig af spillerens feedback. Det er dog ikke kun distributionen af indhold, der har ændret sig siden originalen:
"There are a handful of changes. For World of Warcraft: Classic, as the community put it, it was #nochanges. We wanted to accurately recreate the original experience, including reimplementing some bugs that were part of the game. For Burning Crusade we're talking a bit of a free hand. We want to start with the basis of authentic gameplay and accuracy. But where there's areas with technical changes over the years, or greater insight, that enables us to provide a better experience and actually better represent the creator's original intents; we are now willing to make a couple of changes to achieve that. The single biggest one is regarding the differences between Horde and Alliance Paladins. Horde Paladins had Seal of Blood, and Alliance got Seal of Vengeance. The intent was to offer different, but comparable abilities, but as everyone found out, the Horde version was massively superior. We have every reason to believe that, with this insight, the original team would have made changes to these abilities. What we made for Burning Crusade Classic was offering Paladin's access to both faction abilities."
Når en udvidelse udkommer til World of Warcraft, får alle spillere normalt adgang til de nye talenter og evner, selv hvis de ikke køber udvidelsen. Dette bliver dog ikke tilfældet med Burning Crusade Classic, da Blizzard er opmærksomme på, at mange ønsker at bevare den originale oplevelse:
"We know that some people signed up to play Classic, because they really just wanted the classic experience, of 60 level max, with those talents and that ecosystem. What we did was preserve a classic era environment, and we will allow players to choose. They can take their characters to the Burning Crusade era or continue in the original classic era. We wanted to make sure players still had that choice."
Efter annonceringen af Burning Crusade, begyndte flere spillere at spekulere i, at Wow Classic bliver en trilogi bestående af WoW, Burning Crusade og Wrath of the Lich King. Det synes vi giver god mening; ikke blot fordi kampen mod Arthas præsenterer afslutningen på en cyklus, men også fordi den tredje udvidelse, Cataclysm, i sig selv er grunden til, at vi behøver en Classic Edition, da den ødelagde det originale Azeroth. Blizzard vil endnu ikke melde noget officielt ud, men det lyder lidt som deres plan:
"Right now we're focused on launching Burning Crusade and getting it on players hands. But we will be listening to our player community, and see what they want to do next, and that is certainly an option on the table."
Hvad der dog ikke indgår i overvejelserne, er muligheden for at Classic-spillere kan bringe deres karakterer over i det moderne WoW, da dette ville være unfair. Det skyldes, at der er en masse sjældent udstyr fra denne æra, som moderne spillere ikke længere kan få fingrene i, når man spiller med Shadowlands-udvidelsen. Så Blizzard vil altså forsætte køre med to separate versioner af World of Warcraft.
Det er alt fra vores interview, men d. 1. juni vil vi igen drage igennem the Dark Portal og levere en anmeldelse. Måske vi ses i the Outlands?
