Classic WoW's First Seasonal Server Is About To Close FOREVER | Season of Mastery Review
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2024
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Season of Mastery will very soon have run its estimated 12 month duration and will come to a close. It's time to take a look back at Classic WoW's first seasonal server.
What went well? What was not so positive? And biggest of all - what happens next?
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#wotlk #wow #mmorpg
Download Naraka: Bladepoint here with 50% discount on xbox gsght.com/c/k03rax till Nov.1st.
You can also get it from Steam gsght.com/c/hdhxc4
You can also get the game for free using the Xbox Game Pass
Check out their social channels here:
Twitter: twitter.com/NARAKATHEGAME
Discord: discord.gg/narakabladepoint
my favorite BR. Most wow players will never play. They're dumb for trying to get you to sponsor it. Out of touch company honestly
we need Burning Crusade Servers back in running Blizzard - has the Data - I will like to Continue to play the game - #Bringburningcrusade - back in action
Can we admit that it was a solid idea just way to soon
Yea, it was done too soon
Great idea, undercooked.
Yep, foolish to release it while TBC was still in tier 5
Personally I think SoM is the best time I've had with WoW in a very long time. I hope they do a season 2. I will be there.
^ Ditto
same
Best wow ever, next time even more difficult
@@ed3lstoff242 agreed. Hope they release a 'next time' sooner, rather than later.
same🎉
SoM's biggest issue was having too many servers. I truly believe it would have been a bigger hit had they started with fewer. Week one would have been hell, but it would have been better for the game's health overall.
If they would have done layering properly it would have been great
Or just not have such a crazy barrier to transfers where people have to spend a bunch of money to solve the problem lol
@@luke0303 layering was one of the biggest classic issues
It was too little too fast.
People had just finished their 6 month Nax farm, and so not that many of those people were too eager to start it all over again, especially as there weren't that many changes.
the games health would be better if they connect servers as soon as they see people are quitting.
for exampe 4 servers with 1500 pop < 1 server wit 6k pop.
start with many, with the option to connect (and communicate this connect)
i dont give a damn about my servers name - just connect them together.
If we saw class changes, I'd like to see balancing and abilities similar to Wrath but in the world and level range of Classic.
tbf i would not mind having the whole play-set with talents and spells from WotLK
and just 51 talent points from lvl 60
This. I'm over here playing Wrath as Resto with an Ele offset, and I was trying to figure out why Ele doesn't scale well. After identifying the main issues, I looked at the Cata talent trees and the changes and saw that it was precisely those issues that were fixed. There is a version of class design where you address these kinds of issues but not fundamentally change game play like in modern expansions. The same could be done for Vanilla. I do think the changes to rotations that came in Wrath would be welcome for Vanilla; as is it is VERY barebones with most specs simply spamming a single button over, and over, and over.
@@naejimba I agree, wrath talents would trivialize all vanilla content 10x over so they should buff all the raids and add lots of new mechanics to bosses and trash. They already have a head start on that with some of the hardmode stuff they added. Would be so much fun.
You literaly had that in ChromieCraft private server..vanilla content with wotlk talents
@@HB_Blackstrike94 , this is a good point. Considering projects like this and ascension I hope the p server community (and the WoW community in general) is open to trying servers with changes in the future. The p server community in general has been skeptical of the idea in the past, but seem to be coming around. However, not everyone who plays on Blizzard's servers plays on private servers, so I think it is valid for them to ask for that if they want to pay. I see a company that abuses their employees and takes advantage of its players, so morally I don't have a problem with it.. but some people do.
The clash between the griefers and hardcore players led to some of the best wow content and drama I’ve ever seen. Hoping for another Season of Mastery season
100% brother
Absolutely, BRM was beautiful
I hope they'll announce it soon with better changes.
SOM was my first time ever playing WoW. For sure was what got me and my friends into the game (believe it or not), went from BWL through Naxx. Very enjoyable time and would do again! Hopefully more people hang around next time though
should've played real classic, that shit was FIRE, SoM was 5% of what classic was
Classic 2019 was like being hooked up to hard drugs for 1-2 years
Tbh after going hard in classic, if I could do it all again I would have preferred to play it through my first time in SoM. World buffs are cancer.
@@IDontKnow-zr2jo man I'm so mad at myself for missing og classic. I played it to like level 10 a little after it dropped and got bored and returned to retail, and didnt try it again until right after tbc was announced. I loved it but I missed all of the endgame and missed out on an unrecreatable cultural phenomenon
@@AndrewIHanna That sucks man, probably the most fun game i've played in my entire life along with Gunbound a very very long time ago
Was really happy to see you featured in an official WoW video. Congrats, your content is great.
I’m here for any fresh Classic. Changes, no changes, I’ll play it. As long as it’s Classic.
I will not be submitting myself to the old ranking system again however. No matter how enticing they make it.
I just want them to add random weird little extra things to do, stuff like instanced housing, maybe pet battles. It doesnt have to be super fleshed out, just gimme something to work on other than regular progression.
Fk it add a classic version of choregast
@@egemenozan5641 new dungeon / raid content would be nice. Adding new items to professions or old content drop tables, or creating new raids / dungeons would be time consuming but I think people would enjoy it. As long as the spirit of the content is classic-esque
@@goliathgamingtv2411 Quick question, would a toy/mounts tab ruin the classic appeal for you coz thats definitely something I would want
@@egemenozan5641 tbh I’m not much of a collector but having a tab for it doesn’t necessarily align with the Classic feel IMO. It wouldn’t ruin the experience for me, it just wouldn’t be the right direction for changes, if that makes sense
@@goliathgamingtv2411 Ok new idea, a special toy/bank npc to store them in and take the ones you like
I hope they give us another chance at this kind of realm, I am interested.
Me too
well its seasonal ofc should be a new season every 14 months for like 10 years atleast
@@azell2913 hope so I just seen and heard this will be the last
Play Everlook Private Server
And now we just hope they do Classic+, but correctly.
honestly if you want to classic+ try turtle wow, its vanilla but with new content, new quests, zones, factions and even new instances.
i second turtle wow
not a chance blizzard develops new content for the old expansions
@@zStC1 shut up
They won't. Abandon all your false hope
i played the last 2 months on turtle wow....amazing server and people
My friends and I loved the idea of SoM and were really excited... but the insane level of sweatyness and min/max gatekeeping really killed it for us already before phase 2. the joy of leveling experience and playing fresh wasn’t there. People just rushed thru their BiS list... i can remember the last time we played:
We did a BG with some friends and faced a premade, they were all flasked and had soulstones on them without a warlock even being part of their premade... we laughed, afked out, uninstalled and never came back. If more normal people with actual lifes would have played then sure, but not like this
Yep, same here. I and what seemed like A LOT of people were playing at the start but about 2 or 3 months later, most had left. It's the same thing in Wrath right now. I played through, got to 80 on a fresh server and it was the same sweaty gate keeping. Not as much as SoM but I know that by the time the next phase hits, if you didn't already have a guild and a geared out character, you'll likely never see an invite.
Was there back in original Wrath and it didn't get bad until the end when gearscore reared it's head. That's going to kick in a lot sooner this time around. Have already dropped Wrath for the most part.
@@Pumkin932 Bro wrath is the most casual expansion, you can easily pug every single tier and do fine. (assuming you do your part and read up on mechanics)
@@domerame5913 ofc u can easily pug it... that was never the problem. People making Naxx groups right now and asking for a 4k+ Gearscore for the easiest raid ever is the problem. Wrath might be casual friendly, but a big part of WoWs community is NOT 😒
@@stefangeibla3824 my fav part is ppl asking for heat scores for face roll heroics
@@stefangeibla3824 Personally i haven't joined any pugs, but on a decent size server it should be possible to find groups and guilds that are casual too
I'm one of the .1% of people that raided all the way through Naxx in SoM. Did 8 weeks of Naxx clears with my guild Echo. Was with them since MC progression.. we had a blast, and I could say a lot about SoM, but man was the dwindling population rough. I think we were one of maybe 3 or 4 guilds on Shadowstrike that even cleared KT. I had a ton of fun playing Rogue and I really wish more people had stayed around but by the time Naxx came out you couldn't even fill a 5 man dungeon and IF could have less than 3 people in it at peak times
I think SoM's timing was just bad and the population would have done much better if they had done it post-WOTLK. I don't plan to play past Cata so I would love another SoM in a few years.
@@jeremynotzen389 I totally agree with that. I had just finished all of Classic and then SoM came out, like I dont want to immediately do it all over. Post wotlk would be perfect, cause a lot of ppl prolly wont move on to Cata if it happens.
SoM replaced the world buff meta with the consumes meta and just like in 2005-2006 and classic people just could not keep up with the farming required
SoM was a failure from the start. It just does not make sense for a game like Vanilla WoW. Vanilla WoW is a straightforward progressive type of old-fashioned game unlike today where games can be suited for seasonal play
@@blackyvertigo 100%. In all fairness, Blizz did implement some changes such as the chance to proc flasks and most potions, but it was way too late by the time they changed it. They also didn't start SoM with the extra loot drops from bosses, either, which was a huge misstep. But the single worst thing about SoM was PvP gear being available from the very start. That was really stupid
Class and gear balance is the only thing that would bring me back, and it definitely would. Here's to hoping.
You'll be back. You always come back.
they did balance gear and classes though.. it's called Wrath of the Lich king.
@@akhsdenlew1861 This is true, however some people (Like myself) Like the feel of the zones and world in Classic Era more .They just also want their meme specs buffed.
I hope they do too, like Diablo 2 seasonal changes
@@tigeryumyums9407 meme specs not being good is not why people didn't stick to SoM
The Kargoz-style HC 1-Life Road 2 Rag grassroots event on the SoM servers was the best thing about it
I love the idea of SoM! I played a lot during it's release, but burned out on the PVP grind, and I was the prot pally for my guild in TBC so it was really hard to play both at the same time. TBCC won my attention, and SoM moved forward without me.
Now, I play a DPS class, and I've got all T7 content on farm with my guild. I'd REALLY like to do SoM again! I still love the vanilla world, I love the vanilla questing experience, I love the amount of consumables that you can apply to yourself, and SoM has proven that Blizzard knows how to handle QoL changes for Vanilla as far as alts and consumables go. They've also had a lot of feedback around content changes and what they can alter safely around the Vanilla-enjoyer crowd (it's a lot more than I was expecting to be honest).
I pray that a second season happens. If it does, I'm gonna really go for it!
i disagree that they know how to handle qol changes. the extent of the xp buff was ridiculous and destroyed the pacing of leveling.
Everlook wow release next month
@@AndrewIHanna I get that if you enjoyed Vanilla levelling wholesale then SoM failed in that department, but the XP boost is something that I like and consider necessary for a seasonal server.
Within the context of a seasonal server, I don't have anything that I'd ask Blizzard to change about the XP boost or levelling pacing from SoM.
@@lucasperes828 im hyped for everlook bro
I think SoM was poorly timed. It should have come out sometime AFTER or during the last phase of Wrath Classic. Personally, if they do it again I will definitely be interested in participating. Maybe they can do something like starting characters at level 50 or something and focus more on the end game meta, I dunno just brainstorming.
True. Leveled so much cant See it anymore
I don't agree with your timing recommendation but it was very poorly timed. I wanted to play SOM but I didn't have time to with phase 2. I was busy trying to get through phase 2 content and get my gold support staff up. If it had come out during BT I would have had TONS more time and would have enjoyed it.By that point I felt too far behind to play SOM. I also didn't agree with the direction of this season's changes.
For us who loves and breathe vanilla it wasn't poorly timed at all.
What made many quit was the fudged ranking system that made ranking ever worse than vanilla. And nothing done about bots. And opening to many servers. I think they learned at least that due only 1 fresh wotlk. Until ppl whined and they made one more.
There is ppl and demand it's just that acti does the very minimum effort. Just to keep some subs.
Tbh I want classic era fresh every 2 year. Pure cl not this abomination
@@SSPsGoku1 It's your own fault, simply play more mate.
I think leveling should have to be done but speed it up a little. Also fix hybrid classes and make more changes and id easily play.
Classic+ Classic+ ooga chucka ooga chucka
WillE, pin this comment.
I think the biggest thing with SoM comes down to timing, it was awfully timed in the sense that the vast majority of players had just experienced classic and wanted to spend time with tbc (and eventually wotlk). Along with this, blizzard needs to do something about server choices. I feel like picking the correct server to start on is a lottery and theres no way to know if yours will become a graveyard a little bit down the road. Servers need to be merged as they did with era, a lot more proactively.
I made a character on SoM, levelled to about 20-30, had more time with tbc and then came back to continue levelling my SoM character a couple of weeks later and the server was dead. A handful of players in cities at peak times, it completely killed the point of me playing it. I feel like i struggle to have the time to put in to do one version of the game as deeply as i would like, when two classic games compete with each other one is always going to get beaten out by the other unfortunately.
So true
I think the main issue with SoM was it didn't really cater to any type of player. For the no changes crowd they were never going to like it because things changed. For the changes crowd they weren't going to like it because not enough was changed.
I played on jom gabbar until a few weeks until wrath release and I can honestly say the raid difficulty was a problem. For the more hardcore players like myself the raids were still very easy but for a large majority of players they were too difficult with a huge amount of player population never clearing molten core. I remember on classic I wasn't on one of the big realms just a regular high pop one and we had over 300 different guilds/groups with full clears for MC. Even on Jom Gabbar there were only something like 80 guilds that cleared it. So not having any casual content was very bad for the game.
If they did it again I would want to TBC class updates to all the classes so they are at least viable. Make pallies and shamans available for both factions. Keep the profession, boosting, and gathering updates. For raiding have normal and heroic versions. Normal would be regular classic versions with world buffs and all included but they also only drop classic amounts of gear. Heroic could be the SoM versions of the raids and they drop double the loot.
For pvp changes I think they should just make the gear purchasable with honor points instead of the dumb ranking system. For phase 1 maybe only release the blue gear, then do rank 12-13 gear for bwl, and rank 14 for AQ. Or make rated BG's the method of ranking for classic. I would love to do rated BG's as some of the best memories of my original grind to rank 13 in vanilla were WSG and AB games against other premade groups.
I think diremaul and .5 quest chains were fine for gear and really didn't throw off the balance much because they had also included the AQ patch dungeon gear upgrades which still meant you were spamming a wide variety of dungeons for good gear. You actually had casters wanting to go to ubrs for example with the turbin from last boss and the staff/ring from the summon boss. The main problem was pvp gear being available too early throwing off the balance. So hardcore guilds with a lot of rankers crushed the content and more casual guilds without rankers really struggled because execution had to be a lot tighter on fights early on and most non hardcore players are also much worse at execution.
I would also like to see gear changes to go along with talent/spell changes because there is a whole lot of bad loot available and seeing that bad stuff replaced with things that are good but for different specs like boomkin, ret, shadow, ele, etc would be nice.
Back in Vanilla, the pvp gear on release was much weaker. At a certain patch, the pvp gear you could get was dramatically improved.
After having seen Classic run through twice, I think they need to go back to that. Regardless of how hard it is to get, the final version of pvp-items are too strong and break the game.
Loved the bit at 6:00 - “that’s a developer/game designer issue”. So many of the anti-minmaxing crowd could use to hear that. To paraphrase another great wow content creator “what are we gonna do, throttle our internet and start keyboard turning and backpedaling again?”
I'm really excited for another one, I miss Vanilla :(
same bro so mad at myself for missing the classic launch
Everlook wow release next month
Me too!! See you there!
SoM had a lot going for it, and a lot going against it. As someone that has played SoM from start to finish, and has gotten the Tabard of Mastery and 8/8 T3, I certainly have a lot to say about it.
You had revamped harder raids, challenging players to perform well. While this was great in its own right and was really fun, you ended up losing a lot of interest because of how casual-friendly classic was. I think overall, it was great up until AQ. AQ is when they introduced the raid-wide challenge mode, where every boss would have C'thun adds spawning. By this point, players knew Blizzard kind of gave up with actually changing up all the boss mechanics. BUT, this was still really fun to play with. Same with Naxx, the custom items and buffs introduced, were all really fun, but ultimately nothing was done to the base raid unlike with MC and BWL.
Regarding our raid comp, we actually did have a feral druid with us through the entire raiding experience. I also saw a boomkin main in another raid team, and occasionally I saw the need for a shadow priest. Having a feral in your party, as a melee main with no world buffs, is certainly a welcome addition to the 40 man environment. Though, realistically, you'd only bring one of those meme specs, and never a ret. You wouldn't really see shadow priests either, though they're still just as nice for warlock parses.
PvP saw effectively no changes, besides being able to rank up faster. But, it still was just the same old PvP. Which alot of people playing SoM very much enjoyed doing, though, the fact there wasn't anything to spice it up like how they spiced up raids, kinda made it less interesting to grind up with.
The lack of world buffs was overall a good thing for the game, but not so much for everyone else playing it that cares about parsing. People genuinely missed world buffs and all the griefing associated to it. I personally think its bad for the game, but others think its great. /shrug but I certainly enjoyed it.
One of the hardest challenges of SoM, was filling raids. Not because we had the lack of a playerbase to do so, but because of fielding 40 players with a similar schedule to the raid's schedule.
Another huge issue was, rampant RMT. Blizzard couldn't ban a single player for RMTing, otherwise you'd end up losing literally 90% of the raiding population there. I personally never RMT'd, but piggybacked off of those that did, by selling craploads of goblin sapper charges to rankers and mining the materials for it all. Also, I had 8 toons with maxed alch/LW/Tailoring so I could capitalize on the profession cooldown procs. I had weakauras set up for it all and everything, I was set for gold for all of SoM.
Also regarding all my alts, levelling them all was really enjoyable! I got 2 60s, a warrior main and druid gatherer alt, and 8 level 35s. mostly hunters, 2 warlocks and a mage.
Regarding the profession changes, such as mining/herbing granting elemental fire/earth/water. Great change. I certainly capitalized on that with my druid farming SM for grave moss for shadow pots. Being able to proc potions later on, also, amazing change. We would go into BWL and play the flask slots, hoping we got lucky on procs. I was one of the least lucky ones, several Titans flasks barely got a single proc, while others got 5 procs.
The lack of mage boosting is a much welcome change, too. You never ran into those issues, unless you were a mage trying to instance farm, which you just couldn't do. However due to this, the main generator for the economy honestly relied pretty much solely on bots in dire maul. If Blizzard handled that from the start with extreme care and precision, it would have been fine, but since its Blizzard and it wasn't handled at all, thats all we had to rely on. Like I said, I capitalized on this indirectly, because I would be selling my profession cooldown materials to those that bought gold.
I think Blizzard is heavily discouraged from doing a SoM 2, at least, in the manner they did it this time. A lot of lessons have been learned, to do it again, and I'd probably even play a SoM 2, but it'd have to be a drastically different vanilla experience. Wrath talents alone would make it enticing for about anyone, I think. Most people I've talked to, would at least enjoy a Wrath+ as opposed to a Classic+, though theres definitely the Classic+ crowd as well.
i appreciate that run down, thanks for the info. I might give a second SoM a go.
Waste of time. Hit the gym bro
Interesting to read about your experience, do you not think wrath talents would trivialise the simple content?
My biggest issue with SoM was people that RMT'd. They increased the cost of consumes so much. If you didn't have multiple alts for profession cooldowns or run GDKP's farming the gold for consumes was a full time job. That might have been specific to my server.
@@ixplain lol you sound like one of those gym bros who starts lifting and makes it their entire personality.
SOM would have been a lot better if Blizz waited until WotLK was over or at least had released ICC. I think there would be a LOT of people that would go back to that at that point instead of releasing it not even 6 months after TBC released.
Me, for one.
If they had waited even just 2-3 more months, I would have done SoM the whole way.
I personally didn't play any SoM, but I did really get into watching Guzu & a few other UA-camrs doing the Hardcore Challenge thing & eventually killing Rag. That shit was exciting. Even the compilation vids of people at lvl 60 or close to it dying were super fun to watch. I couldn't handle investing that much time into lvln up & gearing a toon, just to have to delete it because I made 1 tiny mistake & died. I'd def watch some SoM Hardcore Wrath if Blizz makes it.
I absolutely agree with the timing being the worst possible. Even Retail Dragonflight is now going to be competing for my attention for Wrath Classic. I wish they would stagger things every six months or so, instead of all at once at the same time.
After Wrath Classic is done, I would love to see a Vanilla - Wrath multi expansion season of mastery with exp buffs for faster leveling, Harder new mechanics on all raids, Hardcore mode with rewards, and some minor general class balancing.
Might be fun. Heck, I'm not even 100% against a SoM style experience with NO LEVELLING AT ALL where its just about raiding (though I know that would be... unpopular as a concept).
@@andromidius I don't like no leveling, personally. You can already boost in Classic WOTLK or retail, and have very little leveling to do before max. Taking away leveling from the only version of the game where leveling feels like a cornerstone of the game would be a shame. In every other version, it's such a pushover that I don't mind people skipping to the end, but in vanilla, you actually die a ton and have quite a journey to max.
This video makes me wish I gave SoM a chance. Looks like it was fun
It was amazing!
naw dawg, you would've thrown the pc out the window.
@fritzschnitz what is your name-server?
@@hoatzen7887 Played on Kingsfall, why?
Yep, and immediately after enabling free transfers, Blizzard had to pause them because of a bug with SoM-specific buffs on characters.
I can see SOM being Blizz's test of doing something bigger like Classic+ with new zones and class changes. I can see that being quite popular if they actually put some effort into it. Wotlk is a perfect opportunity for them to add new content instead of recreating the same experience most players already did in 2009 or on PSs.
It seems like an obvious route to try and take, but then you remember that the team at blizz in 2022 are not capable of creating new great experiences. I'm just glad they're allowing us to enjoy a glimpse into what used to be.
@@Autonimaatio Exactly, thats my biggest concern about Classic+ ...
I can see it being unpopular with classic players. If you want ultra tuned raid content that dies when the healers are 1% mana, and 16 ‘balanced’ classes that all have the same spells then pretty sure retail is the game you should play, not classic.
that is a good idea, meaning that blizzard will never do it. they will keep dropping the ball and fumbling everything
@@joshea7861 I am pretty sure it will be massively popular with Classic players, only a small niche would not like it.
I'd love to try a season two, didn't get around to season 1 but i remember loving classic, would love to make a mage or something and go for an atiesh if that was a possibility for me. Excited to see what might come.
I thing they'll do the Vanilla-TBC-Wrath rotation with subsequent themed seasons. The only mistake was launching a season while regular classic was still in rotation.
@@BarbaraYaga I hope not, that would get stale and the playerbase would just shrink with each rotation. I hope that they launch classic+ after wrath is over to flesh out old azeroth, and add things like classic hyjal and a scarlet crusade raid and spec rebalancing and stuff to keep the game fresh but still classic like osrs. Realistically tho, yeah your idea is a lot cheaper for blizzard.
@@BarbaraYaga yeah I agree, releasing with classic still going was a bad call, show Le waited longer
@@AndrewIHanna I would love to see new content brought into classic, make an actual new game out of it in a way
@@AndrewIHanna it was a panic response to the playerbase that blizz lost during tbc classic, people in classic were so hype about tbc they forgot how bad of an expansion it was and a large % of them quit the game through phase 1
SoM was lit and vanilla is the best version of the game imo. Can't wait to do it again
So true
SoM was the most epic season and the best time I've had playing Vanilla! We were a horde guild from Jom Gabbar and the adventures against the alliance were beyond anything you could imagine. The PvP and war effort brought forth insane battles, epic speeches, and pure rivalry no one has ever seen before. We documented this in videos. Check it out!!
SOM'S DEAD 2: ua-cam.com/video/gs-RRCrjXcI/v-deo.html
SOM'S DEAD 3: ua-cam.com/video/jfA_yIG6sDg/v-deo.html
I personally raided every week from beginning to end. Made many friendships and plan to play the next season for sure. CHOP CHOP
I leveled a rogue to 60 as part of the hardcore on OCE Lionheart.
SoM was pretty fun, and enjoyable for leveling and dungeonin, however the realm became dead within a few weeks of launch, it became a solo game very quick with a few committed players, I somehow ended up being guild leader and raid for this instance. I was not prepared for it.
Overall the interaction with SoM was amazing, would love to see class balance as well as additional content, perhaps a new dungeon or raid
I might be interested in seasonal servers after Wrath. Depends what happens with Cataclysm and where the majority of players are playing then.
I was on Bonescythe server and it died pretty quickly. What I did not like in SoM was the feeling of being "rushed" all the time. And not being able to enjoy the phases. That and the PvP gear which was out killed it in my opinion. I would like to do another cycle of classic maybe later when Lich King is dead. I would love to have classic SoM with 3.3.5 talents and spells and stats.
Hardcore was the only reason I gave SOM a chance, and more Hardcore features would be the only reason I’d play the next season. That game mode has been a great equalizer for me when I’m burned out or raid logged from current endgame and I hope they lean Into it more.
I'd be interested in a classic plus style of game. I never played Season of Mastery because Blizzard is committed to cannibalizing their playerbase....they released a new retail expansion nearly the same week as Naxx opened in the first Classic Wow. Releasing Season of Mastery as they're releasing tier 5 raids instead of during a content lull (tier 4 seemed to DRAG on in TBC) meant I would have to choose between one or the other and it didn't give my wow friends any breathing room to try it even if we would have enjoyed ourselves.
blizz always used classic as a tool to boost retail, pet buyers is far more important than constant subs.
Closed TBC servers, closed Classic servers, put out a Cataclysm survey... I'm really not liking where this is going, if they close Wrath servers too I'm done, I'm never playing WoW again.
I embraced SoM for like two weeks. I got to 39 on a warlock embracing hardcore. But when I died at the time there were so many people in the starting zones it was completely unplayable. I quit then and never came back.
The issue with doing seasonal servers like this, it needs to be for a game that doesn't take multiple weeks to hit max level to actually get to the modified gameplay. The system works in Diablo 3 because its entirely possible to hit max level in a single afternoon. Not like WoW, where it takes a long time to do so
I like classic's graphics better than retails.
Everyone wants something different, but HOT DAMN classic has content, great content that people want to do. Most of us just don't want to do it with a stale meta, one button classes, and itemization that's terrible. It doesn't have to be wrath classes, but something. WillE notes a lot of the things that I think people would like.
I loved classic, didn’t play SoM.
What i missed the most was the socialization. But what i didn’t like was the min-maxing that was absolutely cancerous.
I agree that class balance would be the perfect thing to add: having less warriors, more druids or other hybrids would be fantastic
It was a blast the first 4-5 months and I had a great time.
I loved Vanilla classic wow, it is by far the best experience i have had in wow over the 15 years i have played this game. Nothing is better then playing with hundreds of not thousands of people it really makes the world come alive. Another thing that made the game so good is that the content rarely became useless, there was always something you needed from a dungeon or raids that would be an upgrades somewhere. The only thing that was terrible about the game was PVP ranking.
Pvp is fun and it is great for the game, but the rewards was insanely good and shouldn't be that insane. If you ask me make the blue gear the only gear you can get up until phase 5 with AQ or remake the whole pvp system and make the gear purchasable with honor like in TBC. With a system like this you wont have to rank like a crazy guy playing 20hrs a day and of course if you still want to do that you could with this new system. But i doubt blizzard would do something big like this.
WillE... can I ask you a personal question about the amazing work you do? What is your 'ritual' per-se... By that I mean... How do you stay motivated to put together clips and make videos? Do you do the classic: "From 10AM to 2PM I work, no if's or buts" - or does it just happen naturally for you like you breathe? Either way, as a day 1 WoW player I love your work. Even when I'm getting vibes of: "oooh, he's really digging deep for content here!" I always appreciate that you do it! And new players REALLY appreciate it. Keep it up! Much love!
Hello! I played all of SoM on alliance Jom Gabbar and received the tabard of Mastery from killing KT without dying in that weekly lockout of Naxx (as a whole raid).
Season of mastery was by far the most stressful and inaccessible form of WOW that I have ever played and I’ve had 60 hours of mythic prog on bosses like Queen Aazshara.
For me, some of the most difficult parts were finding guilds and groups of people that were willing to invest in strangers in a seasonal era where you had so many fewer lockouts and the gear mattered so much more.
Finding ways to prove to teams that you were worth it, felt impossible, especially when the feedback loop of not having gear to prove yourself meant you weren’t given gear to use to… prove yourself.
Genuinely I felt demanded more time in WoW than ever before. Coupled with the environment of having less quality groups, feeling like you had to put up with toxic behaviors and language just to have an opportunity to see the raiding content, and constantly worries that you would just be replaced by a more geared person who is as coming from a guild that just couldn’t find enough players to raid anymore….
Sorry that this post is a bit convoluted but I just needed to share how stressful EVERYTHING was about SoM coming from someone who genuinely played it until the end.
Cheers!! Thanks for making this video
After Lich King Classic, I am hoping for a SoM 2 with way more changes, especially regarding class meta and itemization, rather than Cataclysm Classic.
Raided all the way until 3 weeks into Naxx on Kingsfall. From my experience I liked no wbuffs and "harder" content. QoL changes wise they were really nice, BUT they felt like they made them like 1-2 months late for each of them (which considering its 11months long is pretty long).
All in all I enjoyed it for the time I spent there but it could have been better for sure (crying in feral and getting 29489343 MCP's)
Agree! Also even with the alchemy procs introduced, prices on Kingsfall for consumes were very high. I wish they made some more changes in a new season, to make the consume farming less hardcore.
I leveled on SoM but didnt touch end game because TBC was my "main WoW" and with wrath and soon dragonflight idk if I have enough time to even think of playing another season but I will root for it to continue and hope it all goes well.
I'd really like to play a no-changes classic version that pays attention to some details blizzard missed. Here two examples:
- recreating item stat updates by phase (especially pvp items)
- introduce the real pre-nerf AV (including landmines etc)
Especially the item stat updates would bring much more balance to the game.
As an example just look at this rank 14 weapon as it originally was pre-naxx:
Grand Marshal's Longsword
One-Hand Sword
115-173 Damage Speed 2.90
(49.7 damage per second)
+6 Stamina
Requires Level 60
Requires Grand Marshal
Equip: Improves your chance to get a critical strike by 1%.
Equip: +12 Attack Power.
I'd love a SOM with capped level progression to keep the player base together, they accidentally did that during the beta for classic and it was so much fun being with everyone. No massive rush with the player base spread everywhere. I love the leveling btw, so apparently I am a strange person.
Honestly i think the 70-30% Alliance to Horde raiding imbalance probably could have been adjusted fairly significantly by just giving resto shamans a Blessing of Kings like Aura/totem or raid buff that made content clearing closer to how much easier it is for alliance on release, it wouldn't totally fix it, but would have gone a long way to help it. Blessings single handedly carry a huge portion of content and I understand why the hardcore community played around it.
Honestly, while Bobby is still in charge, I won't be giving any money to Activision Blizzard. But if/when he is gone, my issue with a lot of classic is that it is a 'solved game', which, while fun to revisit, doesn't feel fresh enough to really stick with, at least for me. What I'd love is if they make another classic season, but really mix things up: class and gear changes like WillE suggested, but also quest rewards and event turn ins and timing. Make it so people can't just buy tons of materials and insta complete the war effort. Granted, this would take a ton more work than just adjusting a few numbers, but it would make the experience feel almost like new again.
Classic + :
1.Wotlk class balance.
2.1-60 azeroth leveling
3.Rbgs
3.More pve difficult (new bosses,new loot...)
4.Objetives in open world,like some open world pve raids,zones to control that gives massive buffs for pve,etc...it'd help the world pvp and population balance.
5.More variety of quests
*Bonus dream*: Get every expansion best things and put em all in Classic +.
I loved the idea of SoM, but lots of factors, mostly irl, kept me from playing it as much as I wanted to. Got my hardcore Hunter to level 40 but had no time to continue unfortunately
I'll play the next Season most likely depending whether there's any changes I dislike or not. I'm looking forward to playing on Everlook hopefully next month actually. Vanilla andy through and through, I just hope Classic's next season has world buffs.
I prefer just our characters in raids being at worlf buffed levels instead of needing world buffs to reach it.
Getting world buffs is so annoying and time consuming, just have an NPC give it out in a main city
Gathering wbuffs gets players out in the world and the risk of losing wbuffs but being able to keep them is part of the fun imo. Feel really strongly about this now that i experienced SoM without them. Wbuffs like they were in classic with a chronoboon in from launch is my vote
@@Babaganoosh69 Okay, I'm going to stop you there. World buffs do NOT bring people out into the world. The closest in the world they go is to Feralas, and before the chrono boon thing was implemented, you were forced to park your character and not play it if you wanted to keep them.
SoM literally had people doing activities all day long because the players weren't forced to wait in cities for buffs for hours on end. You are factually wrong by saying world buffs populate the world. They would populate the world if they don't work in raids, because that would incentivize people to use them for solo content, like farming mobs faster for 2 hours.
@@alextygesen3101 They do though, it was your choice to get buffs earlier than you had to and park your toon in wbuff jail. They populate the world getting people going to all sorts of places in the world and it also creates services and gold making opportunities related to getting these buffs. I'll agree though that the chronoboon was a great addition I hope it makes a return.
Classic had people doing activities all day even more than SoM frankly. I tried to play SoM on the most populated server and it was still tough to do activities all day I don't know what you were experiencing. SoM did a lot of things right, but cutting out wbuffs from raids was not one of them.
I came into classic because of WotLK, and I'm kind of bummed I missed the first wave of people in classic and SoM! hope they do another server so I can experience a bit of that classic magic
Thanks Willie, great summary. I hope they make more changes in another season. For me the PvP gear being BiS early on needs to end. I am a pve player and don't want to be forced to PvP to be competitive. Class balance is also a must.
If there were some Class balancing changes so you can play the forgotten speccs i probably would come back. Love the Vanilla World. But your right going back to a 1 Button class would suck a bit
Chronoboon is not a good solution longterm. They should add ability to bottle the buffs, so that you need to be at least once in a place where the buff is used, then you bottle it and you can continue the journey without raid logging. This ensures that people will still get the MMO feeling from seeing a lot of people around them at the same time, or running to a common place as a huge multi-raid group AND that there will be no griefing at all. Solution is clear and simple, it just needs to be implemented.
Yes fresh Classic with minor quality of life changes please. There's just something about the 1-60 journey I just love and always will.
If I were to change Classic I'd do some of the rebalancing we saw to hybrid classes in TBC/Wrath so that they have viability, and either make tier sets for each build/have raid bosses drop set tokens, or double the tier piece drops per boss. 2 pieces for a 40 man raid is RIDICULOUS.
The exp buff was just for quests. I remember this clearly, idk what it got changed too but it was just quests at the start. People were upset that it didn’t let grinding keep up.
it was way overtuned, completely ruined the pacing of leveling
@@AndrewIHanna Leveling wasn’t the point in SOM it was about getting through the content since the content progressed at a much faster pace. I couldn’t agree any less with your comment. If you want to level super slowly you should have selected Paladin on the character selection screen.
@@robertp457 most of the game is leveling content. the game doesen't start when you hit 60, it starts when you create a character, and excessive leveling speed ruins the experience
I think if they just go deeper down the rabbit hole for classic it would prove really positive. Something I think people don't think about is that the world for classic is so much bigger than each expansion. If they add things across the world each season it would attract a lot of people.
I played SoM until killing C'Thun. Ultimately I think it was a success overall. Blizzard was trying a few things to see what worked, it's the firsf iteration of seasonal servers, it's not gonna be perfect. For me:
+ Raiding changes. They tried changing individual fights in MC/BWL, toggleable difficulty increases in AQ and item stuff in Naxx. Going forward I hope they do individual encounter changes, even if it's not every boss in a raid. For example, Chromaggus. Having the ice block/breathe adds difficulty then dispelling bronze giving aoe haste rewards good positioning with faster kills. Genius. Having the same eyes/tentacles spawning every fight.. boring.
+ QoL and levelling changes: great, just consumes one should have been implemented earlier, then levelling speed increase sooner. Ramping up levelling/gearing aspects later in seasons is a must to attract players.
+ Killing boosting and world buff slavery. Enough said.
- PvP gear should not be in so early. It destroys the gearing up cycle and prevents people forming groups in dungeons which become guilds and communities which is a classic staple. Ranking system is awful too.
- Too many servers on release. Players were too spread, combined with lack of incentive to do dungeons made servers feel dead. If they feel dead it's only a matter of time before they are dead.
- No class/balance changes. A missed opportunity.
- Release timing. In the middle of TBC was terrible. If I had done all of classic there would have been no way I would have played SoM.
Were there any changes for C'Thuun? I remember they stated he'd be in his original state (minus bugs), but they never posted what changes where made.
@@Ryan_hey No, and I don't even think the "generic" difficulty additions with hard modes extra adds I mentioned occurred during the C'Thun fight. Like, Twin Emps was a chaotic mess of adds, eyes, beams, bugs, getting haste but not so much you get MC'd etc so it felt a little different each try then C'Thun just felt much calmer without all that. He had more hp and little eyes/big claws would fuck you if not dealt with quickly, but that's normal. It's the same mechanic rotation, just maybe you have to do another cycle of it.
I became a father last year, and had to give up WOW around the time TBC was released (only got to raid Kara).
When I get free time, I'd love to explore either vanilla, TBC or even WOTLK via some kind of SOM server element.
Vanilla had so many experiences that made it great!
21:37 just hearing the game music makes me want to go back and play vanilla
If u want to play vanilla. Look into Everlook release date November 11th 2022.
I loved SoM. I was part of a regular premade group running AVs day and night on JG, and while I actually did enjoy that too, the time commitment was just terrible. I hate raiding. It's like pulling teeth. I also don't care much for arenas anymore, solely because I don't have any friends playing on my realm. Those on different realms have their teams set up already, too. I've basically accepted that arenas and competitive PvP will just be a fond memory of my teen years when we all had endless time.
So, that said, the ranking system itself was excellent: I could hop in whenever I wanted, play some BGs, rank, and get new gear. The only issue was the time commitment.
As it is now, I either need to pull my own teeth and sit through the same scripted raid fights I've done a thousand times before, or try and team up with some arena sweats.
If I were pressed to choose one way or the other, I'd take ranking. It's, ironically, the most casual friendly system...assuming they can fix the time commitment aspect.
I liked the idea, but it was still too much of a time commitment to get to 60, I think I got to about 44 as a soul of iron warrior. I would love to see a much higher accelerated rate of level, included with higher drop rate of items. Then buff the content to require more gear to complete.
Instead of staggered phase release, give us everything at the start. But for example, AQ difficulty makes it nearly impossible unless most of your raid is BWL geared.
Use gear checks as the gate keeper for raids.
I think this would be a fun season idea.
I see a lot of people missing the true downfall of Season of Mastery. Yeah, maybe it came out too soon, maybe there should've been a higher exp bonus, or maybe some additional balance changes. But seriously, 1 year is way too long for the vanilla timeline after just doing it right before. 6 months, 1 phase per month + a guarantee to be able to move to other classic servers once it is over with would give for sure a steady flow of players in the game. No one wants to sit and replay Vanilla WoW with no changes every year for a full year. It's too much time investment for too dry of a time period. Either there needs to be big changes, a much shorter timeline, or both.
Hardcore is still going in Wrath Btw. We're trying for Naxx and beyond on Maladath Server
I think making the game even more casual friendly and making more big changes to classes, gear and some of the content could make it a bigger success in the future. Fewer realms to not split the player base too. I think the biggest issue with SoM was that it was just too soon after original classic. With how time consuming and repetitive the game is I doubt most people were super interested in playing a slightly altered version of the game all over again so soon.
That was what turned me off on som. Like i literally just played vanilla to TBC release, so of course more people choose to play TBC primarily.
I was excited by SoM but life got real just before launch and I was afraid to get back into it. I had no idea they made these many changes.
One thing I was really disappointed at was no pet scaling for hunters. I had thought that was a no-brainer.
I loved SoM, got my toon up to 60 fairly early and found a chill guild. Raided MC and most of BWL. RL issues came up and I had to take a break. Came back around ZG, then other stuff got in the way and I never really finished it out. But I love the toon that I made, I transferred it to Wrath as soon as I saw xfers were up and I can't wait to keep playing it at 80. It was an interesting look back at the classic content and I really hope they go completely nuts with the next iteration of it. Class changes, stat changes, make it "Classic With What We Know Now." I'd play on that in a heartbeat. But please 1 pvp and 1 pve server per region. Or at least start at 2 of each and then merge them like halfway through the season after the hype dies down.
I really wanted to play SoM but there was a couple things that kept me from being able to do it. i did not have time to play 2 MMOs. Trying to keep my 'A' game in TBC while keeping up with the fast pace SoM was going at was not going to happen. On top of that, i started playing late. Trying to find a guild that would be willing to carry me a little bit while I attempted to, potentially, juggle the two games AND have a performance group I wanted to perform at, were not available. They were either not recruiting or they needed a class I was not or did not want to play.
Honestly, I'm more so upset that because I decided to try a PVP realm this time, I can't transfer my level 60 to the server I'm currently playing Wrath on. I had planned to get it to 80 and potentially raid with it, but now I have to start from level 1 again if I ever decide I really want to.
my biggest issue with SoM is that Blizzard didn't advertise it well enough, say it would have some QoL and % exp gains, as well as harder content, and more changes, a simple advert on the WoW Tab on battlenet would've been enough, I remember seeing it and thinking "its just classic but in a shorter time so more sweaty" idk... I wish the things you listed changed, make druid feral more viable, as well as other classes such as spriest, balance, ret (seal twisting is fun) allow at least 1 of these classes per raid to be a good thing to have, becuase i know many of my friends would love to play enhancement with 2h wind fury, or spirest, for myself i'd love to give feral a shot, and not be this perma healer only class, let sets exist for specific specs to help them improve, and debuff limit should be changed, or just removed, world buffs are cool, but don't let them be hassle, and the sweaty pvp is nice, but let it just be something you earn with girnd and not competing vs others, let their be decay, but also at a slower pace so it keeps the pvp fresh
I was there poggers! Hard-core Rag was one of the coolest classic WoW moments 👌
Not sure if you have a contact at blizzard but the reason I quit season of mastery was because I was level 40 and just got to close to a horde town and the guards killed me and bang my buff was gone. Every hardcore private server I played didn’t count that as a death and some didn’t even count fall deaths. I think maybe they said any death counts, but playing on hardcore private servers like turtle wow I just assumed it would be the same. I got upset and quit. I would come back to a hardcore reboot if they could get more in line with traditional hardcore rules and not just take the simple approach of “yeah we added a buff just don’t die”. Overall I liked the idea though and hope they continue down this path.
I got to level 53 in SOM. It was fun!
Everlook private server hype, real authentic vanilla experience hypeeee
There are Era realms with enough pop to have several guilds running raids every week, its not quite as dead as most believe.
Decided to check out JomGabbar right now: My Titan Panel plugin that counts people in chat channels tells me: 2 players in stormwind, 4 players in tradechat, and 8 in LFG total. Granted, it is 2:37AM (in a row?) US EDT, but on a Friday night. Oh well. All good things come to a close. I sincerely hope that they do another Season and the REALLY need to have legacy servers open for TBC. Like, 2 servers max for each region would suffice. One PVP, one PVE. That would work.
New subscriber, been playing since bc, love watching your videos in the background while working on my toons, keeps me motivated. Love your content :D
It's not just SoM where Stratholme mobs appear to have this immunity, I went to aoe down the abominations in Strath on my 70 mage in WotLK classic when they suddenly became immune to its snaring effect for no apparent reason, forcing me to invis out of them and do the pull again.
I prefer to call it "Season of Gimmickry" which was all it really was. Probably wont happen again until the classic servers begin to wane, then you will get Wrath Season of Gimmickry.
If they do another SOM Making more than warriors viable tanks would be so nice. Give Paladins the tools they need to tank. Hell even making a version of the warlock or shaman a viable tank would be a welcome addition to the game.
Playing dreadnaught alliance still. We clear Naxx, finishing t3 on priest and have the ultimate weapon Atiesh. Looking forward to som2. Gr Streeple
So happy the algorithm has been recommending your videos! Great content!
The lfg tool was just the tbc version lol not a ‘framework for what we have’. It’s literally what we had and no one used.
To start out with the SOM like you stated 1 pvp 1 pve 1 hardcore brings but they could throw something in with each season like the special tabards mounts or achievements that link to the current classic game
Might be willing to play SOM after wrath provided my guild is willing to stick around for it.
The biggest problem is that it just came out too soon. So many people were just ready for a chance of pace and looking forward to the fresh new xpac. Im glad they went for it though and hope they rebalance things when im ready to give it a go and reexperience my childhood again.
I love classic vanilla. I hope they will bring SoM2. I would change my Wotlk Warlock for vanilla without a blink of an eye
The problem with focusing on raiding is that for most vanilla players, raiding was not the highlight. Most people who played vanilla wow back in the day played alone or with a friend or two. The "core" vanilla wow experience is actually the process of leveling. End game is the retail experience.
It is a bit unfortunate that blizzard still hasn't recognized that. Era has been a chance to focus on raiding... but raiding is not the reason that most wow players began playing wow. It is simply... how they ended up playing it
Yes but look comments some people want 5x xp rate this is sad
@@Zajedwabisty124 That is because Blizz has put 100% of their focus on raiding. There is no changes to the leveling process. People playing SoM have done it in SoM, done it in Era, done it in WotLK... leveling gets old when you do it over and over and over again with zero content updates to the leveling process.
People wouldn't want to rush through the leveling process if Blizz actually put some work into it
Those changes to snare / root / speed boost are such a souless 'new-blizz' solution to the problem of mage boosting. Old classic blizz would've just added a couple of crossbow mobs to instances and said good luck to the mages.
I was on of the people who played made it to 60 and left after BWL. It was a blast but I'd recommend changes to a number of areas for S2. The PVP meta grind was absolutely horrendous out the gate and it trumped so much gear it was just brutal.
I started SoM late, but I had an absolute blast honestly, all the changes were well but they were often done a little too late at times but otherwise I think all the changes from the start, and a few less servers and it'd honestly be a really fun time even if it's not the most popular.
even if SoM had tons of issues, the fact that blizzard did it is a great thing, it shows they have the desire to try new things with older eras and that they may very well do it again. I firmly believe they eventually will. I did not do SoM because I was doing tbc and a bit of retail, all while still playing heroes of the storm and some ffxiv as well. I do not fancy the idea of playing 3 mmos, lol