Recent changes to World of Warcraft’s Classic Era servers are being reverted “immediately,” Blizzard has announced, after the developer apologized for failing to discuss “shortsighted” quality-of-life updates to the old-school version of Blizzard’s long-running MMORPG.
The update, released last week, was originally designed for WoW Classic’s more experimental Season of Discovery servers. However, Blizzard intentionally opted to bring some of the changes to the game’s non-seasonal Classic Era servers too. Those changes allowed Druids to wield polearms, granted Alliance players a powerful new world buff on par with the Horde’s existing Warchief’s Blessing buff, and updated the game’s guild interface to match that of the modern game.
Those changes took the Classic Era community, which generally doesn’t enjoy major changes to the (for the most part) 2006 version of WoW, by surprise. Players were so surprised, in fact, that many on Reddit believed the changes had simply been a mistake on Blizzard’s part, only to later learn that the changes were indeed intended. Now, Blizzard said those changes (minus the guild UI) are being removed, citing a “lack of communication” that “was not in line with our values.”
“For everything it does perfectly, Classic Era is also beloved for its wonderful imperfections,” Blizzard community manager Kaivax said in an official post on the Classic Era forums. “These ‘perfectly imperfect’ elements make up the texture of the overall experience, and we recognize that making changes to these, even with the intent of adding ‘quality-of-life’ updates–and particularly without discussing them with the community first–was shortsighted. Thank you, again, for your feedback.”
As for the new guild UI, Blizzard said it recognizes the change is “jarring,” even though feedback it received from guild leaders so far indicates the updated UI does help improve guild management. Blizzard said it’s discussing “additional options” for the guild UI internally and will be looking to the community for feedback on what should be done next.
“As it stands now, the Classic team philosophically has very little desire to bring gameplay-impacting changes to Classic Era,” Blizzard said. “Moving forward, we will endeavor to discuss any potential community-led desire for changes with the community, well in advance of actually implementing any updates.”
WoW Classic’s Season of Discovery servers recently entered its endgame phase, featuring revamps of existing raids as well as new items, abilities, and even a new dungeon. Meanwhile, Blizzard is gearing up for the release of the 10th expansion for the modern version of WoW, The War Within, on August 26.
