Where The Old Becomes The New
HWM Singapore|March 2021
Stories from BlizzConline 2021 of Burning Crusades, Diablo’s second coming and the time when Blizzard wasn’t Blizzard yet.
Tim Augustin and Kenneth Ang
Where The Old Becomes The New

WOW BURNING CRUSADE AIMS TO PLEASE ALL CLASSIC FANS

BlizzConline 2021 saw the reveal of World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic, the re-introduction of Warcraft’s very first expansion. Back in 2007, players stepped into a Dark Portal and emerged into absolute chaos - and now, they’ll get to relive those memories alongside other first-timers looking for adventure. Blizzard Entertainment is trying to strike a tricky balance here, aiming to please those hungry for new content and others who want nothing to change.

They have a unique solution for both parties, however. Lead software engineer Brian Birmingham and World of Warcraft executive producer John Hight shares some insights.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade brings a whole bunch of changes to the game, including an increased level cap of 70 - which, funnily enough, makes Classic players officially higher-levelled than Warcraft: Shadowlands players after their recent level squish. However, the whole point of the Classic experience was the absence of all these new changes and additions. It was a return to a simpler time, without new races, abilities, expansions and so on. What if you just wanted to stay in this untouched, Classic realm forever?

Well, you can. When the pre-expansion patch goes live, Blizzard will offer players a choice: stick with the current content, which contains all WoW updates up until its first expansion, or advance each of their characters into the Burning Crusade and its realm changes. The patch will launch alongside special Classic Era realms, which players can head into for the pre-expansion experience. The WoW Classic live servers will be updated with Burning Crusade content in the meantime.

This story is from the March 2021 edition of HWM Singapore.

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This story is from the March 2021 edition of HWM Singapore.

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