"World of Warcraft Classic" playable on BlizzCon; J. Allen Brack discusses the challenges

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Blizzard Entertainment announced today that World of Warcraft: Classic will be playable, at least in a limited form, for the annual November 2 Fan Convention.

The announcement was made as part of a video content announcement for virtual ticket buyers at BlizzCon; these buyers will receive a code to download a demo version of the game. The approximately 35,000 players attending the show at the Anaheim Convention Center (California) will have access to the demo at the show. Viewers will be able to access the demo after the opening ceremony at around 1pm. Pacific time, November 2nd. The demonstration will be available until about 10 am Pacific on November 8th.

Popular Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game World of Warcraft has been around for 14 years starting in November, and it has changed a lot at that time. There were no draenei or worgen, pandaren or blood elves, let alone new breeds. Horde players could not make paladins and Alliance players could not do shamans. The Cataclysm's global events had not yet occurred, making the geography and experience of the game quest very different.

New additions such as scaling technology that allows players to choose areas where they did not exist. Neither feats, nor combat animals, nor transmogrification changed the appearance of the machines. If you're nostalgic for days when you need days, not hours, to go from levels 1 to 60, you're about to live again.

Fans have been calling for WoW: Classic for years and impromptu servers have popped up over time to allow gamers to come back to the happy days of "vanilla" WoW. Blizzard had decided to shut down these servers as part of the protection of its intellectual property, but pledged at BlizzCon last year to investigate a classic official version of the game. A recent developer blog commented on this. progression.

Above: The World of Warcraft: classic ad video.

Last fall, I had the opportunity to talk with WoW's Director of Production, J. Allen Brack, at the BlizzCon about the company's work on Classic, as this work was just beginning. Here's what he had to say about the challenges posed by Classic:

Heather Newman: Let's talk about classic servers.

J. Allen Brack: I am shocked to hear that this will be a topic of conversation for us.

New man: Is it always a kind of "soon" situation? Soon with a capital S? "We think it's a good idea but there are still no men involved in the project?"

Brack: There are humans involved. But it's a larger enterprise than people think, I think. It's a huge technical challenge.

New man: Can you talk about the reasons for this?

Brack: Sure. If you can imagine, the most important is how the database works today and the way it worked in 2004 is extremely different. The way servers are installed and working nowadays is very different from that of 2004. The game is not even – the old code is not even built, right? The compiler – the material has changed. Computers have evolved. There are new operating systems, new things. Many older versions of the database and operating system are no longer supported. These are 13 years old at this stage.

New man: Oracle is not queuing to rebuild them for you?

Brack: Oh, they have this modern version that they are eager to use, but the old, not so much.

New man: So, talk about the process you use. You basically resuscitate technical data and dead data. Clearly, there were discussions, at least at one point, with some members of the community of players who had tried or had done the same thing. Was there any help there? Are there things you can do internally now where you have the to-do list, what are the things we have to go through to get it done?

Brack: We start that. There are many different things we can do about how we are going where we want to be. We did not make all the decisions lightly. There are many decisions to make. One of the reasons we probably announce the community a little earlier, is that we actually wish to collaborate with them a little bit. We want to hear their comments on the direction to follow. If you think about – there were two years between the launch of World of Warcraft and the release of Burning Crusade. Many things have changed. What should we shoot for? My favorite example is Upper Blackrock Spire. There was a 10-person version and a five-person version for most of that two-year period, but towards the end we decided that NBSL / UBRS would only have five people. be appropriate for that. Is this the right decision? I do not know. These are the types of questions. There are many questions like this that we will talk about with the community. [Ed. Note: The company eventually settled on Patch 1.12; see the developer’s blog linked above for details.]

New man: Let's talk about some of the most important decisions that have been made or not. Are we talking about WoW in its original Pixelly glory? Are we talking remastered? Something that was built for the modern engines that Legion and Battle for Azeroth use.

Brack: This is a decision that is before us. I think my point of departure is that the course should be to try to recreate the original experience of 2004, 2005. This is the course we should follow. But there are a lot of nuances there. Should we use high definition character models? I think it's an interesting question that the community will help us take.

New man: It would essentially require you to rebuild them, right? Because we do not necessarily have high definition character models that are not reworked versions of the characters.

Brack: What I mean, would we allow those who work in the old [framework.]

New man: As opposed to an attempt to recreate the more complex aspect, but with the modern engine.

Brack: Correct.

New man: What are the other decision challenges you face for traditional servers?

Brack: I think we want to make sure that it is very maintainable. I think the challenge of being able to resurrect the classic WoW in its original form is that it presents some complexity. But this game was very difficult to manage. It would be like managing two MMOs, which we do not want to do. The world has evolved. If you think of infrastructure, if you think of something, there is a very good analogy with cooking. There is no way to remove the oregano from the spaghetti sauce. You just put oregano, and now how can we handle that?

New man: It's now, potentially, a static game in an industry where you've created this dynamically evolving monster. Why do it? You have been on the fence for a long time.

Brack: I think there are three big reasons. We talked about it for many years. First, the community made it very clear that a certain percentage, a certain number of people, were really interested in what it was going to be. Internally, I have my job because of classic WoW. There are many people who like that a lot, many employees who like the classic WoW. There is an internal group of people who are also interested. And I think the third thing is that a lot of people have played this game, with a lot of comments on it, and you can not really play it with a Blizzard quality today. It's a little disappointing. It's a little sad. If you take all this, that's all the reasons to do it. We now have an idea of ​​how we can minimize technical complexity. We think we can succeed.

New man: What is this idea, this path? What was the turning point for all of you in terms of saying, okay, it's now in the area of ​​feasibility?

Brack: It was internal discussions, and it was kind of a reflection on how we could technically advance in a way that was not managing two MMOs. And so, what we will try to do is run the classic WoW on what we consider to be the modern WoW infrastructure. It's completely transparent to the user. The user does not see how the server is organized. The user does not see how the database works. But that's a big part of how we think we can do it now.

New man: I always joke with people that the celebration of the 10th anniversary of Warcraft, where you reopened Molten Core's large-group raid dungeon, and people had the chance to revisit that dungeon – that was Blizzard developer's ultimate revenge for all the players who said that vanilla was the best. You come in and it takes 500 million hours and everyone dies doing really stupid things. There are mechanisms that make people crazy. And it was without having to improve people every five minutes.

Brack: I have to melt these hunting dogs.

New man: Exactly. Clearly, in this case, you had players who said that WoW was better at vanilla, then they came back in the raid and it left, that is terrible. Do you worry about the fact that there is a subset of people who want classic servers, then they come back on a classic server and realize, wait, that's not how I remember ? This new and exciting excitement "or it was the first time I've seen WoW" – or the joy of meeting new friends in a game for the first time – may or may not be there when they come back on the remastered the servers.

Brack: I had trouble a few years ago. I said, it's something you think you want, but you do not do it. And what I was trying to say with that is somehow exactly what you encapsulate, namely that nostalgia is one thing. The pink colored glasses are one thing. Human brains are not designed to remember pain. And you remember good things. You do not remember the pain. I have not done a great job of communicating this feeling, right? Clearly.

New man: People have not embraced this eagerly?

Brack: It's strange. I think there will be these people exactly as you speak. It's good. And I also think that there is this group of people for whom this is the game. It is their refuge. This is the moment they want to find and it's the game that reminds them of this time. It's the community experience they want to have. What is his size? I have no idea. I have no idea. There is no way to know. But we are convinced, by the desire of these people, the desire of our internal employees and the desire to preserve what WoW was, that it is the right decision.

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Blizzard Entertainment announced today that World of Warcraft: Classic will be playable, at least in a limited form, for the annual November 2 Fan Convention.

The announcement was made as part of a video content announcement for virtual ticket buyers at BlizzCon; these buyers will receive a code to download a demo version of the game. The approximately 35,000 players attending the show at the Anaheim Convention Center (California) will have access to the demo at the show. Viewers will be able to access the demo after the opening ceremony at around 1pm. Pacific time, November 2nd. The demonstration will be available until about 10 am Pacific on November 8th.

Popular Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game World of Warcraft has been around for 14 years starting in November, and it has changed a lot at that time. There were no draenei or worgen, pandaren or blood elves, let alone new breeds. Horde players could not make paladins and Alliance players could not do shamans. The Cataclysm's global events had not yet occurred, making the geography and experience of the game quest very different.

New additions such as scaling technology that allows players to choose areas where they did not exist. Neither feats, nor combat animals, nor transmogrification changed the appearance of the machines. If you're nostalgic for days when you need days, not hours, to go from levels 1 to 60, you're about to live again.

Fans have been calling for WoW: Classic for years and impromptu servers have popped up over time to allow gamers to come back to the happy days of "vanilla" WoW. Blizzard had decided to shut down these servers as part of the protection of its intellectual property, but pledged at BlizzCon last year to investigate a classic official version of the game. A recent developer blog commented on this. progression.

Above: The World of Warcraft: classic ad video.

Last fall, I had the opportunity to talk with WoW's Director of Production, J. Allen Brack, at the BlizzCon about the company's work on Classic, as this work was just beginning. Here's what he had to say about the challenges posed by Classic:

Heather Newman: Let's talk about classic servers.

J. Allen Brack: I am shocked to hear that this will be a topic of conversation for us.

New man: Is it always a kind of "soon" situation? Soon with a capital S? "We think it's a good idea but there are still no men involved in the project?"

Brack: There are humans involved. But it's a larger enterprise than people think, I think. It's a huge technical challenge.

New man: Can you talk about the reasons for this?

Brack: Sure. If you can imagine, the most important is how the database works today and the way it worked in 2004 is extremely different. The way servers are installed and working nowadays is very different from that of 2004. The game is not even – the old code is not even built, right? The compiler – the material has changed. Computers have evolved. There are new operating systems, new things. Many older versions of the database and operating system are no longer supported. These are 13 years old at this stage.

New man: Oracle is not queuing to rebuild them for you?

Brack: Oh, they have this modern version that they are eager to use, but the old, not so much.

New man: So, talk about the process you use. You basically resuscitate technical data and dead data. Clearly, there were discussions, at least at one point, with some members of the community of players who had tried or had done the same thing. Was there any help there? Are there things you can do internally now where you have the to-do list, what are the things we have to go through to get it done?

Brack: We start that. There are many different things we can do about how we are going where we want to be. We did not make all the decisions lightly. There are many decisions to make. One of the reasons we probably announce the community a little earlier, is that we actually wish to collaborate with them a little bit. We want to hear their comments on the direction to follow. If you think about – there were two years between the launch of World of Warcraft and the release of Burning Crusade. Many things have changed. What should we shoot for? My favorite example is Upper Blackrock Spire. There was a 10-person version and a five-person version for most of that two-year period, but towards the end we decided that NBSL / UBRS would only have five people. be appropriate for that. Is this the right decision? I do not know. These are the types of questions. There are many questions like this that we will talk about with the community. [Ed. Note: The company eventually settled on Patch 1.12; see the developer’s blog linked above for details.]

New man: Let's talk about some of the most important decisions that have been made or not. Are we talking about WoW in its original Pixelly glory? Are we talking remastered? Something that was built for the modern engines that Legion and Battle for Azeroth use.

Brack: This is a decision that is before us. I think my point of departure is that the course should be to try to recreate the original experience of 2004, 2005. This is the course we should follow. But there are a lot of nuances there. Should we use high definition character models? I think it's an interesting question that the community will help us take.

New man: It would essentially require you to rebuild them, right? Because we do not necessarily have high definition character models that are not reworked versions of the characters.

Brack: What I mean, would we allow those who work in the old [framework.]

New man: As opposed to an attempt to recreate the more complex aspect, but with the modern engine.

Brack: Correct.

New man: What are the other decision challenges you face for traditional servers?

Brack: I think we want to make sure that it is very maintainable. I think the challenge of being able to resurrect the classic WoW in its original form is that it presents some complexity. But this game was very difficult to manage. It would be like managing two MMOs, which we do not want to do. The world has evolved. If you think of infrastructure, if you think of something, there is a very good analogy with cooking. There is no way to remove the oregano from the spaghetti sauce. You just put oregano, and now how can we handle that?

New man: It's now, potentially, a static game in an industry where you've created this dynamically evolving monster. Why do it? You have been on the fence for a long time.

Brack: I think there are three big reasons. We talked about it for many years. First, the community made it very clear that a certain percentage, a certain number of people, were really interested in what it was going to be. Internally, I have my job because of classic WoW. There are many people who like that a lot, many employees who like the classic WoW. There is an internal group of people who are also interested. And I think the third thing is that a lot of people have played this game, with a lot of comments on it, and you can not really play it with a Blizzard quality today. It's a little disappointing. It's a little sad. If you take all this, that's all the reasons to do it. We now have an idea of ​​how we can minimize technical complexity. We think we can succeed.

New man: What is this idea, this path? What was the turning point for all of you in terms of saying, okay, it's now in the area of ​​feasibility?

Brack: It was internal discussions, and it was kind of a reflection on how we could technically advance in a way that was not managing two MMOs. And so, what we will try to do is run the classic WoW on what we consider to be the modern WoW infrastructure. It's completely transparent to the user. The user does not see how the server is organized. The user does not see how the database works. But that's a big part of how we think we can do it now.

New man: I always joke with people that the celebration of the 10th anniversary of Warcraft, where you reopened Molten Core's large-group raid dungeon, and people had the chance to revisit that dungeon – that was Blizzard developer's ultimate revenge for all the players who said that vanilla was the best. You come in and it takes 500 million hours and everyone dies doing really stupid things. There are mechanisms that make people crazy. And it was without having to improve people every five minutes.

Brack: I have to melt these hunting dogs.

New man: Exactly. Clearly, in this case, you had players who said that WoW was better at vanilla, then they came back in the raid and it left, that is terrible. Do you worry about the fact that there is a subset of people who want classic servers, then they come back on a classic server and realize, wait, that's not how I remember ? This new and exciting excitement "or it was the first time I've seen WoW" – or the joy of meeting new friends in a game for the first time – may or may not be there when they come back on the remastered the servers.

Brack: I had trouble a few years ago. I said, it's something you think you want, but you do not do it. And what I was trying to say with that is somehow exactly what you encapsulate, namely that nostalgia is one thing. The pink colored glasses are one thing. Human brains are not designed to remember pain. And you remember good things. You do not remember the pain. I have not done a great job of communicating this feeling, right? Clearly.

New man: People have not embraced this eagerly?

Brack: It's strange. I think there will be these people exactly as you speak. It's good. And I also think that there is this group of people for whom this is the game. It is their refuge. This is the moment they want to find and it's the game that reminds them of this time. It's the community experience they want to have. What is his size? I have no idea. I have no idea. There is no way to know. But we are convinced, by the desire of these people, the desire of our internal employees and the desire to preserve what WoW was, that it is the right decision.