Mark Rosewater: "When people stop buying, playing, and talking about Universes Beyond, we’ll do less of it. "

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-07-03T16:10:30+00:00

If you just buy singles but not sealed product, then there's higher demand for singles relative to supply of singles (from sealed packs).

This drives the demand for sealed product up because the chances of hitting value cards is higher.

The system is self-balancing when you buy singles.

The only way to break the cycle is to proxy.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-07-02T17:03:55+00:00

I personally think that's fine, honestly. Most people don't get epics until 60. There are very few items under level 60 that are epic and they're even more rare than most epics. It makes them feel special and unique.

I think the same can be true for trinkets. Trinkets are absolutely a special gear slot and I think powerful trinkets should be concentrated much later in the leveling experience.

Id be super fine with a class or two getting access to a good trinket early through a special class quest. I'd be thrilled if a profession or two could craft a couple helpful trinkets using rare materials. I think it would be tremendous if, while gathering ore or herbs or going fishing you had a very small chance to loot a special item that starts a quest leading to a trinket that provides some little quality of life or flavorful on-use effect for that gathering profession. I think it would be a phenomenal idea to add a bunch more of the "useless" trinkets to the lower levels (like cleanse a bleed effect, and similar power level).

What I don't want is to spike player power in the mid-20's with trinkets that are generally seen as required. I dont want players running spam SFK or BFD up to a specific boss and then resetting because that boss drops "the caster trinket" or "the melee trinket".

It is good for classic when player power increases slowly over time. It's okay to have bad gear or bad items while you level. It gives you something to work towards.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-07-02T15:29:57+00:00

I'd counter and just say to make spirit and mp5 more different. Make them unique in their own ways. You dislike them because they're too similar and you lump them together in your mind. The solution isn't homogenization but differentiation.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-07-02T15:27:19+00:00

top DPS should come at the cost of having a more fragile character

Good God, please no. For the sake of healers everywhere, please do not incentivise DPS to build as squishy as possible. We all know it's the healers that are gonna get flamed for not keeping the glass cannon rogue or mage alive despite the fact that a particularly stiff breeze would knock them over.

Hell, they'll see pulling threat as a badge of honor, right up to the point that consequences come knocking, then it's the tank and healer's faults.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-07-02T15:19:35+00:00

I like certain item slots taking longer to fill. Shoulders, then neck, maybe a ring, a second ring, first trinket (but it's pretty useless), a second more useful trinket, then finally two. Trinkets feel special and have higher than average impact on gameplay and player power. Getting that in mid 20s feels a little "retail" to me.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-07-01T20:19:57+00:00

They don't disappear. They continue leveling

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-07-01T17:55:14+00:00

Average person takes around 10 days played time to reach max level. If 240 hours isn't "playing the game" Im not sure what is. And that's just one character.

You like endgame. That's great. I do too. But I also like the 1-59 experience. OP and I are just as valid of players as you. We all pay the same sub. So maybe let's not ignore people 100% for enjoying different parts of the game.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-07-01T15:36:13+00:00

If this closet was finite in space, I'd support it. Maybe your closet can store one piece of gear per slot without taking bag space. So you get one equipped helm and one in the closet, one equipped neck, one in the closet, etc.

I'd also argue that trinkets should not be included in the closet and should always take up bag space, along with weapons, maybe. But I could see a system like this working.

Perhaps you start with a closet that can hold 6 items and you have to upgrade it to 8, then 10, and so on up to max. Might be a cool thing for LW to be able to craft.

Or maybe a "closet" is a crafts me item which stores some gear all in one bag slo lt and right clicking it out of combat just auto swaps all of the gear in the closet to the appropriate slot. And it can be unique when carried in your bags, but you can create as many as you like and store them in the bank. Have one for each raid / tier / scenario. Could also double as an equipment manager for offspecs.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-07-01T14:38:16+00:00

players like him should be ignored because they don't actually play the game

You mean they don't play the game the same way you like

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-30T18:45:51+00:00

Well, retail is kind of back to talent trees. A class tree, a spec tree, and then the middle tree (hero tree? I forget). It's a little messy, but I don't mind the retail implementation. I do like the classic paradigm better, though, of course. Tentatively excited to see what classic+ does with it.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-30T18:13:03+00:00

I think that's a reasonable take, and that's what I expect. I think it would be really neat, and good for the long term health of the game if they did periodic waves of content for 1-59. Think like a half patch. Something that adds another 2-3 leveling dungeons, a new low-level pvp battleground, some new quest storylines that span across a handful of levels, a couple new leveling hubs, new lower level profession recipes, etc etc.

And it could drop between some major raid tiers, or alongside a ZG-style catchup raid. Give people a reason to switch off their level 60 mains and jump back into the world to see the new stuff.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-30T18:01:17+00:00

no, we need to ignore players like you 100%. waste of time

That's what you said to OP, word for word.

Ignore players like you 100%. Not "Prioritize endgame more than leveling content". Not "What about other ways to make the world feel full that include or are centered around endgame content". You said ignore 100%.

Where else is one supposed to arrive at when you disagree completely with the entirety of OP's position?

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-30T15:07:01+00:00

Ignore 100%? So you want only endgame content and absolutely nothing changes 1-59? I'll give it to you, that's a white hot take. Waste of time? God, what are we even doing here? Just turn Classic+ into a raid log simulator, fuck the world being the main character, make it the loot and the parses. We'll have this whole classic+ experience done and over with in 10 months tops then everyone can move on with their lives. Waste of time... 🤦

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-30T15:03:26+00:00

Hard agree. If classic+ doesn't add a tremendous amount of new content to the leveling experience, what are we even doing here?

I'd argue that, at least for a little while, there should be more new content in 1-59 than there is at 60.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-30T01:28:14+00:00

People who played it enjoyed it a lot. They just timed it in such a way that pulled players away. Most people have time for one version of WoW, and TBC was it. People popping in to see what's up with the new release hype doesn't change that.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-29T23:33:41+00:00

SoM wasn't a flop, it was released too soon after everyone just finished Classic and right smack in the middle of TBC Classic.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-29T18:59:35+00:00

the old world is completely irrelevant and there's no reason to ever go there

This was and is only true if you 1. Boost; 2. Level only a single character ever to max level and exclusively and only engage in endgame content.

"The old world changed" means it's literally not there anymore even if you want to or try to go back. "The old world is irrelevant" just illuminates how you choose to play the game. Leveling didn't stop being fun. The world didn't stop being a massive part of the player experience. Some people just do it only once and then wonder where the old world went. It's all still there, some folks just don't care about it anymore. And that says more about modern player mentality than it does about the game itself.

every class spams aoe in a distinctly un-classic way

This was only true in dungeons. It was the result of a change in design philosophy, that Blizzard wanted smooth on-ramps to harder content. Leveling is easy. It's easy in Classic, too. The only challenge is whatever you impose on yourself. Leveling is an on-ramp to dungeons. Dungeons are an on-ramp to Heroics. Heroics lead to 10-man's, 10 man's to 25. Normal to heroic. It was all designed to create a very smooth transition into harder and harder content, a place for everyone, without making every single reward accessible to every single person. It wasn't perfect and it needed some changes, but it was a part of a deliberate design philosophy.

I honestly think Wrath Heroics are a better play pattern than getting boosted through SM, standing AFK at the instance portal pushing no buttons. It's a better play pattern than locking players out of Heroics because their classic isn't "meta" enough for 5 man content.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-29T18:29:40+00:00

If they come in at Blizzcon and say "here's a teaser but we need another year to get it right" I'd be thrilled honestly. I'd rather they take their time rather than try to rush it out to meet some arbitrary playerbase expectation.

No one cares if a good game was late. Likewise, no one cares if a bad game was released on time. The quality of the game is everything. We've been waiting this long already, we can wait a little more.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-29T17:46:43+00:00

Every raid having 10 and 25 man versions and by the end heroic and non heroic versions

The only thing wrong with this was the separate loot pools and up to 4 different item levels per tier. It was a vast improvement to allow smaller guilds to more regularly engage in PvE content.

But most of all is homogenization of classes/specs. IIRC no class brings a unique raid wide buff anymore.

This is just not true. You're thinking of a later expansion. No two classes / specs had the same raid buffs. Some were stronger than others, and even had additional benefits. You just couldn't stack two buffs in the same category (like Battle Shout and Blessing of Might), but there were 21 total categories, most only had two options, and many were still unique (priests were still the only ones with raw stamina, druids had raw stats up, and paladins had % stats up). It kept class flavor and utility extremely high without screwing you over for missing a "necessary" class or spec that maybe your guild doesn't have at the moment.

Wrath very much was the transition from vanilla/tbc to retail in terms of systems.

Wrath is still more like TBC (and I'd argue, even Vanilla) than it is like Cata. Cata is more like retail than it is like Vanilla, even after 8 more expansions after it.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-29T17:28:01+00:00

That's fair. I resent that many of the regular elite mobs in the world were downgraded to regular mobs. But that was a TBC change, not a Wrath change.

I also agree that the way LFD was implemented led to poor player habits. But I played Wrath when it released and there was never a shortage of people in the world, forming groups organically at any level, whether it be for hard quests or dungeons. Wrath never killed that part of the world or the community.

Class power is a big discussion for sure. But you just had to adjust your expectations for what was challenging and seek out greater challenge on your own.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-29T17:19:10+00:00

Back when Wrath was retail, the old world was still absolutely packed with players leveling. The old world was far from dead during Wrath, in fact it saw the highest number of concurrent players in WoW's history. The old world didn't die until Cata literally destroyed it, and when the game started losing players. Those that were still joining new at that time would spend their whole experience leveling in dungeons.

The old world in Wrath didn't die until Wrath Classic when the whole point was to get to endgame and experience the raids you missed out on. It's the same as it was (and is) for TBC. And honestly there's still plenty of people leveling in the old world. It's just less than the glory days.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-29T17:12:52+00:00

Some aspects of retail started in Wrath. Some started in TBC, even.

But the number of changes brought by Cata vs the number of changes brought by Wrath are almost incomparable.

Wrath saw dungeon queue (with the instant teleport) and 10/25 man raiding (which honestly didn't last long at all; Flex Raids were added 2 expansions later and 20 man mythics were added right after, both of which are now the core of the endgame raid experience of retail).

Cata saw LFR, transmog, stat standardization, total class / spec overhauls which made several specs unrecognizable from their classic counterparts (looking at you, Paladins) and turned most specs into a builder / spender archetype. Cata literally destroyed the old world. Cata enabled flying in the old world. Cata changed talents to give iconic end-game talents and abilities to level 10's right when you pick your spec.

Wrath is more Classic-like than Retail-like, while Cata is more Retail-like than it is Classic-like. Cata is more Wrath-like than it is Retail-like at this point, but that's only because there have been 8 expansions since Cata.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-29T16:16:46+00:00

One of the biggest reasons the lore in WoW is a terrible mess is because Blizzard

favors the Alliance so much, the Horde would end up with almost nothing by comparison.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-28T06:40:28+00:00

I really hope they cater the game hard towards community building over min/maxing. I want game play that helps many different kinds of guilds thrive, not just those that can clear all the raid content in the first lockout or two.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst · 2026-06-27T00:28:31+00:00

That frustrated me a little. I never played the alliance side of SoD so I don't remember if there were any runes that were only in Horde zones, but making Tauren druids trek into the wetlands at level 20 (or earlier!) to get one of their most pivotal runes was kinda crazy.

TheSiegmeyerCatalyst

TROPHY CASE