Blizzard asks World Of Warcraft players if they'd go back to The Burning Crusade
Beyond the Dark Portal
What happens after World Of Warcraft: Classic? It's something the MMO throwback was always going to have to deal with, eventually. There's only so much content to revisit after all. As Classic's expiration date slowly draws closer, Blizzard have begun asking players what they'd like to see next - specifically, whether they're ready to head back through the Dark Portal in a Classic-style return to World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade.
The folks at RPS fanzine PC Gamer report that Blizzard are gauging interest for a return to Outland. It seems World Of Warcraft Classic did gangbusters for Blizzard, and they're keen on working out whether a similar followup for The Burning Crusade would hit that same mark, sending surveys to a select few Classic subscribers.
These days, The Burning Crusade is kind of a brick wall in the levelling grind. But back in 2007, World Of Warcraft's first expansion was a riot - adding Blood Elves and Draenei to the race roster, and letting players explore a shattered world on their fancy new flying mounts. Horde players could finally be pretty, electric mummies sold you laser swords, and you could ride a ghost dragon if you were willing to waste an entire month farming for eggs on a small floating island. Notoriously garish outfits sealed the expansion as Warcraft's "early 90s" fashion phase.
The survey touches on a number of different ways Burning Crusade could return. Would people want their current Classic servers upgraded to the new expansion, or should each Classic iteration host its own community? Would players want to start at level 1 or level 58? Should these characters be fresh-faced rookies, or seasoned mains pulled over from Classic? That's if Outland even returns at all. Right now, it's likely Blizzard are simply doing a little factfinding before committing to a potential Burning Crusade Classic.
But as World Of Warcraft Classic runs out of content to bring back, it's going to find itself in an interesting position. Will Blizzard start rotating back through expansions as they happen? I know plenty of folk (myself included, admittedly) who'd love to revisit Wrath Of The Lich King, but what happens when the line between "modern" and Classic WoW becomes harder to draw?
Do people really want to end up with a Warlords of Draenor Classic?
Personally, I've always sorta hoped they'd pull a Runescape on Classic - keeping an old-school server alive for the grognards that skew off in its own direction, only adding features if players felt it kept to the spirit of the old game.