WoW Classic has changed the “era” realms – Angry players start petition

Blizzard has violated the most sacred property of WoW Classic fans. They are now angry and have even started a petition against it.

When World of Warcraft Classic launched a few years ago, there were already several outcry that Blizzard had changed numerous details in the original version of the MMORPG. The “#NoChanges” group was quite vocal and opposed every adjustment that was made – but ultimately accepted most of the changes (also due to a lack of alternatives).

Now Blizzard has changed the vanilla era realms again and released a new patch that sparked a petition.

What did Blizzard do? A small patch changed the Classic Era and Hardcore realms of World of Warcraft on July 9th. A total of 4 changes were made, which can be briefly summarized as follows:

These changes, apart from the guild interface, are all requests that have been heard in the Classic community for years and that many would have wanted to see when the Classic realms were launched. However, there are also many who reject any changes and for whom a red line has now been crossed.

What kind of petition is this? A petition has been started on the Change.org website demanding that Blizzard reverse the latest changes and restore the Classic realms to their previous state. The petition states:

Vanilla WoW is without a doubt one of the best games ever made. Hundreds of thousands of players have played it, both on official and private servers for the past 20 years. The Vanilla WoW formula has been tested for a long time and it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that people enjoy it and have the desire to play it without any changes.

The petition currently has 2,980 signatures (as of July 15, 2024, 11:00 a.m.) – still comparatively low.

However, the “Top Supporter Voices” with their video clips are unlikely to do much to encourage people to take the issue seriously. The videos seem to confirm pretty much all the prejudices that many people have against gamers – the indirect threats in particular are more likely to do the issue a disservice.

This is how the community discusses: The changes are also being discussed in the official WoW forum, and most of the comments are negative. From the commentators’ point of view, these are changes that no one asked for – or that simply come so late that they are no longer wanted.

This could be behind the patch: One theory in the community, however, is that Blizzard made the changes to the vanilla servers by accident. The adjustments are the same ones that were largely made in the “Season of Discovery.” The fact that these have now been introduced to the vanilla realms also leads to the assumption that this was actually an oversight that was never planned. However, this has not been confirmed.

What do you think of these changes and the petition? A good thing that we can get on board with? Or should Blizzard undo the patch at all costs and restore the previous state? Others are doing “WoW Classic with modern graphics”.