Blizzard is taking a hard look at itemization in World of Warcraft Classic in an effort to ensure that players get their hands on items at the right time.
Since announcing World of Warcraft Classic at Blizzcon a few years ago, Blizzard has intended to provide players with the closest analog to true, old-school WoW that it can — whether that means assuring new content doesn’t roll out too soon, or adjusting the loot tables to assure things that shouldn’t be traded can’t be.
In one case, Blizzard even made adjustments to how spell timing works so that Classic players can experience that weird bit of simultaneous spell casting that doesn’t really happen in World of Warcraft these days.
This time, Blizzard is taking a serious look at items, determining what was made available to players when. Effectively, if an armor set was added to World of Warcraft at the same time as a specific boss or dungeon, that’s when players of WoW Classic should expect to be able to obtain them.
However, there will be some differences. One thing Blizzard will not be doing is changing stats on these items over time, much as it did when the items in question first rolled out. Instead, players will simply be given the last version of the item.
The example provided in a recent dev post on the Blizzard forums involved the Helm of Wrath. When added to the game, the item had Spirit and Agility tied to it. Over time, the stats were changed to Stamina, Strength, and Defense, with Defense eventually being reduced. When players see the item in WoW Classic, it will have a similar set of stats.
The reasoning behind this decision has to do with the fact that adjustments to things like stats are intended to fix issues with the game. Since the devs already know the best possible outcome for these items — from doing this the first time around — they’ve decided their efforts could better be applied elsewhere, rather than creating issues only to fix them.
World of Warcraft Classic will launch sometime later this year. For those interested, Blizzard recently announced when Blizzcon tickets will go on sale.
