So far, Blizzard has only partially succeeded in starting the hype surrounding World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic. Instead, any official announcement of Northrend's relaunch seems to stoke the ire of sections of the community. The criticism expressed in many places is nonsensical.
Over the next few months, the Wrath of the Lich King Classic Edition will be more than just another release in the World of Warcraft era. This time the most successful sourcebook in the history of World of Warcraft is on the program. 12 million paying subscribers...... This is a unique success in the field of online role-playing games with its buy2play system and mandatory subscriptions.
But it's not just the massive player base that makes WotLK the most successful WoW sourcebook of all time, but also the community's retrospective ratings. Northrend Adventures has been voted the most popular or best WoW plugin in countless polls (here's an example from 2021), and usually won by a wide margin.
Anger instead of hype - where are the WotLK fans?
I personally think Wrath of the Lich King was a very good (though not the best) expansion pack for World of Warcraft. I had a lot of fun with it back then and I still have a lot of good memories of it to this day. This is likely to be the case for many Warcraft veterans. However, when World of Warcraft Classic released, I was even happier to have the opportunity to revisit the original Azeroth and explore some of the content I missed back then (like parts of the Temple of Anchorra and Naxxramas).
Apparently others were having......well......differently. Again and again I read in the comments "WoW Classic will only be a transition, I'm keen on WotLK Classic!", or a little later "Oh TBC, yes I take it or leave it, but WotLK Classic I'm definitely at the start!" . Most likely, these players would prefer to fast-forward time so they can go to Northrend immediately.
Since this does not work, patience is required. Patience will soon be rewarded. The beta version is already running and is expected to be released in September 2022. But so far there has been little anticipation, only when I'm hanging out in the international community of certain classic streamers/Youtubers or Wrath Discord channels. On the other hand, I didn't expect it, I just read the annoyance in many comments on buffed, Facebook and Co. The criticism expressed in many places is incomprehensible to me.
Criticism 1: Blizzard only warms up old content
Of course, this criticism is not new. It is already available in WoW (Buy Now) Classic and TBC Classic. Often insults are added because apparently those who like classic content are stupid idiots. What the critics are forgetting here: Blizzard doesn't want to develop Classic versions ("they think they do, but they don't"). The community had to fight for years to preserve these classic variants. Even when the developers decided to reboot the original World of Warcraft, they obviously believed it was for a niche market - as evidenced by the number of servers Blizzard is providing for the launch of World of Warcraft Classic, among other things wanted to.
Speaking of servers, the population on the WoW Classic and TBC Classic servers has exceeded Blizzard's expectations. In other words, there is a relevant demand and strong desire for classic Warcraft content. You don't have to be able to understand this. But if you don't want to be cheap wotlk classic gold costly, you'll be glad Blizzard has been granting that wish for a few years now, mostly because it hasn't taken anything away from you.
Looking back at Activision Blizzard's earnings reports over the last few years, we could even say that the success of World of Warcraft and TBC Classic offset the decline of Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands (which, apart from launch, have done little in recent years had to celebrate) outweighs that to some degree - who knows if it wasn't for Warcraft Classic and TBC Classic it would have existed in the form of an announcement this year, Dragon Flight?!
Finally, I would say that Blizzard is no longer just warming up to old content in the classic space. That may have been the case in World of Warcraft Classic, but since then the strategy has clearly evolved from #nochanges to #somechanges or even #manychanges (championship seasons). This brings us to the second point of criticism that directly affects WotLK.
