What’s next?
[Update:The 40-person Naxxramas (Naxx) raid is now live inWoW Classic. Blizzard put out a trailer for the raid below, which is absolutely wild to see in 2020. So many memories are flooding back! Naxx felt like a punishing and proper end to VanillaWoW, and a great way to usher in the new era ofBurning Crusade. Now we see what Blizzard has planned next: a new announcement in February for BlizzCon online sounds likely.]
World of Warcraft Classicwill eventually get to the point where it hits the end of Vanilla’s lifetime: patch 1.12.2 (which is confusingly different from the nomenclature used forClassic, bear with me here!).
I mean, it’s cruising there right now, asClassicjust introduced the concept of Naxxramas to its Azerothian denizens, which heralds the end of the expansion and the lead-in toBurning Crusade, the best expansion: no need to at me, you know I’m right. It’s also the point where a lot of my friends quit the game, as me and a few others gotmore into itstarting withBurning Crusadeon. It was an exciting time forWoW!
Let’s break down where we’re at right now.Classicjust added the “Shadow of the Necropolis” patch this week, which is version “1.13.6” forClassic. InWoWterms,it’s patch 1.11.0. After that, there are only five more patches to go until we start to get into 2.0Burning Crusadeterritory. Most of them are minor fixes, beforethe “Drums of War” patchhits with 1.12.
As we know,WoW: Classicuses the Drums of War patch as theframeworkofWoW: Classic, allowing years of innovations to shine through on day one of the re-release. In other words,Classicis nearly “complete” following the launch of Naxxramas. What’s next? Well, I hope we getBurning Crusade. Maybe Blizzard is working on it right now, and will pull the switch when theClassicplayerbase starts dwindling. Once that announcement hits (at February’s BlizzCon Online? Or November 2021’s potential BlizzCon?), people will start flocking back in en masse.
