When I was a kid, I somehow managed to get the Sprite Darter Hatchling without even knowing it existed. I had one of the coolest pets in the game and didn't even realize how rare it was. That accidental discovery made it all the more special, and it's a memory that'll stay with me forever.

Now look how they massacred my boy.

I know one is a rare drop in Feralas and the other might be a shop pet, but the difference in design philosophy is undeniable.

And the fact that you can just buy it now makes it feel even less special. Back then, getting that pet was a genuine achievement or sometimes just an incredible stroke of luck. You had a story behind it. Now it's just another shop purchase...

Will this community start waiting til confirmation and stop dooming over datamines? Probably not.

Since WC3 my favourite race is NE. I am tired of the same 3 mount models! So YES I want new mounts in WoW Forever. But I want mounts that:

• are immersive (fit the race/lore)
• stay true to the classic world / artstyle
• stay decent (not overtuned in features)

Just to give some examples ...

• class themed race mounts
• a variety of armor/saddle versions
• different fur/skin/feather/bone/metal colours

And if the devs cannot help themselves but implement a bear mount. Why is the bear spectral? Why not just a normal bear with a nice features? Why this immersion breaking ghost version?

Don't give me the "you don't have to use it" BS. It is also immersion breaking if others use it. And not using the spectral bear doesn't result in new mounts for my race.

AI created the moon tiger based on this prompt: "look at this world of warcraft mount versions. create a new version that is moon priest themed (add details). fur should have real fur colours. keep the art style and immersion!"

So these mounts are apparently intended for Retail (Or China Exclusive), not WoW Forever. Interesting.

Personally, I think the community reaction may have made Blizzard reconsider, and if that's the case, I see it as a good thing.

But here's what makes this interesting. We datamined these mounts directly from the WoW Forever client. They're not present in Retail 12.1.7 or any other Classic client, not even as encrypted assets.

I also have a hard time believing Blizzard accidentally pushed the decryption keys for these specific mounts through a hotfix.

And then there's the other curious stuff in the Forever client: the FisherFalk armor set, Pinky pet, Baby Murloc Thrall, and even an encrypted Mecha Devilsaur mount. These assets already exist in Retail, yet they're present in Forever too, encrypted with entirely new keys.

Did Blizzard see the community's reaction and reconsider their plans? That's just my personal theory, and I could be completely wrong.

But if datamining gave players a chance to voice their opinions, and Blizzard actually listened and adjusted their plans, I'd call that a win for everyone.

Maybe datamining isn't always the villain of the story after all. 🫡

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/datamined-in-the-latest-beta-build/2385060

original post from @Stiven_SRB, can't post twitter links here

It’s for good reason, and it’s cuz we love the game are excited for it! November 4th can’t come soon enough!!

Too many are getting absolutely obsessed and bogged down in the min-max mentality already, alright?

I have a daughter, and in her teen years despite us being a working class family she got really materialistic. If we spent $1 more on her brother at Christmas then she definitely had the notion that we 'owed' her that $1 somehow, it was wild.

Now reading post about racials and class balance today, I get the same feeling of listening to crazy.

Getting hyper obsessed with equality across everything is just gonna ruin your experience, and worse yet if Blizzard feel they need to listen to that sort of talk it's going to ruin it for everyone else when they start homogenising everything. No one came to Classic for that.

Doing 1% less DPS than another race doesn't matter more than just enjoying the game, accepting that every race and class has it's strengths and weaknesses - and if it does matter to you then roll that race/class!

TL:DR; don't get obsessed with total equality, min-maxing, and perfection. You will spoil it for yourself. WoW Forever is shaping up to be a great experience. These are the good times, and for once we can be aware of them while it's happening!

Ain't no way /spit makes someone's game experience worse than being corpse camped.

If you watch Ziqo or Hydramist, you’ve seen it: an icon pops beside the enemy plate every time they press something. I asked on stream and the answer was “custom GCD addon”. Forever Open qualifiers are soon, there’s $100k on the line, and that shouldn’t come down to gatekept addons. This is the *only* public addon on curseforge that has the same functionality the streamer "custom addons" have

https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/forever-simple-gcd

There’s a reason nobody had put one out. On Forever, enemy spells reach addons as secret values. UNIT_SPELLCAST_SUCCEEDED still fires for an enemy plate, but you can’t read, compare or filter the spell ID, so normal last-spell addons throw the event away and show nothing. You can still draw it, though. Pass the secret ID into C_Spell.GetSpellName and GetSpellTexture, hand the answers straight to the icon and text, and the client draws the real spell without the addon ever knowing what it was.

Most enemy instants send no cast event at all, which is where the rest of the trick comes in. Buffs go through Blizzard’s secure aura container (CustomAuraContainerTemplate), which reads auras itself and plays an animation you give it when one is new, so Blood Fury or a shield flashes by name mid-fight. Debuffs new on you show on your opponent’s plate, since in a duel only they could have put them there.

It shows at action-button size beside their plate, with a GCD sweep like Blizzard’s buttons. No polling, no pcall, nothing reads a secret. /fgcd to set it up, and Show on screen puts samples on every plate so you can place it before your match.

Made with AI help. I designed it and tested it in duels myself.

If you're interested in my actual work where I put real time and effort into maintaining and polishing, and not just some one off custom thing for a tournament I'm not even participating in, check out my other stuff https://www.curseforge.com/members/tarolg/projects

We know Cataclysm was a lot more lenient on class/ race lore... is their a goblin class you can see the race losing when they're added to Forever or do you think they'll get every class they got added in Cataclysm.

Tbh i can see goblin warrior, Hunter, shaman, Rogue, mage and Warlock. I think they'll lose Priest.

I am hoping the goblins we get recruited will be a little more sinister capitalist than the toned down ones we got from Bilgewater and I'm hoping they'll have a female leader being The Tallest, who's just some big corpo boss in a tuxedo.

Seriously this is what the sub sounds like 24/7. Why do you people even play this game.

Someone posted yesterday that they hope Blizz wont add a million mounts to the game as it ruins immersion. Most of us agreed. Well here we are...

No offensive cd
No extra crit chance
No extra crit dmg
But a lifesteal that now avg around 0.6% of your dmg

Im fine with not having the crit / haste as other races, lets not homogenize stuff too much.
But 25x increase of a ICD, dayum son..

Mana is still awful, damage is still awful, flame shock is still 20 yards and mandatory to upkeep, and the playstyle is just a worse boomie/lock.

I'm already seeing it, and calling it now.

Blizzard is listening to the community.

Small suggestions that are posted here are implemented.

After every patch that is inspired by the community, there's a horde of man-children that whine and complain about almost anything implemented.

It's up to Blizzard entirely whether they want to preserve the soul of Classic, or bend to these chronically-online children.