Private Server Concept: Passion 3.3.5a

[BookNQuill]

I swear I have no Idea how I got roped into doing this .-., never owe favor to your friends guys, never owe a favor to em.

I didn't see it was against the rule even though I know this site is generally meant for advertising but I also saw old posts that talked about concepts. So If I did break a rule which again I read those pretty well and hopefully not, that the moderators would just simply delete the post and maybe redirect me elsewhere?

I couldn't find a better subreddit but I'm also not much of a redditor so I wouldn't know how to use it. Anyways without further ado I wanted to create this concept about a WotLK Custom Server, and I wanted to it to go above and beyond then what most are doing when it comes to "Plus!" Servers.

I actually have my own dedicated trello board which I use in my free/spare time, feel free to take a look at it here. You might notice a lot of features weren't originally my own concept, but merely my own take on it. Some are just ideas and most likely in a hypothetical situation where this server comes to light, will never happen.

A lot of it is me throwing out ideas, a lot which may not even be refined. Anyways enough about that, let's get to main talking points.

A 3.3.5a WoTLK+ server which I've decided to temporarily call WoWER WotLK as a silly choice, will feature the following. (Note: Or we might call it Passion, as in a Project of Passion, cause that's what this is. Who knows)

• Specialization Kits: Inspired from later expansions, all classes will now have Specialization Kits to choose at level 10. The most notable difference is you are NOT locked to any role, and these specialization kits are chosen and designed carefully so that things can still be somewhat "universal" without over-homogenizing it.
  • In the situation of Retribution Paladin, you'll change very few talents to go from PVE to PVP, as well as well as situational talents that need to be changed during raid time. So the Spec Kit will take the mostly ret-only talents such as, Crusader's Strike, Divine Storm, Sheath of Light, Judgements of the Wise, Righteous Vengeance, Art of War, Sanctity of Battle, etc.
    • Note: You may see Seal of Command in there and yes while Prot Paladin has a build that uses this, I've reorganized it to where Prot will have its own possible substitute that works similarly but better for Prot.
    • The Goal here is to think about what should and shouldn't be in a Spec Kit, to kind of balance the Core Class, The Core Specialization (Or in other words, devotions/subclass), and what should be readily available to all specs.
  • For classes like Death Knight, you'll notice that's a little more complex because in Wrath, both Frost & Blood could be tanks, and Unholy could off-tank. Meaning we have to balance what we believe is more all death knight but what is also more in tune with that Spec's Identity.
    • We've taken the liberty in this case to pull new abilities from later expacs to help fulfill that Class's Identity. The reasoning behind this is I believe Blood is more of a vampiric fighter, meaning relying on leeching health from enemies whether to defend themselves as a Tank or take down others as a DPS.
    • I haven't officially lined out how exactly this would play but a mere base concept is available. As for Frost, when I think Frost and Shadow, I think something heavier, slower, tankier, so it keeps its original variant of Frost Presence for Tank in heavy armor. It still plays on the Classical Frost Tank DK with some modifications to make it feel more tune.
    • This brings me to another point, with DK I want essentially for you to have the ability to change your Presence to help encourage a certain playstyle, but I also still want it so you don't feel forced, so you can take Frost Presence as an Unholy or Blood Tank as it was originally intended in Wrath. This means we have to be careful and balance what should be Universal or not universal between all specs.
• Universal Talent System: This is another feature. Each Talent Tree will be based heavily for that Class, there is a possibility of some talents that may end up in the end Spec-specific, but generally it's to help improve and build playstyles for each Spec.
  • Death Knight again is a great example of how this can allow each spec play in various ways, from an Unholy Tank who takes command of his minions, uses his "Boneweaving" to protect himself (hence the addition of Marrowrend which I believe is more Unholy then Blood), and to take damage away from allies.
  • Or you can just go for a classic Unholy DPS with possible fun new mechanics such as a speedy shadow knight who dual-wields his weapons to flurry the enemies with rapid diseases.
  • Whereas classes like Paladin is a more solidified in its own core class/spec. Retribution Paladin becoming more of a dervish like fighter or a heretic dual-wielder (with some Scarlet Crusade inspiration). A Holy Paladin that can sacrifice itself in order to protect others (inspired by Retail's martyr builds), or even a holy paladin that's more of a damage/healing hybrid, using auras and temporary auras to empower itself and other allies.
  • This is where things become the most trickiest, "What should stay as talents, what is obsolete, what should be part of the Spec's core kit, what should be baseline?" These are questions that need to be answered. "Will Universal Talents have a single talent that can completely change the way you play your class?" Potentially, but possibly not a single talent alone. "What about Glyphs?" No comment.
• PVE FOCUSED! Yes I think you might've noticed now, we are purely PvE focused! PvP is of no concern to us...I mean me, who am I kidding, I don't got friends otherwise I wouldn't be here. I believe PvP and PvE should have separate balances instead. However, I will not elaborate further cause that is not the topic of the post.
• Raids & Dungeons: In this project we want to change Raids & Dungeons in a way that would be as if it were originally intended. Blizzard's reasoning for the Subscription model was originally because they were going to simply "release mass patches of content over time.", meaning there wasn't even an indication of Expansions at that time so Level Caps wouldn't have been a thought
  • In this project we change to what we believe would be what WoW could've been had it done something like that. Old Raids & Dungeons have been brought back into life and been given a place for those at the Endgame.
  • Dungeons: For Dungeons, we didn't want to bring ALL of the lowlevel dungeons to 80, otherwise we'd have too many. So did what we thought was fit, adjusted lower level dungeons to be better, including taking examples from other private servers where the dungeons had better scaling as well as splitting certain LARGE dungeons into smaller parts for efficiency.
  • Raids:As for Raids, we've even brought Blackrock Spire, both upper and lower, into a raid of its own. Each Raid has its own intended Player Amount, as in Molten Core being a 40 man, will naturally be a 40 man raid. There is a flex difficulty but Flex Difficulty is what we consider our version of "LFR", the learning ropes, so you can flexibility from 10 - 25, and also earn gear that's still considerable upgrade.
    • Normal Raids will be as the original raid intended with small altercations, meaning you will have a 40 man Molten Core that's adjusted to be level 80.
    • Heroic Raids will be the same as the original raid but merely harder.
    • Mythic Raids will be where it brings in new mechanics to make the Dungeon with more Pizzaz, while also gaining better gear.
    • Challenging Raids. So there's a bit of confusion between this and Challenge Mode. You can select Challenge Mode on any raid/dungeon for increased rewards, but the Challenging Difficulty itself is an INTENSIFICATION of the Raid. It has the new mechanics of Mythic Raids and heavily increased difficulty.
    • The only exception is you'll notice a 40 man Icecrown Citadel is planned. The reason behind is this, is seeing as Icecrown Citadel is the last raid in this Era of WoW, we want it to be the special one without giving the raid too much flavor that none of the others get.
  • New Raid: Scarlet Citadel
    • Yes, you heard right, you think because you heard this from a certain Vanilla server that they were the first to think of this? Nah who HASN'T thought of making a raid of Scarlet Monastery. More Information on the Trello Board.

To be continued below....

 

[BookNQuill]

Itemization Features: As we bring old raids/dungeons into light, and modify new raids/dungeons, as well as massive class changes, we want to make clear that Itemization will be having huge adjustments.

• Firstly, I'd like to make extra super clear that Endgame isn't the only place where Itemization will be affected. Our Motto here in this project is "It's not about the endgame but the journey and the friends you make along the journey!", meaning even as low as level 10 - 20 or 1 - 5, will have itemization changes.
  • We've reconfigured hundreds of old items from levels 1 - 70, and have added THOUSANDS of new green items, a lot with randomly generating stats, and also plenty of others that are fixed stats. This is to introduce new stat combinations at lower levels that may make a way for more FUN at lower levels. Even with gear that may be 2 set pieces for level 18, or 3 set pieces with level 12, or 6 set pieces at level 40, and all will have set bonuses (or reforgeable/learnable set bonuses read more at Set Bonus Reforging).
  • With the addition of all this, obviously we can't forget World Epics with fun equip effects or chance on hit effects, etc. Or Trinkets! Yes, we REALLY want Trinkets to be more than just stat additions, I love how MoP had fun trinket effects in 5.4, and we really want to do something like that here. However, generally most trinkets will still have that simple stat increasing buff because we follow K.I.S.S
  • Set Bonus Reforging
    • While we are never the first to have thought of this, we have decided to make our own take on this. Set Bonus reforging allows you to change the set bonus of other sets through that armor proficiency's respective profession. Yeup that's right, something that's impossible to not make professions feel useless.
    • Whenever you change the Set Bonus of a certain set, if you do not know that set bonus, you will automatically learn it as you replace it. This basically allows you to save that Set Bonus for later use. You're learning the recipe as you change it. This doesn't mean you can slap a level 80 set bonus on level 5 by the way. There will be obvious limitations and factors.
    • However some lower level set bonuses like a level 70 or 60 set bonus can be put on a level 80 piece of gear and possibly scale up to level 80. (Or one could simplify this by making it so that there's a higher level version of that recipe automatically learned.)
    • Example would be let's say you have a level 40 set piece bonus that increases your critical strike rating by 8 every time you critically strike, stacking up to 3 times. If you put that on a Level 80 set, it'll scale to something like 35 critical strike rating, stacking up to 3 times.
    • Secondary Stat Reforging:
      • Don't be alarmed, this is nothing like Cata+ where reforging splits the stat. You can literally replace the entire stat, or to some extent, take a portion of one stat to place in a new stat. So it mixes the new concept and old concept to make something better
      • Most set pieces of gear, or new pieces of gear from Raids won't have a Secondary Stat at all. For Secondary Stat reforging, you don't need any recipes or professions at all. It's zero cost as we see this feature too much of a "MUST" to be required.
      • Rather it will be available at an Object (currently undecided), you can click on, open a UI similar to that of a profession and put your piece of gear in to change its secondary stats. This object will be available to gain a portable version FREELY to everyone.
      • Imagine this piece of gear that was originally pre-BiS for you as your Class back in Wrath but there was still ONE thing that could make it better, and it was...I'd rather have critical strike over haste or vice versa. Now you can do that!
    • Heirlooms: A good question is "Heirlooms", ok yeah we're bringing in TONs of new items, so won't heirlooms make that obsolete?
      • No because we've gone ahead and recreated the system for Heirlooms. First, you cannot acquire them by badges rendered obsolete from later Raids. You must "inherit" them from your Main Character, in a nutshell, your Main or whatever max level character must do some questlines where you can get the entire set that you're looking to get.
      • Additionally, the old system, if you've seen it in the DBC files, require that you have a set level you want to choose for these heirlooms, i.e Level 80 in our case, with a set amount of stats you'll obtain by reaching that level. We've gone ahead, thrown that out, rewritten it entirely so that instead Heirlooms can have what they need based on each level or set of levels. This way it's more dynamic.
      • You want your Paladin specific Helmet to have 1 Strength at level 1 and 8 armor specifically? With level 2 only have +1 to armor? That's exactly what you're getting. Each Heirloom has a specifically determined stat setting for each level (or in some cases "sets of levels" like 10, 20, 30" to keep it from overpowering itself and making strong.
      • Heirlooms are now equal to Uncommon Armor. Why is that you may ask? Dungeon Gear is now better but not always compared to higher level greens. This kinda keeps you from outlevelling your gear way too fast but also makes everything else still generally feel good.
      • Heirlooms also have set bonuses and you may benefit from that better! Yes even Heirlooms have a default set bonus and change-able set bonuses. So no longer are the days of basic equip piece of gear experience increase, now here come set bonuses!
    • Raids/Dungeons:
      • To finish off this feature on a quick note, yes Raid/Dungeon gear in general will be adjusted/reitemized or added in order to help the "I can't get the right piece of gear til later" issue. Meaning more spirit gear will be added if needed, more plain attack power gear will be around if needed, and so on. A wonderful QOL addition that anyone could've thought of!
    • One of our last big features is Custom Races & Custom Classes.
      • For this project the two possible Custom Classes aren't classes that are readily accessible. You can't purchase it, you can't p2w it. You HAVE to earn it. They are earned by finding secrets in the world through hard ass questlines, and possible objects that could potentially change location depending on time of the day.
        • Dragonsworn: No not Dracthyr Evoker. These are two totally different things, Dragonsworn are essentially "chosen protectors" of their flight according to original Lore. Where as Dracthyr Evoker are created Dragonspawn from Neltharion.
        • Necromancer: Yes Necromancer and Death Knights are different. Need I explain this class? As a Necromancer you'll have access to Boneweaving, where you can summon an army of undead to defend your spot or attack your enemies. Or perhaps you can use the art of throwing literal giant bones at your enemy. You'll also have access to your own plagues and diseases as well as dark shadowy powers.
      • There are many custom races we'd love to have the chance of exploring, never would it be crappy "allied races" which are basically crappy subraces, which in reality are cheap skins. It would be full blown races with their own custom starting zone! From the popular choices of Tuskarr and Ogre, to lesser popular Wolvar or Furbolgs, we'll want something special in this project.
        • That being said, that doesn't mean we aren't against Subraces. Even if some like Dark Iron make no sense currently to the lore who says we can't wiggle in new pieces of Lore? "In the efforts to stop the Lich King, the Dark Irons have joined the Alliance!" okay if you're a lore junkie you'll probably think about how that just won't work, I understand, it definitely won't be that. I'm saying it might be something simple like that but something that actually works.
    • Levelling Experience Redesign: Okay what this means is essentially we want your experience while levelling, not the experience you accumulate to level up, to feel somewhat fresh and renewed. Ok so yea we got ALL these other new features to help, but I think that alone just isn't enough, we want to be FULL of flavor and content, so that even the levelling process will never feel slow!
      • First off, obviously we should at least talk about rates. Rates aren't definitive yet, but for the first 20 levels, its quite fast. You'll have x6 experience rates, meaning you'll go so fast. This means you'll probably be level 20 in like ten minutes and basically won't get to experience the NEW quests & questlines we have in store for you.
        • To Combat this we actually adjusted the Experience requirements in total to each level, so you still level fast but not to fast. We could just simplify it to x3, but I think our choice is much better. At level 1, you kill a wolf...or whatever mob, and gain 50xp normally (Iirc), and that will give you 300 experience. Thus nearly giving you a full level. So we've adjusted the requirement appropriately from levels 1 - 20 specifically.
        • From 1 - 20, you'll have a x6, modified EXP for levelling. From 20 - 80, you'll have x3 experience.
        • There are DOUBLE Exp Weekends, so yes workaholics, you'll have time to actually catch-up!
      
      
      

 

[BookNQuill]

Scaling System: Calm yourself before you think this is like every other scaling system. It's not really a "scaling system" as far as it is more of a simplification of each zone, rather than have zones like 48 - 55, 51 - 58, 18 - 30, in odd numbers, we've adjusted it all to be simplified.

• All Starter Zones are now 1 - 20. Starter Zones will be the only zone that has mobs and quests that scale to your level up to the max zone level, aside from Dungeons (From 1 - 70 Dungeons).
• Zones like Western Plaguelands, Ungoro Crater, Duskwood, Searing Gorge, Dragonblight, Silithus, etc, have been modified to be more "Streamline" you could say. This means that WPL goes from 51 - 58, to 50 - 60, instead. Ungoro is 45 - 55, Duskwood is 15 - 30 (yes big gap), Stonetalon is 15 - 25, Grizzly Hills is 70 - 75, and so on.
• For these Zones, you do have quests that will scale to some extent. So if you encounter a level 15 quest in Westfall, it will scale up to at least level 18. Mobs that are 16 will scale to 19 max, and so on.
• Speaking of Zones like Westfall, since starter zones are 1 - 20, these zones will now be more "inbetween" zones like Redridge & Stonetalon, 15 - 25 for both of these zones, and other zones will adjust accordingly. More info on Trello.
• Questlines: We wanted to make quests in general more fun but also add the possibility of fun short story questlines. If you've done it enough, you'll notice there's an Kobold Infestation in Elwynn. We've decided to expand on this and make it so that you can possibly go do that as a full questline from all of Elwynn.
  • These questlines won't be some cheap "go do this that this this that this that and that!" to some extent, there'll be actual interaction. You can go with Remy "Two Times" and blow up some mines, take Marshal Dughan as a "temporary mercenary" and defeat the Kobold "Queens" (or a regular group).
  • Or you can just do normal random quests like you normally do in Elwynn, the choice is yours. We even had the thought of changing the Hogger questline up so that you'll actually have to use more of the EAST side of Elwynn which nobody wants to normally go to cause it feels inefficient. It's not particularly forced, rather you'll want to, cause you may find a fast fun race track to run with some horses possibly.
  • In addition we've made Wanted: Quests feel more immersive rather than out of place. Some questlines may bring you to unlock new Wanted: Quests or Wanted: Quests can open new Questlines for you.
  • Perhaps you're taking down a gang of Gnolls and this is what prompts Hogger to come take down Westbrook Garrison as he makes his way to the east side...or maybe its something else.

• Gameplay/Minor Features:
  • Of the more minor features and yet at the same time impactful we've brought. Is Cata Haste, yes that's right, who wouldn't love Cata Haste, you might be saying "Well I was expecting Wrath stuff", don't worry, I know how to use it right. In all honesty, I hate anything Cata+ generally speaking, but there are some additions I loved that I think in used a WoTLK or modern WoTLK light, can be adjusted to work for the best of both worlds. (I'm a sucker for MoP tho)
    • Cata Haste brought more dynamic utility and power in general to Classes. We saw the effects of abilities recharging faster due to haste, Damaging Over Time effects ticking faster (or ticking more often) due to haste, better resource regeneration, and so on. When used right I believe this can bring so much new ways to play ideally speaking, and even allow some QoL to the world. This doesn't mean you'll suddenly regenerate 100% mana in 1 sec.
    • Treasures: In Pandaria, they introduced World Treasures, I think this would be fun to have in WoTLK but much more emphasized and throughout the entire world. This would also incorporate some of the newer World Epics as mentioned earlier. From anywhere as something as small as a "Lucky Coin" that you flip every hour for a fun buff (like speed boost and what not) to a super rare vendor worthy item to even a powerful ancient weapon!
    • Crossfaction: Yes Crossfaction will be fully enabled like most servers. We believe unless you have over 10,000 players, there's no reason to actually keeping this disabled. It causes too much loss in time. I doubt we'll even disable it if we ever had that many. This QOL addition should stay. Guilds, Raids, Groups, etc. Of course you can't actually go into Stormwind as an Orc, that would still cause the same issue.
    • Challenge Gamemodes: Not to be confused with Challenging Difficulty, Challenge Mode Dungeons/Raids. Challenge Gamemodes are obviously not our concept but rather our take on it, where you can select a variety of Gamemodes to make the game more interesting, difficult, or even more rewarding.
    • Gambling: Because who wouldn't want to waste their money away! That's right in this project, you'll have access to gambling! But be careful where you gamble as there are some who can be "tricky" or "not so honest" when it comes to this. You can even gamble with your friends by clicking on their portrait and clicking the gamble button. Gambling includes Card Games, Deathrolls (yes this server allows it but not for real money), Dice Rollin! And more!
    • Mercenaries: Possibly a bigger feature than the rest of the Minor Features, but in this project we want to introduce Mercenaries. While the Trello Board does have some more expansive concepts, the simplest part of this concept, is that you can possibly hire a Mercenary to help you do things while out in the world. Great for those who don't have friends, or perhaps your dungeon group just needs a fill-in, well to some extent Mercenaries can help with that. Just don't expect a full raid group of them, its not possible.
    • Bounties: If you see this on Trello, ignore it. This concept hasn't been fully refined yet.
    • Thorns Stat: I bet you saw this and been wondering "Wtf is this", We've transformed Thorns into its own stat, so while some passives & talents can directly cause damage to attackers, some will now also grant Thorns stat which can help your natural damage to attackers. Note: Again our take on a concept that we didn't think of.
    • Collections: Yes there is a reason I bold texted that "collections" above, because we've recreated the Collections tab from later expansions. This means, mounts, heirlooms, appearances, and companions! Account-wide for all!
• I think that about summarizes everything. I know its a lot but trust me its nothing for what I have in store for you guys. I know a lot of these features you may recognize from more popular projects but I assure you its our preferable take.

I believe that with solid foundations and simplicity, it can be done right. Even for our more complex ideas there can be simplicity found by an execution that is simple.

Things like Custom Classes and Races however are put on the side table as its not our main priority. Doing those would take FAR more time than anything else we've come up with and that's providing a WoTLK+ experience.

Hypothetically speaking of course, as this is all merely an idea. I don't have any developmental knowledge, only creativity. There are many things I've made in my head I haven't even written down yet, some things that would help fill some emptiness to make all these features connect and so on.

Final Note: This is legit not even my draft, this a discord friend's whole thing, somebody halp how did I get roped into this!