Interview with John Hight and Brian Birmingham by Mr. GM

Author: Taladril
Date: February 20, 2021
Updated: February 21, 2021
Expansion: TBC Classic

Mr. GM had the chance to interview John Hight and Brian Birmingham about the upcoming release of TBC Classic. Here are the key takeaways. You can watch the whole interview on his YouTube channel here.

Blizzard was surprised by the size of interest for Classic.
TBC was planned naturally with the general public interest. Classic+ wasn’t seriously considered due to this.
TBC will run on 2.4.3 as the baseline. They are going with that because of believing the balance is the best at that point.
There will still be adjustments of how the game changed similar to how it worked with Classic. Pre-nerf bosses for instance will be rolled out and then potentially nerfed later into the expansion.
Mounts at level 30 are probably going to be available.
The XP curve will also be set to 2.4.3 to help get people up to TBC content more quickly.
Raid attunements will release as they were and will be required just like they rolled out with TBC.
Some small changes to attunements like everyone getting the attunement rather than one person per raid will probably be released.
They are going to try to give TBC Collector’s Edition items to those with accounts that had this in the past.
TBC is based off of the Shadowlands client. It may include graphical improvements such as ray tracing shadows.
Fresh Classic may happen, however if so it will be after the dust settles for the release of TBC.
Classic Era realms will feel like the same realm you are already on, however the current realms are all going forward to TBC.
Some change is going to happen to Leatherworking because of the Drums of War. They will be adjusting this to make it less overpowered and less of a requirement for players.
Dungeon finder (Wrath version) will not be included in TBC. The TBC “group finder” may be in but the devs want the finding of dungeons to still be a social activity.
Selected phases are still open to community feedback if it seems like the plan isn’t fitting well. For example Season 1 Arena will most likely be released immediately.