by JR Cook - 2 months ago     show comments

Dataminers have uncovered something interesting in Blizzard’s website code that has the Classic community buzzing. A set of color codes tagged as “wow 2” appeared in the site’s CSS stylesheet, and they don’t match any existing World of Warcraft project. With BlizzCon kicking off this Saturday, the timing has everyone convinced we’re about to see the long-rumored Classic Plus finally revealed.

The color palette itself is mostly blue shades with some light red, brown, and white thrown in, clearly distinct from the hues assigned to The War Within, Midnight, or any other current Blizzard game. It’s not much on its own, but it adds to a pile of evidence that’s been growing all year. Blizzard teased something big for Classic back in January and specifically pointed to BlizzCon as the reveal stage. Dataminers also found heroic and epic edition licenses for something called “World of Warcraft Camelot” (the internal codename) back in June, along with a mysterious encrypted patch 1.6 build.

What Classic Plus Could Look Like

If the speculation is right, Classic Plus would be an expanded version of vanilla World of Warcraft, similar to how Old School RuneScape built on the original 2007 game or how Blizzard has handled Diablo 2’s updates. The Season of Discovery experiment gave the community a taste of what this could be, adding new content to old dungeons, fresh twists on PvE and PvP, and new abilities with their own quest chains. That seasonal model was well-received, and it’s easy to imagine Classic Plus taking those ideas and running with them as a permanent offering.

Blizzard also invited a handful of Classic influencers to the studio earlier this year for reasons they kept deliberately vague, which is usually a sign something’s cooking. Put it all together and the picture gets pretty clear.

BlizzCon Reveal Expected This Weekend

The BlizzCon schedule went up yesterday, and if there’s a major Classic announcement coming, it’ll almost certainly happen during Saturday’s opening ceremony on September 12th. The “World of Warcraft: What’s Next” panel immediately after would be the natural spot to dive into the details. Whether it lives up to expectations is another question entirely, but at this point it’d be more surprising if Blizzard didn’t announce something.

If you’re planning to tune in for the reveals or grind some Classic in the meantime, the HyperX Cloud III Wireless is a solid wireless headset choice for marathon sessions, and the Logitech has enough programmable buttons to handle even the most complex keybind setups.

Source: Eurogamer