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Over the first few weeks of testing in the Burning Crusade Beta, we’ve found it useful to elaborate on and bolster the “some changes” philosophy that we expressed at BlizzConline (and in posts like this one). As we’ve said, we’re open to making further alterations to Burning Crusade Classic, and we’re guided by the goal of authenticity in how the game plays, especially given how players in 2021 approach a game that was designed in 2007.
We’ve decided make the following updates to Burning Crusade Classic:
- “Lesser” versions of Leatherworking drums will be available from the beginning of the expansion, and will approximate how drums operated in the first few patches of original Burning Crusade.
- “Greater” versions of the drums will become available with the phase that includes the Zul’Aman raid.
- Throughout Burning Crusade Classic, using Leatherworking drums will invoke the Tinnitus debuff, preventing reuse for two minutes.
This decision follows a great deal of consideration of the options available. Ultimately, the “some changes” philosophy is a method for identifying problems where specific design choices made in 2007 don’t completely match the design intent of 2007. Having identified a clear issue of that type with drums, we naturally look for changes that were made at the time to address the problem. Tinnitus is exactly such a fix. It was added to the game in the very next major update after the Sunwell patch.
Tinnitus simply limits the number of Leatherworkers that a guild will consider beneficial to one Leatherworker per party. It fits with the design of The Burning Crusade, which encouraged guilds to carefully plan their raid composition to ensure access to various buffs and to make the best use of various drops, such as Primal Nethers. This change should preserve Leatherworking’s unique niche without devaluing it too much compared to other professions, which was the goal of the overall profession design of The Burning Crusade.
Our next step is to test it, so we’re updating the Beta today to include Tinnitus, and it will be in place when we resume testing in Karazhan. As before, we’ll be carefully following what testers do with it, and feedback from testers. We encourage you to use the in-game bug report function in the Beta.
Thank you very much for all of your testing and feedback!