My Classic+ Project Input

"What Exactly IS Classic+?" Thumbnail.

With Blizzcon 2026 starting (and ending; I was slacking), I wanted to archive every post I wrote for The Classic+ Project just before this mystical Classic+ gets an official announcement, which obviously didn't work out for me. This is a community initiative that tried to put together people's opinions on what's currently known as World of Warcraft: Forever should be like with plethora of surveys and hosting for people's concepts and ideas. It was a good excuse to write down some of my own thoughts and see how they can be perceived by the crowd that disagrees on everything.

Regardless of what happens next with this project, I wanted to archive all of my suggestions somewhere and don't rely on Internet Archive to pick up my walls of text. I'm going to literally just copy-and-paste all posts in this "article" and add the current score for each of them to give you an additional context. Some posts are great, some were kind of lazy... I think they speak for themselves.

I don't think I would write any posts there at this point. I had many ideas I didn't get to share due to my own procrastination and struggles, but I feel like it's pretty much too late at this point to offer a meaningful contribution to the project like that.

Freedom From Missing Out

Hearthstone (11.09.2026), Warcraft Rumble (09.09.2026) & Twitch (12.09.2026) Screenshot.

I'm a creature of habit. Someone who can easily stick to some silly routine and repeat it to a point of absurdity. From doomscrolling social media and sites in a specific order to log into specific games... In other words, a poor bastard like me is a perfect target for Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) - this stupid feeling where you feel like you "fall behind" or "lose out" if you don't do something as soon as possible or within a day. An obvious example of that could be a "daily reward" in multiplayer and/or mobile game.

Unfortunately, just being aware of this flaw doesn't mean it's easy for you to overcome it. I caught myself in a situation where I keep catching myself being chained to repeating things I don't really enjoy doing anymore or arriving to an obvious conclusion that this is a stupid way to waste my time. This is idiotic, but that's the truth of my situation. As I started to approach my 25th birthday, I started to slowly break free of these chains. Very slowly.

This post is going to serve not only as a retrospective of sorts, but also as a way to reinforce me breaking free from FOMO tricks attached to them. It was a perfect opportunity to revisit this blog since one of its functions has always been to free my mind from things I've been fixated on. I feel inspired and determined, so that must count for something.

Insincerity of Blood: Refreshed Supply

Blood: Refreshed Supply - Reveal Trailer Screenshot. Taken from YouTube.

Just as I was trying to wrap my head around my closer look at Heretic + Hexen and Nightdive Studios' approach to it, the announcement of Blood: Refreshed Supply arrived was quite a distraction. A second re-release six years after Blood: Fresh Supply? It seems rather pointless at first glance like with DOOM + DOOM 2 (around second re-release that came out 5 years after previous one), but there's more to this than that. It's more complex.

In order to properly understand the discontent and annoyance some people (myself included) have regarding Refreshed Supply, it's best to look back at Fresh Supply and that's what I'll do in this post. Talking about its rough release, public's reaction and reasons why it happened. Highlighting the importance of post-release support and questioning the accepted narrative related to it. After all that, it'll be the turn to poke misleading marketing of Refreshed Supply and weirdness of its pre-ordering.

The Bad & Ugly in Heretic + Hexen

Heretic + Hexen Game/Expansion Selection Screen.

The unfortunate nature of re-releases and remasters are that they would never be perfect. After all, perfection isn't something achievable when you really think about it. You'll always have some flaws, inaccuracies or even missing features. While it's not something that would bother newcomers and such due to lack of prior experience, for the die-hard fans these things would be a problem. Some things could be tolerable, but some shouldn't be.

Aside from that, there's a matter of presentation and approach to the project itself. Ideally you would want to have a re-release or remaster done by a group of people with enough love to the original(s) and dedication to preserving essential aspects of game(s) they work on. Even without the first part, you can still achieve the second one with the right focus and handling of its development.

I like Heretic. I love Hexen: Beyond Heretic. Can I recommend Heretic + Hexen? No. After playing it for many hours and looking around to gain more insight into it, I don't think it was handled in a way it should've been. From evidently lazy approach to missing details and outright false advertisement. This re-release was also quite an eye-opener to how Nightdive Studios operates, and it's also something that needs to be addressed.

Soundtrack Disarray in Heretic + Hexen

Sound Options in Heretic + Hexen.

There're a lot of things I could say about Heretic + Hexen re-release, and I'm not sure if I'll end up committing to spilling these thoughts into the void, but there's at least one topic I want to cover separately because I think it's both interesting and important. What started as a mere observation of absent OPL3 version of games' soundtracks turned into discovery of wrongful presentation of music's "Original" option in what seemingly is a vague topic.

I'll start off with notes about current soundtrack options in the re-release and how the likely reason behind Nightdive Studio's mistake was generalization of music in Doom Engine games and then dive further into what version of soundtracks for Heretic and Hexen are closest to the 'intended ones'. Even if the actual chances of this being corrected is extremely low, at least PC players have something to work with to account for this on their own.

Revised Issues & Suggestions for War1R

Warcraft Remastered Battle Chest Trailer Screenshot. Taken from YouTube.

It's been over a month since Blizzard Entertainment has shadowdropped Warcraft 1: Remastered, Warcraft 2: Remastered and Patch 2.0 for Warcraft 3 during Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct. Since then, I tried my best to dedicate some of my free time to observe and take note of the general state of the first two releases, their updates and unaddressed issues. This approach mostly comes to the fact that more eyes are likely to be centered on Warcraft 3 with its fragmented community, but even then there're some things that I feel like have been missed out on by players and developers alike. It would have to wait for a good while though.

Nevertheless, right now I would like to talk about remaster of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and not just because it's the first game in Warcraft franchise. But because it's likely to be the most neglected one, which you can argue may be evident by all the recent updates both titles were getting: War2R managed to catch Patch 1.01 alongside multiple hotfixes, but War1R is yet to receive a proper patch of its own (only hotfixes). Warcraft RTS Team and developers from Blackbird Interactive (assuming they're still attached to the projects; hopefully, they are) are making some admirable small steps after the initial rushed release, but more needs to be done. Because these games deserve much more.

The purpose of this "article" is to revisit my list of issues & suggestions for War1R I posted on r/Warcraft3 & Blizzard's forum in more depth to the best of my abilities and even add something new to all that. Not only just to "do this myself" (video would be ideal, but that's not something I can do anytime soon; post's timing isn't good already with too many delays) and get it out of my system, but to publish a "comprehensive" feedback based on my outside observations for the developers in hopes that they're keeping track of all that people have to say outside of forum discussions, Reddit posts, YouTube videos and such.

Some Thoughts about Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct

Warcraft 30th Anniversary Key Art. Taken from Blizzard.

Despite having some ideas and intentions to write something prior to Warcraft 30th Anniversary Direct, life have kept me too busy for me to dedicate some time to that. All I could manage is post some tweets about Warcraft 3's Patch 2.0 and Warcraft 2: Remastered "leak". It was quite rejuvenating to be kind of exciting about Blizzard event after stepping away from Warcraft franchise. World of Warcraft Classic's Season of Discovery managed to reignite the remaining appreciation for the series that laid mostly dormant in my mind.

Since my interest are centered around the good old days of Azeroth, I won't have much to say about Hearthstone, Warcraft Rumble and remaining World of Warcraft news. You know, something like Undermine would've been very interesting to me... around 6-7 years ago, but the few things from The War Within that I saw didn't really have any reaction on me. I guess the Khadgar nonsense has a potential of being interesting if they take some inspiration from Earthsea's Ged, but even then I have my doubts. And the same can be said about Housing in Midnight expansion: neat on paper, who knows how it'll turn out.

Either way, it's time to throw some general thoughts from my messy mind into the void to clear my head. Maybe someone will even waste their time reading it and have only themselves to blame for it, but still thanks for that time.

Echoes from Blizzard's Past

Edited "Games" Page from Battle.net Launcher. Originally Made by Kacpa2.

Technically more than three years ago, Ilko's Hall got its proper start and it started with "Blast from Blizzard's Past" where I caught onto strange anomaly on Blizzard's website regarding its pre-Warcraft games. Originally I thought they were planning to hand them over to GOG, but a few days later Blizzard Arcade Collection was shadowdropped during BlizzConline. I still look back at this quirky "kind of prediction" fondly. Despite this, I guess I was hesitant to revisit this topic as time went on. To be fair, there wasn't much to cover and I'm not sure if I even mentioned anything new in some random post.

Anyway, that doesn't matter now! Because I'm about to pick things up right where I left them at that first "article". Since I completed the "main quest" of Ilko's Hall, it feels natural to complete this concluding circle by falling into sudden old school Blizzard rabbit hole yet again and there's quite a few things I have to cover. In order to let the proper atmosphere settle in, I also recommend you to check out both "A Tale of Warcraft Remasters that Almost Happened" & "Callback to Blizzard Classic 'Arcade'" before reading this one.

Main Quest Update

"Main Quest Update" Thumbnail.

You know, this post should've been written and released a long time ago. Too bad I ended up being weirdly sentimental about it to a point where I decided to drag it out up until blog's third anniversary. Despite a few events out of my control, I've managed to more-or-less keep some resemblance of investment into a niche hobby and hold myself roughly accountable to this odd commitment. Starting out with taking my shot at various types of texts before figuring out what kind of strangeness I enjoy the most. Not every post ended up in a way I hoped or initially thought, but at the end of a day I'm glad I spend time doing something and trying myself at writing different things within this large world of blogging or digital diary.

As time went on and things were changing in a way they did, it became apparent to me that Ilko's Hall needs to change too... Well, I think it needs too. Nothing stops me from just letting its current state speak for itself, but that's not how I want it to go. I want to bring the proper sense of closure to something that's been a part of my life for surprisingly long time. However, that doesn't mark a definitive end to it and I will explain it shortly. Just let me start with the usual conclusions and then some.

January 2024 Update

"Monthly Update" Thumbnail.

My "scuffed curse" has been slowly catching up with me. As I'm still following my established daily routine against all odds, I've been stumbling into all sorts of wonders and oddities in my everyday life. My plate was full, which served as a great distraction from things that usually bother me... Well, for the most part. Silly overthinking was heavily suppressed (or rather muted), not gone completely. I guess that's just part of my identity, and it would be very difficult to get rid of.

Despite the lack of holiday spirit in my heart throughout the second half of December, I realized that ignoring New Year's Eve and doing nothing would be too depressing. Especially when I actually can do something about that. This trail of thoughts lead me to not only get myself pizza & Olivier salad (no homemade salads this time) for some kind of a treat. I also went ahead and paid up debts I owned to two of my friends, even though they didn't saw it that way. These generous folks were "happy to help" me at the time and didn't expect anything in return, but I argued it would be best if I return the favor (they didn't protest it) as that was simply the right thing for me to do.

I suppose this means I met 2024 as a free man of sorts. After facing some hard struggles and darkest moments, I was dragged up by great support from my friends. Not only I got myself an insanely good laptop and a new stable work that won't be possible without it, I've been reminded yet again how I'm surrounded by good people on Internet. No matter what happens next, I know they'll have my back and that's enough to achieve great things.

December 2023 Update

"Monthly Update" Thumbnail.

I think I can confidently say that I've been very slowly getting back on track in these recent days. Everything has slowed down even further in comparison to November, so this Update will likely be even more barren as a result. At least this time around, there's more sense of peace in my mind. Still usual overthinking and all that stuff, but my latest reflections allowed me to further examine myself... and/or fool myself into believing that this stupidity actually provided some worthwhile results for once.

You can argue that such nonsense is natural for this time of the year, but I'm not entirely sure about that. Part of that is likely me refusing to give myself a break because I just got to be this way even if I don't always want to be: force of habit and all that type of thing. None of it is actually interesting, so I'm not going to fixate too much on that in order to not overly annoy myself. This time I'm not even going to pretend that someone else is reading this.

November 2023 Update

"Monthly Update" Thumbnail.

There should be a lesser amount of nervous rumbling since I'm not quite anxious this time around. Not only that's relieving, but somewhat amusing since a month ago I was really panicking due to typical overthinking. Will this odd episode occur again? Most likely. Will I be ready and process it better? I'm not so sure. At least things seem kind of calm now, so it's best if I just enjoy that moment instead of worrying about when these sweet moments end. Even if it's actually more tricky and things like that shouldn't really be ignored, you get the idea. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.

You know, I should just get straight to the point as there's... still not much to talk about. Despite feeling like these last 15-16 days were more eventful in comparison to late September and first half of October, but right now I'm really struggling to think of anything substantial to mention here. Part of that definitely comes from my continuous dissatisfaction with some things I'm about to repeat down below.

October 2023 Update

"Monthly Update" Thumbnail.

Well, the silence of my current routine has started to get disturbed by unpleasant kind of noise. I suppose part of that is me falling back into my bad overthinking habit, but hearing any kind of knock into door can induce some "good old" anxiety. Unfortunately, this is just the reality of current times: you want to simply get by and avoid any trouble, especially if your current real life position is far from being pretty or even just okay. However, this is not a tale about the hope of seeing the light at the end of a tunnel sooner rather than later.

This post that would be lost in infinite void of the Internet is about what I did and didn't do in the last month or so. Not much would be lost, as you can rightfully guess, so I'm not worrying too much about the lack of worthwhile things to share. Doesn't mean I can't waste my time writing about nothing for a bit to prolong an illusion of doing dedicating my time something kind of productive and not just a waste of time and/or another form of procrastination.

Late Thoughts about Realms Deep 2023

Realms Deep 2023 Key Art.

Another year, another rare Events "article" about some silly gaming event. This time I encouraged by scuffed sleeping schedule by watching Realms Deep 2023 from start to finish. Similarly to the previous one, I was tuning in with moderate curiosity. After all, it's best to avoid rising up your own expectations to a point where they just can't be fully met and instead get pleasantly surprised when or once you start getting some surprises. Thankfully, the latter is excited what happened this time around.

Each Realms Deep took different approach and this year was no exception. We had a very packed 3,5 hour livestream full of announcements and reveals with occasional "storyline" breaks, so sometimes things were getting a bit weird. To be fair, what else you can expect from a bromance drama starring Ty Brannan & Mike J? Let's just hope that Jared CatMilk would be able to help these two overcome their conflict and embrace their true feelings.

September 2023 Update

"Monthly Update" Thumbnail.

Another month, another silly Update post where I'm trying to think of what I can actually write down. It's still slow and quiet period. While I certainly appreciate it, I could definitely put more work into making routine more exciting overall. Just need to stop stagnating and get myself together in order to be more productive. However, this is easier said than done for whatever reason. So yeah, I'm still being weird for better or worse... Probably both.

What I'm trying to say here? I guess that this "article" will be even shorter than the previous Update. Part of me realizes that I shouldn't feel bad over the length of these texts, but at the same time I want to make it worthwhile your... Well, my time to actually write since I'm pretty sure that these posts are opened up only by bots. Perhaps I need to look back into my idea of not having these Updates be a monthly thing anymore.

Questions of the Machine

A Vision(?) of Castle of the Damned.

It's no secret that the re-release of Quake 2 was a pleasant surprise to everyone. While I previously struggled to revisit that game, Nightdive Studios' offering was able to pull me back in not just with the achievements. The game felt more fun and engaging than it did before. Not that Quake 2 is terrible game, but it just wasn't able to grab my attention again as is. Part of that is typical sense of novelty accompanying this re-release (as it does with announcements and other things like that), but some changes like the removal of Machine Gun's recoil go a long way to mix things up. However, that's not exactly what I want to talk about.

Going through both Quake 2 64 and Call of the Machine were definitely the highlights in my good old achievement hunting. While the first offers some neat gameplay experience, new expansion created by Machine Games provides some interesting food for thought in case you're a silly lore dork like me. Similarly to Quake Champions, I think there're some small fragments that could be utilized in the future whenever the franchise get its grand return. To be specific, contents of this post is just me making things up based on my impressions on Call of the Machine.

Hidden Re-Release Race

SiN: Reloaded Screenshot. Taken from Steam.

Recent announcements from Nightdive Studios provided some interesting food for thoughts, which I think is enough to a reason to write down about the things it led me to. While others were eager to nag 3D Realms over the announced status of SiN: Reloaded, the reveals that followed have reminded me about some of my prior observations from this old school side of gaming industry that I think is worth to mumble about for a bit. You know, to free my mind as usual. It's been kind of a while since I've done this here.

Basically, I think it's another showcase of a big thing happening under everyone's noses. While re-releases, remasters and remakes/reboots were a stable part of video games for many years now, some events here and there point out towards an increase in competition among various parties within this somewhat limited field. In other words, some companies are currently running a marathon when it comes to revisiting and bringing back older titles.

August 2023 Update

"Monthly Update" Thumbnail.

It's been a very quiet period of time overall. Some things have definitely happened, but overall I can characterize these last ~30-31 days with words like "monotone" and "somber". That was the nature of my current routine as I followed the flow that didn't have much to offer, much to my frustration. Despite having a fantastic moment to celebrate and be happy for once, my life has naturally gravitated towards achieving total balance between positive and negative things.

Unlike last few Updates (such as July one), I'm pretty confident about my ability to keep this one short since I don't want to repeat myself twice in some aspects... or many, now that I think about it. Not only I would provide some brief updates on my current laptop endeavors, I'll also try and dig up whatever else I could mention in this format.

Beholding The Ultimate Force

Terrible Photo of ASUS TUF FA507RC A15 Gaming Laptop.

It's very rare that I get an opportunity to talk about something good in my life and, after some of recent events in the last few months, I think it would be right to highlight this optimistic anomaly. As I've mentioned in July 2023 Update, I've recently witnessed another coma of my old Lenovo G505s laptop. It is during these few days when one of my good friends decided to express his generosity by offering to buy a new laptop. He actually suggested that before, but I just laughed it off to myself and forgot about this.

When this suggestion was brought up as I was talking to my friends how problematic my situation at the time was, I agreed to give it a try. We both looked into Microless as an option (he called them and I read what people in my country had to say about it). Everything seemed good, so I send over all the information he needed to make an order, and we just had to wait. My only hope was that it would have more than 4GB of RAM and Wi-Fi support: I didn't feel like I had any right to actually ask for anything rather than a bare minimum. There was also some worry about the duty-free importation and stuff.

Anyway, it seemed like there was a reliable way ahead of us. And so, after twelve days of waiting for mysterious package, a courier delivered to me (I thought I would have to pick it up myself) what turned out to be ASUS TUF FA507RC A15 Gaming Laptop. He did mention that laptop would have 16GB of RAM and 512 GB SSD, which was already more than I could've dreamed of. Imagine how stunned I was once I realized what kind of device I ended up getting... That is pretty much what this "article" is all about.

The Sandbox Paradox

Minecraft: Bedrock Edition Screenshot.

During my recent years of "gaming freedom", I was able to experience and revisit many games with various genres. Having variety in certain aspects of your routine is nice as that not only helps you keep things interesting, but also allows you to discover something new or look at things differently. There's probably a lot I can say about prioritization of completionism, achievements themselves (already talked about that) and how changing your approach to games can really reinvigorate your desire to actively launch them again.

However, one topic in particular stood firm in my mind and it's about my experience with sandbox genre. In particular, with Minecraft and Terraria since I didn't really have much experience with other representatives of the genre... Nah, Stardew Valley is a farming simulator. I guess I should just get to it by stating that I'm terrible at sandbox titles and I find this fact to be pretty amusing for a number of reasons.