World of Warcraft Classic is evolving along the same lines as the original World of Warcraft. Its expansion, The Burning Crusade Classic, comes online soon, proceeded by a short auction house shutdown.
Just like in World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade Classic will radically reshape the landscape of WoW Classic, to the point where it's essentially a whole new world. There will be new realms to explore and the whole game will be a bit different. When it drops, players will have to choose which version of the game each of their characters will be part of: stay with WoW Classic or progress to TBC Classic.
Many players do not want to make that choice when TBC Classic drops on June 1st. After all, a character cultivated with hours of gameplay would be great to carry over, but they started off in WoW Classic because that's what they wanted to play. To offer a third option, Blizzard has a character cloning option, but it costs money, originally $35. This price angered fans who quickly delivered backlash to Blizzard, saying it was way too expensive. As a result, Blizzard dropped the price of the character cloning to $15.
The reason the cloning choice is so important is because of the changes TBC Classic brings with it. As the first major expansion of WoW, it introduced new races for player characters and an increase in level cap. These were among the biggest changes of the expansion, but it also changed the landscape of WoW with new content. However, many players picked up WoW Classic to return to a simpler time, before the changes of any expansions. At the same time, saying no to brand new (old) content seems kinda silly. The cloning option is the best of both worlds, so of course Blizzard put a big price tag on it.
It's worth noting that the backlash is so vehement in part because so many players still love WoW. The most devout players dedicate a lot to the world of the game, even playing WoW in D&D. It cannot be overstated how popular World of Warcraft continues to be.
This marks a rare occasion that backlash caused Blizzard to lower its prices. The company has taken unpopular actions since merging with Activision. Alongside changes like the new, limited options to purchasing game time, some fans are becoming disillusioned with Blizzard where WoW is concerned.
World of Warcraft Classic is available for PC. The Burning Crusade Classic launches June 1st.