Highlights
- World of Warcraft Classic's senior game producer confirmed 40-player raids will remain in Season of Discovery.
- While 40-man raids are expected to stay in Season of Discovery, some changes might occur.
World of Warcraft Classic Season of Discovery is keeping 40-man raids around in its later seasons. These iconic raids may undergo some changes when they are added in future phases, but World of Warcraft players can safely expect 40-man raids in Season of Discovery.
Season of Discovery is a new type of World of Warcraft Classic server that adds some new features never seen in the original game. One of the biggest changes has been the addition of the WoW Season of Discovery Blackfathom Deeps and Gnomeregan progression instances, which appear as 10-man raids at the end of Phase 1 and 2, respectively. The presence of these raids has led many players to speculate on how the actual endgame instances might change in later Season of Discovery phases – especially in regard to the massive 40-man raids from the Classic WoW.
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In a recent interview with Dexerto, World of Warcraft Classic senior game producer Josh “Aggrend” Greenfield confirmed these raids will still need 40 players in Season of Discovery. "There will be some form of 40-player raiding at some point,” Greenfield said. “Those raids that were 40-player will likely stay 40-player." Greenfield detailed the complexity of the situation, with the community split on whether they would want the 40-man raids to stick around, or have them transformed into 10-man instances. “There are a lot of folks who say, ‘I have this guild and there are six 10-player raid teams. I really just want 40-player raiding again.’ Then there’s a lot of people who say, ‘I really love 10-player raiding and that’s what we want forever.’ I don’t think there’s an objectively correct decision, it’s mostly just preference.” That said, Greenfield explained WoW wants to add options, rather than take them away, so fans can expect future raids to do so as well.
That said, these 40-man raids might receive some other changes when they finally appear in Season of Discovery. "Hard to say [if they will look the same] and that’s not something we’re ready to talk about right now. There are some things you can expect to stay the same and there are some things that will change a lot.” Though it remains to be seen exactly how these instances might change, alterations from Phase 1 and 2, plus features players have already found from future phases of WoW Classic Season of Discovery, indicate that the developers aren't afraid to add twists to iconic World of Warcraft content
"There will be some form of 40-player raiding at some point... Those raids that were 40-player will likely stay 40-player."
Vanilla is the only place where World of Warcraft had 40-man raids. From Burning Crusade onward, it designed its raids for 10, 25, or 30 players. Because of this, there have only ever been five 40-man raids in World of Warcraft history – and only three of them persist in retail WoW today.
40-Man Raids in World of Warcraft History
- Molten Core
- Onyxia’s Lair (transformed into a 10/25-man in Cataclysm)
- Blackwing Lair
- Temple of Ahn’Qiraj
- Naxxramas (transformed into a 10/25-man in Wrath of the Lich King)
Fans will have to wait to learn more about how these raids might change in Season of Discovery, but in the meantime, Phase 2 has tons of content for players to enjoy right now. Between class-altering Runes, the Blood Moon free-for-all PvP event, and the 10-man Gnomeregan raid at the World of Warcraft Classic Season of Discovery level cap of 40, fans have plenty to do on these experimental servers.
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is an incredibly successful MMORPG that has been going strong for almost two decades. It's one of the highest-grossing franchises in history and is widely considered the most popular MMORPG ever made.
