World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion brought massive change to Azeroth, and not just with Deathwing's onslaught altering the landscape. Cataclysm came with complete reworks to several of the game's systems like stats, gear, and talent trees, it brought flying mounts to the original continents, and all-new systems like guild perks, transmogrification, and Raid Finder were introduced. Like previous classic launches, Cataclysm Classic seeks to reproduce the game as it was 14 years ago with a handful of changes that hopefully resonate with classic fans.

In a Game ZXC interview, World of Warcraft Cataclysm Classic lead software engineer Nora Valletta and principal game designer Kris Zierhut weighed in on one of Cataclysm's more controversial additions, the Raid Finder system introduced during Dragon Soul. Like its predecessor Dungeon Finder, Raid Finder allowed players to form matchmade pickup groups with random players across servers to tackle simplified versions of raids. According to Valletta and Zierhut, Cataclysm Classic most likely won't be reintroducing this system, but it's not completely off the table.

No Plans for Cataclysm Classic Raid Finder, But Player Feedback Could Change That

Raid Finder was originally introduced during Cataclysm's final raid tier culminating in the showdown against Deathwing, so it makes sense that the feature isn't present at Cataclysm Classic's 2024 re-launch. However, Valletta says that Blizzard currently doesn't have any plans to introduce it at any point during Cataclysm Classic.

LFR is one of those things that was introduced in the original Cataclysm, during the Dragon Soul tier of content. It’s one of those things that we wouldn't necessarily launch with, but we actually don't have plans for introducing it at this time to Cataclysm Classic. That's not to say that we will never introduce it. That's not to say that we won't necessarily decide if enough players are letting us know, “Hey, that is actually something we really want to see." We may decide to introduce it later on, but at this moment in time, we don't have any plans of introducing Raid Finder to Cataclysm Classic.

Though there aren't plans to implement the feature, Valetta noted that the team is willing to change this if there's enough demand from Cataclysm Classic players. It's difficult to predict which way the player base may land: on the one hand, Raid Finder is a convenient way to experience raid content for players who aren't in active raiding guilds or are short on time, but on the other hand, players are often drawn to classic specifically because of the social aspect of the game's earlier days.

Raid Finder Goes Against The Spirit of World of Warcraft Classic

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According to Zierhut, Raid Finder goes against the spirit of the World of Warcraft Classic experience. Since the original launch of Classic, players have stuck together in guilds that have tackled each new expansion, and the Classic servers have come to resemble the more tightly-knit communities of the game's early years. While Dungeon Finder was an important system to help lower-level players form groups for less popular dungeons, Raid Finder didn't serve the same purpose.

Looking for Raid served a different audience of people who wanted to see the raids but weren’t part of an organized raid or guild, so it lets them go and see the raids without being part of a team. The audience that wants it is a very different audience, and in some ways, this is contrary to the spirit of classic. I think people play classic to this day because they want to keep playing with all the friends they made along the way. We went through the pandemic together, and they built real friendships with these people that they want to keep on playing with...My gut says that there's not as much demand for it from players, so we may never actually do it.

Cataclysm and its following Mists of Pandaria expansion went a long way toward bringing World of Warcraft into the modern era, and Blizzard will have some interesting decisions to make as it strikes a balance between appealing to the sensibilities of classic players and staying true to each expansion's systems

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