Classic

[Tyhm]

Yeah, a number of my changes were unwelcome, unnecessary and ultimately detremental. I still think races are a keen idea, just not for Classic. I'd love to see a Saga Frontier like world where you can realistically be expected to compleat the same game with a bubble wand as with a sword - the technique is different so the goal is different, to traverse rather than defeat.
I still think seasons and night are a keen idea, and I think they're keen for Classic, just maybe not at the technology level at which they were implemented. Slowed down the game for too many people.
I still think a cohesive plot and levels that can be reasonably expected to meld without introducing such bugs as edge-PKing is a keen idea for Classic. I think such ideas are the very HEART of Classic. I think Classic was always intended to be a smooth Zelda3 like game, with magic, 20 hearts, and eventually the L4 Sword.
Here's the crux of it though - I tried to balance things out.
I think there were intended to be 20 hearts, but more than 20 quests. So you got Heras, and people didn't like it. You're right, it didn't feel Classic, but neither did quarterhearts.
I think Magic was intended to exist and to be powerful, but not something innate. So you got The Magic Quest, and people didn't like it. You're right, it didn't feel Zelda 3, but neither did Sarda's Book.
I think The Golden Sword was intended to exist and do 2 hearts of damage, but not slice through Newbies, and not be so commonplace that anyone who visited Zol's House had one. So I put it off to the very end of the plot and put Newbie Protection in dans le temps midi (a fancy way of saying "in the meantime" without saying "put it in in the meantime") I still have the levels somewhere where you at last get The Golden Sword, and I believe there were plans that a single player at any given time would be permitted to carry it out of The Golden Temple.

So yeah, I messed up Classic trying to save it. Others have messed up Classic trying to personalize it, or trying to preserve it. Now we've got a team that has carried on my legacy of messing things up in your eyes trying to save a game that belongs to all of us (though primarily supported by Stef and Steph) - a team that tore it asunder to get a wedge of it on an NPCServer, a team that managed to take the seed of Classic with the hope of regrowing the rest of it. And I wish them all the best of luck from The Tower of the Emeritus, whether you like it or not; without such well-intentioned and pigheaded developers as them and as I, there wouldn't be a Classic for you to complain about.

In any case, I fail to see what the argument is about anymore - honestly, I gave you guys Graal1998 version a AND b.