So what can we do to capture that nostalgia of when WoW first launched? Over the years we have talked about a “pristine realm”. In essence that would turn off all leveling acceleration including character transfers, heirloom gear, character boosts, Recruit-A-Friend bonuses, WoW Token, and access to cross realm zones, as well as group finder. We aren’t sure whether this version of a clean slate is something that would appeal to the community and it’s still an open topic of discussion.
-J. Allen Brack
At this point it’s pretty certain that pristine realms are off the table, since we’ve got ACTUAL Classic.
So I’m not interested in “lol, there will never be pristine servers…”. I’m interested in the question of IF there were, would you be more likely to jump between classic and retail than never touch retail at all?
A. I don’t like any of the lore or content or “experiences” post-Wrath. I actually have a LOT of objections to the hackjob that was Wrathgate.
B. The biggest, most central problem with retail are the mechanics of the game in that form. They do not foster an immersive, challenging, earned and worthwhile experience.
I think that the classic appeal is rooted in a few things
-Nostalgia. No one can deny the appeal of nostalgia, but I don’t think that’s all there is to it.
-Difficulty. Some players find meaning in difficulty and failure. Others don’t. Retail very clearly caters to the latter.
-World interaction. Some people really want to feel like they’re part of a living, breathing world/community. Others want a lobby that they can hang out in between dungeons. Retail, once again, very clearly caters to the latter.
-Investment. While this is a touchy subject, I don’t think anyone can deny the impact of the sense of accomplishment that stems from attaining something that not everyone else has. Being able to level boost is convenient, but let’s not pretend that it doesn’t affect the experience of players that reached the level cap through playing the game. I think we all know how, for example, car collectors would react if identical replicas of their antique cars were sold at budget prices to all consumers.
-Identity. Say what you want about the class balance in classic, but there’s no doubt that each class has a strong, unique identity. Being able to summon players and getting a mount without paying gold as a warlock feels special because that is unique to you as a warlock. Providing buffs can eventually feel tedious, but it is still something unique to your class that other classes can’t provide. Being able to make your own bread and water can make you a vending machine, yes, but it still makes mages special. Some players just want to have it all, but others want the limitations because it makes the perks feel that much more meaningful.
No. IT would still be retail, which, as a game, has zero appeal to me.
I don’t want to play gelded classes whose abilities are stripped down to nothing. The lore? WoW lore has always been iffy, but currently it looks like utter crap, so, no appeal. The raiding-centric meta and the ability prune from late Panda on is what made me quit WoW.
If classic didn’t show up, I’d be playing World of Warships right now.
Not if there were 120 levels to grind. Also, they would have to remove flying, LFG and LFR. Then maybe, just maybe I would consider it. But it’s not a definite “yes.”
Now I just remembered missions boards. Those would have to go, too. Suddenly it looks as if it would be a hard “NO.” I can’t imagine this crop of WOW developers going to such extremes to improve their game.
Yeah, that’s actually a very tiny portion of why I avoid retail, along with some totally irrelevant issues like recruit a friend. Wouldn’t care much about that.
Well I mean, we have had like 5 years of people whining about why retail is bad and why classic is better, there’s no point in me repeating them all here. You can go look up some common complaints.
Because, every expansion is basically a complete wipe of your progress. Literally every single one. When TBC launched nothing you did prior mattered at all. Sure Tier 2-3 gear lasted several levels, but it was gone by 70.
There’s no real progression, it’s just a treadmill. The first time it was easy to deal with. But after a few expansions it was like, “Well… do I make a 2 year push to get reset again, or do I quit?” The answer was clear for many. Then there’s people like me, who foolishly bought every expat -BFA and I’d level to max, random BG for a month, then cancel again…
Why was it bad?
Character resets every 2 years.
Grinds that never carry over, just replaced by more grinds.
Removal of social aspects of play.
Removal of world PvP (more or less).
Opting for power leaps instead of power creep.
Too many level cap extensions.
Too much clutter… too many mounts, too much random crap.
Garrisons: They could have done housing, but screwed the pooch.
I could go on and on. I have 15 years of mistakes I could list. Hind sight is always 20/20 though. At least we have Classic now!
Not me, I do not like class homogenization, one way talent trees, instant dungeons with no travel or knowledge of the area required, what Cata did to the world, and worse of all, - zone level scaling. Sticking with Classic till they pull the plug then on to something else.
I just feel like the games (classic and retail) have diverged too much. I don’t think doing what they are taking about would make me play retail.
Leveling is still dull.
Leveling still feels pointless because there are massive gaps when you get nothing.
Classes lack identity and exciting features.
PvP has been hot garbage for years now.
No tier or PvP sets
Rng loot instead of a standard progression system.
World quests are just leveling quests that are dailies.
They still don’t know how they feel about flying.
Story is pretty bleh .
Professions don’t matter at all.
I expect there are many reasons people wanted and are now playing Classic.
For me one big reason is the agency that I have playing and PROGRESSING my character, in retail there’s zero sense of character progression, my character at 120 is NO BETTER than he was at 100 when it comes to character or class skills.
Level scaling made Oblivion and Skyrim horrible and it’s done the same thing to WOW … the big difference is that I can get add-ons to disable that God-aweful ‘feature’ of the first two, I can’t remove it in ‘retail’ so I have to go back to Classic to get that sense back.
Apart from that retail is just a completely dumbed-down experience in so many ways. What’s interesting to me is that because they were done incrementally over several expansions starting with Cata I don’t remember them really happening but having ‘gone back’ to vanilla I now plainly see them and it’s made by dislike of retail even stronger.
Basically retail is an MMOG, the RP bit was removed starting with Cata.
It would make zero difference for me because it doesn’t solve the numerous underlying issues with Refail. The gameplay will still have the depth of a puddle, its still 100% focused on time gated instances that have all classes steaming through content with no variance.
Then theres the fact it Mr youthinkyoudobutyoudont bracks idea. The guy needs to be replaced before i could ever have any faith in blizzard developments again.
Yours is the first thread that has cause me to learn how bookmarking works but you’ve made an argument I have not encountered before. You’re saying that level boosts rob those concerned with achievement of their satisfaction when most say free Epix and LFR are the primary culprits.