For those of you avoiding retail, would you play retail content on pristine realms?

What if the next expansion brings in the Level Squish that compresses it down to 60 levels instead of 120?

https://www.wowhead.com/news=292286/level-squish-for-future-expansions-blizzard-survey

Conversely, that nearly drew me back. Had they but added challenge along with appropriate hit point totals they’d have had me.

Blizzard should offer bonuses to rehire the developers from burning crusade and Wotlk. They’re the only ones capable of making such drastic changes to “restore” the game’s standards.

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Pristine realms would be a step in the right direction, but my bigger problem with modern wow is class homogenization and bitesize content.

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In fairness to this idea, many complaints about Retail have centered around the loss of server community. And getting rid of cross-realm content would address that, along with the elimination of the queues.

But as others have noted, pristine would not address the missing RPG elements such as the current woeful state of professions. I’d be intrigued by it, but the game needs more fine tuning than just that.

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I think of retail haters like vegans. If you gave them meat without them knowing, they would say it tastes delicious. The moment you inform them that it was actually meat, they start vomiting and call you insane. Classic lovers would have a lot of fun leveling in retail until they realized it was retail.

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No.

No talent system, story written by someone who thinks “blood elf men are gay lol” is the height of humor, ridiculous amounts of hand-holding, each zone having a single rigid quest chain…

Taking out the worst of the myriad things that make Modern crap (the dungeon queue) would not change the fact that Modern is still, top to bottom, crap.

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No.

Retail’s problems run extremely deep into the experience. Far more so than just Heirlooms and Dungeon Finder.

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lol no way

Maybe. If I knew what a “prisine” realm is. Is it a synonym for prison?

Where is this quote from?

That’s a gross oversimplification. Just because you did doesn’t mean we would.

There are other reference points in life than yourself, y’know…

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No. It’s the mechanics of BFA I don’t like. Fresh realm or old realm, those mechanics are the same.

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Unfortunately your analogy does not hold true. Retail regardless of what it is called, still tastes like :poop: no matter how you try and serve it to me.

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As someone who played original in 2004 - 2009 and then came back in Legion and again in BfA and started new characters fresh each time, I’m gonna have to inform you that you’re full of crap. I’m having more fun now in Classic than I ever did in, frankly, any xpac.

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J. Allen Brack said it as part of a discussion on a nostalgic experience in the early days of classic talk, following the close of a certain famous private server.

Source: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20743584206

Even if they somehow put entirely classic mechanics in those expansions and removed all the fluff, and the everyone being the sole champion of azeroth nonsense, the other issue I’d have is SCALE. The new continents feel like tiny theme parks where all the quest hubs are touching, there’s no “negative space” or areas to roam making the world feel bigger. If they could achieve expanding out those environments, I’d be pretty impressed.

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I’m not avoiding retail, I just legitimately don’t have any interest in playing it. I was playing a little bit here and there before Classic launched primarily because WoW has been my go to game for quite some time.

Would pristine realms bring me back to retail? No, not at all. While it would solve some of the things I don’t like about the game, it would still be a version of the game I honestly just don’t enjoy and haven’t really enjoyed for a very long time. Blizzard took away too much, changed too much and homogenized too much for me and pristine realms would not change that for me.

Sure they have added a lot too, but none of that makes up for all I feel got lost over the years. I don’t have any interest in any upcoming patch or expansion, honestly none. I’m not bashing the game by the way or those who like it, it just isn’t for me.

Instead of wondering about the next patch or expansion, I am having a great time playing Classic and really don’t see myself leaving the game for a very long time. This is my only character so far and I have loved casually leveling, questing, working on all my professions, etc. I’m excited to level this character and many others exploring all the classes, their class quests, both factions, dungeons, pvp, all the professions, getting my wintersaber mount and just all of it really.

So no, pristine realms wouldn’t sway me away from Classic and back to retail at all.

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Nope. I’m playing Classic because this is the part of the game Blizzard foolishly removed in Cataclysm. They revamped everything to turn it into a leveling-on-rails sort of thing that took all the story away from Azeroth. It truly started in Northrend with the “convenience” garbage, but completely ruined in Cataclysm. Ever since then the game as been bumbling forward on its reputation.

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Lots of great posts here that I agree with. There are just far too many flaws with retail that wouldn’t be addressed by pristine realms.

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