Really good points.
I understand why Blizz made the QoL choices they made, I intially supported them. But it ended up gutting the World they had so painstakingly built.
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The problem is that the lawyers and marketing guys replaced the guys who were passionate about creating a fun game and a rich, immersive world. =(
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This wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Blizzard listened to us.
Back in the day I was one of the many lobbying for flying in all zones. I was wrong.
I hated hanging around and spamming LookingForGroup, so I lobbied for the Group Finder. I was wrong.
I hated running everywhere so I lobbied for getting mounts at an earlier level. I was wrong.
I also argued for more flightpoints. I was wrong.
I’m so sorry. I ruined WoW.
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Power progression is a huge deal to me, as well as limited play time being meaningful.
Retail is thought of as the “casual friendly” version because it takes less time to do anything but it’s also all filling meters (rep, azerite) or tallying daily task.
On classic I can log in, maybe do some mining and that will have been a MEANINGFUL growth in my character.
Yes there are ways to grow the character in retail but it all feels same-y.
Then of course there’s the social aspect… I spent three hours in a dungeon with some random strangers last night and by the end we were friend adding each other. There was more chatter in there in one sitting than I’ve had in the last year+ on retail.
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We all did.
/sadface
For years WOW has been designed primarily to coerce people into logging in every day because Activision’s quarterly reporting metrics, the MAU, are based entirely on that … it was a sad day in patch 2.1 when ‘dailies’ became a thing and many players felt forced to adjust their playing to be in sync with the daily reset.
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One unspoken truth about vanilla was we had a Group Finder as early as Dire Maul in the form of the meeting stones. They put us in a queue, grouped us and then we had to meet in the world and head to the dungeon.
Nobody used the dang things, though, and kept to the asking in zone chat method.
…I wonder if we’ll get the meeting stone group finder again when phase 3 (I think it’s 3?) rolls around.
Well said! 
Agreed. The struggle makes it worth it and feel like you are progressing. So many games are missing this today.
There is such thing as travelling too far, but I WoW has what I consider to be an acceptable distance. The world feels HUGE and that is a great thing. Instantly teleporting around the world is such a shiddy way to ruin immersion.
I played this game a few expansions back, hit level cap and did a few raids. I have rarely played a game and felt less immersed then I did with retail WoW. This version however is great. The struggle and small power spikes each level help to bond a character with the player. Everything about retail, at least when I played, felt so detached and easy–it was so easy to put down.
Blizzard did a great job with WoW and a lot of the player base continued to follow them through the expansions but a lot of that is in part, no doubt, to the nostalgia that earlier players had of previous patches or expansions. Its easy to go back to an old lover because you know them and it feels comfortable, but it doesn’t mean its good anymore.
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Yes - to anyone who is developing or wants to develop the next MMORPG, there is a lot to study here and learn from
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I 100% agree with op. I love the slower pace and the lack of convenience. I’m loving the slower pace, the lack of convenience and seeing people interactions and helping each other so much. The world in Classic seems more alive, I feel like I’m on an adventure and it’s been amazing.
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Just wrote and then deleted my post about 10 times. There’s so much to write about. Classic is better than Retail, no contest.
The only - ONLY - thing I dislike is the extreme imbalance in some areas (Druids are far too weak in all areas; only warriors are excellent tanks). These things were fixed in TBC, so… if they do a “Classic TBC” I’ll be suuuuuuuuuuper in…
Very good post. Retail has truly been shaped by suits in a boardroom who never play games themselves whereas Vanilla was crafted by people who had obvious love for the Warcraft world and gaming.
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Okay two questions.
- What unique interactions?
- How do we make our own story as we want? Oddly worded question, but are you saying that the story in vanilla was minimalistic enough that it just allows you to do that, or is it up to imagination?
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Agreed. Modern WoW is very much an arcade feeling game. The RPG elements have been stripped out of WoW for the convenience sake. Its amazing to me that when I find a potion I actually use it, or, if I find a scroll it actually is a benefit to me when I use it. I love being able to make my character my own by choosing what talents I want to use, even if those talents have optimal choices, and some might not be good as others. I still like idea of choosing for myself how my character evolves and I love watching him grow in power. I love the idea of having multiple primary and secondary stats such as intelligence and spell power or spirit and mp5. It makes gearing up fun and interesting. I also like that their are items with quirky on hit effects that make them situational but powerful in those circumstances or that you can get a buff from a raid and take it into another raid such as the dire maul buff and using it to help you complete another dungeon or raid. There is just so much freedom and so many options whereas in BFA it feels like the choices have been made for you and their is so much emphasis on “balance” that the fun has been stripped out. Players aren’t free to make funny and sometimes powerful choices or funny and sometimes stupid decisions.
I can’t find the care in the world to log into my BFA account and do my dailies… for what? another mount? Yawn. I’m over it. There are some things modern WoW does well such as making it so quest mobs such as named bosses don’t have a 15 minute respawn timer or allowing people to tag and share World Boss kills. You can also link items in general chat instead of only trade chat. A buff such as arcane intellect is applied party wide and last an hour instead of individual and 30 minutes, that’s a great quality of life change that wouldn’t detract from the RPG experience of the game.
Things like mythic dungeon challenges, while they can be fun, don’t feel like part of an rpg experience and more like an arcade mode for an arcade game. Same thing with queuing up for a battleground event. Very arcade like.
Call me old school but I simply enjoy the RPG elements of the mmoRPG genre.
So classic WoW in my book is the undisputed champion. I hope they do build on it in the years to come but In keeping with the traditions of classic world of Warcraft and not by taking it down the same route that killed the RPG elements and gave us the modern arcade WoW.
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The game has always had psychologists figure out how to keep people addicted. It’s not called world of warcrack for nothing. Posts like this are absolutely asinine and ignorant.
Classic is like the junky who is scrounging up people’s emptys so he can get his next fix. Retail is the rich guy with access to anything he wants, he wants more and more to satisfy his needs. They are both made to addict people. Classics game play really isn’t that compelling, it is pure addiction driven waiting for that next hit of dopamine.
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The thing is, its the players that destroyed World of Warcraft. The Devs were just giving them, constantly, giving them what they asked for.
A million humble little requests can destroy any work of art.
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You’ll find that a lot of people aren’t playing for immersion, sadly. They are playing to get the best gear ASAP and win. Nothing wrong with that, but it is the same mentality that killed wow for a lot of people. People with this mindset get addicted to the dopamine high of gear and love the gear casino.
- Everybody remembers the first time they saw Ironforge, the first time they used their abilities to do something they didn’t think they could do, the first time they killed someone in PvP. Each person’s version of those universal experiences is unique.
- The story was background, and regional. You helped the folks at the Crossroads, then moved on after getting stronger and more experienced, proving yourself to them as you went. We the players filled in the cracks of that minimal story as we went, with our own impressions and feelings and imaginings.
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“The game has always had psychologists figure out how to keep people addicted.”
No, as a matter of fact, that’s what makes Classic so special. It was not designed by psychologists and marketers like retail currently is. That’s the point of the post.
And it’s not asinine. People (psychologists, for instance) started to analyze WoW as did economists and some even published papers. It was precisely because this was a completely new phenomenon that academics became interested in explaining WHY WoW was so successful.
I guess you had to be there.
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