After playing Classic HC I struggle to immerse myself in DF.
Everything seems so out of place: epic sets, weird looking mounts.
Do you guys enjoy the fantasy side of WoW still or it’s all numbers?
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When it’s aligned with lore and there’s references from story to gameplay made through dialog, quests, easter eggs and whatnot time to time it helps me feel immersed.
However there’s particular things that are just thrown about or players stomp their foot down like an angry toddler and get given that pretty much upsets that balance & disconnects one from the ‘RPG’ side of things in the MMORPG that is WoW.
For instance:
The grotto netherwing drake I feel should’ve had a questline showing how the Netherwing flight fit into our world – What have they been up to, how are they, where are they residing as a flight, what purpose did they find etc. They were an intelligent race of a dragonflight akin to the other dragonflights that could commune, transform to humanoid forms too; thus shouldn’t be treated with such carelessness & negligence.
I’d also like more:
- Class questlines.
- More class-race questlines (Class questline unique to your race / how the nature of your class fits in with your selected race).
- Time to time references to mounts you’re riding, or pets you have out.
- Recognition dialog made @ transmog you’re using (Whether most of a set, or a special item appearance you’re using).
… and so on. Legion did some stuff like that, and it felt very immersive & refreshed a sense of ‘Adventure’ back into the game through such surprising methods. I loved how the game tied the roleplaying aspect back into the gameplay and made it rewarding in Legion, it’s part of why it ranked up on the list of one of my favourite expansions.
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I enjoy dragons and pew pew dungeons / raids and collecting things.
All numbers, dps meters, mechanics, parses, rotations, ilvls.
Honestly it could be a 2d birdseye view game and I would still enjoy it. No story don’t care.
The whole game is fantasy, both retail and classic.
I’ve never really been able to follow the overall main story line very well but the smaller stories in towns as you pass through, doing quests are good.
Always have been so to me, it’s worth it and makes sense.
As for immersion, I can still get immersed in the retail side of the world but I’m no longer a new player and that makes a big difference.
There’s nothing they can do about that, either. It is what it is.
- Adding about the side quests & immersion. The story of Sendrax bothers me.
Sendrax is the drac’thyr we meet near the beginning of our adventures in DF. He/she dies (I’m assuming) early on in the game yet it’s just kind of in passing, “no big deal” is the sense I got.
Was that an oversight? Sendrax was a cool character, just learning, hopeful, wanting to do a good job, cared about his/her charges, stuff like that.
Then Sendrax sacrifices itself (Idk if Sendrax is male or female) to save an egg and then it’s just over.
I wish we could go back and take them with us, save those who do stuff like that.
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
Why does Classic HC make you feel immersed? To the point that matching armor and different mounts dont feel like they are “fantasy”?
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I do find Vanilla the most immersive. A few things I can think of:
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The world “sells” me on class fantasy better because classes are often an extension of a race’s history and culture (e.g., only Horde can be shamans, only Night Elves/Tauren are druids, etc) whereas in retail they are slowly unlocking all race/class combos, even arguably silly ones, for the sake of gameplay.
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The races and their cultures feel more pronounced, you spend more time in their starting zones and they dominate different parts of the world that you visit (Khaz Modan=Dwarves, etc) whereas in retail we mostly spend time in the newest zones in which our racial/cultural identifies are not celebrated and don’t really feel pronounced in the world.
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The Horde and Alliance still hate eachother following the events of Warcraft III. Another thing being torn away in retail as we become more cross-faction-y (cross-faction groups, guilds, etc).
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There’s a bigger emphasis on the World of Warcraft. You are constantly exploring and adventuring all over the place, instead of stuffing your adventure into a new set of a few zones (or more realistically, sitting in Valdrakken and spamming the same 8 dungeons for a season).
Everything in retail is so homogenized at this point, nothing really stands out, there’s hundreds of thousands of items, etc. It’s hard to just feel like a humble adventurer just setting out on an epic journey. I still think retail is the better game between the two, its modern, the combat is more interesting, it receives regular content updates, has a lot of good quality of life features, etc. But I think Vanilla is a better MMORPG.
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Reminds me that I adored the tragic and serious nature of the blood elves and despised the goofy nature of the gnomes and horde-- funny enough what I became years later. 
Maybe someday you’ll find yourself in armor that resembles a flamingo wielding a stick with a bitey creature at the end.
edit: Though I do use a gnome transformation toy for timewalking so i’m still stubborn, heh.
Its gonna be real “immersive” for you when a blizzard internet hiccup invalidates every minute you put into that HC character.
I do like classic wrath to an extent, if only they would all LFG tool like it is in retail (my opinion, don’t kill me no changes people)
Blizzard has been whittling away my immersion for at least a decade now. They’ve done a bang-up job of making me not care about the story, world-building, or its main characters. Gameplay is still serviceable, however.
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retail has more fantasy because i have to pretend certain xpacs don’t exist
It’s pretty much all fantasy and story to me.
I think that Warcraft has always been a mix of D&D, steampunk, and Cthulhu mythology. This allows for a lot of things in the game. As long as the art style remains consistent, I can get immersed in the game.
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Immersion is an emotional response, a very personal feeling. It means something different to everybody. There are those for whom the biggest issue is flight, because it breaks their immersion when other people can fly. I, myself find getting stuck behind mushrooms and other spaces that wouldn’t exist and having to hearth out is what breaks my immersion.
I only care to play RPGs because of the story. That’s the whole point of an RPG to me.
If I cared about numbers or serious pvp or raiding I would not choose WoW.
Story is the only reason I care to play video games.
It’s a shame blizzard has been terrible with new lore and destroying old lore.
I also think things shouldn’t be removed from a story because someone might find it offensive.
But blizzard caters to a the easily offended these days.
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I use an addon called Immersion that makes it look like quest NPCs are actually talking to me. I swear, the default quest text will make you go blind trying to read it.
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Assuming you mean the newer work, in which case i’ll be nice n say it leaves much to be desired.
I don’t enjoy the fantasy side of retail wow anymore no. I think legion did a really good job with making me feel like I was actually playing a Druid or a warlock, and really immersed me into my class fantasy with the order-halls and spec specific weapons that looked awesome. I really hope blizzard can bring that class fantasy back because I think that’s a big thing to us players that really immersed us into that expansion. The class mounts were awesome too.
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WoW has definitely gone through an identity crisis over the years.
The fantasy appeal of classic is it’s that classical high fantasy. Undead, orcs, trolls, minotaurs, knights and kingdoms, ground travel across vast expanses of land etc. Retail has really become a world without rules, and arguably, one that doesn’t really fit the classical high fantasy category. The tone is often lighthearted, and thus there isn’t any real sense of danger in the story anymore. The themes introduced throughout have really muddied things, such as robot afterlife gods and time travel shenanigans. The powerscaling of the PC is insane, riding their own personal mini zeppelins, motorcycles, giant dragons and the such. I mean all games must inevitably progress, but if you’re looking for an oldschool fantasy appeal, retail WoW most certainly isn’t it these days.
It’s more of a… like… sci-fi fantasy steampunk amalgamation or something.