Is It Worth Playing Classic as a new player to the WoW series

I started playing WoW in the midst of BFA (completed the campaign on a token character since I bought the expansion at the time and was trying to unlock the Vulpera but then I quit for awhile) (Also played Classic till lvl 10 but hopped off to finish BFA since I bought the expansion lol)

Fast forward to 4 days ago, Shadowlands is out, Vulpera is now easier to unlock so I decide to get that and play as a Vulpera for a bit.

But now that I’m leveling my Vulpera and most likely not gonna buy Shadowlands till after christmas. I’m wondering if I should go and try out WoW classic instead and see if its worth playing. So I’m just asking that if I should play classic when I have no true experience on it and is basically a newbie to WoW.

TD/LR : is Classic worth playing rn for a person new to WoW or nah

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classic is really fun, it’s simple and fun and very immersive as an mmorpg. every class is unique and brings something to the table that’s interesting. choices matter. game is simple. and world is not obsoleted via expansions.

i can’t play retail, it’s not the same feel to it, more like an arcade supporting in app purchases.

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well… what are you going to lose?

#justDoEet

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I mean you pay nothing extra for Classic since all you need is a WoW sub.

You won’t loose anything except time if you try it.

Yeah, Classic might not be for you.

But give it a shot. No reason not to.

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That wasn’t the reason I decided to unlock Vulpera, I got back on and was grinding rep and almost finished it until someone in a dungeon told me I could just get it since a patch update that made it so you only needed to complete the campaign.

That’s a great question, and difficult to answer, imo.

I was thinking earlier that I’ve mostly played Race/Class combinations that were around since Classic, having played all expansions, but wondered what it might be like for someone who started, say post-Cataclysm, and had always mained a Tauren Priest, for example, to check out Classic, and realize that that wasn’t always a thing.


The leveling experience in Classic (as well as end game) is pretty different from Retail. To reach max-level by say, December 28th (1 month from today), with a Classic toon that is currently level 10 will require significant playtime, i.e. a few hours/day.

If you decide to play through Classic, you might find a leveling guild, and make some friends. It might be enjoyable, but I don’t think it will really be relevant to experiencing Shadowlands, if you decide to play that afterwards.

My opinion is that if you focus on Classic now, you will likely spend the following months focusing on Classic end-game, and not purchase Shadowlands until you’ve got Classic end-game content on farm, which could be several months from now.

If you want to experience Shadowland end content, especially Mythic Raiding, you should probably focus on that. Of course, there will likely be catch up mechanics at some point, but that’s never been as good as being an early adopter.

Definitely not. Unfortunately you missed the Golden age which was first 3 months of classic. If you started today you would never be able to get a dungeon group. Raiding guilds and rosters are established.

If your goal is not to do any dungeons or raids and just do a casual leveling and professions style of play sure. Start up. But you are extremely late to the party and you missed the best part of the game

It’s not that hard to get dungeon groups. Of course YMMV, depending on which realm(s) you play, but it’s not a whole lot different from the first 3 months, in my personal experience.

I have waited 2 hours in group (as a tank, with a healer) in September 2019, to get a full group for Mara, for example, but that wasn’t the average time. Likewise, it’s not that hard to form groups today.

As for raiding, you can pretty easily find yourself a raid team, even if you don’t have pre-bis now. The “problem” is you will be being carried for a few weeks, while you gear up.

You are a bit late. Most people who are leveling are just going to be using gold to pay high level people to “boost” them. So even on very high pop servers it will be difficult to find people to level with etc. If blizzard ever comes out with fresh servers where the server is reset to phase 1 and everyone starts with nothing then I think you would find that much more enjoyable. If you really want to play classic though, you certainly still can, just don’t expect to see a lot of people, and especially do not expect to see people actually forming dungeons groups because everyone just gets boosted nowadays. But you could still have fun, especially if you have someone to play with.

Not really. You can join a leveling guild. Often, such guilds have very little, or no-need to advertise for dungeon runs outside of guild.

You can also form your own runs, if that’s what you want to do.

That’s an interesting opinion. It might indeed be a thing, but considering that WoW Classic isn’t a Private Server, things might actually be very different. Where there’s no incentive to roll on a “fresh” server away from your main, and your gold supply.

There are also WAY more servers for WoW Classic than any of the private servers had.

If you find a decent leveling guild, with a handful or so of people who play similar days/times as you, you will definitely be able to do so.

Note though, that not all leveling guilds will have people of your level, and who also play similar days/times you. If you spend a little time looking around though, you’ll likely be able to find a good group to level with.

I definitely think it’s worth playing. Playing from launch would have been the best time, but the community is still pretty lively. People are always starting out and leveling fresh. Personally, I can’t stop making characters, working on a priest and a warlock now, able to find groups even on a small server, though perhaps not at any time I want, need to have a little patience!

I wouldn’t hold out for fresh servers, nobody knows if/when we’ll get them.

BOOMER: classic

ZOOMER: retail

idk. That really depends on what you want to get out of it.

If you play now, you can pretty easily get groups that will accept you with whatever gear you have, and help you catch up.

Do you want to be a forerunner? Play Retail. Do you want to experience content, and tag-along? Play Classic.

Of course, there may be other paths.


EDIT: But, it’s also going to take you a lot longer to get to start end-game in Classic, than in Retail (where there’s more to do at end game - though, all Classic raids may still be somewhat relevant, even after Naxx releases).

yeah, that is something you should be aware of. I play the game at what I believe is more or less the intended pace is and my 3 60’s have taken between 10-15 days of /played to level each.

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I suspect that that is average or above, leaning towards above.

And that is played, so even if it’s 10 days (which is pretty fast, imo), that’s 8 hours/day for 30 days.

No, the only reason we’re still here is sunken cost fallacy

If you can find a lvling guild go for it. I saw some reroll guilds forming on dead servers. Might not be to late for them. I would spend some time to find the right guild or server. If you go to a old big server, you will only find boosting groups. I see a couple sm runs all day with boosts being sold all day.

The world feels so much bigger in classic and is more addictive IMO because you always want to progress your character. Everyone had to start somewhere so I’d say give it a shot to at least give youself the experience of where WoW came from compared to what it is now. It’s a very different game.

It is never too late.