Let Me Enjoy My Warcraft Buffet in Peace! Give us an Adventure Menu!

Community General Discussion
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Hey Blizzard, can we talk?

I’m here, just a simple adventurer at level 20, chilling in Elwynn Forest, swatting at gnolls and enjoying the nostalgia when suddenly, BAM! Some guy’s shouting at me about a whole Dragonflight situation. Like, excuse me? I just learned what a “Defias” is, and now you want me to saddle up and fight proto-dragons? Let me breathe for a second!

I get it. XP, gold, armor—all the shiny stuff. And yeah, it’s nice. But the pacing? It’s like eating an appetizer and having the waiter slam down dessert while I’m still chewing. I miss the journey, man. The grind of walking through the Dark Portal and feeling that moment of epicness. Oh wait—except now I can’t. You took the dang Dark Portal, Blizzard, and turned it into a glorified bus stop. Outland? What Outland? It’s just a pit stop to Azeroth’s greatest hits now.

Here’s my pitch: give us an Adventure Menu. Let me toggle on expansions when I’m ready. Wanna unlock BC at level 30? Cool. WotLK at 40? Sweet. I don’t want Chromie time telling me, “Pick a vibe, buddy, you can’t have it all.” I want it all, just… in order. This is World of Warcraft, not Timeline Confusion Simulator 9000.

It’s not just nostalgia—it’s the storytelling. It’s weird having major lore beats hit out of sync. It’s like watching the MCU starting with Endgame because someone told me it’s got the best special effects. (Sure, they’re right, but come on!)

Let me re-live those Burning Crusade fel-fire vibes. Let me feel the icy despair of Northrend creeping up on me at level 70. Don’t toss me into Dragonflight before I’ve even seen Deathwing break a tower or two.

So yeah, Blizzard, toss us a toggle. Call it the “Classic Journey” option or something. Let us savor the buffet instead of cramming it all into one chaotic plate. I’m here for the XP train, but I want to enjoy the scenery too.

Also, while we’re at it… can we have the Dark Portal back? I miss feeling like I’m walking into the jaws of doom instead of catching a glorified space flight.

Love,
A Player Just Trying to Relive the Glory Days (Without Whiplash)

6 Likes
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This would be so great to have a toggle that would let us experience the story in order, just like we did before, but with current game features (which is what I miss when I go play whatever version of “classic” is the fave of the month).

I think it would also greatly enhance the game for new players, at least the ones that are hoping to dive in to a new world and experience it from the beginning. I see a lot of new players confused by the lore and the sequence of events when they start playing, and something like this would clear that right up.

4 Likes
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The secret of the journey, is that there is no journey. Not any more.

Scaling wrecks the journey. Leveling wrecks the journey. There are not enough levels to consume the content successfully any more, and its not as if levels matter than much anyway (see Scaling).

The brutal truth is that if you want that experience, (I know, I know!), go over to Classic and Classic Cata/MoP. They still exist there. That’s reality, over there.

It’s not like it matters. “But I wanna toon in retail!” A leveled toon in retail takes a few hours nowadays. Just make one, and “skip” the “journey”.

The current retail world is simply incompatible with any real journey, any real growth, watching the character grow, getting that “Now I can go into zone XYZ!” feeling.

Retail is snippets and snapshots. Glimpses of the past.

If you want all the books, Classic is your path.

4 Likes
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You’re absolutely correct. And that, sadly, was the point I was trying to make.

Retail to me, at this point, is one big transmog farming simulator. I’m level 70 in two days from 0. In fact, if I already have a character, they’ll just give me armor in the “Update Armor” thing in the character choice screen.

They wrecked this game so hard that it’ll never recover. Unless you’re playing classic of course, but even then, you get what, one server to choose from? And that’s only classic. BC doesn’t even exist.
I would LOVE to have the quest helper and updated character and world models… That’s all I want updated. And bugs of course. Leave the rest of the game alone, just put Classic, BC, and WOTLK together. You can go to the next expansion when you’re ready. Oh they’d have to lower the “beginner gear” for each expansion so doing one quest in Outlands doesn’t give you better armor than some tier three guy from Classic. Tier three should still matter for a long while into BC… Well, you understand what I’m saying, I’m not a math and stats guy…

Seems like such an easy answer. Such an easy fix. And they’d get everyone playing again.

5

selects fries with his adventure meal

2 Likes
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But then you’d be skipping the real “BC” experience!! I never raided in Vanilla and was dang glad to get the BC quest greens. :hear_no_evil::speak_no_evil::see_no_evil:

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It was with Joy and Sorrow when I swapped out my hard earned Arcanite Reaper for a quest green in BC. The Reaper was a major Destination project for me, farming up all of the gold and mats for it, mailing them off to some stranger to craft it up (I certainly paused a LONG TIME on the “SEND” button for that one).

That said, I used that axe for, I dunno, 3/4s of Vanilla I’d say. They never did introduce a better BOE or solo farmable axe. (There was the Ice Barbed Spear, but that required Alterac Valley, back when AV was notorious for its hours and hours long games – not very “casual” friendly, but Axes, D0rfs, and Warriors worked better anyway).

I got two level (in the mid-50s, maybe 53-55?) on Piddy farming mats for the Robe of the Void (it require BOP Demonic Runes). That was “end game” gear for me, as that was as good as it got. Same with the Frozen Shadoweave set in BC (that took months to get with all of the cooldowns and the large amount of motes to farm).

But it “lasted”, since I didn’t raid.

Wrath changed all that with the currencies, and the Heroics being, well, “less” Heroic than the BC ones (BC heroics were impossible, at least for the groups I tried it with). Wrath made farming Heroics for badges (and better badges, and better badges) the Path to Toon Greatness. LFG opened that up easily to DPS.

So, little reason to pursue elite crafted gear solo any more.

But, yes, even after all that time, all those hours getting that hard to get gear, they all vanished in a blink of an eye with a quest green in the next expansion.

Even after all that Rinse and Repeating, still felt dirty.

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Look to an extent I understand the joys of the ‘old world’ being now a Classic HC player and the more I play it the more I find I’m liking it. There is a separate appeal on making the most of an area you’re in before having to leave it.

Retail has options where you can choose to pause experience and do the expansions in full as you reach their max level ranges (e.g 45 for legion, 50 for bfa etc). This saves them having to code that in for you because it’s easy to do yourself.

Parts where retail really wins with this:

  • Still getting ‘Azerite’ effects that work in BfA and Legendary artifact items that work in Legion.
  • Stopping at that level makes the zone more exciting. Generally it doesn’t feel great to just one tap everything in all content.
  • Combine gear sets to make the best of your character. Triple slot gear from WoTLK, Legendary cape from BfA.

Parts where it loses:

  • Level up ‘dings’ are user controlled and don’t feel as satisfying.
  • Crafting system interactions with the expansions are broken. Level requirements are off, etc.