I’m genuinely curious what the appeal to continue playing Classic era is for you guys?
What do you enjoy doing? Is it Rp or do you guys just love the community?
I’m sure to find some interesting ideas and people with this question and I’m very curious about it.
It’s my favorite version of the game and I don’t have to get all my BiS gear again every 2 weeks. BiS is BiS forever. I did the retail hamster wheel long enough. Tired of it.
I’m just in love with the world, the options to quest as I like, to place my ttalent points how I like, to roam and discover the world, to enjoy the sunsets over Shimmering flats, the nights in Duskwood, to go fishing in Stranglethorne or even with fear and trepidation - and armed with lures to last me a long time - in Deadwind Pass.
A nice Guild is not half bad either.
I don’t enjoy the other versions. Also, the stuff the people above me said. I’m geared to my satisfaction on 5 60s, when I play, I can just play.
Ultimately, it’s just my favorite game of all time.
I enjoy playing with like minded people who also find a 20 year old game to be their favorite game.
I like knowing it isn’t really going to change (yes yes I know, some changes blah blah).
I love the content — the zones, the quests, the dungeons, the raids. The world is so immersive, something none of the xpacs made me feel.
I love the permanence of it. You never are leveling up past 60, so this is it. Your best gear is your best gear.
I love how long it takes (for me anyways) to achieve my goals in the game — be it leveling or getting my desired gear. I’ve only really leveled a few of the classes to 60 yet, so still lots more to do for me that would be new.
It’s also fairly casual, despite massive time sinks. I don’t have a lot of time to play week to week, but I have consistently played over the years. I like that I can just pop on and raid, or pop on and level a bit on an alt, or farm some stuff or what have you.
Most recently, I’ve loved helping to build a community on Grobbulus with a bunch of other likeminded weirdos who just love vanilla wow. I’ve played vanilla on and off since 2004, and somehow playing with these guys on Grobbulus and having a whole server to ourselves (one horde guild, one alliance guild) has been my favorite time in Vanilla. Took us about 2 years to progress from 5-10 people clearing MC to nearly 40 for our first KT Naxx clear (and we’re always looking for more friends to join!).
To sum it up — best game content and design, doesn’t change*, massive and immersive world, fairly casual friendly but also lets you be as hardcore as you want, great community of likeminded and dedicated players, it’s fun.
Nice, I may end up joining that server, it seems.
I like that the game elements feel like they are there to be a game, not incentive to keep you playing. My character’s progression feels meaningful and like I’m in charge of it. I set the pace and can pursue my goals with whatever time I’m willing to spend at the tme.
I like that the dungeons and raids feel… I dunno, immersive. Don’t get me wrong, retail has some pretty amazing stuff! But they just feel like movie sets now. Vanilla dungeons and raids feel like a place you might go, or where nefarious deeds might be taking place. I’ve done all of them a thousand times (or more!) but I can’t help but feel like I’m on an adventure when I do them. A retail dungeon feels like any other dungeon, just with different dressing.
I like that the world is a part of the game and remains so throughout my character’s entire lifetime. If I want to go to a place, I mostly have to travel there myself. Various activities take me all over the world and it becomes familiar to me. In more recent versions of WoW the world is throwaway. It’s something you spend time in for a small part of your character’s journey, then it ceases to matter.
I’m also in agreement with a lot of the things folks said above. I just like this game. I also like pineapple on my pizza, you might not 
One other thing I forgot to mention — and I’m not saying this isn’t the case in other games, but am certainly saying it is the case for vanilla wow.
You start as a nobody. Everything feels dangerous. Over time, you become a hero. Everything still feels dangerous. You and your realm of adventurers have to band together to strengthen yourself and gain notoriety.
You aren’t inherently just some powerful god, so it really feels like a story of going from a peon to a hero.
And even when you are a hero… you aren’t ever THE hero. You’re one of 40 people that heroically defeats whatever raid boss. And guess what? Stuff still feels dangerous!
On the early levels, you get some blue items and damn you feel powerful. And I feel they scale that journey very well from 1 to 60 without ever making you feel like a god, even with best in slot gear.
You’re still just a humble hero on a journey 
Yeah, that really makes sense. I know and understand what you mean.
Having started with retail soon before Dragonflight’s release, one of the funny bits was hearing all the talk about being this hero when I really had no idea what was even going on.
Then now, playing wotlk, I feel like a champion amongst other champions (other players) and I’m in competition with other champions. That’s where I’m at now and I expected to see the dialogue about being the grand champion of all champions but it’s not there. It’s more about people trying to survive an undead invasion and I’m just there lol. They’ll take what they can get. The potential is there.
It makes sense that a retail player that’s been there from start to end would be that champion god but as a new player playing retail it’s like “where is all this coming from?”
Anyway, that may be too much to read but I agree with you. That’s a strange thing that can be off-putting, being put on the pedestal compared to other champions is like neglecting the accomplishment of my teammates and competitors.
Because it’s the only form of WoW that doesn’t obsolete your character. Why invest thousands of hours in a character when your progress gets wiped out with the next expansion?
I like that the game won’t progress to something else, like it has done every few years since inception. My dream would be a TBC server. I can leisurely play on it without being rushed and enjoy the experience. It is fun and relaxing.
It remains to be a great MMORPG to this very day. It easily accommodates players who want to be a part of an actual world with tried and true old school RPG elements instead of a diminishing returns treadmill where everyone ends up being a “living legend” over and over again.
A large part of the appeal for me personally is having played it when it originally launched and the memories I have from playing it back then. Real friendships were made. Since then, I’ve never found a better overall fantasy MMORPG and its not from a lack of trying.
While I hold in TBC in very high regard (and would keep a TBC main if the option was available) and give a slight nod to Wrath for wrapping up the lore from the RTS warcraft games, neither of them can compare to Vanilla in terms of a player driven RPG experience even though vanilla is still technically a theme park. That goes for most of the industry if you’re talkin AAA releases in the last 15-20 years.
Vanilla is, almost quite literally, the perfect balance between grind and accessibility and it was only in place for this one version for that one span of time. I could go on and on but I see other posters have already covered most of the finer details. Its just a damn good game.
Leveling/gearing rogues and playing AV.
Ive since taken up leveling up a warrior full prot in the most masochistic way possible because why the hell not.
I never really understood the appeal to the “theme park” in an MMOROG until I met the mountains and the paths around it near Vengeance Landing.
I really felt like I was just having fun riding down the path and seeing the scenery.
I know that’s WotLK but I just wanted to say that there is some real appeal there if done correctly and it’s actually kinda mandatory in a way that I didn’t quite understand before because I imagined it to be just doing some quests and then being rushed to a new place to do some more fetch quests.
I didn’t understand at the time that I was attributing my assumptions I had towards WoW based on WoW clones implenting these ideas poorly. I thought WoW was like them. Kinda off topic but yeah bringing Classic and Vanilla back was a really good idea.
For me it’s a solved game, I don’t need to worry about looking up guides every week so that I’ll stay relevant, and once I have full bis on a character, that’s it, that character doesn’t need any more development, now I can just do world pvp and raid casually without worrying about what gear i’m gonna get.
Additonally, I can focus on getting full biss on all ten character slots, so I have years and years of content to look forward to.
That’s basically it, honestly.
Edit: also I can hop on and so long as I do something relevant like leveling up a character or make some gold, my account has progressed, even if it’s by a small amount, and that progression will always be there, and will always stay relevant, instead of being invalidated new expacks and such.
I did raid all the TBC phase 1 and 2 raids, did alot of battlegrounds in tbc which was really fun, got fairly well geared, that character is still 70 and has nobody to play with.
Made a dk for wotlk, did all of the raids and nearly all challenges available (raided casually after toc released) got geared, cataclysm about to replace wotlk and my dk will be isolated just like my 70.
Vanilla, my hunter here was left behind and I’m coming back around to gearing him up, had 200g, after about two weeks I have 9400g and when the next AV weekend comes I’ll be rank 10, this character will never be left behind by an expansion and his progress ruined, it’s a game I can log into and never feel like I’m going to miss out on anything or have the content I enjoy be destroyed.
just waitin on tbc to return and ill never leave it. just sucks only a few us seem to really like it. if only they added belves i’d stay in classic era lol.
anyways ppl replay games all the time. wow has excellent replayability even on its base game. its just that good to ppl i guess.
There is a lot of us that really like it. Don’t be fooled.
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I think I just really enjoy the time I spend in the Classic version of the world, so I keep coming back. I like the way the player interacts with the game-world and the other players (for the most part). Most of the expansions are fine, some I really liked, some I wasn’t so fond of.
I usually play arms warrior at 60. My most common group activities are probably orb runs, Baron runs, UBRS, Dire Maul (E, N, and T), and sometimes battlegrounds on the weekend. Outside of that, I’ll farm materials and work on alts. I do a lot of goofing around and lollygagging. I usually log in at some point every day, sometimes just for a few minutes, but I’ll play all day/night when I get the rare opportunity to do so.
I currently have a 60 warrior main and a 60 mage alt, and some leveling characters (hunter and hpal are next). I’m never in much of a hurry for anything, and I’ve never had any interest in boosting, buying gold/gear, or really any kind of completion or status. I’d like to level more 60s of more classes, and on both factions, but that’s more of an interest than a goal.
As long as there are live servers with other players, I don’t think there’s much of a cap on the long-term potential for me to enjoy Classic. If there were, I think I would have found it years ago.
Personally my fav part of Era is the pvp. While a lot of people seem to complain about the ‘balance’ I find that every class is lots of fun to play in pvp and team v team wsg is lots of fun, high skill cap, and has many opportunities for every player to make important and sexy plays.
The hardcore duel tournament was a ton of fun as well. Overall I think Era pvp scene could grow a lot, as it is lots of fun for the players themselves but also very streamable so it is actually enjoyable for audiences as well (I think even at tbc / sod it becomes much less interesting for non-players to watch the pvp).
To gear a toon for pvp in Era one needs to pve as well, so I also do enjoy the pve enough to play it. And in the past half year I’ve ran naxx weekly with the same GDKP and find that lots of fun and look forward to those runs. My main doesn’t need gear but it is nice to be far beyond gold cap, knowing I can easily gear any alt, buy all the pvp consumes I need, etc.
The fact that gear doesn’t get invalidated is very nice as well.
Even leveling in the world is lots of fun and my last alt was a rogue and I had a ton of fun ganking people as I leveled mostly by questing.
I think the only thing that could improve Era would be an additional fresh-server that resets every 2 years - this would be great for the community to all have an event to level together around, and for people that want to challenge themselves at doing world firsts or AQ gate event, etc. to be able to prepare for it and achieve their in game goals.
I enjoy playing the game, not just the end of the game. Also, even though I don’t do dungeons or raids (it’s a people problem), I tend to like the people I encounter in the game. As I move through a zone, people throw a buff on me.
To me, classic is more immersive, it’s a better escape.