I hit 60 week ago. And I was preparing my own personal perception of what did I gain/lost when I switched from Retail to Classic.
Firstly: I’m playing WoW 15 years. From vanilla, I didn’t start right when vanilla came out, but I was lucky enough to be able to get in the game half of the year after it was presented in Europe.
And I loved it. I came from Lineage II, where you do nothing but farm farm and farm mobs over and over, so WoW for me was a breath of fresh air with all those quests and world story buildup.
Then years come by and eventually I dropped retail after BfA campaign. Cause I understood that this game died as a MMO, it became boring and too repetitive. You go in, you do the same stuff and you don’t gain anything in return. Classic for me was the nostalgia shot, so I jumped in it like no tomorrow.
And I played, and played. I took two weeks vacation for playing it. And tried to enjoy it as I was hoping I will looking back to those earlier time. But at the same time I understand that this game will not bring me the exact experience, cause those days are gone. I became knowledgeable, smarter, more experienced. I know a lot about World of Warcraft. What each item does, and what I need to take, bring, where to get, where to go. But I still was ready for Classic delivery. And Classic delivered.
And now I describe my personal experience in WoW: Classic throughout 1 to 60 lvls.
When I logged with my freshly created character, I was overwhelmed by amount of people on one server playing at starting location. First 4 levels with quests of this location were most unbearable experience I’ve had. Those quests were crucial, but yet boring and brought nothing. Yet I constantly was driven back cause mobs were tagged, apples where snatched and scorpion king was queued. I was lucky to play on server which was not as full as others where to pick a pickaxe people queued to it in a long long queue. Also my playtime was generally at night of regular people on this server. I can’ imagine how many more minutes I would spend there if I was playing with them at their daylight playtime.
So I went to Troll village (I’m too lazy to check the proper spelling of it, so let it be just that) and here the game a begin a little. To get the next quests I partied with few people, when there was a need to kill amount of mobs. But most of the time I still was alone. Cause of no-quest-sharing-items policy of #welcometovanilla. I endured (those never dropping tiger coats… ugh). And endured a little more. Then I partied for killing a big Troll and we dissipated on the next zone. (got my first 8 slot bag from a crab there, so all paid off at the end).
Throughout whole experience of Classic till 60 this behaviour of people didn’t changed a bit. When you need to kill a unique mob or bunch of regular count: you party. When you need to pick and take type of quest, you go alone. This inconsistency killed a lot of communication for me, cause People didn’t want to share party for zone cause few quests there was pickup stuff from corpses type. Same as me. I didn’t want to share that with anyone except in rare occasion when grouping was a must (in elite zones).
The most authentic experience from vanilla I’ve got in Barrens (no, not cause of barrens Chat that never shut up, although it is never shut up, but it was like a glimpse of previous glory and became a meme of himself) but cause people were everywhere and they were grouping a lot and running around and you run with them, and grouped with them and it was last DAYS cause your several quest chains and levels was RIGHT THERE in a middle of crossroads. And I loved it. This and this place alone gave me what I was looking in classic. No other place after or before was near the nostalgia experience than barrens.
But then I overcome everything, I leveled up and game pushed me to go further. Now the story became scattered through whole azeroth. Flying and walking, return and flying some more. I switched to Tarren mill from Thousand needles, cause I was tired of orange environment, but eventually came back to Needles, cause I’ve had few quests that I needed to complete but was afraid to abandon.
Quests doesn’t let me group much, cause they led everywhere and people almost never had the same quests as you when you finished with one and want to go for another place. Social interest in playing was completely negated by this.
There were several dungeons that I ran with random people, and you could say that we socialized much more than in Retail, but it’s ONLY cause dungeons were long and sometimes obnoxious. And we needed to wait healer all the time. So in time where there nothing was to do, we just were throwing phrases and silly jokes at each other. Or just simple calmly waiting healer to regen.
Few dungeons from those runs I even didn’t complete, cause there were quitters, who abandon group cause of “real life”.
But they aren’t one to blame. I also have “real life” issues that I needed to attend everyday, so I wasn’t be able to go deep here and there as I was in vanilla. ANd in first hint of “lets just ditch it” whole group except maybe one member was agreeing instantly. So experience cause of it was a bit dull and forgetful.
After I hit 35 lvl. I’ve got the feels that experience became much more obnoxious and “hard”. Cause of playing rogue I was always faced yellow mobs, which were parrying and dodging every second attack especially when near death, so I died a lot. And I died from being 50% to 10% HP mobs like three or four times, cause of their, NEAR DEATH SUDDEN BUFFS, which they’ve got (not enraging buff, just invisible unrecognizable buff that clearly showed that they suddenly come to be ninjas with 80% evade chance and 50% parry chance). I hated it. I hated to be Rogue from 35 to 50. Those levels were the hardest for me.
Then I suddenly realized that I need to think about what I’m building in talent trees. Cause now when mobs started to be VERY “smart” and filled with nasty stuff like debuffs for 30 minutes wich stacks one near another, you need to be prepared. So I examined some suggestions from forums and got that those talents which I was using, which I thought that gave me convenience, were in the way of REAL talent’s which gave you +100% of usefulness in fights, and shorten fights themselves by almost a half. And I’ve got that understanding that literally there is no CHOOSING in talents three. You MUST take those which everyone using, or you will be behind everyone like WOAH.
Getting a mount for me was a big milestone. And Actually when I’ve got one, my interest in this game dropped by 25%. I don’t know why. I got the feeling that there is nothing to do anymore. Yes I still need to get 60 lvl. But what else? I still stayed and played. And interest sparked a bit when I’ve got 55 lvl. I felt like I NEED to push a little more. Here is my reward. The ACTUAL game. The 60 lvl. And I hit it. ANd I came to major city, and I re-talent myself from being useless piece of garbage to regular rogue with garbage gear. And I stood there and I couldn’t let mysefl go anywhere. Cause I understood that I finished this game. I did everything I wanted. I’ve got my nostalgia for a little of time. I’ve got a feeling that I lost from retail, where your decisions mean something (not in Talents but in selling gray junk, and carefully calculate what do you need to take with you on a journey and when you will be out of food/poisons/flash powder). But at the 60 lvl you now have nothing. You can complete quests that you have (which I did) but they give shaite gear or items that you never use or just sell. Raid quests are hard, cause people raiding only for gear, rarely you see a quest raids/dungeon runs. And where you do. You need to go off, cause “life is calling”.
And now I’m stuck at this. i still play. But I play like this: I login. I wait in a major city about for a hour for dungeon to pop pup from somewhere. I do dungeon (o don’t cause I need to go off already and finding grp took too much time) and I log off.
So here I’m. Waiting for the next phases. Cause I remember how fun it was to PvP in BGs. Now I just don’t have anything to do except the same repetitive stuff as in retail: dailies, dungeons and raids.
I am on PvP server and I’ve have only few strucks with PvP (almost all of them were Skull Alliance player killing me from afar with two spells or attacks). Once I participated in World PvP battle in Feralas and once in Ashenvale. All other times there wasn’t any literal PvP battles anywhere sadly. At 58 I became more involved in those, but at the same time they are just bad news for one of the side. Cause those aren’t battles, those are 30 hordes vs 5 alliances or vice versa.
Here I will summarize my perception of the game till this moment:
Starting with the worst stuff, that I can’ stand —
The Cons:
- Graphics. I was the topic starter of this thread -
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And after coming through all of this to 60 LvL, I can tell now: I was 101% right. People who didn’t care about visuals could have their own vanilla fest, but people as I am, who care about how things look, could get MUCH more joy to play some even obnoxious stuff in classic if only we had new graphic toggle at least for models/VFX. Now it’s a bit late. It’s the same was in BfA, when Blizzard promised us Zandalari trolls, but they gave them only when you already finished whole campaign and there wasn’t anything to do with them. I was VERY disappointed then, I am very disappointed now. I just hope they still will make us this new graphic toggle in future phases, cause I would love to play renewed world of classic gameplay.
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I also just leave this here:
https://i.imgur.com/v1ihMZO.jpg -
I defy almost every texture and model in Classic. I hate the view of old outdated and poorly aged stuff on a ground and on walls, on a ceiling and on mobs which I’m facing. But moreover I hate what my character wears and how my character looks like. It is always the shaitiest quality and design no matter how far you go with your “improve quality settings” bars. I’m sorry blizzard. I love your Art team, but the old stuff doesn’t age well.
- Balance. Sometimes stuff just happens. You get debuff which you can’t dispel and you need to WAIT for something. Not cause you need to be careful, bt cause this debuff almost completely negates your gameplay (like 2 minutes fairy fire on rogue or 3 minutes debuff that damages you overtime). Well I understand what game designers had in mind: you need to choose to wait and be deadly, or you can go as it is and start a bit/lot weaker than you are. Some classes are affected by it more than others and it is not balanced at all. But then again, vanilla never was a pure balanced game in a first place.
- Secondly, I was talking about it earlier: mob can get buff that you can’t see, you just feel that now your attacks are avaded, your skills are parried and you dying to 2% HP monster. THen it returns to its place fully regenerated when you must walk form a GY which is on the other side of whole zone.
- Balance in PvP is broken. I remember it was broken in vanilla till some of it was “kinda fixed” later before burning crusade, but it still wasn’t fair game and don’t even start me with “rock, paper” stuff. There are now few classes that no one can get, no matter how you try (mostly cause it is too early in phases). They are just imbalanced, Shadow priest/Warlock which can kill anyone just by casting few spells is a sad view.
- Quests which require you to walk/run/fly to another place far far away just to return afterwards and fly/run/walk to another place again. OH HOW I hated these quests. The time I spent running from place to place without doing anything is incredibly stupid. The escort quests are DUMB. They are so dumb, that they became a meme in everyone’s youtube animated WoW channels. it’s funny when you look at it, it’s shaite when you participating. Quests are the same. You need to kill X mobs, you need to bring X stuff. There are only few quests which are really unique and interesting (like a Spider Milk) but generally quests are boring. You just kill things or kill things and loot things. Sometimes those Kill things and loot things are so time consuming, cause % of drop of the things are SO LOW, that you can get a half of a level just to do it. Quests chains are also a bit dumb, cause you complete the quest and you taking the next one which IN THE EXACT SAME PLACE, just a bit further. And it’s not like “oh you showed me a thing from that place, now I have more information of tat place so go and kill baddy there”. It’s: You killed 15 baddies X, now go and kill 10 baddies Z and 5 baddies Y just further away from where you’ve been right now. Just cause I suddenly want you to do that.
- Talent trees. GUH. THere are a lot of arguing about this already. I just side with those who saying that they are pointless. Yes they are cool. THey are MUCH BETTER than talents in retail. But they are pointless overall. They don’t give you freedom of choice. You haven’t any choice if you play a class/role. You can’t be Sub-rogue or Fire/Arcane mage in PvE, you can’t be Discipline Priest as a Healer or Boomkin as a DPS. Cause those are sahite. They are imbalanced in a bad way. I leveled as Sub rogue and I was SURE I’m doing alright, cause all the conveniences was in my favor. I was sneaky deadly one crit —half HP gone assassin. But when I get to the dungeon with two other rogues with worse gear than mine on one of them, but with PROPER talents and role, I just saw the damage meter and I understood that no matter how I would try I can’t compete with them. the balance is just SUCKS. And when you pick convenience, you cut in damage in disproportional %.
- Things to do. I’m waiting for new phases. And hoping they will bring more stuff to do. but Now at 60 lvl this game doesn’t provide and deliver. There is just nothing to be busy with yet except standing in a city and manually looking for groups for chance to see a gear you really want.
- QoLs and #nochange. Haha that is a good joke guys. Almost everything that we have in retail officially by blizzard is now in classic made by other people. Except LFG/LFR but we have addons which compensate. This isn’t con or pro, it’s just a shout out to #nochangers yet again. You didn’t get your vanilla. Classic is an echo of what you wanted. And it never will be what you want it to be. And I only hope Blizzards will bring some stuff that is no way ruins anyone’s gameplay or balance but gives players more things to enjoy. EVEN IF IT WASN’T IN VANILLA. #11chars
- Bugs. A lot of them. There are literally whole zones which glitching like whoa (I’m talking to you Tanaris) there were some times I was stuck between two objects which visually was perfectly passable between, and couldn’t get out in anyway except HS/Suicide port. A lot of mobs which stuck in environment or aggroing from under the terrain. “In combat” status which doesn’t wear off even if you use vanish (happens only twice, but still). Camera angles completely changing weather/lighting and return those whenever you changing the angle again? Inconsistency of mesh/collider of environment: you can sometimes not be able to walk in something you visually can, cause of invisible blocking collider of this thing (remember those brunches or stones/rocks which have bigger colliders than their actual mesh? or that you even don’t expect them to have blocking colliders at all, they should have just little colliders to be able to feel physical not a square strict collider that doesn’t let you walk on it).
The pros:
- Balance. No matter how I hate random inconvenient and invisible stuff that in retail flashing red lights to your face, cause it wants you to be ready for it. I love the hard to get feelings when I’m playing the game. Yes I will swear and will rage about one thing don’t drop after 100 and 1 mob, or hours constant standing in place cause I can’t progress alone in this quest nobody wants to group or help with (I still will get you you stinky Barov!). But then I will get it and my head will be filled with endorphins and understanding that I deserve this. After all this bullshaite I really deserve this. This is what retail lost through the time. It become too easy. it become meaningless. All stuff shoved to your face when you don’t even deserve it. Just cause Blizzard want you to feel special. But they don’t understand why I feel special and what requirements I applied to myself to feel special.
- Animations and immersion. Despite me being hateful on graphic one thing that I love in visuals, is animation style. I still think that a lot of stuff can be better in classic and a lot of stuff IS better in retail. But some animations had their THING, that was lost when new were created. And I would love to see those old animations but just fixed, not changed completely.
- I love that you didn’t completely ditched the visuals of retail and transferred clustering of details and water from retail. I love new grass and I love that every environmental area filled with a lot of details. I remember how dull and empty vanilla was sometimes. And I loved every patch after burning crusade came out where you were adding new visual stuff. Pity that this is the only things that you put in classic from retail.
- Importance of choice. As I was saying it doesn’t apply to talents, cause you don’t have a choice there. But importance of choice in all other things you do while leveling up (professions, gear, refreshing your stacks of ingredients and such) it really pays off. Cause it affect your gameplay drastically, but instead of blaming game for it, cause of inaudible stealth stuff that you can’t be prepared for, you only should blame yourself for your absentmindedness and forgetfulness.
- One level = one thing to get. I love to getting levels, they feel like little milestones. you get one point after ding and you standing there in a middle of nowhere, surrounded by enemies. And you thinking where to put that little fellow. In retail especially in BfA, levels were pointless. You almost didn’t get anything, especially when levels of mobs increased every time you leveling up.
Overall
I will still be playing this game. Maybe till Wow: shadow(whatwasit?) comes out and it will be WAY better than they advertised it (cause now it’s utter disappointment).
Or maybe till I change my living residence and/or will be swallowed by real life issues and demands.
That’s it for now. I’m already few hours on this post. so I need to finish. Maybe I will return to it and add something. Maybe not. But that is just my own personal experience and opinion.
Sry for mistakes (I suck at English sometimes) and take care.