I’m excited to play Vanilla, since I wasn’t playing WoW at the time, but how does Vanilla get along with people who have children and full time jobs, plus a life?
Are we able to keep up or we need to be 100% “committed” ?
At least retail kinda helps us get some welfare gear and be able to step foot in a bg or dungeon…
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Vanilla was more casual friendly than the dumbed down hamster wheel of garbage epics and gutted content in retail.
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Classic is different from vanilla in that there won’t be an expansion looming in the distance. If all you can afford is a few hours a week then that’s fine. It may take you years and you might not see some of the later raids, but Classic isn’t going anywhere so everyone can go at their own pace and eventually get through most of the content.
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That depends on what you want to do.
You can easily level 1-60 playing completely casually and going at your own pace. At that point what you’re able to do might drop off.
Dungeons while easily puggable are typically longer so instead of ~30 minute runs expect to commit at 2-3 hours if you want to run a dungeon. But as they’re puggable you can do those once again at your own pace, so if you only have time for 1 or 2 a week that’s fine.
Early raids are also very likely to be puggable but once again expect a longer time commitment per run. Chances are you won’t be doing AQ40 or Naxx though.
BG’s are of course completely puggable just like in retail and since we’re getting CRBG’s are a decent place to go if you can only commit time in smaller chunks. The BG Rep rewards as well as early honor gear are pretty decent. However don’t expect to get at all far in the honor system without massive time commitment.
And yes like others have said since there’s no new expansion and really not that much catch gear you might not be maxxing out each phase but you’ll be able to do everything up to your maximum commitment at some point without it going away. However as I noted your maximum commitment will potentially exclude certain things.
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Everyone has varying opinions on what “casual” is.
I was in the Army full time and had 1 kid at the time. I did raids 3-5 nights per week for 4 hours per raid night, and used the off nights to farm, craft ammo, pvp, etc… Our raid schedule was based on progression. If everything was on farm, we could clear the little raids (MC, BWL, ZG, Ony) in 2 nights on speed runs.) If we were pushing a new raid like AQ40 or Naxx raid nights ramped up to 5 per week, with 2 farm nights and 3 progression nights.
My idea of casual is 3 good 4-5 hour sessions per week. If you can find a decent casual raiding guild, you can get through BWL content on that.
I don’t think back in the day casuals could get really into AQ40 or Naxx. Now, since Classic will stay Classic forever, those may be possible at a super slow rate.
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Keep in mind there is no LFR where the raid content is broken into smaller wings.
So generally I would think raids will want to clear the whole thing usually.
Instead of trying to do a quick dungeon or LFR when you have a spare hour or 30 mins, you will probably have do your dungeon or raid when you have a spare few hours like Ziryus was talking about- depending on the dungeon of course.
While you are leveling it won’t matter.
I would also recommend playing a healer or caster if you can’t commit a long time. Much easier to get groups on the fly. And if you get into a decent guild make it understood your time constraints. Nothing wrong with being a bench warmer. That’s what I plan to do because I’m in the same boat.
There’s a big difference between Classic and Retail with time invested. Retail has plenty of catch-up mechanics, while Classic is entirely time invested - time rewarded. If you have “no time” to play, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on content. You’ll definitely clear MC, maybe BWL and ZG, but AQ and Naxx require a lot of preparation and time dedicated to your character/guild.
That said, try playing yourself and see how much time things take and if you have time for it! It’s not like it’s an extra money investment.
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Recently I watched a stream with Mark Kern (Vanilla WoW team lead) and he talks about developer stories while they designed and developed the original WoW.
One of the parts he talks about how they designed WoW to be able to be played at a few hours at a time and because it would give you a sense of progression.
The game was also a super casual version of everquest.
VOD if you’re interested:
From my own previous threads asking a very similar question, response was pretty positive for Casualism in Classic, you will be able to achieve a lot of content and even raid until about AQ/Naxx.
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The biggest difference is where you want to set your goals. I have zero desire to reach endgame right away, like so many others who are trying to claim World firsts 15 years after the fact. This time around, I’m going to enjoy the experience of leveling, and the game world again. Also, roleplay.
If your eyes are set on endgame, remember that just getting to 60 is going take a large chunk of time. Dungeons, leveling, professions. Getting to 60 and getting geared may take you more time than say, someone who power levels to 60 and devotes much more time to farming materials and getting endgame level gear.
If you want to raid, there will be opportunities to raid. My progression guild in Vanilla was essentially made up of people who had families and could only raid on weekends. I know there will be groups that will have the same sort of priorities that you do, and you’re gonna want to keep an eye out for them.
Without an “end” to Classic, like we had with the first expansion, you will have a lot less pressure to get up there. In this case, what time you put in, is going to be what you get out of it. Hopefully.
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I’ll add to this by sharing Jeff Kaplan on the AIAS Game Maker’s Notebook podcast, telling stories of how he got into the business and how he and Pat Nagle originally started with a very Everquest-like design and how the first test groups hated it, so they made it more casual and added more quests.
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My Dad played pretty casually in Vanilla. He leveled a couple characters to 60. He didn’t do much endgame content but I have no doubt he experienced more of Azeroth than I did.
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Awesome! That sheds some light on the Classic topic, I was worried I will not be able to do anything. I main a priest so I should be ok. Granted, I have to re-learn the play style
Vanilla wow is more casual friendly than retail…
Just manage your expectations. You will not be at the same level as someone who plays the game 12 hours a day… and that is okay.
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Classic is nice because it was about the journey. Most casual players won’t even be 60 for a month or two. It’s about leveling, the story, making friendships, and the grind. Now the grind is not bad, grind make it so even when you replace your grey staff with a white no stat staff you’re still happy lol.
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I’m going to be real with you, it’s not for casuals. People may tell you that you can go at your own pace, blah blah blah… but I still remember back in the day when people were making the news killing themselves playing WoW. I myself, a “casual” nearly lost myself in the game, and most people have stories of people who started playing WoW then who fell off the face of the earth.
WoW is by it’s nature addictive, and unlike retail, the Vanilla treadmill is much, much longer in terms of what you have to do in order to get rewards. People want it precisely because it caters to the hardcore and not to the people who can’t spare 2-3 hours a day playing.
Sure, the game isn’t going to force you to play it. You can log off whenever you like. But expect to be stuck under 30 with greys for a very, very long time. Years. Also, expect your time to spent in be very grindy scenarios without cinematics and the high cost production value of retail.
Hope that prepare you for what to come. If you’re the kind of person who has ironclad discipline and you find investing 100+ hours for a single reward more meaningful than playing other games or hobbies, you might even like it. Eventually Classic will lead to something be it more 60 content or TBC, so there will be a pace at which you will need to come up with if you want to be ready for the launch of those things as well.
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As a casual PvP player I’m concerned about getting gear. Seems like for much of the good weapons especially, I’ll have to deal with elitist pve people . ![:sob:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/sob.png?v=6" ":sob:")
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If you play at 60 and don’t have the time to raid you’ll be seriously outgeared in PvP. If you play under 60, you’ll be at the mercy of people who have a lot of gold buying and grinding twink gear who can’t play the game at 60 and would prefer to stomp you with a number of abilities that they can effectively mouse click with.
Vanilla PvP is harsh. You won’t get rewards for being good at it like you can now with Arenas and catchup gear, and you won’t get rewards for doing it at your own pace, because the system is designed to reward people who commit more time to it to get more HKs.
One thing you could do is pick a broken class. We already have tons of data to theorycraft with, and we know that we’re not getting any balancing, so you’ll be permanently stuck with a built in advantage to help you equalize against players with more time than you.
OK, now you’re just being silly. I had never played an MMO before, started WoW in about Dec 2004 and was 60 by April 2005.
Nobody’s going to be stuck “under 30” since experience just keeps coming in. And nobody’s going to be stuck in “greys”. Whites/greens are routine quest awards.
When you get to 60 is where it CAN get bad. But if you’re really casual you can just start an alt and take a different levelling path.
I have a feeling this was sarcasm/trolling, but in case anyone takes it seriously…
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You’re describing a player who will most likely lose interest in classic and will turn back to retail. I played in private servers very casually and was well geared. Mix of Bwl, AQ40 and Naxx. Yes. It took me a LONG time and a lot of the population was way ahead of me for awhile. However, i was content on logging on when I could, work on professions, maybe do a dungeon and got gear casually. Didnt grind for bis pre raid gear, just whatever felt like doing at the moment. This is one of the reasons i liked classic, among many other reasonsx i didnt feel rushed. At first it was hard to get into a raid group, everyone so serious…but everntually getting into raid groups wasnt so bad…I was a preist healer and pvpd ad shadow…
Playing casually is definitely possible. Jusy dont get causght up in trying to “keep up” with the more hard core players or players that have insane amount of time they can commit to this game. I have family now, job, random social events that eat up a lot of my time. However I played casualy and really enjoyed it and look forward doing the same in Classic.
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What you have to realize is vanilla had a deadline. Classic does not.
The standard label for casual vs hardcore is broken with this difference.
I can log on once a week and play hardcore while I am on. As long as Classic doesn’t go away it’s all good.