I’ve been playing WoW since I was 7 years old. I still have the original game box my mom bought for me back in 2006. Over the years, I’ve played Retail on and off, but I’ve always kept up with the lore and updates through YouTube videos.
Recently, I decided to try Classic for the first time because my girlfriend wanted to give it a go. I can’t overstate how emotional this experience has been for me. Playing Classic with her—and revisiting Azeroth in this way—has genuinely brought me close to tears.
It’s stirred up so many memories of friends I met back in the day and the fun social experiences I had, particularly tied to leveling zones like Mulgore. I spent countless hours questing there with my oldest childhood friend. Experiencing Classic again has made me reflect on how different Azeroth felt back then:
Every level felt like an achievement earned through effort and time.
Socializing was a big part of the game—whether it was forming dungeon groups in town or chatting during quests.
The journey of simply running from place to place before level 40 created a sense of immersion and adventure that felt irreplaceable.
Seeing Classic still going strong makes me incredibly happy. However, thinking about the state of Retail leaves me feeling a little sad. It feels like somewhere along the way, the game lost a lot of its character—or at least its “feel,” for lack of a better word.
Being in the world now, outside of dungeons and raids, often feels like being in a massive waiting lobby. The social aspect of dungeons and raids seems to have disappeared, replaced by an almost mechanical feeling of playing with silent bots. The gameplay often feels like a race to min-max everything, which makes it hard to feel connected to the world or the people in it.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just venting, but I’m curious if anyone else feels the same way. What do you think could be done to help bring back that old “feel” of WoW? Are there things Blizzard could do to recapture what made Azeroth so special back then?
I think the game has suffered a series of many cuts since TBC that has diminished the “living world” feel of them game to a point that it never can go back. The same goes for every other mmorpg and the ones that are yet to be released. The audience has changed.
Attempting to merge the philosophies of Classic into Retail proved to be one of the great fundamental failures of Shadowlands. Shadowlands took a lot of “lessons learned” from Classic and attempted to implement them in to Retail. Not being able to swap covenants, conduit energy, depressed loot drops to slow down gearing, and forced grinds to craft powerful (mandatory) legendary items are all a part of a philosophy that exists in Classic, but doesn’t belong in Retail: Gameplay Friction.
The fact is that many of the issues you’re encountering have evolved out of quality of life features that don’t exist in Classic. Summoning Stones, dungeon queues, free respecs, flying, instant mail, being able to purchase enchants from the auction house rather than find an enchanter, are all things that exist in retail that have improved player quality of life, but also decreased the need to create strong communities.
But try and strip any of these systems out, and the Retail playerbase will revolt.
Classic and Retail are different games, and should be thought of as such. There is practically nothing they can borrow from each other without doing serious harm to each of those game’s dedicated communities.
Retail focuses on moment-to-moment gameplay, and Classic is more of a social RPG.
I didn’t feel ANY comparisons from shadowlands to classic. They were made by a different team of devs, different game systems, and different gameplay. You can’t just take some sprinkles off ice cream, put them on a hot dog and call it similar.
I agree that Classic WoW had a better feel and was more immersive because of how it put your feet on the ground and made you really travel the land and sometimes forced you to interact with other players in order to do certain things such as dungeons, raids or group quests.
The power scaling felt good…to a point. Level 20 is probably the biggest power creep in the game with the talents and abilities it unlocks, but similar power creeps occur at 40 and 60 as well. I recall 15-20, 33-40 and 54-60 being very, very sluggish to play through.
I do think flying was probably the worst thing to happen to the game as far as the ‘feel’ went but Blizzard proved to be consistently inconsistent on its own lore so even if WoW had maintained the same feeling, that would have eventually been it’s downfall anyways.
Here’s what I know:
Retail is much, much more fun to play the game
Classic ‘feels’ better as far as RPG elements are concerned
I prefer the current state of wow. I don’t have the time or patience to level a toon to max in classic. I never actually did since I would quit early on. I got my first max level toon during cataclysm, and I started playing around 2007. It wasn’t that it was a challenge, because it wasn’t. It was just a snooze fest, and still is. Retail isn’t perfect but it’s hands down a better gameplay experience than classic ever was.
I remember reading something once that pretty much summed this up for me. The idea was:
When WoW first came out it was mostly played by high school and college kids. Not only was it something mind boggling new, it was part of their social group. It’s what they all did.
Then everyone graduated, got jobs, got married, had kids, lost their jobs, got a divorce and they are fighting over the kids. They decided the game just doesn’t feel the same. Clearly it’s all the devs fault. They must really hate us.
I would rather never play WoW again than suffer through classic. Nearly every QoL improvement has made the game so much better to me. Tedium DOES NOT equal more “immersive” for me and I am fully aware that I can never get that “first time” feeling ever again. And forced socialization just rubs me the wrong way.
Just ran this trough AI checker and it came up 100% . -_- please make your own post with your own words
F- for plagiarism please refrain from making AI generated posts especially ones that are just wrong
Because nostalgia is powerful. AOL FFRP chats and Shadow of Yserbius were the internet of my teen years. While I love MG and discord RP, it’s just not the same.
But here we are. Welcome to adulthood. If you could go back to what you wanted, you’d be content with classic.
Watching people attempt to recapture this feeling over the last 5 years since Classic’s release has been both fascinating and depressing. To me, Classic exposed how unhappy people are with their lives and how desperately they wish for it to just be 2005 again.
