Returning Player (~12 Years)

Hey y’all,
I quit playing right before Wrath of the Lich King came out, so about twelve years ago. I tried every other major MMORPG at some point, and mostly played SWTOR in the interim. And by mostly played, I mean I had seven max level characters and raided with a guild, as well as played PvP quite a bit.
As far as WoW goes, I played on Steamwheedle Cartel back in the day, and I think I remember servers eventually being combined or something. I have always liked playing as stealth/DPS classes and my main back in the day was a Rogue, but I also really liked my Mage. I think when I stopped playing, the level cap was sixty. I had done almost all of the big raids/dungeons and remember exploring The Burning Crusade content and doing Heroics, as well as quite a bit of whatever the large-scale PvP battles were called. I’ve had the itch recently to play WoW again.

Here are some questions I have. I understand the answers will be highly subjective, so I am looking for any recommendations/personal opinions you are willing to give…

  • What do I need to know, generally speaking?
  • Should I wait until after Shadowlands releases?
  • Should I play Classic or the regular, full game?
  • Will the server most of my characters are on be populated at all?
  • Are there friendly, helpful guilds out there that cater to new or returning players?
  • Should I start over with a new character in the new starting zone?

Thanks for your time. It’s been a long time and I’m looking forward to this nostalgia trip.

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  1. The best sources for info are you tube, wowhead, icy veins.

  2. I would jump in now so you have some max level chars before Shadowlands launches. We will all be equally geared right after launch and almost everyone will be in SL. Also, you can try some BFA end game now if you want, it will be most dead after SL launches.

  3. Retail is far superior to classic IMO, and most would say retail is better.

  4. The highest pop servers are the best for a few reasons. See wowprogress .com and sort by population.

  5. If your guildless, you will get plenty of random invites if your on a high pop server. Not sure about low pop.

  6. In retail, you can do everything in the game including all multiplayer content except mythic raids with PUGS (no guild). There are queues and premade group finder. I join random guilds mainly for the chat.

  7. I would start at least one new character in the new starting zone exiles reach.

Just as an FYI…
Exiles Reach ends with a dungeon that scales for 1-5 players. You can run the dungeon multiple times before you leave the Reach to gear up a bit before you fly out of the isldand.

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Are you Interested in duel leveling with me. If your interested, friend me on discord at Kcarson9171787#8267

Many things have been moved to collections, which are account-wide. This includes mounts, toys, transmog, heirlooms, and battle pets (formerly called companion pets). So, it’s a good idea to log into all of your characters to learn the various stuff. Some things will just be learned by logging in. (Be aware that transmog can take a bit for the server to load up, so stay logged into each character for a few minutes the first time around.) Some of these things were converted to an item you can learn by right-clicking.

End game systems have become a lot more complex since Burning Crusade. (They also tend to change each expansion, so you’ll get to learn Shadowlands with everyone else!) One important takeaway is that on your first character at least, you’ll want to level through by questing through the new expansion zones. (So, you’ll want to quest from 50-60 vs. trying alternate leveling paths like dungeon level.) This is because unlocking end game systems requires some level of questing. (For the same reason, if you want to mess around with any end-game content in pre-patch it’s best to level through BfA for easier access to it’s end game systems.

End game systems also now include more stuff you can do as a solo player. (Also, everything but the hardest PvE raid content is far more puggable than it was back in BC, partly because the in game tools to put groups together is much better, and partly because you can group with players from all servers.)

Pre-patch is a great time to get yourself reoriented to the game, so I’d start now.

If you’ve got time, it can be fun to dabble in both.

They are completely different games. Classic is going to be a lot closer to what you remember playing. For Classic, and a lot of content is locked behind grouping. (And pugging is a lot more work.) Retail is a lot more friendly if your playtime is limited or you still want lots of content to do solo.

Classic is slower. Rotations aren’t as frantic and it take longer to get stuff done due to things like slower travel and systems like weapon skills. Classic quest content is also far less organized, sending you from continent to continent. Also, the storytelling is a lot looser, focusing more on world building than telling cohesive stories. It’s really great if you just want to get lost in a fantasy world.

Retail is a lot faster. (Heck, the speed levelers are getting to 50 in 6-8 hours!) The global cooldown tends to be faster (it’s affected by haste, and some specs start with a faster GCD.) Basic rotations are more complicated. (There are no one-button rotations in retail.) Questing tends to follow a more linear storyline. (With the amount of side stuff varying by which expansion it came from — Cataclysm content tends to be the most on rails.) It also has more customization with character models and transmog, and more side stuff to do like pet battles, farming old instances for pet and transmog, weird secret questlines for special mounts and pets. There’s also a lot more “chores” to do to keep your character up to date. (Although on the more casual end, it’s not an overwhelming amount.)

I’ve got a bunch of my Alliance characters on the Steemwheedle Cartel/Kirin Tor/Sentinels connected server cluster. It’s mediumish in population. (Population is a bit weird in WoW these days. You tend to have mega-severs and then the other servers have a significant drop off in population. I’d say SWC/KT/S falls in the middle of the second group. It leans Alliance heavy, although it’s not as lopsided as some realms. It’s also important to note that they are RP servers, so they don’t shard in old content.

For non RP servers (and RP servers in current content) sharding techonology is used to keep zones at a target population. This can mean splitting players up into different world instances in crowded zones, or putting people together from multiple servers in low population zones. (This is different than connected realms, which act as a merged server. Cross realm zone (CRZ) and sharding act a bit more like random battlegrounds where you can play with the other people, but not trade with them or join their guilds.) The end result is that RP realms (even the big ones) often fell a lot quieter in non-current zones than non-RP servers.

Because all content outside of current Mythic raids can be done with cross-server groups, realm choice isn’t as important as it once was. Still, bigger servers have more people, so it can be easier to find a guild that suits your needs. Also, if you want active RP, you’re main options are Moonguard for Alliance or Wyrmrest Accord for either faction. (Other RP servers do have RP, but it tends to be more guild or event based — you rarely see it out wild in the world.)

Yes, I think this is a great way to start reorienting yourself to the basic game.

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