So I blindly hopped on to Season of Discovery, and it’s been a little disappointing to say the least. I saw stuff about it being Blizzard’s swing at “Classic +”, but Nightmare Incursions have made it into "Classic - ". There’s no incentive for players to actually go into the world outside of like three areas. I’m almost level 40 in like a week of casual play and I haven’t entered a single dungeon. It just make no sense to do anything else if I want to play with other people when incursions are such a powerful meta for leveling.
I want to be able to quest through the areas at a non-boosted pace, play through the dungeons to gradually gear up, and do some World PvP here and there. Which version of the game do you think I have the best odds of having an experience like that in?
The split between Retail and Classic is pretty hard imo (people love one and hate the other or vice-versa). So I think you’re choices are Classic (if that nostalgia appeals to you) or Retail (you can level doing queued normal dungeons and battlegrounds).
Season of Discovery, like you said, is Classic with a twist to “keep it fresh” and Cata Classic was apparently very divisive to the player-base back in the day (I started in Cata so don’t have an appreciation for all the hate Cata seems to get). I still think with all the “Classic” branches splitting that Nostalgia-focused player-base, that finding people in Retail is more likely, but Retail is more about end-game so you’ll get a lot of groups that just want to “get it done” as quickly as possible. That might not match up with “non-boosted pace” and “gradually gear up” because you can certainly do that in Retail, but few will want to hang at that pace with you (perhaps RP communities on MoonGuard and such).
Based on what you’ve said I think Cata would be your best fit.
Retail very much rushes you to endgame in terms of experience and popup dialogue.
SoD is kinda going in a similar way - strong class power, balance and a rush to endgame with 1-3 relevant zones. It’s classic in name.
WoTLK has a levelling bonus at the moment but if you wait until Cata drops that should fall off and you can take it slow on the journey to max to face off against Deathwing.
