Being able to play in the -world- of Warcraft again, as opposed to the single-player MMO experience known as “World of Warcraft.”
This statement isn’t meant to be snarky. It’s simply the… state of WoW as it exists in retail right now.
Final Fantasy XIV, the MMO that took over for me after WoW finally failed, is also a single-player MMO, but it’s a god damn amazing single-player RPG first, and an MMO second.
I also enjoyed being able to speak with my wallet. Even though I had to sub up to play Classic, I haven’t logged into Retail, and I have no intention of logging into Retail.
I want my $$$ to mean something for Blizz. I’m really hoping they’re listening.
I’m in Ashenvale doing the first long run to the coast. Watching for Alli on the road. Over there is an Alli questing group, pays me no mind, over there horde hunter farming for cloth. I’m running with another now on the same trip. We meet an Alli, 2v1. We kill the Alli. Questing group didn’t like that. Now we are on the run. We head off the road to hide. Mobs are higher level then us here so we move slow to avoid pulling. Alli mob kills the farming hunter instead…
But who wants all that pointless travel time? I want to start my Adventure now!
100%. The Community and the RPG feeling is back with classic. There are so many other benefits like professions mattering again. I’m excited to go out and mine and world PVP for devilsaur leather. Anyone using a production profession is making good money and feeling valuable to their server and guild because the recipes are actually valuable for a long period of time.
Gear means something again because you know where your specific pieces drop and when it drops it’s always going to be good instead of being disappointed because it didn’t titanforge.
I do miss arenas and transmog but it’s worth sacrificing for the revival of world pvp, dueling, unpruned classes, depth in pvp gameplay, etc.
There are many great things in the original design of vanilla World of Warcraft that have been completely destroyed in Retail and are back in Classic. It would take a while to do a write up on everything but the big things for me:
-In Classic, the world is dangerous and includes content/situations that compel players to work together, which results in emergent camaraderie. This is virtually non-existent in Retail.
-The gearing is more interesting and more rewarding. In Retail, they may as well remove all the primary stats and gear rarity because item level is the only real primary stat left. Gone are the days when you had to decide if you should have more Agility/Stamina/Spirit/etc on a piece of gear because the modern Retail developers decided players were too stupid to make those choices. I really love having the gear variety back in Classic.
Exploration, real reasons to not destroy a zone and move on forever… honestly I mentioned it in a different thread, but the feeling of actual danger and “going into the wilderness” when you leave the road. The Cata versions of zones have just as much space as the pre ones generally, they just didn’t DO anything other than “wow look we ruined this thing huh”.
I’ll probably get tired of this as I roll alts, but exploration feels like progression. I can’t get to Gadgetzan yet because I need to be higher level and improve enough to earn my way there, for example. Just playing the game and existing allows you to feel like you’re achieving something!
Deathrunning to Booty Bay at level 8 because I just felt like opening up a flight path to there, and to Ratchet. I only had to die about ten times in the run from SW.
Not having bored, heirloomed endgamers rolling alts all around me while leveling.
From one who enjoys speed levelling alts as fast as possible in retail, I’m actually enjoying having to work for the levels. And as others have said, thats a bit in one zone, a bit somewhere else, come back later to pick up higher level quests and so on. Having to actually do a rotation and use my talents. And, surprisingly for a dedicated solo player, the community. Grouping for content that you just can’t complete solo. Grouping for common objectives. Etc.
