I haven’t play current WoW in years. What exactly is it like? Is it better or worse than Classic / TBC?
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Depends on the content, you’re doing. But PVE right now imo is alright, I haven’t been really playing because I hate the dungeons and the raids I don’t feel like doing really. c
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Prepare for the triggered folks because you said the R word. Youve been warned
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Not the place to ask about Retail.
I’ve tried the last two expansions, but didn’t really play them. The word I would use to describe Retail is obnoxious. It’s just so annoying and obtrusive. It tries to shove everything down your throat. Forces quests on you, forces everything on you. It never leaves you alone. It’s like the devs think players are morons who need to be lead by the nose the second they log into the game.
There is no going off the beaten path. There is no freedom. No choice in anything. What you do is rigidly controlled by the devs. They don’t want players playing ‘the wrong way’. They don’t want players gaining any kind of advantage over others, so everything is time-gated. Everything is a long, drawn-out process to make sure everyone proceeds at the same pace. So everyone’s experience is exactly the same. So that they can ‘balance’ the game around the expectation every player has the same experience.
The result is a game that plays you. You’re just along for the ride. It really feels like a job. Log on and Blizz hands you your homework assignment of tasks to complete. Nothing is about fun. It’s just a streamlined process where you go through the motions.
Definitely not for me.
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Shadowlands baby here. Technically started like 2 months before SL so I guess BfA baby?
I had fun when I was brand new and just leveling other classes but Shadowlands overall made me quit. That crap is so damn bad storywise, I literally coudla went my whole life without knowing what the afterlife was.
Spoilers: It’s bad. It’s actually like hell imo.
Just friggin’ disenchant me like Varian, he’s the real winner out of all the deaths. I legit don’t want to remember being on Azeroth if I’m forced to go into one of those afterlife places.
Story aside it just feels like race. I couldn’t enjoy how WoW really felt like unless I did Classic. I can’t even stay in the expansion story I pick because they force you into Shadowlands mid-leveling. Also, the chores in that game is so damn boring. Classic feels adventurous and the classes have identity, combat is fun and this is coming from someone played FFXIV first since 2.0 beta and strongly prefer Classic to Retail and FFXIV.
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What? PVE is fine except that you hate it?
What I mean is, PVE is alright for some people. Personally, I think it’s okay, while I hate the dungeons I don’t mind doing them.
That was a beautiful way to describe it.
Retail for anything end game feels on rails.
If you want a good casual experience, then the game is solid. Alts are fun, there is tons of old content to see again. I didnt realize how much I enjoyed the Jade Forest as Horde until recently with Chromie Time.
Theres almost always a weekend event, and if just being in a world and constantly just wanting to do something is what you like, then retail has you covered. There is always something to do.
The downsides, its another borrowed power expansion so the game will expect daily grinding. Because mythic+ has no lockout, you can in theory forever chain run keys until youre full capped on +15 gear. Its not an easy task and takes a long time, and you need to do as hard as you can content to maximize your weekly vault gear. It demands dedication, which isnt inherently bad, but it can get old, fast. Couple that with a pretty convoluted story that can be summed up as “Someone is currently playing 4D chess and is 7 steps ahead so whatever answer you got only raises two more questions.” Its very unsatisfying after years of that.
Classes are of course homogenized. Everyone has a heal, a major cd, a defensive cd, a gap closer, an aoe, etc. The classes dont feel different from each other in any meaningful way, just different animations and sounds with sprinkles of class fantasy.
Overall retail isnt bad. Its very overblown by classic andies, but, is it fun? I dont really think so. That said, as many people who would agree with that statement, roughly an equal number would disagree. I already owned SL, but I heard resubs got it for free, so, try it out. Prepatch isnt till the 30th so you arent missing anything in classic rn.
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It is a chronic headache of trying to balance a ridiculous multitude of systems and bonuses to remain at least marginally competitive. Gear is only a small part of the equation now. You must deal with mandatory legendaries, conduits, soulbinds, campaign, farming the currencies, renown and reputations required to maximize all those things, and then deal with the usual talents, set bonuses, running enough raids and mythic+ to maximize your POTENTIAL (not even guaranteed despite the time sink) rewards from your weekly vault. There is more, but the point is made.
It’s far more of a slog than ever before. The mandatory chore and task list is so long I don’t even feel like I have the energy to enjoy the actual pretty artwork and music that goes into the zones. The story sucks now, but there’s lots of eye candy visuals.
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It looks, acts, and feels like a mobile game reskinned from a very popular mmo.
Just my opinion.
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I am in the same boat and tried it for a couple hours. It felt like wow 2, so basically a completely different game. After I get bored of this I may give it a move serious run. “May”
it’s like corporation without single real human has created mmo
It’s pretty much the same as the GDKP community in the sense that most people just pay for content they “dont have the time” or gear to do.
It’s much more of an endless RNG grind than classic though. I don’t care for retail, I just farm gold on it.
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This is pretty subjective. If you like queuing for, and running lots of instanced content, it’s pretty decent. It’s easy to get into or form Raid groups, M+ key push groups, Arena groups.
If you like collecting mounts or questing in the world, there’s a lot of that also. I played it a lot last season, and found it to be pretty fun. I really enjoyed WoW Classic, but was a little disappointed in TBC Classic, personally. I’ve been taking a bit of a break before WotLK Classic, and am looking forward to that.
Retail was better, classic is just the watered down version of retail. In retail raiding was more an element of surprise there were tons of wipes no videos no strats. Basically you didn’t know what was coming and that’s where the good raid leaders shined. Now in classic you can just watch videos from 12 years, copy paste strats, and call it a day. Classic players should be grateful they dont have to spend countless of hours trying to figure out the positioning and phases into the morning, days, and weeks. Retail players did the grind for the classic players. Classic players have it easy like weak auras but there was no weak auras 12 years ago. Everything is so automated now compared to 12 years where it took actual skills to raid. Now everything is just dumb down and watered down for the fake wannabe mmo raiders.
In the sense of the first time through the game… absolutely. I didn’t really think that’s what the OP was asking about.
I haven’t played “retail” since BFA launched.
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Retail pays for my accounts so it has some use 
It’s like Wrath of the Lich King without the changes Blizzard is making.
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Currently retail World of Warcraft is more like World of Chorecraft, were you’re basically required to do all the things blizzard wants you to do to boost their engagement metrics and to stay relevant in power to others. It had potential but lacks any player freedom to do thing outside of what the blizzard and the devs want you to do. Also the story is epically bad. The took the best bad guy in wow and turned him into a meme.
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