I am about to be a new parent and trying to figure out which is the best version of wow to play during this time. Would I be better off playing classic era into TBC on the fresh servers OR would I be better playing cata classic into MOP classic?
A newborn can sleep very short naps (under 1 hour), or they can hibernate for HOURS. It depends on the child. First things first, find out which one it is, and their schedule takes priority over gaming.
Shorter dungeons would be best.
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I became a parent in the middle of TBC classic a few years back. I love the original trilogy and personally don’t like anything else. Once my twins got the hang of sleep, I found a “dad guild” and picked raiding back up, straight through Lich King (the anniversary realms are likely heading there in 2 years). Only on rare occasions would I not be able to make raid nights because one of the kiddos was in a sleep regression or teething. This was after the early couple months of sleep insanity.
If you find a group of other parents and busy folk, you’ll be able to enjoy at least part of any content in any version. What I can say is that the anniversary realms right now have end-game content that often requires committing a long block of time for a dungeon or raid. This eases up a bit when TBC comes out in a year, but raiding will always require a solid chunk of time to commit to.
Which version of the game do you like best? Pick that one, and seek out a guild of understanding parents, there’s tons of them these days. Congrats on parenthood!
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That depends on what you want to do in the game. As a parent myself, raiding is too time consuming in classic. I think retail is more approachable at end game.
However, leveling in classic is far more enjoyable than anything retail has to offer and I’d rather quit WoW altogether rather than play retail
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you would be better off playing vanilla (classic era), the only proper version of WoW 
do note that the fresh realms have their problems, like dual spec, but you can put them out of your mind and still enjoy a great deal of the original game.
making the end game “approachable” is exactly what made the game unfun they are one and the same.
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And a song of “good grief” rang out across the lands from all of the busy parents who like to relax and raid 
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Classic Era (not fresh) because there is no rush to level cap, the players are way more casual friendly, there is less competition in the world (right now), and you can take as long as you need to gear up once you get to 60, and additionally the getting to 60 part is also also not a rush either.
the reason for avoiding “Fresh” and MoP are for the same reasons… you will now be limited by time and in a 9 to 10 months your level of sleep / sanity. Casual friendly really is appealing in this situation; and the Old classic Era servers (whitemane cluster) offers this, where as the FRESH realms, Cata and MoP do not.
Probably focusing on your kid… and not worrying about a game.
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Wow as a new parent
Wow should never parent your child. Well, at least not until your child can dungeon crawl. I’ll see myself out.
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can’t speak on game version that be best. Not retail, you’d be too busy.
Class…hunter, bm spec. YOu can slow grind crap as the pet works.
Less interaction during the bottles and such lol. One hand tab, macro pet attack to hunters mark, watch the show. press the serpent or arcane if you can. Not a big deal if not able to at the time…
If experiencing all the content is important to you, Cata / MoP Era. RDF is a godsend for players with limited time. But the overall experience is more shallow.
If the journey is more important than the destination, Anniversary servers. Vanilla is an obnoxiously time consuming game, and you might not even hit level cap (let alone do atttunements and raiding) depending on how many other priorities you have. But it’s a much more absorbing experience.
To all of the Karen’s in here telling me “focus on your kid” or “wow should never parent your child,” it was never said I was picking wow over my kid…so kindly gtfo. The question was which version of wow would be best for the limited time I will have to play.
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and that’s okay
the original vanilla devs expected most people not to even hit 60
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The only correct answer, I suspect these people don’t have kids themselves so they don’t realize that this is already understood and the post doesn’t need to include “and my kid will be my primary focus”
Retail. Dungeons last 30 min and you teleport to them.
Anniversary is ok but vanilla is a time sink and 2hr long dungeons. The mop and cats are not new player friendly unless you buy lots of gold.
A little nip of whiskey and a Benadryl will keep them quiet for hours.
The healthy way of looking at this is that the game has a lot of content. You can play for hundreds of hours before reaching the end, and even then it goes into zombie mode and allows you to continue to play its lifeless corpse for years by endlessly repeating its worst content.
Okay, last part not so healthy. But you can always just reroll when you hit 60 and play the good part again!
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I don’t know WoW is a great “new parent” game at all, dude.
You may want to stick with single player games until kiddo is sleeping through the night (and you aren’t a sleep deprived walking zombie as well).
3-6 months to get that kid all set my guy, then you can come back to us…
Congratulations by the way!
i would recommend playing retail, since you can enjoy doing many solo things in there and you can do dungeons/raids with randoms so you won’t have to worry if you have to afk anytime or press alt+f4 any moment.