WoW Classic: Saving grace?

[Novakhoro]

You Will see what Grind is in classic

Did this guy just say the grind in legion is bad...? Bro, we should have a talk with him about a thing called black lotus

[mhdoe]

A saving grace is not needed and if one was classic/vanilla would not be it. Nothing like grinding forever to place that point in 1% crit or a talent you don't need or want so you can place them in the one you do. Or doing quests you pick up in Org run all the way back to the troll starting area to kill one mob run all the back to org getting little to no exp or reward for doing a quest that is 98% running because of no flight paths to that area. I think a lot people confuse running for long distances or eating after every fight on a warrior with actual content.

[Swalload]

I truly believe WoW Classic will bring back millions of players that have left over the years... and they will STAY.

Let's take for example someone who was 15-18 years old in vanilla. With all the time in the world, no responsibilities, no time restriction. It still took forever to get anything done. Not because there was more to do, not at all, there was less to do in vanilla but everything took longer to do, everything was just slower. These people, the ones who keep saying they want vanilla WoW cuz "it was so much better back then" have completely forgotten that what made it so great was not the game itself but their life situation.
Now these people are about 30 years old, with jobs, kids, and maybe 10% of the free time they had when they were 15 (I'm sure there are still some no-lifers out there with their shitty gas station night shift who will manage to play 10 hours a day but there's not many, they won't make the community). So now take this into consideration and imagine what they are gonna do. Do you really think they are gonna be hooked to the game if it takes them literally 3 to 4 days before being high lvl enough to run a dungeon? Not to mention that getting a group going, waiting for a second person to come to the stone, summoning people, replacing the guy who left cuz just that part took 30 minutes, summon the new guy, zone in and wipe cuz the tank has never tanked in vanilla before and DPS never waited for any form of aggro... and the list goes on. That's not even a worse case scenario and I've only talked about the dungeons.
Everything takes forever to get done, for close to no reward, and we have to do that while having way less free time and absolutely no feeling of discovery whatsoever because we already have seen all this, there's nothing new, nothing fresh.

People are not gonna stay like you think they will, vanilla is not a 2017 game, and even less of a game made for the people who were the core of vanilla back in 2004. Sure they will try it, the servers will explode when they open, but it will be the fastest dwindling down population that any WoW version has ever seen, without a single doubt.

PS. Also don't forget that the people who have been wanting vanilla for a while are already on private servers, but most of the people on private servers are people who dont want to pay, so they are staying there. Only way to get these people into official Classic WoW is if blizzard shuts down all these private servers. And even then we are not getting ALL of them into classic WoW. Now you'll say "but it's just a few thousand people". Well, it's accessible to everyone, people are aware of these servers, yet they only have a few thousand people, that tells you how little the classic WoW community is going to be in the long run.

[Deleted]

ITT: This is what Classic fanboys actually believe.

[Dimmak]

I believe Wow Classic will prove, once and for all, that people miss playing WoW the way it used to be. The game has improved a lot over the years in so many ways, but in it's core, has gotten away from WHY people played it.

I truly believe WoW Classic will bring back millions of players that have left over the years... and they will STAY. The devs will either adjust the "new wow" to fit the core aspects, or maybe even let it die off.

People will be playing Classic and stop caring to play "live" because it's just more fun and rewarding. The thought of having so much "invested" in your toons will slip away, because you rebuilt then in classic wow.

BfA, is Legion 2.0... artifact 2.0, grind 2.0, RNG 2.0... etc. The very last thing the game needed.

Classic is 1.0 of everything... .exactly what the game needed. Gone are the days of "saviors"...

"Welcome adventurer... we need your help... If you are brave and bold enough to try."

That's some pretty strong opinions but I don't agree with it. I believe there will be a small but dedicated sect who want to play classic. They might complete the content but will either become bored or want more content later. Which of course would make it not classic.

Classic is viewed through the eyes of nostalgia. I accept this. Do I want to recapture the wonder of my 40 man raids into molten core? Absolutely but I don't think I want to go back to that monstrous grind or pigeon holed roles.

Almost all druids will be resto again to be in a raid. Almost all tanks will be warriors. Hunters will battle warriors over weapons for stat sticks. Alliance will NOT have heroism/bloodlust. Let that sink in for a moment. Imagine no big push of RAWR when you all dps your butts off. It's a small moment but man when someone doesn't hero in a fight everyone starts asking if you did.

Will you be farming rumtum tubers for 6 hours a week?
How about tomes for that one extra enchant?
Will every warrior worth his salt be forced to farm up Quel'Dalas?
How about walking every where for 40 levels and maybe having a mount?
Or clown outfits since you can't xmog?
Or flight paths that let you go out for dinner before they complete?

Again I say a small populace will like it, but many many people will start asking for quality of life improvements or leave to the current servers.

[mich4el]

Classic was great because we were all 10 years younger. No other reason. Everything was better when you are younger.

Back when you started wow "look at that amazing hogger guy. wow he looks tough!! and he is elite!! daaamn"

Now "oh it's a group quest, let's get a group and get this over with"

Speak for yourself i mean you are the kind of people we don't need or want on classic servers
From my experience on Nost most people were fun and helpful with a lot of energy and positivity not negative and depressed about everything all the time
you also have panda icon so i am not surprised at all
honestly with this attitude i suggest you to quit since you are seem to be having no fun anymore with WoW and you will be undesirable person in vanilla too

[Not A Cat]

You're in for a rude awakening if you think classic is going to be less grindy than Legion.

The only thing I'm really excited for is the classic leveling experience which I thought was great. Abysmal drop rates and lack of flight points (Rebel Camp for instance) make me not want to invest a whole lot of time in it. But it will be nice to just get a few levels in every now and then. Running the old dungeons will be fun. I will probably not touch the raids, those were pretty terrible.

[kaelleria]

Meh...
If they make a truly classic wow experience, the servers will be ghost towns within a few months. This feels like a waste of dev time.

No one who asked for classic remembers things like Inner Fire giving priests attack power or farming up fire resist gear for tanks, then nature resist, then frost resist. Didn't have enough resists on your tanks? Have fun farming Molten Bore for the next few months getting 2 pieces of loot per boss for 40 people. Did you play alliance? Better hope shaman gear didn't drop. Horde? Paladin tier is in your future.

Making your way through Naxx? Better hope your 8 warrior tanks have all have their 4pc T3 and that none of them get poached.

Want to play a Druid, Paladin, Shaman or Priest? If you're raiding, you're healing.
Warriors? Sword and board!
Mages... Get used to your decurse button.

Melee dps, I hope you have fun playing cards for 90% of the Shazzrah fight.

People begging for vanilla must not have done much raiding or much of anything at 60.

[Daggot Ur]

All that whining about "you will quit cause you don't know what you are getting into" just amuses me. Open your eyes and read what we actually write here - we now EXACTLY what we are getting and we love it. And give me a break when you talk about ppl leaving super quickly - just google Nostalrius and see how many ppl played there and then multiply that by a 10 at least. How many servers on live wow can boast over 11k online at peak hours?

[Molvonos]

I believe Wow Classic will prove, once and for all, that people miss playing WoW the way it used to be. The game has improved a lot over the years in so many ways, but in it's core, has gotten away from WHY people played it.

I truly believe WoW Classic will bring back millions of players that have left over the years... and they will STAY. The devs will either adjust the "new wow" to fit the core aspects, or maybe even let it die off.

People will be playing Classic and stop caring to play "live" because it's just more fun and rewarding. The thought of having so much "invested" in your toons will slip away, because you rebuilt then in classic wow.

BfA, is Legion 2.0... artifact 2.0, grind 2.0, RNG 2.0... etc. The very last thing the game needed.

Classic is 1.0 of everything... .exactly what the game needed. Gone are the days of "saviors"...

"Welcome adventurer... we need your help... If you are brave and bold enough to try."

I think it's pretty clear where your bias is, with your signature. While I cant see into the future, I'm willing to bet the classic sub chart will dip far more dramatically than that, once people get tired of the perpetual grind. Plus, whatever they release will not be the vision most want, but rather, caters to a very niche group (the nichest of niches).

WoW is and has always been a Grind, like most MMOs, it's simply that Classic has a more braindead mentality behind it. It took longer. It wasn't harder, it certainly wasn't more rewarding other than 'Muh epeen'. Hell, just to fight Ragnaros, you have to farm reputation enough to put out all those glyphs in Molten Core.

But I'm willing to wager you won't consider these in lieu of your nostalgia.

[Delana]

waste of time, money and resources that could be used to improve the current game

The current game has dungeon finder. It's a lost cause. The entire point about this entire discussion is that some of your "improvements" have huge negative externalities.

[Deleted]

You guys are over exaggerating about the vanilla grind. I would say legion has way more grind. In vanilla raiding took the most time, but back then people didn't know much about itemization, builds, min maxxing etc. These days people have figured out WoW to the point where BWL can be speedran in 15 minutes. Yeah sure there will be a bit of grind initially, but once you get into a raiding guild you will probably clear all the raids in a few hours a week and logout. There were no achievements or transmog to farm. People logged on to simply enjoy the game with their friends and not actually farm like legion makes you do (RNG legendaries, AP, Achives) etc.

[Molvonos]

The current game has dungeon finder. It's a lost cause. The entire point about this entire discussion is that some of your "improvements" have huge negative externalities.

Well, that's a matter of opinion. Which is why it's fantastic that Blizzard is considering creating the Classic Server(s). I don't feel as if Dungeon Finder is negative at all, but then again, I don't have the time to invest in the game like when I was younger and hardcore raiding Vanilla/Classic. My friends and I can jump in, do several dungeons in the time it would take to even get a group together in Vanilla, have actual character progress, and then go about our lives without feeling like it's a massive timesink (despite the fact it's a game, which is innately a timesink, there is a difference).

The big question is this: Which Version of Classic is the 'Most Classic'? 1.0? 1.12? 1.08?

[BabyCatjuh]

The only grind in vanilla WoW was the lvling.

Haha right. How about the other grinds? Example, my main in Vanilla (and I played extremely much, 10-12 hours a day. Raided hardcore too, hello Naxx!) still isn't exaclted with ANY of the main cities. And I mained it through TBC before I stopped pmaining this particular class. Reputations were a PAIN in the ass.
Not to mention all the other stuff I needed to farm.. Like soulshards.

[Shibito]

Lol blessing of salvation, protection, freedom, light, sacrifice.

blessing of might and blessing of wisdom aswell and blessing of kings

- - - Updated - - -

Keys taking up bag slots, reagants for buffs taking up bag slots, soul shards taking up bag slots, quiver replacing a bag, trying to find someone who has the key to UBRS, trying to organize 40 man raids, low hp for casters, paladins forced to play holy, druids forced to play resto, resistance gear. These are a few things I can see people complaining about.

Key chain was pretty early vanilla

[epLe]

Rep wasn't that hard, I farmed darnassus rep while people were still levling their first main.

I grinded exalted for epic tiger mount on my gnome main, but couldn't afford the original version before 2 days after it was changed (1.12 iirc).
Still pains me to this day.

[Shibito]

Vanilla was tedious, it wasn't hard. Nothing about old WoW was mechanically difficult, but there were a lot of painful things that made the game annoying in comparison to the modern game.

Downranking heals in order to sustain mana wasn't fun, it was actually super dumb and it made me feel like I wasted all my gold on heals I never used.

The fact that classes had at best one viable spec. No fire or arcane mages, no destro locks, no ele shaman, no feral, no balance, arms warriors were tanks who put some points into prot, no ret or prot pallys.

The game was pretty broken.

Actually locks had to play destro in early vanilla cause of limited debuff slots on bosses.

[Molvonos]

You guys are over exaggerating about the vanilla grind. I would say legion has way more grind. In vanilla raiding took the most time, but back then people didn't know much about itemization, builds, min maxxing etc. These days people have figured out WoW to the point where BWL can be speedran in 15 minutes. Yeah sure there will be a bit of grind initially, but once you get into a raiding guild you will probably clear all the raids in a few hours a week and logout. There were no achievements or transmog to farm. People logged on to simply enjoy the game with their friends and not actually farm like legion makes you do (RNG legendaries, AP, Achives) etc.

Hahah, noooo

It was worse.

Way worse.

Let's see if I can recall everything.

Starting at level 60, you needed to farm dungeons the set gear, usable trinkets, good weapons (Hunters had to farm Ammo from LBRS/Strath since at the time, the epic thorium ammo hadn't been released and warlocks perpetually farmed Soul Shards -- both classes lost a container as a result). You also needed to farm up whatever paltry Fire Resist gear was necessary to survive some of the Molten Core fights (tanks needed some for Onyxia, iirc). Unfortunately, you needed to 'grind' out your weapon skills so that you could actually do damage, especially if you got an upgraded weapon that was different than what you were wielding.

Everyone had 2/3 equipment slots they needed filled (1-handed and off-hand or 2-handed weapons) plus ranged. Enchanters needed to farm materials to enchant the myriad of pieces that could be enchanted. Bandages were needed, food was needed, alchemy was an absolute must and farming Black Lotus was atrocious (I took Engineering just to have an additional 'Gateway' to the other continent, in case I couldn't find a black lotus, since only one spawned at any given time).

Let's take a step back though. In order to farm your Dungeon sets, you needed to be able to get into UBRS, which was a lengthy, massive pain in the ass of a quest. You also needed to do a chunky quest in one of the Plaguelands to get to Scholomance, which at the time of release (1.0) was considered a raid and could take 40 people (we wiped several times due to mechanics I can't remember). Also, you needed a raid to kill Nathanos for your sweet loot, which also pvp flagged you and your raid, so the other faction was always watching and looking to wreck your shit -- because guilds sabotaging each other to be -first- was a very real thing.

So now, you can get into UBRS. You can do Scholomance and Stratholme... all of which weren't winged, but giant dungeons. Different bosses dropped different set pieces, so you needed to clear... everything, depending on your group. Black Rock Depths was a thing too, and you weren't getting to Molten Core without taking your 40 man group through the dungeon (Because initially, that was the only way to actually get there).

Oh, and you couldn't even do Onyxia without doing UBRS first.

Gates, gates and more gates, tucked behind intense grinds. Molten Core only gave so much Waterlord reputation. You needed several people at honored? just to by the one-time use water-things, so you could summon Ragnaros. Even the last boss of the first full raid was gated behind a grind. This was before Blackwing Lair came into existence.

Each boss dropped, what?, 2 pieces of gear, maybe 3. For a 40 man raid. You were grinding Molten Core and Onxyia to gear up for Blackwing Lair, which happened naturally, of course. But you also needed to get enough Onyxia scales to cloak-up your entire raid. 40+ cloaks, so you didn't die to Blackflame.

Righteous Orbs were a thing. When different high-level enchants needed very special, rare materials. Blood of the Heros was a thing. Black Lotus (mentioned earlier) was a thing. Buying reagents (Group Buffs ((NOT RAID BUFFS, THEY ONLY DID ONE GROUP AT A TIME)) were a thing) was a thing. Bandages were a must (runecloth or bust). Resist Potions (which required special ingredients) were a thing. Farm farm farm, grind, grind, grind.

Into AQ40, into Naxxramas.

It was -way- worse. As someone who played since Closed Beta and Hardcore Raided through to Sunwell.

[kaelleria]

Righteous Orbs were a thing. When different high-level enchants needed very special, rare materials. Blood of the Heros was a thing. Black Lotus (mentioned earlier) was a thing. Buying reagents (Group Buffs ((NOT RAID BUFFS, THEY ONLY DID ONE GROUP AT A TIME)) were a thing) was a thing. Bandages were a must (runecloth or bust). Resist Potions (which required special ingredients) were a thing. Farm farm farm, grind, grind, grind.

Don't forget you needed a special drop in order to cast the group buffs or that paladin buffs lasted 5 minutes. I, for one, enjoyed spamming heal rank 2.

[Maudib]

A majority of people who have played WoW sometime in their life, did not play Classic. This is just Blizzard finding good financial sense in making money off the people who played Classic. Its not going to bring back people who started playing in BC, or Wrath.

You greatly underestimate how successful it's going to be. And for sure, they will not launch in tandem with an expansion. It will likely be after a new expansion has gotten boring and dull... you kow... about 4-6 weeks after launch. lol

And peeps will not go back to "retail" once they taste a new server, new economy, the fresh race to max level. Classic is going to smash "current wow".