It's going to be hard to get 40 dedicated raiders together...

[Kurthos]

There will just be fewer raid guilds and therefore guilds will be more valuable.

[xpose]

The real challenge will be keeping people together for more than a few raids because it can take months to even get a single piece of MC gear.

This is why I loved BIS list because even Dungeon gear was worth it because of how scarce raid gear was outside a few select people gearing out fast.

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A lot of raids are puggable as well or at least only really need a certain core to handle mechanics.

Trying to pug a 40 man is just asking to be ninja looted by the small group that formed it up. Completely pointless to do some kind of pug unless its organized through a reputable discord channel that tracks things.

[MoanaLisa]

After a certain point, all raiding in Classic will be casual especially at the 40-member raid team level. Sooner than people think I suspect.

[Oncereborn]

Isn't raiding considered the primary end game content? Why was it different back then? What else were there beside raiding at max level?

It's the adventure to that end game is what is missing from live. Instant gratification has ruined gaming because everyone thinks it's a rush to the end point and that's where the game begins which is completely wrong, the game begins the moment you've logged in, ending with that big bad end boss not the other way around. I personally can't wait for it to take ages to level up again, and for gear upgrades to be meaningful, mobs to actually be a lot stronger.

[Dekkers]

Was never a problem on p servers.

[potis]

The real challenge will be keeping people together for more than a few raids because it can take months to even get a single piece of MC gear.

This is why I loved BIS list because even Dungeon gear was worth it because of how scarce raid gear was outside a few select people gearing out fast.

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Trying to pug a 40 man is just asking to be ninja looted by the small group that formed it up. Completely pointless to do some kind of pug unless its organized through a reputable discord channel that tracks things.

People need to stop repeating this.

Yes at the start gear will be a bit more hard to get since they are gonna release Classic in waves.

Even so, most of MC gear is hot trash either way.

Dire Maul has 99% better oriented gear for most situations, just missing resistances in some cases, and people know where to get what now, game will be much easier with all the guides.

King Gordok drops ilvl 62, MC drops ilvl 63-66 apart from Ragnaros and a few select items spread around the bosses at ~68 ilvl?

But gear was not scarce, gear scaled differently, an MC ring, Quick Strike Ring as example, didnt become useless at BWL, or AQ40.

Vanilla was not how gear became after TBC pretty much, you didnt completely abandon the previous raids when the new one came out.

You needed the rings/trinkets dropping, you 100% needed to kill the last boss each week for Quest/Weapons/Belts/Trinkets etc.

[Bhanzai]

With the use of newer addons for healing and all that you probably won't even need 40 people to clear MC. I won't be surprised of 30 do it or even 25.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

Yup even on Nost we regularly raided with 30~

The end game element of Classic is EXTREMELY concerning to me, but I seem to be the only one particularly concerned some how.

Its scary that everyone is absolutely over the moon about leveling on the beta. Will they be that excited about end game pve enough to join and commit time to guilds weekly?

On live, people constantly site cross realm content and things like LFR as the only way they can play because they can't designate set hours each week.

Are the people returning for Classic suddenly exempt from this concern, that guilds will be overflowing with recruitment for even 2-3 day schedules?

I really really hope so, otherwise this hype for leveling and early game is gonna turn to dust about a year in. I can't help but feel like everyone just wants to be noobs again and frolic around, but never actually contribute to an end game activity seriously.

I'm sure that will lead to plenty of enjoyment in the early months, but I really worry what the servers will look like a year+ in, ESPECIALLY if they end up making many servers like you know they will.

I guess they will make a killing from server transfers eventually, just like they do on live, where like 20+ servers all have less population put together than a medium pop realm designation.

[Drusin]

Will they be that excited about end game pve enough to join and commit time to guilds weekly?

Not me My plan is to just derp around doing dungeons and helping people out.

On live, people constantly site cross realm content and things like LFR as the only way they can play because they can't designate set hours each week.

Are the people returning for Classic suddenly exempt from this concern, that guilds will be overflowing with recruitment for even 2-3 day schedules?

Wouldn't need cross realm if all the realms were merged together, if there are fewer realms then in theory* the absence of cross realm shouldn't be a problem

*Drusin theory

ESPECIALLY if they end up making many servers like you know they will.

I hope they don't, I hope there's like 3 PVE, 3 PVP, 3 RP realms. I'd rather have fewer realms and have them all full with wait times for the first few months than have a moderate number of realms and have the hype population die down and cause there to be empty realms.

[Fascinate]

I've been telling people for ages the appeal of classic was never the raids, that was always the cherry on top of the best crafted mmo of all time. If you try and take the retail mindset of all that matters is ilvl and raids into classic you will not enjoy it. Instead try and appreciate the scenery and roll a bunch of alts, regardless of how balanced classes are they each have their own flavor. PvP is also a huge part of classic, once AV launches on classic that is going to be one of the most popular activities in game.

[Karamok]

I think too many people will miss the quality of life changes that have been made to the game over the years. Small bags full of reagents will suck people's will to live. Things like locks and their shards, mages making stacks of water for everyone, pallies single target buffing 5 min buffs only for the raid leader to talk talk until they fall off and having to cast them again will burn people out. Running back from Thorium Point, down through the mountain and all the way back to the boss is going start taking it's toll very quickly.

I could be entirely wrong, but I expect that a lot of players just won't enjoy the shear amount of downtime they are going to experience. There are no mass rezzes, no group buffs, no feasts, no soul wells, etc. As soon as Johnny Noobsocks gets lost in MC running back chat will devolve into whining and moaning. I don't think a lot of players realize how good they have it.

[Netherblood]

Molten Core sure. Blackwing Lair sort of. Ahn'qiraj less so.

Good luck killing Loatheb or Gothik the Harvester with 15 dead weight players.

Now private server values can be wrong when it comes to armor and resists, but Naxx on private servers gets cleared in 3-4 hours after initial release of the raid. Patchwerk gets killed in 3.5minutes out of his 7min enrage with optimal comp. So yeah 5-10 dead weights is fine even on patchwerk or Loatheb dps checks if rest of the raid is optimized.

We'll see what actually happens in Classic but so far it seems private servers are actually overtuned compared to what vanilla was or classic beta for leveling dungeons. Private server dungeon monsters do like 30-50% more dmg.

[Orbusg]

The amount of people that actually raided was a small percentage of the game population, and those that raided hardcore was an even more niche minority.
Just like older people had jobs and less time and younger people had more time to do things like raiding, there is a new group of younger and older people today.

But nope, nobody has any time anymore, kids stopped being born after 2004, and we live in an corporate dystopia in which every single living person is hooked up to a wage machine that works us 18 hours a day.

An aside, there are pserver owners that have flat out said that they'll close down once classic releases.
Because at the end of the day, they just wanted to play vanilla wow, and they know that an official option will always trump a pserver.

[Ozyorkbourne]

The worst is Naxx when you raid for over a year and the warriors you finally got outfitted with tier 3 pieces for the taunt bonus suddenly gets poached by another guild, leaving your guild with no where else to go.

I'd be legitimately shocked if for Naxx, people didn't have 2 characters so you could do splits for 3 piece on warriors this time around. Depends how hard people tryhard for world ranks on vanilla 2.0

[BlueRemedy]

Eh, it's more like 30 for the first two tiers, then 10 jackasses that get carried until you brick wall at cthun and need to reform half the guild

If you're a retard, start stock piling excuses for standing in dark glare now

[PrairieChicken]

Vanilla raids will be much much easier than it used to be, with all the experiences that people have plus super minmaxing kits and raiderio.

[Naiattavain]

I remember how difficult it was on a 30k server and I don't anticipate many full servers still cruising along six months after launch. My fear is that there will be zero room for 'casual' raiding guilds (those that spend a half year in MC/ZG and then creep their way through BWL for another six months--if they even finish).

I had a solid 50 raiders in my guild, enough to switch players out as they needed to afk and a few who didn't mind questing and such for the 3-4 hours to get their DKP if they couldn't land a spot. That said, when even one or two people left or quit the game, it was noticeable. The spreadsheets, the necessary class distribution, the required 12-16 hour/week commitment JUST for raiding. Are people really wanting to do that again or is the consensus mostly just wanting to experience some nostalgia and then go back to retail after a month or two?

I guess what I'm saying is that I really WANT to raid Vanilla again (I actually miss MC), I loved my lock, I was solid dps and definitely put in the time. I just feel like this time around it's going to be either tank, heal or be prepared to solo for a looong time in one of the very few sustainable raiding guilds that can keep their shiz together.

I like the idea of making raiding harder to accomplish this makes the game fun. i thought 40 mans were the best form of raiding.

[trapmaster]

I remember how difficult it was on a 30k server and I don't anticipate many full servers still cruising along six months after launch. My fear is that there will be zero room for 'casual' raiding guilds (those that spend a half year in MC/ZG and then creep their way through BWL for another six months--if they even finish).

I had a solid 50 raiders in my guild, enough to switch players out as they needed to afk and a few who didn't mind questing and such for the 3-4 hours to get their DKP if they couldn't land a spot. That said, when even one or two people left or quit the game, it was noticeable. The spreadsheets, the necessary class distribution, the required 12-16 hour/week commitment JUST for raiding. Are people really wanting to do that again or is the consensus mostly just wanting to experience some nostalgia and then go back to retail after a month or two?

I guess what I'm saying is that I really WANT to raid Vanilla again (I actually miss MC), I loved my lock, I was solid dps and definitely put in the time. I just feel like this time around it's going to be either tank, heal or be prepared to solo for a looong time in one of the very few sustainable raiding guilds that can keep their shiz together.

Only if someone could host a discord " wow vanilla" with different category of server name that can planned out ahead of time to get 40 man raids ready in future. I know crossover isn't a thing in vanilla. Just a thought

[Nitros14]

Now private server values can be wrong when it comes to armor and resists, but Naxx on private servers gets cleared in 3-4 hours after initial release of the raid. Patchwerk gets killed in 3.5minutes out of his 7min enrage with optimal comp. So yeah 5-10 dead weights is fine even on patchwerk or Loatheb dps checks if rest of the raid is optimized.

We'll see what actually happens in Classic but so far it seems private servers are actually overtuned compared to what vanilla was or classic beta for leveling dungeons. Private server dungeon monsters do like 30-50% more dmg.

The loatheb dps check is a lot harder than Patchwerk. And he said 15 dead weights not five.

I'm really curious what they're going to do to get a 'classic experience' with Molten Core and Blackwing Lair when you have 16 debuff slots and 1.12 talents. If they don't change anything those raids will absolutely fall over.

[Aggrophobic]

I didn't start playing til nearly the very end of BC but it's my understanding that Vanilla raiding was a lot easier than it is now. If true then you'll probably be fine.

It's easy but it's also something that takes time. A lot of it. The OP is most likely right.
Then again, you'll have LFR-like addons and such now that might make things easier.