Can someone explain how the "community" is so much better than it was 14 years ago?

[Prozach]

That's completely false. Have you even played on a private server before?
Everyone know everyone, it's a much different experience.

You also have cross faction smack talk / friendships being built on the realm specific forums.

Perfect example, every server will have a core set of players that literally just play the game to grief - those players will be known big time.

You must have not played on private servers and/or vanilla wow.

P.S. For your Dungeon runs, that's why you join a guild...

I started playing three months after Vanilla was released. I'm glad your experience was so memorable but you, like many others, don't remember things as they were just as you WANT them to be. That's why you're seeing so many of these tweak/add content/fix 'bugs' that aren't bugs posts. No one remembers the game and, getting back into it now, their first reaction is to ask for changes, some of which are very retail-specific. Nostalgia is great but it's just that--the brain is trained to remember specific experiences but not the big picture. I appreciate that you have your own vision about how the game is going to be but, six months from now when new classic is as toxic and anti-social as the original, you'll be wishing you had your private server back.

P.S. For your Dungeon runs, that's why you join a guild...

You posting this just proves my point. You don't need to group, socialize, or even exist outside of your guild. You don't need Vanilla to be able to do that. And people you grouped with one day on a ZF run and had a 2 min conversation about the Pats/Steelers game aren't your "friends". They're the equivalent of randos you see in LFG now. The fact that you occupy the same server means jack shit at the end of the day.

[Radaney]

Vanilla requires people socialise to do anything from elite questing, trading, enchanting, finding a group, finding attuned people and during the dungeon.

Vanilla's Closed off Server infrastructure encourages you to remember good Tanks, DPS, Healers and PvPers.

Vanilla's closed off server infrastructure encourages you to be a good boy or risk being blacklisted by good raiding and community guilds.

The community wasn't better, it simply forced more social interaction which more easily brings out both the bad and the good. It was easier to find good social interaction, and easier to find bad.

[Nattwenny]

The community has it's ups and downs for sure. There have been times where I took breaks from wow just because of the community. But lately I've been enjoying it. I moved to an RP server and it seems like people are nicer.

[orgonutil]

I think it's a pretty safe assumption that the majority of people that are playing now/will be playing in August have all done the Vanilla thing before. I can't help but remember how much complaining there used to be, especially on the bnet forums, about how awful the community actually was. All of the Barrens chat stuff, trade channel spamming and anal jokes, smack talking in general pretty much everywhere, especially in pugs when things weren't going smoothly.

How are things going to be any different or friendlier or whatever than they were back then? I guess factoring in that most players have "grown up" since then, that's never seemed to stop anyone from being an ass on the internet when anonymity provides the opportunity. Rage quits, loot drama, potentially having your server 'reputation' damaged all seem inevitable.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic here but I get the whole nostalgia thing but I personally enjoy playing the game without being limited to only playing same-server population now. Outside of my guild members, why do I need another few thousand randoms to get things done anyway?

The barrens chat was the best thing in classic, community was worse just to ninja looters and douches

[Zachsophone]

The game has a lot of players. No matter how much time goes by, there will always be nice people and rude people. In classic, you have 1 server you play on and you will only ever see players from your own server. If you are going to behave like a little shit, you will build a very negative reputation with the players of that servers.
In the live game? Everything is crossrealm. You can be a dick to someone and be 99% sure you will never see that person, or anyone he knows, ever again. In classic, you WILL be encountering the same people over and over, because there is no crossrealm stuff.

This means less anonymity and also less bad behavior.

TL;DR: Bad behavior in classic has bad effects that the live game does not have, because of crossrealm stuff.

As a 14 year veteran player myself who started in May 2005, I can confirm that this is true about classic WoW. That said, IMO the benefits of crossrealm largely outweigh dealing with awful people. Honestly, I dealt with awful people then, I deal with awful people now. I notice no difference, or increase in toxic players now than I did back then. Whether its 2005, 2019 or 2035, you just learn to ignore them, or laugh at them to yourself, or both. :P

[Zantera]

Didn't they say something about classic having some form of sharding? I mean if so then that negates the whole "the community experience" right away...

[BargainBoy]

When you're forced to generate social interaction, things seem more like a community which is pretty cool. I wouldn't mind having that same feeling like things were in Vanilla.

[Prozach]

When you're forced to generate social interaction, things seem more like a community which is pretty cool. I wouldn't mind having that same feeling like things were in Vanilla.

"LF2M, tank and heals" - for two hours
"Can someone help me with this elite mob?" - for an hour
"Just started, can someone give me gold?" - lol
"(insert anal joke here) in trade chat" - all of the time, constantly
Grouping with players you never see again - total silence for however long the dungeon takes
Watching people of your own faction intentionally screw you out of a quest kill
"Don't group with 'x' person, they just ninja'ed 'x' item!" - totally ignored/forgotten 30 seconds later
Sitting in Org as an alt raider for four hours while your team links all loot you don't see in gchat
Being unable to do anything about "that guy" who links damage meters after every trash pull

Oh how I miss the 'social' elements of the 'community' lol

[Projectmars]

He's right. Any thread I saw go up that was specific to a single player was deleted the same day. Or the same hour even. I'm surprised that several people are trying to peddle this shit. Maybe you're confusing some non-bnet forum or personal guild forums or something with the server forums but this never would have been possible in vanilla and it's not going to be possible now. The bnet forums are worse than gamefaqs when it comes to moderation for petty shit.

You ain't gonna tell me what happened or not either.

[Nnyco]

Vanilla requires people socialise to do anything from elite questing, trading, enchanting, finding a group, finding attuned people and during the dungeon.

LFM quest, WTB enchant, WTB item, LFM dungeon - must be attuned or kick.

Wooooow so much social interaction, especially since you then afterwards no longer interact with those people ever again.

[Asrialol]

What. The community is the whole reason WoW is in the state it's in today. The community became trash during / after wrath and has continued to decay ever since. Classic wont change that.

[Stormspellz]

I think it's a pretty safe assumption that the majority of people that are playing now/will be playing in August have all done the Vanilla thing before. I can't help but remember how much complaining there used to be, especially on the bnet forums, about how awful the community actually was. All of the Barrens chat stuff, trade channel spamming and anal jokes, smack talking in general pretty much everywhere, especially in pugs when things weren't going smoothly.

How are things going to be any different or friendlier or whatever than they were back then? I guess factoring in that most players have "grown up" since then, that's never seemed to stop anyone from being an ass on the internet when anonymity provides the opportunity. Rage quits, loot drama, potentially having your server 'reputation' damaged all seem inevitable.

Maybe I'm being pessimistic here but I get the whole nostalgia thing but I personally enjoy playing the game without being limited to only playing same-server population now. Outside of my guild members, why do I need another few thousand randoms to get things done anyway?

you thinking in the wrong context, its not that people are nicer, its you are actually engaging with people, on retail I can't remember i spoke to someone outside my guild or pugging mythic+, on classic its a constant thing, from questing to dungeons, and not to mention seeing the same people as you level (or pvp), a lot of the social part of pvp is lost when you know you will NEVER see that random person you just fought.

[Zantera]

What. The community is the whole reason WoW is in the state it's in today. The community became trash during / after wrath and has continued to decay ever since. Classic wont change that.

I think you are right but I don't think it's a WoW-related issue but mostly a humankind-related issue. Back when internet was new and gaming online was becoming a thing, I think people in general were more helpful and we all kinda learned together, but the state of gaming today is pretty toxic. You'll get no praise for doing something good, but make a mistake and people will throw insults and abuse your way. You're also expected to know everything. As a long time player I can brush this aside, but I feel genuinely sorry for new players trying to learn, maybe finding this forum and making a post asking about something, because most of the replies will be toxic, insulting or sarcastic.

[Radaney]

LFM quest, WTB enchant, WTB item, LFM dungeon - must be attuned or kick.

Wooooow so much social interaction, especially since you then afterwards no longer interact with those people ever again.

Except sometimes you do, and that is exactly what happened. That's the point.

Seeing as how I'm now engaged to someone I met and spent like 8 hours in BRD with back in 2005.

If you don't see how initially communicating with someone over small things can lead to greater chance of further communication with someone over automated systems that have no communication or don't exemplify further communication then I don't know what to tell you. There isn't even an argument to be made.

[ReVnX]

You didn't play vanilla so I think it is easy for you to miss the point. The point is that 15 years there was a predominance of dickish behavior in WoW. And it is unlikely that will be any different this time around. So the OP's question is how does this reality support the idea that community is going to be a great selling point? And I think that is a good question.

I see much more dickish and selfish behavior in today's Wow than I did in Vanilla.

Also, now people rarely talk in groups even when they are addressed, which I find ruder than silly jokes to be honest

[Specialka]

The community was the same back then. Ppl endured just much because you could not instantly find another group.

[Drusin]

This means less anonymity and also less bad behavior.

Alright this is what you do boys. Logout of your main and on a character specifically designated as your troller/shit talker and say whatever you want

[Vivapin8]

Alright this is what you do boys. Logout of your main and on a character specifically designated as your troller/shit talker and say whatever you want

And inside the Dungeon/Raid you will still behave like a good little Boy, if you ever want more invites with your main char....

[Drusin]

And inside the Dungeon/Raid you will still behave like a good little Boy, if you ever want more invites with your main char....

Alright this is how you handle that, on your second account (I have 8, soon to be 11+ since Blizz wants to take away (maybe) current RAF rewards) go to the dungeon and talk shit in /1 on an alt

I do it on live now, if I need to say something extra fucking spicy in chat I do so on another account lol Live is nice because there is /4, does classic have a realm wide chat?

[Celarent]

Even if you joined in TBC or Wrath, you had to grind out levels in vanilla. The one thing you didn't need to participate in is vanilla raids.

Players leveled through the world, but gear, professions, long-term quests, and zone occupation/interaction weren't actively relevant, and had much smaller roles in the game experience, as is with every expansion.

So to the extent that Vanilla is different — consensus is that it is, regardless of whether it's better — then millions of current or former players have never played it.