Is the casual experience fun in Classic?

[kenn9530]

I think so, because there are no catch up mechanics, any upgrade is always going to be an upgrade. There wont be a patch in 9 months where you can buy vendor gear that is 30% better than your current.

Items not be best in slot anymore in later patches, but they will still be completely functional and often decent items in their own right, even if say DM has a slight upgrade to your current.

actaully there will be catch up gear espeically in the AQ patch there are going to be many ways to get powerful gear even easier than it currently is, time is the only factor in getting gear atm.

This. Your progress is never deprecated, so it feels closer to a classic game that you can pickup later.
But (and that's a big but), all that goes out of the window if they ever release TBC+ without keeping existing servers Vanilla. Hopefully they won't.

once more phases are active it will give more access to better gear so there are catch up mechanics even in classic and will be available in later patchs when catching up would of been needed.

[hulkgor]

That must be the reason most people run dungeons over and over to level up. As collecting moonsaber teeth is THE GAME.

I think you overestimate the people dungeon spamming to level.

I'm on a guild with around 100 active players, and none is doing that, whatsoever. They do run every dungeon once after gathering every quest for it, though. Some are easily farmable for big ticket items tho. SM Armory and Princess Runs are big ones.

[Travels]

No it's not. There's very little fun for casual players in Classic. Realistically, all you can do as a casual player is level your character slowly to 60, after which it's pretty much game over or start anew on another character.

The only endamge activities are raids, which require playing on schedule, with a premade group. There is no world content and no casual content of any sort, except for MAYBE professions, if you wanna call that casual content, but even then, max out professions and you're done. Classic being casual friendly is one of the biggest myths perpetuated by the vocal minority of hardcore players.

Why would raids require a schedule at this point? Wasn't Molten Core cleared fairly easily just a couple weeks or so into the expac?

[anon5123]

Sure. Leveling is half the game, and there's no rush, you can level at your own pace.

- - - Updated - - -

Why would raids require a schedule at this point? Wasn't Molten Core cleared fairly easily just a couple weeks or so into the expac?

When more raids release, you will need a schedule, since it's impossible to clear all of them in a single night.

Right now, yeah, the only raids are MC/Ony and you can knock them both out in like 2 hours. But once BWL comes out, it gets harder to clear everything in a single night, and by AQ, forget about it.

[Kohtra]

Vanilla was designed for casuals first and hardcore second. That's why world content is so much harder and more rewarding. Retail on the other hand is designed for the hardcore first, and then the content is just reduced in difficulty so casuals have something to do.

[anon5123]

Retail on the other hand is designed for the hardcore first

........?

Retail has been getting more and more casual with every expac. World content is piss easy. EVERYTHING is piss easy other than heroic/mythic raids and high level M+. The game holds your hand and tells you where to go at any given moment, everything is streamlined as hell, and nothing matters other than max level. You don't need to study or learn anything about your class since everything is straightforward, including gear which has become so simplistic that ilvl is the only thing that matters, if the item is higher ilvl, it's an upgrade.

Nothing about retail is "hardcore" other than mythic raiding. Everything else can be done completely casually.

[Travels]

I'm playing it casually, I'm level 32 atm, will log in whenever I feel like it and put in few hours, doing few quests or a dungeon run. I don't have to worry about dailies, missions, ilvl etc.

How is the social experience? Do you have a guild you do anything with? Friends to party for dungeons with>

[hulkgor]

Ah no, every class is viable in classic. Right, my dear classic community?

In regards to Warrior? LOL dude, get some notion.

Warrior has the biggest payoff in classic. It's the big dog, uber class. It is however, one of the hardest to level, so if you wanna be the big dog, you gotta put the effort.

How you consider warrior "not viable" is beyond me.

[Moor Shadows]

It honestly feels more casual-friendly than retail in some ways.

Weird.

[A Chozo]

Well, it's like questing in Outland.

For way more time.

With friends! Or not.

[Fred Skinner]

How you consider warrior "not viable" is beyond me.

Well.. bring the class and not the player. And have you ever heard about sarcasm?

[Kohtra]

........?

Retail has been getting more and more casual with every expac. World content is piss easy. EVERYTHING is piss easy other than heroic/mythic raids and high level M+. The game holds your hand and tells you where to go at any given moment, everything is streamlined as hell, and nothing matters other than max level. You don't need to study or learn anything about your class since everything is straightforward, including gear which has become so simplistic that ilvl is the only thing that matters, if the item is higher ilvl, it's an upgrade.

Nothing about retail is "hardcore" other than mythic raiding. Everything else can be done completely casually.

Casuals don't want piss easy. I'm very casual and I absolutely loath how piss easy world content is in retail. That's the problem. Retail is not designed for casuals. It's designed for what hardcore players *think* casuals want.

That's why you find most hardcore M+ and raiders sticking to retail while everyone else goes with Classic.

[bitmapman]

Obviously not everyone has time to spend hours and hours each day on the game, nor keep to a video game schedule.

With that in mind, can one enjoy the game through just dungeons, quests etc? Or is the timesink too much?

I remember back in BC it was quite enjoyable to do Kara, Heroic Dungeons etc.

People have been playing the game casually since 2004. I think you'll be fine.

There's no pressure to get everything done, it's not like in BFA where every 6 months a patch comes out and you might as well have never done anything before that. Your items and progression will continue to matter forever. That's part of what makes it great for casuals.

[Dampoisback]

Yeah you can enjoy this alot as casual actually. For me personally that played it back in vanilla I just wanted 1-60 to be over because I allready done it "3 times" in vanilla. But for new players I totally envy them for the experience they get from lvling 1-60. An truly awesome game for casuals. And when they are 60 they will all of a sudden realise the game just begun. I ENVY YOU NEW PLAYERS, me myself im really happy to be 60, time to hoard stuff for pvp phase, can't wait D:

[WowClassic]

I was just questing in Darkshire, it's gone midnight, the zone is pitch black and yet it's flooded with friendly players, to the point it's hard to find mobs. This game is thriving, I don't even notice layering. Great job by Blizz after a rocky start.

I've forgotten retail even exists!!

[Daffan]

I think so, because there are no catch up mechanics, any upgrade is always going to be an upgrade. There wont be a patch in 9 months where you can buy vendor gear that is 30% better than your current.

Items not be best in slot anymore in later patches, but they will still be completely functional and often decent items in their own right, even if say DM has a slight upgrade to your current.

Yup also makes professions worth a damn.

Basically, you input time and effort and it won't feel like a waste or ever devalued.

[Celarent]

With that in mind, can one enjoy the game through just dungeons, quests etc? Or is the timesink too much?

Depends on what you want to do. Yesterday I gained two levels.

Today, in between chores and dinner guests, I farmed herbs and fished. And loved it.

[OriginalName]

actaully there will be catch up gear espeically in the AQ patch there are going to be many ways to get powerful gear even easier than it currently is, time is the only factor in getting gear atm.

The current patch we're on is already the very same catch up gear that was implemented later in retail vanilla, we're lacking a few items that are, arguably upgrades from DM, a few drops here and there, but dungeon gear is already competitive with the early raiding gear in the game.

While more items (and better ones) will be added in future phases, how are this catch up gear, rather than implementing further progression to dungeon gear?

As someone who did the dungeon set quests back when it was current, I can tell you that they took some effort comparative to the modern sense of what a catch up mechanic entails.

[Brewhan]

not really no I already quit at lvl 28. I experienced all this back when I was a teenager back in 2006 and went hard from 2006-2010 after that I became a casual normie. Trying to play classic again I just remembered how much I really no lifed it back then. Since classic came out I've played on average 2.5hrs per day since release and level 28 or so . Been out 18 days now or something but when I was doing my estimations people who are lvl 55-60+ already have been playing 8-10hrs a day since release. 170-180+hrs of a what now I consider the ultimate timesink. I don't get any satisfaction or enjoyment playing it but was just playing due to my 10+ friends that came back and we made a super guild. They even paid 1 month sub for me to play with them. A part of me wants to go hard like when I was a teenager but the other side of my thinking is like " wtf you already did this before why waste all the time again?" . If I want to be lvl 60 again quickly, RIP gym time, rip optimal meal timing, rip hanging out with family, rip talking to beautiful women, rip self development, rip meditation. List goes on...

If it's your first time playing vanilla wow go for it its a great fun adventure if you have the time to commit to it. For me though I will just cherish the good memories and watch on twitch in and out.

[Flurryfang]

Obviously not everyone has time to spend hours and hours each day on the game, nor keep to a video game schedule.

With that in mind, can one enjoy the game through just dungeons, quests etc? Or is the timesink too much?

I remember back in BC it was quite enjoyable to do Kara, Heroic Dungeons etc.

I think the absolute best experience you can have in Classic, is actually the casual experience. Aslong as you put your level of ambition on the same level, taking Classic in a very slow and "in-your-time" sort of way makes the likelyhood of you being annoyed with the....well annoying elements of classic much less likely.

Like i have played Classic very casual since launch and have just broken through lvl 35. Since i take it in a slow manner, i look forward to playing it everytime. I notice what is bad or annoying, but i don't force myself to sit in it for 6+ hours in a row. I play for a couple of hours, put the game on hold and come back to it a couple of days later. I can pretty much predict, that i won't be bored or annoyed by the game before i hit lvl 60 and that is a good success for a game like Classic.

So you can surely enjoy the game on a casual level, but do be aware, that dungeons at max lvl might take more time than you might expect. Scholomance/Stratholme/LBRS is not a 20 min experience and will take you some hours.