The myths about Classic that have fallen apart

[Ange]

What is the definition of hard?

TIME

If you did UBRS in 2-3 hours with 15man in the first 2 years of vanilla and you are doing the same dungeon in <30mins with 5 people, with the same gear-color, you could say its a bit easier to do.

Overnerfed content is what the people wanted in the heated nochanges discussions. The question for hard/easy is not in the room anymore, people wanted LFR vanilla and they got it and surprise-surprise many casuals seem to like LFR style.

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?

[erifwodahs]

Several threads on MMO Champion saying raids were easy and Ragnaros would be killed on week 1.

We need to stop the myth classic raids were hard guys!!! WE need to stop it!!!

Dude, it was never a "thing" being said Classic raids were hard. Never. Stop this bullcrap trying to say otherwise.

Point 2, Talents.
Classic talents are 100% better than retails. By a HUGE amount. Not even close.
Specially rogue, the talent choices affect your gameplay by 100% compared to other talent trees.
Not even close.

have you tried to use different talents than optimal in retail? So either you play it optimal and it does not affect your play style at all, because that is the play style intended or you go sub par, which you can do in retail, and it has same effects, even more, because you can get 6 extra actives if you wanted to.
God, because one guys has to make a shitty forum post with his ignorant ass, others have to reply in the same ignorant manner and shit on the other game!

[Cempa]

Classic will soon be 3 weeks old and for many of us it's been a colossal experience in various different ways. On launch day, all my guildies and almost all my B-Net friends were desparately trying to get in, to have this old school experience. Many hours and days of gameplay have been devoted to Classic since then, and during that time we all verified the things we've been told over the months and years leading to the Classic launch ourselves. The hype train is slowing down and by now most people have quit the game already and I'm about to follow. So what about that hype we were being fed, mostly by influencers, streamers and youtubers turned out to be untrue?

1. Classic raids are very hard.

This has already been extensively discussed in other threads, but nonetheless I wanted to get this out of the way first. This was heavily pushed as one of the selling points of Classic. How many hours you have to spend on farming consumables, how many hours you have to spend on getting this and that...in the end it turned out that people below the level cap in greens are able to clear the raids. The only difficulty in clearing the raid is actually getting to level 60.

2. Old talent trees are better than the current ones

This is something that was advertised not only with Classic in mind, but in general in any discussion about the talent system in the current game. These initial weeks of people having access to Classic has shown that not only are those old talents not interesting (the vast majority of them just being +1% dmg on ability), but they also allow no options to pick at all, because resetting them costs a fortune. Depending on the class, about 2-4 talents in the whole tree actually make a difference in your gameplay. The rest is filler that doesn't give any tangible power up.

3. It’s about the journey, not the race to 60

Probably one of the most pushed ideas by all the veteran/elite players/streamers. What ended up happening was of course all those people who were pushing this idea went and grinded dungeons in raids with premade groups. Various excuses were employed, but in general the truth was laid bare for everyone to see. Turns out it’s not about the adventure in the zones, as that’s just boring grindfest of poorly balanced quests. It’s getting to the cap as fast as possible that is important, and people just playing normally are treated as some weirdos wasting their time. And for good reason - questing seems to be one of the worst possible ways to level up in Classic. Instance grinding, layer hopping, or just simple mob grinding in one spot are all faster.

4. Classic incentivizes player interaction, so everyone will suddenly become sociable and make friends

This just isn't the case. We can blame the current times and how people are in general these days, but I'm willing to bet it's been like that years ago too. People don't socialize. Sure, they do group up for quests, because those quests necessitate that. They sometimes say "hi", "bye" or "warrior taunt the mob" but usually nothing beyond that. There is absolutely nothing different about grouping in Classic in comparison to grouping through lfg-type systems in retail wow. People enter a party, they do the task, they leave, and never speak to each other again.

5. Getting into a dungeon group won't be a problem because there's no ilvl, r.io, achievements and armory.

False. Everyone and their mother spends their whole day on twitch now, and they already know the “leveling meta” for dungeons. Different class, or a spec without specific aoe abilities the party leader wants? No invite. And sure, I'm not saying you won't ever find a group for dungeon, and you can always make your own group, but about 80-90% of the groups advertised past level 40 are for specific classes and specific comps only. Yes, you will be able to do a dungeon run for quests while leveling, but it will take a long while looking through the "meta only" group advertisements to find one that just wants you as a player, not as an aoe mage. Other than that, thanks to loot options in Classic, most of the groups usually have a list of "reserved items" that you have to agree to pass on when you join the party. So which is worse, requiring a higher RIO, or asking that you pass on 10 items that you actually need?

6. Class quests, the holy grail of class fantasy

Class quests are the epitome of the antiquated game design. Not only are they fully skippable, which makes them horrible for people who are not playing the game on rails following a complete leveling guide for their class, but they often also require a group, and the ability to kill an enemy that is like 10 levels above your current level. For many of those quests you literally have to ask for boost, or you'll not complete them. Them being fully skippable also means that you may end up at a level cap while lacking skills essential to your class. Not only are those quests fully skippable, they also give no mention of the actual final reward in the game itself, so again, you have to follow 3rd party guides to even know what's coming.

7. Classic is a great game for casuals, much better than modern WoW

It is obviously not. In no way, shape, or form. Leveling is broken, imbalanced and just badly designed. Quests are few and far between, and you have to juggle 3-4 zones at once to even keep doing them. Otherwise you just have to grind mobs. As for the mobs themselves, you often die while fighting 1 mob that is on your level on lower. It's not even about everything taking long, it's about you wasting a lot of time if you don't know the proper route or not paying like 10$ for the proper questing addon that will take you through stuff you need to do. Leveling in Classic while not having any prior knowledge or memorized routes is just a pain. But okay - let's say you are a casual and you reach the level cap in a month or two. What can you do? You can level your professions, maybe farm some gold for an epic mount...content ends. You can always level an alt I guess, but why put yourself through that hell again? There is absolutely nothing to do in Classic if you don't plan to raid in it, which is why I personlally quit on level 42. The grind has become really tredious, and I would put myself through it if there was something waiting at the end - and there's not. I'm not afraid of long grinds, I've reached max overal level in the original Runescape 2 (the one osrs is based on) years back. And I'm grinding some stuff on retail wow for years now, on 30 characters. There needs to be an incentive though, and there is none in Classic.

So these are the main ones I know about. If you have any other myths that were completely debunked by Classic's release feel free to post.

..for you NOT for me! I disagree and find classic a far superior gaming experience in every way.

[Tuhokoura]

Another spoon fed customer who cannot think with their own brain. And yet another topic about what happens when you get spoon fed and not think with your own brain.

[Icaras]

I'm noticing, at least from looking at pages 1 and 31 (I'm not reading a 31 page thread in full!) that most counter posts seems to be "no you're wrong!" or "well I like it so you must be wrong!"

I really do find that I agree with alot of OPs posts-
1- I think this point is subjective, but there was a fair biot of chatter around and it felt lik the consensus was that the raids would need lots of stuff farmed before hand and would take a bit before the 1st clear. And it's true, the super hardcores did race to the end and beat it really quickly...but then we also need to keep in mind that, i'm pretty sure, these are guys that played continually on private servers and know all this stuff like the back of their hands. You can't really compare these guys to the average player base.

2- Yeah I can agree with thus, at least based on looking at the warrior tree. Alot of the talents are 1% increases to as max of 4% crit or something like that. It's kinda nice to have a new talent point each level up and to have some big talents to look forward too...but honestly, that's not THAT differant to now where you still have big abilities to look forward too (That said, at least its not this level up get weaker BS in BFA questing/leveling)

3- I find this true, I checked alot of the big streamers and seems like most of them always had a party and seemed to be in dungeons. That saiud, I didn't watch them much as I personally don't find it interesting to watch MMOs get streamed. (I prefer retro game streams, particularly of arcade games)

4- So SO true. This is one of those things people have been claiming for years, be it they say raids have destroyed or that it "comes back" in classic. This is nothing to do with the game and all to do with the individuals. You can just as easily form a group and be social in retail as you can in classic...most people simply don't want too (I know I don't!)
I think in this regard, people confuse what they wish happened, with what actually (doesn't) happen.

5- I don't PuG i retail (I hate it!), no comment here. *shrugs*

6- can agree with this, I remember from my original leveling in the vanilla zones (which was at the end of BC, before everything was changed by cata) and the class quests were hard and generally needed either a group or just something you forgot about and came back later.

7- I don't think I saw this said much, but the points themselves about the classic experience ring true for me. Me and my sister had planned to level together to 60 in classic...but we've found it so frustrating 9and boring, yay corpse runs /sarcasm) that we're talking about leveling just enough to do a run of the classic deadmines then quitting.

Obviously, this is all IMHO

[snuzzle]

I mean.... Yeah, if you rush to level cap, are you really surprised that all the people who rushed along with you are obsessed with speed, efficiency, and not really socializing? I'm taking my time, and the people who are around my level range are all very social, and not about min maxing and gogogo.

Flat out grinding has always been faster than questing in vanilla. That's not why you quest.

Basically, op picked up the game with the bfa mindset, played it like bfa, and is shocked they didn't have the advertised experience.

[Akka]

I'm noticing, at least from looking at pages 1 and 31 (I'm not reading a 31 page thread in full!) that most counter posts seems to be "no you're wrong!" or "well I like it so you must be wrong!"

Probably because the OP's argument all boil down to "I claim something that fits my narrative and you have to take it as true", which doesn't really require anything more than "hu, no, you're wrong".

Every single of his points are either opinions, misrepresented or factually false, and it's very clear by his gratuitous accusations that he's just pushing an agenda here (like claiming it's the same people who said that the journey was important who are AoE rushing dungeon, which is just a big red flag of dishonesty).
So again : what is there to answer here ? If I tell you that BfA proved that Classic has a much more active raid gameplay than current WoW, what would you counter save a variation on "bro, what are you smoking ?" ?

[Big Thanks]

What build did you go 21/0/31 ? Maybe 31/21/0 maybe even a saucey 21/31/0. I like getting a talent every level but people are lying to themselves if they act like Classic as some hidden fucking builds out there.

@erifwodahs

Rogues are one of the best examples of awesome customization in talents.
I have no idea how it is for other classes.

Dagger PvE
Sword PvE
Ambush + Hemo PvP
Ambush + Hemo for Leveling
Imp Sprint + Preparation PvP
Ghost Build (pick all defensive talents and ghostly strike)
Pickpocket Gold farm build
Backstab PvP
Preparation + Cold Blood PvP

[Nattwenny]

None of that matters when people are enjoying it anyway.

[Unholyground]

People telling me I could not Shaman tank when I am already considered one of the best tanks on my server, I hold aggro with white hits on classes without their threat reduction talents. Sure I cannot main tank raids until I out gear them but still I am effective enough in all other cases and I also have far more passive mitigation than a Warrior surprisingly.

[snackfeat]

You cant honestly believe that, or are you comparing to LFR?

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tl;dr of your post - "i cant refute any of these statements, and refuse to accept classic is anything other than perfect, so instead of responding, i will attempt to attack retail"

Classic is not perfect, but I enjoy it a lot more than retail. Getting a pre-raid bis blue item in classic felt way more satisfying than any bullshit titanforged garbage I ever got in retail.

[mvaliz]

Barrens chat was a huge socialize hub for many players. Goldshire is, but mostly for RP'ers. Trade chat is also good for*socializing*

If you're believing Vanilla's Barrens/Trade chat = socializing...you and I clearly have very different opinions for what "Socializing" means then! :P

[Monteverdi]

At least half of OP's list is very subjective.

[Wingspan]

At least half of OP's list is very subjective.

In the end, I think nearly all Classic vs Retail talking points are pretty subjective.

There are a few things that almost everyone agrees on, like the chaotic presentation of questing in Vanilla versus the on-rails experience of retail... but then it all comes down to what you prefer, rather than what is actually best (since “best” is just a matter of opinion).

Even the famed “community” aspect is all a matter of your own personal experience. At best, people knew personally (or knew of) a couple of hundred players in Vanilla... on servers which held thousands. How can ANYONE act like it was a tight community, when you didn’t even know 90% of the people in it?

So people that had a good time with others in game think the community was wonderful... and people who didn’t have good experiences think the opposite.

It’s all subjective.

[TheViper]

That's odd, I see it very differently.

1 - MC was NEVER hard, it was just the first raid, with stupid people who knew nothing. Later tiers will be more difficult requiring more gear. The top 100 guilds aside, the rest will need to gear up as always, grind resist gear etc. Noone is taking a team of fresh capped to 60 members to AQ40 and destroying the instance in a few hours. It ain't happening.

2- I like the old talent trees, every decision has a consequence

3 - No matter the game, there will ALWAYS be the top 1% who power for the end goal, it doesn't matter what game. In our guild there was the handful of people to push to 60 as fast as possible, but there is 10x that amount spread out from lvl 20 to 59.

4 - Err what server are you on, nothing could be further from the truth. I have had more player interaction in these couple of weeks than years in retail wow........

5 - Again wrong, while there is occasionally specific requirements, it's hardly "90%", because there is players across the whole lvling spectrum, they all just want to do their dungeon quests. It is tougher forming groups for sure, but not that much tougher, it just requires some patience. Ohh and I have seen exactly 1 "reserved" item run in the 50 or so dungeons i have run, it does happen but not to the extent you claim.

6- So get a group together? Ask your guild mates? Do the steps as the lvl is appropriate. Stop making excuses for YOUR decisions. If you want the item/ability, you do the quest, the game isn't holding your hand. Also the quest rewards are VERY good for many classes, why you would skip them is crazy.

7 - It's a great game for casuals....as long as you want a REAL RPG, where its rough, its tough, and the game doesn't hold your hand.

The game is NOT for everyone, but it is excellent for the people who do want this style of game.

It's a huge success, and shortly the people complaining like you will go back to retail while the people who enjoy the old way can. No harm, no foul.

[Molis]

Mr. Azerate, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

[MrHorner]

I have literally never seen anyone anywhere ever claim this.

They have severe mental problems

[Azerate]

Soo I'm considered a weirdo for going through the quests, enjoying the journey to 60? I guess I'm okay being a weirdo then.

Why should I even rush to 60? There really is no reason to do that. I'm not judging you for doing it but don't complain if you run out of content if you rush through the content.

By streamers, influencers and other hardcore Classic players - yes. I'm not saying I agree with that, just pointing out that the people who have been touting how Classic is a great leveling experience are now being hypocritical by doing everything in the exact opposite way they preached. You have completely misunderstood my thread it seems, or you are just trying to be negative on purpose.

are they even really playing vanilla? isn't 1.12 like the TBC prepatch? are they just playing bc without the raised level cap and new zones? i dont know.

No it's not. Classic is also not exactly on patch 1.12, it just uses the 1.12 engine. And no, it's not tbc prepatch, it's the proper patch when most bugs were fixed already, that's why it was picked.

I have a feeling it was a troll post.

Anybody who takes things streamers say with anything but a grain of salt should be ashamed of themselves.

I do take it with a grain of salt, or even a bag of salt. There's a lot of people treating it religiously though, so now that we have proof of those myths falling apart I decided to post about it for the good of the average player.

Most of those no one ever claimed anyway the rest you are just plain wrong.

I debunked the "no one ever claimed that" notion about 10 times in this thread already. In this very thread you have people claiming that raids are hard, that it's good for casuals etc. You need not search far. Just because you didn't say something about Classic, doesn't mean a lot of people didn't.

Well, half of the posts are made by people who are like the OP, so it's just a kind of auto-sustaining circle-jerk deliberately put at the wrong place.

I think you should make up your mind whether it's "everyone disagrees with me" or "half the posts are made by people like me". You can't have them both be true at the same time. Someone is getting lost in their script here

Not going to check out his post history but I would bet a lot of them reference Classic wow and his disdain for it. Why is that I wonder? I guess that is his own demon I suppose. He could use some time looking inward instead of all the energy shitting on the game. Have to check that bias and and agenda at the door Azerate, doesnt look good on you bro.

Look man, I don't really blame you for not reading through the whole thread, but I have stated numerous times that I do not dislike Classic at all. I actually have enjoyed parts of it, and I never said it's a completely bad game. I like WoW in all its iterations, both modern and older. There's just been a lot of untrue hype preceeding the launch, and I deicded it would be good to sum up the myths that we now know are untrue. If you think criticism equals someone hating the game, maybe you should look at yourself and consider if you're not being unreasonable.

I remember we were told by some all knowing individuals that the only reason there was any population on private servers was because it was free.

And truth be told, Classic's initial surge on launch is thanks to it being available automatically to everyone already paying the sub. Sure, some people are avid fans of Classic, but most are just "nostalgia tourists".

I agree. My only love for the talent trees comes from nostalgia and how long time it actually takes to get some talents you really want, but that's more related to the journey of leveling rather than the joy of the talents. The current system is in my opinion way better.

By even writing this, I can tell that you need to make some changes in your life if what other people do or think influences you this much. I am perfectly aware of what others are doing, and it does not affect my enjoyment one bit. I level up in my own pace, with no addOns, I do dungeons when I feel like it and quest most of the time. Your inability to enjoy the game because there are others who play "more efficiently" than you is not valid critcism of the game, it's a you problem.

You sadly seem to be among those who misunderstood the position this thread was written from, and what it's actually about. I am sceptical about everything in life, and I rarely believe anything without seeing it with my own eyes. No, I did not personally believe any of these myths myself, but I kept an open mind and decided to check for myself. I do know that many believed in all that, and that's why I decided to make this thread. Judging by the outrage, especially from the fanboys, it seems I was spot on.

classic is just a temporary thing, apart from some hardcore fans there won't be many left after a year of playing but hey i may be wrong :P

Yeah, most probably. The initial wave is mostly gone, there are still some late-joiners, and those will probably casually level until they get bored, but after that there will surely be a major drop off.

What is the definition of hard?

This might be very subjective, true. However I think we can all agree here, that wiping out content that is supposed to be max level for people geared in dungeons, by a group of sub-level cap quest-geared people means the content is not hard.

I'm noticing, at least from looking at pages 1 and 31 (I'm not reading a 31 page thread in full!) that most counter posts seems to be "no you're wrong!" or "well I like it so you must be wrong!"

Yep. Most of the critical posts have no substance to them at all, or are just downright negative toxic torrents of insults. I have read some that had some good points though, and for those who can still attempt to make a constructive argument I salute (even when they're objectively wrong )

Basically, op picked up the game with the bfa mindset, played it like bfa, and is shocked they didn't have the advertised experience.

The thread seems to be full of people who know the mindsets of other people. Not sure what your job IRL is, but maybe consider becoming one of those clairvoyants that sell their skills on TV in the middle of the night. Your mind reading might prove more useful than here on MMO-C.

and it's very clear by his gratuitous accusations that he's just pushing an agenda here (like claiming it's the same people who said that the journey was important who are AoE rushing dungeon, which is just a big red flag of dishonesty).

Because those are the same people. The obvious examples are streamers, because you can actually look up their vods and youtube videos, but this also stretches to non-streaming "hardcore" classic enthusiasts. You are the one twisting the facts, in the face of obvious evidence available to everyone on the internet.

Mr. Azerate, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

At least I can express myself without copy-pasting funny quotes from the internet. Oh and also, none of my posts have been incoherent and all have been factual and rational. But I doubt you even know what those words mean

[Muajin76]

If you're believing Vanilla's Barrens/Trade chat = socializing...you and I clearly have very different opinions for what "Socializing" means then! :P

Clearly
I was big into cybering during vanilla. *Ahh..the joy of cybering the priest healer as a MT heely paladin.*
I dunno if cybering was considered socializing or not. :P

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I honestly don't get what all the fuss and anti classic threads are all about. I'm not a fan of classic by no means, gave up after a few days. *I did the whole thing during live..that was enough* However, if people LIKE classic and find it enjoyable...then have at it. No need for ppl to spread toxicity about their disdain for it.

The hard truth is that it was nowhere near what live is today, people shouldn't be expecting it to be. *help help..nerf this..nerf that* Either you like it or you don't.

[sephrinx]

The only thing that matters is this.

Classic WoW is amazing. This isn't a myth, it's the subjective truth.