Why classic appeals to a grumpy old man

[ztkraptor]

Things that ruined wow.

LFR
Titanforge/warforge


Thats about it.

Other than having to inflate gear due to each raid cycle having essentially 4 old school raid item levels in it due to LFR...and 4 total difficulties.
THEN throwing in warforge/titanforge which doesn't allow you to actually have an "end" to your characters potential.

The game would be fine.

[SirBeef]

I'd argue that retail appeals to a grumpy old man. You don't have to talk to anyone, can tell everyone to get off your lawn and play in silence. Queue up for a dungeon or raid and say nothing. In classic, you actually have to talk to people to get anything done. Grumpy old men hate talking to people.

Funny, I can do that in Classic, and did do that in Vanilla. I'll say this until I'm blue in the face, no you didn't. Made it to 60 with very little interaction with others. Just spammed LF1M need tank for RFD and the like. Just a handful of quests I needed a group and just spammed LFM for what ever quest I needed the help on, Paladin mount and Nathanos. Funny, I even raided through everything up through a handful of bosses in Naxx without being very social at all. This while needed to be social is a myth. Sure people did it. It wasn't necessary.

[unbound]

Well he didn't say it appeals to ALL grumpy old men.

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Valued your time? It was grindy as fuck and everything took way longer.

That is a highly simplistic view of valuing your time.

I very much value my time. I want to enjoy the things I do with that time. Classic is, IMO, dramatically superior in that regard. Each level I gain is more rewarding, and most of the content is actually challenging.

Sure it takes longer, but it takes longer to actually appreciate, say, looking at nature, watching the animals interact, etc than to rush up to goat at a petting zoo. But I will be far, far more satisfied with that time I spent watching nature at play than you can possibly get from quickly petting a goat...and you will be bored in less than a minute looking for the next goat to pet and then claiming victory because you petted 15 goats while I only sat there. And because you'll be sitting all smug with your achievement of petting more goats than 90% of other people, you won't even notice the smile on my face as I've seen a dozen different creatures each doing their things and interacting with each other.

So congratulations on your petting of 15 goats and still being bored while I continue to sit here enjoying looking and experience so very much more than you ever will at the petting zoo.

[Eroginous]

That is a highly simplistic view of valuing your time.

I very much value my time. I want to enjoy the things I do with that time. Classic is, IMO, dramatically superior in that regard. Each level I gain is more rewarding, and most of the content is actually challenging.

Sure it takes longer, but it takes longer to actually appreciate, say, looking at nature, watching the animals interact, etc than to rush up to goat at a petting zoo. But I will be far, far more satisfied with that time I spent watching nature at play than you can possibly get from quickly petting a goat...and you will be bored in less than a minute looking for the next goat to pet and then claiming victory because you petted 15 goats while I only sat there. And because you'll be sitting all smug with your achievement of petting more goats than 90% of other people, you won't even notice the smile on my face as I've seen a dozen different creatures each doing their things and interacting with each other.

So congratulations on your petting of 15 goats and still being bored while I continue to sit here enjoying looking and experience so very much more than you ever will at the petting zoo.

I completely understand where you are going with this, i appreciate the sentiments, I feel much the same... but wording. Sounds like you're a little too into nature, if you know what I mean

[diarx]

Classic is like a traditional pizza with few toppings.

BFA is like 500 people choosing a random pizza topping then placing them all on a single pizza so they can take a pic for insta.

[Relapses]

Classic is like a traditional pizza with few toppings.

BFA is like 500 people choosing a random pizza topping then placing them all on a single pizza so they can take a pic for insta.

And your analogy is like Donald Trump's taste in music:

It's terrible. (Or Russian, depending on your preferred punchline.)

[Mormolyce]

That is a highly simplistic view of valuing your time.

I very much value my time. I want to enjoy the things I do with that time. Classic is, IMO, dramatically superior in that regard. Each level I gain is more rewarding, and most of the content is actually challenging.

Sure it takes longer, but it takes longer to actually appreciate, say, looking at nature, watching the animals interact, etc than to rush up to goat at a petting zoo. But I will be far, far more satisfied with that time I spent watching nature at play than you can possibly get from quickly petting a goat...and you will be bored in less than a minute looking for the next goat to pet and then claiming victory because you petted 15 goats while I only sat there. And because you'll be sitting all smug with your achievement of petting more goats than 90% of other people, you won't even notice the smile on my face as I've seen a dozen different creatures each doing their things and interacting with each other.

So congratulations on your petting of 15 goats and still being bored while I continue to sit here enjoying looking and experience so very much more than you ever will at the petting zoo.

I mean if you just want to stand around in the Barrens watching the plainstriders run by, you can do that in live too.

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It's not a grind if the game play is actually meaningful (meaning it won't get displaced just because new content comes out) and the length of time things take doesn't matter if you aren't repeatedly being pushed towards some arbitrary new content release (arbitrary because it happens for the sake of happening, at this point, rather than for the sake of releasing content with value).

Notice, no other Blizzard game has a sub fee and a bi annual box release schedule...

Well no other Blizzard game is an MMO, so I should think not.

I don't know what you mean by meaningful, really.

[voidillusion]

I'd say it's indeed mostly psychological pressure. It seems that retail has all the systems in place and all that, but for some the pace of content is still too fast. Doesn't mean this is wrong, the game has to be fitted to what is perceived as the majority i believe. But for someone who doesnt spend anymore the amount of time that he used to, like me, it's more a nuissance than anything else having to change the ojectivs every few months when you haven't yet completed the previous ones.

It's a complicated issue and imo it's the best reason for having something like classic, you can keep retail at the pace it is for those who can and enjoy it, and at the same time have a viable alternative for others to enjoy. All in all a win-win situation it seems.

[Eroginous]

I mean if you just want to stand around in the Barrens watching the plainstriders run by, you can do that in live too.

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Well no other Blizzard game is an MMO, so I should think not.

I don't know what you mean by meaningful, really.

Meaningful game play exists when the following exists within a game:

1) A player has multiple paths of game play

2) Choosing a path of play offers a different experience from others.

3) This difference is compelling enough to make the choice enticing compared to other choices.

A clear example would be playing in vanilla vs now. Most of the choices you would make in that version of the game, are made for you by the game in the live version. Less choice, less opportunity for meaningful game play.

[Charge me Doctor]

Meaningful game play exists when the following exists within a game:

1) A player has multiple paths of game play

2) Choosing a path of play offers a different experience from others.

3) This difference is compelling enough to make the choice enticing compared to other choices.

A clear example would be playing in vanilla vs now. Most of the choices you would make in that version of the game, are made for you by the game in the live version. Less choice, less opportunity for meaningful game play.

It's actually the other way around, in classic you have way less choice.
For gods sake, i can level my character without killing ANYTHING on live version, just walking around and mining/herbing/petbattling shit. I can make a PvP-only character with blocked experience without fear of walking out of BG queue room of accidental levelup. I can level in any location i want without that awful "oh damn quests are gray now, i should be here earlier".

What choice do you have in classic wow? Which mobs you are going to grind for next "collect X Ys" quest? Which location quest arc you want to do? What meaningful game play besides constant grind of mobs classic can offer you? I mean, it's not a bad thing, but don't kid yourself if you think that classic is more variable of presents you with more choice or with meaningful gameplay.

Just take a deep breath and look at what you do in classic wow:
1) Walk around / use flight paths / craft / AH / mail / chat (which i'd call "wasted /played time")
2) Collect / Turn in quests
3) Grind mobs

There is virtually nothing else to do

[Heavens Night]

Like many others, I played vanilla 'back in the day'.

I was under no illusions about classic. What people seem to forget is that a large part of the challenge of vanilla was simply not knowing what you were doing. Raids felt epic because you'd never been in a group of 40 people trying to play together to execute even the most basic of tactics (the idea of dying to Baron Geddon's bomb seems ridiculous now right?). By modern standards, these raids weren't all that difficult (I went on to main tank Heroic Lich King and comparing that to Raggy is just plain daft) but we got into those raids without 10 years of MMO experience behind us and it 'felt' epic.

Questing didn't feel as tedious, because we hadn't spent 10 years slowly becoming numb to the whole concept of questing (honestly, there was a first time you collected 10 wolf tails). The community felt more balanced because we hadn't learned how to judge other people yet, there simply wasn't enough information to fine tune your preferences and you tended not to care all that much about the fact the tank had cloth spirit bracers on in Deadmines.

Look, I could ramble for hours, but I won't. Suffice to say that 'newness' was a huge amount of the appeal and you can almost taste it when you hear the way people remember vanilla. They don't necessarily want the game itself back, they want the feeling of it all being new and exciting and epic. They want a time before we all got burned out doing effectively the same things for 10 years. Let's also be honest when we say that isn't happening.

So, why does classic appeal to a grumpy old man?

It's about attainability. These days I'm 40. I'm not the younger man that had all the time in the world for video games. As fond as my memories are, when I think about returning to retail it just all feels so daunting. I'm so far behind both in terms of character and knowledge, and even if I can just about scrape back into endgame on limited time, there will always be that steadily moving goalpost of 'the next expansion' looming ahead of me.

Classic feels like it has a fixed endpoint (eventually Naxx). I feel like I can just chill, take my time, divert from the path to go and pick a few herbs without the game's final point moving away from me quicker than I can get there. Sure, there will be thousands of people through Naxx before I get there, but I will get there. It won't have been replaced by something even further away. Noone is walking ahead of me constantly moving the carrot on a stick into the distance. The carrot is a fixed point and at some point I shall feast upon it.

Do I think classic is a better game than retail? It's certainly not as pretty, but it's been so long since I enjoyed retail that my opinion is likely not a balanced one. What I do know is that classic, for me (I don't profess to be the voice of the disenfranchised masses) feels like a game I can invest in again, even if I'm investing in much smaller amounts than I used to. Not because it's better, but because it's attainable.

If this means that I've turned into a 'lolz casual n00b' in my middle years then so be it, part of the joy of passing 40 is no longer caring about being called a 'lolz casual n00b'. I'll grumble all the way to Naxx.

I object to the OP's perpetuating of stereotypes - a grumpy old man at 40!

What nonsense! 40 isn't old. 70 is old. If you honestly think you're an old man at 40, Christ, I think you need to get a better, healthier outlook on life.

I do agree with the comparison between retail and classic though of retail feeling quite daunting and the carrot on a stick analogy. I feel the same, and I feel more settled in Classic.

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It's actually the other way around, in classic you have way less choice.
For gods sake, i can level my character without killing ANYTHING on live version, just walking around and mining/herbing/petbattling shit. I can make a PvP-only character with blocked experience without fear of walking out of BG queue room of accidental levelup. I can level in any location i want without that awful "oh damn quests are gray now, i should be here earlier".

What choice do you have in classic wow? Which mobs you are going to grind for next "collect X Ys" quest? Which location quest arc you want to do? What meaningful game play besides constant grind of mobs classic can offer you? I mean, it's not a bad thing, but don't kid yourself if you think that classic is more variable of presents you with more choice or with meaningful gameplay.

Just take a deep breath and look at what you do in classic wow:
1) Walk around / use flight paths / craft / AH / mail / chat (which i'd call "wasted /played time")
2) Collect / Turn in quests
3) Grind mobs

There is virtually nothing else to do

It's all subjective. Yes technically there may be more to do in Retail (it's been around a lot longer) but for me, and others, it all feels so hollow and pointless. Classic on the other hand doesn't. It's not a whack-a-mole loot fest like Retail.

Don't even get me started on what they've done to the classes in Retail either.

[Axxil]

Classic doesn't appeal to grumpy old men. Grumpy old men are already on anger's edge, classic is just the tipping factor that will lead to an early death.

[munkeyinorbit]

I don't think it's a controversial statement to say that the majority of people playing WoW don't care about these kinds of optional resource grinds

There you go buddy. I fixed it for you. There is no mandatory grind in WoW. This disappeared in 7.2. There is no content that is around that it is mandatory for you to have a certain neck level. Anyone who says this is just revealing how bad they are at the game.

If you want to eke out a little bit of power then you may do a little bit more grinding. If you want to quickly unlock a socket then you must do a lot of grinding. Me, and the majority, don't give two shits. I KNOW that a LVL 65 neck will be a bit of an upgrade for me. Is it worth doing things that I don't like to do to get it? I am confident enough in my own abilities to say NO. I don't get threatened by anyone's neck level. I don't wish for my fellow Guildies to do worse because it makes me feel better. No. Instead of being a fucking loser who keeps on saying "boohoo, fucking blizzard forced me to do this, they are wrecking the game..." I stand up and I DECIDE what I will and will not do.

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I object to the OP's perpetuating of stereotypes - a grumpy old man at 40!

What nonsense! 40 isn't old. 70 is old. If you honestly think you're an old man at 40, Christ, I think you need to get a better, healthier outlook on life.

I do agree with the comparison between retail and classic though of retail feeling quite daunting and the carrot on a stick analogy. I feel the same, and I feel more settled in Classic.

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It's all subjective. Yes technically there may be more to do in Retail (it's been around a lot longer) but for me, and others, it all feels so hollow and pointless. Classic on the other hand doesn't. It's not a whack-a-mole loot fest like Retail.

Don't even get me started on what they've done to the classes in Retail either.

It is not subjective at all. There is objectively more to do in retail than there is in classic. That is a fact. The quality of the content is subjective and the quality of the means of consuming the content (your characters) is subjective. People are not quitting because of the content, they are quitting because it is not fun to do the content.

[jakeic]

It's actually the other way around, in classic you have way less choice.
For gods sake, i can level my character without killing ANYTHING on live version, just walking around and mining/herbing/petbattling shit. I can make a PvP-only character with blocked experience without fear of walking out of BG queue room of accidental levelup. I can level in any location i want without that awful "oh damn quests are gray now, i should be here earlier".

What choice do you have in classic wow? Which mobs you are going to grind for next "collect X Ys" quest? Which location quest arc you want to do? What meaningful game play besides constant grind of mobs classic can offer you? I mean, it's not a bad thing, but don't kid yourself if you think that classic is more variable of presents you with more choice or with meaningful gameplay.

Just take a deep breath and look at what you do in classic wow:
1) Walk around / use flight paths / craft / AH / mail / chat (which i'd call "wasted /played time")
2) Collect / Turn in quests
3) Grind mobs

There is virtually nothing else to do

I think the argument that people like the guy you quoted are trying to make is that the retail version of WoW has had the curtain pulled back on the wizard, the illusion has been broken and what happens in retail WoW carries no weight to them because Oz is no longer great and powerful.

[Heavens Night]

There you go buddy. I fixed it for you. There is no mandatory grind in WoW. This disappeared in 7.2. There is no content that is around that it is mandatory for you to have a certain neck level. Anyone who says this is just revealing how bad they are at the game.

If you want to eke out a little bit of power then you may do a little bit more grinding. If you want to quickly unlock a socket then you must do a lot of grinding. Me, and the majority, don't give two shits. I KNOW that a LVL 65 neck will be a bit of an upgrade for me. Is it worth doing things that I don't like to do to get it? I am confident enough in my own abilities to say NO. I don't get threatened by anyone's neck level. I don't wish for my fellow Guildies to do worse because it makes me feel better. No. Instead of being a fucking loser who keeps on saying "boohoo, fucking blizzard forced me to do this, they are wrecking the game..." I stand up and I DECIDE what I will and will not do.

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It is not subjective at all. There is objectively more to do in retail than there is in classic. That is a fact. The quality of the content is subjective and the quality of the means of consuming the content (your characters) is subjective. People are not quitting because of the content, they are quitting because it is not fun to do the content.

That is your opinion, not fact. I completely disagree with you.

And as far as there being more to do, well I already covered that in what I said originally.

[Charge me Doctor]

It's all subjective. Yes technically there may be more to do in Retail (it's been around a lot longer) but for me, and others, it all feels so hollow and pointless. Classic on the other hand doesn't. It's not a whack-a-mole loot fest like Retail.

Don't even get me started on what they've done to the classes in Retail either.

It's not subjective, the claim was:

Most of the choices you would make in that version of the game, are made for you by the game in the live version. Less choice, less opportunity for meaningful game play.

It's simply not true, live wow has more choice and more opportunities for meaningful gameplay compared to classic wow. It doesn't mean that you can't enjoy that, but saying that classic gives you more choice and opportunities is simply disengenious.

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I think the argument that people like the guy you quoted are trying to make is that the retail version of WoW has had the curtain pulled back on the wizard, the illusion has been broken and what happens in retail WoW carries no weight to them because Oz is no longer great and powerful.

I may enjoy Guild of Dungeoneering more than live wow, it doesn't mean that wow has less interesting characters or less customisation or whatever untrue things my mind can come up with. It has nothing to do with personal enjoynment of a game, it's a case of someone using lie to support his claim, which he shouldn't even support, because it's a damn opinion, just explain why you like it without going into buzzwords and lies...

[GrumpyNugget]

Like many others, I played vanilla 'back in the day'.

I was under no illusions about classic. What people seem to forget is that a large part of the challenge of vanilla was simply not knowing what you were doing. Raids felt epic because you'd never been in a group of 40 people trying to play together to execute even the most basic of tactics (the idea of dying to Baron Geddon's bomb seems ridiculous now right?). By modern standards, these raids weren't all that difficult (I went on to main tank Heroic Lich King and comparing that to Raggy is just plain daft) but we got into those raids without 10 years of MMO experience behind us and it 'felt' epic.

Questing didn't feel as tedious, because we hadn't spent 10 years slowly becoming numb to the whole concept of questing (honestly, there was a first time you collected 10 wolf tails). The community felt more balanced because we hadn't learned how to judge other people yet, there simply wasn't enough information to fine tune your preferences and you tended not to care all that much about the fact the tank had cloth spirit bracers on in Deadmines.

Look, I could ramble for hours, but I won't. Suffice to say that 'newness' was a huge amount of the appeal and you can almost taste it when you hear the way people remember vanilla. They don't necessarily want the game itself back, they want the feeling of it all being new and exciting and epic. They want a time before we all got burned out doing effectively the same things for 10 years. Let's also be honest when we say that isn't happening.

So, why does classic appeal to a grumpy old man?

It's about attainability. These days I'm 40. I'm not the younger man that had all the time in the world for video games. As fond as my memories are, when I think about returning to retail it just all feels so daunting. I'm so far behind both in terms of character and knowledge, and even if I can just about scrape back into endgame on limited time, there will always be that steadily moving goalpost of 'the next expansion' looming ahead of me.

Classic feels like it has a fixed endpoint (eventually Naxx). I feel like I can just chill, take my time, divert from the path to go and pick a few herbs without the game's final point moving away from me quicker than I can get there. Sure, there will be thousands of people through Naxx before I get there, but I will get there. It won't have been replaced by something even further away. Noone is walking ahead of me constantly moving the carrot on a stick into the distance. The carrot is a fixed point and at some point I shall feast upon it.

Do I think classic is a better game than retail? It's certainly not as pretty, but it's been so long since I enjoyed retail that my opinion is likely not a balanced one. What I do know is that classic, for me (I don't profess to be the voice of the disenfranchised masses) feels like a game I can invest in again, even if I'm investing in much smaller amounts than I used to. Not because it's better, but because it's attainable.

If this means that I've turned into a 'lolz casual n00b' in my middle years then so be it, part of the joy of passing 40 is no longer caring about being called a 'lolz casual n00b'. I'll grumble all the way to Naxx.

Honestly good for you! I wish there were more ppl like you.

[Pheraz]

Like many others, I played vanilla 'back in the day'.

I was under no illusions about classic. What people seem to forget is that a large part of the challenge of vanilla was simply not knowing what you were doing. Raids felt epic because you'd never been in a group of 40 people trying to play together to execute even the most basic of tactics (the idea of dying to Baron Geddon's bomb seems ridiculous now right?). By modern standards, these raids weren't all that difficult (I went on to main tank Heroic Lich King and comparing that to Raggy is just plain daft) but we got into those raids without 10 years of MMO experience behind us and it 'felt' epic.

Questing didn't feel as tedious, because we hadn't spent 10 years slowly becoming numb to the whole concept of questing (honestly, there was a first time you collected 10 wolf tails). The community felt more balanced because we hadn't learned how to judge other people yet, there simply wasn't enough information to fine tune your preferences and you tended not to care all that much about the fact the tank had cloth spirit bracers on in Deadmines.

Look, I could ramble for hours, but I won't. Suffice to say that 'newness' was a huge amount of the appeal and you can almost taste it when you hear the way people remember vanilla. They don't necessarily want the game itself back, they want the feeling of it all being new and exciting and epic. They want a time before we all got burned out doing effectively the same things for 10 years. Let's also be honest when we say that isn't happening.

So, why does classic appeal to a grumpy old man?

It's about attainability. These days I'm 40. I'm not the younger man that had all the time in the world for video games. As fond as my memories are, when I think about returning to retail it just all feels so daunting. I'm so far behind both in terms of character and knowledge, and even if I can just about scrape back into endgame on limited time, there will always be that steadily moving goalpost of 'the next expansion' looming ahead of me.

Classic feels like it has a fixed endpoint (eventually Naxx). I feel like I can just chill, take my time, divert from the path to go and pick a few herbs without the game's final point moving away from me quicker than I can get there. Sure, there will be thousands of people through Naxx before I get there, but I will get there. It won't have been replaced by something even further away. Noone is walking ahead of me constantly moving the carrot on a stick into the distance. The carrot is a fixed point and at some point I shall feast upon it.

Do I think classic is a better game than retail? It's certainly not as pretty, but it's been so long since I enjoyed retail that my opinion is likely not a balanced one. What I do know is that classic, for me (I don't profess to be the voice of the disenfranchised masses) feels like a game I can invest in again, even if I'm investing in much smaller amounts than I used to. Not because it's better, but because it's attainable.

If this means that I've turned into a 'lolz casual n00b' in my middle years then so be it, part of the joy of passing 40 is no longer caring about being called a 'lolz casual n00b'. I'll grumble all the way to Naxx.

I played vanilla from the beginning to the end. And if you are an old man with 40 years then I guess I am nearly an old man.
And it was fun back then, but it was fun because it was new.

I didn't like some expansion not as much as others did (Wotlk) but I really liked Legion and Bfa (now more because that blue vs red is over).

I love that I can build my chars around transmogs and looks, mounts and pets and sometimes do a LFR.
Every char is perfectly styled for how I imagine it to be.
I can log in an go out in the "world" and make world quests to get gear.
I can do so many solo content it's awesome. If i suddenly feel like I want to play together with others apart from WQs I can use "I".

I seriously think that the modern wow is better in every aspect:

- better looks
- more looks
- more mounts
- more raids
- better raids
- better art
- more things to do
- solo content
- you can play EVERY specialisation
- you have more classes
- you have more EVERYTHING

it's just better, sorry. Yes I loved raiding AQ40 back then with my druid. I think it was fun. But you can still raid... you can still farm... and so on... and everything is more challenging if you are into that kind of groups (mythic raiding.. mythic+)

So...I really think this has nothing to do with your age, but just with your personal preference.
Live long and prosper

[FuxieDK]

Like many others, I played vanilla 'back in the day'.

I'm a grumpy "old" (47) man.. The Diablo 3 clan I'm in, is actually called <Grumpy Old Men> and Classic doesn't hold any kind of appeal to me.

[Yriel]

Sure, but in Classic you will be able to "complete a character" and not have something new come out in 2 years that makes all those gear upgrades worthless. Or you can take your time with Naxx because there's not forced TBC expansion that will overwrite Classic servers. The ZG mounts will be there forever, Thunderfury will stay good forever.

That's the appeal for a lot of people. Especially when the folks who played Vanilla back then don't have as much time to spend playing Classic now.

If you like that, good for you. It's just a bit strange to me because that basically turns WoW into a singleplayer game. In Witcher 3, after i finished the story, all my stuff stays relevant, too. But i don't have anything to do with it so i don't continue playing.
Isn't the whole purpose of MMOs to always progress? What do you do with your still relevant Thunderfury when you finished Naxxramas?