Too late to get in?

[Thage]

The only thing it's too late for is getting the Scarab Lord mount (and title if you carry your character over to the BC servers when they come out). If you level too slowly to get the Argent Dawn Tabard in the pre-Naxx event, assuming they run the expansion launch events on the BC/WotLK Classic servers, you'll have a chance to obtain the Tabard of the Protector in the BC launch event and another crack at the Argent Dawn Tabard plus the unique Undead Slayer armor recolors (most notably the Judgment recolor for plate-wearers) in the WotLK launch event.

Playing on Bloodsail Buccaneers, the game is busy at all level brackets, and if you find a friendly guild, you shouldn't have too much trouble finding guildies willing to give you a hand for fast dungeon XP. Even LFG is pretty hopping even on off hours with people looking for dungeon groups ranging the gamut from Deadmines to Gnomeregan to Scarlet Monastery to UBRS. I assume the same is true of the higher-population PvE and PvP servers.

[Lord Pebbleton]

Back in August I came here to see if I would be too late to get back into Classic.

For me at least, the answer was a big, resounding yes.
I stopped just before BWL released. The limited quest log meant that I could not start all the new questlines at my own pace and desire and I had to do a weird trade off of older quests just to keep afloat.
The abysmal drop rate on any quest drop meant that I had to spend 30 minutes on each of those quests. After 23 minutes I had collected 2 worm meat whatevers out of 8 and I still needed the full amount of pincers and hides.

Also Silithus and Zul'gurub are on opposite sides of the world so even if I got bored of the infested desert I had to stick with it, not to mention that my quest log would simply implode if I tried to get Stranglethorn quests too. I wanted to try out some Alterac Valley but we lost 4 matches in a row and I got discouraged. The game also kindly reminded me that I would need a gazillion kills to get the most pitiful reward there is in the system.

All in all my comeback was very boring and tedious. I instantly felt overwhelmed the second I logged in and I did not like it one bit.

Inb4 "just play retail then": please note that I am in NO WAY comparing Classic to retail. This is just how I felt when I tried coming back to it. Your experience may vary, you may like the game style, you may have stopped playing after I did. It is fine to enjoy it. Here's just my 2 cents.

[clevin]

Back in August I came here to see if I would be too late to get back into Classic.

For me at least, the answer was a big, resounding yes.
I stopped just before BWL released. The limited quest log meant that I could not start all the new questlines at my own pace and desire and I had to do a weird trade off of older quests just to keep afloat.

the quest log holds 20 quests. Retail is, what, 25?

The abysmal drop rate on any quest drop meant that I had to spend 30 minutes on each of those quests. After 23 minutes I had collected 2 worm meat whatevers out of 8 and I still needed the full amount of pincers and hides.

Not sure what quest you're talking about but yes, this is a pain in the ass. I actually just skipped collection quests and only did kill quests for this reason

Also Silithus and Zul'gurub are on opposite sides of the world so even if I got bored of the infested desert I had to stick with it,

I don't understand this point. There's no quest that I remember that takes you to sloth's pre-55 or so and ZG is a raid in STV so... huh??

I wanted to try out some Alterac Valley but we lost 4 matches in a row and I got discouraged. The game also kindly reminded me that I would need a gazillion kills to get the most pitiful reward there is in the system.

Alliance, eh? The only thing I'd do in AV is the wand quest if you're a caster, esp if you're a frost mage. Other than that, eh.

[Lord Pebbleton]

the quest log holds 20 quests. Retail is, what, 25?
Not sure what quest you're talking about but yes, this is a pain in the ass. I actually just skipped collection quests and only did kill quests for this reason
I don't understand this point. There's no quest that I remember that takes you to sloth's pre-55 or so and ZG is a raid in STV so... huh??
Alliance, eh? The only thing I'd do in AV is the wand quest if you're a caster, esp if you're a frost mage. Other than that, eh.

Ye, I think it was 20. Retail is 25 and I had a hard time there as well, so much that I skipped Mechagon until I was done with Rajani and Uldum Accord because I also had Nazjatar and an unobtainable quest that I cannot give up.

But as I briefly mentioned, quests take ages due to drop rate. Specifically I was referring to one of the first quests in Silithus that require you to kill worms, scarabs and those qiraj bugs around Cenarion Hold.

For ZG I was thinking of the raid quests to get bijous or currency or whatever it is. I may be wrong, as in, those quests may be repeatables (or not affecting your questlog anyway), but I was afraid I would cross the world to go run ZG only to discover I had to give up half my Silithus quest log to get stuff done in the raid. All in all I was just uncomfortable.

I am Alliance indeed. I was intrigued by the Stormpike epic trinket, since I am stuck with rare gear. I figured I would get some rep going quickly, and admittedly it goes up kinda fast, but the constant roflstomping got annoying after a short while.

[Heathy]

it was fun jumping in early but I guess its going to be a lot better if you have a friend to play with you, in my case I play with my bro, I made a warrior he made a shaman, its a group forming combination. questing, with the questie addon, its just a breeze with two ppl. I think we took our time, I levelled as prot and tanked dungeons, I did mining and blacksmithing while levelling, getting to 60 and finishing the axesmith quest chain and getting attuned to ony took me 11 days.

it was fun doing periodic /whos and seeing who was flying ahead on levelling, we hit a little bit of a bottleneck that first week (where you had a lot of ppl queuing up for named quest mob kills) but we managed to push past that and reach quieter zones, some ppl were level 45-ish while we were still level 25, but I remember getting to 60 about the same time as the rest of the first/second wave (and doing 5 mans with them). and ending up in the same guild as some of those ppl I saw flying ahead on the levelling.

just need to find a good guild and show up to raids the game isn't super interesting on non-raid days, but I guess its the same for most mmos from this era, like everquest where you just pick a spot to grind and you sit there and grind grind grind. so you can chain consumables on raid day. the pugging is quite decent I don't care much for alts but I have been pugging 20s with my resto druid alt. my bro is more into alts and he has raided with 4 classes so far (shaman, hunter, rogue, druid) all have t1/t2 or zg/aq gear and is doing a 5th (warlock). so it is possible to pug and with alts assuming you manage to at least achieve dungeon bis. (this is where having your warrior bro in aq40 gear boost/tank dungeons for your newb alts helps)

I'd imagine most servers have a server discord, this is where you find out about pugs and when buffs will be popped, and likely guilds that are recruiting. on my server loot reserve is quite popular and most if not all pugs use it, you get to reserve 1 loot and assuming no one else reserved it, you win it, otherwise its a roll between those that did (and open to all rolls if no one did). the zg pugs I join usually let you reserve anything, even the mounts and idols.

with naxx around the corner, and alts being one of the only ways to have fun in the game when your main is saved to everything, it has a bit of a feedback loop that keeps itself going. come naxx you'll have all the mains wanting idols from zg again. keeping it alive and pugged.

I probably saw a few firsts for our server just small things, I probably got the first ironfoe, and the first crusader on it (doubt anyone else had the enchant or mats at that point there were barely any 60s and i was still 55), I probably did the first UBRS group on the server. i think the alliance were a little bit behind there (remember spamming lbrs to make the first keys), but they did get MC a day before we did. there were a few things like that, little things that added to the fun/intrigue that weren't expected. doing it all again for the first time (as horde). but also being some of the actual first (for that server). our main progression raid is on sundays though and instances reset on wednesday for the EU, this means we are still casual, though we do currently have the fastest logged horde clears during each raids respective phase we do one speed run a month with DMF and thats it. we just won't get firsts because we don't raid reset day.

this was my experience, I didn't expect much but I did expect that we would have to get into a good guild if we were going to actually progress at all past dungeon gear. and maintain a certain level of enthusiasm and attendance, since the beginning i think i've only been benched 3 times and not missed many lockouts. you have to want to do it, but you do also have to put yourself into a position that makes it relatively effortless as to not become a burnout thing. I don't play every day and some weeks i've not logged (beyond raids) in at all and played other games to keep burnout down.

[spaace]

Do you like hella toxic communities?

If you're looking for something casual, always time. But if you're looking to build up and start raiding endgame: good luck.

[clevin]

Ye, I think it was 20. Retail is 25 and I had a hard time there as well, so much that I skipped Mechagon until I was done with Rajani and Uldum Accord because I also had Nazjatar and an unobtainable quest that I cannot give up.

But as I briefly mentioned, quests take ages due to drop rate. Specifically I was referring to one of the first quests in Silithus that require you to kill worms, scarabs and those qiraj bugs around Cenarion Hold.

Yeah collection quests are annoying in classic. Like I said, I just skip them. The ZG quests you can do if you want the shoulder enchant. If it's just rep, just run ZG a bit more. Those are also BoE so you can just buy some off the AH if you have the gold. Silithus... eh. Don't do it for XP. There's chain that culminates in the raid quest The Calling but it only gives good NR pants, which aren't really necessary.

AV - I feel ya. Do AV on AV weekends only. WE tend to win a bit more then.

[iNUKE]

Doesnt matter when you get in, TBC is coming out and Im sure Blizzard (hopefully) will give us the option to play in TBC or stay in Classic.
Classic servers probably wont go away after TBC comes out cause a lot of people like to play classic, people will just have the choice to play the expansion they want in the end.
So theres always gonna be people in classic and new people trying classic and playing there.