My thoughts on Retail after playing Classic.

[Kehego]

Firstly, I just want to know why you don't use space after dots. Please tell me :P

Secondly, what you say is something I have not thought about. It really is something lacking in retail, the feeling of defending something or gaining reputation. The feeling of being known throughout the realm, for being good, helpful, friendly, a villain or a scammer etc. The same could be said about ones guild.

I also miss the collective effort of a guild, working together towards something larger. For instance, the profession "forges" in BFA are all individually based. They could be something the guild work for instead (it's just an example, I know it would not really work in a vacuum). While it's very convenient to not need a guild it also makes it somewhat limiting since guild-only objectives can't be introduced because you'd be "forced" do join a guild. Maybe even grind reputation with it to be able to use things like "the guild forge" and what not.

EDIT:
I just read some more of the thread and holy molly, didn't know people were so aggressive. An advice to you, OP, stay calm, don't sort to personal attacks and simply explain everything like to a child without belittling people.

I see a post with some genuine thoughts about retail and classic, it's not bashing anything, it's just an observation.

For all posts about classic and retail this got to be one of the more reasonable ones.

Also, do what I did, /leave 2. Trade chat is bloated and pointless if you're not looking to by boost. It's so tranquil being in cities now!
Yes, but you could interact with that one and you'd recognize the name if you see him/her elsewhere. You might think "there's that dude who always steal my flowers!", I'd say that's one kind of interaction more than if those stealing your flowers are just random people. It might lead to something. Maybe some personal grudge like if you see that person in your group you leave or refuse to go with them. You'd have no idea if the randoms in your group was those stealing your flowers.

It's a silly example but hey, I think you get the point :P

the point is that its pointless? gotcha.

[Dalinos]

Classic and Retail have 1 basic difference - player created content.

Classic is an RPG, through and through. You pick up a character and you fulfill that Role. What that Role may be is for you to decide, there is no right or wrong.

What do I mean by Player-Created-Content?

For starters, I'm my guild's Enchanter. That means I get auto-dibs on raid-enchanting recipes, because I am fully active, and guildies come to me for their enchants, so they don't need to pay fees to strangers. I've also farmed any rep required for other relevant recipes. I make my money by chilling in Stormwind, spamming my macro, and making gold from fees. It's not the most efficient way to make gold, but its the most painless - I can chill on Discord with my guildmates, while chatting to players from my SERVER, who I will see the next day again, who I will congratulate on their upgrade. Me socializing with the rest of the server while making money is MY player-created content, which has lead to my server reputation rising, since, after 11 months of playing, everyone (who matters) by now knows "That Moonkin enchanter chilling on the fountain outside the Stormwind Bank".

Want more player-created content? Guild Alliances. We allied ourselves with another guild for over 5 months, having our alt-raids with them, every Wednesday. 2 Raiding guilds, where half the players had alts, banded together so that the alts of the mains could raid together. And it went well. I don't have any alts, but logs were posted, gear was obtained, we partied together in 5mans, I even did Enchants for them free of charge as if they were my proper guildies, since we were allies.

This kind of shit doesn't exist in Retail. Any player-created content gets shut down instantly. That's why the only Player created content you have is....Asmongold's Mount-off.

Enchanters don't need to interact with the rest of the server, they just put things on scrolls and put the scrolls on AH. Some would argue that is a quality of life thing - why spend 2h spamming in the major city when you can simply craft 100 scrolls and dump them on the AH? Because it takes the WORLD out of the World of Warcraft. Classic is a breathing organism, where even the simplest of things (getting water from a Mage) requires human interaction (which in turn increases world-building and world-quality). Retail is a beautifully made lobby, where group-activities are optional, solo content is piss easy and the WORLD has been diminished to 3 basic zones (Boralus/Zul'Dazar, Vale, Uldum).

[Gary McCollom]

Firstly, I just want to know why you don't use space after dots. Please tell me :P

Secondly, what you say is something I have not thought about. It really is something lacking in retail, the feeling of defending something or gaining reputation. The feeling of being known throughout the realm, for being good, helpful, friendly, a villain or a scammer etc. The same could be said about ones guild.

I also miss the collective effort of a guild, working together towards something larger. For instance, the profession "forges" in BFA are all individually based. They could be something the guild work for instead (it's just an example, I know it would not really work in a vacuum). While it's very convenient to not need a guild it also makes it somewhat limiting since guild-only objectives can't be introduced because you'd be "forced" do join a guild. Maybe even grind reputation with it to be able to use things like "the guild forge" and what not.

EDIT:
I just read some more of the thread and holy molly, didn't know people were so aggressive. An advice to you, OP, stay calm, don't sort to personal attacks and simply explain everything like to a child without belittling people.

I see a post with some genuine thoughts about retail and classic, it's not bashing anything, it's just an observation.

For all posts about classic and retail this got to be one of the more reasonable ones.

Also, do what I did, /leave 2. Trade chat is bloated and pointless if you're not looking to by boost. It's so tranquil being in cities now!
Yes, but you could interact with that one and you'd recognize the name if you see him/her elsewhere. You might think "there's that dude who always steal my flowers!", I'd say that's one kind of interaction more than if those stealing your flowers are just random people. It might lead to something. Maybe some personal grudge like if you see that person in your group you leave or refuse to go with them. You'd have no idea if the randoms in your group was those stealing your flowers.

It's a silly example but hey, I think you get the point :P

I would like you if I met you but in no way am I implying you agree with what I'm about to say just like the way you think.

I know exactly what the OP is talking about and this person I am quoting misses from the game.

As much as attunements and such were a pain there was something very rewarding about them as well.

Asking for help out in the world or people just randomly stopping to offer help happened alot.

People forget our world today, which is vastly different from even when wow came out...our world and its people lean massively to the left of center.

Our world is screwed up and it appears like the young people are going to get the world they want...they will hugely regret this in 20-30 years.

What you do today affects the future, personally and as a society.

I am a fiscal conservative but generally progressive, live and let live.

Whats going on today in society is NOT sustainable and will fall apart if this continues.

[Kehego]

Classic and Retail have 1 basic difference - player created content.

Classic is an RPG, through and through. You pick up a character and you fulfill that Role. What that Role may be is for you to decide, there is no right or wrong.

What do I mean by Player-Created-Content?

For starters, I'm my guild's Enchanter. That means I get auto-dibs on raid-enchanting recipes, because I am fully active, and guildies come to me for their enchants, so they don't need to pay fees to strangers. I've also farmed any rep required for other relevant recipes. I make my money by chilling in Stormwind, spamming my macro, and making gold from fees. It's not the most efficient way to make gold, but its the most painless - I can chill on Discord with my guildmates, while chatting to players from my SERVER, who I will see the next day again, who I will congratulate on their upgrade. Me socializing with the rest of the server while making money is MY player-created content, which has lead to my server reputation rising, since, after 11 months of playing, everyone (who matters) by now knows "That Moonkin enchanter chilling on the fountain outside the Stormwind Bank".

Want more player-created content? Guild Alliances. We allied ourselves with another guild for over 5 months, having our alt-raids with them, every Wednesday. 2 Raiding guilds, where half the players had alts, banded together so that the alts of the mains could raid together. And it went well. I don't have any alts, but logs were posted, gear was obtained, we partied together in 5mans, I even did Enchants for them free of charge as if they were my proper guildies, since we were allies.

This kind of shit doesn't exist in Retail. Any player-created content gets shut down instantly. That's why the only Player created content you have is....Asmongold's Mount-off.

Enchanters don't need to interact with the rest of the server, they just put things on scrolls and put the scrolls on AH. Some would argue that is a quality of life thing - why spend 2h spamming in the major city when you can simply craft 100 scrolls and dump them on the AH? Because it takes the WORLD out of the World of Warcraft. Classic is a breathing organism, where even the simplest of things (getting water from a Mage) requires human interaction (which in turn increases world-building and world-quality). Retail is a beautifully made lobby, where group-activities are optional, solo content is piss easy and the WORLD has been diminished to 3 basic zones (Boralus/Zul'Dazar, Vale, Uldum).

solo content in wow has always been easy
you can still ask for a mage to make you water
you can still ally with guilds, hell, you could make more friends now if you tried to

Player created content gets shut down? lmao. there's the dumbass cross realm rp gank squad, there's tons of streamers doing fun stuff, not just asmongoloid.
its fine that your views are myopic and come from mmo-c but that's not the case, like at all.

[Nerovar]

PvP is just a means to an end, after AV exalted there is no reason left to do it.

and also.. like... you know.. 2hr 30 min queue

What about PvP ranks, gear etc.? For most PvP players the actual competition with other players is enough of a motor to play it though.

[Kehego]

anyway, most of these threads devolve into "I don't feel special because I no longer get things defaulted to me/people don't have to kiss my ass to get things, so its LeSs RpG lIke"

[Dalinos]

solo content in wow has always been easy
you can still ask for a mage to make you water
you can still ally with guilds, hell, you could make more friends now if you tried to

Player created content gets shut down? lmao. there's the dumbass cross realm rp gank squad, there's tons of streamers doing fun stuff, not just asmongoloid.
its fine that your views are myopic and come from mmo-c but that's not the case, like at all.

You don't ask a Mage to make water. Because in Retail, most classes don't need to drink to regen their mana. On the contrary - on Retail, you EXPECT the Mage to put up his Refreshment Table BEFORE the M+ even starts. That's how little communication is required.

You don't need to ally guilds in Retail, because of how raid-lockouts work. You don't get saved to the raid anymore. You can enter the same raid, a million times/week, with different people, and simply get LOOT only once. You are no longer ID-locked when it comes to raids, you are LOOT-locked. Ergo, there is 0 need for an organised group setup, 0 need for guild alliances, because your CHARACTER is not ID-locked and can enter any raid he desires at any point in time, whether he has cleared it or not.

My views are certainly not myopic, and I've proven I play both versions of the game. Make an attempt to answer the rest of my points. My ROLE, in the MMORPG that I play called WoW Classic, is being a guild-enchanter, raid leader, and the best-geared Moonkin on the server (which isn't rly saying much, I only use 7 items that come from 40man raids).

My role in Retail is...oh, wait, I don't have one. Practically noone does. My char on retail is 16 years old, has existed since OG vanilla, and the only thing that differentiates me from a fresh lvl 120 druid that started in BFA is my Amani War Bear mount, my MOP Challenge Mode set, my Champion of the Naaru title and my Legion Mage Tower forms. And some exalted reputations/removed titles/removed items as well. That's it. My char on Retail HAS no Role. I could delete him and the server wouldn't even notice.

I can guarantee you 1000% my server WOULD notice if I deleted Dalinos in Classic. Everyone would be wondering where that moonkin went. They'd be looking for enchants and I wouldn't be there to get them enchanted =(.

[Sarethion]

Maybe it's because I'm playing on a RP server, but I notice/participate in a lot of social interactions. Some examples:

- When I'm leveling alts and say I have a problem soloing a 3-man quest mob, I usually just ask in chat and some max level person comes to help (for free) and more often than not we end up having a little chat and a few of these guys or the ones I helped ended up in my friends list

- I very often see people talking in chat, be it call out rares, answering questions, providing tips or just having a discussion... Boralus is the most active with people talking about literally everything and some conversations being legit funny, but it happens in other zones too - like a couple of days ago I went to Drustvar and saw people arguing whether Lady Waycrest or Taelia would be a better fit for Anduin, no joke

- I've been in a ton of dungeon/activity groups that were very talkative and playful (using toys, emoting) - some through the group finder, some formed spontaneously like a certain Harvester group in Mechagon where everyone jumped on Cloud Serpents and poked fun at each other. Or whenever someone gets a mount from a rare, I pretty much always see others in the group sending "grats" in chat or if I go to a rare spot and someone else comes I get waved at/hugged/whatever. And Alpaca mounts - whenever I get on one, there's usually someone who does so as well and we do the mountspecial dance thing together, especially in Islands while waiting for the timer.

There's plenty more and funny enough, like 90% interactions I see/participate in are very chill and friendly with people just wanting to have a discussion, help each other or just have a bit of bants. Or just bitch about BfA, because hey - a common foe, right?

And then I go to the forums and I see threads like this one and people complaining about BfA being anti-social - and yes, there are moments like that, where for instance you enter a group, do your thing and leave or when the chat is quiet, sure, but there's enough happening that I never really get a feeling that the game is dead or that people are unfriendly or distant or whatever.

And so I'm honestly baffled. Am I really so lucky or what the heck? But then again - I'm a pretty social person myself and I'm not afraid to start a conversation or inject myself into one, emote people, use a toy or whatever. So maybe it's that plus RP people being RP people.

[dcc626]

Yeah too bad classic sucks.

classic doesnt suck, its just stuck in a time loop.

[SkagenRora]

What about PvP ranks, gear etc.? For most PvP players the actual competition with other players is enough of a motor to play it though.

I thought high warlord only took 4 months? and Classic is coming up on 12 months.

[RealAwoken]

Ok i just want to start by saying i tried classic

Classic is a terrible outdated and undeveloped game mate compere to retail. It was amazing at 2004 but for us old veterans who have played game since 2004 and achieving multiple curves and ranks it's really boring unchallenging and lacks variety and adjustment the game now has. Anyone who has been competitive in the WoW Scene will tell you that Retail in general is far better and have a lot more options to choose from. Even though current expansion "BFA" is considered one of the worst expansions in the history of wow but that's how it goes, some expansions are just better then others.

But I am glad you enjoy Classic but Classic simply ain't "Better" for any reason whatsoever compere to Retail.
PS If you like Classic I think you could be blown away while trying Shadowlands (level shrink 60, more slow-paced then BFA) and as well Blizzard usually do not have two bad expansions in a row.

Was Vanilla good at 2004? Hell yeah, Is Classic good now? Not so much. If I'd be compering did I have more fun at 2004 in Vanilla then 2020 in BFA? The answer is probably yes cause WoW itself was brand new game. But retail has a lot bigger skill cap then Classic currently which many of enjoy more, there is a lot more things to do and game is far more efficient (Efficiency is arguable) If you want to picture Classic to a Retail it's like picturing Sony Megadrive to a PlayStation 4.

Classic is called Classic for a reason. You either like Cadillac or you settle with a Fiat It's up to you. I prefer Cadillac means I enjoy Retail more. Only blast i really had in Classic was the Mage AOE Levelling that was actually a lots of fun!

[StillMcfuu]

Play what you want, really that's all there is to this. I doubt the thread was bait, just a guy pointing out 2 vastly different games that happen to share the same name and 15 years of game concept separation.
I will continue to play classic until SL comes out and then I will play both SL and Classic. I can appreciate both games at the same time without having to say one is better than the other, at this point they are so different it seems ridiculous to compare.

[Kehego]

You don't ask a Mage to make water. Because in Retail, most classes don't need to drink to regen their mana. On the contrary - on Retail, you EXPECT the Mage to put up his Refreshment Table BEFORE the M+ even starts. That's how little communication is required.

You don't need to ally guilds in Retail, because of how raid-lockouts work. You don't get saved to the raid anymore. You can enter the same raid, a million times/week, with different people, and simply get LOOT only once. You are no longer ID-locked when it comes to raids, you are LOOT-locked. Ergo, there is 0 need for an organised group setup, 0 need for guild alliances, because your CHARACTER is not ID-locked and can enter any raid he desires at any point in time, whether he has cleared it or not.

My views are certainly not myopic, and I've proven I play both versions of the game. Make an attempt to answer the rest of my points. My ROLE, in the MMORPG that I play called WoW Classic, is being a guild-enchanter, raid leader, and the best-geared Moonkin on the server (which isn't rly saying much, I only use 7 items that come from 40man raids).

My role in Retail is...oh, wait, I don't have one. Practically noone does. My char on retail is 16 years old, has existed since OG vanilla, and the only thing that differentiates me from a fresh lvl 120 druid that started in BFA is my Amani War Bear mount, my MOP Challenge Mode set, my Champion of the Naaru title and my Legion Mage Tower forms. And some exalted reputations/removed titles/removed items as well. That's it. My char on Retail HAS no Role. I could delete him and the server wouldn't even notice.

I can guarantee you 1000% my server WOULD notice if I deleted Dalinos in Classic. Everyone would be wondering where that moonkin went. They'd be looking for enchants and I wouldn't be there to get them enchanted =(.

In classic you expect to get fort from the priest, int from the mage, motw from the druid

what's the difference? I sure as fuck expect the warlock to put down a well in a dungeon now the same way i expect him to trade healthstones in classic

what's your fucking point?

and let me add too, you're the "guild enchanter and moonkin"

i.e, you're a special snowflake. Not like I didn't address special snowflakes a few posts prior or anything.

[Aucald]

"Game vs. Game" type threads don't tend to promote much in the way of constructive discussion or debate. Closing this.