One classic nay sayer admits they were wrong after playing beta

[Gungnir]

I wouldn't celebrate too quickly sweetie. May wait to see how many of those "naysayers" and the nostalgia addicts are still playing 6 months or a year from now. I'd bet very few will be

Yeah, no one can possibly like older games at all.
That's why things like OSRS is completely dead and the term "retro-gaming" doesn't actually exist.


It's almost like people have a hard time comprehending that personal taste is a thing, instead of being logical you just have the same scenario over and over;
"Hey, I actually like this pretty old game. It has it's flaws but it makes me happy and I enjoy the design philosophies it's based upon."
"REEEEEE FUCKING SHITCUNT YOU CAN'T LIKE THAT GAME, NO ONE LIKES THAT GAME IT'S OBVIOUSLY SHIT REEEEEEEE."

Repeat ad infinitum.

[WowClassic]

I wouldn't celebrate too quickly sweetie. May wait to see how many of those "naysayers" and the nostalgia addicts are still playing 6 months or a year from now. I'd bet very few will be

That's a strange comment, if there is still huge love for this game 15 years after release I don't think another 6 months is going to change that

[pinkz]

alot of nay sayer "i was wrong videos" are like a loaded question.

x-streamer who does arenas gets a beta key, gets $+ more streaming it
y-streamer who did arenas, does shot calling at events gets a beta key, gets $+ more streaming it
z-streamer who did anti wow videos, sees other anti wow streamer get a key, the results from it, now hints....wants a key
previous WOW banned streamers got keys, other streamers see the cash windfall

could go on, but you get the point. i would say i was wrong too and load up beta to ride the wave.

[Daffan]

I don't think that's a problem at all, it allows players to gear their characters in BiS and they remain that way. Adds purpose to the gear grind that is removed when new expansions replace your purples with questing greens.

An extension/expansion/update doesn't have to invalidate the previous content.

its called seasons and its to make it easier to catch up. it invalidates previous tier sure but thats it and makes it easier to catch up and come in at any time. i didnt say it was perfect but its better than how it used to be. i remember guilds being forever stuck on the first raid in Vanilla and BC. and being behind makes it hard to join a guild and catch up to them.

The point is I have time to play and I don't want the game to be played for me, e.g catchup. It being easier to catchup is a direct negative for me.

I'm also sure it's a negative for many others of all types hardcore/casual, as catchup/'seasons' was the direct catalyst for content droughts existing.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

...they want the sense of community back.

Exactly, that and much slower character progression. I’d take live WoW in a heartbeat if all the cross realm, phasing, queue for everything and loot pinãtas were removed and returned to Vanilla-TBC levels.
Vanilla was a poor game by todays standards, however the thing that made vanilla good was realm communities and character progression being paced sliw enough that you felt rewarded when you acomplished something.
Live WoW had NOTHING of that, but it is a stunning game- but it lacks the soul and inspiration you get from dedicated players.

[Specialka]

An extension/expansion/update doesn't have to invalidate the previous content.



The point is I have time to play and I don't want the game to be played for me, e.g catchup. It being easier to catchup is a direct negative for me.

I'm also sure it's a negative for many others of all types hardcore/casual, as catchup/'seasons' was the direct catalyst for content droughts existing.

You do realize there was catchup mecanics in vanilla right?

[Neuroticaine]

If you would could you humor me for a second? There are a fair number of people out there like you that seemingly want classic to fail, could you go over the reasons as to why? Im not judging or anything like that, im genuinely curious. The best i can come up with in my head is a couple reasons:

1. You are a retail player and are worried that classic will either lower the current population of WoW meaning you have less people to play with, or maybe you think its possible that classic development is taking resources away from retail?
2. You dont have time to play a game like classic anymore, but deep down know you would have fun if you did.

If its something else feel free to enlighten us, i just would like to understand a bit more of peoples viewpoints on this.

That are a also a fair number of people out there that want classic to destroy retail for no other reason than they don't like retail. Why should we justify our dislike of a mechanically inferior game? The dev's even had to post an official post to let people know a list of seemingly obvious bugs weren't bugs at all. At what point do stop liking something for a false sense of challenge (ie, excessive time investment) and start realizing you're wasting your time?

[Kaver]

As someone who has played since at least late classic/early BC, I enjoyed the golden age for sure, but I can say for sure the pre-cata era of the game was not without it's flaws. A lot of things done by Blizzard since WotLK and onward have drastically improved the game's functionality. Quality of life improvements are a good example. Given a choice between modern WoW's toybox/mount collection tabs vs classic's lack of any, I would take the former every time, rather than have mounts/pets take up inventory or bank space again. Same goes for improved FP pathing, better inventory management tools, better quests & storytelling, etc.

I can certainly see why someone would take the position of pre-cata being overrated, and to be honest i agree for the most part. It's not like there isn't any merit to the argument that nostalgia fuels the perception of that stage of the game's life. I'm willing to bet a big part of why people think classic is amazing now (and this might also come from people who never played vanilla), is because classic is phenomenally better compared to the game's current heavily streamlined and cynical state. Not to mention it's drastically different from anything most modern players have experienced, which brings the magic of freshness to WoW again, if only for a short time.

Realistically people get bored of it after a while though, especially those who grew up in the post-cata era, with all the improvements legacy WoW doesn't have. Just like retail subs, eventually the attention will drop off until all that's left is the core playerbase of classic servers, something much smaller than the server's launch day.

Personally I might check it out just to remember old times, but i couldn't see myself dedicating time to Classic servers. All of my oldschool friends are gone, along with the community I used to know, and the wonder that your first experiences in Azeroth actually had. You can revive the old state of the game, but you can't really bring back that magic.

The thing is: WoW is not about the technical gameplay or functionality. Classic had a lot of mistakes but somehow it all came together as a really immersive experience.

I think you can bring back a lot of the magic. A couple of days ago I logged on to the stress test server and there were of course a lot of people in the starting zone. I had completely forgot how much I miss the slower gameplay where you feel connected with other people. Sure, trying to get the tag on a mob in the starter zones is annoying but at the same time it is also really engaging. Already from the beginning of the game you feel like a part of a big multiplayer game and start to compete with other players about small things. Everything in Classic is somewhat challenging and everything feels like an accomplishment. It might not be challenging based on skills but you still feel great when you complete a quest where you had to compete with other players.

Todays WoW feels completely like a single player game until you join a guild and starts raiding with them. But even at that point it is still just you and your guild. While levelling you're don't feel like you're accomplishing anything. Getting to max level (120) is not anything special.

So from a technical perspective Vanilla WoW was a shitshow. But if you look at how engaging it were and how much fun you got from it, you start to realize that all the technical stuff don’t matter.

[Raven]

There is going to be people who think they like Classic and will enjoy playing it once its out.
There is going to be people who think they like Classic and however they will not enjoy it once they actually play it.
There is going to be people who dislike Classic now and will continue disliking it after giving it a shot.
There is going to be people who dislike Classic now and will actually find out they enjoy the experience.

There is nothing wrong with these 4 groups of players.

And people like me, im going to level my Old class with a old friend which i leveled with back in the day just to relive old memorys but dont really feel any need to play past max level.

[WowClassic]

The thing is: WoW is not about the technical gameplay or functionality. Classic had a lot of mistakes but somehow it all came together as a really immersive experience.

I think you can bring back a lot of the magic. A couple of days ago I logged on to the stress test server and there were of course a lot of people in the starting zone. I had completely forgot how much I miss the slower gameplay where you feel connected with other people. Sure, trying to get the tag on a mob in the starter zones is annoying but at the same time it is also really engaging. Already from the beginning of the game you feel like a part of a big multiplayer game and start to compete with other players about small things. Everything in Classic is somewhat challenging and everything feels like an accomplishment. It might not be challenging based on skills but you still feel great when you complete a quest where you had to compete with other players.

Todays WoW feels completely like a single player game until you join a guild and starts raiding with them. But even at that point it is still just you and your guild. While levelling you're don't feel like you're accomplishing anything. Getting to max level (120) is not anything special.

So from a technical perspective Vanilla WoW was a shitshow. But if you look at how engaging it were and how much fun you got from it, you start to realize that all the technical stuff don’t matter.

The way I look at it is that Classic WoW is a beautiful piece of 15th century Gothic architecture, modern WoW is some new-age glass/metal architecture with all the bells and whistles but none of the soul and meaning.

The retailers who constantly drone on about the "improvements" since Vanilla and can't understand why there is so much hype for Classic are very much like the sections of society who are tone deaf to the value of classical architecture, music, art etc.

[Specialka]

And you say that like it is à bad thing.

[Curaga]

I have a young son that i would like to play WoW with, he certainly won't have the patience for Classic (neither do I) when there are games like Fortnite and PUBG that can easily detract his attention away from a game like WoW.

I think this is part of the reason why for me WoW is no longer the game I enjoy. Instant gratification and not willing to work for something ruined a lot of the experience for me. Leveling in Vanilla/Classic is pure pain, and the game itself isn't without flaws. I hate blizzard ruins a lot of the epicness by making everything available for everyone. In a 40 man raid where every boss drops a couple of pieces of gear, it takes time and dedication to be rewarded. When you get something you have been after for a long time it feel so much more rewarding.
These days people everyone wants to be a special snowflake that feel that they deserve everything, not matter the efford. It's like getting a reward for coming in last. It's todays society all together it seems.
Vanilla/Classic is time consuming and the more time you put into it, the more you get from it and the faster it is obtained. Myself I don't have the time I had when I was around 16-17 years old when I started playing back in Vanilla, so I don't expect the same results as people who do nor will I ask for that.

In the end it's all about prefference, want that quick shot of dopamine where things are "given" and not so much "earned" than play retail. If you like the pain and you preffer more of a grind and working for stuff than play Classic. Neither is perfect nor bad, it's just different

[deviant010]

Ah, I see the clickbait title was forcibly changed.

The new title is wrong though.

[MidnyteTV]

I think this is part of the reason why for me WoW is no longer the game I enjoy. Instant gratification and not willing to work for something ruined a lot of the experience for me. Leveling in Vanilla/Classic is pure pain, and the game itself isn't without flaws. I hate blizzard ruins a lot of the epicness by making everything available for everyone. In a 40 man raid where every boss drops a couple of pieces of gear, it takes time and dedication to be rewarded. When you get something you have been after for a long time it feel so much more rewarding.
These days people everyone wants to be a special snowflake that feel that they deserve everything, not matter the efford. It's like getting a reward for coming in last. It's todays society all together it seems.
Vanilla/Classic is time consuming and the more time you put into it, the more you get from it and the faster it is obtained. Myself I don't have the time I had when I was around 16-17 years old when I started playing back in Vanilla, so I don't expect the same results as people who do nor will I ask for that.

In the end it's all about prefference, want that quick shot of dopamine where things are "given" and not so much "earned" than play retail. If you like the pain and you preffer more of a grind and working for stuff than play Classic. Neither is perfect nor bad, it's just different

I couldn't agree more. But I still think the retail version of the game still requires much more time commitment than the majority of games out there. While things are certainly streamlined, we still only see less than a few percent of guilds clear mythic raiding, while Heroic raiding is a 25% or less endeavor for most until the content is nerfed.

As a fervent member of the anti-legacy crowd, I have actually changed my stance only because I'd like to see more people playing WoW. And secondly, I'd like to see Wrath servers just so I can go back and do some content that I missed out on. So hopefully its a smash hit and they do more legacy servers.

[Awsyme]

I couldn't agree more. But I still think the retail version of the game still requires much more time commitment than the majority of games out there. While things are certainly streamlined, we still only see less than a few percent of guilds clear mythic raiding, while Heroic raiding is a 25% or less endeavor for most until the content is nerfed.

As a fervent member of the anti-legacy crowd, I have actually changed my stance only because I'd like to see more people playing WoW. And secondly, I'd like to see Wrath servers just so I can go back and do some content that I missed out on. So hopefully its a smash hit and they do more legacy servers.

I'm all for people getting more options to play the game the way they want. I'm not entirely sure that legacy servers for every era of wow are good, only because it would fraction the player base something terribly. And be a nightmare to support for the teams. But definitely hope that if classic is successful they take a long look at what's appealing about it compared to modern wow.

Also, I hope once purest classic is out for a while, its hard core fans can relax a bit and see what's genuinely good about modern wow. Balanced specs, better models, transmog etc.

[Ghoste]

I just want to shoot in (since I haven't seen anybody mention this) that there was a lot of content between vanilla & up until late wotlk that was just flat out removed when cataclysm came. For a person like me, who enjoys questing & exploring. Being unable to go through that content sucks, but now. Being finally able to come back in classic and redo all those quests & zones that I haven't done in all those years will be great.

[MidnyteTV]

I'm all for people getting more options to play the game the way they want. I'm not entirely sure that legacy servers for every era of wow are good, only because it would fraction the player base something terribly. And be a nightmare to support for the teams. But definitely hope that if classic is successful they take a long look at what's appealing about it compared to modern wow.

Also, I hope once purest classic is out for a while, its hard core fans can relax a bit and see what's genuinely good about modern wow. Balanced specs, better models, transmog etc.

I've heard people say that they hope WoW classic brings back certain elements to the retail game. I don't know if that's entirely possible (getting rid of LFD/LFR) but certainly some other elements. Problem is the toothpaste is out of the tube. They've tried taking flying out and were met with an uproar.

I think they've realized that they can support legacy servers as an extra activity for some and a total activity for others while raking in the dough. Which is totally cool. If I had the time, I'd split my time between a Wrath server and a retail server.

What really intrigues me is the fact that we will get our answer in terms of what the playerbase can support in terms of two versions of the game.

So for anybody out there, go play Classic. 4 years ago I'd never say it, but now I am.

[WowClassic]

What really intrigues me is the fact that we will get our answer in terms of what the playerbase can support in terms of two versions of the game.

So for anybody out there, go play Classic. 4 years ago I'd never say it, but now I am.

You've seen the light. Better late than never as they say

I wonder how many of the "haters" are dealing with an internal struggle right now. It's like when Mother Theresa admitted she was really an atheist at the very end

[Soluna]

That is entirely subjective.
There is an EXTREME amount of people that have been dropping WoW because they've disliked the last 2 to 3 expansions, and I don't blame them.

Even if you go "well lol there's still like 2 million left playing they barely lost anything", that's facetious at best.
To put this into perspective, WoW has over the last 3 expansions lost more subscribers than Runescape and OSRS has had concurrent players over 3 years combined. Hell just in WoD you had around 10 mil peak at launch that dropped to AT BEST 4 - 5 million towards the end, and that's not "lol people are just more mature now and have other things to do".

Sure thing, it might be that the game has gotten worse, but for me, and many other guildes/friends, the game is pretty okay, and in a much better state than WoD. The game has been declining overall though because newsflash, it's 15 years old.

[Awsyme]

I've heard people say that they hope WoW classic brings back certain elements to the retail game. I don't know if that's entirely possible (getting rid of LFD/LFR) but certainly some other elements. Problem is the toothpaste is out of the tube. They've tried taking flying out and were met with an uproar.

I think they've realized that they can support legacy servers as an extra activity for some and a total activity for others while raking in the dough. Which is totally cool. If I had the time, I'd split my time between a Wrath server and a retail server.

What really intrigues me is the fact that we will get our answer in terms of what the playerbase can support in terms of two versions of the game.

So for anybody out there, go play Classic. 4 years ago I'd never say it, but now I am.

There's definitely some stuff I think classic is making people nostalgic for. One of the big ones is probably the talent trees. Less brutally effective than modern Wow but they made levelling more... impactful... and theoretically allow people to tweak specs more than they can at the minute. Probably also slower rates of rewards - there's value in forcing downtime. And stuff like the unique hunter pets, class quests and the like.

On the flip side there's a bunch of things I think the game has massively improved which the 'classic or bust' crowd kind of ignore. Graphic improvements, transmog as a reason to grind old content (note - the arguments against transmog in classic... the 'transmog removes your prestige of sitting around in Ironforge' ignores how long it took to get a full tier 2 back then And how ugly a lot of the gear was. AQ40... I'm looking at you...). New classes. Professions that appeared (admittedly ones that are kind of gutted now) Also things like mount tabs, improved UI and a dozen others.

Wow definitely streamlined for efficiency as the years went on. Lost some cool stuff for sure and I suspect people who play it will be reminded of those things. Then time will pass and they'll curse the odd bugs, the weirdly broken specs, and miss aspects of modern Wow.