My number one takeaway on what makes classic leveling enjoyable

[Magicpot]

The quests are bad. Quality of life is low. You get largely useless items. You spend a lot of time walking, and you spend even more time running to trainers for new skills.

Yet, leveling on classic feels infinitely better then it does on retail. Why is that?

There are a lot of other people around, and you have the power and opportunity to help them out and make their gameplay better. Players are appropriately weak and challenged that healing someone who is in a tight spot or dispensing a buff or some water feels fucking great.

Most of my fun of leveling a lv.19 priest so far has come from healing, buffing or rezzing someone who I came across while leveling. Then it hit me: it has been several years since I've seen anything like this on retail.

Some takeaways for the next expansion, blizz.

[ghostprotocol]

dude, in classic wow you're an adventurer, a nobody with cloth gear and a stick.

in retail you're a hero. totally different experience. They should have just scrapped leveling zones in expansions and just made it about raids.

[Laysson]

The quests are bad. Quality of life is low. You get largely useless items. You spend a lot of time walking, and you spend even more time running to trainers for new skills.

Yet, leveling on classic feels infinitely better then it does on retail. Why is that?

There are a lot of other people around, and you have the power and opportunity to help them out and make their gameplay better. Players are appropriately weak and challenged that healing someone who is in a tight spot or dispensing a buff or some water feels fucking great.

Most of my fun of leveling a lv.19 priest so far has come from healing, buffing or rezzing someone who I came across while leveling. Then it hit me: it has been several years since I've seen anything like this on retail.

Some takeaways for the next expansion, blizz.

Level up in few months when everyone is max level and you find yourself alone, again.

[Raven]

Yeah but also have to remember that everyone just started at level 1, in a couple of month if you start a new character the zones will feel alot more empty, and questing wont feel the same as right now.

[uopayroll]

The quests are bad. Quality of life is low. You get largely useless items. You spend a lot of time walking, and you spend even more time running to trainers for new skills.

Yet, leveling on classic feels infinitely better then it does on retail. Why is that?

There are a lot of other people around, and you have the power and opportunity to help them out and make their gameplay better. Players are appropriately weak and challenged that healing someone who is in a tight spot or dispensing a buff or some water feels fucking great.

Most of my fun of leveling a lv.19 priest so far has come from healing, buffing or rezzing someone who I came across while leveling. Then it hit me: it has been several years since I've seen anything like this on retail.

Some takeaways for the next expansion, blizz.

So you are saying that it has been years since you healed, buffed, or helped anybody? Why did you stop?

[Magicpot]

So you are saying that it has been years since you healed, buffed, or helped anybody? Why did you stop?

Cause I don't see nobody in the open world. I leveled 6 chars 1-120 in BFA, and I've seen maybe 3 people while doing it, outside of dungeons, which I didn't really do. And the people I am seeing are just like me, aimlessly and effortlessly cutting through as many mobs at once as they are able to pull without them resetting. It's been years since I've had to break a sweat doing world content due to powercreep and heirloom items.

[crazypeople]

I enjoy the journey. I find me and my buddy (whom I'm leveling with) complain about the quests and whatnot alot, but I'm never inclined to log off. I'm feeling rather addicted, just like I did when I first played Vanilla. The world feels huge, and every level has an incentive to continue playing, be it new spells, talents or knowing you'll be able to quest in your favourite zone (now undamanged by the dumb cata expansion and beautiful once more).

BfA is just a factory and everything is boiled down to systems and the entire game feels like you're plowing through a production line with no soul whatsoever. You just wish the game to end and leveling feels incredibly meaningless.

[Vorkreist]

So you are saying that it has been years since you healed, buffed, or helped anybody? Why did you stop?

So you are saying you didn't understand he was talking about the open world?

[JohnRoads]

Cause I don't see nobody in the open world. I leveled 6 chars 1-120 in BFA, and I've seen maybe 3 people while doing it, outside of dungeons, which I didn't really do. And the people I am seeing are just like me, aimlessly and effortlessly cutting through as many mobs at once as they are able to pull without them resetting. It's been years since I've had to break a sweat doing world content due to powercreep and heirloom items.

In a few months it will be the same on Classic. In the start of BFA (and other expansions) it was almost the same as it is now in classic. People where undergeared and struggling to kill more than a few mobs at the same time.

[Sosua]

Don't like it, don't play it, simple...

[vsb]

Why do you spend a lot of time walking? You can run. I walk a lot, because I enjoy travels, but most of people around me are running like chicken!

[Magicpot]

In a few months it will be the same on Classic. In the start of BFA (and other expansions) it was almost the same as it is now in classic. People where undergeared and struggling to kill more than a few mobs at the same time.

Were we playing the same BFA? I did the whole max level in 2 days thing in BFA, and I was effortlessly cutting through all content until 117 at which point I was still cutting through all content but it took 5s rather then 2s per mob. And then I started effortlessly cutting through heroic and mythic dungeons and haven't stopped since. I didn't see many people in the open world then either, and the people I did see were just like me, empowered by legendaries and trinkets from legion.

[A Chozo]

I didn't see many people in the open world then either, and the people I did see were just like me, empowered by legendaries and trinkets from legion.

It probably varies by server. Mine always has someone leveling up, be it in the old world or the BfA zones, and due to the nature of max lvl world quests, even the 120 people are doing stuff around the low-lvls in Zandalar and Kul Tiras. The launch was packed with adventurers and people interacting. Very similar to Classic, but more pleasant because right now Classic's initial zones are bloated. Once everyone gets to the endgame it will finally go to the usual emptyness.

[JohnRoads]

Were we playing the same BFA? I did the whole max level in 2 days thing in BFA, and I was effortlessly cutting through all content until 117 at which point I was still cutting through all content but it took 5s rather then 2s per mob. And then I started effortlessly cutting through heroic and mythic dungeons and haven't stopped since. I didn't see many people in the open world then either, and the people I did see were just like me, empowered by legendaries and trinkets from legion.

Well I guess, as I saw plenty of people when I did my leveling in the start of BFA and my newly boosted char did take some time to kill stuff back then.

You mentioned the reason for it going fast; legendaries and trinkets from legion. Do you think blizzard should take our obtained gear away when the next expansion launches?

[Demona3]

Level up in few months when everyone is max level and you find yourself alone, again.

Yes and no. When I played classic - when it was first released - I remember hitting 60, then immediately heading to Winterspring to start my grind for the Winterspring Frostsaber. I spent 3 months, doing the same repeatable quest. Kill 5 (or was it 10?) mobs, run all the way back to get a 50 rep turn in. Keep in mind, during this time, Molten Core was not opened yet and people were still trying to figure out the Onyxia attunement.

So in a sense, I was alone at 60, but doing a quest over and over for about 3 months. During this time, nodes were only 1 person could pick them, so I had issues with retarded chinese gold farmers constantly trying to steal nodes by dragging mobs to you or, simply using a bug that would allow them to travel under the world at super speed to race to nodes. It was crazy.

Anyway - Once MC opened, I went to raid and there were plenty of people to raid with and hang with. The world felt great back then, and blizz actually engaged with people with the entire AQ opening. I'll never forget AQ, it was so epic the day it was opened. The entire server working together to accomplish a goal.

[Super Kami Dende]

Do you play on a Dead Realm on Retail? Before I stopped playing BFA I quite literally would see People in every Zone and in the Max Level Zones was always joining up with random People to do WQ's and Questing with.

After all this time I still can't quite tell if the People that complain most about Retail not having a "community" are just People that avoid interaction themselves and complain no one else initiates it with them.

[Arainie]

In a few months it will be the same on Classic. In the start of BFA (and other expansions) it was almost the same as it is now in classic. People where undergeared and struggling to kill more than a few mobs at the same time.

And then you realize that it takes ~10 hours to level up from 110-120 through questing and another 10 hours to outgear world content in retail (even in Nazjatar you'll be pulling 5 mobs at once with no issues). Don't get me wrong, I love retail for the sake of raiding and M+, but after 20 hours in Classic you're still going to be level 15-22ish depending on what you've been doing and you've got another 100ish hours to max level and then some to gear up. It'll take half a year before everyone who actually wants to hit 60 even gets there.

[david0925]

Do you play on a Dead Realm on Retail? Before I stopped playing BFA I quite literally would see People in every Zone and in the Max Level Zones was always joining up with random People to do WQ's and Questing with.

After all this time I still can't quite tell if the People that complain most about Retail not having a "community" are just People that avoid interaction themselves and complain no one else initiates it with them.

Some people need social interaction to be forced upon them, or force people to interact with them.

I played in Vanilla, had a friend list, did stuff together. Same thing is still there after WoTLK released dungeon finder.

[Super Kami Dende]

Some people need social interaction to be forced upon them, or force people to interact with them.

Yeah, it seems they want Vanilla and all its pre-quality of life changes just because it forced interaction to do things in most cases. Though the ability to interact never left WoW, the People just too inept to interact with others just complained about it more since People could just avoid loners easier.

[JohnRoads]

And then you realize that it takes ~10 hours to level up from 110-120 through questing and another 10 hours to outgear world content in retail (even in Nazjatar you'll be pulling 5 mobs at once with no issues). Don't get me wrong, I love retail for the sake of raiding and M+, but after 20 hours in Classic you're still going to be level 15-22ish depending on what you've been doing and you've got another 100ish hours to max level and then some to gear up. It'll take half a year before everyone who actually wants to hit 60 even gets there.

Yes the retail leveling is faster than classic, but judging from the amount of people selling lvling boosts and m+ boosts, the popularity of the character boost and the overall opposition against delaying flying and doing world quests, I would argue that overall the playerbase of retail is against spending time out in the world. I love retail instead and I wish it would have a more sense of danger, but I think the overall thing that people find fun in classic and miss in retail could still be there if they wanted to.