Originally Posted by
Heathy
I guess the difference is really in the preparation and organization, the modern game takes away pretty much all logistical challenge, this happened slowly through things like not needing so many consumables, class homogenisation and other things. classic is difficult to progress through due to the commitment of sticking with it for multiple years you can't really just join in at any point and pug to the end, if you want to see the end you will 100% have to join a guild and progress the whole way with them, if you are lucky and manage to get recruited to replace someone and geared up through mc and bwl thats niche, its still going to take months to get all the bits of gear you need to move forward. through thick and thin, through ppl leaving the guild and weeks of shit shows where no one brings their A game. in the modern game you don't need to necessarily have a dedicated guild and raid leaders and class leaders, they took away nearly all of that logistics and placed it on the individual. you don't have to worry about multiple sets of gear and things of that nature. mostly classic is still time consuming more than it is difficult, the mechanical difficulty was always in the execution and logistics, not really in the mechanical depth. I always used to assume that if the pull went ok, then the boss would likely die, back in the old days the pull was pretty much everything, at least for molten core, you could tell if things were going to go shit on the pull, if the pull went ok, the boss probably died. I would say naxx and tbc is where the mechanical difficulty starts to match the logistical difficulty. eventually it did reverse and logistical difficulty has almost entirely been replaced by mechanical difficulty.
its maintaining enthusiasm to keep going at least for me this time around, I get bored quite easily and if i didn't still need a bit more AV rep i would likely not log in until the next raid. whether something is easy or hard isn't a big deal, the real fun is simply progressing with a guild made up of random dudes who all want the same thing as you, making friends, helping them with their goals, having them help you in return. but not many guilds are full of pros, a lot of guilds carry ppl and that is fine too there was a more social aspect to classic wow that has dwindled as the game got faster paced. there is less time to just enjoy things and more focus on getting something done so you can move onto something else.
I like both aspects of the game, I like the modern game's ease of accessibility, if you don't play all the time, being able to jump in and make meaningful progress alone is likely what has kept the game alive this long, but I do also like the gatekeeping nature of classic where those who put in the effort stand out to some degree. you can tell who is playing casually and who isn't. although it sucks for those ppl who don't have much social aptitude.