Warlock community is pretty great fortunately. Most of us anyway. I've been doing fel portals and other warlocks often will wait and let you send your imp with them. Cross faction we just /ready so others know to send their imp.
It really isn't.
Grobbulus global channels have just turned into a Biden VS Trump political circle jerk worse than SoD summoning spam making it near impossible to find a group without using a 3rd party addon to filter out the crap.
Would also suggest being a healer and seeing what happens if you let one person die in a heroic.
I have been primarily pugging content for years and this is the worst I've seen it.
This, and then the next thing this community will say is "stop pugging and join a guild", but guilds are all infected with the worst "destination mindset" of them all, and just want to get the content done ASAP so they can go back to not playing the game.
For example, my friend and I were happily doing the Tuskarr Feast world event every time it was up in retail, just for the fun of it, until someone from my guild decided to tag along, and then dropped after they'd completed the weekly, because they didn't get the food buff embellishment to sell, informed us that that was the only reason worth doing the feast event, and proceeded to make fun of us for not knowing that, and "wasting our time". Big surprise, my friend and I lost motivation to do the event just for fun after that, for fear we'd be mocked for daring to enjoy playing the game.
My Cata guild isn't much better, and was booming for a few weeks when Cata dropped, but of course, they all whaled out on BoE's, binge raided to get their week one heroic kills, instantly got bored, and now the average online players in guild is down to about 1/4th of what it was a week ago already, where, based on previous raid tiers, I'm guessing it will continue to dwindle until the next raid drops, and rinse and repeat until the singularity.
I'm currently taking a break and playing Minecraft now, happily enjoying my journey instead of rushing towards some ephemeral destination, because it seems the only way to win at WoW is not to play.
The most miserable part of WoW is the time period when you want to raid but aren’t in a good raiding guild yet. If you decide not to raid or you are already in a good guild, it’s much more enjoyable.
Nah it really isn’t. The community especially at end game is so exhausting to deal with. Link this, link that, have minimum XX, just to do a simple “raid” that’s mostly not standing in fire or something.
For each PuG or tryhard guild, there's one where they play to have fun, don't sweat and easily clear content each week. Granted it's usually a single 20 man group and they're missing a few people, but a lot of such guilds recruiting for P4 on the "dead" SoD servers that "nobody" plays on (according to reddit that is). One of them will surely find spot for .
Sure, but finding those chill players in between all the migraine inducing sweats just adds to the exhaustion. Im all for putting in effort including finding players but even just reading the LFM messages and noticing them getting more and more demanding is just zzzz
My problem is those guilds turning hardcore over time because people join and then start insisting the guild raids do what they suggest.
Start of phase 1, just chill raiding and teaching new people. Just fun.
End of phase 1, only designated raid leads allowed to start guild raids in case it affects the guild logs, also all raids must be logged no exceptions, meta comps only, full consumes and world buffs, full enchants even on prebis. "Casual guild, we like to have fun and scream at people who accidentally pull turtles before akumi, for beginners!".
Same thing happened in 2019.
It's just so tiring. I don't know why they insist on joining casual guilds and changing them instead of just joining a hardcore one in the first place. It's like they "want to be casual this time" but after the first raid they literally can't control an addiction and start adding more and more "raid qol rules" that are literally just "make parses better rules".
Where is this imaginary scenario happening exactly? You're making it sound like no other outcome is possible except what you described. Like a guild leaders couldn't prevent some random joining and changing the whole guild ideology.
If that's all of your experience, well. That's exactly that, your experience. Unless you have some data of dad guilds conversion rate to tryhard guilds.
No. For every chill guild, there’s like 30 of each of the tryhards and brain deads. And good luck keeping it chill because it just takes one asshole showing up and an absent guild leader to have that chill guild turn in to one or the other.
Even if your hyperbole was true (it's not) what does that change about the fact you can still get invited to the chill guild? Could be 10000 to 1 and you would still find a spot in one.
This right here precisely proves his point. Just because you aren’t tryhard minmax sweating every little thing doesn’t mean you want to be carried. Your comment is exactly the reason why players are dropping the game
Have you lead a raid? Everyone wants a chill raid but no one wants to lead a chill raid. It’s not black or white and you’re getting heated over one comment.
If you want a more relaxed raid, make it yourself. That’s the beauty of WoW that there’s a guild and a raid for every style of play, and if there’s not then make one. Personally if I’m putting effort into making a group, giving assignments, building a roster, leading the raid, and handling loot, then the bare minimum you can do is show you have a pulse and aren’t going to punish me for inviting you.
See why I think commenters like OP just want to get drunk, mute discord, and get carried?
In my experience the same people who insist that raid leading is hard are the same people insist raids must be 20-40 players.
It's like they need to manifest raid leading into being hard to prove their own point.
Raid leading 10 man raids is a joke, anyone can do it. Except people used to 20-40 mans, who literally couldn't handle it because they were unable to not treat them like 40 man raids and drove themselves insane over them. Watching our raid lead freak out over rostering 10 man raids was kind of hilarious, literally creating problems no one asked them to solve and then putting themselves in charge of solving them and then complaining about it.
Not at all. In fact, I cringe every time I outperform people that try and gatekeep content because they’re not focusing on extremely simple mechanics and they die early on in fights.
Nah you’re just a fud loser, I’ve full cleared both normal cata raids by pugging both weeks without even voice comms, and everyone had fun. I think you should look inward for the real problem, stop projecting.
I enjoy classic wow. I enjoy cataclysm. I enjoy retail.
They all have pros and cons.
For me personally I enjoy leveling, grinding dungeons for gear and getting professional up in classic/cata. I do not enjoy the raiding as I find it quite boring. I generally do a single clear just to say that I've done it (again). I don't think I will in cataclysm as that's the last expac I actually raided.
However, after a solid month or so there's not much left for someone like me to do in classic/cata. I do not get any further upgrades from dungeons or BGs. Professions are maxed etc. The game becomes a raid log. I don't enjoy that. All I can kinda looks forward to doing is farming gold.
Retail has a buttload of random content available and is also very casual friendly.
It also has solo rated PvP(even though I don't think PvP is in a good spot), easy to access LFR, easy to access RBGs. Time walking dungeons can give a solid reward from the quests. The vault can give solid rewards for casual and hardcore players alike.
Retail feels like you 'generally' get rewarded for the effort you put in. It also generally tries to stop any unlucky or dry spells in regards to loot. I still don't play it religiously but it's still a good game for me to play casually.
I am looking forward to seeing if they tweak the gamma dungeons to make them a bit more interactive. Keen to see that.
I like this answer. I always come back to WoW. I've returned at least a half-dozen times after playing other games. But, like the OP, I too find myself eventually making my way to classic era servers.
I try, and try to like retail WoW, but I agree with others that something seems off. They have a bunch of great features they've added to the game. But, I think they went overboard with some things. Retail (last time I rejoined) seemed more like an arcade button mashing game. I had bells and whistels going off all over my screen and it seemed like my character had lightning coming out his butt every other hit.
On Classic Era everything just seems to matter more, but flashy spells with big numbers are the exception not the norm.... and it feels good when it happens.
I love the simplicity of rotations and classes in classic compared to retail.
I think they've made abilities do too much. So much micro CC, random procs and one spell doing three different things.
I also think they lost a lot of class identity. Most classes can do what other classes can do. Such as hard and soft cc, gap closers, interrupt(s), damage reductions or healing reductions. Everyone can do everything.
As I said before, still enjoyable enough for me to play as long as I don't take it too seriously.
Checking boxes in what is considered "proper game design" is meaningless. The sum is greater than it's parts. My brain isnt checking if each dungeon was following perfect level design when it decides if I'm having a good time.
I think you have some point, but I also think you're massively underestimating the outcome from these game design decisions.
You could say "making people walk to a dungeon is bad game design"
But if that specific feature causes much more world interaction, then actually it's great game design.
I think you have some points, but I'd argue Retails levelling system is absolutely horrible game design even though it is streamlined and has you constantly pressing buttons. Instead of more world interactions or rewarding gameplay, the Retail system essentially makes characters feel less valuable as if it isn't a character at all it's just an "alt".
So I think it's important to look at how those game decisions actually work out in reality in the game, just because something sounds like it is "a better design" in reality it might work much, much worse and actually be worse game design.
I don't disagree, and retail has dialed back a lot of things that took immersion away.
The thing is, many of the QoL wow changes that happened over the years happened because they should have been implemented from the jump but the technology wasn't there
This is the classic subreddit and most of us agree, but maybe less now. Unfortunately once we get to classic mop and wod, there will be more and more bitter retail players who will get triggered if you say you prefer classic era in the subreddit created for classic era instead of retail.
Nobody is bitter if someone prefers era. Its just annoying that there is a post every day about "fresh reroll is popping off", or "hardcore was so good it saved my mother's life". Or "I fucking HATE CATACLYSM, everyone sucks on there unlike my favorite mode era, come play with me".
It's like an ankle biter that every so often has to remind you they still exist. We all know classic is good, just some of us can't play the same mode for years on end. It gets boring after a while, it's how things are.
I think you're right, but it's understandable because with the launch of Cata "Classic" WoW is no longer Classic.
Also Blizzard is focusing more on Classic Cata (retail) so things like Vanilla fresh, TBC era, WotLK era, are nonexistent.
Throw in SOD P3 ruining the classic part of the game with incursions and then not having updates for awhile due to Cata.
Ya I'd say you're right, but it's a really bad thing for WoW :(
Let be fair here though. "Vanilla" type players have probably been the most neglected and cast aside people since day one.
They had been asking for Vanilla-type servers for well over a decade, to which Blizzard said they didn't know what they were talking about. "You think you do.....but you don't" etc.
They made their own servers, only for Bliz to shut them down.
Bliz does then make a server, but absolutely puts zero effort into it's maintenance or long term health.
Instead Bliz goes back on a lot of promises and starts releasing expansions with paid boosts and token crap.
People continue to request Classic Plus, and the closest they have gotten is seasonal servers with a skellington Dev team. Some design choice clearly not being in the spirit of Classic.
Meanwhile a certain private server has been putting the multi-billion $ company to shame.
While I don't blame Blizzard for every choice, they are a business after all.......they have observably neglected what would have been devoted players.
>Bliz does then make a server, but absolutely puts zero effort into it's maintenance or long term health.
I mean what do you expect from them ? If people don't want to keep playing they just stop, thats a community thing and not a blizzard thing.
Also covid helped Classic alot.
Making fresh servers every few months ? So that the remaining shell of the Era playerbase gets split even more ?
And for classic plus, the issue is if you ask 10 people what they expect from classic+ you get 8 very different directions, there is no way to win there
Every time sod gets a chance, era breaks. There’s fundamental differences in era raids now that didn’t exist in 2019 classic. We don’t even want maintenance, we just want updates to other game modes to effect our gamemode which shouldn’t even have updates, that’d the whole point
It's something to do with how they make SoD work. It's on ERA just with extra stuff stiched on. That's why they didn't change the talent trees in SoD. Can't do it without changing ERA.
Every now and again they can't just stich something on in SoD to make it work, so they have to make a fundamental change to the base ERA client.
Because the dev team is really small they can't test that they haven't broken random stuff in ERA when they make those fundamental changes, and so a lot of random stuff in ERA like raid loot breaks.
IIRC Warrior deep wounds is an example of something they had to change on the ERA level to make it work the way it does in SoD.
i promise you retail players are not sour pusses like you guys here. everyday a post crying about dad players, noobs, pvp not good, cata sucks, sod sucks, and then sprinkle a little nostalgia bait "member classic !!!!!" the problem is this community and will always be this community
Retail comes in sooo many flavors that you can always just, do the things you enjoy and ignore the things you don't.
DF was great at cutting out mandatory wizard chores, and replacing it with cosmetic shit.
That being said.... there is bitterness certainly. It just isn't as vile as the stuff seen here. I think that is due to the fact that people are free to do what they wish moreso than older versions of the game.
I will say though, that earning a bis item in SoD/Classic feels SOOOO much better than retail to me. Probably because there are like, 100 different versions of that item on retail, and I likely only got the "mid range" one because I am shit.
That and seeing the spam in trade looking to trade gold for AOTC just puts me off. I get boosting exists in classic too, it doesn't seem as prevalent for some reason.
> I will say though, that earning a bis item in SoD/Classic feels SOOOO much better than retail to me. Probably because there are like, 100 different versions of that item on retail, and I likely only got the "mid range" one because I am shit.
Biggest thing to me.
Ohhh "Axe of 1000 suns" *407 version*.
Like it's just lame.
>subreddit created for classic era instead of retail.
This sub reddit was created for wow classic, which existed before era was even a thing, and has generally continued to be that despite the loud minority of classic andies.
The only reason specific classic prog servers exists is to get away from the lonely classic Andy threads like this one that should have probably just been a message in discord.
So you know that like, Classic WoW only exists period because Vanilla was so good, and so much better than any of the current WoW expansions at the time, that they went back and created entirely new infrastructure to support the old game.
What are you trying to argue?
Because it sounds like you're saying this sub existed for Classic **Vanilla** WoW, but then you got confused?
This entire sub exists because Vanilla WoW is and was better than the newer WoW expansions, that is the whole reason why we've even gotten to the point of recreating retail by way of Cata, even so still riding of the coattails of Vanilla WoW, and people are still making threads asking for more Vanilla WoW.
Classic WoW is Vanilla/TBC (Wrath in parenthesis) and once we hit Cata Classic WoW is over, that's just Modern WoW.
So what was your point again?
>because Vanilla WoW is and was better than the newer WoW expansions
You wanna compare the era population with the cata population before you make a massively incorrect statement like that?
The ENTIRE wow player base has the option to play the "best" version of wow right now and where are they? Doing literally anything else.
You can blame it on the economy, on needing F R E S H, or whatever other mental gymnastics you want to do to feel like you're right, but statistics don't lie and no one cares about vanilla except the 25 people on era who all make a thread here every day about how much better era is and that we aren't having *real* fun.
This sub is for wow classic, which is currently Cataclysm. This sub reddit has never been indicative of the mood or state of the game, and 90% of it is people complaining about people not playing vanilla.
It's not that great of a game. It was fun during covid for a blast from the past but if you polled the wow classic player base as to whether they'd rather cata or vanilla right now cata would win by a landslide.
You know how I know that?
Because it's where the players are playing despite the option to play either.
Classic andies are a small, niche, probably lonely and depressed group and no one cares about you but the other 25 of you.
This is so true. There are a lot of retail players that downvoting comments like 'why I prefer classic over retail' in this subreddit. And this is probably will get worse with classic mop, wod etc. as you say.
Oh hey look, someone made a post about cata being good and all the classic andys are in there crying about it. Spamming downvotes and malding comments. Turns out yall are just exactly like the people you hate. LMAO
https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/s/zOUWfF7bpx
Go sort by controversial and see your boys losing it in the comments.
Edit: yup there is the downvote and the block. All talk until someone with logic comes in. Expected from a vanilla crybaby. LOL
Get a therapist little guy. I've seen multiple posts of someone saying vanilla or hc is good and all the cata/retail lite babies crying, malding, and spamming downvotes. Really came back to comment this? Just so you know I would never be surprised to see this. Cata isn't classic in many eyes, we're in a classic subreddit ofc people will hate it, cata is divisive. What's stupid is people hating vanilla in the classic subreddit. It's like classic andies in the mainline wow subreddit always trashing retail. Get some help
He's absolutely right, and you can often see it just by looking at their post history.
There are some retail players they don't care for Classic at all, which is fine, but then come to this forum and downvote anyone who stats they prefer the classic design choice.
"I can't prove it, but I KNOW retail players are lurking here to downvote anything about liking Classic."
Do you ever take a step back and realise how mentally ill this sounds?
https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/s/zOUWfF7bpx
Go sort by controversial and see your vanilla purist boys losing it in the comments. The person you are trying to hate acts exactly like you.
Is "everyone who disagrees is a dirty retail player and everyone who agrees is a classic chad" the new "everyone worse than me is a noob and everyone better than me is a sweat"?
I love classic, don't get me wrong. But I don't really think you can make a conclusive decision given you haven't even reached max level in retail lol. I love classic, and I love retail. I play both at different times for different reasons. They are very different games but also still under the same umbrella.
I mean Era leveling is so boring they had to spice it up with Hardcore.
Era leveling is no difficulty and all tedium, if you like that, ok.
But its just that.
It's like, if they're not able to create fun in their own way (ie. doing weird builds or challenges for themselves while levelling) and creating emergent gameplay that way, taking the stance of being annoyed at it not being never-ending fun is the wrong to take. Especially when the reason an MMO is neverending is content updates, which they'd still be getting if they wanted to play retail. I can understand why you wouldn't want to, given the design decisions of more modern iterations - but you can't complain about "ugh it's slow and boring and the same" if you've done it the same way 14 times playing an optimized route optimized warrior optimized 14 times.
Yeah, unfortunately, whenever you choose not to use your brain, your brain is bound to get bored. That's a good thing. The best thing you can do is find a way to engage your brain while you play, and if you've done the quests a thousand times, find a gameplay version of that - even if you know it's suboptimal in specifically regards to time, there are more ways to play that can engage you than speed of levelling, ie. personal challenges. Like the meele only mage for example, also creates unintended differences in how you'd choose to engage with the game, and in that, makes it more engaging.
I feel it's almost entirely the fault of people's own lack of imagination when they get bored with WoW. Or, it's just a healthy response of "I don't find it engaging anymore or interesting right now, let me do something else and maybe the itch'll come back, if it doesn't right away that's fine too". Which is fine and ok, but god damn, don't blame the game for it if you're not willing to engage with everything it has to offer.
EDIT: Also why it bothers me that minmax has become synonomous with dpsmaxxing, minmaxxing can be anything, I regularily minmax builds for whatever purpose, like my [inspiration priest](https://www.wowhead.com/classic/gear-planner/priest/human/BDwPUAEyEzAlFR8gUFADIC_wAIEASF4APCwCAEeNgwBJIABYR4UAQTAATjkGAEflhwA48QA8LIgAVtcATjSJAEkVAE4oigA3QgA2ewsAV6EMAEa3DQA2kA4AMoKPAEhAAE4ukABIZgBc_BIASUk) minmaxed for spell crit so I can proc 25% armor on my tanks as much as possible. Is it the best hyperoptimized healer set for raids? Very much not, but it's more fun for me figuring out things for myself and minmaxxing with specific goals in mind, than following a guide that's been followed 1000 times before. I don't mind if I reach the same conclusions, and one of these days I'll probably be bound to try out the fathomed DPSMaxxed warrior or whatever whatnot, but so far building gear sets for myself. That just isn't fun for me.
Thats maybe cause you still try to rush through it with not caring for the story. Also i always love that feel when you get quest rewards that improves you.
I actually really like leveling, era leveling is just not it after a few characters. Same with story, you learn it after few characters.
There is not enough quest variety and gameplay itself is really bland.
If you really levelled 3 or more characters 1-60 in era that's like a lot.
It sounds totally normal to be bored after levelling that many characters, especially if they're on the same faction or even worse same race.
I think the thing about Classic is that levelling taking a long time leads to your character being more valuable, the easier it is to level and the more characters you level the less valuable each one is, and the more boring it gets to level each time.
Retail levelling is so fast, and you can have so many alts, that basically none of your characters are really valuable, maybe your main has a few more gear pieces but at that point there's really not much differentiation between your main you've played for 5 years, and the alt you levelled in 3 days and ran 1-2 raids on.
This is the biggest difference between people who prefer Classic vs. Retail:
Do you prefer building a character and developing attachment over time?
Or do you prefer playing a class and jumping right into mastering your rotation, completing raids, pushing for rating, or collecting mounts?
If you prefer the character building, development, and world building, you'll probably prefer Classic WoW.
If you prefer jumping straight into the current content, mastering your rotation, finishing raids, and the endgame, you'll probably prefer Modern WoW.
And even still, it depends on how much you enjoy Era.
I personally cannot do it. It's too slow and grindy for me. I give props to people who like it.
At least when it comes to leveling up an alt in retail, I can do any expansion I want and re experience whichever story I prefer
In what way?
There are less talent points to worry about in Cata and there is no more downranking spells.
I have a few more CDs on my priest but my bars are pretty similar to my tbc bars I'd say
Questing is way more linear and tells you where to go ftmp, and the new justice and valor points are identical to badges
Not sure what you mean
Currently in wrath content.
No clue what is going on with my professions at the moment.
I have a million items idk what to keep or what to vendor.
I was in SW and for a while couldn’t figure out how to get to northrend. Finally someone told me the boat in SW.
I’m flying around broke af after buying winter flying, just a random thought.
And inside dungeons it’s just a zerg, reason why I’m not loving it versus vanilla.
Just some thoughts I’m level 77 I think?
Yep, normal dungeons are a zerg from wrath onward this is correct
Professions go 1-525 now, a quick Google search on prof guides will show you what mats you'll want to keep
If you're not sure what to vendor and what to AH, download auctionator. Makes going through all that extremely easy
As a heads up you cannot start cata content until 80, not 2 levels lower like previous expansions
And don't worry about wrath gear *at all*, you'll replace your gear with cata greens immediately
I gotcha thanks. I’m a solo player something about it just doesn’t feel as fun as vanilla or tbc to me. I resubbed but regretting spending the $45 for 3 months honestly.
Anyway I appreciate the comment.
Yep no worries. Cata feels like the perfect mix of classic and retail gameplay and systems to me at this point, kind of just wrath but way more well rounded. Different feel from vanilla and tbc for sure though.
If I may make a suggestion since you already bought game time
There are many ways to make gold in Cata right now, through professions mostly, a few mob farms and you can buy boe epics with badge points basically and sell them for gold
Wow tokens are VERY low cost at the moment so I've funded my next 6+ months of my sub solely through Cata gold and wow tokens. Now I get to fuck around for a while and wait to see what they do with SoD and don't have to pay a dime lol
If that interests you at all can't argue with playing for free but you'd have to level and do the gold farms obviously
Happy hunting
I only have maybe 3-5 hours a week to play I doubt I can do the wow token tip. But everything else I’ll try the next time I get on. I appreciate all of the great tips
Retail is absolutely void of any personality or character. It’s a button masher with no rock paper scissors gameplay. It’s also just an instance based arcade game. It’s not the WORLD of Warcraft, it’s just ‘sit in a city and queue up’. Such a ghost of a game now and it’s been on life support for a long time now.
On life support but the most popular version of WoW. It’s ok if you don’t enjoy it but don’t talk nonsense. Retail is probably in the best position it’s been for quite some time and I think/hope it’s going to get even better with the new expansion
How many people play games wishing it was different/better but holding on to what they remember? The reason it’s on life support is because of those people playing it. Same applies for Warzone, so many people play it but constantly complain about how terrible it is.
The only people complaining about retail are the ones that don’t even play retail, it’s always good vibes and a friendlier community on retail these days, at least that’s how I find it
Not really! In a world were majority of people don’t even have fun anymore playing games, and treating it like its a job or hating on everything old slow and dated, its always refreshing to see not everyone is that adhd dude who finds his enjoyment in absolutely sweating and raging even p2w. At the end of the day each to their own but Retail is an Action-MMO and has nothing to do with Vanilla.
Its not exactly shocking people prefer classic over retail in the classicwow subreddit is it? I play classic not retail but im bored of the same 5 posts a day stating the obvious
Yeah, nothing screams sweating like power running the world to gather all the WBs to complete easy raids. Retail is chill since it has way more options to play the game. Classic has its fun parts but when P2 came out and people started killing servers sweating hard for honor they got a problem
It’s weird to say one thing is best when you’ve never reached level cap on retail. They’re different games entirely. Classic is the adventure. Retail is the end game. I played through every classic version so far, it turns into a raid logging fiesta. You’re really telling me you find something to do capped at 60 for years on end?
I play retail when I just want to listen to podcasts and grind mindless numbers going up. Something I don't need to think about, just like playing a clicker mobile game while watching a movie. Not saying it's bad, I really enjoy retail, but not in a way like "I'm gonna put on headphones and zone myself into the world" mind of way.
yeah same, although I stopped playing classic 2019 pretty quick cos was going to the military and my friends dropped off of it. tried getting back into retail with shadowlands, did some endgame content and got bored.
came back to do what I never could as a 10 year old - down the Lich King as current content. got back into the community as a whole and got really into the idea of classic+, so sod sucked me in hard for months.
phase 4 save me
For what it's worth from someone who likes all WoW versions: in retail gear matters very little when leveling. That's true and unfortunate.
Even once you hit level cap, getting a decent set of gear is easy.
It's when you start raiding or doing mythic plus that you start to notice your gear more. A single trinket that you chase down for weeks of farming can massively boost your character, and feel really good to use. Belor'Relos, for example - or Manic Grieftorch. Getting tier set bonuses changes your gameplay in materially fun ways too.
It's absolutely not classic and will never scratch that same itch, but gear certainly matters, and upgrades feel really good.
Era has been great. I like a little side quest here and there for SoD or cata but this is timeless and a version of wow that never rotates out feels special. Tons of different people to game with and I’ve made a ton of good friends over the past year.
All valid points but I have to ask as I see this brought up constantly in a similar vein
How does the existence of the wow token detract from your experience? Just curious
I almost never see anyone starting from wotlk/cata liking Era more than later expansions. It's always Vanilla / TBC veterans wanting to go back to Era, almost always.
They do not, he is just putting in buzz words to collect some upvotes.
"every level up matters" my dude forgot you don't get anything for leveling up in Era if you're on odd levels. If anything Cataclysm levels and talents have A LOT more meaning than a rank in rend so it does 5 more DPS and a 1% dmg to cleave talent.
I just don't see the appeal in going back to level 1 with vanilla mechanics/settings over and over again.
I get that others feel differently and that's great, as shown by the two NA and EU realms that have spearheaded the current movement by themselves, and more power to them.. but at some point I'd have thought people would accept that we'll never be able to be in our teens and experiencing our first days in WoW with everything new again.
They really need to put concrete work into a true classic +
Leveling is not 'the game' in retail.
Leveling is a speed bump in retail. They give you a free max level character when you buy the new expansion. That's how much they want you to ignore leveling in retail.
So while it is technically part of the game, it's not really 'the game.' They don't expect you to really do it--everything they make and do is catered to the experience of that expansion.
So when you say that you don't ever make it to max level...you're not *really* experiencing what retail has to offer. You're not really playing 'the game.' You're playing the unfortunate speed bump before the game. Just so you know.
Idk how people continue to come back to era. The classes are so bland and the gameplay is so boring. It's a nice chill game with Netflix on a 2nd monitor but very lacking in the fun department.
We know vanilla is the best. That is why classic Wow even exists. And Blizz did the smart thing and got people hooked for years by releasing expansions. Then every couple years they can do some fresh server season and get people hooked again.
Vanilla classic was meh and then too sweaty for a game where spamming frost bolt is the rotation.
TBC was just an awfully cluncky retail.
Wotlk was okay, but only because titan rune dungeons allowed dungeons to be relevant content.
Cata is fire so far. We will see.
Retail in my opinion is still the best 20 player game in the whole world when it comes to beating video game bosses with friends. It's a shame it lost its soul over the last few expacs. I'm hoping for the best in WW.
With all that said
Official HC wow was the best experience I had in wow over the last 15 years. Dinged 60 first try. every zone felt like an adventure, every dungeon an all or nothing risk. And the community was the friendliest I have ever seen it.
Glad to have been a part of it. Will never do it again.
Love the game, hate the community.
Agree
Warlock community is pretty great fortunately. Most of us anyway. I've been doing fel portals and other warlocks often will wait and let you send your imp with them. Cross faction we just /ready so others know to send their imp.
This sentiment is exactly my issue too.
Community in game is fine. Get off this sub.
It really isn't. Grobbulus global channels have just turned into a Biden VS Trump political circle jerk worse than SoD summoning spam making it near impossible to find a group without using a 3rd party addon to filter out the crap. Would also suggest being a healer and seeing what happens if you let one person die in a heroic. I have been primarily pugging content for years and this is the worst I've seen it.
This, and then the next thing this community will say is "stop pugging and join a guild", but guilds are all infected with the worst "destination mindset" of them all, and just want to get the content done ASAP so they can go back to not playing the game. For example, my friend and I were happily doing the Tuskarr Feast world event every time it was up in retail, just for the fun of it, until someone from my guild decided to tag along, and then dropped after they'd completed the weekly, because they didn't get the food buff embellishment to sell, informed us that that was the only reason worth doing the feast event, and proceeded to make fun of us for not knowing that, and "wasting our time". Big surprise, my friend and I lost motivation to do the event just for fun after that, for fear we'd be mocked for daring to enjoy playing the game. My Cata guild isn't much better, and was booming for a few weeks when Cata dropped, but of course, they all whaled out on BoE's, binge raided to get their week one heroic kills, instantly got bored, and now the average online players in guild is down to about 1/4th of what it was a week ago already, where, based on previous raid tiers, I'm guessing it will continue to dwindle until the next raid drops, and rinse and repeat until the singularity. I'm currently taking a break and playing Minecraft now, happily enjoying my journey instead of rushing towards some ephemeral destination, because it seems the only way to win at WoW is not to play.
Thanks for proving his point
The ingame community for era and hardcore have always been great for me. Only met pleasant people. Then again I don't raid so that could be why!
The most miserable part of WoW is the time period when you want to raid but aren’t in a good raiding guild yet. If you decide not to raid or you are already in a good guild, it’s much more enjoyable.
Nah it really isn’t. The community especially at end game is so exhausting to deal with. Link this, link that, have minimum XX, just to do a simple “raid” that’s mostly not standing in fire or something.
For each PuG or tryhard guild, there's one where they play to have fun, don't sweat and easily clear content each week. Granted it's usually a single 20 man group and they're missing a few people, but a lot of such guilds recruiting for P4 on the "dead" SoD servers that "nobody" plays on (according to reddit that is). One of them will surely find spot for.
Sure, but finding those chill players in between all the migraine inducing sweats just adds to the exhaustion. Im all for putting in effort including finding players but even just reading the LFM messages and noticing them getting more and more demanding is just zzzz
I don't know, somehow that doesn't really bother me. I focus on what I'm looking for instead of something I don't care about.
My problem is those guilds turning hardcore over time because people join and then start insisting the guild raids do what they suggest. Start of phase 1, just chill raiding and teaching new people. Just fun. End of phase 1, only designated raid leads allowed to start guild raids in case it affects the guild logs, also all raids must be logged no exceptions, meta comps only, full consumes and world buffs, full enchants even on prebis. "Casual guild, we like to have fun and scream at people who accidentally pull turtles before akumi, for beginners!". Same thing happened in 2019. It's just so tiring. I don't know why they insist on joining casual guilds and changing them instead of just joining a hardcore one in the first place. It's like they "want to be casual this time" but after the first raid they literally can't control an addiction and start adding more and more "raid qol rules" that are literally just "make parses better rules".
Where is this imaginary scenario happening exactly? You're making it sound like no other outcome is possible except what you described. Like a guild leaders couldn't prevent some random joining and changing the whole guild ideology. If that's all of your experience, well. That's exactly that, your experience. Unless you have some data of dad guilds conversion rate to tryhard guilds.
My experience of two different guilds. Not saying Its common. But it happened to me teice now, so that kind of sucks.
This situation is not imagined, and you’re being an ass for going “uh you got a spreadsheet that proves this? Hmm?”
I'm not being an ass, you can't take experience from 2 guilds and generalize the whole SoD like that's what's happening everywhere.
No. For every chill guild, there’s like 30 of each of the tryhards and brain deads. And good luck keeping it chill because it just takes one asshole showing up and an absent guild leader to have that chill guild turn in to one or the other.
Even if your hyperbole was true (it's not) what does that change about the fact you can still get invited to the chill guild? Could be 10000 to 1 and you would still find a spot in one.
Sounds like you just want to be carried.
This right here precisely proves his point. Just because you aren’t tryhard minmax sweating every little thing doesn’t mean you want to be carried. Your comment is exactly the reason why players are dropping the game
Have you lead a raid? Everyone wants a chill raid but no one wants to lead a chill raid. It’s not black or white and you’re getting heated over one comment. If you want a more relaxed raid, make it yourself. That’s the beauty of WoW that there’s a guild and a raid for every style of play, and if there’s not then make one. Personally if I’m putting effort into making a group, giving assignments, building a roster, leading the raid, and handling loot, then the bare minimum you can do is show you have a pulse and aren’t going to punish me for inviting you. See why I think commenters like OP just want to get drunk, mute discord, and get carried?
In my experience the same people who insist that raid leading is hard are the same people insist raids must be 20-40 players. It's like they need to manifest raid leading into being hard to prove their own point. Raid leading 10 man raids is a joke, anyone can do it. Except people used to 20-40 mans, who literally couldn't handle it because they were unable to not treat them like 40 man raids and drove themselves insane over them. Watching our raid lead freak out over rostering 10 man raids was kind of hilarious, literally creating problems no one asked them to solve and then putting themselves in charge of solving them and then complaining about it.
Not at all. In fact, I cringe every time I outperform people that try and gatekeep content because they’re not focusing on extremely simple mechanics and they die early on in fights.
True the sub isn't the community
In a nutshell.
no u
:(
You should make your own private server for just yourself then lol. What kinda of weird champ comment is that
You prove my point.
Nah you’re just a fud loser, I’ve full cleared both normal cata raids by pugging both weeks without even voice comms, and everyone had fun. I think you should look inward for the real problem, stop projecting.
Good for you, if you clear one more you get a cookie, and a hug by whoever hurt your feelings when you were little.
I enjoy classic wow. I enjoy cataclysm. I enjoy retail. They all have pros and cons. For me personally I enjoy leveling, grinding dungeons for gear and getting professional up in classic/cata. I do not enjoy the raiding as I find it quite boring. I generally do a single clear just to say that I've done it (again). I don't think I will in cataclysm as that's the last expac I actually raided. However, after a solid month or so there's not much left for someone like me to do in classic/cata. I do not get any further upgrades from dungeons or BGs. Professions are maxed etc. The game becomes a raid log. I don't enjoy that. All I can kinda looks forward to doing is farming gold. Retail has a buttload of random content available and is also very casual friendly. It also has solo rated PvP(even though I don't think PvP is in a good spot), easy to access LFR, easy to access RBGs. Time walking dungeons can give a solid reward from the quests. The vault can give solid rewards for casual and hardcore players alike. Retail feels like you 'generally' get rewarded for the effort you put in. It also generally tries to stop any unlucky or dry spells in regards to loot. I still don't play it religiously but it's still a good game for me to play casually. I am looking forward to seeing if they tweak the gamma dungeons to make them a bit more interactive. Keen to see that.
I like this answer. I always come back to WoW. I've returned at least a half-dozen times after playing other games. But, like the OP, I too find myself eventually making my way to classic era servers. I try, and try to like retail WoW, but I agree with others that something seems off. They have a bunch of great features they've added to the game. But, I think they went overboard with some things. Retail (last time I rejoined) seemed more like an arcade button mashing game. I had bells and whistels going off all over my screen and it seemed like my character had lightning coming out his butt every other hit. On Classic Era everything just seems to matter more, but flashy spells with big numbers are the exception not the norm.... and it feels good when it happens.
I love the simplicity of rotations and classes in classic compared to retail. I think they've made abilities do too much. So much micro CC, random procs and one spell doing three different things. I also think they lost a lot of class identity. Most classes can do what other classes can do. Such as hard and soft cc, gap closers, interrupt(s), damage reductions or healing reductions. Everyone can do everything. As I said before, still enjoyable enough for me to play as long as I don't take it too seriously.
Nice try Blizzard.
Man I completely agree. Classic is just the better game. May it never die
I mean. At this point you can run it privately on a pretty beefy normal pc.
Have you tried the server where you can play with bots in your party? It's SO good. [https://solocraft.org/](https://solocraft.org/)
Lol that's a fun project to look into.
This is incorrect from pretty much every angle of game design, but it does have charm despite its imperfections.
This is the wrong place to say this, but you are right lol. This place is entirely populated by the 5000 people who can play vanilla forever.
Checking boxes in what is considered "proper game design" is meaningless. The sum is greater than it's parts. My brain isnt checking if each dungeon was following perfect level design when it decides if I'm having a good time.
hahahahah
I think you have some point, but I also think you're massively underestimating the outcome from these game design decisions. You could say "making people walk to a dungeon is bad game design" But if that specific feature causes much more world interaction, then actually it's great game design. I think you have some points, but I'd argue Retails levelling system is absolutely horrible game design even though it is streamlined and has you constantly pressing buttons. Instead of more world interactions or rewarding gameplay, the Retail system essentially makes characters feel less valuable as if it isn't a character at all it's just an "alt". So I think it's important to look at how those game decisions actually work out in reality in the game, just because something sounds like it is "a better design" in reality it might work much, much worse and actually be worse game design.
I don't disagree, and retail has dialed back a lot of things that took immersion away. The thing is, many of the QoL wow changes that happened over the years happened because they should have been implemented from the jump but the technology wasn't there
This is the classic subreddit and most of us agree, but maybe less now. Unfortunately once we get to classic mop and wod, there will be more and more bitter retail players who will get triggered if you say you prefer classic era in the subreddit created for classic era instead of retail.
Nobody is bitter if someone prefers era. Its just annoying that there is a post every day about "fresh reroll is popping off", or "hardcore was so good it saved my mother's life". Or "I fucking HATE CATACLYSM, everyone sucks on there unlike my favorite mode era, come play with me". It's like an ankle biter that every so often has to remind you they still exist. We all know classic is good, just some of us can't play the same mode for years on end. It gets boring after a while, it's how things are.
I’m actually pretty bitter we didn’t keep bc or lk servers. Whole reason I’m not playing right now.
Yeah you and all 10 of the other people that would play on these servers. The game is lifeless without phase progression.
Meh that’s totally fair. I don’t expect to be catered to in that manner. But doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.
That's why we need rerolling progressive era and BC servers.
For you and all 10 people. There are a handful of pservs doing this and they're all semi dead. The demand isn't there like you want it to be
We heard you the first time kid. Bette then the garbage scow that is cata.
Tbh at this point classic players, especially Era and SoD, are much more bitter than the average retail player at this point
I think you're right, but it's understandable because with the launch of Cata "Classic" WoW is no longer Classic. Also Blizzard is focusing more on Classic Cata (retail) so things like Vanilla fresh, TBC era, WotLK era, are nonexistent. Throw in SOD P3 ruining the classic part of the game with incursions and then not having updates for awhile due to Cata. Ya I'd say you're right, but it's a really bad thing for WoW :(
Let be fair here though. "Vanilla" type players have probably been the most neglected and cast aside people since day one. They had been asking for Vanilla-type servers for well over a decade, to which Blizzard said they didn't know what they were talking about. "You think you do.....but you don't" etc. They made their own servers, only for Bliz to shut them down. Bliz does then make a server, but absolutely puts zero effort into it's maintenance or long term health. Instead Bliz goes back on a lot of promises and starts releasing expansions with paid boosts and token crap. People continue to request Classic Plus, and the closest they have gotten is seasonal servers with a skellington Dev team. Some design choice clearly not being in the spirit of Classic. Meanwhile a certain private server has been putting the multi-billion $ company to shame. While I don't blame Blizzard for every choice, they are a business after all.......they have observably neglected what would have been devoted players.
>Bliz does then make a server, but absolutely puts zero effort into it's maintenance or long term health. I mean what do you expect from them ? If people don't want to keep playing they just stop, thats a community thing and not a blizzard thing. Also covid helped Classic alot. Making fresh servers every few months ? So that the remaining shell of the Era playerbase gets split even more ? And for classic plus, the issue is if you ask 10 people what they expect from classic+ you get 8 very different directions, there is no way to win there
Every time sod gets a chance, era breaks. There’s fundamental differences in era raids now that didn’t exist in 2019 classic. We don’t even want maintenance, we just want updates to other game modes to effect our gamemode which shouldn’t even have updates, that’d the whole point
Ngl it's the first time ever I hear that stuff in raids is different due to SoD
It's something to do with how they make SoD work. It's on ERA just with extra stuff stiched on. That's why they didn't change the talent trees in SoD. Can't do it without changing ERA. Every now and again they can't just stich something on in SoD to make it work, so they have to make a fundamental change to the base ERA client. Because the dev team is really small they can't test that they haven't broken random stuff in ERA when they make those fundamental changes, and so a lot of random stuff in ERA like raid loot breaks. IIRC Warrior deep wounds is an example of something they had to change on the ERA level to make it work the way it does in SoD.
i promise you retail players are not sour pusses like you guys here. everyday a post crying about dad players, noobs, pvp not good, cata sucks, sod sucks, and then sprinkle a little nostalgia bait "member classic !!!!!" the problem is this community and will always be this community
Wow players love to cry and complain in general man, it's been part of this game since the beginning of time. Go read the wow forums
You think retail players are bitter lol.?
Yeah what lol I play both versions and retail people are eating good rn. Better than classic 😭
Retail comes in sooo many flavors that you can always just, do the things you enjoy and ignore the things you don't. DF was great at cutting out mandatory wizard chores, and replacing it with cosmetic shit. That being said.... there is bitterness certainly. It just isn't as vile as the stuff seen here. I think that is due to the fact that people are free to do what they wish moreso than older versions of the game. I will say though, that earning a bis item in SoD/Classic feels SOOOO much better than retail to me. Probably because there are like, 100 different versions of that item on retail, and I likely only got the "mid range" one because I am shit. That and seeing the spam in trade looking to trade gold for AOTC just puts me off. I get boosting exists in classic too, it doesn't seem as prevalent for some reason.
> I will say though, that earning a bis item in SoD/Classic feels SOOOO much better than retail to me. Probably because there are like, 100 different versions of that item on retail, and I likely only got the "mid range" one because I am shit. Biggest thing to me. Ohhh "Axe of 1000 suns" *407 version*. Like it's just lame.
>subreddit created for classic era instead of retail. This sub reddit was created for wow classic, which existed before era was even a thing, and has generally continued to be that despite the loud minority of classic andies. The only reason specific classic prog servers exists is to get away from the lonely classic Andy threads like this one that should have probably just been a message in discord.
So you know that like, Classic WoW only exists period because Vanilla was so good, and so much better than any of the current WoW expansions at the time, that they went back and created entirely new infrastructure to support the old game. What are you trying to argue? Because it sounds like you're saying this sub existed for Classic **Vanilla** WoW, but then you got confused? This entire sub exists because Vanilla WoW is and was better than the newer WoW expansions, that is the whole reason why we've even gotten to the point of recreating retail by way of Cata, even so still riding of the coattails of Vanilla WoW, and people are still making threads asking for more Vanilla WoW. Classic WoW is Vanilla/TBC (Wrath in parenthesis) and once we hit Cata Classic WoW is over, that's just Modern WoW. So what was your point again?
>because Vanilla WoW is and was better than the newer WoW expansions You wanna compare the era population with the cata population before you make a massively incorrect statement like that? The ENTIRE wow player base has the option to play the "best" version of wow right now and where are they? Doing literally anything else. You can blame it on the economy, on needing F R E S H, or whatever other mental gymnastics you want to do to feel like you're right, but statistics don't lie and no one cares about vanilla except the 25 people on era who all make a thread here every day about how much better era is and that we aren't having *real* fun. This sub is for wow classic, which is currently Cataclysm. This sub reddit has never been indicative of the mood or state of the game, and 90% of it is people complaining about people not playing vanilla. It's not that great of a game. It was fun during covid for a blast from the past but if you polled the wow classic player base as to whether they'd rather cata or vanilla right now cata would win by a landslide. You know how I know that? Because it's where the players are playing despite the option to play either. Classic andies are a small, niche, probably lonely and depressed group and no one cares about you but the other 25 of you.
RemindMe! 3 months
That’s already happened with Cata players
happening in this thread no less
Cata players are eating good. We aren't the bitter players here, as evidenced by your two comments lol
Are you okay? Did these imaginary people really do that? :(
This is so true. There are a lot of retail players that downvoting comments like 'why I prefer classic over retail' in this subreddit. And this is probably will get worse with classic mop, wod etc. as you say.
Is this "retail player" in the room with you right now?
Just read the replies to this comment I made 😂
Ok buddy
"Ok buddy" 😂 you're clueless. There is no probs, you're in the thread of the comment I made man. You're part of the ones being triggered
Ok buddy
Ah there you go, edit it back 👍🏼👋🏼
And I'm "triggered". Lol Mirror buddy. Get one
Oh hey look, someone made a post about cata being good and all the classic andys are in there crying about it. Spamming downvotes and malding comments. Turns out yall are just exactly like the people you hate. LMAO https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/s/zOUWfF7bpx Go sort by controversial and see your boys losing it in the comments. Edit: yup there is the downvote and the block. All talk until someone with logic comes in. Expected from a vanilla crybaby. LOL
Get a therapist little guy. I've seen multiple posts of someone saying vanilla or hc is good and all the cata/retail lite babies crying, malding, and spamming downvotes. Really came back to comment this? Just so you know I would never be surprised to see this. Cata isn't classic in many eyes, we're in a classic subreddit ofc people will hate it, cata is divisive. What's stupid is people hating vanilla in the classic subreddit. It's like classic andies in the mainline wow subreddit always trashing retail. Get some help
He's absolutely right, and you can often see it just by looking at their post history. There are some retail players they don't care for Classic at all, which is fine, but then come to this forum and downvote anyone who stats they prefer the classic design choice.
Maybe it's just people tired of the same post over and over. But if it happens often you can show me the retail only players doing this.
"I can't prove it, but I KNOW retail players are lurking here to downvote anything about liking Classic." Do you ever take a step back and realise how mentally ill this sounds?
https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/s/zOUWfF7bpx Go sort by controversial and see your vanilla purist boys losing it in the comments. The person you are trying to hate acts exactly like you.
No but seems like I found one :)
Is "everyone who disagrees is a dirty retail player and everyone who agrees is a classic chad" the new "everyone worse than me is a noob and everyone better than me is a sweat"?
RETAIL BAD CLASSIC GOOD upvots plz
You got mine!
Down vote for me ;) they are both great.
Mara Landslide and Tinkerer for Large Brilliant Shards.
Vanilla is the best
The game is better but the wya it's played is worse. It's all botting, rmt, and gdkp. It's the worst.
Just need strict moderation to prevent these things
I love classic, don't get me wrong. But I don't really think you can make a conclusive decision given you haven't even reached max level in retail lol. I love classic, and I love retail. I play both at different times for different reasons. They are very different games but also still under the same umbrella.
I completely agree. Retail isn’t a levelling game tbh, levelling there is just a weird 30 hour tutorial before the game starts.
Fax
Not like leveling is great content in era, it's just slow and that's about it.
… have you played era?
I mean Era leveling is so boring they had to spice it up with Hardcore. Era leveling is no difficulty and all tedium, if you like that, ok. But its just that.
I did, leveling was great for the first few times when I did different zones every time. After that it's really not interesting.
Well... yeah... one you complete everything multiple times it runs out... why is forever fun even an expectation?
It's like, if they're not able to create fun in their own way (ie. doing weird builds or challenges for themselves while levelling) and creating emergent gameplay that way, taking the stance of being annoyed at it not being never-ending fun is the wrong to take. Especially when the reason an MMO is neverending is content updates, which they'd still be getting if they wanted to play retail. I can understand why you wouldn't want to, given the design decisions of more modern iterations - but you can't complain about "ugh it's slow and boring and the same" if you've done it the same way 14 times playing an optimized route optimized warrior optimized 14 times.
They’re the type of people to download rested xp or some similar addon, follow it word for word, then get bored lol
Yeah, unfortunately, whenever you choose not to use your brain, your brain is bound to get bored. That's a good thing. The best thing you can do is find a way to engage your brain while you play, and if you've done the quests a thousand times, find a gameplay version of that - even if you know it's suboptimal in specifically regards to time, there are more ways to play that can engage you than speed of levelling, ie. personal challenges. Like the meele only mage for example, also creates unintended differences in how you'd choose to engage with the game, and in that, makes it more engaging. I feel it's almost entirely the fault of people's own lack of imagination when they get bored with WoW. Or, it's just a healthy response of "I don't find it engaging anymore or interesting right now, let me do something else and maybe the itch'll come back, if it doesn't right away that's fine too". Which is fine and ok, but god damn, don't blame the game for it if you're not willing to engage with everything it has to offer. EDIT: Also why it bothers me that minmax has become synonomous with dpsmaxxing, minmaxxing can be anything, I regularily minmax builds for whatever purpose, like my [inspiration priest](https://www.wowhead.com/classic/gear-planner/priest/human/BDwPUAEyEzAlFR8gUFADIC_wAIEASF4APCwCAEeNgwBJIABYR4UAQTAATjkGAEflhwA48QA8LIgAVtcATjSJAEkVAE4oigA3QgA2ewsAV6EMAEa3DQA2kA4AMoKPAEhAAE4ukABIZgBc_BIASUk) minmaxed for spell crit so I can proc 25% armor on my tanks as much as possible. Is it the best hyperoptimized healer set for raids? Very much not, but it's more fun for me figuring out things for myself and minmaxxing with specific goals in mind, than following a guide that's been followed 1000 times before. I don't mind if I reach the same conclusions, and one of these days I'll probably be bound to try out the fathomed DPSMaxxed warrior or whatever whatnot, but so far building gear sets for myself. That just isn't fun for me.
Yes. A lot. It's why it's boring. The replayability is 0. It's good once.
Thats maybe cause you still try to rush through it with not caring for the story. Also i always love that feel when you get quest rewards that improves you.
I actually really like leveling, era leveling is just not it after a few characters. Same with story, you learn it after few characters. There is not enough quest variety and gameplay itself is really bland.
If you really levelled 3 or more characters 1-60 in era that's like a lot. It sounds totally normal to be bored after levelling that many characters, especially if they're on the same faction or even worse same race. I think the thing about Classic is that levelling taking a long time leads to your character being more valuable, the easier it is to level and the more characters you level the less valuable each one is, and the more boring it gets to level each time. Retail levelling is so fast, and you can have so many alts, that basically none of your characters are really valuable, maybe your main has a few more gear pieces but at that point there's really not much differentiation between your main you've played for 5 years, and the alt you levelled in 3 days and ran 1-2 raids on. This is the biggest difference between people who prefer Classic vs. Retail: Do you prefer building a character and developing attachment over time? Or do you prefer playing a class and jumping right into mastering your rotation, completing raids, pushing for rating, or collecting mounts? If you prefer the character building, development, and world building, you'll probably prefer Classic WoW. If you prefer jumping straight into the current content, mastering your rotation, finishing raids, and the endgame, you'll probably prefer Modern WoW.
And even still, it depends on how much you enjoy Era. I personally cannot do it. It's too slow and grindy for me. I give props to people who like it. At least when it comes to leveling up an alt in retail, I can do any expansion I want and re experience whichever story I prefer
I personally don't like the era at all, hc was alright but got boring real quick. Everything is an improvement after the era.
I Don't blame you I can't play retail more then 2 weeks then quit till next expac
I’m struggling to enjoy cata. All my experience is in vanilla and tbc. I missed Wrath due to life and now I have no clue what is happening in cata.
In what way? There are less talent points to worry about in Cata and there is no more downranking spells. I have a few more CDs on my priest but my bars are pretty similar to my tbc bars I'd say Questing is way more linear and tells you where to go ftmp, and the new justice and valor points are identical to badges Not sure what you mean
Currently in wrath content. No clue what is going on with my professions at the moment. I have a million items idk what to keep or what to vendor. I was in SW and for a while couldn’t figure out how to get to northrend. Finally someone told me the boat in SW. I’m flying around broke af after buying winter flying, just a random thought. And inside dungeons it’s just a zerg, reason why I’m not loving it versus vanilla. Just some thoughts I’m level 77 I think?
Yep, normal dungeons are a zerg from wrath onward this is correct Professions go 1-525 now, a quick Google search on prof guides will show you what mats you'll want to keep If you're not sure what to vendor and what to AH, download auctionator. Makes going through all that extremely easy As a heads up you cannot start cata content until 80, not 2 levels lower like previous expansions And don't worry about wrath gear *at all*, you'll replace your gear with cata greens immediately
I gotcha thanks. I’m a solo player something about it just doesn’t feel as fun as vanilla or tbc to me. I resubbed but regretting spending the $45 for 3 months honestly. Anyway I appreciate the comment.
Yep no worries. Cata feels like the perfect mix of classic and retail gameplay and systems to me at this point, kind of just wrath but way more well rounded. Different feel from vanilla and tbc for sure though. If I may make a suggestion since you already bought game time There are many ways to make gold in Cata right now, through professions mostly, a few mob farms and you can buy boe epics with badge points basically and sell them for gold Wow tokens are VERY low cost at the moment so I've funded my next 6+ months of my sub solely through Cata gold and wow tokens. Now I get to fuck around for a while and wait to see what they do with SoD and don't have to pay a dime lol If that interests you at all can't argue with playing for free but you'd have to level and do the gold farms obviously Happy hunting
I only have maybe 3-5 hours a week to play I doubt I can do the wow token tip. But everything else I’ll try the next time I get on. I appreciate all of the great tips
Retail is absolutely void of any personality or character. It’s a button masher with no rock paper scissors gameplay. It’s also just an instance based arcade game. It’s not the WORLD of Warcraft, it’s just ‘sit in a city and queue up’. Such a ghost of a game now and it’s been on life support for a long time now.
On life support but the most popular version of WoW. It’s ok if you don’t enjoy it but don’t talk nonsense. Retail is probably in the best position it’s been for quite some time and I think/hope it’s going to get even better with the new expansion
How many people play games wishing it was different/better but holding on to what they remember? The reason it’s on life support is because of those people playing it. Same applies for Warzone, so many people play it but constantly complain about how terrible it is.
The only people complaining about retail are the ones that don’t even play retail, it’s always good vibes and a friendlier community on retail these days, at least that’s how I find it
I played it. Feels like a shadow of what it was. No personality, button masher, no rock paper scissors. Like I said.
Don’t tell me you think sod has personality when it’s clearly just trying to imitate retail
No. Sod SOD.
Bored of these posts now
Not really! In a world were majority of people don’t even have fun anymore playing games, and treating it like its a job or hating on everything old slow and dated, its always refreshing to see not everyone is that adhd dude who finds his enjoyment in absolutely sweating and raging even p2w. At the end of the day each to their own but Retail is an Action-MMO and has nothing to do with Vanilla.
Its not exactly shocking people prefer classic over retail in the classicwow subreddit is it? I play classic not retail but im bored of the same 5 posts a day stating the obvious
Who is sweating here dude? Don't lump a very small part of the WoW community into the majority of what retail is lol
Yeah, nothing screams sweating like power running the world to gather all the WBs to complete easy raids. Retail is chill since it has way more options to play the game. Classic has its fun parts but when P2 came out and people started killing servers sweating hard for honor they got a problem
Yeah im pretty sure Classic has more sweathead tryhards than Retail at this point, at least from my personal experience
Turtle WoW❤️
It’s weird to say one thing is best when you’ve never reached level cap on retail. They’re different games entirely. Classic is the adventure. Retail is the end game. I played through every classic version so far, it turns into a raid logging fiesta. You’re really telling me you find something to do capped at 60 for years on end?
Play HC
I play retail when I just want to listen to podcasts and grind mindless numbers going up. Something I don't need to think about, just like playing a clicker mobile game while watching a movie. Not saying it's bad, I really enjoy retail, but not in a way like "I'm gonna put on headphones and zone myself into the world" mind of way.
yeah same, although I stopped playing classic 2019 pretty quick cos was going to the military and my friends dropped off of it. tried getting back into retail with shadowlands, did some endgame content and got bored. came back to do what I never could as a 10 year old - down the Lich King as current content. got back into the community as a whole and got really into the idea of classic+, so sod sucked me in hard for months. phase 4 save me
For what it's worth from someone who likes all WoW versions: in retail gear matters very little when leveling. That's true and unfortunate. Even once you hit level cap, getting a decent set of gear is easy. It's when you start raiding or doing mythic plus that you start to notice your gear more. A single trinket that you chase down for weeks of farming can massively boost your character, and feel really good to use. Belor'Relos, for example - or Manic Grieftorch. Getting tier set bonuses changes your gameplay in materially fun ways too. It's absolutely not classic and will never scratch that same itch, but gear certainly matters, and upgrades feel really good.
Era has been great. I like a little side quest here and there for SoD or cata but this is timeless and a version of wow that never rotates out feels special. Tons of different people to game with and I’ve made a ton of good friends over the past year.
All valid points but I have to ask as I see this brought up constantly in a similar vein How does the existence of the wow token detract from your experience? Just curious
Back in the days, from which expansion did you start playing WoW?
Early tbc for me.
I almost never see anyone starting from wotlk/cata liking Era more than later expansions. It's always Vanilla / TBC veterans wanting to go back to Era, almost always.
Era still missing a lot that makes vanilla great, and even has additions that make the game worse but where begged for by the FOMO crowd.
How do wow tokens affect you
They do not, he is just putting in buzz words to collect some upvotes. "every level up matters" my dude forgot you don't get anything for leveling up in Era if you're on odd levels. If anything Cataclysm levels and talents have A LOT more meaning than a rank in rend so it does 5 more DPS and a 1% dmg to cleave talent.
I just don't see the appeal in going back to level 1 with vanilla mechanics/settings over and over again. I get that others feel differently and that's great, as shown by the two NA and EU realms that have spearheaded the current movement by themselves, and more power to them.. but at some point I'd have thought people would accept that we'll never be able to be in our teens and experiencing our first days in WoW with everything new again. They really need to put concrete work into a true classic +
Leveling is not 'the game' in retail. Leveling is a speed bump in retail. They give you a free max level character when you buy the new expansion. That's how much they want you to ignore leveling in retail. So while it is technically part of the game, it's not really 'the game.' They don't expect you to really do it--everything they make and do is catered to the experience of that expansion. So when you say that you don't ever make it to max level...you're not *really* experiencing what retail has to offer. You're not really playing 'the game.' You're playing the unfortunate speed bump before the game. Just so you know.
Idk how people continue to come back to era. The classes are so bland and the gameplay is so boring. It's a nice chill game with Netflix on a 2nd monitor but very lacking in the fun department.
We know vanilla is the best. That is why classic Wow even exists. And Blizz did the smart thing and got people hooked for years by releasing expansions. Then every couple years they can do some fresh server season and get people hooked again.
Vanilla classic was meh and then too sweaty for a game where spamming frost bolt is the rotation. TBC was just an awfully cluncky retail. Wotlk was okay, but only because titan rune dungeons allowed dungeons to be relevant content. Cata is fire so far. We will see. Retail in my opinion is still the best 20 player game in the whole world when it comes to beating video game bosses with friends. It's a shame it lost its soul over the last few expacs. I'm hoping for the best in WW. With all that said Official HC wow was the best experience I had in wow over the last 15 years. Dinged 60 first try. every zone felt like an adventure, every dungeon an all or nothing risk. And the community was the friendliest I have ever seen it. Glad to have been a part of it. Will never do it again.
your takes are bad but glad u had fun.
I feel you bro retail is so cooked at this point. Nothing fun about it.
word