Video Game Review: World of Warcraft – Classic · 2:28pm Sep 6th, 2019
Playing classic World of Warcraft is a lot like this song.
It's a case of wanting to live as you accidentally aggro two enemies before wanting to die so you can simply retry your hand at playing the game.
Now, I'm a fan of WoW. I've played it for quite some time; I've seen the game go through amazing phases and hit points lower than Mariana's Trench. It's inevitable with a game that's nearly 15-years-old. So I was interested to see how the game was at a time when I didn't play it. Vanilla was something I sadly missed out on as I was 8-years-old at the time. Now I'm 23. I'm older, wiser, and more jaded than a baby boomer looking at a group of zoomers playing Fortnite.
Unlike a boomer, I can't say things were better back in ye olden days.
World of Warcraft Classic is what it says it is: it's classic WoW, albeit the "official" version from Blizzard Entertainment themselves. The classes are as they were back then (albeit there are a few minor changes as far as I'm aware, though I cannot say for certain what they are). The zones and quests are also as they were; everything is as it was. This of course means there's a lot more micromanaging for you to do. I rolled a Hunter and this meant I had to wait until Level 10 to tame my first pet, which I must level up, train, and feed in order for it to not run off. I must also make sure I have adequate ammunition, train myself (thus wasting copious amounts of money), and I have a melee weapon.
These aspects and more are something that have given rise to the claim that Classic WoW was more "immersive". The slow traversal of the world, the fact that some classes can't take on more than one enemy at a time due to the awful perfectly balanced tuning of enemies versus the stats your own character has, and the modestly interesting concept of buying ammunition for your character are all "immersing". In a way, that's understandable. It gives the game a feeling of survival in the same way that No Man's Sky and Minecraft have their own survival mechanics. What separates this from those two games however (aside from those two being significantly more fun in my eyes) is that WoW isn't a game based around survival. It's an RPG. The point is to level up, get stronger, and then enjoy stomping on everything that killed you as you leveled up.
Now granted the retail version of WoW nowadays has level scaling so you don't outlevel certain zones (a feature which I do admittedly like quite a bit), so you never quite feel an increase in strength as you level. The same goes for WoW Classic, albeit in a different aspect. Leveling is excruciatingly sluggish and the power increase with each level feels minuscule at best. Perhaps this is just me, but it felt more like I was being inched along through The Barrens, which I felt like I never left due to it taking up a staggering 15 levels total. Given that WoW Classic has a level cap of 60, that means the zone itself takes up nearly a fourth of the entire leveling experience. There are other locations one can go, but given that the game's other continent doesn't have a Hunter trainer and the other two zones are only available to go to as I level in The Barrens (and the questing in Classic is... not that spectacular in my eyes), I felt more stuck in the eternal grind known as The Barrens.
Not everything about WoW Classic is bad though. The community on the server I was on was remarkably kind and sociable, something sorely missing from the retail version. This is largely due to in part that WoW Classic's questing encourages grouping, a fact that I don't quite like as it feels almost imposed onto you. "If you don't group up, you'll never make it in this world!" feels like the mantra the game abides by. Now yes, I am aware: it's an MMO. Though when the game's punishing you for not partaking in that part of the game, it feels more like a standard multiplayer mode to any other game as opposed to, well, a game. Maybe I'm just pampered however. At least the community wasn't filled with jerks.
The second thing I'll praise is the talent trees. It's nice to see them back after so long. Although the talents themselves aren't exactly thrilling, it's nice to get a reward for leveling up again as opposed to every fifteen levels. If only Blizzard would readd them to the actual game.
I can understand the appeal it has to those who grew up with it. However, I don't quite get that appeal. It's a sluggish grind that makes me think the playerbase has rose-tinted goggles on. The whole thing feels aggressively outdated. That isn't to say that retail WoW is any better—I'd much rather not get into the issues I have with Battle For Azeroth or I'd be here all day. Though at least with that, I can say that the game's a lot less of a hassle to get a sense of fun going. And really, if the game isn't fun to play, then what's the point?
I guess to make friends. That's what I've been using it for.
Back when leveling as a tank stunk *royally*
Hunters= 1 bag of ammo, half a bag of pet food, half a bag of extra ammo, I have no space for loot. Well aware of the fun. Had a Night Elf hunter named Xchange played since beta. On another server now. Still play every once in a while.
Classic WoW is the most overhyped thing since... I can’t even think of a good comparison for that. I played it when it was actually current and it was far from the golden utopia it’s fanboys proclaim it to be. It was slow and tedious as hoof, granted much better than EQ which is where most of vanilla WoW players migrated from, but still a clunky and tedious mess once you stepped back and examined the big picture. The only reason why Classic servers seem like such a godsend now is for several things:
1. WoW is just plain old so players have grown tired of the current stuff
2. Servers launching in the middle of the most despised xpac since Warlords, accelerating the burnout on current mentioned in 1.
3. As newer games like ESO and FFXIV launched, players tired of WoW started to swap over, leaving a higher and higher percentage of dedicated loyalists, most of whom came from EQ (bringing their EQ mindset on what constitutes a “real mmorpg” with them) and have played since vanilla, grown tired of current, and want to relive the old game. Summed up, old school EQ types make up a large percentage of the playerbase WoW has left.
4. Extreme overhype from both players and developers. This includes their latest move, which is that players who make it to 60 in Classic get Battle for Azeroth totally free, which is actually insulting to those who bought BfA the traditional way.
Make no mistake. Classic will have a dedicated fanbase, but once the hype dies down, some people’s nostalgia trips end, or get bored of the version of the game that will be forever stuck nearly two decades in the past, it’ll trickle down. At the end of the day, Classic servers only mean that WoW is past its prime, and the devs gotta milk the remaining playerbase for every penny their worth.
It is very very over hyped like Dance said. I have played it but the only reason I am playing it because other friends want me to. Its like with the City of heroes fanbase demanding that every other MMO dies so their little game can be the only thing that exist.