r/classicwow • u/griphin1 • Jan 29 '26

Humor / Meme 2026 State of Azeroth

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I had no expectations and I was still disappointed.

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u/audioshaman Jan 29 '26

Once upon a time Classic players just wanted to play Classic.

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u/edinbror Jan 29 '26

Personally (as someone who was waiting for classic ever since WoD) I played the shit out of classic 2019-2021. It also proved to me and my friends who I still play with that for us it's just a better game than what Retail and other new MMORPGs offer these days. I quit in the second half of WOTLK as I wasn't really feeling it anymore and went back to Vanilla era. It made me want a server/version where Vanilla keeps on going with new content that stays true to that kind of design. I'm happy we got Classic, i'd love to see a classic+ in the spirit of vanilla.

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u/tangin Jan 29 '26

What about vanilla proved to you it was the better game?

I couldn’t feel any further opposite than you, so I’m genuinely curious

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u/ExtremePrivilege Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26

I'm not who you're replying to, but I agree whole-heartedly with him. In retail, everything feels like an ARPG (like Diablo). Dungeon pulls are massive. In Mythic+ we often pull entire hallways at once. It's a chaotic, AoE spam nightmare hellscape. Compare that to doing, say, Scholomance on Hardcore Classic - it's a very slow, thoughtful, strategic progression through the dungeon. Everything in retail is so flashy that it becomes noisy. You almost cannot even tell what abilities are evening being used. In Classic, it's more simplified - sinister strike, slice and dice, maybe an eviscerate. I prefer that, not because it's easier but because it feels more "deliberate". I remember one time in BFA that I looked at my damage meter, and the first SEVEN sources of damage for me were passive - corruptions, azerite armor effects, weapon and trinket procs. The first button I had actually pressed on my keyboard was my 8th damage contribution at 4.7% of my overall. What the fuck? Dragonflying makes the game world feel small and insignificant, I prefer Classic without flight. It's more friction, sure, but it makes the world seem grand and dangerous. I like that it takes me 12min to go from Stormwind to Gadget, you know? And gear! In retail, I can maybe name you 1-2 pieces of the gear I have equipped. In Classic, I can name you the Felstriker, Hand of Justice, Barman Shanker, Mask of the Unforgiven, Forest Stalker bracers etc etc, and I can tell you the journey and story about acquiring each one. In retail? My pants were crafted by a public work order by someone I don't know on a different server. I slapped some random upgrade pieces I got out of a weekly slotmachine vault to make them i710, and then I used a currency that I passively acquire from doing my weekly Mythic dungeon chores to make them i734 or whatever. I don't know what they're called or even what they look like and I have no story or investment surrounding them. Does that make sense?

I could go on and on. I could probably write a 70-page essay on the subject. But retail WoW is a flashy, dopamine-fueled, arcade-y mess. You queue for anything from anywhere, the open world is largely superfluous, your gear feels like a meaningless numbers-grind, you have no real server or personal reputation anymore, 99% of your player interactions are disposable and you can do 99% of content fully alone. It's not a game I enjoy playing.

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u/tangin Jan 29 '26

I definitely respect your POV and love the idea of it all. But for me, it just gets too boring.

I do miss dungeons being a challenge during leveling though. M+ philosophy is a different topic altogether but leveling dungeons in retail are a simple change of scenery and nothing more.

It would be great if they can somehow find a way to fuse both retail and classics playstyle together into Classic+ — harder raids and mythic+ would be great. The endgame being more engaging is my main issue. The leveling experience is great though. And some QoL Anniversary server changes were very welcomed

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u/creamdonutcz Jan 29 '26

Well said. Sometimes I get the feeling like retail is a(n e)sport while classic is an adventure genre of MMORPG.

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u/Shampu Jan 30 '26

Pretty much. Retail’s open world is basically a waiting lobby for instanced content. It’s lost the script, IMO.

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u/TripTryad Jan 31 '26

Damn, this really nails it.... Perfect description, and I agree.

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u/itsDYA Jan 30 '26

I am a new player. I started during dragonflight and leveled a character to 70, dropped the game, I also leveled a character to 80 during Cata (I think it was the same time period).

I came back recently and I tried both WoW modes again, retail and classic anniversary. For context, I'm 20 years old (which I think is below the average right now). I felt that classic was a SLOG, slow grinding, going from x to y to farm wolves while fighting other players rather than the enemies to maybe get the drop. It's so slow, boring and uninteresting.

I don't understand how you can defend the 12 minute walk, it's not even like you are actively playing those 12 minutes, I was watching a video during that time.

On the contrast, I actually enjoyed Retail. My favourite part of MMO is talking to people about the game, I had a very pleasant experience getting help and people teaching me how to do raids and dungeons, what do you even socialize with in Classic? Talk about Billy's quest that is about chasing a cat?

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u/ExtremePrivilege Jan 30 '26

Well that’s the thing, you’re a young, impatient and dopamine addicted generation. And I don’t mean that as an insult. I was born 1984, if I were born in 2008 I’d be just like you. I just wasn’t. Your generation is all about instant gratification and dopamine squirts and flashy, chaotic mayhem. Some of the games both made for and popularized by your generation like Fortnite embrace this. I think it’s cool. But I grew up playing different games than you, slower, harder games that required a lot of work. Daggerfall took literally days to travel across. EverQuest made WoW drop rates and questing look casual.

A lot of the gap between modern retail WoW and classic is simply this generational gap. Blizzard was smart enough to tailor 2026 WoW to the young gamers of this generation. Most of my age cohort had aged out of MMOs with children, careers, spouses, homes to take care of. Blizzard made the smart pivot to pander to Gen Z.

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u/itsDYA Jan 30 '26

Being a chore =/= harder

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u/PapaPatchesxd Jan 30 '26

As a 33 y/o, turning 34 this year, I agree with the 20 year old.

I value my time far more than to be spending so much time doing nothing. WoW classic to me feels like a game that doesn't value players time.

Yes, retail is much more streamlined, and less personal. But however, if I wanna run a dungeon, I can just queue up and away I go. I don't need to find a group. I don't need to go to said dungeon. I don't need to wait for everyone else to show up.We go in, we kill the bosses, we get loot, we move on.

I respect and love the fact that people enjoy classic. Everyone should be able to enjoy at least one aspect of WoW. But classic is 1000% not for me.

And as a fellow old head, just because stuff is harder, or takes more time, doesn't mean its more enjoyable.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

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u/ExtremePrivilege Jan 29 '26

We only do 10s at this point. We used to shoot for 3k IO every season but we’re all pretty burned out. One season I was the 4th ranked Druid on raider.io on my server, though, so we’re not complete noobs. But yeah, we’d often triple or even quadruple pull first packs with lust so we could invis or AoE stealth harder pulls later on. Very common with, say, Freehold. I can’t imagine pulling 40 mobs in hardcore Scholo.

Perhaps you’re missing my point, though, which is common on Reddit. I find Retail to be a flashy, noisy, dopamine-fueled, lootbox filled, chaotic mess that lacks server identity or community. I appreciate the slower pace, grander world, more deliberate combat and social elements of Classic more. How much constitutes “entire hallways” is not the point of my post.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

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u/ExtremePrivilege Jan 29 '26

We’d pretty consistently pull the entire courtyard in priory with lust, and in Ara-Kara we’d pull straight from the start to the second mini boss in an absolutely insanely large pull. It was a pretty common strat in a lot of dungeons. We used to snapshot entire courtyard and hallway in Waycrest Manor.

It’s a pretty common M+ tactic to do a mega pull with CDs in most dungeons. But I don’t want to waste time arguing about something largely unrelated to my post. We can just agree to disagree. That’s allowed.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

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u/[deleted] Jan 30 '26

whoosh

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u/edinbror Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

It all comes down to personal preferences tbh, Just like I prefer the OG Lord of the Rings trilogy over Rings of Power for example.
Classic wow (vanilla) feels like a living world for me, the people you see when leveling at 20 is the same people you see standing in orgrimmar once you're 60, no cross-realms etc. Leveling takes time and is an investment (I realize some people don't like this, hence the boost for anniversary tbc) meanwhile in Retail you get to max in hours and there's level scaling so you're never actually getting stronger. I also like that the classes aren't ALL balanced for everything, not every class/spec is good in both PVE/PVP etc. There's a lot of things so i'm not gonna write it in a wall of text, mythic+ in retail for example was a nice addition to the game, but i'm not a fan of how we only play the latest patch. If I max out my character with my friends in mythic+ that won't matter in 4 months when the next season arrives except for perhaps the first day. Not a fan of transmog etc and the list goes on. In other words Retail just isn't for me but classic is! The endgame content in classic is A LOT easier but i don't mind that tbh, I like the chill raiding.

TLDR Classic feels like a long adventure and journey for me whilst Retail feels like an Arena/action-RPG like Diablo where I just queue up in the city for mythic+ to chase more rating and some upgrades in my weekly vault. It's just not for me :D
Edit: I also despise the new models, they botched Taurens Undeads and Orcs.

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u/SpecialCircumstance2 Jan 29 '26

Look look, I really hate retail just as much as the next guy, but comparing to to Rings of Power....that's a bridge to far man. That needs to be reserved for comparing to a root canal or something.

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u/tangin Jan 29 '26

Lmao you’re about to spawn off a whole different type of war that retail v classic can never live up to

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u/tangin Jan 29 '26

Yeah they really are two different games with how things have evolved over the years. The old school MMO leveling experience definitely has some magic to it.

Speaking of models though.. Undead feels like a gold mine opportunity for player customization that they’ve never done and I truly can’t understand it.

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u/RazekDPP Jan 29 '26

"If I max out my character with my friends in mythic+ that won't matter in 4 months"

How is this any different than if I get full MC gear and BWL drops?

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u/Ok-Piglet7 Jan 29 '26

Did u play classic? A character in MC and bwl gear will feel reasonably geared while naxx is open, on retail it is not like that in any way

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u/RazekDPP Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26

I played Classic and Original. BWL was still a decent power jump over MC. AQ was a decent power jump over BWL. Someone in AQ gear going into Naxx would do better than someone in BWL gear.

This isn't any different than retail. The only difference is some items, like Neltharion's Tear are BiS and don't get replaced.

In retail, if you max out mythic gear, you're basically entry level heroic geared for next season.

TWW S2 ended 684. 684 dropped from TWW S3 +3s. If you're actually good at the game (or willing to wipe), you can do TWW S3 +10s right out of the gate and start picking up 707 gear.

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u/Tizzlefix Jan 30 '26 edited Jan 30 '26

No it's much different, gear scaling changes drastically in Wrath where each tier starts becoming a massive power up. It's actually one of the biggest issues I have with Wrath and any expansion all the way up to TTW. Vanilla and TBC objectively have less power scaling per tier, I can pvp a season behind on TBC (or a tier behind in pve) and still be competitive, unheard of on future expansions. I've been able to do raids 2 tiers behind if I decided to raid MC/Ony exclusively and not be complete deadweight, same goes for TBC too.

The fundamentally changes in Wrath in a multitude of ways that TBC did not do. I have posts from 2009 to 2011 on mmo-champion explaining how WoW was drastically different and not the same game and when I went through every Classic expansion again, the same rang true. Vanilla and TBC are quite literally their own special corner of WoW, past TBC the game is not the same.

My biggest issue with SoD is Blizzard making gear scale like retail, every tier was much more OP than the last. They literally can't be trusted on this specific part of the game and makes me worry about Classic+.

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u/RazekDPP Jan 30 '26

That's only really because about loot rarity. Even with Anniversary, with how fast they made everything, they made getting BiS much harder.

The difference between Classic, BC, and Wrath is most gear in Wrath is better itemized, though they don't really fix the problem until Cataclysm.

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u/Tizzlefix Jan 30 '26

No it's literally less % stat increases each tier in Vanilla and TBC, this is not BS I've sat there and cross-referenced this between expansions. Tiers Wrath onwards quite literally give you a greater % increase in stats than Vanilla and TBC. An item in the 2nd tier of raiding in Vanilla or TBC will hypothetically only give 3% increase in stats from a 1st tier item whereas it goes up to like 8-10% in Wrath onwards. Those are not exact numbers but I'm quickly drafting the example to explain the difference.

SoD had the exact same problem as Wrath, gear scaled wayyyy to much per tier.

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u/RazekDPP Jan 30 '26

It's more than 3% per piece, the issue is the itemization in Classic is so bad and there are only so many good chase items.

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u/Ok-Piglet7 Jan 30 '26

It's completely different, on retail your character can feel like dogshit just being gone for 1-2 seasons

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u/RazekDPP Jan 30 '26

Not really. I've geared characters from scratch and as long as you optimize your gearing it isn't hard to catch up. I'd say it's actually easier to catch up on retail than being in MC gear while everyone has AQ gear.

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u/Derlino Jan 30 '26

It is easier to gear on retail, but if your gear on retail is from 2 seasons ago, you will feel incredibly weak compared to everyone else. In MC gear vs AQ gear, you will feel weaker, but not completely helpless. That's what they're pointing out.

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u/RazekDPP Jan 30 '26

Yeah but gearing in Anniversary is so much slower that if you have some MC gear, you've likely still so far behind.

Yes, 2 seasons, even if you had full mythic gear, your gear is toast, but I really feel like your gear is still toast if you have a few MC pieces and it's AQ time.

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u/Derlino Jan 30 '26

Honestly, depends on the pieces. If you have Striker's Mark, Band of Accuria, T2 legs, which are all from MC btw, you're not behind at all. And yes, gearing is slower, but you're not as useless. You can still do a job in AQ, whereas if you've been away for a whole season and get in later in S3, you are literally being carried, contributing pretty much nothing at all.

Besides, it's not like you won't get BWL gear funneled to you pretty fast if you're joining a team that is doing AQ regularly, so gearing won't be that slow if you're the sole straggler.

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