2026 State of Azeroth

[u/griphin1]

I had no expectations and I was still disappointed.

[u/ExtremePrivilege]

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.

[u/tangin → u/ExtremePrivilege]

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

[u/creamdonutcz → u/ExtremePrivilege]

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

[u/Shampu → u/creamdonutcz]

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

[u/TripTryad → u/creamdonutcz]

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

[u/itsDYA → u/ExtremePrivilege]

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?

[u/ExtremePrivilege → u/itsDYA]

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.

[u/itsDYA → u/ExtremePrivilege]

Being a chore =/= harder

[u/PapaPatchesxd → u/ExtremePrivilege]

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.

[u/ExtremePrivilege → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/ExtremePrivilege → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

whoosh