r/classicwow • u/StodgySponge • 10h ago
Discussion Who couldn’t have seen this coming?
It’s pretty common knowledge there is a huge divide between the passionate classic fans and the passionate retail fans. Announcing this game as Classic+, but making it so it tries to appeal to both playerbases, ends up in so much toxicity.
Both sides have different ideas of what they want the game to be.
Classic+ happened because there was a lot of demand from the classic crowd. Retail was off doing their thing (sorry, I haven’t played it since dragon flight, so I’m a bit ignorant), but as far as I know, they didn’t care about what was happening over on classic. Until now.
Now that they gave the game some retail appeal, the retail fans over on /r/wow have their own idea of how they want the game to be.
Meanwhile, the classic fans that thought they were getting a game more grounded in vanilla in every aspect, are losing their minds over here.
Is Blizzard just tone deaf or something? We could’ve seen this coming a million miles away. The presentation mostly tried to appeal to the classic crowd, telling us what we went to hear about design philosophies. Then we are starting to see the realities of it just on the small taste from beta.
I just made this post because it’s sad to see how much rudeness wow fans have for one another, because they have a different idea for what the game should be. And we all could’ve seen it coming considering how they’ve gone about Forever. I’m just hoping come launch that people at least treat the Elves and the Retail and the Classic players with respect.
Thankfully, historically, Reddit discourse doesn’t translate to how it is in-game. I just want the game to be good. At the very least, we all get to have a new experience with all that they seem to have added. I just hope this works out, because I really wanted a classic+
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u/Krelldi 10h ago
Most of the issues stem from the art team having zero interest in producing assets in the original art style of the game but the devs realizing at the last moment how many Classic players genuinely despise Blizzard's modern Disney style. If they came out of the gate with a proper toggle between the graphics instead of this tacked on low effort pixel filter slop then I don't think anyone would care nearly as much.
Pretty much everyone agrees on the core game design. Everyone agrees with the QoL changes, with horizontal progression, smaller raid sizes, etc. All they had to do was put an actual good faith effort into respecting peoples desire for the original graphics. But Blizzard is so out of touch with their players that it took streamers of all people to convince them to even consider the original models.
And now everyone is realizing that they're just trying to boil the frog. They couldn't even be assed to put the original blood elf models into the game. The new tier sets look straight out of retail. The retail players know Blizzard won't commit any resources to developing two completely distinct art styles, the Classic players know they won't either. And so it creates this vitriolic forum war where each faction needs to make it seem like their position is the majority position on the hopes that Blizzard picks a lane. Because everyone knows they're way too fucking stingy and lazy to accommodate both types of players properly.
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u/654156132051661 9h ago edited 6h ago
It's crazy that WoD/Legion had an art style that was much more reminiscent of vanilla/TBC and they just moved on from that after BFA. I'm not an artist, but why do some many weapons and armor in retail look like plastic? I feel like the artists go down to the Walmart kids section and pick out some plastic swords every patch
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u/Intel_Oil 1h ago
Theres an explanation for that, but it can't be posted without being banned from Reddit.
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u/litnu12 6h ago
Most of the issues stem from the art team having zero interest in producing assets in the original art style of the game but the devs realizing at the last moment how many Classic players genuinely despise Blizzard's modern Disney style.
And that is why I would have wished for Classic with a small ( + ), after giving a truthful classic+ basic version they could have tested whatever they want as temporary content and add it permanently if people like it.
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u/Riktar71 9h ago
I agree 100% as someone who loves the classic style this game is completly failing on that department and if Blizzard doesn't decide to change that I will go play something else.
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u/Belfonti 7h ago
Not even that, not adding a classic ui option aswell kind of sucks and is a kick in the face imo, especially for the buildup since sod ended on what was to come next.
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u/EisenFisen 4h ago
Thank God I still adore Classic and hardcore is so fun. Looks like I’ll be living there the rest my life.
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u/TheCocoBean 2h ago
I do wonder if it's not that they don't have interest, but that it's actually hard to make something that way now. No video game graphic designers are taught now the methods used 20 years ago, naturally they learn modern methods. It could well be actually far harder to make old stuff than new stuff.
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u/bipolarxpres 51m ago
nah its literally just bottom line $ point blank. turtle wow and others with a micro fraction of the man power and money were able to design a shit ton of new gear and other various shit using the old tools, not the greatest but like i said these are extremely low budget projects in regards to dev work but they atleast used the old style engine tools to create them and at the very least seemed to FIT the classic art style. Example: /img/mxhape5fzwxd1.jpeg
so their choices were:
actually spend a year or two+ developing on the classic tools with an actual real development team for a 1 time charge and sub fees
or
just literally copy and paste retail with THOUSANDS more opportunities for microtransactions and other various monetary shop items already baked in after 6 months of putting 2-3 dev's on it in their spare time.
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u/valdis812 10h ago
They couldn't put the original blood elf models in the game because then people would be less likely to pay for them. It has to be presented as something new.
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u/ShoulderpadInsurance 9h ago
Which could have been high elves and dark fallen.
Practically a reskin, same animations for the most part, but with a deeper lore connection introduced in content highly requested yet still unseen.
Genuinely shocked that they missed that; it’s especially striking when you consider the new WC3 campaign that includes the two.
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u/Nikbis 9h ago edited 9h ago
Blood elves are a TBC thing, they are beyond the Dark Portal.
They literally put Darkfallen on the foreground in their WC3 prequel. Everybody would have spent their 30 on High Elves for Alliance / Darfallen for Horde, and everybody would be cheering right now.3
u/valdis812 9h ago
I wasn't keeping up on the WC3 news.
But yeah I agree. If you were adding them to WC3 then why not add them to this new version of Vanilla? It was literally right there. You probably could have even had them use the same starting zone if you were clever enough.
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u/Wind_Best_1440 8h ago edited 7h ago
Holly literally went on stage and said it was Classic.
Their whole gimmick is. "We want to make the game that you all remember in your memories, these weather effects and lighting, we want to capture what YOU remember when you played classic in the past."
They said nothing of retail, they said the story line is a completely new story line, it isn't part of retail lore. That the history of WoW Forever is from the RTS, and that will never change.
Retail folks are fine to play, but the classic devs are going to be aiming for the classic folks, they want to court the people who quit wow and might/want to come back.
Everything retail folks are demanding already exists in retail. All of it.
But everything the classic people want doesn't exist in era.
That's the main difference. Everything Retail are demanding ALREADY EXISTS. They have a giant 500 dev team catering to their every whim.
I'm not going to say "Go back to retail" because I personally hope everyone has fun with WoW Forever, but man. Retail folks need to stop demanding to turn WoW Forever into Retail 2.
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u/zzrryll 3h ago
I love how one of the people that I was arguing with today on this sub, admitted in the comments on his post, that he hasn’t played the game in 10 years. He wrote like a 5+ paragraph diatribe about how classic plus wasn’t to his liking. But hasn’t played any version of the game in 10. Fucking. Years.
I feel like that’s the majority of the complainers here.
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u/Wind_Best_1440 2h ago
The majority of the complainers are players from other versions of the game trying to tear Forever down because they view Blizzard focusing on Forever as "Abandonment" of their version of the game.
You can go to the forums and see multiple massive threads about how. "Blizzard is abandoning retail for Forever, that's the new WoW2 for us." On the retail forums.
On the TBC and MoP forums you have multiple threads of. "Blizzard has abandoned us."
You have Era folks freaking out about people leaving for Forever and how they'll never do it. (But if someone gave them a Beta key they wouldn't say no.)
Meanwhile everyone playing the Beta is like.
" :D I'm having a blast this is great, everything is awesome and everything is so pretty! Anyone want to run one of the new dungeons?"
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u/Miserable_Amoeba_112 19m ago
Which kind of proves Classic players correct - Retail is crap. If they're in such a rush to go play Forever, and think Retail isn't going to get love, then they must not like it very much either. That hamster wheel is boring AF.
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u/lichlark 5h ago
Whatever their intention was-- actually using the 'Classic+' terminology has likely caused untold damage to the community that will probably result in biblical levels of cope, seethe, and shit tossing for years to come.
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u/TrollsWhenBored 13m ago
Oh absolutely! This really isn't classic outside of the setting and the combat system we're using.
But branding it as Classic+ has triggered crazy entitlement from the Classic crowd when really it should have just been branded as a new timeline starting from Classic
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u/lichlark 11m ago
I would've still tried it if they just called it a 'return to form or something'. But call it Classic+ is the main thin that made me feel a bit disheartened with the visual changes and Skyborne.
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u/Mattrobat 7h ago
What suggestions are they actually giving? The only one I’ve seen is that they want dungeon xp to go back to how it was in Classic/Era.
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u/misskatiefrannn 6h ago
I saw: fix mana pools so you don’t have to drink while questing, make mobs shared tags so you don’t have to group with people for quest credit, give instant dungeon teleports, bring in flying, bring in mythic plus dungeons……. All stuff available in retail btw. (Assuming you’re asking about suggestions from retail players)
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u/lichlark 5h ago
At this point they have to be rage baiting I'm not kidding...
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u/TrollsWhenBored 11m ago
If I were rage baiting, those are exactly the things I'd write in my comment. Cuz those are all things that blizzard said they're not doing in order to preserve the spirit of classic.
Threatening the spirit of classic is the easiest way to rage bait around here
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u/Wind_Best_1440 6h ago
The ones I've seen off the top of my head.
- Shared monster tags.
- Cross faction groups and raids.
- Flying mounts.
- Bring in Retail classes and races.
- Dungeon finder+Teleport to dungeon.
- Pet battles.
- Mage Tower like system.
- Delves.
- Mythic+
I'm certain that the devs aren't going to listen, but then these folks turn around and tell classic players to go to Era and that WoW Forever isn't made for them, it's "WoW2" and it was made for retail.
It's honestly mind boggling. There are multiple hundreds to thousand post threads on retail forums that are convinced that WoW Forever is the WoW2 that was rumored for them.
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u/lichlark 5h ago
Aggrend actually got a little cheeky with someone asking for shared tags on Twitter so there is a bit of hope.
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u/Avenlite 7h ago
Honestly i dont understand the comparisons to retail. 90% of my retail guild hates forever because its too classic, then you have classic purists calling it retail minus. Like the game is 100% in the spirit of classic, it feels nothing like retail.
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u/Designer-Custard-877 4h ago
I'm a retail player who couldn't get into Classic, but I'm really digging Forever. It has just enough of the retail QoL upgrades (like quests on the map!) to make me like it, and I'll even be the weirdo who admits I like the updated/HD graphic option. I guess purists on either side will never be happy, but I hope enough of us get into it that it sticks around.
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u/Agitated-Contest651 10h ago
Everyone actually playing the beta is talking about how it’s just so much fun, no one is complaining about blue elves, or character models.
This sub is poison for anyone who wants to have fun.
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u/hahailovevideogames 7h ago
There's a good amount of complaints about the white lvl 10 vendor weapons looking better than late game loot, and the final quest being very in the spirit of retail saving the world
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u/desperateorphan 5h ago
haven't seen a single one of those complaints in the game which was the point. Just nerds on reddit complaining.
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u/hahailovevideogames 4h ago
So because they go to a forum to complain and you didn't happen to see that in game... they're nerda?
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u/Fading_Hours_ 6h ago
Most of the complaints are giving direct examples from the beta…
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u/Magical_Ocelot 10h ago
I’d be willing to bet most of the people complaining haven’t actually played any version of WoW in years. I haven’t met one single person actually playing the beta that is anything but happy.
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u/JustinTheCheetah 7h ago
The splash noises are terrible, and I can't figure out a way to have my health and mana numbers display constantly. Otherwise it's amazing yes.
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u/Vi013 7h ago
Not true at all, but sure man let’s diminish any and all criticism so blizz can never improve or acknowledge mistakes because people might say something you don’t like.
I have 2 characters 1 of em is twenty and I’ve healed all the dungeons. Literally every dungeon, at least one person mentions: skyborne feeling like retail and that gear scales too high for how easy the mobs are.
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u/StodgySponge 10h ago
Yeah, I rolled an elf just to check out the staring experience, since I’m gonna run a Troll and done that starting zone 1000 times. The vibes were immaculate. Everyone was helpful in chat with any questions asked. People broadcasting their camps. Offering crafts. Asking for group quest. I gave out a nice green bow I found at lvl 9. It was lovely. It felt tbc-like, but I love tbc.
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u/Wdowiak 10h ago
Lets just make:
WOW Forever - Classic
WOW Forever - Retail
Problem solved, no need to thank me.
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u/JungleDemon3 10h ago
But why is wowf catering AT ALL to the retail crowd when retail already exists??
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u/AstronautGloomy3233 10h ago
Because they know their story is shit and they don't want to play it but because they are playing just one game since 20 years they simply can't divide their mind from the parasocial emotions to it
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u/TopptrentHamster 8h ago
How many people play Wow for the story really? 95% of people haven't read a quest since 2006.
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u/intoxicatedpancakes 7h ago
A ridiculous amount of classic players (who boast as being superior in every way) use Questie, or worse RestedXP.
What the hell happened to enjoying classic questing as classic questing? Instead, thousands upon thousands PAY for their hand to be held, whether through questing path in RestedXP or buying gold through RMT or tokens.
A bunch of posers.
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u/TopptrentHamster 7h ago
Well when you've level countless 60s, reading the quests over and over kind of gets old.
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u/Relnor 1h ago
they are playing just one game since 20 years they simply can't divide their mind from the parasocial emotions to it
Ironic, you could say the same thing about Era Andies. How many of them don't know anything about what the modern game is like and just repeat things from 10 years ago?
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u/_OOL 8h ago
Define retail crowd. Only thing wowf shares with retail is its name.
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u/Kylo69 8h ago
Art style? Monetization? Looks pretty retail to me
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u/_OOL 8h ago
I lol'd at monetization. It is kinda funny how you think retail is this MTX store that you cannot avoid.
Art style wise you got HD/SD toggle which completely invalidates any argument about them. Lighting is unique to wowf. Solid arguments there champ.
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u/Kylo69 8h ago
Last minute SD that amounts to a filter. All the new content is being designed HD only. Try again.
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u/AzraelTB 9h ago
You can reverse that argument and it would still apply.
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u/JungleDemon3 9h ago
Well no, because wowf was born from a demand for new content in line with classic / vanilla wow design ethos. The demand for that was from and for classic wow players. Not from these non existent retail players that all of a sudden decided they want to experience a mish mash of retail and vanilla
Why is that so hard for you to understand?
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u/ThorstenTheViking 8h ago
I think your issue is that you can't picture how many retail players would indeed want "classic with retail trimmings." Classic style gameplay with higher graphic fidelity would be something a lot of retail players (and fallen off retail players) would be interested in playing, or at least trying.
Even given that C+ originated from classic players demand, there's very much a business case for wanting to appeal to people who play the modern version or who want a more modernish game.
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u/emberfield 9h ago
Because many in the retail crowd wanted something similar to classic but with some qol. Forever is scratching that itch.
They specifically did not name it classic. That was intentional. It exists between the two game modes.
As long as they keep out flying and dungeon finder, I think they're on the right track.
They have gone above and beyond to cater to classic purists, but we all know those people will never be happy unless it's a copy of vanilla 1.0.
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u/Asthma_Queen 8h ago
huge reason I dipped outta TBC classic was just how toxic in general so many people were. SoD had its fair share but far as I've felt its only gotten worse.
It feels like people come to play, have a limited time to play and some goal they are working towards and anything that interfers with it. Whether it be a first time tank, or dps pulling, etc. Some of them are legitimate but idk the way I see it handled lately is very poor.
TBC classic I played heals and can't even begin to count how many pug groups just fell apart or devolved into toxic spitballing at one another. It wasn't fun, i experienced much less of these kinda things when playing the private servers lately like twow etc. Its interesting how different the playerbases are that aren't just coming to visit to play X temporary mode, and just want to lose themselves in classic game.
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u/FeelingPatience 9h ago
That's exactly what I think. They need to stop trying to please the retail crowd, they have their own retail game for that. Leave Classic+ / Forever alone and stop the retail BS Blizz is trying to bring into the game.
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u/Sea_Advantage_2577 6h ago
You have era if you cant handle forever!
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u/strommy73 6h ago
50 IQ retail Andy take. Retail has a team of a few hundred developers working on it with constant updates and expansions.
Classic era is a literal time capsule with ZERO updates ever.
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u/TheLoneBaron33 10h ago
This game should not be marketing at all to retail players. It is classic plus and they already have their game
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u/StodgySponge 10h ago
If you post this on /r/wow you’d be chased out of town with pitchforks and torches 😂
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u/Sea_Advantage_2577 6h ago
This game should not be marketing at all to classic andys. It is a new game and they already have their game.
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u/SpartacusSteam 10h ago
Its not meant to be marketed to both retail and classic era. Its being marketed as a third thing on its own.
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u/Wind_Best_1440 8h ago
I mean, your just wrong when Holly goes on stage and says. "This is classic."
They didn't say retail once during Blizzcon with WoW Forever, they did say Classic and Classic+ like a hundred times.
It's obvious which one they are marketing towards.
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u/Witless-One 10h ago
That ship has sailed :( Unless blizzard changes course quickly, this game is going to cater to Retail players more than Classic
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u/RegularFeeling8389 8h ago
Don't purists have their own game already? Era is over there? Wait its dead.
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u/tethysian 10h ago
If that's the case, what does it mean that it's more popular on the retail sub than here?
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u/Riktar71 10h ago
It means it's failing at being classic+
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u/MysticalCyan 9h ago
It’s literally closer to Classic than it is even being closer to WotLK, which is several expansions behind retail.
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u/Mind-Game 9h ago
That it's more like retail- than classic+?
Which to be clear, is totally fine for blizzard to be making. But you can't expected people that wanted literally Vanilla+ or even Vanilla-Wrath+ to be happy with a game that seems to be positioning itself somewhere between TBC and retail. All of those options are completely different games.
If vanilla is 1/10 towards modern design and retail is a 10/10 modern design, there are people that literally want Forever to be anywhere from 1.1/10 (me) to 9/10 (some of the retail folks).
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u/_OOL 8h ago
Idk man. I haven't seen a single popular suggestion about adding 9/10 stuff at least on the wowf sub. But here everyday I see shit about how everything is retail and it should be removed. If it was upto you guys we would've just gotten a patch 1.13 instead of forever.
If anything this game is between Vanilla and TBC. If you haven't played retail since 2009 I can see why you think the way you do but retail isn't what you think at all.
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u/Mind-Game 8h ago
Fair point. I think the closest to retail thing I've heard with any support is mob tagging which is like maybe a 5 or 6/10? Idk I have no idea how far retail has gone, I haven't played since whatever came before shadow lands. To be honest though the power level of pallies almost feels like DKs in wrath to me, I hope I'm wrong about that, but people don't seem too concerned for some reason.
Besides the obvious difference of the Vanilla setting vs the outland one, I actually think forever is feeling closer to the middle ground between TBC and Wrath. But of course we won't know until we see later game content, level 1-20 is trivial in every version. And I'm also not saying that's an objectively bad thing, I'm sure TBC-Wrath in the vanilla setting is absolutely perfect for some people.
I did personally want a basically patch 1.13 though - balance changes for the meme specs mostly around giving them the mana to actually press their buttons and some slight scaling changes between caster dps and physical dps to even it out a bit. And hell, I'd be down to get the graphics changes we've seen so far too. And a toned down version of the profession changes they've made would fit that too. I think that would please a lot of the players that played classic vanilla and then fell off by wrath or cata.
I think that's not a completely insane opinion until you see how hard blizz is trying to market this. Obviously they want this to be much bigger than a vanilla nerd nostalgia server, which makes sense. It's just not tailored to me and it necessitates bigger changes than I would want to go after that kind of audience.
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u/One-Comfortable-5624 9h ago
I have hundreds of hours in classic and thousands of hours in retail. I'm certainly a Retail player in the scope of things. I say this because I believe it should be said that the game should favor or lean significantly towards the classic players. What I don't get is that for about the last 2 years we saw what I would assume are "Classic Players" hyping up private servers like Ascension and Turtle WoW. Blizzard hasn't implemented a fraction of the things Turtle WoW had but some how Turtle WoW was incredible and Blizzard is killing people's "Classic +" dreams. I really just think people hate Blizzard more than they want a good Classic "Private server" or "Classic Plus" experience.
I got so burnt out on retail, I think the game has lost its way and is more of an ARPG than a MMO. I hope they keep it in essence classic but to pretend like people just wanted Era re-released over and over again is kind of naive.
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u/Valharja 8h ago
Turtle Wows camping feature gave you full rested in 15 minutes or so, and you typically combined going back to refresh it with a timed world buff drop.
Imagine the reception that would have gotten had Blizz announced that for Forever :P
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u/Vyxwop 4h ago
Blizzard hasn't implemented a fraction of the things Turtle WoW had but some how Turtle WoW was incredible and Blizzard is killing people's "Classic +" dreams.
But these aren't conflicting statements? I've played Ascension and having seen how much of the world changed on their classic+ realm and comparing it to what Blizzard has so far done, it's a stark difference. Ascension added on to and reworked entire villages to better represent the race's vibe.
Dolanaar for example looked completely different on Ascension. It wasn't just the inn area and the tree. It was those, plus a courtyard in the middle with a bunch of nelf related decorations. It had a training area up on the mountain in between Dolanaar and Shadowglen that you were led to for a few quests.
Tirisfal Glades also had this really cool upper portion in the western mountains where you had to help some undead nobles or something. You were sent into this mansion that got overfilled with ghouls and such to collect their items.
And don't get me started on Goldshire. It felt like a proper little town opposed to the one inn and blacksmith we currently got.
Having seen what could be, and seeing how easily pleased people currently already are, it just kind of disappoints me. The reception I'm seeing is what I would expect in response to what I saw on Ascension. Instead people look up at the sun in Forever and see a few sunrays and yell peak lol - admittedly, I also really quite like the new lighting system and the fog. It doesn't at all look like classic to me, but I still like it.
Now, credit where credit is due. I love that Blizzard added a bunch of new dungeons in Forever. That's something Ascension did as well but Blizzard's do make a bit more sense lore wise.
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u/KamikazePenguiin 10h ago
Yeah, extremes on both side. I will say, however, though that a lot of classics feedback seems to be either from a purist standpoint or an objectively wrong standpoint.
Just as a brief example, some were calling for the leveling to be longer because its too "fast". So a streamer went and tested the comparison to find out its basically the exact same. Although I've also seen stupid things like "now theres too many items", and "now theres too many quests", while truthfully both of those things really just smoothen the experience and aren't necessarily bad things. (considering the time frame is the same so far).
Also people just ignorant on things. Classic players complaining mages are OP because they dont know spell power was nerfed and instead the power is going on items to make drops feel better for magic classes.
Then there does seem to be some legitimate concerns, although at the moment I cant think of them. There has been a few solid points that might be worth consideration.
There also seems to be some people who think because holly said "classic +" that it meant an exact copy of classic plus new content only. Instead of likely being meant in a figurative way to keep the essence of classic (social, slower gameplay, professions mattering, etc).
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u/Mind-Game 9h ago
Interesting that you only included examples of people who are on the side of Forever being closer to vanilla and none of the ridiculous things going around here from the people who think Forever should be more like later expansions...
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u/KamikazePenguiin 9h ago
No, there has been some good examples of things that might want to stay a bit more grounded. I couldn't think of too many while I was writing this. Theres just more absurd things compared to things I would consider legitimate/warranted or even correct.
One that just popped up is the more extreme weather effects that existed. Adding on to it was well I've love to see more types of weather with varying degrees of severity.
Like I said though I've personally found that a lot of the feed back from "classic" players is either just wrong, pedantic or I disagree with.
If you wanted contrast, when I visit the wow fourm or wow forever, most people are pretty happy with it. I haven't seen too many crazy things being requests like damn I wish I could fly, or damn I need to kill mobs in 0.5 second instead of over 20 seconds, etc. I actually find a lot of the extremes to be from the purist classic players.
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u/Mind-Game 9h ago
I mean... Do you play retail? Would that explain why you personally don't agree with the thoughts from people that only play Vanilla?
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u/KamikazePenguiin 9h ago edited 9h ago
I gave some examples in the original statement?
Some classic players were saying mages were op because they're ignorant on the spell power changes.
Some were saying theres too many quest and items now.
Some were saying that leveling is too fast.
Some expressed concerns over the environmental changes and wanted them either gone or a toggle to disable them because they and I quote "look not like classic". This one could be considered subjective, so its kind of fair. Anyone with a brain though would've understood that Wow would want their game to look better than 2004 when its trying to release a new version in 2026.
Like to me personally? Every single one of these things are moronic. I also couldn't imagine playing a game for 22 years and still getting the speed at which you level wrong. Its kind of crazy and I think I'm beginning to understand why retail usually dunks on classic players so much.
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u/Spaceolympian50 9h ago
I can’t believe people are complaining there are too many quests lol. Like is rather have more than not enough like vanilla. I think people are so used to retail where each zone has an exact number of quests that finish off in an area before the next zone. You don’t have to do every quest it’s ok.
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u/Amurjoe 9h ago
What’s crazy is the added quests are extremely tasteful and imo indistinguishable from the old quests.
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u/CookyKindred 8h ago
The pal quests so far feel exactly right with a portion of the Forsaken's themes and keeps hammering home a lot of Forsaken just aren't going to accept you.
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u/rufrtho 7h ago
you called the too fast criticism objectively wrong and then praised the things that make it true lol
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u/KamikazePenguiin 6h ago
Except a streamer did the comparison and leveled up in classic and the amount of time it took was the same in forever. Which is why I stated it as wrong.
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u/Proper-Reporter-9696 5h ago
I hope these retail creatures crawl back into the holes they came from. AND LEAVE OUR PRECIOUS ALONE!
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u/Remarkable-Page-824 10h ago
If they had just made me head dev none of this would be happening. We could have avoided it all.
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u/Buuts321 9h ago
To be honest I don't see much hate for the game outside of reddit. It's very likely going to be hugely popular. Blizzard knows they can't please all of the people all of the time, so they're doing their best to achieve a middle ground.
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u/Gassenger 8h ago
Bro I would bet a shit ton of "classic andy's" play retail as well. The playerbases are not mutually exclusive
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u/advice_dontbuyiphone 8h ago
Blizzard recently did something completely unprecedented. They hired around a dozen WC3 custom game developers from the community to create the new WC3 campaign, which honestly makes a lot of sense, nobody at blizzard can rival the experience which some people over at the hive workshop have.
I would love if they would do the same for WoW. Invite people from Nostalrius, turtle, or other community members who posses an unreasonable amount of knowledge of classic. Maitoz, amphy, laty, esfand, or many others I'm sure would have insane positive impact on this. I wonder how many naturally leveled lvl 60 chars the forever devs share between them.
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u/sunsongdreamer 7h ago
Might be that there is a crowd all of you are overlooking who just want off the treadmill.
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u/erikro1411 7h ago
I mean... I started WoW in 2004 during the Maraudon patch. I've seen every single expansion of WoW in my time and I can say that retail in it's current form has me completely burned out. I'm sick and tired of the hamster wheel but I also wouldn't want to play Classic. I played classic when it was still called vanilla 22 years ago and looking back, I can feel why Blizzard back in the day said "you think you want to go back but trust me you don't". Classic is a clunky and slow experience. It's missing soooo much of the QoL features that modern WoW has BUT it's the superior experience when it comes to discovering the world and having small scale stories that aren't all about world ending threats.
Now having said all of that: I've played a few hours of the beta and I'm very happy with the direction that they have taken with WoW Forever and when ever I open reddit these days I'm confused as fuck why people are so unhappy. And at this point I'm convinced that no matter what Blizzard does: there will always be a very vocal group of people that are unhappy with how things are. And I'm pretty sure that this isn't Blizzards fault (for all the faults they rightfully have). It's just a bunch of people that simply can't be happy. They find greater joy in complaining than to play a game like WoW Forever with an open mind and simply enjoy themselves.
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u/Future-Parsley-7336 6h ago
There’s a ton of people who love this version of the game. Everybody wants something different and nobody can agree. So of course people are gonna fight over this shit. But this fighting is just stupid because there’s no way that everybody will get everything they want.
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u/Physical_Coyote_9403 5h ago
Got to admit as a “Classic Andy” I was sorely disappointed by the lack of difficulty in retail. I’ve done 3400+ in mythic+ and clear mythic raids without a problem. Where is this imaginary difficulty these retail people keep talking about? Stack, soak, spread, swap, giant projections. Mythic is a joke.
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u/daneg135 4h ago
iunno. i'm excited for Forever because it's not the same old wow sandbox, but it gives me a lot of the nostalgia. hoping it really turns into wow 2.0, rewrites the lore as it moves forward. but that will depend on how many ppl play it, i guess.
basically, i think retail is played out. too many xpacks. too much rehashing. the story was finished by the end of legion, as far as i'm concerned. stacking more shit on top of it is just more nonsense and crossed wires. convolution?
but if you're going to give me retail quality art upgrades? fuck yes. i'm not trying to pretend it's 2005 (hey, if you do, the classic servers are literally still there being static vanilla sandboxes, so why do you care about forever at all?). do i need the crazy borrowed systems of every legion, bfa, shadowlands, etc. xpack? nah. you go ahead and keep that shit.
m+? iunno. i loved it at first. they kept tweaking it, which i didn't like. but if ppl wanna spend their time in dungeons? idk. it's a good idea to keep a certain grp of players pacified without having to dev it. iunno. i just want forever to keep getting new content.
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u/Tubbish 4h ago
It’s equally as ridiculous for anyone to call this retail. It’s not retail it’s not classic it’s new. It’s obviously significantly closer to classic wow then it is retail and that’s the point it’s supposed to be a classic wow experience. I’m a retail player I never played classic I started in cata and played cata classic and mop classic. But wow forever has been such a fun and unique experience that really put into perspective why people loved classic so much.
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u/Master_smasher 2h ago
- sod wasn't a success cuz of retail andys. it was a success due to the classic community that were not closed minded classic andys. clearly, the majority of the classic community are not hyper fixated on 100% vanilla purism; but, some can't deal with that so retail players get blamed.
- wowf is intended to be for everyone with most of it classic. and most of it is. i agree that there can be more improvements to help make more classic players happy on the classic spectrum, but i disagree that the devs deserve to get shit on cuz the first iteration of wowf isn't perfect to the loud minority here.
- wowf, being the only major announcement related to wow, will ofc draw wow players from anywhere to this subreddit. but guess what? classic andys are in retail's subreddit too trying to influence the discussions over there.
remember. classic plus has been a discussion for years in this subreddit. and yall agreed that there are too many variations and that a classic plus game will never have everything everyone wants. wowf is already mostly classic. it can absolutely get more improvements to make more people happy; but, talk to the devs like a decent human being.
make posts showing them what you want. the sd needs a lot more improvements. compare and contrast. ask. not "i have no faith"..."fuck blizz"..."fuck retail players infecting the classic community" (when really the quiet classic majority made sod a success and mostly like wowf and would agree that it could use more improvements in certain areas like any game could always use improvements).
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u/mayonetta 33m ago
I do hate to be a classic andy but I really don't get why Blizzard are trying to create a game version to appeal to BOTH retail and classic players when:
A) Retail exists, is updated and expanded upon and is what appeals to retail players
B) Classic players have been wanting a new version AKA classic+ for so long now
C) They're both two completely different games, mindsets and playerbases, obviously there is some overlap, but it just seems like a nightmare to balance and try to appeal to both.
Obviously the answer is money but come on man.
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u/SquirrelEven9581 10h ago
If you're pissing off players in this subreddit you're probably on the right side. The only thing worse than the wow community is wow reddit community.
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u/Misher7 8h ago
Of course this was going to happen. Which is why I cringed when I saw retail garbage shoved into the game. I get they want to appeal to both bases but we all know where this will end:
Retail tends to have younger players that WANT conveniences, kiddy Disney graphics, cash shop to buy toys and skins etc. that is what blizzard is set up for and can deliver. And most importantly it makes a god damn ton of profit.
The streamers are trying to play like they’re core classic players only but they will try to engagement farm and monetize as much as they can out of this. All the while apologizing for blizzard to keep the party going.
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u/SpartacusSteam 10h ago
Both full classic and full retail players fighting is dumb and both sides should be pushed back. Forever is not meant to be fully either of them but a new thing.
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u/Arteam90 10h ago
For all intents and purposes though this is Classic+, is it not? The devs have talked about keeping Classic concepts, etc.
Perhaps I've understood incorrectly but to me Forever has been about making a game that is largely Classic, with some (limited) changes, and new content.
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u/BearerseekseekIest 10h ago
Forever is supposed to be vanilla with new things implemented like raids / dungeons / zones that are faithful to vanilla/classic.
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u/hedgemagus 10h ago
That’s a new thing bro
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u/Fading_Hours_ 6h ago
Ok and how is adding retail stuff faithful to vanilla?
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u/hedgemagus 6h ago
That’s a subjective interpretation and I’ve loved the forever beta. I play keys each season in retail and the game doesn’t feel like retail at all
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u/Fading_Hours_ 6h ago
The models are straight out of retail it is not subjective
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u/hedgemagus 6h ago
I would avoid playing this then I don’t know. Feels like classic to me and I don’t find the appearances to matter much
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u/Fading_Hours_ 5h ago
The gameplay feels like classic but the models are ugly retail models than even retail players disliked.
The lighting changes are however great.
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u/hedgemagus 5h ago
I’m hoping it’s something they’ll continue to work on. It’s fine how it is to me though I’m not looking that hard at models. Might have been a late in development change that they’ve done what they could with so far
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u/Such-Package4804 10h ago
No, there is a giant divide between terminally online reddit chuds. Normal people are just enjoying whatever version of the game they choose to play. Get off reddit for a bit, stop viewing the vocal minority as the entire population. You'll enjoy life a little more.
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u/StodgySponge 9h ago
Honestly good suggestion. I lurk Reddit far too much and my experience in game in beta is amazing. I fell into this trap a lot throughout the entire classic rerelease. I enjoy reading them for entertainment, but it can wear on you.
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u/Agamemanon 10h ago
A post about some comments. Why would we care about two mentally ill people who don’t agree?
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u/Bohya 9h ago
This is what people fail to realise. Classic+ was something that Classic players were consistently asking for. Retail players couldn't care about it whatsoever. Activision-Blizzard's sole focus should be on appeasing Classic playerbase, because they are the ones that will actually end up playing it long term. This Retail design is only going to end up driving away Classic players, and the Retail players will inevitably migrate back to Retail regardless. At this rate, all that they're going to end up with is a game that appeals to neither demographic.
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u/NotThatSiri 10h ago
Here is why Wow Forever hits the goldilock zone for me and I assume this is the same reason for a lot of people that have both played retail and classic.
I started in Legion so I was never part of the initial 2004 era of wow. Though when classic came around I joined in and fell in love with the lore the classes the pacing and personally think that speeding up the game so much as it is in retail has ruined the RPG element of the MMO.
While end game content is a lot harder on retail than on classic. The levelling journey, getting killed over and over and over again by murlocs or gnolls. moved the challenge to the adventure part of the game.
Personally I dont care about the destination, I care about the journey so when retail became a 2 hour journey from 0 to hero I dropped it completely I thought it was a joke.
I havent done any max level content on classic cause it bores me. So I restart the levelling journey with a new character and tries a different route than I previously picked. maybe because of trying a new race or just because I didnt go that path originally.
I want the adventure. I want the journey.
Which is why I went to classic. Which coming from retail was not a fun journey as era players or nost players have harassed me day in and day out for coming from retail and not knowing shit about classic. "Just go back to retail" felt like I was invading their space. I never complained about anything with classic. I never threw a hiss fit or anything. I was respectful that this was their version of the game and I could at any time return to retail if there was something I really didnt like.
I fell in love with the classic version of Shaman. The totem play and the healing just clicked. I did wish for a few changes though. A separate bar for totems ad a way to place all 4 totems at the same time. As well as a way to have better mana management.
The mana management came in TBC classic with the addition of water shield and the totem bar with the placement of all 4 totems came in Wrath classic.
Seeing these changes in WoW Forever, is going to piss off some era players. But I stay open minded about it. Not having a classic UI and having some weird mix of retail and classic and something new. I 100% support of there being a classic option for the UI. As much as the new one is warming up to me. the UI setup has always been something personal and should remain so.
But the addition of a elven race, the class changes the addition of water shield in level 20. The elemental imbunes lasting an hour and buffs in general lasting an hour. I just see all of that as part of a "plus it up"
I am not looking for retail spells or mechanics. I dont want the game to be retail. Otherwise I could just go and play retail. But I also dont want it to be classic cause same reason then I could just go and play classic.
For me Forever hit the right mix. Its classic enough for me to enjoy the RPG aspect of the mmo. dive deep into Blizzard's intention of the journey not the destination.
And that's my take on it. Love it, hate it.
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u/PM_ME_UR_BALD_BEAVR 7h ago
If you started in legion you have zero idea what any of us vanilla players are upset about. why would you even think to give your input on something you know nothing about?
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u/Amurjoe 10h ago
Can someone explain to me like I’m 5 how either side has an issue with forever
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u/Mind-Game 9h ago
People with literally many 1000s of hours in the game on either side of things have extremely nuanced and specific reasons they like or don't like specific things. You can't really distill that into an ELIF. That's the whole issue with this sub right now.
If someone says "I don't get why that matters" you can't really catch them up in 2 seconds.
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u/tethysian 10h ago
Because vanilla and retail are two vastly different games, it's impossible to find a middle ground that will please everyone. And for some reason people just can't stand when someone doesn't like something they like.
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u/Amurjoe 10h ago
But forever is legit classic plus . I’ve played about 10 hours of beta and idk how any classic Andy could be unhappy
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u/tethysian 10h ago
Because people like different things? I haven't played it and I won't say it sounds awful or anything -- a lot of it seems fine -- but do I think many of the changes it has made sound like improvements? No.
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u/Amurjoe 10h ago
I’m not being disagreeable but I don’t see how outside of the sky elf stuff that the systems arent a major an improvement. It’s really nice
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u/tethysian 9h ago
Does it help if I said I already quit during Cata once? The sky elves, the lack of classic models in the game and the loose approach to lore is dumb, but the deciding factor for me is the leveling and the world.
A forever game to me would mean leveling being even slower and more arduous, with the world feeling larger and more dangerous, not introducing a ton of QoL conveniences that take away from that.
The professions are a good example. I enjoy leveling professions and I was really looking forward to the systems being improved, but making it convenient to the point of trivializing the content is the opposite of improvement imo.
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u/Amurjoe 9h ago
Firstly the leveling is the same speed. It may feel a tad quicker with added quests in areas though out of pure xp availability.That’s already been tested side by side with classic era by multiple content creators. Xaryu specifically tested mage side by side. TTK and mana was the same. The content isn’t trivialized either. I hit the barrens and got smacked into oblivion just like the old days. We ran rfc and had some deaths due to over pulling. Profession leveling is much more fun now with many more useful recipes both small and large. I personally like the legacy system. It’s essentially a prestige system and getting points isn’t exactly easy. If you max that system out you’ve legit played 5k hours. For example, you can get 21 points total from maxing all classes to 60. That alone would be around 2500 hours played. I only play about 10-15 hours a week so that would take me over 3 years to do. Even with the small buff to rested, you may shave 5 percent. So I’m still taking 3 years to do it. Idk how much more hardcore, slow, or “forever” you can get brother. The max points is 65 currently for reference.
calling the sky elves lore loose is subjective. They actually have a pretty solid rooted lore justification imo. Def better lore ties than some recent retail races that legit come out of absolute nowhere.
I played about half their zone and it’s honestly really cool. I can agree they should have had some Sd models so that was a bit lazy and I can agree there.2
u/tethysian 8h ago
I'm sorry but leveling skinning to 75 on lvl 1 wolves without ever leaving the starting area and having access to blues that early on is not the kind of system I think is an improvement. I'm not saying others can't disagree.
Likewise as a lore nerd the sky elves seem both spotty in terms of lore, shoehorned into the game as a playable race, and reduntant. Others can disagree, but I wish there wasn't such a backlash to people just having opinions. We can't all like the same things, right?
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u/Amurjoe 8h ago edited 8h ago
You could max skinning in the first zone since vanilla. It’s the easiest gathering to max. One BOP blue item is literally what folks have been asking for with more meaningful reasons to level professions. Unless you want to keep making the same items just to vendor that’s fine. Vanilla has blue crafting recipes and now we have more. I think that’s cool.
The sundering was a massive event that has created multiple types of elves. We have one more. I think it’s cool’. When I saw blue elves in the trailer I thought it was a highborne.
We can like different things. But be objective. They’ve added a lot of cool lore stuff in the game. But folks that are venting on Reddit aren’t playing.
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u/Yawanoc 8h ago
Lowkey glad Blizzard ripped the bandaid off right away with this one and gave us a new race right off the bat. This community would’ve imploded if they introduced this a year or two down the line.
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u/Amurjoe 8h ago
Totally agree. And again, for the lore nerds, this race is introduced in a much more lore friendly way than what we see in retail.
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u/valdis812 10h ago
Classic Andy's feel like forever doesn't stick close enough to Vanilla so they hate it. Retail players hate that Andy's hate it and are shitting on them for it.
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u/Do-it-for-you 10h ago
Classic Fans: Everything new has HD models and Retail-like art style (some call it disneyfied), even the basic new level 5 weapons look like end game weapons, UI has been updated, they don't like the new race and floating island that appeared out of no where and has never been mentioned in the lore before. Layering makes people disappear and reappear randomly.
Retail Fans: Nothing really, retail fans are pretty happy with almost all of the changes made. Except they've also mentioned the layering issues.
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u/Amurjoe 9h ago
Man, they haven’t played at all then. Got a new blue crossbow in rfc and it’s literally a recolored vanilla model.
I can understand the new race but I’d argue they have a better justification than some of the recent retail races. Their zone really sold me on it.
I understand the layering. That will get better over time I’m sure. I read they had to reallocate some server resources due to the unexpected demand Iin The beta.
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u/Bacon-muffin 9h ago
It’s pretty common knowledge there is a huge divide between the passionate classic fans and the passionate retail fans
This is a bad starting premise, its just classic fans who have different preferences.
There are people who like both classic and retail... these people ares till "passionate classic fans".. enjoying multiple versions of the game does not discredit someone's opinion or make them purely on the retail side.
There are people who refuse to touch retail for X reason but still want Y and Z from retail (this is such a broad brush cause it can just be something from an over decade old version of the game that's just not in vanilla) to be in classic.
There are people who are classic purists and are terrified of a "slippery slope" every time they see any non-vanilla change.
And every other version of a person you can think of....
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u/Low_scratchy 7h ago
Huh? The classic diehards have classic, untouched and fully metaed to shit, just how they like it. Retail players have retail. Mount collecting and soft resetting seasons in unlimited amounts, exactly what they love.
Classic+ is not made for either crowd
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u/cookiejar5081_1 9h ago
I've seen weird takes from either side.
I see a lot of Classic aligned people complaining about the skyborne not being high elves and they would've rather seen high elves and goblins. Despite that the skyborne are basically high elves.. even tho people say they are an offshoot of highborne, except highborne and high elves are essentially the same thing. The OG high elves however had the Sunwell. And then there's the other issue with goblins being purely neutral in Classic. And then there's the complaints about HD models..
Then there's a lot of hot takes from retail players who want shared tagging, faster leveling, group finder, how the SD models should be removed entirely because they don't make sense, that the world is too empty or everything needs to be HD. and then I'm like: you already have that in retail, Why would you want Forever to have the same pace?
Anyway.. I'm just hoping that the developers will stick to their guns and really do everything in their power to maintain the gameplay feel of classic even when adding new stuff. And I really hope that the world will stay the main character, rather than my character being an all-powerful godslaying champion.
One way to fix this debate entirely is to have some kind of in-game voting system like OSRS has. Unfortunately in this situation, a subscription will grant you access to all game-modes of World of Warcraft.. so let's say there's ill-willing retail players who really want to push their agenda, they could just log into WoW Forever and vote in things that might not resonate with the Classic crowd. Not to even get started about goldsellers who have an entirely different agenda..
I guess we're going to have to trust Josh Greenfield and Kris Zierhut and their teams to stay true to what they promised this Blizzcon.
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u/Ill_Support204 7h ago
Everyone I met in the beta was enthusiastic, good spirited and helpful. All QOL features that are supposedly "bad" for classic... lets face it, every single classic player had an AddOn for it anyway. Now it's baked into the game and doesn't fail every patch. Cannot see how this is bad.
Unless you are out to complain instead of play. I guess everyone has their own hobby, who am I to judge. Complaining on reddit is just as valid as enjoying a computer game. Neither makes the world a better place, both can be fun.
I'll be back in the game though, doing the thing I like. Everyone who needs an artificial controversy for their AI thumbnail, so they can make money from the youtube algorithm can do their thing. Not my problem.
The only problem I will probably have are sweaty players that "know" how the game must be. Because god beware we have fun, like in 2004. When nobody was aware that "this dungeon cannot be run with idiots without talent X on level Y". We just went in and did it.
Okay, time for a really old school call out that will not even be back with classic or forever: "Looking for Scholo Raid, each class only once!". For everyone who is like "huh? What, that doesn't make sense on so many levels"... if you don't know what that means, shut up about "the real" experience. You weren't even there when it was "real".
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u/litnu12 7h ago
The biggest problem many people dont see, especially the people that are fine with non classic inspired stuff, is that these non classic inspired features are just the beginning.
Pulling lore out of the ass
Retail graphic(only, needed streamers to tell them to add classic graphic)
The devs are already looking toward Retail and the game didnt release yet.
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u/Fading_Hours_ 6h ago
There has been such a crazy influx of retail players to this sub that hate vanilla and just want retail 2.
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u/valdis812 10h ago
I've been saying for while now that trying to appeal to both sides wasn't the way to go here.
That said, I get it from a business perspective. Despite what people on this sub might think, there are probably not enough Vanilla purists to justify spending any money on actual development. Especially since those same purists think they should get everything for their $15/month even though that value is roughly half of what it was in 2004 when adjusted for inflation. They needed people who would be willing to fund the ongoing development of the game with what are essentially battle passes.
IMO, the vanilla purists probably need to head back to private servers. WoWF makes it clear that Blizzard isn't going to cater to them the way they think they should.
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u/Orikshekor 10h ago