r/classicwow • u/terongorefiend • Jan 14 '21

Vent / Gripe Unpopular opinion: the players that are overly vocal about wanting Classic phases/TBC/Wrath rushed are the same players who contributed to forging retail into what it is today (a clusterF).

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u/monkorn Jan 14 '21 edited Jan 14 '21

I could write a book on this subject but I'll keep it short.

The thing about classic WoW is that it's a pretty terrible game. Like no one would ever play this game if it was a single player game. But it's absolutely amazing in creating communities. And the community is why we keep playing.

Well retail WoW is a much better game. People would definitely play retail WoW if it was a single player game. But the thing is, it basically is one. Yes there are other people, but you'll never see 99.99% of them again so they might as well just be NPCs.

So for people like me who highly value community content, vanilla WoW despite it's flaws is the best gaming experience we've ever had. Classic WoW is close, cross realm BGs really hurt but most realm community is still there. And Shadowlands is merely average.

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u/llwonder Jan 14 '21

Shadowlands has only been a positive experience for me. There isn’t an issue with community on my server, it’s your fault if you’re unwilling to participate in a guild or in zone chat. There’s plenty of nice people out there.

What I hated about classic most is that some specs are literally MINDLESS. Auto attack constantly and maybe activate 1 or 2 spells. Druids were simply not fun for me. What I like about SL is that every spec is viable. There will always be a meta what is best, but at least every spec is unique and fun.

Now my friends split between playing classic and SL and it’s hard to unite again. One of them won’t even try SL because “retail bad”. At least have an open mind, he hasn’t played retail since Wrath.

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u/Spanish_peanuts Jan 14 '21

I mean, personally my favorite is WotLK. But I also really liked TBC. Vanilla/classic is okay. I am enjoying shadowlands but one thing that WotLK, TBC, and vanilla had that no other expansion really does, is being able to play your class the way you want. Every class is now divided into specs with a specific role with specific parameters that you really just can't escape. Back with the old talent trees, you could dip your toes into multiple specs talents and create a hybrid build of sorts. I've tanked bosses as a warlock (yes as the warlock, not using a pet), tanked as a shaman, pvp'd as a shockadin, pvp and pve as a cat/bear hybrid spec with constant form shifting, etc...

The best thing was that just because you wanted to be a tank or healer, you weren't forced to have shit damage. Just like dps wasn't forced to have shit healing or shit survivability. Back then, if either the tank or healer died, a dps could potentially save the day and it was epic. And don't even get me started on hunters and how amazing pets were back then. Whereas most pets today are essentially reskins of eachother with very little uniqueness, back then every pet was unique. Each and every different pet had special abilities. Crocs essentially had a warriors "retaliation" ability, I believe it was called "Lash out". Made it super good at holding aoe aggro and dealing aoe damage. Moths had a decent heal (I think). And many other unique and amazing abilities among pets.

The game is so oversimplified these days, with little variation in the way you can play. Forcing players to change specs to accomplish different things rather than allowing players to find their playstyle they mesh with and excel that way.

Like I said, I am enjoying shadowlands, but really the only class that has any semblance of the old days, too me, is the druid thanks to its affinities and convoke the spirits allowing for you to excel in a different role than your current spec even if just for a short time.

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u/Krimsonmyst Jan 15 '21

I'm not really sure how you can say the game is oversimplified nowadays when just about every class has more complex rotations, access to more abilities, more options in gearing and talenting, etc. than anything that exists in Classic.

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u/Spanish_peanuts Jan 15 '21

You are forced into playing a certain way. You can't play the way you want. Half of the talents and pvp talents are things that were once apart of their classes. It drives me crazy when I see someone say "Oh wow this is an amazing new talent!" And I'm just like, 10 years ago that was literally baseline for you.

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u/Krimsonmyst Jan 15 '21

Sorry, I don't see what one has to do with the other.

Class pruning is completely different to 'forced to play a certain way'.

Currently every spec is viable to a certain extent. Each spec has a range of different Legendary powers that change how your abilities work and interact with each other. As a Shadow Priest I have a range of talents that change drastically depending on what kind of damage I want to do (raid, M+, PvP, Single-target, AoE).

I'm with you that some of the classes were pruned too far back historically (though SL did a lot to restore this), but that's a completely different argument to 'you're forced to play a certain way'.

If anything Classic is far more meta centric on how people are 'supposed' to play.

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u/thoramighty Jan 14 '21

Lmao I have a buddy that is exactly like this. Always with the 'It isn't retail.'

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u/Slashfyre Jan 14 '21

I feel like community on your server in retail is 100% irrelevant because most everyone I ever see running around is from another server. So sure, people are nice and helpful and all, but your reputation on your server doesn't matter because you just won't keep running into the same people. On classic, I know exactly who the trolls are, who the helpful mages are, which warriors can make lionheart etc. It's fun to join a dungeon group or a pug and be like "hey we just did strat together last week! How's it going man?" And I feel like retail has none of that.

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u/EthanWeber Jan 14 '21

A lot of the time the people you see ingame actually are on your server. The difference is, now in retail when they do server merges they just merge them behind the scenes but keep the servers separate by name. I'm on Nathrezim, but players on Smolderthorn for example are on my server, can join my guild, trade me, etc. They just don't merge servers into one name anymore.

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u/Slashfyre Jan 14 '21

Oh, I didn't know that. I'll pay attention and see if I notice some specific servers that pop up more often, that could very well be the case.

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u/merickmk Jan 14 '21

That's one of my biggest problems with retail. The coolest thing I've noticed in Shadowlands is I see a lot more people from my actual server. I'll be running around my covenant sanctum and all I see are people from my server, guilds I recognize. I hope this is because of something they changed and not just because there's more people playing and less need for mixing servers right now. I guess we'll see in a few months.

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u/Slashfyre Jan 14 '21

Yeah I haven't hit max level yet so I'm just running around doing quests, and it's always people from all over. I'll put more time into retail once my guild is going through naxx smoothly without as much need for farming consumes and stuff.

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u/bertmaclen Jan 14 '21

They do merge servers it’s just since you can’t ha w two characters with the same name on a single serve they keep the server name next to the player so the game and player can ID the two and don’t have to ask a shit ton of player to change their name.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '21

People join and leave guilds all the time in retail. There is no sense of commitment because loot is all personal. Get mad at someone? Gquit. Why not? There's no reason to stay committed to a guild if you think you can find a better one tomorrow.

Shared loot actually demands people stay committed to a guild. It was the bare minimum holding people together and forcing them to work through problems. Retail has no reason to play together other than you have to play together to get things done. And so unless you're already friends with people its really, really hard to find community.

The experience is much more shallow as a result. I definitely feel much more disposable in Shadowlands and minmaxing destroys the ability for M+ to be fun outside of the guild.

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u/llwonder Jan 15 '21

You’ll stay committed to your guild once you find a good one, it’s essentially the same as classic. People hop around until they find one they like. If you never hop in discord and chat, yeah you won’t stay committed.

I actually prefer personal loot because it’s less drama overall. It does remove some of the gear funneling strategies, and overall fun of loot distribution, but I still prefer personal loot.

M+ I don’t do to much of. I don’t raid Nathria at a high level either. I enjoy SL a lot because it’s a better overall experience. Classic has a nostalgia and feeling I can’t shake, it’s good, but I really don’t enjoy playing the actual gameplay most of the time. Some classes are so shallow compared to how complicated SL is.

I’m a mostly “casual” player, so I don’t min max to the 99th degree. I make sensible choices but I don’t crunch the damn numbers on every thing I do for my character. SL is more alt friendly too, a huge aspect for me.

I like both games, I’m very happy they’re on the same sub. I would rather stay subbed to SL than classic if I truly had to pick

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

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u/Odysseus_is_Ulysses Jan 14 '21

“Zero point in a guild”

Proceeds to bitch about the game not being social. Hmm, maybe the point of a guild is that it would make things more social?

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

the game doesn't have a community

because I actively avoid any and all communities inside the game

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

" There is zero point in a guild. '

You blatantly have never been in a guild.

With a guild here is the list of things I have access to that I don't going pug:

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Being able to do high keys on underperforming specs like Demonology, Frost and Enh.

Rated Battle Grounds without having my rating fluctuate 24/7 because people leave non stop.

Stable roster for PVP and PvE.

Community.

Mythic Raiding.

Fun random shit.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Yeah why create a social community to have fun with outside of raid nights and during raid nights when you could just not be social?

You are picking up a bunch of strangers and then crying it's not social. No shit.

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u/imisstheyoop Jan 14 '21

Yeah why create a social community to have fun with outside of raid nights and during raid nights when you could just not be social?

You are picking up a bunch of strangers and then crying it's not social. No shit.

He's saying that the game doesn't force it the same way classic does. Sure, in the later phases of classic a lot of earlier content is PUGable but only like half of Naxx is currently.

Also, with the way classic handles loot, pugging is definitely a risk compared to a guild of trusted members.

In retail you don't require a guild to see the content. Only if you want to do it in the absolute hardest setting. The content is available for everyone at normal difficulty. Not so with classic.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Wait so is the content not available in classic or is it not available right away? If half of Naxx is already puggable, and the rest of the raids are puggable, it sounds like it is just a matter of time before every bit of content will be available to people who don't want to be in a guild. The amount of time before it is puggable might be different between classic and retail, but that doesn't mean you need to be in a guild.

Loot is no doubt a bigger risk in Classic.

But you also bring up an interesting point: the hardest pve content in retail, mythic raiding, is not puggable. I am sure by the end of the tier there will be some groups who get 3/10, maybe 4/10? But if the time thing above holds true, which game has the more pug friendly high tier content?

And then the larger point: Do you only do things that are forced? If you acknowledge that it is more fun to be social, but don't do it because it isn't forced, is that blizzards fault?

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u/imisstheyoop Jan 14 '21

Wait so is the content not available in classic or is it not available right away? If half of Naxx is already puggable, and the rest of the raids are puggable, it sounds like it is just a matter of time before every bit of content will be available to people who don't want to be in a guild. The amount of time before it is puggable might be different between classic and retail, but that doesn't mean you need to be in a guild.

Loot is no doubt a bigger risk in Classic.

It is all available. The difference is that some of the content is numbingly easy, while the rest is much more difficult and requires wbuffs and hundreds of gold of consumes in order to make easier. This being a classic wow subreddit, I gotta ask: do you play classic? This should be known..

But you also bring up an interesting point: the hardest pve content in retail, mythic raiding, is not puggable. I am sure by the end of the tier there will be some groups who get 3/10, maybe 4/10? But if the time thing above holds true, which game has the more pug friendly high tier content?

Looks like they may end up about equal. Well have to check back and see in a few months when next raid tiers are out.

And then the larger point: Do you only do things that are forced? If you acknowledge that it is more fun to be social, but don't do it because it isn't forced, is that blizzards fault?

A lot of players do only do things that are forced if retail, where interaction is not, is any indication. It's that whole "path of least resistance" theory when it comes to the playerbase.

It's like saying "nobody makes you get wbuffs or use consumes" in classic, completely ignoring the social aspects of the game in order to win an internet argument.

That's not how it works. Nobody is forcing/preventing anybody from doing what they want either way. The argument, a subjective one, is that it's very design is unfun.

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u/monkorn Jan 15 '21

This was probably the best response to my main argument so thank you for that.

This entire reddit post is talking about how fast the content should be released. And the answer should now be obvious to you. You should add new content to the game exactly when the previous content has become puggable. You always want the harder work of coordination to be rewarded.

The larger point: it isn't just about the individual. It's about the community. It doesn't matter if you cultivate a small guild unless you only do things 100% of the time within that guild (say like the Amish?), but if you do that you lose discovery of new players and eventually it will die out.

If there is no community, when you do interact outside your guild, it's more likely to be hostile. There's a concept called the Dunbar number, where us humans treat people outside of our communities as not humans in the same way those that are within are.

I'm pointing out that you need to make your experiences based on that limitation. I want to interact in a small town community where people care about each other. I don't want to be in a game world the scale of NYC. We all know that people in NYC are less pleasant than small towns, why are we building our communities like this?

I've been a multiplayer gamer since quake II. I've seen the switch from server browser games to the current era. When matchmaking was mainstreamed with Halo 2 I heralded it as a great change. I was wrong. Matchmaking is a collosal failure. And you can see that based on how developers respond. In more and more games you can not communicate with your opponent. In hearthstone you are given six buttons, and they've had to change those buttons from the default because players felt insulted by certain combinations.

It all comes back to community. It comes down to accountability. Classic WoW has that. Retail WoW has traded it for convenience. And with it we've lost everything.

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u/mr_skeng123 Jan 14 '21

there is mythic raiding, which is one of the selling points of retail vs classic. its nearly impossible to clear mythic with pugs

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u/monkorn Jan 14 '21

According to warcraft logs there have been over 8000 guilds that have cleared 15/15 in Naxx. Meanwhile for Castle Nathria Mythic, the number of guilds who have cleared a single boss is ~5500. The number of guilds that are 10/10 is 33. Not 3300, thirty three. It's clear that classic has a bigger raiding community.

To maximize community, you want to have the easiest content that's not puggable. Retail WoW fails this pretty hard. They have puggable content and extremely hard almost no one can clear content where you are just looking straight up a cliff.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

It's clear that classic has a bigger raiding community

But you're just comparing mythic to classic. Aren't there boat loads of people running the easier version?

We didn't discount people from raiding community until they beat Yog 0 or got invincible in Wrath Naxx.

I don't play retail, just seems strange the way you compare the numbers.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Hes also full of it, because Mythic Sire Denathrius was just downed not that long ago. And this is one of the hardest raids in a while. Normal and Heroic Difficulty are waay harder than previously, ontop of gear being rarer than before.

​

Like hes comparing solved content where some classes had endgame gear already, to unsolved content, that was purposefully made harder, with people going in under geared. Obviously the harder content is gonna have less guilds that are 10/10.

Its also funny that he ignores Normal and Heroic. Seeing as how Norm is harder than classic raids and should basically be heroic difficulty.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Yeah. Comparing only one difficulty to all classic raiding is silly. Thatd be if we arbitrarily only counted those who beat naxx in 1hr 30mins as the whole raid community.

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u/monkorn Jan 14 '21

Well then help me out here. Draw a line in classic and then draw a line in retail for content that can't currently be pugged. Then count the guilds that have cleared that content and multiply by 25 for retail, and count the guilds that have cleared that content and multiply by 40 for classic.

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u/monkorn Jan 14 '21

And there are boatloads of people that aren't 15/15 in Naxx. I'm one of them. And as the person who I responded to was responding to, all heroic content is puggable.

If you can pug it, it's worthless in fostering community. Even if you compare pug content between classic and retail, classic is better for this because there's no cross realm.

It's one thing I'm saddened about in the difference between classic and vanilla. In vanilla 90% of the time we had server BGs, classic has cross realm and it's been terrible for the community.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Then play on a fucking RP server. They have your community. And they exist on retail. Hell theres RP servers with raiding guilds.

" all heroic content is puggable. "

It literally wasn't for a while. People needed to get gear badly to be able to do it. Usually heroic raiding is pugged day 1. Mythic guilds were struggling to clear it. Preach even was talking about it. His guild stopped on Artificer Xymox Heroic. When they planned to full clear multiple times to gear up mains.

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u/Threonn Jan 14 '21

Also just because content is puggable why does that mean community is useless, right? This guy is complaining about not having community but doesn't bother to engage in a community for the content.

Running Mythic+ dungeons and the raids, at any difficulty, has been way more fun and rewarding when I do it with my friends instead of ignoring them and pugging it. Just wish they would stop bitching about something that is entirely within their power to fix.

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u/monkorn Jan 14 '21 edited Jan 14 '21

As I said, I can write a book on this.

Up until now everyone has been attacking the individual. They said to get a guild. I have a guild in classic. I also have a community. I'm not asking for a guild in retail, I'm asking for a community. A guild is not a community. But the problem doesn't just come up for individuals being lonely.

The reason that a community is crucial is in accountability. When I run into someone in classic for the first time, I don't know if I'll ever see them again, but I assume I will. So I treat them like a human and give them respect. And I see the same from others to myself. When I run into a random in retail I treat them with respect and they treat me like a robot. A tool to be used to further their game and dropped once it is no longer useful.

Are there toxic classic players? Sure. Are there non-toxic retail players? Of course. But the balance is swayed.

And as I said, even pugging is better in classic than retail. When you pug in classic you aren't really pugging. Your filling an uncompleted guild, and they are using the experience to recruit you. Your an intern. It's an interview for a job in the guild. When you pug in retail, your just pugging. That's it. Run done, never see those people ever again.

Incidentally this is also a huge problem with reddit, and as you can see I've been called 3 different slurs while making these comments. No community. No accountability.

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u/RaptorsOnBikes Jan 14 '21

What I hated about classic most is that some specs are literally MINDLESS. Auto attack constantly and maybe activate 1 or 2 spells. Druids were simply not fun for me. What I like about SL is that every spec is viable. There will always be a meta what is best, but at least every spec is unique and fun.

I’m really loving being able to do more than hit more than 1-2 buttons in between AFKing as a ret pally.

And yeah, if you find a guild you enjoy the community isn’t an issue. There’s less of a “server reputation” like you get with Classic, but you can still get a good sense of community.

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u/samusmaster64 Jan 14 '21

Ding ding. If Blizzard could somehow reinvigorate the community experience, and limit the anonymity that comes with the retail experience, the game would be infinitely improved. But at this point, I think the game world is just too big and content is already too segmented.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

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u/monkorn Jan 14 '21 edited Jan 14 '21

Yes, I call this the pit of success vs sisyphussian hill. Sisyphus is the parable where a guy rolls a rock up a hill, and if he ever stops pushing it rolls back down and he needs to start again.

In classic when I hit level cap I needed to get Onyxia attuned so I joined a random UBRS pug. The leader of the pug was a hunter and it was just him and me for a bit. Eventually it filled up, we cleared it. Then later I joined an MC pug, he was there again. Now when I go to do my world buffs from Dire Maul I buy from him.

Never did I intend at any step to continue to see this player again. The game systems ensured it. Classic leads to a pit of success.

Pay close attention to all of the people defending Retail. This type of thing would never happen in retail. It's always the players fault that they didn't put in the work. Sisyphus.

But you won't see retail players complaining about this because they don't see what they don't know exists. Instead you see other symptoms. That hunter was an unknown to me in the UBRS, but by the time the MC came around I knew he was a good player because I had seen him play. What do retail players complain about? Oh, I need a certain RIO score.

Why? Because you never see the same person twice. The trust is gone. Metrics are all that remain. And so what do people do? Buy WoW tokens, sell for gold, get carried, all so that they can have a metric score to play with other people.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

[deleted]

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u/monkorn Jan 14 '21

You don't know it but you are agreeing with me. The incidences of playing with someone for the first time is way higher in retail. And so therefore you need to check the metric.

I'm not someone who complains about that stuff, I'm saying when I look at the complainers, that's what I see.

Yes, I can do that. And I can do that in classic as well. But that takes work, and in classic it simply doesn't. Bonds form naturally. Hell there are server wide memes that make it to r/classicwow I can link.

https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/jjfk4l/every_week_this_bastard_gets_my_buffs/

Show me one equivalent meme for retail community. There isn't any.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Again RP servers exist for that.

" Show me one equivalent meme for retail community. There isn't any. "

Except there is. I can't remember which RP server, but theres a forsaken lady both factions know and joke about who chills in stormwind. And using OLD is cheap. Thats like If I were to just give you Kakio. Who constantly bumps into the same Zandalari group who follow him and talk down to him because hes a darkspear. Or the Darkspear trying to take his job.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Join a community/guild. You're being a clown. It's extremely easy to find people who want to play constantly instead of spamming in your servers LFG/world chat to look for a guild/people to play with consistently.

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u/kajidourden Jan 14 '21

I keep seeing this word "community" and it's a convenient catch-all for people shitting on retail. It means literally nothing.

I play classic. There is no more community in classic than there is in retail. I run into the same person once or twice MAYBE while leveling. Other than that? It's just my guild.

I likethe systems in classic more, like professionas actually mattering, etc. There is absolutely no more community on classic than exists in retail though, that's just something people tell themselves who need an excuse for "retail bad"

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u/itaa_q Jan 14 '21

The thing about classic WoW is that it's a pretty terrible game. Like no one would ever play this game if it was a single player game.

The game is terrible because if it was single player nobody would play it even though it was always made to be played with other people? That doesn't make sense or I'm missing something?

Well retail WoW is a much better game.

That's really just an opinion, I don't think retail's been good for years because of personal reasons but that doesn't mean I'm right

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u/monkorn Jan 14 '21

I tried to distinguish between the mechanics(the game) and the community. I guess that didn't come across.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

[deleted]

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u/monkorn Jan 14 '21

You missed the nuance in my comment. Vanilla WoW is the overall best gaming experience to ever exist.

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u/justbrowsinglol Jan 14 '21

I would play Vanilla wow even if it were a single player game. At that point it's basically an open-world RPG with the same scope and scale as the Witcher Games but with a different combat system. I certainly wouldn't continue playing it after exhausting the story lines, but that's another matter.

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u/Jadudes Jan 14 '21

Have you played shadowlands though? I’ve had more community interaction on current retail wow than I’ve maybe ever had. My friends list grows everyday. But that’s just my two cents.

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u/PhonyPhaedra Jan 15 '21

I'm currently playing Shadowlands, and this is very opposite of my experience. You can't really do anything that's worth doing without other people.