Wow classic

[Hurlshort]

39 minutes ago, IndiraLightfoot said:

Hmm, as I've never bought any Wow box/game, will it be enough if I just subscribe to get access to Wow Classic, or do I have to buy one of them expensive boxes (most likely the latest)?

I am pretty sure the game is free with the subscription.

[majestic]

Sure is, WoW Classic can be accessed by subscribers. You still need a key to sign up though. I don't know if you only get classic when you bought Battle for Azeroth, otherwise the base game and Legion will most likely suffice (and you can't buy anything less anyway).

[daven]

You only need to subscribe. £10 per month in England. No other fees I believe.

The slow pace is what makes it stand out. yeah some of it is because of bad drop rates but, you have to walk all over the shop. Feels like you're on a proper journey. And there's a ton of people about since it's just been released the world feels quite lively. Basically it's a real MMORPG. New WoW is some kind of weird Diablo type game with constant pop culture references and that.

There is a charming simplicity to Classic WoW.

Edited August 30, 2019 by daven

[Malcador]

The pop culture references were always present in WoW, though.  Suppose it was made a bit worse in Cataclysm, at least for the Alliance parts of the revamp.  Will see how much people enjoy the journey when you lose a lot of direction at 30-45.    Reading comments about this on other forums people bandy about 'immersion' so much, I'd think they were talking about a Bethesda game.

Not sure what's with the excessive nice behaviour, must be some weird conformist thing where everyone has to buff everyone they can and I keep having strange people trying to offer me gear.   Definitely not the WoW community I know, hopefully it returns to normal.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Malcador

[Hurlshort]

The pop culture references in Classic WoW are now just cultural references. They are too old to be considered popular.

It's like when all the music from the 90's I grew up listening to started showing up on Classic Rock stations. 

Edited August 30, 2019 by Hurlshot

[marelooke]

3 hours ago, Malcador said:

The pop culture references were always present in WoW, though.  Suppose it was made a bit worse in Cataclysm, at least for the Alliance parts of the revamp.  Will see how much people enjoy the journey when you lose a lot of direction at 30-45.    Reading comments about this on other forums people bandy about 'immersion' so much, I'd think they were talking about a Bethesda game.

Not sure what's with the excessive nice behaviour, must be some weird conformist thing where everyone has to buff everyone they can and I keep having strange people trying to offer me gear.   Definitely not the WoW community I know, hopefully it returns to normal.

Buffing random people was pretty common during TBC, at least on my realm (Wildhammer-EU), as was conjuring water for thirsty Paladins

[Malcador]

40 minutes ago, marelooke said:

Buffing random people was pretty common during TBC, at least on my realm (Wildhammer-EU), as was conjuring water for thirsty Paladins

Wasn't all that common for me back then. Then again maybe as I played on a PvP server it was chock full of pricks.

[Mamoulian War]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Wasn't all that common for me back then. Then again maybe as I played on a PvP server it was chock full of pricks.

I played on PvP servers long time ago, and the stranger buffing was really common in Vanilla and TBC. Played on Magtheridon-EU. Me as a Warlock was always paid back the kindness, and buffed back everyone with Underwater Breathing

edit: i was Horde all the time.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Mamoulian War

[majestic]

You should have played Everquest. People sold buffs.

Granted, the game had some ridiculous buffs with no level scaling, so you could get your fresh alt an endgame gear's worth of stats for a couple of hours right away and you often had to play classes with severe experience penalties (hybrid tax in EQ was awesome, 20% less experience) for them, so that might explain that.

Edited August 30, 2019 by majestic

[daven]

I think people are being nice because they are excited about the game. Wait til everyone has wiped 50 times in Deadmines and things will change. WE actually wiped 7 times before the 3rd boss.. <_< People just kept pulling more even though we said 1-2 max. OH WELL!

[marelooke]

2 hours ago, daven said:

I think people are being nice because they are excited about the game. Wait til everyone has wiped 50 times in Deadmines and things will change. WE actually wiped 7 times before the 3rd boss.. <_< People just kept pulling more even though we said 1-2 max. OH WELL!

I'm not so sure, from talking to guildies in Guild Wars 2 quite a few people are tired of trash being just inconsequential filler fluff between bosses, and not posing any challenge at all. And quite a few people would enjoy "pulling" as a tank to be an art again, not to mention that less AOE spam and more CC weren't exactly considered bad things either (each class having ridiculous amounts of very effective AoE was a WotLK addition, if I remember correctly). So some more focus back on environmental awareness and actually playing as a team (CC/aggro mechanics) definitely resonated by younger gamers. (on that note, it's slightly ironic that when I started playing WoW I was the youngster of the guild and now I'm pretty much the oldest, heh)

So yeah, while classic WoW might be missing quite a few things that younger gamers might find desirable I think that the lack of challenge or a meaningful leveling experience offered by (most) current MMOs is definitely something that's being felt, and not only by us old-farts that were around "back in the days" and are suffering a severe about of nostalgia now.

Personally I'm trying to  stay the hell away from classic as I kinda do have a tad more responsibilities now so getting ridiculously addicted again is probably a bad idea. But I find it interesting how well it is doing, even with younger gamers. Maybe Blizzard and/or other MMO devs will revisit some of the "streamlining" they've been doing over the years if the success of classic holds up. One can only hope.

Edited August 31, 2019 by marelooke

[Malcador]

5 hours ago, daven said:

I think people are being nice because they are excited about the game. Wait til everyone has wiped 50 times in Deadmines and things will change. WE actually wiped 7 times before the 3rd boss.. <_< People just kept pulling more even though we said 1-2 max. OH WELL!

Yep, all this nonsense about the wonder of the world and discovery, etc. is going to fade once you hit 60 and spend your days in IF or a BG queue. 

 

[marelooke]

15 hours ago, Malcador said:

Yep, all this nonsense about the wonder of the world and discovery, etc. is going to fade once you hit 60 and spend your days in IF or a BG queue. 

 

Your fault for picking the inferior faction

Anyway, Inside Gaming actually got a reply from Blizzard on the topic of WoW classic, nothing really mind blowing there, but here anyway.

Summary of couple of points I thought might be interesting:

• they try to not launch too many servers at once since realm community was important so they'd rather not have empty realms down the line. They do have spare capacity though that they will (and are) using to make sure there are always realms without queues available for new players that join.
  To me that seems to indicate they expect a sizeable community to stick around with classic.
• they'll roll out "new" features in the same order they were released (more details in the video)
• they'll decide based on the community response on how to proceed after they're done with "vanilla".
  Personally I suspect "adding" TBC might be likely (since that expansion was WoW's high water mark and I'm sure some of the "pro" raiders of today would want to experience the pain that was Sunwell Plateau) *or* they could decide to continue classic down a more "hardcore" path and have a "soft reboot" of the game in an alternate timeline. Realistically I'd expect that either as a continuation of vanilla or after TBC (*if* that is in the cards at all). Given the reception of the latest expansion and the ever decreasing playerbase (WoW even lost their number one spot to Final Fantasy based on leaked numbers) this might be a great opportunity for Blizzard to avoid some of the mistakes they made with "regular" WoW, and make new ones instead
  Assuming the popularity of classic holds up, of course...

 

Edited August 31, 2019 by marelooke

[Malcador]

Good to know every Horde player is insecure still.   As a Paladin main, I agree TBC was the high point and want them to give us that version

 

Grinding along, though I am having more fun trolling all the smug vanilla people more than anything else.   Also they cleared MC already, dang.

Edited September 1, 2019 by Malcador

[Hurlshort]

I can't imagine they won't release content over time. I mean, it's great right now, but once you get a bunch of people at the level cap, you'd think they would have no choice. 

[Chilloutman]

On 8/31/2019 at 3:30 AM, marelooke said:

I'm not so sure, from talking to guildies in Guild Wars 2 quite a few people are tired of trash being just inconsequential filler fluff between bosses, and not posing any challenge at all. And quite a few people would enjoy "pulling" as a tank to be an art again, not to mention that less AOE spam and more CC weren't exactly considered bad things either (each class having ridiculous amounts of very effective AoE was a WotLK addition, if I remember correctly). So some more focus back on environmental awareness and actually playing as a team (CC/aggro mechanics) definitely resonated by younger gamers. (on that note, it's slightly ironic that when I started playing WoW I was the youngster of the guild and now I'm pretty much the oldest, heh)

So yeah, while classic WoW might be missing quite a few things that younger gamers might find desirable I think that the lack of challenge or a meaningful leveling experience offered by (most) current MMOs is definitely something that's being felt, and not only by us old-farts that were around "back in the days" and are suffering a severe about of nostalgia now.

Personally I'm trying to  stay the hell away from classic as I kinda do have a tad more responsibilities now so getting ridiculously addicted again is probably a bad idea. But I find it interesting how well it is doing, even with younger gamers. Maybe Blizzard and/or other MMO devs will revisit some of the "streamlining" they've been doing over the years if the success of classic holds up. One can only hope.

pff environmental awareness.. I remember walling in UO, that was some next level juking!

[Hurlshort]

I've been jumping around on a few characters. The starting areas are very lively, and that is a welcome change from the ghost town speed levelling moat mmo's are today. My dwarf hunter is currently the most fun to play, should have named him Volourn.

[daven]

Made it to level 23. Played over 30 hours last week... maybe I should calm down a bit. My eyes are feeling sore now. Best go outside and get some sunlight or something.

New WoW went in a completely different direction to what appealed to the original player base. Fans have been saying they want that old school style back for years but someone from Blizzard even once said 'You think you do but you don't really'. Well obviously people do because they are enjoying Classic.

[Malcador]

14 hours ago, daven said:

Made it to level 23. Played over 30 hours last week... maybe I should calm down a bit. My eyes are feeling sore now. Best go outside and get some sunlight or something.

New WoW went in a completely different direction to what appealed to the original player base. Fans have been saying they want that old school style back for years but someone from Blizzard even once said 'You think you do but you don't really'. Well obviously people do because they are enjoying Classic.

Some fans have been asking for that, but have to think the game is where it is due to players liking it.  Hardcore players have always bitched the loudest but who knows if they're the largest set (I anticipate hearing people bitch about people not "earning" the gear soon)  Doubt that Blizzard just does the opposite of what the players seem to like just for laughs.   Vanilla's mythologizing is getting pretty comical now - heard someone describe the gameplay as 'emergent' which makes me wonder what game that person was playing. 

As for the line about thinking you do, it's still early days - give it time and some people may not find the grind all that fun especially after 30 when the path you're to take because more muddled.  People raved about WoD in early days after all, hah.  Takes a while for the inevitable bitching WoW players are only good for to come out Always thought he was more correct than some give him credit for, seems to think everyone believed he was totally wrong.  

I do wonder what changes they can try to make to the current version based on the classic feedback.  Given the current version will be an expansion is a bit harder to get the same journey feel in 10 levels that people did out of 60 and 40 odd zones. 

Edited September 2, 2019 by Malcador

[daven]

No point making current similar to classic at this point. It's 2 distinct games at this point. People who enjoy the LFG systems etc play that. People who like the old school style of play, massive time sinks and pains in the arse can play classic.

[Malcador]

4 hours ago, daven said:

No point making current similar to classic at this point. It's 2 distinct games at this point. People who enjoy the LFG systems etc play that. People who like the old school style of play, massive time sinks and pains in the arse can play classic.

Well, retail is their main version so if they get people back to play with better systems why not try.  I do miss LFG though, without CRZ I really don't see the issue as it just spares you from excessive /1 and /2 spamming.  That's nice when everyone's in Westfall or Darkshore but when it spreads out it becomes a bit more tedious.

 

[marelooke]

24 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Well, retail is their main version so if they get people back to play with better systems why not try.  I do miss LFG though, without CRZ I really don't see the issue as it just spares you from excessive /1 and /2 spamming.  That's nice when everyone's in Westfall or Darkshore but when it spreads out it becomes a bit more tedious.

 

It's mostly a social thing, honestly. I guess it's hard to grasp the impact it's introduction had if you weren't there when it was introduced. It's also hard to explain when you were there though I gave it a shot earlier in this thread, I believe.

But one of the major disadvantages (aside from socializing) was realm reputation, if you were a jerk you'd just not be able to get into groups before long, so communities washed themselves of undesirables quite quickly. With a LFG you just get lumped in with randoms and if the Realm's local jerk joins you're stuck with him (or her). Conversely a good reputation would often just get you invited spontaneously.

LFG also promotes group dropping as soon as something doesn't go perfectly, as you'd just queue again (especially if tank/healer) and you'd have a new group before long. Without LFG people are a lot more likely to actually help less experienced party members are finding replacements is a huge pain. This results in a lot less toxicity and people actually learning the ropes. Not to mention that some really get a reputation for mentoring (still miss ya, you shaman that patiently tought me the ropes during all those vanilla dungeon runs)

It's kinda like being able to enter a dungeon immediately without having to actually walk there, which doesn't seem like a big deal, but these waits allowed for a whole lot of social interaction and community building (and fun and not-so-fun memories, the corpse run at Blackrock mountain was brutal, and people regularly got lost...).

Note that I'm one of those people who is really, really, really, anxious to group up in games until I'm really, really, really, sure I know what I'm doing (which is a hard place to get to without actually, you know, doing it), so one would reasonably expect I'd be all for LFG. I am not (anymore).

Edited September 3, 2019 by marelooke

[Malcador]

56 minutes ago, marelooke said:

It's mostly a social thing, honestly. I guess it's hard to grasp the impact it's introduction had if you weren't there when it was introduced. It's also hard to explain when you were there though I gave it a shot earlier in this thread, I believe.

But one of the major disadvantages (aside from socializing) was realm reputation, if you were a jerk you'd just not be able to get into groups before long, so communities washed themselves of undesirables quite quickly. With a LFG you just get lumped in with randoms and if the Realm's local jerk joins you're stuck with him (or her). Conversely a good reputation would often just get you invited spontaneously.

LFG also promotes group dropping as soon as something doesn't go perfectly, as you'd just queue again (especially if tank/healer) and you'd have a new group before long. Without LFG people are a lot more likely to actually help less experienced party members are finding replacements is a huge pain. This results in a lot less toxicity and people actually learning the ropes. Not to mention that some really get a reputation for mentoring (still miss ya, you shaman that patiently tought me the ropes during all those vanilla dungeon runs)

It's kinda like being able to enter a dungeon immediately without having to actually walk there, which doesn't seem like a big deal, but these waits allowed for a whole lot of social interaction and community building (and fun and not-so-fun memories, the corpse run at Blackrock mountain was brutal, and people regularly got lost...).

Note that I'm one of those people who is really, really, really, anxious to group up in games until I'm really, really, really, sure I know what I'm doing (which is a hard place to get to without actually, you know, doing it), so one would reasonably expect I'd be all for LFG. I am not (anymore).

I was there when it was introduced. I've been playing WoW since 2005.  As I said if they had LFG without CRZ then what is the issue ?  We had rage quitters, ninja looters, unpleasant bastards back in vanilla, I personally never cared that much to go try to whip up people to blacklist them but I guess some would have if they read the forums (or listened to randos in general chat).   Have to think it was added as Blizzard saw people using addons to do the same (probably the same with a lot of things, actually).  

People talking about how good socializing was in Vanilla is really strange to me all I recall from my many PUG runs was immature jokes or just people bitching about my healing or the tank. A lot like LFG really.  Certainly never recalled instances of helping people out, other than "thotbot it <expletive>".   Maybe is just that NA players are bigger **** ?

[marelooke]

4 minutes ago, Malcador said:

I was there when it was introduced. I've been playing WoW since 2005.  As I said if they had LFG without CRZ then what is the issue ?  We had rage quitters, ninja looters, unpleasant bastards back in vanilla, I personally never cared that much to go try to whip up people to blacklist them but I guess some would have if they read the forums (or listened to randos in general chat).   Have to think it was added as Blizzard saw people using addons to do the same (probably the same with a lot of things, actually).  

People talking about how good socializing was in Vanilla is really strange to me all I recall from my many PUG runs was immature jokes or just people bitching about my healing or the tank. A lot like LFG really.  Certainly never recalled instances of helping people out, other than "thotbot it <expletive>".   Maybe is just that NA players are bigger **** ?

Hmm, must've been the realm, honestly. I've only really had one negative experience pre-LFG and that was some troll in Uldum. The reason I remember was because, well, it was like the only time. People throwing tantrums etc happened, but nothing eggregious, certainly not people randomly dropping groups. There were no blacklists (that I'm aware off), if players were big enough pricks people would just remember (and as long as one person in the party remembered, well that was usually that).

I do remember people stating that Horde attracted a more mature audience early on, so that might have been a factor (cannot confirm nor deny whether that was true as I only made an alliance character on that same realm well into WotLK and by then that definitely no longer was the case)

Btw, wasn't there a LFG? Just not an automated one? Or was that a TBC addition? In which case I might be talking about the wrong thing here, I abhorr the automated matchmaking thing (even if not cross realm), being able to advertise for a group without having to stick to one spot is definitely a good thing though.

[daven]

Had a good run of Shadowfang Keep last night. Had a few skirmishes with some dirty Horde on the run through Hillsbrad as well, was pretty cool. Tanked the dungeon, we only wiped once on the last boss because I got transformed into a wolf and killed our healer! 

Speaking of which... he was a Paladin and won the roll on the Commanders Crest shield... damn it all!