u are the chosen one. at lvl 12 in westfall u are already a big commander in the grander alliance for example. the charachters even call u so in the quest text. there are even videos about it online. it just happens that 95percent of wow players never read a book AI a quest text 8:20 retail btw also starts at lvl 1. also classic is centered around max lvl too. idk where in retail u are THE choosen one. but there can be many choosen ones anyway. but i wonder where this is. 12:30 im still wondering about the causality of : the world is only getting bigger BECAUSE classic is a slow game. idk why slow means bigger. retail is way bigger. try getting loremaster in retail. sure its fast pase, but its much muchos contenta. 15:00 the claim is that this BOAT prevents u to min max in an mmo in general. or at least calm it down. u can min max traveling in an mmmorpg too , like arriving exactly when the boat is there and also min max the travelpath. its also mentioned that every mmo players wants to min max, but this boat is a miracle and prevent u from doing that. its also a fallacy that they are no waiting times in other mmos , suposed min max mmos. in retail u can wait up to 30min for an arena que to pop up. kinda long boat there.
Don't worry, I definitely won't mention the stain on your hoodie that was definitely maybe not actually but truly there. Your hoodie stain secret is safe with me.
What you call "The Jank" makes the World feel more real because Real Life isn't perfect either & really people's idea of perfect varies anyway. Graphics are overrated & more of a generational perspective & in 20 Years young know it all kids will talk about how bad the Graphics were in 2024. WOW wasn't trying to create a World Of Equals that's Politically Correct in some people's eyes, it was trying to create a mirror of the Real World. Really the only time Blizzard focused on "Fairness" in WOW was when enough people complained & they'd do a nerf but that nerf would create more problems that others would complain about. Blizzard did such a great job at capturing Reality & adjusting it for an Online Fantasy World Scenario.
I'm playing Hardcore Classic, and to be honest, I’m not very good at it. The other day, I accidentally wandered into an area with high-level monsters. I was trying to escape with half my health, taking damage along the way. Then, a warrior saw me. Without a second thought, he charged straight into the enemies. He took a lot of damage, but I healed him, and we both managed to survive. We never saw each other again, but I’m still grateful to him. I think it’s moments like these that make World of Warcraft truly unique.
I had a very similar experience to this in Stranglethorn and I thank that priest everyday for healing me through getting almost pummeled to death by a gorilla.
The biggest draw of classic WoW is the fact that you are just a nobody adventurer, and the world feels huge and scary. You don't just run around facerolling mobs, if you pull too many, you die.
Being a god makes the world feel less real. There are no real stakes, no real danger. Even if it was a world of superheroes, there has to be clear limits to their powers for it to feel real.
@@kerckmars But even then its not like there isn't any danger. You still have to position, conserve mana, make sure you're slowing all the mobs you've caught, run them around something so they wont get close to you. If they touch you you'll die. You still feel fragile, your attacks don't feel 1 shotting and OP but instead you feel like you're using your abilities as efficiently as you can every pull for max gains. This is nothing like retail where abilities, health and mana are expandable and not a big deal.
@@kerckmarspeople don’t just AOE farm, you can very easily mess up your rotation and need specific talents too. Maybe you have lots of practice but it’s not easy and a crazy rush to do in Hardcore haha
@@kerckmars To be fair, even in that scenario, one or two unlucky resists can quickly turn into a dead wizard, so at least you're a glass cannon instead of just a force of nature going from world quest to world quest collecting whatever the current expansion power is. If there was ever a classic rebalance though, AoE caps should definitely be up there.
The key: Immersion. Classic WOW focuses less on systems and more on immersing players in the world. Most modern MMOs, including retail WOW, fails to understand that people want to log into these worlds and lose themselves in them, not sit at some nebulous 'end game' farming the same dungeon over and over.
and yet retail has more players...? Remind me what it is you do in endgame for classic? ah right, run the same dungeons over and over... btw I am not defending retail, just arguing the point, I think retail sucks as well, just not as much as classic
@@framinthorlol cope you retard, the classic experience is memorable to many for being immersed in the world by leveling, 1% of the population actually did endgame content
@808slumps you are not disputing my point lol classic population is also terrible compared to the classic pop from 2005-2010... guess what tho, in 2005-2010 THAT was considered retail... are you trying to do a self own? lol
Thanks for the shout out! I think you hit the nail on the head this entire video. This video will be my go-to answer to anyone who asks me why I decided to name my channel Verigan 😆 Also your music selection was on point! I don't hear the Bastion OST often enough!
Retail WoW went the wrong direction. Blizz saw how people really liked dungeons and raids at first so they decided to put most of their energy on it. But they forgot that the magic came from the adventure with other people in the massive world they created. They messed it all up when they made questing a chore and only made endgame raiding fun.
this i will never play retail after the last 3-4 dogwater expacs, but I would never doubt about going through vanilla again even after having been through 1-60 at least 3-4 times in the last 20 years i won't necessarily do it now due to a lack of time in my personal life but if I did have time, no doubt I would
People didnt like them at first, they were for the select few top tier players.... they decided to take away the leveling experience in favour of making everyone do end-game.
you assume ok - with dungeons Blizzard could both control players and content back in early BC - no need for gamemasters or world spanning guys monitoring players - eg player pulling world bosses npc s or hogger to goldshire - players pvp ganking world bosses , players doing mafia groups on mobs -Control and money and gamelimits and or even remote imagination by devs
Horde have a nice time of it. Instead of our route taking us through both freewind post and camp taurajo, there's a direct flight to XR, that saves several minutes, compared to if we had just chained together each shorter route.
most people dont know, but classic was designed with smokers in mind. Especially the asian demographic was(is) smoking excessively. Therefore you can play the game with one hand most of the time and flight paths give you more than enough time to light one up.
"If you made an undead character go to therapy" I said this to myself as an undead first time I entered Undercity, died from the elevator and got lost in there.
I tried to play retail recently as a Classic Andy. Man it felt so hollow. Like now you can just group with npcs to do dungeons… you’re so strong you rarely need help, and when a quest is a little too hard they slap an npc with you. I can’t enjoy it the same way I play Classic
Nobody wants to be stuck in progresssing in mmo 😂 player base is shrinking you can’t rely to do quests with other players. To unlock some rares in shadow lands you need others player good luck with that
I gave up Retail during Legion when I was on my Mage... Literally AOE'ing down whole areas of the map without ANY sweat whatsoever... And as I was there... Acting like some deranged God... I asked myself... *Why am I playing this? Just so I can speed level to the end? And then what? Once I've done all the raids... What's left? Just wait for the next expansion??? So I can do ALL of this ALL over again???* When I stared playing Classic... As an older (50+) Vanilla Player... All the nostalgia came flooding back... As did the challenge of the game itself... And although not quite the same as Vanilla, the Classic Community was Strong!!! Hardcore is my thing now anyway! The thrill... The excitement... The challenge (AND the potential heart attacks!) is just right up my street. And the HC Community... 95% of the time... Is a Good One! Very helpful... And we all buff and look out for each other 😁
You captured the appeal of the game perfectly and the editing and humor was on point. As someone who was only 2 years old when Vanilla released, I’m always baffled by people who claim that it’s all “rose-tinted glasses”. I think if more people slowed down and took a closer look they would find that Vanilla WoW is one of the greatest adventures in gaming.
8:30 That's actually such a huge deal to me. As much as I love GW2 and WoW, I hate how I'm supposed to be « the commander », or how « the group of adventurers » is now a thing in WoW's lore. I just want to be an adventurer among other adventurers. Lore wise I should only be part of the world itself and accompany npcs for the sake of the story. That's it
I would agree but it's not like that would even make sense in wow at this point. The stature of the players are more than earned. Frankly they should be the NPC Kings and Queen's. So its not that I disagree but it's a question of how you even do that when you're 20yrs in
@michaelpurdon7032 you do that by not making people commanders in the first place So, instead of changing retail, people are going back to a time before they were god-slaying power lusted armies of one
@@electricant55 The original canon never assumed that the player did ALL of those things though. The majority of players never even saw the inside of a raid, let alone cleared them all. Even the ones that did were just 1 of 40 adventurers. It wasn't until attunements were removed- and later the introduction of LFR- that it was assumed your character would have not only been present but a factor in those story beats. Unironically, MoP was one of the few times we get reigned-in by simply being a stranger to a populace that hasn't heard or care about our deeds, and actually has a pretty good leveling experience and story for it.
I started playing FF14 recently (see: yesterday) after my friend finally convinced me to since the retail season is pretty much over for us and we’re on a break. First thing I asked was “am I the super commander, big billy britches hero of light with a prophecy that I’m going to save the world without me actually earning this prestigious title?” Their response: No. Sold me immediately (yes it’s final fantasy AND an MMO, so I know my character is going to *eventually* have some sort of destiny to follow, but as long as it feels earned? Count me in).
I wanna give an example of how Azeroth is a world that is worth exploring As a night elf the only way to get to the other continent early levels is a boat to a zone called the wetlands which is around level 25, the human starting zone is my favorite and so when I started playing hardcore, I wanted to get to it without dying as a night elf. I wanted to figure things out on my own so I decided to try and swim around the whole continent and land right at westfall. I was correct, but randomly, about a 5 minute swim from the south of westfall, is a house with a dock to the entire ocean. There’s no one in the house, it serves no purpose, it literally is surrounded on all sides by mountains. But it’s still there. And when I found it I was enthralled. I wanted to know what this random house was doing here. And I still don’t know. As far as I know it could just be a test for the developers since it does resemble most of the houses in the undead starting zone and is in a place you would normally never go. But it’s still just so cool to find by yourself.
It is called Newman's Landing. It's a memorial for one of the original developers of Wow vanilla who passed away before WoW was launched. I found it too by swimming from Menethil to Westfall.
I recently came back to WoW after many years away and decided to see what retail was like. I was immediately put off by how fast the levelling was, how easy everything was, and how you end up being thrust in to the middle of a story with no context or background. I had no idea what was going on, or who anyone was, and the game didn’t seem to care that much either as it was trying to get me to max level as quickly as possible. Nothing felt earned and there was no sense of achievement. It was an entirely hollow experience. So now I play on the new Classic Anniversary realms.
The difficulty of retail and classic are basically polar opposites. Retail is easy in the leveling and difficult in the end game. Classic is difficult in the leveling and easy in the end game. And they both put their focus on the more difficult parts.
@@WadeAllen001 Fair enough, but when I get to max level I want to feel like it's a big achievement. I don't want to feel like I've been playing through a glorified tutorial so I can get to the real game. That's hugely unsatisfying to me. But of course, to each their own.
@@WadeAllen001 retail is hard, in fact, its actually TOO hard, people dont want to sweat all over their keyboard when they get home from work, they want to chill and get loot. Retail has lost a crazy amount of players in tww because its too hard to get anything meaningful done, its tedious systems sucks and actively work against you. Its a frustrating experience and its why so many people hop on, play for a month or two and quit. It cannot retain players and there is a reason for that
@@zylle1993people just suck too much in wow thinking they good players that the problem with wow community. The elitarism and boosted egos is awful and that’s goes to any online community basically.
@@silvrfruitthe problem with retail that old expansions are useless and meanglisess. Guild wars 2 feels amazing because whole world is alive and what you do counts to soemthing to unlock mounts abilities etc. In wow retail you gain system and lose system in next expansion. Wow has so much dead content same with classic try to find people in older expansion 😂
So god damn true, I wish osrs was less grindy though, i got 1500 hours on my osrs account. Its crazy that the gaming industry dont learn from these giants
The whispered "warcraft" very nice touch ;) Glad you're enjoying and making videos on the world *warcraft* that has captivated me so since childhood! I really enjoy your videos and humour please keep it up!
Thank you for this video, I was never able to find the words to describe how I felt when I levelled from 1-60 in 1.12 on a Tauren Warrior. That took me many moons and I never realized just how important all the little things were like the long flights around and tanking through those epic dungeons. Fantastic👍
It kind of dawned on me while watching this that if Blizzard Microsoft wanted their long loved game to reclaim it's former glory, they'd have to kind of re-create vanilla. I don't mean re-release vanilla classic, I mean make the main part of the game leveling that takes months and months to complete, but with all new content. I've been playing since WotLK and the recipe the entire time with a new expansion is 4 or 5 new zones, 8 new dungeons, and a raid with the main content being endgame m+, raid, and pvp. Wouldn't it be lovely that with a new expansion, you get like 20 zones, thousands of new quest lines and the new raid is still there as an end goal, but it's not the meat of the game. I play both retail and classic HC and both have their dopamine hits, but I'll say with retail, the content is running the same things over and over, which is fine, but you do (or at least I do) get burned out doing the same dung/raid for 5-7 months until they drop the next patch. Once I'm burned out on the content, I always end up going back to classic because it's such relaxing play and even though I've leveled through it numerous times, there's still some content that I haven't done. Maybe that's how the WorldSoul Saga ends, Azeroth blowing up and we all have to start on a new world with 20-30 new zones and thousands of quests and us leveling through 60 levels; I'm doubtful that's how it'll go, but would be cool as hell.
This need for speed in dungeons is TOTAL stress in my experience! I remember healing this Utgarde Keep PUG on Classic Wrath... Early in the morning... So no doubt, some in the group were probably on a clock before work. Anyway, tank pulls on second boss... And I was out of mana... We wipe and, as we were ghosting back... I simply asked the tank... Why? Him: "I got work soon so we have to go fast!!!" Me: "But how is wiping making this any quicker for you?" Him: BRAIN FREEZE!!! Not sure if he even responded but I promptly left the group anyway... And whisper / ignored him that I hope this was fast enough! 😁
The best part about wow classic is seeing so many people running around. Talking to each other and doing stuff together. This was my fourth classic fresh server and I teamed up at lvl 6 and then we stayed together till the end. Sadly I stop once I max lvl as raiding is not for me. But I love the adventure to 60 every time.
There’s never a second in the world in retail In classic anniversary, I get to talk to my guildies and friends, or meet up with someone and help them out quickly. These are the golden moments of wow
thaks for being teh most relatable and entertaining game content creator. I used to watch a lot of gaming stuff but other than a handful of game specific informative creators for poe, osrs, and th random games i get into, i only watch your stuff now for fun. Just ty for bein u :D
"No changes" actually changed the game. People play different now, the debuff/world buff meta wasn't a thing in Classic. Also they extended melee range when moving in vanilla to account for bad internet back in the day, but that just broke things with Classic.
Their newest classic realms even have dual spec in them. I'm actually boggled there's anyone that actually wants to play the game like that - it's a mockery of what the original devs had built. Forget being an RPG, none of your character choices matter.
@@Allarielle let's be real, talents weren't a choice. You looked at a guide picked the most efficient thing and forgot about it. Dual spec will just allow players to have pve pvp talents without burning a hole in their pocket. The game is mostly the same, if you really don't like dual spec don't use it.
@@Allariellebrother you just spent gold over and over again to pvp and pve. That’s now just a 1 time purchase. It’s purely QOL, if you don’t like that then you’re a purist and need to go sit in a corner and cry.
This video makes me really want to renew my sub and go back to Classic. It hits the nail on the head on why I haven't been able to get into other MMO"RPGs". Everything is a rush to the end, you're constantly guided from one spot to the next, and there's no sense of just enjoying the world.
Classic is simply a very good game... It's power progression is linear and itemization easy to understand... Gear upgrades feel good and are noticeable.. the world of AZEROTH is BIG and dangerous... Your not just steam rolling everything and finding epics and legendaries everywhere... Rares feel like rares.. epics are Epic!
It’s just so chill and you’re not in a rush to do anything. It’s great. I’ve only seen 3 people on mounts on the PvP eu server and I love it, adventures on my warrior killing Murlocs and mining like my life depends on it. But of fishing, bit of cooking, but of first aid, some roleplay, selling stuff for silver on the AH. Great stuff, simpler times , no gear grinding, love it
I love Classic! Never got to raid back in those days because I didn't know what raiding was. Got to raid BC Classic the first Classic Cycle. With the fresh anniversary servers, I'm working on getting ready for raiding MC and BWL
Playing classic as a healer makes me feel appreciated. All i have to do is exist in a zone and people whisper me to see if i want to do a dungeon. In retail wow healers are just the punching bag to blame when things go wrong
The point you mention about down time is so important, I am someone who really doesn't use fast travel at all when playing games, whether it is the Witcher 3 or Skyrim, or even Valheim, I generally avoid using the instant fast travel options, since I find them immersion breaking, and I enjoy the down time of riding from area to area. And that is also why I love Classic WoW.
The sad part is that no MMO since than has managed to capture a fracture of that discovery, class fantasy and necessary inconvinience (I remember the quote of the one game dev that encapsulates it so well, 'Players will optimize the fun out of their game if possible.'). There are better complete experiences on the MMO market out there, from FF over retail WoW to Guild Wars 2, but none comes even close to recreate the magic of classic WoW.
I love the little things like quest objectives having a respawn time for other players as well. It makes the other player matter more, they're not just these ghosts walking past, they're a part of the world just like all the npcs and you.
The part about "moments" and "waiting" for transportation reminds me of old Maplestory, where trips between locations could take 10-15 minutes, and there was nothing better to do than talk. And those were the MOST memorable moments, memories i still cherish to this day. And also dying to Crimson Balrog on my way to Orbis, because I afk'd outside, that happened too...
Incredible video! Incredible Perspective. Thanks for kinda showing us up-and-coming creators a little of the background of your production. Mic sounds great, Green Screen and clips are crisp. Subscribed 😎🤙🏻
What I absolutely love about the Defias storyline is how they don't shove you into it on a themepark ride. It's up to you to read and discover as little or as much as you want of it, and it starts so slow, in your first hour of gameplay in Northern Abbey, and resolves well over a dozen hours later in the Deadmines, quite a bit deeper in your journey. MMORPG storytelling done beautifully.
15:24 To go back to making MMORPGs as social as they were back in the early 00s, you need to make social media like facebook and twitter and shit no longer exist, because once those platforms established themselves to the public the sheer novelty of "Oh! I'm grouped in this SFK run with a dude from Germany, a dude from Australia, and some chick from the east coast all at once! WOW!" evaporated. MMOs had that niche for a hot minute, but then they didn't. Every other issue plaguing these social games stems from that, the impatience, the toxicity, all of it. We're never getting that window of time back, my friends.
exactly! what a lot of people fail to realise is that WoW was like social media before social media existed. people would log on and sit in social hubs just to talk with their friends or just look at the people passing
The music, sitting down and going into certain spots brings such a rush of nostalgia, euphoria. You can no-life sweat it, and I do but I sincerely enjoy just logging on and running around.
Shoutout to your note about Oblivion's plot - it's often more compelling for an RPG to put you in the place of an everyman instead of the "chosen one" and the storyline in Oblivion is one of the most underrated in the TES series.
When youre level60 you’ll go to a troll island to get quests and reputation for the zulgurub raid. You’ll look north and see a big gate in the water. It will take a few seconds before you realize thats where VanCleefs ship was supposed to exit from had his quest succeeded. The defias questline ends at that realization, somewhere at t2 raiding
As a retail WoW player I've been saying all the points you made to my guild for years, about the lack of RPG, the convenience over immersion, the lack of social interactions, thank you for bringing these views to more people. It's nice to know I'm not alone with these thoughts on the state of "modern" WoW or MMORPG's in general and why WoW classic is special.
As a veteran player who own collectors edition classic wow it’s really something to see the game through fresh eyes with all these new players. Thank you for justifying my love for this version of the game
I just want to mention that the Defias Brotherhood story is part of a much bigger story ark that carries clear on until you fight Onyxia at endgame. I'm not sure how many of the details are outlined clearly in the game because this will be my first 1-60 vanilla playthrough on alliance. I won't go into details here, but there's a reason the Defias Brotherhood and the Nobles ended up in conflict with each other.
It's a bunch of quest chains that you do throughout your entire time leveling. You end up finding out more in your 30s that basically outlines that there is a conspiracy, then towards max level there's another chain that ends in you exposing the person behind it that ends in a really cool fight in the throne room. This entire quest chain also ties into where Varian could be and why he's missing.
Me and my wife are playing classic WoW, like crazy and having a blast at it. The game just feels like anyone can get into it. You are a sweat ok great; you are a casual right great; you are a noob at gaming alright great.
I agree with your point about being the chosen one, it feels awkward to be told "you're the only one who can save the world" when 5,000 other people in your very lobby are doing the same thing, and doing it way better and faster than you. Get rid of that, at least for MMOs, tell me I'm one of 50,000 guards and if we work together we can save the world. I think that's what makes Hellldivers 2 so appealing.
Back in the day I remember the sentiment of "I've done so much for my faction but I'm still a faceless nobody I deserve recognition" so in WoD they made your character special. To me it makes so much more sense to be a piece of the larger whole rather than the star of the show. The order hall idea was nice, making every player character the leader of it just didn't make sense
this is an issue with alot of games not just MMOs, take battlefield for example, specialists that are named characters ruins the whole idea of being a piece of meat in the grinder! hell let loose is a fine example of a game that brings that back in an even better way than any game i've played. kids these days want to be the hero or the center of attention and its weak and makes games so shallow. obviously there's also games where being a hero and the focus of the story isn't all bad and that for me is strictly single player games, which retail wow has become.
I can honestly say in my decades of playing, I never knew that any group of defilers bandits was in any way connected to any other group of defilers bandits.
I was a dps paladin in Vanilla as the guild I was in knew I healed on my Shaman (who were actually worse than Paladins at healing oddly enough) and dI idnt have another dps class I could play. 40 people in a raid meant one person didnt make much of a difference if they werent the right class. As a result I was allowed to go Retribution in Blackwing Lair and MC. Also I was a luck magnet apparently, as stuff dropped that otherwise didnt. Man I miss the old days, I should probably just make a character on a classic server instead of just playing retail as it just doesnt feel the same as it once did :(
The total lack of friction in retail wow makes it so on rails and boring - classic being awkward is so fun sometimes. We just found a random vendor in an elite quest area that sold upgrades for people?? so cool.
Well articulated! It's the relaxed, slower pace and simplicity I love! Which is why I'm eager to also try GW2, and am curious to try OSRS. Thank you, bro!
I'd argue that retail WoW has also lost most of the MMO part as well, when you're soley focused on 5 man instanced content is that even an MMO? Sounds just like a normal multiplayer game to me. Out in the world questing seeing other people doing their thing, is not only the RPG part, it's also the MMO part.
I loved this video. Thank you for that. If it makes you feel any better, now, at my current fresh character on the new servers for classic, i got a raid spot as a ret pally :D
As an alliance player I love making the run to the scarlet monestary even though it takes forever. It feels like going on a long treck through enemy territory which may be filled with PvP. Always more fun then buying a summon
I didn't know Rexxar was in wow. wc3 had an extra campaign called The Founding of Duratar. It was a really well crafted experience that sets up how the fragile peace between the alliance and horde was maintained at great personal cost to Jaina Proudmore. It shows you the charisma of Thrall. It's extremely well done.
I wish i was 30 like you. I wish i had 15 just waiting for a virtual boat. But i think you are right on more levels than you realise. Slowing down in many aspects of life means living more.. so nice video
The mainstream is mad about video games because people who play most video games aren't getting addicted to drugs or gambling or consumerist shopping. Of course, more and more video games are becoming electronic casinos nowadays, so that's a problem now.
The ability to achieve some kind of imbalance and take pleasure in it - that’s the core of Vanilla. The current obsession with "balance" kills the feeling of ultimate uniqueness in your chosen path. Yeah, at some point, some classes (like Warlocks) can be unbearable, but that’s the point. You want to achieve something no one else can compete with. As a Warlock or Priest, you might feel untouchable at times. As a Paladin, you’re loving that bubble and free mount that sets you above the rest. As a Shaman, you get to enjoy your free raid slot & wolf form, speeding past others who don't get it until level 40. As a Rogue - you are the one for PvP and unlocking chests. As a Warrior, you're the tank. Each class has its own ultimate ability, making them irreplaceable in certain situations. And that’s what makes it great.
Also hey can you make a version of this video in Orcish instead of Common, I don't know what a 'Deadmines' or a 'Stormwind' is I only know Ragefire Chasm and Barrens Trade Chat
18:47 Jeff Kaplan mentioned. As an former overwatch enjoyer just hearing his name still hurts deep. I wish I could sit down with that man and just hear his ideas, and thank him.
Got back into wow classic, tried hardcore and instantly knew i have to relearn the game again. Tho i’m loving seasonal servers. Having that twist to classic and playing classes differently is so fun! Plus my server has many people online at any time. Human priest here.
Azeroth is a mechanic by itself. The material farming, the chain quests that ask you to walk around the world, and dungeons. It has many flaws and features that clearly need some quality of life. But every bit is relevant for levelers and farmers. I would totally give away AQ and Naxx for witcher experience in its questing. Some zones deservesa new remake/redo, some npcs definitely deserve spotlight. I really like the dungeon designs, the process is more methodical than "hur hurr speed run skip boss please" attitude we have in retail. Maraudon, blackrock depth and scholomance are fantastic, grueling for many people of course. I would say, grow the content vertically, not linearly. Raiding is only one aspect of the experience.
If you're a WoW Retail developer, there's gotta be a certain level of discouragement knowing that your boss had to re-re-release the original base game (the one you didn't work on) a SECOND TIME, just to keep the lights on. You'd be thinking "Man.. i am REALLY fucking this up"
"...all of these changes, made the game feel less than WoW". Been saying it for years, last expansion that felt like WoW was Cataclysm. I gave up retail 5 years ago when WoW Classic launched and now i am replaying the early days, for the 3rd time, in WoW 30 year anniversary. Yeah !
6:44 crazy thing to say when you have FFXIV footage next to you. Yes, you can pay for a level skip. Yes, you can completely run through the story and skip every cutscene and maybe reach max level in a few weeks. But if you're someone actually playing through the game and not ignoring it, you're gonna be spending from upwards to a month to almost a year trying to get to max level.
Those dungeon/raid guides I bought in 2008 and 2010 now comes back to prominence. I loved those books, even when they lost their prominence after severel dungeon crawls and raids.
@@robert-de-calvary Elden ring, wukong, baldur's gate 3, space marine 2, totk. We still have a ton of new great games, and old masterpieces are still masterpieces in 2024, that's why they are masterpieces.
@@elwendyrofys5944 games developed by Japan, Chinese and few european countries. It's not so much that good games wont exist, its that US seems to be in cultural decline and unable to produce great works like it used to be during its peak. We all know why too.
Funny enough, as I'm watching the segment about finding the dragon in Duskwood, I'm passing by the various little storylines you can encounter when leaving Gadgetzan in the middle of the desert, and they always get a chuckle out of me. These stupid little environmental details that do nothing but give a little story to the zone are peak design.
As someone who was there when the EverQuest scrolls were written, and having played that game until 2004, I can tell you why WoW Classic is still popular. It's not like anything out there. It the near perfect blend of danger/exploring with just the right amount of hand holding. By today's standards the game basically plays itself by telling you where you need to go, gives you the perfectly curved path to almost never come into any danger while leveling and only really throws some challenges at you in the end game. In today's MMOs leveling means nothing. It's mostly just a time sink until you reach max level and then can do end game content like raiding. In WoW classic and certainly in EverQuest, leveling felt challenging. Each level meant something. Each level felt like an accomplishment. You could feel your power growing with every level and when you finally reached max level you felt like a powerful character in the world. The feeling of accomplishment and danger have been lost in today's MMOs. The world's, while big, feel relatively small with as much fast travel and flying mounts and the like. In EverQuest, if you didn't know a druid or wizard...or didn't have the money to pay for a teleport....you'd have to walk. And that often meant 30+ minutes of walking through dangerous areas and trying to avoid monster that could one or two shot you. The same goes for WoW classic. I still remember my first trip from Darnassus to Stormwind, trying not to die from getting attacked by monsters that were 10+ levels higher than I was. 25 years later I can still remember the runs from Qeynos to Kelethin and knowing that if I got killed that likely all my stuff would be lost. There was risk in everything you did. Moreso, in EverQuest and WoW classic I remember the friends I had to make if I wanted to accomplish things in the world. Guilds meant something. Community and partnership meant something. Tools like dungeon finder in retail WoW rob you of the socialization you needed to do in order to feel like you were apart of something and more often than not WoW today feels like a solo game most of the time and not an MMO.
The thing I personally like about it is the gearing. I started WoW in Mists of Pandaria (cause I was too young and poor to start sooner, though I did play a trial during Cata) and MoP was already at a point where the numbers were so bloated that nothing parsed properly in my head and it was just a case of higher ilvl = better. With the numbers being so small and actually tangible in Classic, every new piece of gear you get feels like a big upgrade, no matter what it is. The whole "4 STR 4 Stam leather belt" meme wouldn't exist if gearing back in vanilla didn't feel so satisfying. There are a few things I do miss from retail when I play Classic (barbershop, certain flight points, etc) but overall Classic is just such a fun and satisfying overall experience that those things don't matter.
Dude! 21:32 first time I saw a whole 40 man guild raid headed there fighting the dragon and I was "helping" with my lvl 20 hunter *miss miss miss* and begging to join their guild :D epic times!
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
Use this link to get $20 off your first AG1 subscription: drinkag1.com/idyl
please no one mention the stain on my hoodie please GOD do not mention it
Epic outro song 🎵 💜
u are the chosen one. at lvl 12 in westfall u are already a big commander in the grander alliance for example. the charachters even call u so in the quest text. there are even videos about it online. it just happens that 95percent of wow players never read a book AI a quest text 8:20
retail btw also starts at lvl 1. also classic is centered around max lvl too.
idk where in retail u are THE choosen one. but there can be many choosen ones anyway. but i wonder where this is.
12:30 im still wondering about the causality of : the world is only getting bigger BECAUSE classic is a slow game. idk why slow means bigger. retail is way bigger. try getting loremaster in retail. sure its fast pase, but its much muchos contenta.
15:00 the claim is that this BOAT prevents u to min max in an mmo in general. or at least calm it down. u can min max traveling in an mmmorpg too , like arriving exactly when the boat is there and also min max the travelpath. its also mentioned that every mmo players wants to min max, but this boat is a miracle and prevent u from doing that. its also a fallacy that they are no waiting times in other mmos , suposed min max mmos. in retail u can wait up to 30min for an arena que to pop up. kinda long boat there.
hey, did you know theres a stain on your hoodie? (i actually didn't see it)
Don't worry, I definitely won't mention the stain on your hoodie that was definitely maybe not actually but truly there. Your hoodie stain secret is safe with me.
What you call "The Jank" makes the World feel more real because Real Life isn't perfect either & really people's idea of perfect varies anyway. Graphics are overrated & more of a generational perspective & in 20 Years young know it all kids will talk about how bad the Graphics were in 2024. WOW wasn't trying to create a World Of Equals that's Politically Correct in some people's eyes, it was trying to create a mirror of the Real World. Really the only time Blizzard focused on "Fairness" in WOW was when enough people complained & they'd do a nerf but that nerf would create more problems that others would complain about. Blizzard did such a great job at capturing Reality & adjusting it for an Online Fantasy World Scenario.
I'm playing Hardcore Classic, and to be honest, I’m not very good at it. The other day, I accidentally wandered into an area with high-level monsters. I was trying to escape with half my health, taking damage along the way. Then, a warrior saw me. Without a second thought, he charged straight into the enemies. He took a lot of damage, but I healed him, and we both managed to survive. We never saw each other again, but I’m still grateful to him. I think it’s moments like these that make World of Warcraft truly unique.
I had a very similar experience to this in Stranglethorn and I thank that priest everyday for healing me through getting almost pummeled to death by a gorilla.
Absolute Cinema
That’s the game.
That’s the beauty of the game.
It turns out that the best part of MMOs is other players
Hardcore WoW is the best version of wow, no contest. Softcore doesn't make any sense once you've played hardcore.
The biggest draw of classic WoW is the fact that you are just a nobody adventurer, and the world feels huge and scary. You don't just run around facerolling mobs, if you pull too many, you die.
Being a god makes the world feel less real. There are no real stakes, no real danger. Even if it was a world of superheroes, there has to be clear limits to their powers for it to feel real.
I mean, you just play a mage then you can pull 15 mobs and are them down. In fact it's optimal to play like that.
@@kerckmars But even then its not like there isn't any danger. You still have to position, conserve mana, make sure you're slowing all the mobs you've caught, run them around something so they wont get close to you. If they touch you you'll die.
You still feel fragile, your attacks don't feel 1 shotting and OP but instead you feel like you're using your abilities as efficiently as you can every pull for max gains. This is nothing like retail where abilities, health and mana are expandable and not a big deal.
@@kerckmarspeople don’t just AOE farm, you can very easily mess up your rotation and need specific talents too. Maybe you have lots of practice but it’s not easy and a crazy rush to do in Hardcore haha
@@kerckmars To be fair, even in that scenario, one or two unlucky resists can quickly turn into a dead wizard, so at least you're a glass cannon instead of just a force of nature going from world quest to world quest collecting whatever the current expansion power is.
If there was ever a classic rebalance though, AoE caps should definitely be up there.
The key: Immersion.
Classic WOW focuses less on systems and more on immersing players in the world. Most modern MMOs, including retail WOW, fails to understand that people want to log into these worlds and lose themselves in them, not sit at some nebulous 'end game' farming the same dungeon over and over.
and yet retail has more players...?
Remind me what it is you do in endgame for classic? ah right, run the same dungeons over and over...
btw I am not defending retail, just arguing the point, I think retail sucks as well, just not as much as classic
@@framinthorlol cope you retard, the classic experience is memorable to many for being immersed in the world by leveling, 1% of the population actually did endgame content
@@framinthor keep coping buddy retail population is terrible compared to the classic population from 2005-2010
@808slumps you are not disputing my point lol classic population is also terrible compared to the classic pop from 2005-2010... guess what tho, in 2005-2010 THAT was considered retail... are you trying to do a self own? lol
@@framinthor retail does not have more players, it has more bots.
Thanks for the shout out!
I think you hit the nail on the head this entire video. This video will be my go-to answer to anyone who asks me why I decided to name my channel Verigan 😆
Also your music selection was on point! I don't hear the Bastion OST often enough!
Retail WoW went the wrong direction. Blizz saw how people really liked dungeons and raids at first so they decided to put most of their energy on it. But they forgot that the magic came from the adventure with other people in the massive world they created. They messed it all up when they made questing a chore and only made endgame raiding fun.
this
i will never play retail after the last 3-4 dogwater expacs, but I would never doubt about going through vanilla again
even after having been through 1-60 at least 3-4 times in the last 20 years
i won't necessarily do it now due to a lack of time in my personal life but if I did have time, no doubt I would
yea and then they made the early game too easy and fast because players wanted to try the newest stuff
Retail WoW is probably the best tab target combat morpg if you're really into that gameplay.
Retail WoW is a terrible/nonexistent mmorpg.
People didnt like them at first, they were for the select few top tier players.... they decided to take away the leveling experience in favour of making everyone do end-game.
you assume ok - with dungeons Blizzard could both control players and content back in early BC - no need for gamemasters or world spanning guys monitoring players - eg player pulling world bosses npc s or hogger to goldshire - players pvp ganking world bosses , players doing mafia groups on mobs -Control and money and gamelimits and or even remote imagination by devs
tanaris flight path destinations are for going to take a poop
Horde have a nice time of it. Instead of our route taking us through both freewind post and camp taurajo, there's a direct flight to XR, that saves several minutes, compared to if we had just chained together each shorter route.
Accurate
most people dont know, but classic was designed with smokers in mind. Especially the asian demographic was(is) smoking excessively. Therefore you can play the game with one hand most of the time and flight paths give you more than enough time to light one up.
Not me reading this on the toilet while my character is flying... in tanaris. Wtf.
"If you made an undead character go to therapy" I said this to myself as an undead first time I entered Undercity, died from the elevator and got lost in there.
Forsaken have the best story.
I'm very offended at the notion that I, an undead player, need therapy. My therapist will be hearing about this on Monday.
I mean, a paladin said it... :D Who takes em seriously?
The toxicity of our city of our ciiiiity
I tried to play retail recently as a Classic Andy. Man it felt so hollow. Like now you can just group with npcs to do dungeons… you’re so strong you rarely need help, and when a quest is a little too hard they slap an npc with you. I can’t enjoy it the same way I play Classic
Nobody wants to be stuck in progresssing in mmo 😂 player base is shrinking you can’t rely to do quests with other players. To unlock some rares in shadow lands you need others player good luck with that
I gave up Retail during Legion when I was on my Mage... Literally AOE'ing down whole areas of the map without ANY sweat whatsoever... And as I was there... Acting like some deranged God... I asked myself...
*Why am I playing this? Just so I can speed level to the end? And then what? Once I've done all the raids... What's left? Just wait for the next expansion??? So I can do ALL of this ALL over again???*
When I stared playing Classic... As an older (50+) Vanilla Player... All the nostalgia came flooding back... As did the challenge of the game itself... And although not quite the same as Vanilla, the Classic Community was Strong!!!
Hardcore is my thing now anyway! The thrill... The excitement... The challenge (AND the potential heart attacks!) is just right up my street. And the HC Community... 95% of the time... Is a Good One! Very helpful... And we all buff and look out for each other 😁
You captured the appeal of the game perfectly and the editing and humor was on point. As someone who was only 2 years old when Vanilla released, I’m always baffled by people who claim that it’s all “rose-tinted glasses”. I think if more people slowed down and took a closer look they would find that Vanilla WoW is one of the greatest adventures in gaming.
8:30 That's actually such a huge deal to me. As much as I love GW2 and WoW, I hate how I'm supposed to be « the commander », or how « the group of adventurers » is now a thing in WoW's lore. I just want to be an adventurer among other adventurers. Lore wise I should only be part of the world itself and accompany npcs for the sake of the story. That's it
I would agree but it's not like that would even make sense in wow at this point. The stature of the players are more than earned. Frankly they should be the NPC Kings and Queen's. So its not that I disagree but it's a question of how you even do that when you're 20yrs in
@michaelpurdon7032 you do that by not making people commanders in the first place
So, instead of changing retail, people are going back to a time before they were god-slaying power lusted armies of one
Starting as an adventurer sure, still being one after 10 years of saving the world over and over? Come on
@@electricant55 The original canon never assumed that the player did ALL of those things though. The majority of players never even saw the inside of a raid, let alone cleared them all. Even the ones that did were just 1 of 40 adventurers.
It wasn't until attunements were removed- and later the introduction of LFR- that it was assumed your character would have not only been present but a factor in those story beats. Unironically, MoP was one of the few times we get reigned-in by simply being a stranger to a populace that hasn't heard or care about our deeds, and actually has a pretty good leveling experience and story for it.
I started playing FF14 recently (see: yesterday) after my friend finally convinced me to since the retail season is pretty much over for us and we’re on a break.
First thing I asked was “am I the super commander, big billy britches hero of light with a prophecy that I’m going to save the world without me actually earning this prestigious title?”
Their response: No.
Sold me immediately (yes it’s final fantasy AND an MMO, so I know my character is going to *eventually* have some sort of destiny to follow, but as long as it feels earned? Count me in).
I wanna give an example of how Azeroth is a world that is worth exploring
As a night elf the only way to get to the other continent early levels is a boat to a zone called the wetlands which is around level 25, the human starting zone is my favorite and so when I started playing hardcore, I wanted to get to it without dying as a night elf. I wanted to figure things out on my own so I decided to try and swim around the whole continent and land right at westfall. I was correct, but randomly, about a 5 minute swim from the south of westfall, is a house with a dock to the entire ocean. There’s no one in the house, it serves no purpose, it literally is surrounded on all sides by mountains. But it’s still there. And when I found it I was enthralled. I wanted to know what this random house was doing here. And I still don’t know. As far as I know it could just be a test for the developers since it does resemble most of the houses in the undead starting zone and is in a place you would normally never go. But it’s still just so cool to find by yourself.
It is called Newman's Landing. It's a memorial for one of the original developers of Wow vanilla who passed away before WoW was launched. I found it too by swimming from Menethil to Westfall.
I recently came back to WoW after many years away and decided to see what retail was like. I was immediately put off by how fast the levelling was, how easy everything was, and how you end up being thrust in to the middle of a story with no context or background. I had no idea what was going on, or who anyone was, and the game didn’t seem to care that much either as it was trying to get me to max level as quickly as possible. Nothing felt earned and there was no sense of achievement. It was an entirely hollow experience. So now I play on the new Classic Anniversary realms.
The difficulty of retail and classic are basically polar opposites. Retail is easy in the leveling and difficult in the end game. Classic is difficult in the leveling and easy in the end game. And they both put their focus on the more difficult parts.
@@WadeAllen001 Fair enough, but when I get to max level I want to feel like it's a big achievement. I don't want to feel like I've been playing through a glorified tutorial so I can get to the real game. That's hugely unsatisfying to me. But of course, to each their own.
@@WadeAllen001 retail is hard, in fact, its actually TOO hard, people dont want to sweat all over their keyboard when they get home from work, they want to chill and get loot. Retail has lost a crazy amount of players in tww because its too hard to get anything meaningful done, its tedious systems sucks and actively work against you. Its a frustrating experience and its why so many people hop on, play for a month or two and quit. It cannot retain players and there is a reason for that
@@zylle1993people just suck too much in wow thinking they good players that the problem with wow community. The elitarism and boosted egos is awful and that’s goes to any online community basically.
@@silvrfruitthe problem with retail that old expansions are useless and meanglisess. Guild wars 2 feels amazing because whole world is alive and what you do counts to soemthing to unlock mounts abilities etc. In wow retail you gain system and lose system in next expansion. Wow has so much dead content same with classic try to find people in older expansion 😂
Not to sound like a boomer but WoW classic and OSRS are the best games available rn
FFXIV is pretty good, too.
So god damn true, I wish osrs was less grindy though, i got 1500 hours on my osrs account.
Its crazy that the gaming industry dont learn from these giants
I play both and I love them. OSRS is bae
Yep! The ironmanmode is amazing. Almost 2000 total on mine!
@@midgetydeath true if 4 years ago, Dwantrail is garbage
The whispered "warcraft" very nice touch ;) Glad you're enjoying and making videos on the world *warcraft* that has captivated me so since childhood! I really enjoy your videos and humour please keep it up!
Thank you for this video, I was never able to find the words to describe how I felt when I levelled from 1-60 in 1.12 on a Tauren Warrior. That took me many moons and I never realized just how important all the little things were like the long flights around and tanking through those epic dungeons. Fantastic👍
Say a great quote the other day: "Efficiency is the antithesis of adventure"
It kind of dawned on me while watching this that if Blizzard Microsoft wanted their long loved game to reclaim it's former glory, they'd have to kind of re-create vanilla. I don't mean re-release vanilla classic, I mean make the main part of the game leveling that takes months and months to complete, but with all new content. I've been playing since WotLK and the recipe the entire time with a new expansion is 4 or 5 new zones, 8 new dungeons, and a raid with the main content being endgame m+, raid, and pvp. Wouldn't it be lovely that with a new expansion, you get like 20 zones, thousands of new quest lines and the new raid is still there as an end goal, but it's not the meat of the game.
I play both retail and classic HC and both have their dopamine hits, but I'll say with retail, the content is running the same things over and over, which is fine, but you do (or at least I do) get burned out doing the same dung/raid for 5-7 months until they drop the next patch. Once I'm burned out on the content, I always end up going back to classic because it's such relaxing play and even though I've leveled through it numerous times, there's still some content that I haven't done. Maybe that's how the WorldSoul Saga ends, Azeroth blowing up and we all have to start on a new world with 20-30 new zones and thousands of quests and us leveling through 60 levels; I'm doubtful that's how it'll go, but would be cool as hell.
The problem with making Retail more like Classic is that Retail players don't like Classic.
I think the need to talk and slow pace is the key. Now sometimes I run 10 dungeons without a word. Feels lonely and a bit sad
Pace?
@@vitokorunic3761 si senor
This need for speed in dungeons is TOTAL stress in my experience! I remember healing this Utgarde Keep PUG on Classic Wrath... Early in the morning... So no doubt, some in the group were probably on a clock before work.
Anyway, tank pulls on second boss... And I was out of mana... We wipe and, as we were ghosting back... I simply asked the tank... Why?
Him: "I got work soon so we have to go fast!!!"
Me: "But how is wiping making this any quicker for you?"
Him: BRAIN FREEZE!!!
Not sure if he even responded but I promptly left the group anyway... And whisper / ignored him that I hope this was fast enough! 😁
The best part about wow classic is seeing so many people running around. Talking to each other and doing stuff together. This was my fourth classic fresh server and I teamed up at lvl 6 and then we stayed together till the end.
Sadly I stop once I max lvl as raiding is not for me. But I love the adventure to 60 every time.
There’s never a second in the world in retail
In classic anniversary, I get to talk to my guildies and friends, or meet up with someone and help them out quickly. These are the golden moments of wow
Classic/vanilla is so cozy
Retail wow is a good single player game while vanilla is a mmorpg
Retail wow used to be a good single player game but stopped like 3 expansions ago imo.
Yay the president of MMOs posted
The MMlOrd.
John MMO
@@Simte The MMOverlord
thaks for being teh most relatable and entertaining game content creator. I used to watch a lot of gaming stuff but other than a handful of game specific informative creators for poe, osrs, and th random games i get into, i only watch your stuff now for fun. Just ty for bein u :D
"No changes" actually changed the game. People play different now, the debuff/world buff meta wasn't a thing in Classic. Also they extended melee range when moving in vanilla to account for bad internet back in the day, but that just broke things with Classic.
leeway is just for auto attacks and world buff meta was def a thing in classic, since vael where it became meta.
Their newest classic realms even have dual spec in them. I'm actually boggled there's anyone that actually wants to play the game like that - it's a mockery of what the original devs had built. Forget being an RPG, none of your character choices matter.
@@Allarielle let's be real, talents weren't a choice. You looked at a guide picked the most efficient thing and forgot about it. Dual spec will just allow players to have pve pvp talents without burning a hole in their pocket. The game is mostly the same, if you really don't like dual spec don't use it.
@@Allariellebrother you just spent gold over and over again to pvp and pve. That’s now just a 1 time purchase. It’s purely QOL, if you don’t like that then you’re a purist and need to go sit in a corner and cry.
World buffs were from private servers.
This video makes me really want to renew my sub and go back to Classic. It hits the nail on the head on why I haven't been able to get into other MMO"RPGs". Everything is a rush to the end, you're constantly guided from one spot to the next, and there's no sense of just enjoying the world.
Lets be real. The moment you get to stranglethorn you will remember why you cant play this game.
Don't know if you have much experience with GW2, but that game is essentially built around exploring the world.
Classic is simply a very good game... It's power progression is linear and itemization easy to understand... Gear upgrades feel good and are noticeable.. the world of AZEROTH is BIG and dangerous... Your not just steam rolling everything and finding epics and legendaries everywhere... Rares feel like rares.. epics are Epic!
All so true.
It’s just so chill and you’re not in a rush to do anything. It’s great. I’ve only seen 3 people on mounts on the PvP eu server and I love it, adventures on my warrior killing Murlocs and mining like my life depends on it. But of fishing, bit of cooking, but of first aid, some roleplay, selling stuff for silver on the AH.
Great stuff, simpler times , no gear grinding, love it
I love Classic! Never got to raid back in those days because I didn't know what raiding was. Got to raid BC Classic the first Classic Cycle. With the fresh anniversary servers, I'm working on getting ready for raiding MC and BWL
Now if we can get an official old school MapleStory server 😏
Yeah right we need Habibi to be restless with you 😯😤
Brought to you by Balkan gang
Playing classic as a healer makes me feel appreciated. All i have to do is exist in a zone and people whisper me to see if i want to do a dungeon. In retail wow healers are just the punching bag to blame when things go wrong
The point you mention about down time is so important, I am someone who really doesn't use fast travel at all when playing games, whether it is the Witcher 3 or Skyrim, or even Valheim, I generally avoid using the instant fast travel options, since I find them immersion breaking, and I enjoy the down time of riding from area to area. And that is also why I love Classic WoW.
The sad part is that no MMO since than has managed to capture a fracture of that discovery, class fantasy and necessary inconvinience (I remember the quote of the one game dev that encapsulates it so well, 'Players will optimize the fun out of their game if possible.').
There are better complete experiences on the MMO market out there, from FF over retail WoW to Guild Wars 2, but none comes even close to recreate the magic of classic WoW.
I love the little things like quest objectives having a respawn time for other players as well. It makes the other player matter more, they're not just these ghosts walking past, they're a part of the world just like all the npcs and you.
The part about "moments" and "waiting" for transportation reminds me of old Maplestory, where trips between locations could take 10-15 minutes, and there was nothing better to do than talk. And those were the MOST memorable moments, memories i still cherish to this day.
And also dying to Crimson Balrog on my way to Orbis, because I afk'd outside, that happened too...
Incredible video! Incredible Perspective.
Thanks for kinda showing us up-and-coming creators a little of the background of your production. Mic sounds great, Green Screen and clips are crisp.
Subscribed 😎🤙🏻
What I absolutely love about the Defias storyline is how they don't shove you into it on a themepark ride. It's up to you to read and discover as little or as much as you want of it, and it starts so slow, in your first hour of gameplay in Northern Abbey, and resolves well over a dozen hours later in the Deadmines, quite a bit deeper in your journey. MMORPG storytelling done beautifully.
Goddamn that forsaken ‘go to therapy’ line hit too hard
Oh my god as an Aussie the Tracey Grimshaw ACA jump scare at the beginning gave me friggin PTSD lmao
15:24 To go back to making MMORPGs as social as they were back in the early 00s, you need to make social media like facebook and twitter and shit no longer exist, because once those platforms established themselves to the public the sheer novelty of "Oh! I'm grouped in this SFK run with a dude from Germany, a dude from Australia, and some chick from the east coast all at once! WOW!" evaporated. MMOs had that niche for a hot minute, but then they didn't. Every other issue plaguing these social games stems from that, the impatience, the toxicity, all of it.
We're never getting that window of time back, my friends.
exactly!
what a lot of people fail to realise is that WoW was like social media before social media existed.
people would log on and sit in social hubs just to talk with their friends or just look at the people passing
100% agree. Leveling and discovering things in WoW was an incredible experience that I'll never forget. Leveling was a huge part of the game.
The music, sitting down and going into certain spots brings such a rush of nostalgia, euphoria. You can no-life sweat it, and I do but I sincerely enjoy just logging on and running around.
Shoutout to your note about Oblivion's plot - it's often more compelling for an RPG to put you in the place of an everyman instead of the "chosen one" and the storyline in Oblivion is one of the most underrated in the TES series.
When youre level60 you’ll go to a troll island to get quests and reputation for the zulgurub raid. You’ll look north and see a big gate in the water. It will take a few seconds before you realize thats where VanCleefs ship was supposed to exit from had his quest succeeded.
The defias questline ends at that realization, somewhere at t2 raiding
As a retail WoW player I've been saying all the points you made to my guild for years, about the lack of RPG, the convenience over immersion, the lack of social interactions, thank you for bringing these views to more people. It's nice to know I'm not alone with these thoughts on the state of "modern" WoW or MMORPG's in general and why WoW classic is special.
As a veteran player who own collectors edition classic wow it’s really something to see the game through fresh eyes with all these new players.
Thank you for justifying my love for this version of the game
I just want to mention that the Defias Brotherhood story is part of a much bigger story ark that carries clear on until you fight Onyxia at endgame. I'm not sure how many of the details are outlined clearly in the game because this will be my first 1-60 vanilla playthrough on alliance.
I won't go into details here, but there's a reason the Defias Brotherhood and the Nobles ended up in conflict with each other.
It's a bunch of quest chains that you do throughout your entire time leveling. You end up finding out more in your 30s that basically outlines that there is a conspiracy, then towards max level there's another chain that ends in you exposing the person behind it that ends in a really cool fight in the throne room. This entire quest chain also ties into where Varian could be and why he's missing.
Classic WoW: Half of the game (and fun) is leveling.
Retail WoW: leveling is the first 6 hours (it sucks).
Me and my wife are playing classic WoW, like crazy and having a blast at it. The game just feels like anyone can get into it. You are a sweat ok great; you are a casual right great; you are a noob at gaming alright great.
Looks like I'm ditching retail now!
Your sponsor sections are truly peak youtube and I never skip them because they are as good, if not better than the rest of the video
I agree with your point about being the chosen one, it feels awkward to be told "you're the only one who can save the world" when 5,000 other people in your very lobby are doing the same thing, and doing it way better and faster than you.
Get rid of that, at least for MMOs, tell me I'm one of 50,000 guards and if we work together we can save the world. I think that's what makes Hellldivers 2 so appealing.
Back in the day I remember the sentiment of "I've done so much for my faction but I'm still a faceless nobody I deserve recognition" so in WoD they made your character special. To me it makes so much more sense to be a piece of the larger whole rather than the star of the show. The order hall idea was nice, making every player character the leader of it just didn't make sense
this is an issue with alot of games not just MMOs, take battlefield for example, specialists that are named characters ruins the whole idea of being a piece of meat in the grinder! hell let loose is a fine example of a game that brings that back in an even better way than any game i've played. kids these days want to be the hero or the center of attention and its weak and makes games so shallow.
obviously there's also games where being a hero and the focus of the story isn't all bad and that for me is strictly single player games, which retail wow has become.
I can honestly say in my decades of playing, I never knew that any group of defilers bandits was in any way connected to any other group of defilers bandits.
I was a dps paladin in Vanilla as the guild I was in knew I healed on my Shaman (who were actually worse than Paladins at healing oddly enough) and dI idnt have another dps class I could play. 40 people in a raid meant one person didnt make much of a difference if they werent the right class. As a result I was allowed to go Retribution in Blackwing Lair and MC. Also I was a luck magnet apparently, as stuff dropped that otherwise didnt. Man I miss the old days, I should probably just make a character on a classic server instead of just playing retail as it just doesnt feel the same as it once did :(
The total lack of friction in retail wow makes it so on rails and boring - classic being awkward is so fun sometimes. We just found a random vendor in an elite quest area that sold upgrades for people?? so cool.
Your answer is spot on. I have fun leveling with my friends. Having a warrior and priest duo is so fun
First griffin ride was magical.
The quiet "of warcraft" in the background after every time he says "world" is underrated.
Well articulated! It's the relaxed, slower pace and simplicity I love! Which is why I'm eager to also try GW2, and am curious to try OSRS. Thank you, bro!
I'd argue that retail WoW has also lost most of the MMO part as well, when you're soley focused on 5 man instanced content is that even an MMO? Sounds just like a normal multiplayer game to me. Out in the world questing seeing other people doing their thing, is not only the RPG part, it's also the MMO part.
14:15 - You're missing the Stonetalon Peak node. Always more things to discover I guess :P
Oof that Chrono Trigger Soundtrack took me back 20 years. Great video man. Thanks for the content.
I loved this video. Thank you for that. If it makes you feel any better, now, at my current fresh character on the new servers for classic, i got a raid spot as a ret pally :D
Thankyou for nicely articulating my thoughts on why i love this game.
I think you summed up very well why classic is so social, I’ve never realised or thought about it in that way either.
I’m 31 and I’ve just started my first ever play through 😂
Enjoy the ride and play how you want to.
Jeff Kaplan was the original quest designer, Mark Kern was the lead designer, the story of how Kaplan was hired is kinda funny tho
As an alliance player I love making the run to the scarlet monestary even though it takes forever. It feels like going on a long treck through enemy territory which may be filled with PvP. Always more fun then buying a summon
I didn't know Rexxar was in wow. wc3 had an extra campaign called The Founding of Duratar. It was a really well crafted experience that sets up how the fragile peace between the alliance and horde was maintained at great personal cost to Jaina Proudmore. It shows you the charisma of Thrall. It's extremely well done.
I wish i was 30 like you. I wish i had 15 just waiting for a virtual boat. But i think you are right on more levels than you realise. Slowing down in many aspects of life means living more.. so nice video
A month lol. It took years to get to 60 back in the day.
Rexxar is from Warcraft 3. He helped found Ogrimaar
Getting to Scarlet Monastery as an Alliance was a 25 minute adventure.
The mainstream is mad about video games because people who play most video games aren't getting addicted to drugs or gambling or consumerist shopping.
Of course, more and more video games are becoming electronic casinos nowadays, so that's a problem now.
The ability to achieve some kind of imbalance and take pleasure in it - that’s the core of Vanilla. The current obsession with "balance" kills the feeling of ultimate uniqueness in your chosen path. Yeah, at some point, some classes (like Warlocks) can be unbearable, but that’s the point. You want to achieve something no one else can compete with. As a Warlock or Priest, you might feel untouchable at times. As a Paladin, you’re loving that bubble and free mount that sets you above the rest. As a Shaman, you get to enjoy your free raid slot & wolf form, speeding past others who don't get it until level 40. As a Rogue - you are the one for PvP and unlocking chests. As a Warrior, you're the tank. Each class has its own ultimate ability, making them irreplaceable in certain situations. And that’s what makes it great.
Also hey can you make a version of this video in Orcish instead of Common, I don't know what a 'Deadmines' or a 'Stormwind' is I only know Ragefire Chasm and Barrens Trade Chat
18:47 Jeff Kaplan mentioned. As an former overwatch enjoyer just hearing his name still hurts deep. I wish I could sit down with that man and just hear his ideas, and thank him.
Got back into wow classic, tried hardcore and instantly knew i have to relearn the game again. Tho i’m loving seasonal servers. Having that twist to classic and playing classes differently is so fun! Plus my server has many people online at any time. Human priest here.
Azeroth is a mechanic by itself. The material farming, the chain quests that ask you to walk around the world, and dungeons. It has many flaws and features that clearly need some quality of life. But every bit is relevant for levelers and farmers. I would totally give away AQ and Naxx for witcher experience in its questing. Some zones deservesa new remake/redo, some npcs definitely deserve spotlight. I really like the dungeon designs, the process is more methodical than "hur hurr speed run skip boss please" attitude we have in retail. Maraudon, blackrock depth and scholomance are fantastic, grueling for many people of course. I would say, grow the content vertically, not linearly. Raiding is only one aspect of the experience.
seeing Raxxor was such joy for me I played Warcraft and did his extra mission where you play as him
If you're a WoW Retail developer, there's gotta be a certain level of discouragement knowing that your boss had to re-re-release the original base game (the one you didn't work on) a SECOND TIME, just to keep the lights on. You'd be thinking "Man.. i am REALLY fucking this up"
"...all of these changes, made the game feel less than WoW". Been saying it for years, last expansion that felt like WoW was Cataclysm. I gave up retail 5 years ago when WoW Classic launched and now i am replaying the early days, for the 3rd time, in WoW 30 year anniversary. Yeah !
Summoning stones outside the dungeon wouldn't hurt. Dying on every run to scarlet cathedral is a pain.
6:44 crazy thing to say when you have FFXIV footage next to you. Yes, you can pay for a level skip. Yes, you can completely run through the story and skip every cutscene and maybe reach max level in a few weeks. But if you're someone actually playing through the game and not ignoring it, you're gonna be spending from upwards to a month to almost a year trying to get to max level.
Those dungeon/raid guides I bought in 2008 and 2010 now comes back to prominence. I loved those books, even when they lost their prominence after severel dungeon crawls and raids.
"how are we still doing hawk tuah?" - looks at chuck norris talk in barrens chat...meme from 20 years ago.
what a time to be alive. most popular and best quality games are 20 years old.
I think tf2 popularized playing the old games
Its not a choice per se. Players will still play a new game if its good@Scoutineer
Sucka to live in declining civilization. Everything really good can only be found in the past.
@@robert-de-calvary Elden ring, wukong, baldur's gate 3, space marine 2, totk. We still have a ton of new great games, and old masterpieces are still masterpieces in 2024, that's why they are masterpieces.
@@elwendyrofys5944 games developed by Japan, Chinese and few european countries. It's not so much that good games wont exist, its that US seems to be in cultural decline and unable to produce great works like it used to be during its peak. We all know why too.
I think you are my favorite content creator for at least the last year :)
15:45 How you could describe this as suboptimal is beyond me
Original EQ had a strong sense of exploration as well. And I know that inspired WOW.
Funny enough, as I'm watching the segment about finding the dragon in Duskwood, I'm passing by the various little storylines you can encounter when leaving Gadgetzan in the middle of the desert, and they always get a chuckle out of me. These stupid little environmental details that do nothing but give a little story to the zone are peak design.
Holy hell that Bastion soundtrack song hit me with so much nostalgia
As someone who was there when the EverQuest scrolls were written, and having played that game until 2004, I can tell you why WoW Classic is still popular. It's not like anything out there. It the near perfect blend of danger/exploring with just the right amount of hand holding. By today's standards the game basically plays itself by telling you where you need to go, gives you the perfectly curved path to almost never come into any danger while leveling and only really throws some challenges at you in the end game.
In today's MMOs leveling means nothing. It's mostly just a time sink until you reach max level and then can do end game content like raiding. In WoW classic and certainly in EverQuest, leveling felt challenging. Each level meant something. Each level felt like an accomplishment. You could feel your power growing with every level and when you finally reached max level you felt like a powerful character in the world. The feeling of accomplishment and danger have been lost in today's MMOs. The world's, while big, feel relatively small with as much fast travel and flying mounts and the like. In EverQuest, if you didn't know a druid or wizard...or didn't have the money to pay for a teleport....you'd have to walk. And that often meant 30+ minutes of walking through dangerous areas and trying to avoid monster that could one or two shot you. The same goes for WoW classic. I still remember my first trip from Darnassus to Stormwind, trying not to die from getting attacked by monsters that were 10+ levels higher than I was. 25 years later I can still remember the runs from Qeynos to Kelethin and knowing that if I got killed that likely all my stuff would be lost. There was risk in everything you did.
Moreso, in EverQuest and WoW classic I remember the friends I had to make if I wanted to accomplish things in the world. Guilds meant something. Community and partnership meant something. Tools like dungeon finder in retail WoW rob you of the socialization you needed to do in order to feel like you were apart of something and more often than not WoW today feels like a solo game most of the time and not an MMO.
The thing I personally like about it is the gearing. I started WoW in Mists of Pandaria (cause I was too young and poor to start sooner, though I did play a trial during Cata) and MoP was already at a point where the numbers were so bloated that nothing parsed properly in my head and it was just a case of higher ilvl = better. With the numbers being so small and actually tangible in Classic, every new piece of gear you get feels like a big upgrade, no matter what it is. The whole "4 STR 4 Stam leather belt" meme wouldn't exist if gearing back in vanilla didn't feel so satisfying.
There are a few things I do miss from retail when I play Classic (barbershop, certain flight points, etc) but overall Classic is just such a fun and satisfying overall experience that those things don't matter.
Shout out
Beef brother!
Dude! 21:32 first time I saw a whole 40 man guild raid headed there fighting the dragon and I was "helping" with my lvl 20 hunter *miss miss miss* and begging to join their guild :D epic times!
Because it’s fun?
17:52 omg that OST really took me back.
What song is it!!! I neeeeeed it!!! Please
@@almostfunnyful Chrono Trigger Secret Forest OST
@@almostfunnyful
Not to get confused with Breath of Fire 3 Cedar Woods which sound almost the same
17:03 That is a solid joke.
And yes, if you are not playing a warrior you're doing it wrong.
Because it is an MMORPG and not modern bullshit that are not MMO nor RPG anymore.