World of Warcraft Classic: 3 Things We Are Happy To See

If you play World of Warcraft, you have undoubtedly heard about WoW Classic releasing in August. The Vanilla WoW players are all abuzz, even players like me who started in Burning Crusade or Wrath of the Lich King have found lots of things to love. I started in the last month of Burning Crusade, and there are three things that I am really looking forward to making a come back.

Difficult Gameplay-

I know that not every player likes a difficult game, Classic is not for them. For the rest of us who enjoy that adrenaline pump, Classic WoW has it for you. In BFA, you can pull tons of mobs in the world, or even in dungeons, you AoE burn them done and loot fest. However, Classic takes us back to a time of danger and exploration. I remember leveling back before the nerfbat hit it. I was in the Barrens on my Troll Rogue trying to complete a class mission. I had to sneak into this tower and steal some stuff. The guards could see stealth, so you had to act fast with your disables if you were spotted. The mobs were several levels higher and elites at that. I died several times trying to complete the mission. It felt like. It felt like Dark Souls meets Dishonored. I miss that feeling in the current WoW. With addons and internet resources, the game will never be as hard as it once was, but it will certainly be more difficult gameplay the BFA.

On top of the gameplay difficulty, there are several quality of life things that newer players will have never experienced. No flying, scrolling quest text, no minimap markers, low gold drops, and spells that require reagents are a few of the big ones. The worst though is only 1 spec to utilize. That’s right folks, there is no spec swapping at will, not even the dual spec that was introduced in Wrath. Want to be a tank, you can dedicate 1 character to it. Healer, same thing. Want to do PvP you need a character for that too. The point being your character is going to be great at 1 thing. Speaking of specializing, let’s look a little more at that.

Talent Trees-

Talents exist in BFA sure, but it isn’t the same. The talent trees were more customizable than they are now. Yes, some of the talents are just automatic upgrades, but it allowed for more customization. Do you want to be a Resto Shaman who can defend themselves on the frontlines with a 2-Hand Mace? You can do it. Want to be a Retribution Paladin who can shoot holy lasers at distant enemies, you can spec that as well. The point is, you were not stuck to only having points in one tree. Hybrid characters were not only possible but common. The customization wasn’t even the part that felt good about the talent system though.

The talent system used to award talent points as you level. Even though several of the talents were just buffing current abilities, you felt progressively more powerful. Plus when you leveled up you felt like you got something as a reward. In a game with challenges like Classic, every upgrade really makes you feel better. The next thing is so much what if coming back as what is going away.

Cross-Server Play-

A while back, Blizzard introduced cross server play to help zones feel more populated. They also implemented the same thing for dungeons and raids. Now, that does have its benefits, but the lack of Cross-server for grouping means that players have to be more social. Remember being social in an MMO?

Before cross-server, your reputation mattered on a server. We don’t mean your faction reps either. We mean your reputation among the other players. If you were known as the kindhearted, fun-loving, good-time player, you had a higher chance of getting into groups. Skill was also important. If you could avoid standing in the fire, you were valued by all healers. BFA has largely become groupings of unified strangers, they don’t talk or cultivate a relationship. Before that, players joined groups with decent people, who were there to have a good time. There were far fewer Ninjas and Trolls per capita of players because once branded with that title, you were likely to not get invited back to groups. Basically, I am trying to say, the game was far more governed by social interactions than it is now. I know I said 3 in the title, but there is another that I feel deserves a place, so enjoy the bonus.

Bonus: A New, But Old World

A huge number of BFA players began playing in Cataclysm or later. Hell, even Cata players are starting to get a little long in the tooth, but this particular thing is specific to those players. During the events of the pre-Cata patch, 4.0, The entirety of Azeroth was changed. The zones that everyone was used to were forever changed. Some were covered in water, others had massive tears in the ground, and there even zones that were split into 2 parts. While Wrath and earlier players will remember these, all of the others have never seen them. Meaning, the world they see will be completely new to them.

As one who started playing after vanilla, I am really excited about the chance to go back to some of my favorite dungeons and experience them as they were meant to be played. Not to mention, experiencing all of the quests in the Old world zones that I never got the chance to get the story on. World of Warcraft used to be about the journey, not just the endgame.

I hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, don’t forget to check out more content and follow us to be the first to see future posts. What are you most excited for about Classic? What would you like to see us cover in the future? Let us know in the comments.

“Time is money friend.” So thank you for yours.