Classic left a void I don't know how to fill

Community General Discussion
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Hello all.

Please let me preface that I am not a “classic is good, retail is bad” type fanboy. I’ll be referencing Classic a lot, not because I prefer it over retail (I actually prefer retail in many regards) but because the experiences I had were on Classic.

I started playing WoW in MoP. I met two random guys on tradechat (a Fin and a German) whom I befriended. They ran old raids with me and made me fall in love with the lore and older content. I played all through MoP until Legion, took a break halfway through WoD though, but not for long. I’ve loved the game ever since, however, after Legion real life took priority and I fell out with the game.

I didn’t get pulled back into the World of Warcraft until Classic got announced. I had never played it before, only seen some videos and heard some crazy stories. I was hyped. Me and my friend signed up and tried it out.

In my 16 years of gaming, I’ve never experienced something like this before. I’m not talking about the systems, the design, or the playability. I’m talking about the community. I remember on launch our starting zone was overrun and we had to group up with people to combat the mob farming. A few zones later, we would run into the same people and remember them. It really felt like you were part of the world, and the people around you were experiencing it just like you were.

Sadly the friend I played with quit (got drafted into the military) and I also stopped playing. With the announcement of Dragonflight I resubbed and have been playing the Shadowlands expansion at my own pace. Despite what people say, the game is a great escape from real life burdens and I’m having a good time. However… There is a constant pull towards something that I can’t find on the server I play on (Silvermoon) and that is the community aspect.

Thankfully, /4 and /1 are active sometimes but it’s not enough to fill the void.

I’ve been watching videos of Barny’s Classic adventures and to be honest I’m looking over screenshots from the first two months I played Classic and I’m depressed because of the nostalgic feeling. Man, I would do anything to relive that experience, whether it’s on retail or Classic. I’ve played ESO, GW2 and more games and nothing ever really captured me like those two months I played on Classic.

I don’t know if I can enjoy retail anymore, knowing what I had on Classic.

I just want to play on a server where there’s community events, where guilds actually cooperate and know one another and where I don’t feel like a stranger in my own server whenever “веселый парень” shards in…

I’m not sure why I’m making this thread, maybe just to vent, maybe just to ask advice, or maybe to find people who have experienced (or are experiencing) the same feeling.

Is there really still such a thing as a community aspect on EU WoW? Where can I find it? What do I have to do to stop feeling like I’m missing out?

If you guys know of any servers with a real community aspect, please do let me know.

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I don’t think there’s so much community on servers anymore, it’s all guild based mostly now but if you want a really active server as alliance I’d say Argent Dawn is most likely your best bet I think.

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One of the main reasons I loved wow. Community - I knew a lot of my server players. I had enemies, friends ect. Went to capital or just random places, could see known nicknames, we had some PvP legends on server ect.
Now I even don’t care about those NPC’s (players on retail)
I get your point :slight_smile:

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what does this mean in this day and age?.

Do you need a master to tell you stuff to do? if thats the case you can join my guild on retail. there you can farm golds and mats and consumes for me a true community where you are needed!.

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Im kinda in the same slump but the reason retail is like that is because open world,lfr and lfd content is brain dead mash keyboard and win till level cap and the rewards suck…

Classic required people to work together and some items and quests had meaningful rewards there was no sharding (until layering but it was only 2 not thousands) so you spent time with the same people every day… wow now is like going to football practice and your team mates change everyday its still football but it sucks cause you don’t know anyone, and when you do its for m+ and raiding cause everything else is solo content.

There is no funny interactions of getting chassed through fields by murlocks oooooh no just raid or mythic+ leaders screaming cause there on a timer 24/7.

People just want the gear from M+ and Raiding they don’t care who you are and why or how you play… lets face it gamers in retail have changed they have spent 15+ years chasing the carrot on a stick (Gear)…They don’t care about having interactions with people past the point of what it earns them and that’s it.

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same as in classic then. i played on relaunch, was just a bunch of tryhards who take raids in classic more seriouse than top 100 mythic guild in retail. the only issue is that raids in classic is as hard as LFR its super cringe

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The social aspect has always been one of the biggest parts I enjoy about this game. I could give you a very long list of things which harmed this aspect on retail over the years to the point it became what it is today.

To save you some time, no, you will never find something like what you experienced in classic in retail.

The best you could hope for is a nice guild, a guild can change the quality of the game a lot, if you find the right one. But even then, you will just be like a little enclave in the void as opposed to one major community where you can easily make both new friends and enemies.

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The closest to that is Argent Dawn alliance.

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Another one who realizes that a tight community is the best element in an mmorpg

The world on its own is just a theme park with finite rides. It is the way that people interact with each other that can help it staying fresh

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Good old days.
Cross realm/ LFD etc ruined this.

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Classic WoW was fun because of the community.

There were Warlock summon services, Hunters opening DM’s for every one to get their buffs.

Dragonslayer happening on specific times (stated in the server discord) and if someone messed it up there were often an alliance priest available to help out (was PvE server)

It was absolutely Hilarious when blizzard decided to delete World buffs for SoM, when those buffs were the thing that made the entire server work together and feel like a community

Ofc No Wbuffs in TBCC either, so the feel of community quickly died as well.

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if u need stuff like world buff to like a game im glad we moved on.

I remember i never got to enjoy my 4 chars in classic relaunch. all were just waiting for world buff or loged ready to raid. And no i didnt enjoy paying a warlock or hunter 5-10 gold for summon/buff. but i guess u were one of the warlocks or hunters who miss ur income.

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I have no idea if he’s trolling or not when he’s praising the worst aspects over obvious things like making friends through quests and dungeons, the importance of guilds and trades, even things like having your nemesis from the other faction.

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Hearing those things I’m really glad WoW evolved.
It’s not that I hate those things perse, but I don’t want them forced on me. I’m glad I can ignore those things now if I so wish.

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Well… I started a fresh druid on tbc classic today and I made three groups alone to do the quests.

Sure, the pace is slower but there’s been more community interaction than in almost two years of shadowlands.

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But you need to realize that ‘community interactions’ are not a positive thing for everyone.

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Evolved or devolved depending on which perspective you look at it. I am sure that for people like you who don’t enjoy the social experience it is for the better, but there are clearly a lot of people that do enjoy it, and personally I wouldn’t even call it a real MMO without that aspect of the game.

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Evolved for sure, as far as I am concerned.

Oh yeah no doubt. But there are still plenty of social opportunities in the modern WoW. It’s just that we’re not forced to anymore. And honestly, I can only view that as a good thing. Forcing is never good.

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I have seen what retail looks like, it is not even comparable. I am sure you can still make friends with some effort, but the community aspect died a long time ago.

You are forced into social interactions in real life all the time, I really have to wonder what kind of world we would live in if this was not the case.

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thats 100% because of X-server play. i remember they added, and i remember i posted concerns about it Eons ago, from my Druid Malen-stormreaver/radiana ravencrest.

Ofc i miss the sense of seeing same players be it frieend of foe and remember them and well say hello. but friendlist only has room for 200 and mine is nearly always full, i cant keep adding ppl