As a person who enjoys both classic and retail, I’m curious to know what people don’t enjoy about retail and why they perfer classic. I would love it if people were able to answer these questions:
What things do you find unappealing in the retail version of the game?
What things do you think are better in classic?
What DO you like about retail, if anything?
What would need to change for you to consider playing retail?
I would consider playing retail if they will kill malfurion. I would drop classic if they kill Baine
I dont like retail because all your achievements are invalidated every start of the next season. Why bother raiding if the next season you can get better stuff with close to zero effort.
game died after cataclysm , only went down from there.
especially pvp wise.
the spell reset after WoD made the pvp braindead af
I recently picked up retail again after I left it many years ago, but without buying latest expansion, so my observations are for levelling only and ends at level 60.
Unappealing:
The retail mentality is rush it!
Examples:
However, there are definately good things as well.
…Retail works great for levelling. It feels like reading a book, but you also know the book will end at some point.
I don’t see myself raiding in retail. I can’t imagine coming from classic raiding with that mindset (and speed) into retail raiding would work, but I haven’t tried.
This, the last few years, is not unique to retail anymore. That mentality is plaguing classic/era/sod as well.
Can’t speak for SoD or Cata Classic, but I haven’t seen that on Era. But I am also pretty sure if a tank started running with all mobs - leaving the healer behind - he would’nt last long.
For me one of the best aspects of WoW is the feeling of belonging to a server, and playing only with those people. Forming groups on your own for dungeons and quests, getting ganked then calling on your guild to counter attack, encountering the same people when you are leveling multiple times, encountering the same duellers in durotar/Elwyn on the weekends+++ The total sum of these things, to me, makes the game truly feel like a real world, and most of that is entierly gone in the current retail version of the game where most things are stream lined, phased depending on your quest progression, war mode can be toggled on and off and there is a ton of cross-play between realms in almost every aspect of the game.
Sorry for not following your scheme of questions. There are just too many changes that would have to be reverted for me to concider playing retail, so it is completely unrealistic. Cataclysm is the first time I started disliking some aspects of retail wow, and mists of pandaria was the last expansion I found any enjoyment in retail wow.
It’s a shame that out of all the response you got like maybe 2 which actually explained their reasoning the rest just wrote a bunch of jibberish and didn’t actually have any input
I don’t have enough time to enumerate all that I dislike by now.
all sorts of minigames
champion bulls.hit
boards or tables with loads of “important” npcs ready to give you meaningless quests
events you are not free to leave, which will only end with the final quest and keep you jailed up in the event specific environment. Especially stuff at the beginning of expansions
Anything that keeps me from meeting people in the open world, therefore I absolutely despise phasing. I want to be able to meet those people, help each other out in difficult quests, find out we somewhat match (or not) and maybe would like to play together regularly
missing Rpg elements
Always have the feeling that the game decides about what you have to do next / tonight / this week / etc.
There’s a lot more, but I’ll leave it at that for now.
You are basically free to do what you like. You travel around and get to see a vast world. Meet people.
TBC could have been larger but still was sort of ok, many group quests 
. Some parts of Northend started to display limits, others were gorgeous.
Serious Segmentation was starting to show in Cata. Especially the starting areas, which are completely isolated from the rest of the world. Absolute nogo. I dimly remember Hyjal as being ok but terribly buggy. But I do not consider Cata or LK as being part of the classic experience anyway (phasing and stuff).
The role play elements in the game. Classes in TBC being better balanced then in Vanilla.
I liked the talent system in Vanilla / TBC better.
There’s more ofc, but time…
Actually the multitude of raid and dungeon levels. Bar LFR which I consider useless.
You are able to choose a difficulty that matches your personal skills or the accumulated skill of your group.
There are people turning up their nose at that, but really… My mom started to play wow for some time when she was 80+. Obviously she fell for a female bloodelf hunter. What else. I’d never take her into a heroic dungeon, no way…
So anyone who wants to do serious stuff, can join a mythic raiding guild and / or do mythic+ dungeons.
You have the choice. Having the choice to do the stuff you want whenever you want is the most important thing in my eyes. And while retail fails at this in many aspects, it’s actually a success story regarding dungeons and raids.
Won’t happen.
Blizzard would have to go back to a role playing game. Maybe even expand on that. Get rid of phasing and solo play in the open world, make it appealing to do group stuff in the open world again. Players should want to team up whenever and wherever they are.
Open up access to the starting areas, best even integrate them in a meaningful way into the advanced game.
Revamp professions. Make them useful to level while leveling your character. Make basic resources useful in later recipes so there is a market for all resource. Bar power leveling a profession. There are more ideas but I’ll let it be for the moment.
Make it preferable to team up. To be part of a group. It should be possible to get along solo, but it should definitley be the hard way.
I wrote very much like this, only not as good. Then I wanted change littlebit my wording, computer crasched and left me one sentence: The freedom to go where I like - which is bit of answer to 2. What things do you think are better in classic? I did not find energy to retype long post, got depressed over how many are differences I not like/like by the 2 versions WoW.
And hey I find out Little pencil show me old post! Here go:
That I cannot do load of things while levelling, but have to wait for Max level and WQs
That zones scale
That tags are shared
That Questhelper is inbuilt in map
That golden arrows show me where to go
That spells are auto-learned when level
That Cooking is just money sink
That Achievements have not kept up with professions.
Everything is just too easy.
I can pull 10 mobs at once
I do not need to farm ingredients for alomst any recipe
I do not need food buffs, or even to eat or drink
Personal loot
Quest hubs
The new UI (Classic UI addon stopped working for me)
…
The ability to decide for myself what to do, where to go and so on.
Class Quests
Flavour items (arrows, candles, ankhs …)
Pet at level 10 that has to be fed, taught etc
That you have to pay learn your spells
That all classes cannot do all things in game
most anything, actually …
Achievements
More zones
Guild bank
I don’t know, Is a lost case, I think. I quit in 2018, and if not Classic, I would have never returned.
The ability to say NO to all in-built help, “QoL” changes … but even this would still leave me OP compare to world, and the hand-holding, linear Questing would still be … .
I think retail is too bloated, there is too much stuff to learn in way to little time for people that haven’t played the game for a while. Classic is simpler, and has a (arguably) better community, you need to group to get anywhere. I only played MOP remake but I liked the interface and the quest hints.
Leveling is irrelevant; flying; teleportation everywhere; super horrendous mounts and items; old items are obsolete; only raids and rated pvp matter; horrible grinds; having to spam world quests and m+ for weeks for every patch; world is irrelevant; every dungeon is the same; horrible pvp bet battle balance; too many currencies and systems; free epics while leveling; ugly new zones; barely any world pvp; in-game blizz shop; horrible lore; only new zones or content matter; game is linear and forces players to only one path; click one button to go anywhere; all adventure/inconvenient elements are replaced with instant teleportation grinds.
Slow leveling; large and meaningful world; wild character design; fun items from across the world; bis items can be found everywhere not only raids; bis items from old raids remain relevant; materials from low level zones are important for 60; slowly developing a character; every piece of gold matters; every small upgrade matters; discovering a rare item; looting first bag or green item; some item slots like head, shoulder, trinkets take 20-30 levels to acquire; very community-focused game; inspires interaction between players; free adventure anywhere Berny wants to go; professions are super important and have many specializations; classic is inconvenient.
Pet battles, some cool soundtracks, and Suramar.
Too much. Berny uninstalled that abomination.
Pay to win basically. Retail has no reward for time put in. You can buy your way through the game. An absolute time sink.
Classic Era was challenging. Alive. It wasn’t lonely. Mechanics were perfect. The story was badass. No woke BS.
Playing Retail or SoD is feeding all the things we hate and complain about. Everything after Wotlk was trash. Vanilla is king. Retail is like playing fortnite. Basic, generalised, emptiness for the masses. No imagination, no sense of adventure.
Classic is dark fantasy with a living world full of adventure. You paid monthly to be part of it. That was the transaction. Hardcore classic and 2019 classic were the best experiences we’ve have had since wotlk original release. ADMIT IT.
Stop playing their sh*te. It convinces them to keep doing what theyre doing.
No Spell Ranks, Fast Mana and Life Reg, Level Scaling, Hunter Pets do not need Food or Training, Hunter do not need Ammo, Rogues have infinite Poison, No Weapon Skill Training, no Class Quests, Homogenization of Classes and Races, botchered death lore thanks to Shadowlands
Gear during questing has a worth. You can feel yourself getting stronger. You need to get regulary to a teacher to get stronger. Pets can be trained and with Loyalty you are encouraged to feed them, spell reagents, lore is still not glaring inconsistent, world is wide and makes sense, Class Quests to make you understand more the history of your class, world and lore are itself more tied together.
Special Totems for every race, Blood Elves, Jewel Crafting, Inscription, Enchantment not needing you to be physically there, wow token allows you to skip grind for money, blue dragon whelps, crafter upgrades from WotLK, Dungeon Reward Upgrades from TBC and WotLK, completed Questlines from TBC, Ships have race design and people on them, No Reputation decay for grey quests, Hunter and Warlocks have the option to rename their pets,
Option to get back old things from Classic, Level scaling becomming optional and if desired all the way till max level, Open World and Leveling should feel dangerous again,
going away from all the classes for all the races, BfA End and Shadowlands should be retconed to a big dream from N’Zoth as if we where all the time in the Matrix.
I couldn’t stomach retail after 15 years…it became too bloated and too boring; I’d sub for a few months, then leave.
Retail has no immersion, while classic has an immensely lively and active world; people actually talk to you, say thank you after getting buffs…
On my second day in classic, some Rogue enchanted my gear for free, and now every day, someone gives me greens without anything in return.
I enjoyed the WPVP aspect; the fact that low lvls like 3 lvl forties, can team up and kill a bully lvl 60.
Drop the over complicated mechs from trash mobs & Bosses in raid & M+
Simplify classes a lot and prune key binds, Currently too much stuff
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