Classic feels like an actual MMORPG. It’s much more immersive and the atmosphere in which you’re in the game makes you feel things that you probably wouldn’t feel in retail. I may be putting extra importance to this, as for me personally in movies, games, music, books etc. the aspect that affects me the most is how atmospheric, immersive it is. I believe there are several things in vanilla/Classic that achieve this:
-
Danger. In Classic, (depending on your class to a certain extent) you’re generally in constant danger when you’re out questing etc. (this is even more so now that we have wPvP going on, but I won’t be focusing on that). If you can, remember the first time you were casually questing and you saw a mob with golden dragon portrait cover. You were startled. Not only this but also things like pulling more than 2 mobs at a time, resource and consumable management and things like that. And mobs hit A LOT harder.
-
Soundtrack. For me this is very very important. Questing in Dun Morogh when that beautiful melody starts. It’s brilliant. You have to appreciate how amazingly well-made these pieces are. One would expect something less in quality in a video game. Would be good to add that the quality of soundtrack in WoW is something that has almost never changed during expansions, but the pieces in Classic are more ‘‘immersive’’ to me.
-
Realistic. This is a pretty straightforward aspect but there is a subtle detail that is often not thought about. ‘‘What is your argument for realism in a video game where there are dragons, elementals etc ?’’ one might ask, but it’s not this simple. There are things in video games which we humans find enjoyable and that make us play for hours a day. This is a very recent development in our evolutionary history, and it’s linked exactly to that. Have you ever thought why generally all video games are action based(swords, guns, killing etc.)? Because that’s what we humans were doing for thousands of years! It appeals to and excites our very basic human impulses. Why are weapons usually the most valuable items? Because they’re the items of action and they give us POWER. This feeling of power and accomplishment, is what makes us humans enjoy a video game. Because we have an innate desire for power, that it even manifests itself in a video game! And here is where the ‘‘realism’’ part is important. If the game you’re playing is not able to induce feelings of innate human power gain, then that game won’t be fun to play. And that ‘‘induction’’ is achieved by how a game is able to synthesize it’s fantasy elements with realistic components of it in a way that you feel accomplishment and joy and not completely ‘‘weirded out’’ by it.
And as for retail, it feels more like an action, hack and slash sort of a video game. The combat is fast-paced, both for PvP and PvE, and from that I get a lot of enjoyment. But the ‘‘weirded out’’ part is that, I don’t feel much of an accomplishment when I do stuff. Sure, killing the last boss of an end-game raid in mythic difficulty is something extremely difficult, and only a very small fraction of the player population will get to achieve it. And you would feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment if you do it, but the thing is, will it be worth your time if you’re playing this game just as a ‘‘game’’ (the majority of player base) and is it that important? I believe everyone with a reasonable amount of intelligence, given the opportunity and time, could do days of mathematical calculations and modelling, experimenting on PTR beforehands, and practice, could beat any challenge that this game could offer (provided that it’s not something like pre-nerf C’thun where the mechanics and the design of the game does not make it possible for you to do it).
So this was a relatively long forum post, I guess, but I’ve written all I could think of right now, could add more later if it occurs.