How do you play Retail WoW?

Community General Discussion
1

Do you always play it, and keep up with all the new content?

Do you check in for new expansions, play for a while, then leave until the next one?

Do you jump in for new patches you find interesting, but stop shortly after?

Do you log in regularly but only rarely, to do things like this month’s Trading Post?

The reason I ask is because I’m considering my own play style more and more. While there are definitely upsides to Dragonflight, I find myself less and less engaged with it and other modern expansions as time goes on.

Could just be me getting older and jaded, and having less time to play. But maybe the patch content isn’t strong enough to keep me really invested.

I loved 10.2 for a couple of weeks, because it’s a nice zone with lots of cool cosmetic rewards. But I don’t know, the story and everything else around it just seems so hollow in the long run. I’m kind of envious of my old RL buddies and co-workers who just jump into new versions of Classic every once in a while, without committing long-term. They can always just step away and play something else without FOMO.

So what’s your approach to retail content?

2

I play new patches until ive done everythhing i want to do.

3

It’ll depend. I’ll play for as long as I want to play, then leave and play something else.

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4

I play it only on my off days. 1-2 days per week. If it is a new season I play arena and acquire all rewards that I like. If I’ve already acquired all rewards from arena I farm world quests and worldPvP while doing it.

My total playtime per week is approximately 12 hours.

Getting older changes us, all of us differently, compared to 5 years ago I value my time more and I’m much more pragmatic. The moment I get bored of playing it, let’s say it is 5th hour, I press altf4. It can be even second hour of playtime depends on my mood. You better just focus on things that you like or use it to chill.

I play it like Elon Musk, sometimes in order to distract myself from everything and empty my brain for a while. It helps, gaming is a good hobby that you can practice easily.

I would say it is subpar and I’m not going to even dive into story part, it is trash tier, it is nothing but a waste of time, don’t even listen or read wow story, it is not valuable.

5

I log in to do 1 M+ dungeon a week and the monthly tenders thing. Thats it.

6

I dont keep up with all the new content, there is plenty of things I havent done. I always do what i feel like doing and if that means I dont keep up, then so be it. It will still be there.

I do have some off periods from WoW when i need to, but otherwise i play regardless of a new expansion or patch. But really, its a game and its meant to be fun and a way to unwind from reality. Dont worry so much about a play style.

Some silly ideas:

  • A while ago i started in Stranglethorn and flew north, doing all dungeons and raids as well as checked every vendor on the way. After that i continued to Kalimdor, then Outland etc.
  • Sometimes i go quest in a previous expansion. Like i said, its still there.
  • And sometimes i just go somewhere and fly around, eventually i see something interesting that needs investigating!
  • Or stay in one zone and do or learn everything about it.
  • I bet your bank has lots of items that you can use in quests, reputation etc and do something about.
7

I only do stuff I enjoy, when I know I will enjoy it. If I get that feeling of I should do this or it’d be helpful if I did that for practical reasons I check whether it’s actually fun to me. If not, I’m not doing it.

WoW for me is to relax, clear my head, enjoy pretty pixels, create stories, explore etc. I love playing that way, it’s a source of contentment.

8

I play only pvp and rdruid, rsham, disc/holy, 2x locks as affli/destro/demo, fire/frostmage, sub/sin, sv

Cant say i run out of things to do and i always just play what i feel like for moment or what i can pair team with, start of season there is alot to do capping vault on all your characters aswell if you manage cap 1-2 per day example you cap them all till resets

9

I only play random Bgs. Hundreds… thousands!!!

I have more Bgs played than achievement points.

And while I’m in queue I socialize with the other members of the group :stuck_out_tongue:

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10

I’m playing mostly pve stuff and only in periods when I don’t have some single player game to chew on, for example I’m torn right now between playing rogue trader and farming atleast some ilvl because my guild is raiding :skull:

11

I play almost every day. Got a raid group 2 evenings a week and m+ group 3 evenings a week. Play at least 4 toons in the gearing up department.
Pug m+ here and there, occasional traumatic lfr run. Collect mounts/max rep/pets/transmogs i like or are easy to get. Been doing most professions too.

12

Me and my friend sit by rivers, maybe the sea, take in the beauty of the zones while we fish to our hearts content, talking for hours about life.

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13

I always check on what is new.I won’t prepurchase xpacks from now on though.(after paying full price for Df which has been at 50% ,90% of the time after release).

If I buy an xpack I ll stick with it for full duration usually even if I don’t really fancy it(besides ZM,that for me was horrible,couldn’t stand robots).

I don’t really care about Tranding post.If there is smth nice I ll get it but I don’t keep my sub cause of it.

14

15

Aside from none currently, I didn’t buy the recent expansions because reasons, but I do enjoy jumping back into whichever older content. I just read yesterday that apparently you can play in Chromie at 60, so no more hoops.

Judging by my persistence with HotS and what I like most in Classic, I’m 50% here for dungeons. I perfectly enjoy tanking or healing, as long as it’s old-paced. Which is not, but whenever some stuff was end game (Cataclysm, Pandaria, Draenor), I did play normals and heroics. Variety is good, and I prefer a system where I can play Wailing Caverns if I so desire.

The other 50% is enjoying this large theme park, the GW2 version is pick a random zone and do stuff, the WoW version is to have a brutal set of alts, pick one and do stuff.

16

I dont play Retail at all anymore. In fact this is the first expansion i will not be buying.

17

Upon expansion release I am hyped and do all the levelling content etc. I then login for daily/weeklies (open world). After a few weeks I get bored and don’t do it as religiously, level some alts.

When a new patch is out I am back for a bit until bored again. I keep playing old content because I want to play WoW but end game is snore for me. Often I switch game for a while: ESO, Sims (occasionally get really into it for a while), BG3 this year.

After a break I come back, usually with the new patch. Towards the end of the expansion I cba with any end game stuff and don’t play as much.

18

Yes, launch night is the most fun, seeing all that brand new shiny content for the first time and getting to no life the first night to consume as much of it as possible. Usually cap in a day or two of launch, but I have to do every quest, every side quest, explore EVERYTHING.

This time I think I capped while I was doing Ohna Plains and then kept going with the main storyline to unlock the campaign and world quests. Then went back and mopped up all the side quests I still had left to explore and complete.

I’m generally here for the duration. One of the things that has been great for me is finally dialling back on all the ‘make you play’ metrics that Legion introduced into the game. We are back to how the game used to be, there are dailies if you want them, they’ve reduced the WQs cycle and the need to do them. Renown/Reputation farms have an end. It’s not a constant treadmill.

Ofc I might take the odd break here and there but it’s rare that I completely stop logging into WoW. There is always the odd side distraction like SoD or one of the Classic reboots that I will spend some time there during a quiet time in Retail. I rarely last more than a month on Classics though. The gameplay is too slow and dull for me, the levelling is painfully slow and tedious, travel alone eats up way too much time. They make me appreciate how far Retail has come though. To see how it was and knowing how it is now. You really have to treat them like two separate games.

I love doing all the new things that come with a patch, we usually get a new zone or some kind of new content to explore and complete. I don’t love all of it ofc. Like some of the Whelp Daycare quests were awful, the little whelp races were even worse than the regular Dragon Riding Races. Times like that you really appreciate wowhead comments and people share their best tips and tricks on how to get it to work.

New Seasons bring new raids, M+ cycle and gearing ofc. So that keeps me busy for a good chunk. It’s always most manic at the start when you’re heavily gearing then quietens down to a nice weekly cycle.

I still tend to log in daily the bulk of the time. We’re not that far into the current season so lots of M+ and I tend to clear the heroic raid once a week. I still haven’t capped knowledge on all my profession alts, this is one system I have not enjoyed. The profession revamp had some nice things in it but I dislike the ranks of outcomes and materials.

I do however like that we now have a universal upgrade system and it’s no longer limited to just M+ gear. All content drops can be upgraded and they all have their own upgrade tracks. Catching up to a previous upgrade level only costs flightstones.

The Trading Post completes itself. Most of the time I don’t rush to do tasks that complete it fast, I know others do, but as I’m actively playing the game most of the time it just clocks off tasks constantly while I play, all through the month.

I can do as little or as much as I like, so if I don’t feel like farming any old content bits missing from my collection one week because I’m too busy in the gearing cycle then it doesn’t matter. I know later when things quieten down I can go back and do as much farming as I like.

I still have loads of cosmetics to get from the latest patch but I’m not rushing it. Just doing it at a nice chill pace.

19

For me it depends on the current m+ dungeons and the raid… if they’re fun i play the whole tier… if not… meh, I’ll go play gw2 instead… in terms of dungeon design, i do think DF has been a low point. With few exceptions i think thats something BFA nailed… most of the dungeons were fantastic.

After quitting half way through S1 i am now back, raid looks fun… only 2 new dungeons in the current pool… so yea, think I’ll stay around and see what S1 of TWW looks like

20

I have a widescreen so I can comfortably do PiP watching Netflix, Disney+, Crunchyroll, and what have you.

If I couldn’t do this, I probably would be taking breaks more frequently if not outright quitting World of Warcraft long ago.