New content every 8 months vs content 10 years old? Yes, I’d choose retail every time.
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Personally, i choose retail over classic for various reasons but i think the main reason is the feeling of “new”.
Whenever there is a new patch, expansion, i fall in love with the game again and again. I absolutely love experiencing zones, quests, dungeons and raids for the first time.
I love collecting mounts and transmogs, i simply love the contuinity of the story which is already super rich in this game.
These are some reasons why i love retail so much.
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Classic is about gearing, leveling, afk and grind with poor PvE and PvP design. Sadly that retail becomes more and more looks like classic, if thats will continue thinks this is my last expansion in that game. This was the main reason why i not started play MMORPG and WoW in general if we back in days.
I dont hate Classic I just dont think it can do the thing I’d be playing it for. It’d be a fundamentaly different experience to what I remember fondly from actually playing vanilla, the playerbase has changed, I’ve changed, the people I play with have changed, the world’s moved on.
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To me classic is an abomination.
It’s like reviving a dead loved one only to find out they have no soul.
I loved every second I spent in vanilla WoW, 15 years ago and still hold onto the memories I got from there very dearly.
But the current " classic " version of WoW feels like a zombie version of it, not because its a bad imitation, or anything, its because times change.
Back then, I was 11-12 years old, couldn’t speak English properly and barely knew how to read, I didn’t even understand what keybinds meant.
While nowadays I know all the ins and outs of the game, and every little bit of detail there is about it, I feel like if I go back to classic it would just ruin the awesome memories I have of it, therefor I hate it.
A prime example of this is all these sub 30 minute kills or level 55 players clearing MC etc etc.
You look at videos like more dots or MC rage and you think to yourself, my god the players were just horrible, or in some cases you find out that some of these videos were faked to get a reaction.
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I wouln’t really say that I hate classic or anything.
Classic is simply video game, like any other. Don’t like it. Don’t play it. Let the people who like it, play in peace.
As for Classic itself. For me its mostly the needed time investment. Sure, we can argue that retail has too many QoL upgrades and etc. But in the current times, long time-consuming games with slow progress have simply fallen out of favor.
The older WoW veterans have moved on, have families, other responsibilities. I also personally sometimes miss the times where I could just sit at the PC for 9 hours after school without giving a poo about anything. And the newer generation are not attracted to games where it can take a month or a week to reach the “end-game” so to speak.
Also. Lets not forget that. You can re-create a Vanilla server with the same numbers and data. But you will never be able to re-create your childhood and “first-time exploring a big world” memories…
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The loosened restrictions. Transmogs and customizations are important to me.
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I’ve been and done vanilla, Classic was nice for nostalgia purposes but ultimately it made me appreciate retail more. The quality of life has improved so massively, I really struggle to do without.
I did prefer the talent system and professions being actually useful but that isn’t enough for me to keep playing. Fights being mainly auto-attack sends me to sleep and I prefer a more linear questing style than being sent everywhere and getting lost. It’s just a personal preference in gaming for me.
Of course there is then the obvious things like the art and graphics, being able to transmog, far more zones and storylines. With the new Chromie time levelling is way more enjoyable for me.
Classic has its merits but overall it’s a bygone era and I don’t miss it.
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I don’t hate either game, but despite ranking to 13 and being in a world top 15ish speedrun guild, I don’t play classic anymore.
The simple reason is that classic runs out of content, after I had finished ranking, the only things left to do were farming gold, when I already had about 8k, and raiding, which isn’t that fun unless it’s a speedrun, which only happens on DMF week.
Retail just has more stuff to do.
You don’t need it. Just avoid finishing the orange quests, and combine zones(travelling). Most questlines send you through multiple zones around the same level range. I ended up with a constantly filled questlog last time I leveled in classic, just by doing it like this(had to put some quests on hold until I had cleared up space for them), and dinging 60 I still have a whole lot of quests to do that are yellow.
When I leveled in vanilla I constantly went for the orange quests and ended up with gaps where I had no quests, especially from level 55-60, and I think I took 58-60 just by grinding. This is the reason why I tried doing it differently on classic, and it worked out perfectly. It is also a good mindset to think that all the low droprate quests actually just helps you even out the grinding bits, as all kills where you don’t get the drop you need, are also XP gain.
Not saying you will enjoy playing like this, but for me this game me a whole new view on leveling in classic, and I’ve had a blast. Guides aren’t necessary, unless you are going for speed leveling, but honestly I didn’t seem to be that far behind a guildie who used a guide, on /played when reaching 60.
So yeah, my impression is… avoid finishing quests when they are orange, and you’ll not run out!
(I enjoy both retail and classic btw).
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In classic, if you don’t raid, or pvp, there’s nothing to do at max level. I don’t raid, nor do I play pvp.
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This was actually very different to me.
I was 21 when starting vanilla. At that point in time I just wanted to reach 60, and found leveling time consuming.
Now I am 35, and really enjoyed the slow leveling, and felt like classic was better for clasual play than retail. I haven’t been able to keep up on retail the last 6 months because of my RL atm, but on classic I felt I could play at my own pace without feeling like I missed out on anything. Classic felt better for casual play, than retail, in my case.
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Classic is stuck in classic. And while I enjoyed classic, I do appreciate the changes and improvements the passing of time has brought. Also I really don’t like the vocal people from classic who think they deserve decorations for playing classic.
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i don’t hate Classic but it’s not even close to vanilla and even if it was, I’ve been there and done that. Levelled a char to 60 for old times sake but lost interest very quickly.
I wouldn’t say I hate it, but it doesn’t appeal to me for several reasons, main ones being the lack of playable worgen and the horrendously outdated models.
Classic will fall off eventually. Retail will not ( I love classic too but ye)
Classic was really fun for that nostalgia-trip and I am really glad they decided to make it available to play again.
But for me its a been there, done that kind of thing. Once the nostalgia-haze wore off, I got reminded of everything I disliked with classic. Slow, grindy and at times very boring. At max level you’re very limited in what you can do by yourself.
I work odd and unpredictable hours and I find that I have more I can do in retail, almost regardless of the time of the day I login.
I realize classic has its own niche, as do retail and neither of them are perfect in my opinion. I just find retail more convenient and interesting to play.
Basically this
We have grown up, 15 years passed
Everything changed, evolved, became better or worse, no matter, changed…
You can’t go back and pretend enjoy yomething you gladly left behind
15 yo graphic, game… its like looking to an old school album of photoes (you know, the things before mobil) and feel immense emberasment about how foolish kid you were and you are glad you are now a grown up
I don’t hate Classic but it gave me a whole new love and appreciation for Retail. After a month or two of playing Classic and coming back to Retail I was like oh wow this is amazing 
I think Classic a great snapshot of the past but for me it’s so slow and boring to play. There is nothing wrong with people enjoying an old skool version of a game. OSRS has a huge playerbase and people are still enjoying it today.
Nothing in Classic is hard it’s just slow. It was an amazing trip down memory lane (although I started in TBC) visiting the old zones before Cata wrecked them. It was fun doing some of the quests that no longer, I was not eager to repeat the Thottbot experience so I went and got Questie. Then I realised I needed more addons in Classic than I use in Retail to make it do the most basic functions.
Classic soon became World of Inconvenience. You want to do a dungeon, well you better have time to repeatedly spam a few channels to find other people willing, this can take a considerable amount of time, then you have the horrendous travel time. People aren’t ready to go because groups take so long to form so they carry on doing whatever task while the group forms. So then eventually you all get to whatever place you are going to do. Then we start, any wipes are long winded runs back from the graveyard. Some people get lost, you have to guide them. If you have a particularly bad run things will start to respawn, if someone leaves it is incredibly hard to find a replacement and again an enormous amount of waiting time between looking for, finding and them being able to join you (travel time).
Then there is the constant lack of bag space on your character and in bank, the amount of stuff you had to cart around on certain classes. The selfish behaviour of other players that far greatly impacts you in Classic in comparison to Retail. I could go on and on.
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Unfinished classes/specs is my only reason.