So topic for discussion is simply, what do you think will happen to roleplay when Classic releases.
My opinion is that there’s a lot of initial release hype, players are genuinely looking forward to classic, though I think roleplay will start strong a few months into the expansion though will potentially fizzle out, with players returning to AD for preference. In the meantime, I personally think that Argent Dawn is going to be going very quiet during Classic’s release, guilds will go dormant and disband, overall I think we’ll see a temporary huge dip in population. Returning players to classic will also see it rise in popularity.
I’ve got mixed emotions and feelings for Classic personally, it’ll be a shame to see some great players and friends of mine leave retail, I hope that it truly breathes more life into the wow Roleplaying community as a whole. At the end of the day - I do hope a good balance is held between both Classic and retail roleplay. It’ll be interesting to see what the fate of AD is during this.
I think there’ll be a small dip as well. I don’t think it’ll be huge or anything though, if the sentiment I’ve seen towards classic RP is anything to go by. Mostly it seems like a small group are interested in doing any RP in it and most others are either only curious to play classic itself or not bother at all.
One thing I’m curious about is that if old guilds from AD’s ancient history will be remade from that period, and will we see characters from that era come back as well to RP in classic (how many of those people are still even around on new characters?).
Classic is superior trash in most aspects. Only reason why people keep to it is because they are now old and want those old times back.
People complain how grindy the current WoW is and then tell me “but grinding in Classic was fine!”. No buddy, that’s your nostalgia speaking.
RP won’t change at all and neither will anything else. The second people realize that classic was even more bull than any other expansion the hype will quickly die down. Especially since most people were just teens or children back then and now have (most of them anyways) responsibilities. Vanilla was super time intense.
Ye, that’s why I am objective wise speaking. Alot of aspects that made the game more comfortable and just more fluent were only added in expansions such as wrath and TBC. Classic was just a bare bones construct of a MMO stolen from different other MMO’s at the time. Which made it quite bad as a game itself.
Honestly don’t think Classic will hook many RPers at all. The content sure, but not the RP. Despite disgruntlement with current lore developments, RPers can create their own compelling stories, and for that I think retail simply offers more than Classic does. It starts with things like graphics and mogs, really.
It’s clearly done well for a bad game (although I know what you mean when you say that). To me though it’s a much more preferable game to what we have now, with the exception of some major class balance issues. That said, the class design kind of makes it endearing.
I think it’s disingenuous to say “oh it’s just nostalgia speaking!!” I genuinely enjoy playing classic. It feels a lot more engaging than BfA.
The biggest let down of classic are the graphics, and that decent RP outfits are hard to get. And first it’ll take weeks to level up, then months to get a complete RP outfit. So, unless you want to grind, there is only a very limited choice in what one can wear for RP.
I feel like the vast majority of mogs that are nice for RP are also mostly cut out for humans/orcs (aesthetic, theme and so on). I might be wrong though.
A few months of people going on a vacation from regular WoW, then realising the soul crushing grind of Classic wasn’t the rose-drunk utopia that they remembered. More months of community outrage follows as fan factions splinter and battle on the forum over minutiae and the definition of the True Classic that the Great Satan ActiBlizzard screwed up.
Lots of people quit “forever” in a nuclear rage and a scattered handful crawl back to BfA just in time to be theatrically outraged at how bad the last patch is, ranting how Vanilla was better!
The power of nostalgia is awe-inspiring and delusion inducing at its strongest.
It would be nice to see rp pop up on Classic however, it’s a pretty perfect setting considering the lore is already neatly laid out for us, no speculative rebellions/revolutions. No out of nowhere headcanon based on questlines five expansions ago (hello Scarlets).
It’ll be a completely different gaming experience, one I doubt many people who thought they wanted it will actually want it.
It’s a very simplistic view to blame it all on nostalgia. There’s simply aspects in Classic that are just better and were severely neglected in current WoW. If you don’t want to see that you’re in heavy denial.
A few months of people going on a vacation from regular WoW, then realising the soul crushing grind of Classic wasn’t the rose-drunk utopia that they remembered. More months of community outrage follows as fan factions splinter and battle on the forum over minutiae and the definition of the True Classic that the Great Satan ActiBlizzard screwed up.
The thing is that you didn’t need to reach the endgame to enjoy Classic. You didn’t need to do those grinds to have fun in the game. I feel like a lot of people forget that, absolutely blinded by the competitiveness of current games and the race to the hailed “endgame”.
While I’ll give Classic a go to see how the game and my beloved class (mage) played back then, I find it doubtful I’ll roleplay there. Retail simply seems to be a better place for this, with the more modern graphics and RP outfits being simplier to get. I might try to quest IC on my character (which imo was doable back then, as we weren’t yet heroes like it is the case right now in the main story!) and try playing an adventurer where I’ll casually have IC interactions with people I walk past, but I’m not entirely convinced by the idea yet.
A decent proportion of the people with no/limited interest in Classic seem to have a massive personal investment in hoping no one else enjoys it either and like to underestimate the volume and time in which it’ll affect AD with complete confidence. I think that ideological skewing of consensus might make it difficult to predict the real impact until it happens.
I don’t particularly want Classic to fail but I know too much of how people operate to believe at all that a massive bulk of players won’t lose their minds over it not being what they wanted and/or “remembered” from a tender age.
![:thinking:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/thinking.png?v=6" ":thinking:")