Same reason i don’t like leaving my house. All my stuff is there.
Why do I play retail, and not classic?
I love the Halo franchise, I grew up playing C.E. (Combat Evolve) with my older brothers, and it was some of the best times I’ve had playing video games.
Unfortunately, we can play a game from the past but can’t go back in time and have the same experience.
So other than retail being an objectively better game, this is the reason why I don’t play classic.
Cause I did everything when it was current content.
Even killed bosses in Naxx back in “the old days”.
I do not feel like I have a need to re-do it.
I sometimes play on classic because I find it easier, less convoluted – but its extremely slow phasing tends to bore me after a while.
I like progressing in things, so yeah… it’s just going back in time for me.
Still, I can enjoy it in short periods once in a blue moon. 
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I woke up the next morning full of impatience. I tried an undead warrior on SoD last night and got to level 10. Will it survive? Idk.
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It is always interesting because this is completely a personal thing. I find Retail far more social than Classic. Yet Classic is hailed as the social pillar but the things they deem social I find awful. The bad behaviour in Classic has a far bigger impact on other people too.
It is not a social experience to spam a channel to find others to do a dungeon with. Doing dungeons in Classic is on par with forming groups for M+ in Retail. Except add in more travel time when people are no where near the location of the dungeon in Classic. I do not find that people chat, any more than they do when it’s a group quest or that tagging a single spawn mob for a quest. It’s just the game forcing people to group briefly. There is little to no social interaction unless you really count the polite ‘Hi’, ‘ty for invite’ and the ‘bye’ etc when you’re done.
The social experience was so vile back in TBC when I started that I ended up playing alone. People were just rude and seem to hate anyone new to the game. When TBC Classic was launched I gave it a whirl but ended up giving up because I didn’t play a meta class and no one wanted to take me to dungeons. The min maxing has been pretty insane on Classic at times.
I have far more friends, networks and social experiences in the game now than I ever did back then. It can’t be forced though and that’s what I think is partly wrong with Classic. The game evolved and improved and others prefer that old skool experience and that’s fine. There are various versions available to play and all included in the subscription price. Find the one you like and do that one.
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I play modern WoW because of all the QoL features that were added over the years. Much as I liked vanilla WoW when it was new, many of its systems were archaic or “bulky” by retail WoW standards.
That doesn’t make Classic bad, but for me it’s the same as retro gaming in general: it’s just not the experience I look for anymore when playing games. It’s a cherished memory, something that’s fun to reminisce about, but not something I would enjoy anymore for longer periods. I was there when it was new and fresh, and my expectations and wants when it comes to games have changed.
I find retail WoW to be plenty social. It requires some effort (being social, joining a guild, joining communities, being helpful), but it was always like this. I still play with a lot of the people I met in game over the years, and I still meet new friends now. It just takes the effort of talking to people and maintaining contact if you find someone you enjoy playing or interacting with.
I played it in TBC classic, but only through the Vanilla/Kalimdoor/Eastern Plaguelands. I Wanted to “Relive how it was before Cata” And to visit the old dungeons at maxlevel to see those as well before they were changed.
When that done I came back to retail. (still wish they would do Vanilla Timewalking" and let us do the dungeons as they were before Cata)
Classic is already figured out. Every little quirk is documented and there are guides on how to squeeze every little advantage you can get.
When new retail content comes out, it is not all figured out. You can be the one to figure out those quirks and be ahead of the pack utilizing the advantages you figured out yourself and for which there are not yet any guides.
Yeah, I actually think there is no organic way to make friends in retail that it becomes desperately lonely and boring after a while, hence my quiting of it (must be serious as I’ve even let my auctions all die out), because it just feels like I play a large game by myself, I don’t see anyone else because of sharding and even if I do, there’s no recognition, I won’t likely ever see that person again, that just feels really hollow.
It is each to their own though, I do think WoW would benefit from moving back to single servers and removing layers. I’ve currently moved back to a 20 year old MMO, it’s a single server, no more than say 3-4k player online at primetime, and it feels tenfold more active than WoW Retail does simply because I can actually see and find other players out and about in the world.
Do you wish to rewatch an old movie or watch a new movie? I prefer new one.
Classic isn’t the real classic, enough said.
TBC stole my life away from me. It’s the most addicted I’ve ever been with a game before in my life. I went back to TBC classic and thought it sucked. I’ve moved on. Nostalgia shouldn’t be explored imo.
If I played Dragonflight back then I probably would have prefered that. Classic rotations bore me to death.
“You think you do but you don’t” applies to me.
I don’t find I make friends through forced interactions. It’s literally group, few niceties, bye. Forced grouping is not organic. It’s forced.
I make friends in Retail because it is organic.
People are all different. It’s always interesting to read these takes from different points of view.
I would hate to go back to the old systems in Retail. It would go back to being only playable at peak times, no more grouping at any time of day or night. World bosses become undoable late in the week etc etc.
All realms do is create dead and lively ones. I’m glad to see that going forward they are going for a more open cross realm approach with guilds joining that system in TWW. No more punishment for those players who are on quieter realms, no more costly moves to raid Mythic with a team etc.
There are pros and cons to the system. I do remember the old days of levelling an alt in blissful peace and quiet with no competition for ore/herb nodes or even the mobs for your quest. On the other hand there were things you just couldn’t get done, especially end game.
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See, I actually find Retail to be forced interactions, where you are just in the M+ group, don’t say a word, rush through, and never see that person again. There is no way to meet people in the world, someone you meet and interact with whilst leveling will never be seen again, or someone you kill a world boss with, plus with sharding, the game feels empty, we’ve all zoned into SW and theres a man and his dog in the whole thing because you’ve sharded into the wrong one. There is nothing good about leveling through Chromie Time + WM and not ever seeing another person.
I actually dislike Retail, because nothing is organic, I don’t make friends and the game teaches you this from the start, just join in, rush through, and then go back to your solo game. Whilst I agree on world bosses, I’m not agreeing that spamming LFG for an auto join world boss group, to tab target, get one hit and then afk, as anything meaningful. :D.
See, in part I agree, they should go for one large mega server, but loosen the strings on shards/layering or simply remove it. I genuinely believe there is nothing good coming out of a MMO where it’s a roll of a dice as to whether I’ll meet people or not. That’s on Blizzard though for being unable to optimise a 20 year old MMO.
I like fast leveling and more faster, dynamic gameplay on retail than autoattack slow progress on classic.
It’s funny cos I find M+ is just like every interaction I’ve had in Classic. Polite greetings, get on with task, thank and part ways. There is nothing social about it. In Classic they are mostly people I will never see again. The channel spamming is just such a turn off as is every interaction being at an M+ level of you have to get others to accept you or you’re in for a longer harder time. In Retail I’m not really impacted by others refusing to group. As I’ve rarely played an insta tagging class in Classic it’s been a nightmare.
I rarely see anyone I’ve grouped with before in Classic but I do play on one of the busiest realms. Fortunately even falling out with a guild didn’t have a big impact. Lets just say they wanted me to buy gold from third party sites to get a trinket, when I complained, they got a bit nasty and it was followed with loads of claims that they were just joking (they weren’t).
We clearly see the two versions very differently but that also highlights why they should stay completely separate. I would probably stop playing if they made Retail like Classic. I don’t want any Classic aspect in Retail. I want the game to keep improving, modernising. And Classic doesn’t want any of this Retail nonsense.
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Literally yesterday I had an experience in Windshear Crag. We had to defeat a boss enemy and it took a surprisingly long time to spawn, so we just started farming the other mobs and ended up chatting and talking about how druid forms work for whatever reason.
Just initiate conversation and you will get it. Except on retail where the game is so fast paced nobody has any time to write a chat message.
Funnily enough that’s exactly the same in Retail. It’s not something exclusive to Classic.
It’s even worse now in SoD, even though classic raiding content is as easy as a retail m0 dungeon. My guess is just because it’s this easy they feel they have to mixmax to make it somewhat fun, but all they do is alienate a big part of the casual crowd.
I had to do 2 inteviews for a guild I wanted to join few years ago, baffling.
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I wouldn’t have grouped up at all. We can both tag it anyway