Hmm, I have to agree with most of the answers here, whilst Classic is not exactly the same as Vanilla, it does recapture the feel, fairly accurately, the importance of each quest is far more relevant, the whole thing is a progression complementing the storyline.
Just to test a theory I rolled a brand new char on Retail as a comparison when patch 8.2.5 came out and hit level 10 within 5 hours and I wasn’t even rushing, yes the visuals are better but where is the feeling of progression and the importance of the quests, the storyline, that’s all gone, now Retail just seems to be a means to get to the end as soon as possible, it surprised me how different Retail was from Classic, I think I definitely prefer Classic, in my opinion.
While a part of me likes this, i can’t help wonder if this design decision is truly made to make the world feel “immersive” or to waste my time and keep me subscribed for longer?
Still i’m not sure the word “immersion” means anything since here everyone has a different definition and is applied to everything.
Because you don’t need big flashy stuff to create an immersive and greatly atmospheric experience with the few tools you have.
I would reckon the biggest reason Classic is more immersive though is because it’s actually a dangerous world. Where you will die if you act reckless. That just makes the whole experience feel rewarding as opposed to bland like in retail.
Personal opinion: old zones feel more relevant to the main races too so I like them more, as opposed to the new zones which are … not relevant at all.
For me it’s because the map isn’t an island with 5 different zones with their own stories!
Classic has two massive continents, with loads of zones they all belong together. It just feels right too me, I really hope Azeroth just gets new zones added too it rather than a crappy portal to go through that leads to an island with new shiny things.
I’d argue it’s a bigger world, actually. In the sense that everyone stays in the latest expansion, and expansions have all become much smaller over time. So comparing BfA to the whole of classic makes classic bigger.
Everytime I hear the notes I want to play the game, but then I’m standing there in zandalar thinking “Urf, warfronts, expeditions or worldquests? I don’t want to do any of that. Raiding the raid for the so manieth time, just like dungeons. It’s all just farming.”… it’s such a pity, really. The world itself is beautiful and the music is top notch.
For me it’s the questing, difficulty and how the characters play. It’s such a good combination in classic. Combined with a lot of interaction with other people this just hits the spot. Also BfA seems to have a severe case of instance craft, where the world means nothing if you don’t see at least 5 loading screens on the way to wherever.
But mostly the story in BfA is so off putting that I can’t follow it anymore. And with that I lacked any motivation to finish the war campaign, which is a big part of the “questing and storytelling” that I like in rpgs.
Note for the internet: I didn’t say it’s difficult. I said the ‘difficulty’.
At this point I don’t think they can because the company is ruled by charts, not by art and passion. Well, maybe a passion for microtransactions, but that kind of passion that could simply be called greed.
Retail since at least Cata has felt like watching a modern Hollywood film: noisy trash that saps all your attention. Classic is more like The Lord of The Rings(2001).
The problems with WoW are similar to films: the people making these things have lost hold of the idea that people have finite mental resources and can fatigue. Classic WoW doesn’t have the issue because much of what you do in it works like manual labour: even when you aren’t engaged with what’s in front of you, your mind is being stimulated to think about stuff.
Since Cata, WoW does not have any quiet moments; it’s a theme-park that is constantly trying to grab your attention, to keep you engaged, which overrides any intrinsic motivation you have to do so. Once your intrinsic motivations are discarded, there’s only extrinsic ones left and they are never satisfying; you’re constantly chasing a bigger Dopamine-hit.
This actually began early on; what is obvious in Classic is that everyone has the intrinsic motivation to level up, acquiring better items, but the driving-force of it is competition even on non-PvP ‘safety’ servers. World-PvP it turns out is as very popular as it ever was when players are not being led by the nose to run a treadmill elsewhere. It has also been the most-neglected gameplay option for the entire life of WoW, disgracefully. Most development resources have instead been shoved into PvE-raid content, content which Blizz’s own stats showed only engaged a severe minority, so they filled WoW with skinner-boxes that condition players to want to raid.
Classic WoW doesn’t have all that noise; it’s the only version of the game not filled with those skinner-boxes, though some are there.
Doesn’t even need to be that, the zones being intact as they are already serves to be better to behold than in Cataclysm.
Seeing Southshore being this cozy little town, or the Hillsbrad Fields not being a decimated holding camp gives Hillsbrad Foothills a lot more of a pleasant vibe to visit and sit around in. Also the Forsaken towns not being being these gothic frankenstein setpieces also make them more visitable.
Soon in retail WoW, you’ll be able to hand-in immediately after being delivered the quest straight to your mail-box, which will be accessible directly from the UI with a button, without having to go actually do the quest.
I think the best answer to why classic is better than retail is the roleplay mechanics.
Each class is unique because of it’s roleplay. A mage makes portal but does not heal itself, fire elemental are immune to fire, you look crapy with your cheap stuff because you are cheap, you’re not a level 1 badass transmog thief, there is not 5 quests giver inside an dunjon because that does not make sense but a quest that makes you travel across 2 continents for a little reward does make sense. I don’t think it’s better because the game is slow, but the roleplay mechanics does make it slower and does make it much better.
In retail you don’t even need to loot, there is gear falling in your bag when you finish a world quest. That’s definitely not roleplay. Where is the roleplay in getting teleported into a dunjon when a computer finds 5 people ?
Blizzard replaced roleplay mechanic by efficient mechanics .
That resulted in a boring game…
