This is an opinion I commonly hear thrown around when it comes to people trying to defend Classic against TBC, and it kinda baffles me even to this day. While I can definitely understand how Classic encourages community building more than Retail, I fail to see how it does more so than TBC. If anything, I believe it’s the other way around. I’ll try to touch upon all the possible arguments people may use to defend this claim and why they don’t work.
- The levelling experience: A common line of argument is that Classic levelling requires a lot more grouping than TBC, because (a) there’re many more elite quests in Classic, and (b) there’s more competition for resources. And thus, the argument goes, you form more bonds than you would in TBC.
Now, while it’s true that Classic has more group quests than TBC does, ask yourselves: how many of the people you know now, outside your guild, are people you bonded over during your levelling experience? As far as I’m concerned, I levelled between Aug 27th and Sept 6th (as well as between October and Feb with 5 other alts), and I honestly can’t think of a single person among my regular friends outside guild that levelled alongside me - most of them are people I met once I was at 60. The fact people level at different speeds and, thus, you’re unlikely to meet most of them more than once or twice doesn’t help.
On top of that, I can’t say the scarcity of resources actually encourages, well… friendly contacts between people. Sure, sometimes grouping helps, but many other times (such as with collection quests) it’s simply not possible. Most of my positive social experiences outside guild, during levelling, have been in dungeons - where people have an actual incentive towards working together and reap the benefits. And that’s something that works just as well (even more so - I’ll get to it later) in TBC.
- PvE content: Many people find in Classic’s PvE content (dungeons, raids) one of the main sources for Classic’s community building. I would definitely agree if we were comparing Classic to BFA, but in comparison to TBC I’d argue that Classic falls short in this department.
First of all, Classic’s dungeons have next to no replayability. Once you have your pre-raid BiS gear (and/or once you replace this gear with raiding gear), what motivation do you have to go into raids aside from farming the occasional Skin of Shadow or helping a guildie? In terms of gph, grouping for dungeons is much, much less efficient than solo farming - even if you’re just killing mobs in the outer world for money. In TBC, on the other hand, the existence of BoJ prolongs the viability of dungeons nearly ad infinitum. Sure, in terms of gph they’re still worse than solo farming, but to a much lesser extent.
Speaking of solo farming, the amount of farming you have to do in Classic if you wanna use consumables in raids is huge. We’re basically talking about something like 3-4 hours for every hour of raiding, if not more. In TBC, on the other hand, the amount of money and time you need to spend for consumables is less than half of what you require for Classic (largely because of how cheaper flasks are in TBC, and the fact you don’t use elixirs and rum on top of them). Furthermore, the much-reviled dailies of TBC offer you pretty much the same gph whether you do them solo or in group - unlike mob/resource farming in Classic which has drastic diminishing returns if you do it in a party.
In short, if you’re a PvE player, you end up spending a lot less time playing with others in Classic than in TBC. How is that conducive to community building?
- PvP content: Another segment of the Classic audience defends PvP as the main source of community building, and often cites Arenas and the death of WPvP as the main reason why the same doesn’t happen to TBC. Again, I don’t think the arguments here are quite sound.
Let’s talk about WPvP first. Much of the arguments for how WPvP builds community before lvl 60 mirror what I’ve said about the levelling experience, so I’ll focus here on WPvP at lvl 60. The main argument here, as far as I understand it, is that Classic has much more WPvP than TBC and thus you end up needing help from your faction much more often, and this leads to more opportunities to form bonds.
This is, well… not that true. Or, at least, somewhat misguided. While it’s arguably true that you have more opportunities to have WPvP in Classic than in TBC - due to the fact you gotta travel on foot - you generally need help when it comes to WPvP for objectives, such as questing/farming grounds. And this sort of thing happens just as well in TBC, due to the fact that many important mats (Cobra Scales, Primal Air/Fire/Mana, Netherscales, etc.) are restricted to few, highly farmed zones. Sure, you can always fly away in TBC, but you can’t accomplish anything up in the air.
As for instanced PvP, well… X-realm pugging really can’t foster bonds at all, so I guess what people refer to here are premades. Personally, the only point I can see here is about AB premades. WSG premades are not that big compared to 5v5 arena teams (I mean, are you telling me you can create bonds over WSG premading but not 5v5 arena?), and AV premades, well… technically only one faction has access to them to begin with, so for most people AVing in Classic is not that different from AVing in TBC in terms of community feel.
Now, I’m sure many of you can recount many fantastic community experiences in Classic, and I’m lucky enough to be able to tell the same. But, at the same time, I can’t help but feel that the game doesn’t encourage me towards these experiences as much as some people like to think. At the very least, much less so than TBC would.