Finally tried WoW

[mightyfineincredible]

WoW was always incredibly desolate, antisocial and boring to me. It's one of the few games that makes me question my own mortality and go "what am I doing with my life?", as I watch my character s-l-o-w-l-y jog her way through oversized forests and plains, just to kill and collect 6 bear-asses because some rando at the nearby farm told me so.
The entire irony of WoW being social by design, yet being an incredibly lonely leveling experience.

[AnnaUK]

Ha if you call having to play season pass like content just to be able to place furniture down! Wow housing is not ahead.

[AnnaUK]

This is the one point he made i disagree with
timewalking is awful, ff14's new game plus is way better for story redoing.

Sadly without xp.

[Hallarem]

WoW was always incredibly desolate, antisocial and boring to me. It's one of the few games that makes me question my own mortality and go "what am I doing with my life?", as I watch my character s-l-o-w-l-y jog her way through oversized forests and plains, just to kill and collect 6 bear-asses because some rando at the nearby farm told me so.
The entire irony of WoW being social by design, yet being an incredibly lonely leveling experience.

Agreed. They started doing the exact same thing that FFXIV is doing now, making it more a singleplayer convenient experience. Its why I play on a classic private server, it has the social aspect still intact, you meet random people for dungeons, assemble them, walk to location unless a warlock has a summon / mage has a portal. You randomly team up in the world organically because some quests are actually challenging, especially ones that REQUIRE A GROUP.

[Atma]

Agreed. They started doing the exact same thing that FFXIV is doing now, making it more a singleplayer convenient experience. Its why I play on a classic private server, it has the social aspect still intact, you meet random people for dungeons, assemble them, walk to location unless a warlock has a summon / mage has a portal. You randomly team up in the world organically because some quests are actually challenging, especially ones that REQUIRE A GROUP.

At this point, WoW classic has been launched and re-launched officially twice. When it was first concocted and at the Anniversary. Your private server experience is different because it is a private server with a much lower population than a normal classic-retail server.

Official Classic WoW is no longer magical, it is just as much a desolate and antisocial experience unless you go in with a longstanding guild of dozens and dozens of people - and heavens help you if you dare to not have every single aspect of Classic Wow functionally memorized. Interrupting the flow of an establish large guild in their mindless race to be 'server first'/'world first' by doing something as simple as innocuously killing a wandering quest drop mob and delaying them 15 minutes can functionally be the end of your social participation on the server.

How people play WoW classic is a testament to why games like WoW classic do not work anymore. For every 100 people who want to experience 'the magic' of the game, there are 10 people who are only interested in steamrolling to the end. Unfortunately, 'old school' MMOs means the steamroller goes over other people, instead of off on the side by itself where no one cares.

[OliverQ]

I played WoW for a long time, but after playing FFXIV it is so hard for me to go back to those cartoon graphics. Not a single character looks good in that game. Also the community is worse than FFXIV. Running dungeons/raids is super intimidating and people will kick you for being new.

[Hallarem]

At this point, WoW classic has been launched and re-launched officially twice. When it was first concocted and at the Anniversary. Your private server experience is different because it is a private server with a much lower population than a normal classic-retail server.

Official Classic WoW is no longer magical, it is just as much a desolate and antisocial experience unless you go in with a longstanding guild of dozens and dozens of people - and heavens help you if you dare to not have every single aspect of Classic Wow functionally memorized. Interrupting the flow of an establish large guild in their mindless race to be 'server first'/'world first' by doing something as simple as innocuously killing a wandering quest drop mob and delaying them 15 minutes can functionally be the end of your social participation on the server.

How people play WoW classic is a testament to why games like WoW classic do not work anymore. For every 100 people who want to experience 'the magic' of the game, there are 10 people who are only interested in steamrolling to the end. Unfortunately, 'old school' MMOs means the steamroller goes over other people, instead of off on the side by itself where no one cares.

Yeah the private servers still have that magic, I play on one that is continuing the vanilla story with new zones and dungeons, and dungeon / raid additions. With new bosses, custom voice actors and such. It's not the same undiscovered magical land as it was, but some people still are new to it and people tend to be more than happy to help. Don't get me wrong, there are still people who demand way too high gear for raids that don't even require it, but there are good eggs around who realize that the game isn't brain surgery. I just get way more class identity, something FFXIV never gave me. To me FFXIV is just a better MMO for roleplay, it's gameplay is just a cinematic tunnel without any depth.

[Atma]

Yeah the private servers still have that magic, I play on one that is continuing the vanilla story with new zones and dungeons, and dungeon / raid additions. With new bosses, custom voice actors and such. It's not the same undiscovered magical land as it was, but some people still are new to it and people tend to be more than happy to help. Don't get me wrong, there are still people who demand way too high gear for raids that don't even require it, but there are good eggs around who realize that the game isn't brain surgery. I just get way more class identity, something FFXIV never gave me. To me FFXIV is just a better MMO for roleplay, it's gameplay is just a cinematic tunnel without any depth.

I mean IDK, I don't know what additions you're talking about but I don't consider classic WoW's 'class identity' any better than say, FFXIV's at 3.0. In fact, I borderline consider it worse because at that time, people like Furor of Havok fame were driving the car and he had a longstanding hatred towards all things hybrid - mentally defining to himself that only 'pure' classes like Warrior could ever hold the lofty role of main raid tank. The game suffered for years under his umbrella, and it was not until he was finally (thankfully) fired that things were allowed to get better.

As someone who did play WoW back in the time, WoTLK will and forever be the pinnacle of WoW, right up to the exact moment of the Argent Crusade where things fell off a cliff. While FFXIV has peaks and valleys - and right now we are absolutely in a valley - I still consider it less of a rollercoaster ride than WoW has been throughout its lifespan. Right now it's very arguable that wow is screaming downhill again, so who knows what the future holds for FFXIV, WoW, and the entire MMO genre. Everyone I know is currently quitting the game (again), so... eh? Anecdotal experiences for all.

But real talk, I think you're kinda deluding yourself thinking you are playing WoW classic. You are playing someone's vision of 'Classic+', which a lot of people have asked for to be an official thing. But if you enjoy it, that's all that matters.

[Hallarem]

I mean IDK, I don't know what additions you're talking about but I don't consider classic WoW's 'class identity' any better than say, FFXIV's at 3.0. In fact, I borderline consider it worse because at that time, people like Furor of Havok fame were driving the car and he had a longstanding hatred towards all things hybrid - mentally defining to himself that only 'pure' classes like Warrior could ever hold the lofty role of main raid tank. The game suffered for years under his umbrella, and it was not until he was finally (thankfully) fired that things were allowed to get better.

As someone who did play WoW back in the time, WoTLK will and forever be the pinnacle of WoW, right up to the exact moment of the Argent Crusade where things fell off a cliff. While FFXIV has peaks and valleys - and right now we are absolutely in a valley - I still consider it less of a rollercoaster ride than WoW has been throughout its lifespan. Right now it's very arguable that wow is screaming downhill again, so who knows what the future holds for FFXIV, WoW, and the entire MMO genre. Everyone I know is currently quitting the game (again), so... eh? Anecdotal experiences for all.

But real talk, I think you're kinda deluding yourself thinking you are playing WoW classic. You are playing someone's vision of 'Classic+', which a lot of people have asked for to be an official thing. But if you enjoy it, that's all that matters.

Oh yeah, the private server actually made paladins viable for classic, same with shaman tanks, melee hunters and more.
I think TBC was a mistake, and WOTLK went down after the crusade, yeah. We reached some peaks later with Legion and I even enjoyed Pandaria really, a lot actually. But then there were a lot of downs. But even during those there was SOME innovation being done. I'm never touching retail again, it's too far gone, both lore, story and gameplay. Thankfully I finally quit before Shadowlands even before the whole breastmilk scandal.

I played in actual vanilla, and I mix up the terms all the time, but yeah it's a classic+ reimagining where TBC will never form into being. All I'm saying is that it's the best iteration of WoW in my opinion, the world seems broader, the quests matter, the dungeons matter, the raids matter, socializing in general matters and professions have been made to matter as well, so I'm enjoying my time.

I just hate seeing this game potentially if not already going down the same road as WoW, both storywise, lorewise and gameplay

[Tatiana]

WoW is a really fun game, and their next expansions housing system looks really good. SE definitely needs to start paying attention to what other studios are doing. If Blizzard can revitalize a 20 year old game by actually evolving the content it delivers, there's no reason why Square Enix can't do the same. As others have said, it's not about burnout, it's about the game becoming stale and stagnant in what it does. If you eat the same meal every day for years, eventually you're gonna get sick of it and be less likely to return to it ever again in the future after a while. They don't have to totally overhaul their content delivery, but they need to start enhancing the game in ways that return the sense of wonder and excitement to the playerbase..