World of Warcraft Classic - Review

Introduction:

            15 years later, and here we are again. World of Warcraft, that game so popular that even non-gamers heard of it. To the dismay of many mothers and low GPA college grads, it still holds itself has the most played MMO in history (probably), and for good reasons. But with each expansion, with each change, certain crowds felt isolated, to the point where it was far too removed from the original to keep playing. Over the years dedicated players have petitioned Blizzard for original, Vanilla servers of the game, and now here we have it. And I, in my absolute madness, will be making my first ever review of this 15-year-old game, an MMO no less. Holy crap, heaven have mercy on me I must be crazy.

Foreword:

            I believe the reader (you) should have context of the author’s viewpoint. Understanding the reasons why the author says the things they say can give you a more informed opinion. An example of this would be an author who hates most strategy games, yet finds one that he likes, so if the reader also dislikes strategy games then perhaps, they would also like said game.

            I have played the following MMOs:

·         World of Warcraft Cataclysm

·         Final Fantasy 14 up to the beginning of Stormblood

·         Haven & Hearth

·         Runescape (before it EOC)

·         Old School Runescape

·         Archeage Unchained

-       Final Fantasy 14 I had a pretty good time with overall. My main complaint was I felt it was too focused on the story rather than the multiplayer. I would compare it to that of a single player JRPG first with a typical theme park MMO tacked onto it. It was like I was playing Xenoblade Chronicles, and that can be seen as a good thing, but I wouldn’t keep paying a subscription for that. Then again, I am a crazy person who did not mind the early parts of a Realm Reborn.

-       Haven & Hearth I had my enjoyment with it, and felt it had a lot of interesting and creative ideas. I eventually stopped playing it because I felt it was far to grind intensive, maintaining land became to expensive over time, and the developer’s inconsistency in both game philosophy and updates.

-       Runescape was my first MMO. It had a lot to do and a lot of charm. Eventually I quit it due the introduction of microtransactions. Shortly after they introduced their legacy program, I felt the game was moving in a rather bad direction and quit.

-      Several years later Old School Runescape would release, and it was almost exactly as I remembered. That to I would quit because I felt the grinding in that game was outdated. It no longer kept me interested or wanting to play

-      My history with World of Warcraft is an odd one. I remember playing it up to about level 30 during the vanilla days. But I was a stupid kid back then not knowing what I was doing. I did not even do any dungeons then. It wasn’t until one summer where I played Cataclysm and began to really understand the game. I remember actually enjoying the leveling experience… for the most part. I played all the way to max level as a troll hunter and then… stopped.

         The night before the Classic servers went live, I wrote a piece describing my expectations and thoughts going into the game. The following is what I wrote then:

“Now for Classic, I am intending to roll a Warrior and a Rogue on the Grobb server, a Role Playing PvP server. The Rogue will be mainly for dicking around and killing role-players. The Warrior on the other hand I’m rolling because I am a collector, a hoarder so to speak. Despite the joke that every weapon is a Hunter’s weapon, the Warrior can equip any type of item in the game except for wands. Also, as a Warrior I can be either a DPS or a Tank, giving me some flexibility there.

Going in Classic I am expecting a lot of player to player activity, but that is mainly because I will be playing at launch. It’s hard to say how the leveling experience will be a few months later. My first and main goal will be to have fun, but my other goals include trying to make some friends along the way during my level experience, and to obtain as many “unique” items in the game, such as rare mounts, pets, gear, trinkets, etc. I am not going into this completely blind as I have looked up some of the more unique items in the game, such as the staff that gives you infinite underwater breathing. But for the most part I am going to play very “Vanilla”, no addons and will try to avoid meta help such as a wikis unless I am spending far too long on a particular goal.

I do understand that my choice to play as a Warrior will have me leveling at a slower pace compared to everyone, I’m not really all too worried about that. The way I see it gives me more time to make friends along the way.

My real worry though is having an alt. I don’t know if I can handle leveling and gearing a second character. I am aware that there are different areas where I can level, but how many times can I go through them before I get bored? Raising one character to level 60 is going to take some time, but raising a second one? I’m not too sure, but we’ll see. 

Lastly, I don’t see myself playing this game 4 months from now. I am not a kid with a crap ton of time anymore. I have responsibilities and hopes and dreams that lie outside of World of Warcraft, and in order to achieve them, I can’t always be playing. But I also could be wrong. WoWClassic could become my “main game”. We will see.

But one thing is for sure, I have been waiting for this for a while, and goddamn I’m ready to punt some gnomes.”

Basic Run-Down/Leveling Experience:

            Launch day was exactly as you’d expect it to be. A clusterfuck of Zugs and Dabus. Hundreds of green and blue figures rampaging the starting zone, as if a pill bug suddenly gave birth. The server struggled the first few hours, rubber banding was rampant, and people were desperate to complete their kill quests. Groups were formed to help give in the cactus-appleless endeavors. Eventually I found some half decent people to do questing with in Durator.

No line, no style, no grace.

            The phenomenon that you’d see of people forming physical lines in order to complete certain quests did occur…. sometimes. The first of these special quests was in a cave immediately near the starting zone, where no one formed a line; I eventually gave up on this quest. The second was on an island near the starting area, where people did form a line. It wasn’t perfect, some people did cut the line and were called out, but I did eventually get some head and finished my quest.

            From here on out things were beginning to settle out. I stuck with my party I found at spawn and continued questing until about level 10 or so. I went to Orgrimmar, picked up skinning and mining, as well as the secondary professions and the rest of the leveling experience was largely as I remembered it was in Cataclysm, with just a different setting.

            Some quests did require more than 1 person to complete, and this mentality largely stayed the same up until around level 35. At this point I began to do Scarlet Monastery runs, and a new “phenomenon” began to appear. “LF1M, TANK, SPELLCLEAVE”, was one of the most common lines spoke in chat. I was regularly bombarded with people asking me to tank for them.

            Up to this point the leveling experience was pretty good, pretty straight forward. People were willing to teach and help one another, and dungeons were okay. They weren’t exactly complicated but required a little bit of thought. Even though nearly every dungeon was my first time running it, and first time really tanking in an MMO, most people were willing to show me how to run them. They were largely patient and understanding.

            But by the time I got to the Scarlet Monastery I felt the quality of the player base dropped. Instead of teaching and using some basic strategies to get through dungeons, a lot of people just wanted to run through them as fast as possible. Most groups I went with prior talked at least. Here it felt…. alienating.  It was here I had my first really bad run in with players who ninja-looted.

            The questing experience did not change much, but it didn’t help the game pushed me towards the goddamn jungle. That’s right, Stranglethorn Vale. There was a lot of blood. Dungeons though, the quality of groups generally took a nose-dive. Don’t get me wrong, I still met some nice people, but I was becoming a grumpy tank at this point. Mages in particular were my most hated class to run a dungeon with, followed by Warlocks. They just seemed to want to make my job a nightmare by pulling EVERYTHING.

            Around level 40+ questing became less than ideal for some players, but there were still people who wanted to quest, just… not as much. I think the reason is dungeons were just so much more appealing, in terms of both loot and experience points. Also, the number of quests that demanded more than 1 person, I personally noticed dropped. However, there was this one area that may as well have been an open/outdoor dungeon because of the sheer size and number of elites in the area, which I felt was pretty neat, but very drawn out.

            Another reason for less players group questing I think is because of mounts. More specifically the quests to level gain ratio dropping as a result of mount game design philosophy. I found myself going all over the world more on my mount, not so much out of an innate desire, but because I couldn’t get enough experience points in a single zone anymore, I had to go to multiple areas to quest. This didn’t really change all the way to level 60.

            At 60 I began getting better gear through dungeons and…. that’s about it. I logged on, checked my bank, did some dungeons, and I grew bored. There were a few extra quests I could do, but most of my time at end game largely focused around doing the same content over and over again. I did participate in PvP a few times, mainly while leveling in Hillsbrad and Stranglethorn Vale, and that was fun, but those events were scarce.

            I even ran Molten Core in a pug group, and I got nothing, lost every roll. Even raids, well, kind of disappointed me in the mechanics. It was simple, and the most difficult part was getting 40 people together, but the instance itself was… not enough to compel me to keep playing.

            I let my subscription run out and that was it. There wasn’t much left to do for me. It was… a very vanilla experience. It was good while it lasted, but I now I want some chocolate.

Classes:

            Without a doubt the classes are the best part of CLASSic. The uniqueness of each class really does help bring together a sense of community. As a warrior, I got to tank a lot, and as a result got to experience a good chunk of what each class can bring to the party. Compared to something like Final Fantasy 14, I felt each class could truly differentiate the experience and strategies of a dungeon run. In 14 I felt there were only 3 classes in the game, DPS, Healer, and Tank. Whether you were a Machinist or a Black Mage, it didn’t matter. But in Classic World of Warcraft, depending on the situation certain classes are preferable, each being able to handle certain situations easier compared to others.

            Here is a brief list of the uniqueness and strengths of each class (from the perspective of a Warrior Tank).

·         Priests: Big boy providing seemingly instant heals, best friend of the tank.

·         Druids: Overtime heals. A jack of all trades, master of none, can dps, heal, or tank. I rarely see them.

·         Mages excel in AOE damage and against elementals. They also have some crowd control ability by turning enemies into sheep. They’re also water boys.

·         Rogues are great single target damagers who can pick locks, open chests, and crowd control certain enemies.

·         Hunters are… actually rarer than I thought they would be. The smart ones can use their pets to off tank, making the tank’s job a little less stressful.

·         Warlocks possess crowd control powers in banishing elementals briefly. They possess a pet that can also off tank. But most importantly they can create healthstones, which act very similarly to potions, which can be very, very, VERY helpful in a pinch. But even more so they can summon other players to their location assuming they have 2 friends nearby to help. Very useful, especially if they are one of the first people who made it to the dungeon.

·         Shamans: TOTEMs. Melee users’ best friends, as their totems can apply special effects to their weapons, notably Wind Fury, giving weapons an extra chance of attacking. The totems can also do a number of other things, such as providing additional mana and some healing.

·         Paladins. Pussy ass bitches who live in a bubble.

With that said though… there are some balancing issues. Warriors are infamous for having a painfully drawn out leveling experience compared to other classes. Most of my time was spent killing 1 mob at a time, maybe 2 if I had some buffs and perhaps a potion. They also have virtually no means of escaping a fight, while a good chunk of other classes had means of escape. Mages, known for their AOE abilities, would spend time on a literal farm killing 10-20 mobs at a time, providing insane amounts of experience and ease of questing. Hunters and Warlocks have a disposable pet who can be sacrificed to save their own lives.

But what really matters is at end game, right? While hunters and mages may have a better time at literally farming monsters for their drops, warriors can provide tanking services, ideally for a profit. Strengths and weaknesses of each class so to speak….

But, I find that this encourages the use of alts. I have heard from friends that they have alts dedicated to making money or doing certain tasks. In an MMO, from a design standpoint this baffles me. On one hand being limited to a single class in the game encourages networking, teamwork, and communicating with one another to overcome obstacles that cannot be done alone. Yet at the same time the inability to change classes encourages the use of alts, which defeats *some* of the purpose. In Classic you’re known and wanted for your class, while in something like 14 you are not unique due to the ability to play all classes, but you do not need to worry about creating alts, all content can be completed on 1 character. Which is better… I do not know.

Questing:

            Compared to something like Runescape the quests in Classic are kind of crappy. There are few exceptions of interesting quests, but for the most part they amount to collecting 20 bear asses. The presentation of the quests is boring. They give you some text, you can read it (and you probably should), and you go on your murderous rampage. Generally speaking, I don’t care or don’t remember most of the quests in the game, because they were just that forgetful.

            Let me make something clear though, I am speaking about the quests themselves, not the leveling experience. The difficulty curve in WoW Classic does help encourage teaming up and thus a sense of community, but the quests in of themselves are not often interesting and can often have poor directions. In many ways Classic is a wiki game because you don’t know where you need to go, at least in the later levels. Early game the directions the quest givers give you are pretty straight forward. “It’s northwest of town”, “it’s down the road”, pretty straight forward stuff, but later on they just don’t tell you at all, often just expecting you have already been at a landmark. It’s rather annoying.

Compared to even 14, who also have their fair share of bear ass quests, provides more memorable quests and presentation. I don’t need to be the guy killing Deathwing’s generals (an example of a more interesting quest) or some great champion all the time, but when helping an outpost or some stranger, I wish the presentation helped me connect/care a little more about these individuals. They’re not all bad, one time I helped a goblin get the in-game equivalent of cocaine and he snuffed it up right in front of me. But for every goblin I got high, a hundred zhevras were killed.

Community:

             This is a mixed bag. When people talk about “community” in an MMO, they are usually asking how toxic it is. Every MMO is toxic, every last one, they just come in different flavors. Personally, I think Classic is a little more mixed than other MMOs.

            From my personal experience I met a number of helpful individuals who would explain things and not worry to much. But I also met a lot of try-hards, but this is probably because I was what you would consider “above the curve” most of the time. I also met a lot of parents, like a lot of dads and moms who were just wanting to play the game they used to play. On the RP server there weren’t to many RPers and it felt completely optional to do so, no pressure. So… not to bad for the most part.

            But what I will say is I also met a lot, and I A LOT of impatient idiots. People who would refuse to listen to others in the party, spamming the A and D keys like a twitchy mofo, those who would literally spam “gogogogogogo”, while spamming their AOEs and pulling everything under the sun. What class was this typically? The mage of course. This honestly surprised me. I knew that mages had strong AOE powers, but the sheer number of them who would cause the party to wipe baffled me. If it wasn’t the mage it would be the Warlock, who by class design you would think would be a big team player, but alas, AOE seems to attract a certain crowd.

            Lastly, I want to focus on the concept of “reputation mattering”. Maybe back in 2004 but in 2019 I failed to see how one’s reputation mattered on the server. Lots of people made a big talk about how “if you’re a douche who wipes the party, doesn’t listen, ninjas, you’ll never get into a raid”, yet I didn’t really see that happen to much, if at all. There were people who I made sure were blacklisted for being an asshole, yet a week or two later they are in raids or even leading raids themselves. I think there’s just too many people per server for a sense of reputation to really come into fruition. Archeage Unchained does a better job at player reputation thanks to the ability to kill your own teammates, theft, and the jury system being front and center of everyone’s chatlog.

            Even without a guild I made it pretty damn far off of PUGs alone, and by adding trustworthy people to my friends list. Not to say that I wasn’t tempted to join a guild most of the time, dealing with idiots as a tank takes its toll, but there are in fact raid PUGs that get by just fine. Early on in my leveling experience my connections with a blacksmith netted me a sweet breast plate, and my network of friends I made in-game helped getting through dungeons a little easier than having to deal with  caffeinated mages, but it was only “nice”, not “necessary”. Pretty much everything I wanted to do in the game I could do without the need for a “reputation”, and even bad ones seem to go largely un-noticed.

Dungeons:

            Dungeons are…. uhhh…. easy, simply put. The real difficulty is getting competent team-mates. Enemies are marked by players with symbols to help indicate what needs to be done, usually the order of which they are to be killed, maybe some warnings will be made about special mechanics, and then you kill them while trying to not to piss off the monster attacking the tank too much. Usually you kill prioritize magic users, and if there is an enemy with Doctor or Medic in the name you kill them first and foremost.

Alarm-o-bots will alert enemies if not killed.

            Nearly every dungeon involves what I would call… unrealistic mechanic abuse? It’s hard to describe, but in an DnD world if you fought an enemy within earshot of its ally, the others would almost certainly come to back them up. This is not the case here at all, you can kill most enemies fairly close to their allies. This encourages a lot of shooting the enemy, running behind a wall to lure them out, and them maul them to death. This is also true in Final Fantasy 14, and honestly, I think it’s kind of outdated, just designed to pad out the dungeon. Not to say it’s a brain-dead experience, because there are some mildly interesting mechanics. For example, there are patrols that can join in on a fight if they spot you during your slaughter. Sometimes enemies will run away in fear, then calling for help. One dungeon had an enemy that was literally designed as a warning mechanism for the enemies. 

            Dungeons are also in instanced areas, zones specifically loaded for a player, separate from the rest of the world. A necessary evil that 14 also follows. If there was only 1 dungeon shared between everyone, most people would never get to experience them. Deep down I want to see this be changed and have more open world dungeons in MMOs, but alas, I don’t really have good enough ideas to work around the downsides of this.

Devilsaur are rare elite monsters that can throw you into the air.

Enemies:

            Enemy variety is rather dull at times. You will be seeing the same raptor or sludge pile with a different coat of paint, many, many times. The same mechanics you learned from the raptor at level 10 will most likely apply to the one you encounter at level 40. It does ramp up around level 40 or so by introducing a few more types, but just hitting it until it dies is the typical to go method.

On the top of my head here’s a brief list of some of the more unique monster types:

-          Silithid and other bugs (mainly spiders), during combat or when they die, they will spawn annoying tiny mobs that can die in one hit. Saving your AOE cooldowns is important here.

-          Sludge. Usually when they are at about half their health, they will split into two. This can be beneficial if you are looking for specific drops, otherwise finishing them off faster or canceling their spell is advisable.

-          Goblins that summon other mobs. Not one hit mobs, just another annoying monster. For nearly every other class in the game this isn’t a problem, but for a warrior this can be a death sentence.

-          Elementals. Most elementals are immune to bleeding. Most, some aren’t for some reason, like the obsidian elementals, why?

Combat (PvE):

            Thinking on it a little more, the combat in relationship to its enemies is actually more engaging than 14, for different reasons. While 14 may be faster paced, Classic is slower paced. While 14 will test your ability to get your rotation down for MAXIMUM DPS, Classic is more focused on survival (at least as a warrior) and adjusting your rotation given the situation. For example, as a warrior if I am fighting an elemental I would need to completely forgo all of my bleeding focused attacks, as they are immune to them, and instead use abilities I normally don’t use. Some enemies may spawn additional allies which would cause me to invest in using some of my few AOE attacks, or perhaps finding a way to kill them as soon as possible. If I am hopelessly out matched maybe using hamstring and a special shout can save my ass. I have been constantly finding myself using a large variety of different abilities in creative ways compared to just mashing the same rotation over and over again. My rotation is still mostly there, but really understanding what each ability does and making the appropriate adjustments is a very rewarding experience.

            My only real “nit-pick” would be with canceling enemy spells. As a warrior you can cancel an enemy’s spellcasting by basically punching them in the nose, but the only indication that something is casting a spell is in their animation. On a 1-on-1 fight this isn’t much of an issue, but in large group fights, especially raids, this can be incredibly hard to notice without the use of an addon. I do wish the ability to see the enemy’s casting timer was in the base game like it is in 14.

           

Combat (PvP):

            Combat in the PvP scene is focused around killing your enemy as fast as humanly possible. And if not, sticking them to the floor so they can be eaten alive by your allies.

            Until phase 2 is released there isn’t much point in participating in PvP, and frankly the Honor System is a sack of goblin shit and should be made illegal. If I ever saw someone who was rank 14, I would not be “impressed’, rather I would be writing a very concerned letter to them regarding their mental wellbeing and their employment status. Any system that has exponentially growing requirements is cancerous enough as is, trust me I’ve played Runescape, but imagine LOSING 20% of your score every week. Runecrafting memes of suicide would become a reality.

A lot of PvP is just 1 sided ganking. 

            World PvP actually is rather enjoyable, when it does happen. When phase 2 does come out, there will be some incentive to kill the other faction outside of asserting dominance. However… it is still kind of a shame that there isn’t any real “winning” so to speak. While we have contested zones in the game, there is no way to claim victory over one of them. It’s just killing for the sake of killing.

            For some this will be great, but for me personally I can’t be bothered to continuing doing this for months on end. WoW is a very gear focused game, and in a PvP system, personally I want to be the victor based on my skill more so than RNG or having a shinier axe. There are many PvP focused games out on the market, I don’t have much reason to make WoW a main PvP game for me, outside of maybe theming. Orcs vs Humans is a pretty basic yet compelling theme to get sucked into.

           

Crafting, Foraging, & Fishing:

"Every good game has fishing" - some guy on the internet

            It’s a basic bitch. It’s also underwhelming and mostly outpaced by dungeon gear. Crafting and gathering is a common side activity in MMOs. Pick any MMO and chances are likely there’s some type of system that involves you taking things from the world and turning it into other things. What makes Classic unique is that each character is limited in what they can create.

            The skills needed to craft, and gather are referred to as Professions. In Classic there are two kinds of Professions, Primary and Secondary. Each character may only have 2 Primary Professions but may have as many Secondary Professions that are offered. Secondary include First Aid, Cooking, and Fishing. All of which are useful in leveling a character and even extends to some end-game content. The Primary Professions include: Skinning, Herbalism, Mining, Leatherworking, Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Engineering, and Enchanting. As you may guess by name alone some of these Primary Professions synergize well together. Skinning goes well with Leatherworking, Mining with Blacksmithing and Engineering, and Herbalism with Alchemy.

            The actual act of crafting is bare bones. If you have the recipe unlocked, you click a button, wait a little bit, and bam you have a new item. No percentage chance of success, no mini game, nothing, just a flat cost of materials and time. Similar logic applies to gathering professions, just click the thing, and assuming your skill level is high enough you get the thing. Even fishing is lackluster with the most unique part of it involving the literal seasons. Recipes can be either taught from certain NPCs, quests, or a rare drop. Some craftable items are very much desired, typically at end game… almost exclusively at end game.

            The balance and usefulness of each profession varies greatly. Nearly every gathering profession is strictly useful and can help generate money. While crafting professions are a mixed bag.

            Let’s take a look at fishing and cooking, two secondary professions that synergize well, in fact to well. The balancing is so bad I maxed out my cooking skill level at roughly level 40. All I did to achieve this was cook fish. Fishing I could have maxed out at the same time as well, it’s just a matter of time investment. Skinning I maxed out close to level 45. End game fishing involves using a cheap consumable item in some of the most far out lands you can think of for just a chance of catching these end-game fish. End-game fish that when cooked are….no better than the food a mage can produce… It’s rather disappointing. The number of actually useful fish in the game is rather disappointing, and a good size of them are exclusively useful to Alchemy.

            Blacksmithing is a profession I’ve noticed a lot of players have been avoiding? And why is that? Well simply put it’s pretty useless. In my entire time of playing Classic I’ve had 1 item custom made for me in my leveling experience, a Shining Silver Breastplate, made by a Tauren Warrior who gave me a discount because I had the human decency to not mine his iron deposit while he was AFK in the Thousand Needles. So, what was the reason I never had any more gear made? Well simply put dungeons offer better gear at lower levels. Why would I spend time and money getting gear made when the stuff dropped in dungeons is flat out better in every way? Plus I gain experience points, can complete some quests, and get money from said dungeons! And the same thing is applying at level 60. There are like, 4 items that are exclusive to Blacksmiths only at end game, and even then, there’s still better raid drops.

            What’s really weird about Professions is Engineering. While every other Profession you can trade your items, such as your potions and armor, engineering does not allow that. Nearly every item that can be crafted by an Engineer can only be used by Engineers. You don’t need to be an alchemist to drink potions or a blacksmith to wear custom armor, yet one must be an Engineer to use an exploding chicken. I get the logic that you need the know how to make these things work, (with the exception of grenades, come on I don’t think there needs to be that much training to use a damn grenade), but the problem is twofold. Problem one is Engineering is insanely useful in PvP. In fact, if you are interested in PvP, you would be shooting yourself in the foot for NOT picking up Engineering. Engineering offers a wide variety of gadgets and gizmos to give you the upper hand. The second problem is the exclusivity of Engineering I find to be counter productive in building a community. While the other Professions are about crafting gear that you and others can use, Engineering is an almost completely selfish skill. I can’t help but feel Engineering should have been a Secondary Profession.

            Then there is the issue of being limited to only two Primary Professions. Much like my concern over alts, the same applies to alts being made for Professions. For example, since nearly every item crafted in Alchemy can be traded, I created an Alchemy alt. I would just send the raw ingredients to said alt and send the potions back to my main. You may think of it as silly, but it saves a lot of money because of how useful potions are. I am not sure how to feel about this. While the community may sing to the high heavens about “community”, Classic sure does like to offer inconveniences that while ideally are solved with the help of your team mates, it also offers easier, better, and cheaper routes of accomplishing the exact same thing.

Gear and the Progression:

            “The sense of progression” through your gear has been one of the big selling points of advocates for Classic. So, does it have it? Well, kind of yeah.

            For starters certain types of armor pieces are just rarer than others. This includes helmets, shoulder pads, rings and necklaces. I went up to about level 30 before I got my first head piece. The feeling of *finally* filling in that slot is a nice one. This extends to rings and necklaces, especially neck-based gear. I spent a long time in the game before I found my first neck piece, I don’t think of it as the most amazing thing, but it certainly is a nice thing. I do feel my character is more… “complete” when an empty slot finally becomes filled.

            Secondly is the feeling of getting stronger through your gear. Like with certain parts of gear rarely dropping, finding an upgrade can be time consuming. As a warrior getting my Whirlwind Axe did feel like an achievement. It was a such as boost in stats that I kept using it for about another 15 levels. Same logic applies to other hard to find pieces of gear. With that said though there are typically alternative weapons and gear you can use that, while may not be as good, are certainly cheaper and the differences aren’t that big.

            A big change though is hitting level 40. For most classes in the game, once you hit level 40 you can unlock the ability to wear a higher tier of armor. For example, a warrior can only wear chain mail until level 40, then they may wear plate armor, providing a significant boost in stats. It’s kind of like “awakening” into a new class in another RPG. Slowly replacing all your old gear for a new, different type of gear is quite satisfying.

            Thirdly is looking like you’re becoming stronger… I don’t know about the other classes exactly, but as a warrior I feel kind of let down. Up to about level 40 I both felt and looked like I was slowly becoming stronger. I gained my shoulder pads, I got some badass weapons, I’ve been upgrading, my armor is now shinier and more metallic. I ran through Scarlet Monastery a bit and got some pretty cool and matching gear. I felt and looked strong at that point. Then I hit level 40, ran a new dungeon and got the ugliest blue helmet I have ever seen. A lot of gear post level 40 just did not match or were just plain ugly. I had to wear the blueberry helmet; the stats were just to good. And this continued for the rest of my gear until I started approaching end game where things began look cool and match again.

            Fourthly, on the topic of “pride and accomplishment”. I personally did not feel much of this throughout my journey. When I finally got a drop for something that I have been killing the same boss for the past few hours, I did not feel “rewarded”, so much as “relieved”. I had felt the challenge needed to accomplish that sense of pride had long been gone with the first time I killed the boss. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t usually associate grinding with pride, it just felt like an means to an end or as a means to artificially extend game time. The times that I did feel a sense of accomplishment and pride came from cases like the Whirlwind Axe, or beating a boss for a quest with a bunch of buddies or strangers.

             

Itemization / Items:

        The itemization in Classic is actually a pretty good strong point. At first I thought it was a ok but not as good as something like Runescape, and that it blows 14 or Archeage out of the water, but now that I think about it a little more, it might even be better than Runescape.

            For those who don’t know what I mean by “itemization” is the uniqueness of items that differentiates itself from other or similar items. The more these items remain relevant and how useful they are in a practical sense determines how good the itemization is. Two items where the only difference is their sheer stats is poor itemization, but items that have unique, even if situational, trade offs is far better. A sword that has a chance to summon a dragon is an example of itemization.

Savory Delight is a great party item. It turns you into either a
pirate or a ninja!

            Classic is filled with all sorts of funky and weird gadgets. Hell, almost the entirety of the Engineering profession is dedicated to unique items. Engineers for example place a repair bot down in an instance, allowing the party to fix their gear instead of having to lead the raid. They have several items that only have a chance of working, such as the Gnomish Mind Control Cap or the Goblin Rocket Boots. The sheer utility and usefulness of Engineering is a big reason why many PvPers pick up the profession in the first place.

            Some weapons in the game will have a chance of inflicting additional damage in the form of an element. Some trinkets will things that can boost your defense, temporarily increase your speed, stun the enemy for a moment, and so forth. The diversity of these items (and their cooldowns) does make the player think a little more ahead of time on what trinket to use in what situation, and that’s something I really do like. Compared to other MMOs I’ve played I really haven’t had much reason to “think” about what I’m going to be equipping or using. Runescape is more focused on the situational stats and the itemization is mainly limited the special attacks weapons can have. Mithril in Runescape is a lightweight metal in that game, but it almost never has any practical utility, especially in combat. One of my favorite weird items in Classic is the Horned Viking Helmet, which lets you ram yourself into an enemy stunning them (and yourself) for a brief amount of time every 30 minutes. There’s also the Skull of Impending Doom, which increases your speed in exchange for health. The Luffa can remove bleeding effects on you. It’s these types of items that I think really help bring an extra layer of, well…fun into the game!

Bleach, Oil, Nectar,
share the same image.

            Now there are some things I don’t like, and that can get confusing or frustrating. One is that a lot of items in the game share the same inventory icon. When water, oil, and bleach all share the same icon, you’re going to be scratching your head sometimes. Some equip-able items are possibly unique and can never be acquired again. For example, there is a lantern that Horde players can get from a quest. You can hold it in your off hand, and it emits light, very useful for role-playing reasons. However, it one of two rewards you can choose from said quest, and if you never acquired or lost it somehow, as far as I can tell there is no way to every get another one. This kind of sucks for the roleplaying community, and I must give 14 props for thinking of this. In Final Fantasy 14 you can rebuy old quest related gear, a very nice thing to have.

            Overall, I do like the uniqueness, utility, and quirkiness that a lot of items have in WoW Classic. I find that the itemization in this game helps earn it the RPG in MMORPG just a little bit more.

Economy:

        I will not lie and say that I am a professional at this. Economics and balancing a proper game, not around it but with it in mind, is quite the complicated task.

            Regarding the actual flow of resources, I will not go to far into it. I do think at endgame it is alright for the most part. However, most items are in “tiers” as I would call them. Fabrics go from Linen to Wool, to Silk to Mageweave, and lastly Runecloth and Felcloth, with the last 2 only remaining relevant at endgame. The same logic applies for metals as well. The emphasis on end-game materials only helps defeat the need to return to old or lower-leveled zones. But end-game gear and consumables I find are in a pretty good state.

            The main way trade happens in Classic is through the Auction House, which you guessed it, works like an auction. You put crap in with a min and max cost, (or not max), a deposit fee, and if it’s sold you get the deposit back with a small amount of the money removed as tax (gold sink). It works fine for the most part, although I am liking Archeage’s Auction house a little more, where you can set it so that individual items in stacks can be bought individually, instead of needing to buy the whole load. The Auction House could see an improvement.

            Before I even got into the game, I recall reading a post suggesting that each Auction House was separate from each other, creating local economies in a way, where each Auction would have their own distinct items for sale. This would help distinguish areas a little more and be a bit more aligned with the RPG side of things. Turns out that wasn’t true and Auction Houses are faction based instead of local based, with all the items being magically linked.

            There are two types of Auction Houses, those that are a part your faction, and those that are Neutral. Your faction Auction House can only be accessed by your faction. Neutral Auction Houses though, their items are separate, and the sellers can come from any faction of the game. This is a pretty neat idea; it almost feels like a black market in a way. It’s the only way to trade with the opposing faction, and some rare faction exclusive items can end up on the Neutral Auction Houses. It only helps the feeling it being a black market when you consider they’re located in pirate and desert lands, and most of the items for sale are faction exclusive animals. There’s also a higher deposit and tax fee to use said Neutral Auction House. It’s a pretty neat thing to have, I like it, I don’t even think Archeage has a Neutral Auction House.

Banking/Inventory:

        Following the trend of “RPG-ness” in Classic, the inventory is no exception. You start off with a basic 16 slot bag and a few empty slots that you can put other bags in. Acquiring more bags for a bigger inventory is pretty straight forward. You either get them crafted, bought, sometimes from a quest, or as a drop from a monster. You will be constantly acquiring new, bigger bags throughout your journey and it’s quite satisfying.

            But sometimes there are things you will rarely use and would prefer putting it away in some type of stationary storage instead, and that’s where banks come from. The banking system in Classic is pretty similar to something like Runescape, and still a million time better than the crappy system that 14 has. You start off with a rather large amount of space for all your odds n ends, with expanded slots that you can buy with in-game currency, increasing with each slot unlocked up to a limit. It should be noted that these slots must filled with a bag to actually use, giving an additional use to old bags you’d otherwise throw out. This sounds like a pretty neat system, and it does offer a progressive sense of achievement. However, the bank spacing can at times be to be limiting, encouraging the use of “Bank Alts”. The only downside of mailing one of your characters your items is an insanely small fee every time you want to mail them something. I think as a result Classic’s bank system could be physically expanded a bit. Personally, I didn’t have a need for a bank alt for a while, until around my late 40s. There’s just not enough space for all your crap, especially if you’re into professions.

            Now let’s talk about Guild Banks. For end game content, the use of expensive consumable items is very helpful, sometimes even needed. Maybe there’s a dedicated blacksmith or a tailor in your guild and you want to help them out by sending your raw materials to them. For these reasons, and general sharing between friends, a guild bank is quite nice to have. Which is why it sucks that Classic doesn’t have Guild Banks. What people suggest to do is 1 person creates a separate character that everyone can mail their items to, to serve as the Guild Bank. Some would argue this helps the feeling of a community and it’s good for the game, I on the other hand think that’s an inconvenience, gives to much power to a sole individual, and serving as the guild’s bank to be an annoying chore.

            Depending on your class and even profession, one of your bag slots may be dedicated to a special bag that can only hold specific items. The Hunter is an obvious example for their ammo. While technically they do not NEED a quiver, having one can give some nice bonuses to their damage, essentially making it a requirement. This is something I am not to sure how to feel about. But then again as a warrior it makes me feel nice and warm on the inside that other classes have to suffer a little more (they will never know our pain!).

            One last nit-pick on the topic of bags is identifying them. Early on bags can come in a variety of different colors and icons, all cosmetic but useful in remembering what’s in each of your bags. The same type of bag can even be made into a different color. Late game the bag variation drops, especially the crafted ones. Runecloth and Mooncloth bags, unlike their early game counterparts, do not have different colored variations. There’s no red, green or blue Runecloth bags, only Runecloth. This is kind of a shame.

            Overall, I do like the inventory system in Classic and prefer it over something like Archeage or Final Fantasy 14. It helps give a little more flair to your pockets visually and in the sense of progression.

The World Itself:

        The “World” of Warcraft is jampacked with a variety of different zones to quest in and explore. You got prairies, swamps, deserts, barrens, forests, jungles, mountains, volcanoes, and more, each with their own distinguished “style” and landmarks. One of my personal favorites is the Thousand Needles and its Shimmering Flats.

            The game is “mostly” open world with very minimal invisible walls. If you see water, you can swim in it. If you see lava, you can swim in that. I don’t judge. However, the world is mostly mountains, nearly every single region/zone in the game is closed off by impassible mountains with 1, 2, and sometimes 3 entrances/exits. It’s something I think is rather outdated and kind of breaks the immersion a little bit. Many other themepark MMOs are just as guilty of this, such as Final Fantasy 14 or Archeage. It’s basically instancing without the load screens. I could honestly do without it.

Graphics:

            When it comes to graphics, I’m usually not the one to care to much about them. But I would be lying if I said, “they don’t matter”. Gameplay will always outweigh graphics, but visuals do play a role in games. In Classic’s case it’s mainly regarding immersion and gear.

            The main thing I’m looking for in visuals is consistency. A game doesn’t have to have next generation graphics or be incredibly realistic to be good, or even look good. A consistent aesthetic can age well. Unfortunately, in Classic’s case I would say it’s kind of ugly… well, when you look at it up close. Overall it actually looks pretty damn nice and its keep’s it visuals consistent for the most part. Even when a game is “ugly”, if you play it long enough so long as it remains consistent in its style, one can still become immersed in it. It likes to use a lot of stretched images on flat polygons to create the illusion of depth and detail, and it works for the most part. A great example of it would be water puddles on mud, I had to double check to see if it was real or not. The most glaring examples of it not working are in trees, (especially Winterspring’s trees), where the branches are usually not even real, instead just a low-quality image. Seeing blatant examples of this can take one out of the moment.

            The other issue is regarding gear. Classic’s community likes to talk about the sense of progression, how you “feel” your character getting stronger and more powerful with each bit of new gear you acquire. This is largely tree for helmets, capes, shoulder pads, and weapons, but the other pieces of gear… not so much. While the helmets and shoulder pads may be their own 3D models, chest pieces, pants and belts are not, rather they are one dimensional stretched image. If plate chest armor were actual 3D models instead of looking like t-shirts, I would feel a deeper sense of progression, but it kind of hurts that feeling as well as my “immersion”.

            Overall, I’d have to say graphically Classic holds up pretty well even to this day. It manages to stay consistent in it’s aesthetic and makes efficient use out of what it has with largely minimal exceptions.

Music & Sound Design:

            Honestly the soundtrack the Classic is not something I’d listen to often. It is largely atmospheric music that shows up briefly, plays its little song, and once it stops it won’t be playing again for a while. And this is fine for an open world game like WoW. But… it’s also very forgettable, sometimes they will reuse the soundtrack for a different area or zone. Not to say it isn’t effective when introducing a character to a new place, but it’s pretty short lived. The ambient sounds they have I think are nice. An example would be Orgrimmar at night, you can hear the sounds of dogs barking in the distance.

            Sound effects work fine and help get the point across most of the time, like with disarming. Not much more I can really say about sound effects… maybe have more? It gets the job done.

            My big gripe is regarding battles. There are no battle themes. Ok there’s a handful, technically (like 6 I think?) but they are rarely used, and when it is used it comes at the weirdest times, and sometimes you can’t even tell if it’s an actual “battle theme” or not. For example, I remember running through the orange side of Maraudon, and towards the exit the battle theme started playing… not at the boss or anything, just as I was entering a bigger room. Kind of effective in making things feel “epic”, but it lost it’s luster shortly after I as went off to go tank more trash. For the sake immersion, similar to something like Breath of the Wild, this may be fine, but on the flip side you can lose a lot of impact and memorable moments. If a boss or an encounter has a soundtrack associated with it, it becomes far more memorable. Normal combat doesn’t even have any music. This is largely subjective, and perhaps I am spoiled by Final Fantasy 14 or even Runescape, but I do wish more fights had something to accompany them.

            Again, this is largely subjective, and one could argue the lack of a soundtrack can enhance immersion, I think it also lost some “oomph” in doing so.

           

Customer Support:

            My customer support experiences with Blizzard has been a mixed bag, and your results may vary greatly from mine.

            I had this quest called “Cuergo’s Gold”, which involves killing pirates for a chance at treasure map pieces. Once you get all 3 pieces either from grinding (or buying them off the Auction House), you travel to the literal southern tip of the world. It is a region so far removed from society there’s nothing but turtles, no points of interest other than this 1 hidden quest. You click on a stick on the ground, kill some pirates, and open a chest that is spawned. In my situation I killed a pirate, took the key needed and ran off while the others despawned. This is common practice in WoW, to just wait things out. Unfortunately for me the pirates AND the chest despawned. Clearly a bug, right? Well I sent in a ticket, waited a day and a half, got a response from someone who clearly didn’t know what they were talking about, sent in another ticket and finally got a real response. I shit you not the other person told me:

“You might want to also consider the fact that if other players are in that area and have a key, or tag a pirate who drops the key, they're able to steal the contents of the treasure chest. You'll have to drop the quest again and go create another map!

The fact that the quest needs to be repeated and the fact that you need to gather the parts for the map again is actually part of the famous quest design logic of Classic WoW. Since that was the way the quest was intended, that is the official solution we can suggest. If something happened to your event and the chest has despawned, you'll have to gather up another map.

Remember most quests in World of Warcraft Classic are optional.”

Yes. Blizzard’s customer support told me to go be a dick to someone, thus cucking them out of the quest, so that I can get in-game booze. On one hand it’s funny that they told me to go screw someone over, I can’t think of any other game company that would actively encourage me to be an asshole, but on the flip side this situation doesn’t really promote that and it’s largely inconsistent with all the other quests in the game. Remember how I said I had to go to the literal southern tip of the world? You could be waiting there for literal days before someone else shows up. There is nothing there and the likelihood of you getting to be a jackass pirate for a few moments is close to null. Calling it “famous quest design logic” is also a load of bullshit. If you didn’t know already, a lot of what makes Classic so special is an accident of poor game design. This is clearly a bug they don’t want to fix, there’s no excuse for it.

Monetization:

            Monetization in Classic is simple. It’s a monthly subscription fee of about 15 USD, and that’s about it. As far as I can tell there’s no cash shop. At most you can get some companions/pets to you follow you around if you’re the owner of a really old collector’s addition, but that’s about it.

            Personally, I’m not too big of a fan of subscription-based models, as I feel I am wasting money if I am not playing. Even 14 for great as it can be at times, that game sure does like to encourage you to buy more retainers (their crappy banking system). Comparatively to other MMOs, Classic has one of the better subscription models on the market. It’s 100% play to win. No cash shop, no cosmetic shop, no inventory expansion, none of that bullshit.

            There is also the issue of their multiboxing policy. The use of multiple accounts controlled by a single individual is in fact allowed by Blizzard, so long as the tasks are not automated (botting). Despite this inputs that immediately copied to all accounts are allowed. Press a single button and all 5 to 40 accounts will simultaneously perform the same actions. Personally, I have experienced multiboxers quite a few times, thankfully all on my own faction, but have seen them 1 shot the enemy faction in a split second. The severity of negative effects of multiboxing to the game can be debated on, but the one thing I cannot find a single argument for is the opposite, there are no benefits of multiboxing to the game’s health. It doesn’t promote community or multiplayer, and it’s only useful to the multiboxer (and Blizzard’s wallet). The policy of allowing multiboxing in Classic should be altered to forbid it.

Races:

            The race variety in Classic is pretty good in my opinion, especially in their designs (except for female designs). Most MMOs these days lack any type of real playable “monsters”, and trolls, orcs, tauren and zombies are the closest we can get. In a lot of MMOs races are just humans with patches of scales or fur (looking at you 14), amounting to bad cosplay.

            Racials, for the most part, are largely irrelevant to the content of the game. There are a few exceptions (such as Orc’s 20% stun resistant being pretty damn strong in PvP), but you can play any combination without much worry (as long as you aren’t a try-hard). But fuck gnomes, you will be punted.

Player Commitment:

            How much the player must commit to the game in order to get the most amount of joy out of it is rather low. There is a distinct lack of daily quests or anything that essentially demands the player do something else. You can log on and do whatever you want without feeling “behind”. There is the exception of raids. Raids provide some of the best gear in the game and each raid can only be accessed once per week, so there is some pressure in that regard. If a player wants to farm certain end-game items, only a certain number of them will spawn each hour. Some holiday events do provide somewhat useful items, but as far as I can tell they are largely irrelevant.

            On the topic of “grinding”, well thankfully almost none of it is time gated (unlike Archeage). Aside from the gear grind of murdering hundreds of the same boss, the second biggest contender is the Reputation grind. In WoW there are several fake factions that offer unique benefits assuming you can kiss their ass enough. Some of these are fairly straight forward and come naturally with killing enough of their opposing faction. The Hydraxian Waterlords are one of the easier ones, just do the Molten Core raid enough and the reputation points will come naturally. But some others are quite the pain in the ass, like the Timbermaw Reputation grind. Just kill hundreds upon hundreds of those they don’t like and they then they won’t want to maul you anymore. The rewards for allying with certain factions vary, some will offer to sell you exclusive items and some will offer you basically nothing. It’s a mixed mag but pretty much every one of them amounts to “kill a thousand bears for me”. Thankfully, reputation grinding is not required for most content (Naxxramas seems to require at least being “Honored” with the Argent Dawn).

Accessibility:

            How accessible WoW Classic is for a new player is… rather hard to say. At first I thought I was going to say “Yea it’s very accessible, easy to hop into”, but I am not new to World of Warcraft. My experience with Cataclysm transitioned over to Classic very easily. I then had a friend try out the game and he was the definition of a “cute noob”. So many basic things he could not grasp, such as ammunition and that you had to equip it and have it your inventory. Where the quest logs were. How to get new abilities. Where the hell to go? And so forth. Let me put this way, he started off as a Troll and somehow ended up in the Western Plaguelands within the first few hours.

            The game is also pretty damn old and can run on a potato, with a large variety of settings on can change for optimization. I recall it even having color blind options.

            For someone who has played MMOs before, Classic is very accessible. But for a first timer, well… while the game is simple and does not overflow you with to many concepts, I would recommend something like 14 instead. While more modern MMOs may hold your hand on,  at least in the beginning parts they explain things far better. On the contrary the confusion of starting an MMO like Classic could encourage more player interaction, a lot of asking questions and learning how things work.

Ending Remarks:

            I’ll be honest, towards the end of writing this review I’ve almost given up. I knew going into this would be quite the workload, but I clearly underestimated myself. I knew writing a review would be a lot, and I knew writing one for an MMO would be even bigger and writing my first “real” review on an MMO would be even crazier…. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!

            Like literally as I am typing this out several parts of this review are still unwritten or un-edited. I am just “done” at this point. It’s to damn big. MMOs are that damn complicated. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

            But for reals tho. I did have a good time with Classic. I may be cynical, and I like to nitpick, but make no mistake, my judgement of Classic is still that of a positive one. I had a pretty good time leveling and making new friends here and there. I felt it was a very “vanilla” MMO experience. It was basic, to the point, but it lacks a lot of the extra and other things that other MMOs tend to offer. The biggest strong point of Classic is in it’s PvE, with PvP being a side dish. If I had to describe Classic as food, the PvE would be the burger and the PvP would be the fries, whilst the professions are the condiments. I just can’t justify paying a subscription for 4 entries (per raid) per month. If it was a 1-time payment model I would totally log in every now and then to chill and do instances.

            Even now, at the last set of statements, there are things in Classic I still want to talk about. But at over 10,000 words, 16+ pages, I think I’m done with this “review”, if you’d even call it that. I don’t think I even talked about the mailbox, how I felt so much of Classic was clearly made with love as can be seen by the little secrets, or the feeling of getting your first mount. Or about how it changed so much of the industry for years to come. I guess this just shows how big a topic MMOs can really be.

            …But it doesn’t really matter does it? I just wrote over 10,000 words about a 15-year-old game, that people already know whether they will like it or not. I guess in a way I am saying I wrote this for myself, as proof that I CAN do something like this. To take something apart and look at it and tell why I like the things I do about it. This piece isn’t perfect, and I’m sure there’s arguments to be made against my opinions. Personally, I would much prefer to have a discussion about the parts and bits of an MMO and what makes them tick, than typing out a 16 page paper into the abyss that is the far corners of the internet. I will be honored if literally anyone reads this far. This has been one of the biggest wastes of time I have ever spent on something, and at the same time one of the most meaningful wastes of time I have spent on something so worthless. Meaningful in that I expressed my passion for something, meaningless on the topic it covered. I will probably never write a review for an MMO again.