Why don't you go with Black Whisper, no problems there with the PTW...

VanCleef’s story in vanilla WoW was actually super cool. He was basically fighting for the owed wages the stonemasons never received during the construction of Stormwind. A true man of the people.

the fact that when he logged in after 10mins he wasn't swarmed just circling a town speaks volumes to me.

WoW was a social network before we really had much social networks. The reason we can't have that emotional experience anymore isn't just because the game lost its touch (which is definitely has), but the sole reason it was such a phenomenon was because it was a virtual social hub with a side of fantasy rpg. WoW was just in the right place at the right time. I will miss those days

You know you see Asmon flying around in Stormwind constantly, he's venting.

Hell yea brother, the peak of Warcraft lore was when Cairne met Thrall in Warcraft 3 and they decided they were gonna be bosses of their own gym and they were gonna beat the shit out of everyone that didn't get their gym membership.

I think the issue now with mmo are the instant day 1 class guides and how to be "perfect". It disassociates you from your character and becomes just a list for you to follow. Also you dont take time to grow and learn with your character anymore.

The Classic Era is more fun for me and my friends. You just feel like a real adventurer. You slowly work your way up, step by step, and you also prepare for adventures (buying firewood, potions and other things). I just feel more like a regular adventurer doing normal murder hobo stuff!

Classic is nice because you start as a nobody and as you level you truly feel like your character is developing. The fact that you’re a random citizen of your capitol city who is now forced to get stronger by fighting wolves, raptors, panthers, etc. Every piece of gear makes you truly feel like you’re growing in power. And eventually you get strong enough to take on monsters, elemental lords, dragons, and more. It’s true rpg. Retail starts you as a god. Being able to pull 20 mobs and wreck them easily. You get everything handed to you. There’s no reason for community. BOA gear makes obtained gear feel like nothing. You get a free mount right off the bat. No true rpg elements imo.

They diverted resources, tried to make people play in a certain way. Then they screwed PvP, gave raids goofy mechanics, turned all dungeons into speed runs. Basically said FU to a large portion of their player base who want to play for fun.

IMO, the current state of WoW is exactly what happens when a developer tries to please everyone instead of sticking to what made them great in the first place. This video made me grateful for all the years growing up of playing Vanilla-Cataclysm.

What I enjoy from vanilla wow is the journey it took me to level my character up and getting to know all these areas, that was the most fun for me. I play retail until the story is done and then I basically quit. I wish they added more world content and by this I do not mean worldwuests but just more areas, more exploration. Getting a random green from opening a chest or killing a rare man, that was so good. Currently in wow you just get bombarded with blue and purple items for just talking to npcs, it is boring leveling is so fucking easy.

Imagine a version of WoW that has the adventure/leveling, community and RPG feel of Classic, and the endgame of Retail.

8:14 "there's some pirates over there, why don't you kill em.. why you gotta kill em? well wtf are they doing over there" This guy is a fckn legend XD

My main experience with wow was on a private server, when I came to retail from that, I honestly got disappointed. Even though the scripting of the bosses and everything was much better and everything worked properly. It didn't give me that feeling that my actions were recognized or even mattered on the server. On that private server I was playing on, you could make a name for yourself, especially when it came to pvp. And Alliance and Horde were beefing 24/7 always fighting each other over turfs or invading the main cities. You could literally organize raids by yourself with random people without being in a guild, and you could also organize pvp parties with no problems. Not to mention that there were always discussions on the forums about who's the best hunter or warlock or tank on the server etc. When I came to retail everything kind of felt lifeless. Instead of talking with people before partying up, you had dungeon finders and stuff that would automatically pair you up, no talking needed, it's just weird man.

I really think classic WoW also does one big thing for its community. It localizes it. You build relationships with people on the server because they're all you have; you don't pick people from a list from other servers and go do something. Sure, you might get a 'friend' out of that, but its rare to build a friendship because you only interact with them on an activity to activity basis.

His idea about changing the dungeon quest xp is really good. Could also add a daily quest to queue up for dungeons like in FFXIV that matches you with a group that has one member that's doing it for the quest.

Seeing WoW and hearing the music again after not playing since Legion makes me emotional. Its like hearing the SWG music.

You described it perfectly… way too fast and way too over designed. And the leveling aspect is way too easy and fast. You can still die in 1.5 seconds in pvp. And there’s just way too many abilities for most classes now. Sometimes less is more and that’s exactly why people are still playing classic.

Best word for it, bloated, it's super overwhelming.

Tbh I love WoW for the leveling experience, like running around different locations, listening to all different ambiences, it's wonderful. And I feel like they simply overcomplicate that as well. What I'd like is the simple experience of that mighty adventure, learning about lore, doing dangeons throughout all expansions, I want to explore Azeroth and Outland.

True story. I started a brand new character in retail, with the aim of playing without heirlooms. Just as a new player would. Troll hunter. Got to level 10 very quickly and entered my first dungeon. This was hilariously bad. Even as a hunter I couldn't get a shot off without everything being dead. I was looting and running to catch up but they were one shotting everything. Imagine someone new to WoW encountering this in a dungeon.

I agree with asmon on dungeon xp. My opinion is that you should grind dungeons for the loot and only for loot. Giving 3x more xp from dung quest is also good idea since they are so scattered and you actually have to collect them and for the most do a questline for them.

I'll never forget Staff of Jordan dropping from a Bloodsail Raider in Stranglethorn vale on my priest. I understood then how Gollum felt.

15:00 Exactly this. I hope to God they do this. They need to spice things up for all the people spamming multiple hardcore chars learning and mapping all the safe and best paths. It takes the thrill out of it. Ignite the MMO and change the mob pathing - add a few random elite rares around the world and buff the mobs like Asmon said so the people expecting it to be the same classic to be reintroduced to the true classic hardcore. They could make it feel like a whole new world which is the most important aspect for an MMO. It could ignite a whole new genre of WoW if they do it right. Don't just copy off the players add and build off it - billion dollar franchise after all.

To me my biggest problem is how sweaty most people feel in retail. Even heroic dungeons, people will rage over the smallest mistake and insta kick players, and at this point I dont think that's changing.

I can't even tell you how OG of a massive Blizzard fan I was... the Blizzard I knew died many many years ago when Activision got involved

i read the books about the 2nd war and beyond the dark portal and i agree, the lore vibe was totally different, Anduin lothar was a hard hitting muscle hairy man, dannat trollbane was a badass too, kurdran, grommash, orgrim, edwin vancleef, everyone of them were warriors outside the beauty standars, i mean, see how even khadgar is handsome in retail and in the book he was an old looking 17 years old dude LOL

I’m a new player, so I can’t connect to what it used to be. 39 yrs old, 2 kids etc etc. I love the content, Raid, AOTC, KSM, pushing keys, all the shit, it’s awesome. And I love there’s 20 years of old shit I can go and do on the side with people I’ve met that have played from the start.

Dragonflight felts like a sport, while Classic -> MoP was very chill to play

If official HC comes out, I'd like to see the mob targeting system come over. AH limited but not removed (maybe trade skills items only?). Remove the dungeon rules, liked the idea shared in this video about it.

I played classic first in 2019, never played retail before. I loved it so much by the end I was a sweaty raider in a guild that speedrun nax in like 90min. Tried retail and it felt souless like it was a cheap knockoff or something

I think the new story with wrathion is pretty good. I really like him as a character. He’s not perfect, but his heart is in the right place

I've had more fun leveling in Everquest and SWTOR than I ever had in WoW. This doesn't mean WoW leveling is bad. It just means that people have various opinions from a lifetime of different experiences. It's not healthy to dwell on what's lost or what could have been just enjoy what you can when you can and move on from things that don't make you happy.

Dragonflight might as well have been written by Disney with how safe it is, massive tonal shift from what Warcraft is supposed to be.

I do agree that it is too fast. imo, the switch to having all these quick button presses took away from a lot of the immersion. I find it okay for some classes, but it would be nice if some classes played a lot slower.

Auction house was such a good part of classic WoW . Checking your mailbox was exciting . You loved to see the icon . You also loved to get random drops . It was so much fun .

Been playing Turtle WoW, not sure how long I will play, but so far it is a solid experience. The starter areas are flooded like its 2003!

2:28 Asmon, I relate too much to what you say here. I've always been a WoW fan, probably since I was a kid, but never had the money or the courage to join the community. When Corona hit, I had nothing better to do than try WoW (I've played it before on various private servers, but didn't feel like it should) so I took a shot to try retail. My first impression was out of words, couldn't even grasp the huge world that I had yet to experience catching up with the previous years I was playing on private servers. I played for approximately 2 years until I got burnt out. I'm almost in my 30s with a white-collar job and a wife, I do game from time to time, but what you mentioned there about being fast-paced, complicated, and getting more and more difficult is what hit deep into my heart. It's been over a month since my sub expired and I decided not to continue, at least for now. My pleasure it's to enjoy every single bit of existing pixels, but I feel rushed up, forced by the masses to hit the end game and be part of the elite (which I never intended to nor tried). I will compare here two other games that I play on a regular basis, Modern Warfare 2 and Hell Let Loose. One it's a fast-paced, energy-draining shooter, and the other one it's a strategic WW2 simulator that requires tactics and patience. There you have it, retail vs classic. Maybe for some people, the new patches lack activities or content, but for me, they're way too fast dropped and by the time I get to enjoy some new mechanics, they're already obsolete and I'm 2 updates behind already. Make this game more enjoyable by taking away the dumb-down mechanism. (Yada-yada, go play classic, yada-yada) Really want to play Dragonflight with less complicated tricks, that's just it.

Leveling overall in the older mmos was a journey itself.

Rolling a new character and leveling to ~30/40 in classic is where I have my most fun in wow lately

Asmon is finally saying what so many of us have been feeling for years. I know he always shits on retail but this is a different tone.

I'm leveling in wrath and enjoying the process much more and also the lore with the voice over add on is probably the best thing to happen to classic. I never played vanilla back in the day, my first time playing was in WoD. Retail so convoluted if I make a new character I just spam dungeons and rush end game because that's what the game is designed for these days

I like asmons idea for dungeons on hardcore i also think you could just do every dungeon pre 50 you get 5ish resets for the day

Holy shit I fucking lost it at the part about Thrall building a gym called The Horde. 😂

I think in retail,they are messing us up too much with those time resets,seasonal fomo, weird rng and all kinds of stuff that often both push is into playing alts (but also punish us for it). Way overdeveloped indeed and Im not even sure Blizzard benefit from putting such effort into it.

Also what sucks is now all new toons are now automatically level 10 and unable to visit starting zone in the vindicaar.

Its incredible how i can log in and how at peace i feel when I am in Stormwind. This game grabbed my brain by the nuts.

I never played WoW as a child or in my schooldays, but i recently started playing WoW classic/retail and i feel like everything in retail is pointless, all the crafting mechanics and and every addon besides the latest ones is utterly useless, retail makes me feel like im actually working an boring job lol. So i played classic vanilla WoW and it was an absolute blast, it was hard and extremely fun because every crafted gear every step you do makes an difference, even the elite mob goblin can clap you and the first dungeon felt like an adventure and not like an boring hack n' slash.

It took you far too long for you guys to admit it.

I don't think raiding this tier has been that difficult or punishing. Most one shot mechanics are gone from the raid. Just needs time and the rewards arent that great I agree.

The thing is, being able to do a dungeon over and over you'll be able to just farm blue sets and it destroys any great feeling of getting a blue piece

I tried dragonflight recently after having left the game at the start of bfa. I revived my old DK that I hadn't played since cata. Man, it really is overwhelming, even for someone who used to play the game a lot. I can definitely see how some new players who just get the character boost are completely put off.

3:41 is pretty much the reason why I left WoW. Raids or M+ can be simple, not overly convoluted with mechanics but can still be fun just like on older expansions but instead we are bombarded with one-shot mechanics with purple circles on purple floors.

Having dungeons on a cooldown could work too. Once a day or every 3 days might balance this too.

That's exactly what I thought when I started playing Dragonflight for the first time a few days ago. I quit in early Shadowlands for the same reasons. This was the longest time I had not played Wow at all. I logged into my character and first thing I saw was that my bags were full of shit and I have no idea anymore what any of this is or if I can throw it away. The new UI creeped me out and I still hate it. Leveling on the dragon isles was very fun but now at max level I'm very overwhelmed. So many currencies, factions and collectibles. I don't know where to start or how. I used to love collecting mounts (got the 400 achievement just before quitting) and seeing the hundreds of new mounts which I have no idea how to farm all stresses me out tbh. I always loved collecting in Wow but this is just too much. I also got a taste of how it must be like to be a new player. I leveled a character from 50-60 via dungeons with my sister and we got shit on all the time because we didn't make as much dps as the others (I didn't read a guide yet I just wanted to play) and didn't know everything. The tanks and healers also got shit on all the time if they made just 1 mistake and many people left the group after 1 wipe. I don't remember people being *this* hostile in the low level bracket. The bloated content combined with the rude playerbase it doesn't surprise me that new players don't stay for too long. I will still play a bit though until it gets too boring or too much.

its so sad seeing wow like this its like seeing your highschool best friend doing bad years later

Summed it up so well. My friends and I agree 100%, we wanted to love WoW, but its just not fun.

Classic WoW really felt like an adventure it also forced you to interact with other people, both Horde and Alliance in a way that really emphasized the MMO part of MMORPG. You spent most of the time walking until you got a regular mount at 40, but even then it forced you to actually interact with the world rather than just flying over it. Quests were difficult, leveling was SLOW, STV was a nightmare of ganking plus the size meant that especially at lower levels you often died making it feel exciting. Later WoW felt like an RPG that happened to have an online component. They speed leveled you through so all previous content and zones became obsolete, they added a ridiculous amount of races, mounts, armor, etc. etc. Before it felt exciting and like an adventure last time I played it felt goofy and lonely.

As someone who started in cata, I don't have the nostalgia to buff up my view of classic wow. But it's still, in my opinion, the best rendition of the game that I've ever played

Im only 25 and I hate how the tone is now rainbows and twinky lizards.

I never played wow , but need to say, music is epic asf, especially when i hear the choir in a song i have goosebumps. Awesome work

I totally don't mind a SoM 2 with the only change be adding dual specc or next to free respecs.

as a person who was born literal months b4 world of warcraft came out grew up started in cata i can without a doubt say that the vanilla wow leveling experience and overall experience of old wow just feels so much more fufilling and enjoyable that any modern expansion has provided me since MoP

Yeah you can tell that blizzard hires people of twitter

Dragonflight 40% off after this video, lmao

I really agree with and like your suggested approach for Dungeons for WoW Classic Official HC! perfect solution imo

Just played my last dungeon. Tank rushing as fast as they can and couldnt keep up. Trailing mobs to attack the party. Almost dieing repeatedly because haler is left behind. I couldnt keep up to dps, just bits and pieces. It wasnt fun at all. We were all rushing the dungeon so we could rush to 70 and do whatever. Its not fun anymore.

I feel you on how the aesthetic of the game has changed over time. Vulpera in BFA was the breaking point for me... Pandas in MOP were also terrible and still are terrible to this day but at least they had some legitimacy being from WC3 (probably should never have been playable)

Need a counter for "big hairy sweaty man"

Alow the lvling to be as slow as classic imo for people that want it. Lvling is still fun because of the experience, it was nice wandering around (the newer features like not having to pay for a flying mount also help alot because you can just move on with the experience). Reducing the amount of servers and allowing for cross-faction content for raiding might help. Plus there´s the constant factor that will just get worse each expansion which is the increasingly bigger and bigger world. Right now, if you are a new player and you want to lvl you can lvl in kalimdor, eastern kingdoms, outland, draernor, pandaria, zandalar, shadowlands...there is like 5000 zones, for returning players it might be w/e, but for newer player it makes sense for the player to experience all of these expansions (if there was an actual sense of story progression..) EDIT: I do also agree that in earlier expansions, doing low lvl dungeons for more than just experience but for gear felt alot more rewarding because you could feel the difference in the world with lvling becoming easier which is missing.

I have a lvl 60 boost that I'm sitting on because every time I use it to try a new class, I'm overwhelmed

3:32 I totally want to see Asmon clear more FFXIV raids, especially EX's from newer expansions with min ilvl/no echo. Our boy sleepin' on quality content.

Loved hearing him say what everyone's thinking about the current state of WoW.

What do we have to do to get Classic WoW remake (same exact game with maybe more collectibles like mounts and pets) in Unreal Engine 5.

M+ was fun at legion but after that it only got a habbit like „i need to do a m+ for my weekly reward if im not doing this im behind“ 💀

I've been enjoying WoW more than I have the last few expansions

WoW used to be more about the shared experience, the community, and engaging with content for the sake of others as well as yourself. Now, the game is just an anti-social mobile app with a store front, a shitty community, and an overwhelming focus on competitive gameplay. This promotes animosity, tears social cohesion apart, and makes the game ripe for toxic takeover. Its fucking sad, what WoW has become.

Shortcuts is what happened to WoW. Shortcuts to leveling, to making gold, to complete raids/dungeons, to finding groups, to traveling the world. I think thats the main problem. You must have to invest the time to achieve things was the heart and soul of WoW which was destroyed by shortcuts.

I am someone that never played wow back in the day; the first time I tried wow seriously was during the login campaign during the wow movie, and I only started playing the game more at the tail end of Legion. I can say with 100% honesty that Classic Vanilla, TBC and Wrath have been WAY more fun than retail, and Classic HC has been even more entertaining. it's not just nostalgia

Rest in peace wow.

Blizzard needs to hire this man 😅

It's not Nostalgia talking, I recently went and played to 60 on Turtle. Truly enjoyable experience.

As a WoW Noob, I've played WoW over the years for maybe a week or two. Shadowlands I joined a friendly guild and managed to last 1 month (longest I ever did). I started playing HC recently and now SoD. I have missed the social interactions and friendly people I have met on HC and now on SoD. It reminds me of free MMOs like Runescape and Maplestory I played as a kid.

WoW is circling the drain, which is fantastic. They earned it.

Agree with some of his points but also some of it sounds like a skill issue. My biggest problem is the whole dogsh*t Disney theme its going towards

11:00 - It's not just nostalgia for "the way things used to be." A lot of older MMORPG games, perhaps World of Warcraft most of all, had a fundamental change in design philosophy that affected new and old players alike. In making the game too easy to grow in and too easy to attain max level, game developers made it too difficult to "get into." Or maybe better stated a different way: in making it so easy to level up and hit max level, game developers made it too difficult to care about your character and the world that you're supposed to feel a part of. So, when you hit max level in Classic WoW, you feel like you did back in the day when you hit max level. It took time. It took patience. It took cooperation with other plays. You had to learn, and grow, and figure things out. You were challenged. Other players helped you out, and you helped them out. You got to feel a part of a larger world, meet more characters, hear more tails of the legendary lore characters of the game, and so on. In modern WoW, you can get from 1-60 or even 1-70 in just a couple of days as a new player. And you'll be referred to be all sorts of titles along the way: "Champion," "Maw Walker," or even simply "hero." But it all feels hollow, because you never accomplished anything, and you never really felt like you were a part of the world over those 50, 60, 70 levels. In Vanilla, TBC, and Wrath Classic, I went through dozens and dozens of different regions, towns, cities, and dungeons just to get to level 50, another several to get to level 60, another several to get to level 70. And I felt like I was in a 'real' living world, that my character's actions and growth mattered, and that the people I met/helped along the way were a part of this story too. I don't give a damn about my modern WoW characters, because they're just sitting at max level having not really done anything except for just my first character. And even then, I only marginally feel more a part of the world. (Having started in BFA content right as Shadowlands launched as a new WoW player.)

Agree with lowering dungeon exp and just put a lockout for dungeons like raids

Im "woke" but i agree. Theres beauty in simplicity and it gave wow the vibe it had. Night elves were basically eco terrorists. Orcs were manly war boys. Humans had human things... dwarves were political burly buildy miner boys. The races had their own agenda and philosophy clearly displayed in their design and place in warcraft. Its homogenous to a point of nausea now.

I'm 27 and this video made me feel like im 40 This is so sad. At the end the wow killer was blizzard

It was nearly the same with an mmo i played for 7 yrs got boring the player count had dropped so hard for the end game that their were not enough people in any server to do a endgame group boss and so no progression was possible with the people who got to that point

In my opinion the game is really to complicated for no reason. If you are a new player and you log to WoW, you get overwhelmmed and you lose your desire to play. See the profession system for example, there is no need to be that complicated. Make the WoW simple again, so everyone can enjoy playing it without having to search wowhead, icy veins etc for everything that he does in game. Make it again simple, make it again fun.

I think a big reason why classic hardcore is so popular is because it's so digestible. Like look at the action bars of retail vs classic...

I feel like there are way too many abilities in WoW as well, don’t even use most of them… where as FFXIV you actually have a reason to use all of the abilities and they actually fit on the action bar

The simple story back than is better, because wow with it's pacing (and remaining playerbase) does not really allow for a more complex story. There simply isn't room for it since everything is about optimization and zooming through the content and a story that needs room to breath simply won't have it. That and i truly do believe that the remaining talent (story/lore) are overestimating themselves.

"World of warcraft died when it stopped being about big sweaty men beating each other up and the girls boobs stopped being big" based

i disagree with a lot of what he said. DF is the best expansion to date. The mythic affix tweaks going to make S2 mythic plus a lot more enjoyable and what was annoying is gone (for the most part) the Raid fights in vault were not very difficult IMO and had decent encounter design. Dragon riding is fucking awesome. Im used to having it so much that NOT having it going to old world feels bad but I see this as a permanent feature by the time DF is over. I did not do PVP so I can't speak for it but the story and questing all felt nice/fun. I have time for few hours each night so maybe not playing 8h/day is preventing me from getting burned out.

Honestly thanks so much for this take bro.... feels weird in this world nowadays everything is whack. Appreciate sane people like you...

Mythic Plus is the one thing I think is quite fun tbh. They also removed seasonal affixes which is a mixed bag but I somewhat prefer it without that. I haven't even done the campaign but I jumped straight into endgame dungies with M+ and had a bawl with a bud. You've gotta calm it down a bit I think, it's not all bad. Problem is your fanbase listens so fervently to all that you say, so it might not be the whole reason, but it's defo had a big impact on WoW too. They're getting there unlike in early SL/BFA

Wow 2 please I beg of you.