World of Warcraft Classic And What We Left Behind

Clickbait Title: WoW Classic - Everything Sucks, Therefore You Are Free
I'm really excited to see where Classic goes down the road. The predictable outcome is that Classic rolls into Burning Crusade and Wrath with essentially the chaos of legacy servers that we see in EverQuest and many of the other surviving MMOs, but there's the tantalizing, though slim, possibility of an alternate development path, where Classic becomes a second attempt at history, basically WoW 2, but starting from where things were 13 years ago. I wouldn't even entirely mind if some of the hazier, less balanced sensibilities of Classic cropped back up in the future, if the pace of the game slowed a bit without necessarily just making things bad and inconvenient to get there.
Written and performed by Dan Olson
Crowdfunding: / foldablehuman
Twitter: / foldablehuman

[@jamesmooney3472]

Listening to Dan talk about WOW is kinda like listening to Jenny Nicholson talk about theme parks, I don’t really have any interest in either thing but the amount of thought and care they put into it make it very entertaining

[@HomeslicedVideos]

I was thinking while watching this that it's more of a story about life, than WoW specifically. Super deep, I know.

[@Demonskunk]

I actively despise wow (and did before the fiasco) but I love hearing people talk about this stuff.

[@Sarcasticron]

I will watch anything Jenny Nicholson does. It should not be possible for a human to be simultaneously so smart and so adorable, but here she is!

[@baoboumusic]

Fortnine and motorcycles. I actively dislike bikes, but holy smoke, please give me more of his videos explaining why a certain type of tire is better. It's awesome.

[@TuckerHolt]

Absolutely haha

[@hbomberguy]

I haven't played wow for more than 20 minutes but I finally feel like I understand why people do. Thanks Dan

[@frozenbean]

Roll your salty forsaken public transit critic on an RP server, I guarantee it will be a good time.

[@soyborne.bornmadeandundone1342]

I haven't played wow EVER but I bet I have seen it get played for about 20 minutes... yeah.

[@yonokhanman654]

I only ever watch the WoW Cinematics, not a fan of MMORPGs but I played Warcraft as a kid and I'd like to know where the story leads. The Horde is still green vikings, right?

[@PanAndScanBuddy]

@@yonokhanman654 the orcs are. You should pop in Warcraft 3, play "Founding of the Horde" again.

[@krusher181]

Cuz it was our teenage years/childhoods and this game is unique as all fuck. Love ya Hbomber

[@nomukun1138]

"Shouting the same words at each other, with different implicit meanings." An excellent description of most of the internet.

[@d.l.7416]

"Shouting the same words at each other, with different implicit meanings." An excellent description of most of the internet.

[@juneguts]

"Shouting the same words at each other, with Different implicit meanings." An excellent description of the internet.

[@dudere]

"Shouting the same words at each other, with Different implicit meanings." An excellent description of the humans.

[@CasualPr0ductions]

I remember playing classic with my older brother when I was 14. Had no clue then how to be a 'good' player, but he never made it about that, he just liked doing quests with me and helping me explore Azeroth. Obviously there's little insults and banter, brother style, and he did rope me into being a hunter so soloing wouldn't be tough on me, haha, but that was during classic, and exploring that world was so fun, and my brother really made it feel populated. Weird place to bring it up, but I've watched this video like ten times now so it might be worth leaving a grave marker here, but my brother died in a car accident in 2012, May 30th. I've tried to go back, and even in the most crowded places it just feels empty. His guild is long gone, his character Gitang is long gone. He's long gone. Love you, Bill. Dunno if you'll see this, but thanks Dan, this video took me back to that time and really put words to why it was so fun to just bomb around with him. No obligations, just adventures.

[@thatcutenerdgirl6090]

I’m so sorry for your loss. He sounds like he was a good brother ❤️

[@GUILLOTINE_GANG]

Me and my little brother grew close playing this game together in highschool, my heart is happy to know others had this experience as well. Much love to you and your brother, from one to another.

[@agentep9979]

@blazecorey wow, i've never seen 2 bots working together

[@GUILLOTINE_GANG]

@@agentep9979 lol I thought the same thing.

[@inventedcool1076]

Thanks you for sharing this and I’m sorry for your loss. It made me smile to think of two bros roaming Azeroth together.

[@JackHails]

I think the people who keep saying "ITS AN MMO" every time he mentions the people who prefer to play alone don't really get what he means. I tend to mostly play either by myself or run dungeons/raids few friends, but I still enjoy the fact that at any given time I could stumble onto another player and hang out for a bit. Even when playing alone is just running around doing quests I tend to always stumble onto someone doing the same thing. Last week for example when I was finishing up the last quest chain in Stormheim it was completely empty save for me and this dwarf paladin doing the exact same quests - we ended up partying up until the end, hung out for a bit in Dalaran and then went our separate ways since I wanted to go to Highmountain and he was headed for Val'sharah. Today I decided to stop and help a mage with a rare they were having trouble killing and we again partied up for a bit and then went our separate way. Yesterday while waiting for Sha of Anger to respawn everyone waiting had an Alliance vs Horde dance-off. That is my usual experience when leveling. I don't know, maybe the server I play on is especially "nice" or something, but I don't feel like I'm alone on this one. The solo players don't want to play the game as if it was single-player, they just prefer spontaneous casual interactions and don't want to HAVE to be ideal spec, geared to the teeth and join a guild of people you might not even enjoy being around in order to be able to play. Cause at that point it starts to feel less like a hobby for your free time and more like a second job.

[@WC1376C22]

OMG!! Fantastic!! I wish I could have worded this better (24:54). I quit playing after 13 years, to jump the fence over to FFXIV because I felt this sentiment was lost in WoW.

[@edatthegovernance]

Well said, this.

[@yourpalfred]

This is the most wholesome, idyllic description of WoW I've ever heard, thank you for sharing

[@Flowtail]

This is the same reason i enjoy walking around in ny town on my own-i might be listening to an audiobook or chatting with somebody that strikes my fancy

[@Samael767]

Nailed it.

[@undo9981]

15:00 Cataclysm leveling in a nutshell: 1-58: Oh no, deathwing blew the world up! 58-68: Forget the big iron dragon thing! We must defeat ilidan, oh no the sunwell! 68-80: what do you mean the world got blown up? Everything is fine here. Arthas must be stopped! 80-85: Oh no, deathwing bew the world up!

[@orkunakman1541]

Right? I'm a new player. And I know people are going to say that "Well, that's what you get for joining a 15 yo game" but it is so disjointed that I can't shake off that weird uncanny feeling...

[@TrueMetis]

@@orkunakman1541 This is why I didn't want classic as a separate game, but as kind of a toggle like you can do in the blasted lands. I wanted to be able to choose which leveling experience I got. I also wanted access to all the events that had come and gone over time. Not a huge deal to me, at least not anymore. When I was younger it really bothered me that there would be stuff in this game I payed for I would never get to see. Now though? Eh. Though who knows? Timewalking is seemingly being expanded a lot, maybe one day they will get to the point of bring back classic zones in the main game.

[@fhey7903]

When I played Wow, I got into it right after Cataclysm came out, and that was pretty much how I experienced the story. Even knowing that Cataclysm was meant to be a semi-sequel to vanilla, it still made it really hard to follow. Needless to say, as someone who gets really into stories in games, I didn't make it to endgame.

[@rathalossoul1520]

After rushing my main and alt to cap, I went back to just casually level another alt and I had more of a "...wait, you're still here...?" feeling like there was no kind of connective tissue between leveling in "Vanilla, but Cataclysm" and the actual part of Cataclysm that mattered.

[@colinouille2786]

would cataclysm have worked as a new game +? never played wow but that seems like something obvious that could work

[@Posichronic]

For some reason hearing Total Biscuit rant about some badges like it signified the death of human decency is hilarious to me.

[@Testifiable]

I miss this man so much

[@SirBlacknoiseIII]

bless him

[@coaxill4059]

It is hilarious, but also why he shouldn't be missed. No doubt he was included by Dan due to the role he'd ultimately play in Gamer Gate. He really was the worst type of gamer.

[@LeadHeadBOD]

​@@coaxill4059 - extremely passionate about a subject which basically started his carreer but he later went on to admit was on a level that was not appropriate. - "Worst type of gamer" Like, I didn't know TB personally, and he had his fair bit of public missteps, but you're jumping the gun a bit aren't you?

[@coaxill4059]

@@LeadHeadBOD Nope, I got nothing against the guy in fact I used to be quite a fan. It's just that I eventually realized the things I believed because of him were indefensible. I still bear some responsibility though I was essentially a child at the time, and thus impressionable to someone passionate with extreme opinions. Being passionate and extreme aren't bad in themselves, people can be extreme in beneficial and benevolent ways, and likewise in selfish and destructive ways.

[@kongqianfu]

Dan has spent ~6% of his life for the past 15 years on WoW.

[@RheaStorm]

If this is just based on the one character it can easily be way more. Because alts exist and someone as dedicated to have that many achievements probably has plenty of alts.

[@MengicH]

He's a noob tbh, I already have 90 days in Classic, and retail I don't even wanna count.

[@MengicH]

Just came here to say your syllogism either makes no sense or is highly assumptive, thus applies to minority of players. Either way I dunno why did you even mention it.

[@penguinguy9820]

I calculated that I've spent 10% of the last 4 years playing video games. Just on Steam alone.

[@brendanmccabe8373]

Penguinguy 146 days

[@Shenandoahologist]

38:30 - "Well, everything sucks, so you're free. Do whatever you want!" So what you're saying is that WoW classic is existentialism?

[@maxxvii2037]

I mean kinda

[@lorenzowestling5017]

"We must imagine the grinder happy."

[@junebunchanumbers]

"Note: video contains internet" Cheers for the heads-up.

[@Bluecho4]

Yeah that's...that's a mood, right there.

[@Patrick-Phelan]

"Well," says KZbin, "now that you've seen a very clever media scholar give an in-depth and evenhanded examination of the history of World of Warcraft, rightly dismissing the shouty men and their performative outrage, would you like to see a response to this video from the shouty men, more than likely featuring said performative outrage?" Oh, the algorithm. You could be smarter.

[@leighswank117]

I'm gonna see if I can stand more than three minutes of it out of curiosity, so I guess the algorithm isn't too far off

[@CasualPr0ductions]

@@leighswank117 how'd it go? Haha

[@leighswank117]

@@CasualPr0ductions surprisingly watchable. He was level-headed about it. Definitely missed the point a few times though

[@r.pizzamonkey7379]

@@leighswank117 Yeah he took it saner than I thought, but he did get super hung up by the words "outrage merchants". I almost feel bad for him, since he seems really concerned and affected by it, except he fully admits that he plays up his outrage for the sake of content, so I'm not really sure why he's so mad that someone else said he was doing precisely what he said he was doing.

[@siskavard]

@@r.pizzamonkey7379 He's making a living off of negativity & typically these kinds of people don't like being called out on that. Side note: I started playing WoW recently & found that said shouty man would show up every time I tried to search KZbin for anything Wow related. I absolutely cannot stand seeing said shouty-man's thumbnails showing up every time so I got a browser extension that eliminates his channel from my search results entirely. Worth looking into!

[@Athmarr]

"If there is nothing to do. If nothing is meaningful. Then you are free to self-direct." 34:14 This is a powerful statement that reaches far beyond WoW. And the pause after you say it makes it hit hard. Nice work.

[@0Fyrebrand0]

Sounds like real life! :P

[@Spamhard]

That line hits me hard, man. Made me self-reflect a lot and realise I sure do hate too much outer direction. It's why a lot of games these days don't appeal to me, because they tell you what to do at every turn and throw dailies at you constantly. Just let me do my own thing. Also made me understand why I hate my job at the moment with my crazy over-bearing boss. :P

[@Zorbonoult]

This whole commentary in a way is not about WoW at all. It's about us people and the complex stuff that entertains us and how we put a value to an experience such as playing a game.

[@travisdk84]

some of the most productive and creative moments i have had were when the internet was out, so seems legit

[@debrickashaw9387]

He is completely ass backwards here though. Most if not everything you do in classic has meaning, building your character to something while a lot of stuff in the recent expansions are pointless to an mmorpg

[@AndorianBlues]

I somehow found myself playing WoW a few years ago despite hating multiplayer games. I played it 100% solo, but I did so on an RP server. The most memorable moments for me was whenever I was questing and found a group of players roleplaying, especially so if it was in an otherwise unremarkable part of the game world. It was like running into an amateur improv theater performance, I'd just sit back and watch them for a few minutes. This video doesn't mention RP at all, but it seems to me it's the ultimate form of self-directed play. It's like the game itself just becomes a stage for your own version of what you want it to be. Presumably the relative lack of content in vanilla made it a great environment for RP.

[@ArgoIo]

I would ascribe the popularity of role-play in World of Warcraft to the lack of content, but to the more loose-ended design approach of the game. To keep the analogy to theater, the game provides a good palatte of props, costumes, stages and, most notably, a compelling world of lore and settings to explore. But as the years went on, the design philosophy of the zones, the classes, toys, pets and gear became increasingly streamlined to cater to “the champion” and their “hero’s journey”, which did improve the overall story-telling of the game, but left the role-players behind.

[@aslakgurnirsson1685]

I played for a two months close to launch, RP and exploring was the two things that really interested me. The problem for me was that the game was structured in a way that forces you to go through the world in a particular order because of the leveling system. All my good memories comes from hanging out in a tavern RPing getting drunk with some friends and stuff like that. But the game offered limited options for that kind of experience.

[@Blackadder75]

@@ArgoIo I never was much in to RP-ing in wow, but last night I spend 5 hours doing this that on a lvl 5! character. On Classic obviously. it was really amazing. From selling a few fishes on the market square in Stormwind, a buyer directed me to an Inn later that night. (without giving any details) At first I was disappointed because there was nobody (i was 10 minutes late, so I thought, well they are gone already) Boy was I wrong. The inn was in the next city quarter I just had gone to the wrong one and once I walked through the door I got myself into a Shakespearean play! 5 different factions (Elves, Dwarves and 3 Human ) were arguing about some Kingdoms and Orbs I had never heard of , ancient history and their past differences. It could rival Elrond's council. Most went over my head (I am a gnome) but everything was in character, nobody disturbed it for at least an hour and I could find a role to play ,(mind you I had never met 90% of these players) They just picked up immediately that I had joined the story and gave me a few hooks to grab. I didn't stay till the end, but took a flight to Iron Forge after tailing the night elves who left the meeting in anger. Some time later yet another faction walked into the city center and look, a few of the previous ones also turned up, the plot thickens , what there is more? How do these people keep track of all these story lines? I can't wait to find out more. This is better than tv.

[@ArgoIo]

@@Blackadder75 That is pretty much how it always starts. Pro tip: Get a flag-addon und go grab a notebook and pen. In you want to play something more sophisticated, there are entire guilds dedicated to creating elaborate plots. But be warned, role-players can be a bit weird.

[@rhaeven]

I played on an RP-PvP server from when they first launched. Back in Vanilla we used to have gigantic events with many guilds participating, and an actual air of roleplay permeating the entire server. These days the most you can expect is to find a group of three or four people sat around in an inn chatting.

[@58209]

a lifetime wow player's tempered look at classic and vanilla wow that doesn't worship at the alter of old school nostalgia and acknowledges the badly dated design choices in vanilla wow? color me shocked.

[@___xyz___]

I was quite taken aback by him explicitly calling the game bad. I played WoW since one year after launch, but the thing which I remember the best is how the game kept being simplified. From adding an addition player property to that other players wouldn't kill you so fast, to the battleground interrealm queuing, to cutting down the time it took to level up to the point where quest markers would visibly disappear from the player before they got the a new area, to redoing the whole talent tree system so that players couldn't get too creative with hybrid builds. I promptly quit after cataclysm launched because I felt like life had more fulfilling things in store for me. In retrospect, WoW is more a case of _it doesn't matter whether it was good to begin with, but it got progressively worse._ I'm sure that, for any regular gamer, the original game looks dated by today's standards. And that observation is warranted. It was ridden with bugs and exploits. But that was part of the experience. And I say this confidently. After I quit, I briefly played on a classic private server with some friends. Half-jokingly suggesting that the original game was a good way to experience the game for the first time, knowing well that there was gonna be tons of bugs. But it truly was as good as I remembered. Less busy. Less glamorous. Less extravagant. Less tailored to beginners and more of a challenge to boot. We struggled our way to the 20s. You definitely had to socialise to get anywhere back then. The game was intimate.

[@SexycuteStudios]

@@___xyz___ Private servers are not what WoW used to be, and they're certainly not Classic WoW.

[@EQOAnostalgia]

@@SexycuteStudios There's always one.

[@porcelainmannequinn549]

Dan: I don't want to impose any moral judgement on how people play games Comment section: But I sure as hell will!

[@placerofobs5020]

This comment makes me regret scrolling down this far a lot less.

[@blueisasomedancer]

“What we left behind” is a weirdly ominous subtitle but I’m here for it.

[@Silphanis]

I thought this would be about the new documentary about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

[@draxiss1577]

@@Silphanis So did I!

[@PanAndScanBuddy]

He was subscribed for 10 years unbroken. Dude has some feels.

[@mishab4065]

@@Silphanis Especially now that there was an in game memorial event for Aron Eisenberg

[@Zeithri]

@@mishab4065 I am sure there's something similar in Star Trek Online.

[@PavarottiAardvark]

Sorry, not enough shouting. Like all smart people I associate the volume of an Internet Man with the correctness of his arguments

[@HeatherHolt]

PavarottiAardvark funny 😌

[@MrKsingha]

LOUD NOISES

[@Sanquinity]

To be honest I can understand why people got so pissed about ninja pullers in raids back then. Raids took AGES to complete, as said there were limited instances that could be ran at the same time, having to coordinate 40 people, etc. If there's one or two idiots among them that keep ninja pulling I'd get pissed after a few times as well. Not as pissed as the voice in the video, but still. And if banning from getting items and losing DKP is what it takes to get people to be fucking careful for once, so be it.

[@PavarottiAardvark]

@@Sanquinity Yeah, that's frustrating...but the cip and your description suggest that a) people invest a lot of import into the outcome of these raids but that b) they don't consider something like a DKP punishment *beforehand*. Like, if you're so heavily invested, why not calmly protect against a predictable risk?

[@fredslipknot9]

smort!

[@dusky6484]

"some players compulsively level new characters over and over" I HAVE BEEN ATTACKED

[@Moredhel83]

My fellow altoholic!

[@gateauxq4604]

Friends!!

[@Conical187]

60 priest 36 hunter 34 rogue 28 mage 24 warlock 14 warlock 13 warrior I wish I wasn't kidding

[@dusky6484]

@@Conical187 as long as you're having fun :3

[@lamilumag]

Broad Man 16 Hunter 21 Druid 21 Mage 22 Warlock 23 Rogue 23 Hunter 26 Warrior Yes - 2 low level hunters on the same realm as I could not decide between dwarf and nightelf 😅

[@CaitieLou]

A few years ago, a Final Fantasy XIV player asked the producer of the game Naoki Yoshida if he would consider re-releasing the original "classic" version of FFXIV that premiered in 2010, a la WoW classic. You know, the version famous for being so bad that they shut down the servers for 2 years so Yoshida and a new team could rebuild the game practically from the ground up. After the question was translated to him, Yoshida responded with one word: "NIGHTMARE!"

[@hollenhammer]

"You think you do, but you don't"

[@unixtreme]

The thing is Final Fantasy got better but wow got worse. BUT ALSO WoW was released as a great game, and FF was released as a steaming pile of poop.

[@immorttalis]

@@unixtreme I dunno dude. The only thing I enjoy in classic is levelling, but the end-game is garbage because of its dependence on guild activity. I hate guild schedules, and would rather use the modern pugging mechanisms and LFR.

[@craigslist6988]

@@immorttalis the crappy end game in early WoW was no mistake. Subscription models were still new, and there had only been two major MMOs at that point, that I can remember. They were in a hurry to get this game out, but also do a good job. So the game was basically a normal game adapted to MMO. That is, it had a whole character arc with story and atmosphere, adventure, etc. to it.. A traditional single player role playing, FF style game. That it took place with the size of the world and complications of other people made it extra exciting, added that extra kick beyond other games, but it was still that single player game experience. So the game was basically designed that way, you had a nice, solid progression speed, and it would take a couple weeks of play time to get to the end of the game - max level. Now back to my starting point - subscription model. The traditional game progression and ending that blizzard game designers were really good at just doesn't work for this business model. So they had to invent and add new mechanics to what was otherwise a traditional game. This is how blizzard came up with "end game content". It was never feasible to just continue creating new rich, immersive role playing gameplay content as players progressed, so they cobbled together (rather clunkily) things to take the last 5% of game content and artificially stretch it as much as they could. In a traditional game you would reach max level, maybe go grind out a few remaining quests to gather some super weapons, and then do the final boss fight, game over. So they had to turn that boss fight into a "super epic" event and create the hurdles so that it required huge guilds, lots of materials farming, and steep learning curves - all just obvious, extreme forms of traditional game pacing mechanisms (farming, grouping, learning). They added needing to run these huge guild fights over and over and over through the same dungeon in order to finally get that last 5%. Anyone who was paying attention could see that's where Blizzard changed from a game company to a manipulative psychology-abusing psychopath company. It just took a while for them to kick out all their good devs. Because the business model no longer lined up with making players happy with an enjoyable gameplay experience, it was/is about trapping players between chasing the next hit of good gameplay and the "down" when it sucks. That said, they certainly became the world leaders in manipulative, addictive gaming, and it's hard to put too much blame on them because people are free to play them or to not.

[@coffin7904]

@@craigslist6988 what a wonderful comment. thanks!

[@forcinghandlesisdumb]

"It's effectively a church schism in video game form" OK, that was a good one

[@victrosia]

this is gonna be a video that I don’t understand but still watch edit: did not understand

[@evam6961]

Same i'm not a gamer girl

[@victrosia]

eva m I’ve just never gone anywhere near WoW. This is just Dan saying words that, apart, I understand, but together they lose all meaning.

[@narvuntien]

I understood some things because I play a different MMO but there is a pile of context I don't understand.

[@Lairdesangfroid]

I wish I didn’t

[@krusher181]

eva m Lol as if all gamers played WoW when it came out in 2004. You’re not a 21+ yr old gamer girl is what you meant. Sadly I understand fuckin everything he’s saying... this game is kinda a whole identity for a lot of people and my friends were those people back in the day.

[@TheRationalPi]

37:37 This part about seeing through the illusion really speaks to me. The desire to optimize is ultimately what killed the sense of wonder that I had in the game. Instead of a world of adventure, WoW became a math problem to be solved.

[@Laotzu.Goldbug]

the Reign of Quantity

[@willmcpherson2]

I think it's a strength of video games as a medium that they simultaneously cater to exploration and optimisation. Minecraft can be an atmospheric adventure experience or a 15 minute speedrun.

[@TheRationalPi]

@@willmcpherson2 MMO's are the ultimate gamer Rorschach test, in that regard. The game casts such a wide net that you can engage with it in pretty much any way you want. Hell, even for myself, my focus in WoW moved from roleplay to crafting to auction house manipulation to exploration to min/maxed raiding back to roleplay to achievement hunting and by the end I was basically just using it as a chat client with my guildmates. Minecraft is just as expansive, if not moreso once you include everything that mods allow you to do with the game.

[@ultimatehamsandwich734]

It always was a math problem to be solved only now the illusion is gone.

[@fungusonus]

@@ultimatehamsandwich734 the difference is you can have fun without solving that math problem. Sure, some people may have fun solving these problems as fast as they can, but others like doing things unoptimally or just hanging out and role playing

[@cannibalisticrequiem]

Press "F" for Dan not getting his raptor.

[@sorrel7554]

F

[@Rohekivi]

F

[@vargsvansify]

F

[@ltllu]

F

[@DudePossum]

F

[@MANJYOMETHUNDER111]

This 'calling back to a mythologized perfect past' thing is getting uncomfortably close to...well...

[@chubbubdreamer6904]

A lot of things really. #MakeAzeothGreatAgain God, we really do live in the Memberberries timeline.

[@daniellemckenna8576]

People do this for all sorts of things, games, movies, toys, food, blah, blah. Having nostalgia or pretending to for brownie points isn't inherently fascist, which is what you seem to be implying.

[@chubbubdreamer6904]

@@daniellemckenna8576 True that. But I think what feels like a cultural obsession we seems to have with nostalgia isn't helping, or anything least leaves us more susceptible to it. But then I just woke up, so I might be overthinking.

[@boiledelephant]

@@chubbubdreamer6904 No, I think that's pretty spot on, our propensity for nostalgia is dangerous and does set us up for many forms of con and misdirection. Plenty of crazy religious and political extremists get their claws into people with appeals to nostalgia. The simplest short-circuit I know of is to point to the Steven Pinker 'Better Angels' argument/facts, i.e. that the past was measurably worse in almost every way for almost all of time since records began. Nostalgia is bullshit.

[@rowlandbuck2703]

boiledelephant it’s just a damn video game. A lot of people liked classic and early expansions better. It’s not nostalgic to like early version better. And how do you know the past is always worse? You have a lot surprises coming to you live noob.

[@goldencommon2266]

325 days played on PS2 An American Tail

[@AtomicBananaPress]

I hear the first year in hell is the shortest. My condolences.

[@empty5013]

something i think is really great about the solo-mmo dynamic in classic is while you generally solo content, you're never truly alone. there's always general chat, guild chat and the occasional traveler on the road. it sells the experience of being an adventurer, a gun for hire running into strangers and swapping tales you play wow alone, but you play it together with everyone else, and I think that's a wonderful thing about classic and one of the parts I loved the most playing through it. what a great terrible mmo.

[@michaelolaf9968]

You are spot-on. Logging in and leveling in Dustwallow or whatever feels like picking up the latest graphic novel about your character's adventures. At least, it did feel like that. Nothing else has really captured that feeling of being /there/ in a fantasy world with fixed geography, travel times, scattered settlements, and the occasional stranger to rescue or be rescued by; even though you pointed out that the general chat is always there to remind you it's a game meant for socializing. Something like XIV, while good, imposes a different structure altogether.

[@TheConfusled]

This is exactly the feeling I miss

[@Ninjat126]

Even outside of MMOs, I've had a ton of fun in high player-count games like Red Orchestra, gossiping away to 50+ strangers about weird historical trivia, movie recommendations, or swapping "worst glitch" war stories.

[@jackmace6531]

Or seeing like some character fly by on their mount, something that might symbolize what you could be one day

[@rcdt6653]

I'm really glad I discovered this channel in the NFT essay. You DO make excellent videos

[@betterlatethannever4536]

Hoo, that Asmongold jumpscare. Amazing how a guy who ranted about pre-lapsarian WOW also managed to be a major figure in "Gamergate 2." What a shock.

[@garthmarenghi9040]

I never expected to think about existentialism while talking about WoW, but here we are. With no authority to tell you what's meaningful, Classic leaves to your own devices to figure it out.

[@moscanaveia]

But on a social dependent environment, you are subjected to the authority of other people, so classic isn't that idyllical paradise of freedom of choice after all.

[@helloimrobin]

I've played WoW on and off since Vanilla up to Pandaria, and I've never done a single raid purely because of people like 29:25 , I am never setting foot in that atmosphere even if I have to grind :p

[@BaileyZK]

FYI that's the VAST VAST minority of guilds. Especially now 'cos most of those people are kicked and PUG instead

[@caffeinedelusions]

A lot of that toxicity was dealt a critical blow in Burning Crusade when the badge system was introduced, and the size of raids was revised down to 25 or 10, and almost entirely eliminated when the 10/25 toggle was implemented in Wrath, making it possible for even small social guilds to have a rewarding raid experience.

[@Drilling4mana]

I raided for near a decade and never met a single one of those people. Thinking he represents all or even the majority of raid leaders is like thinking Emperor Caligula represents most humans.

[@Flugsvampar]

There is this new feature that came after Pandaria that's called a guild! Maybe you've heard of it! Everyone cooperate on keeping up the rules of the guild and everyone gets what they've agreed on.

[@yodatcht1321]

I quit when Pandaria came out. Too much BS. I'm glad classic is back.

[@yogurtpanda5716]

I went into this video feeling very defensive over Classic WoW, after watching, honestly, I want to hop onto Retail and play for a few hours. You've honestly explained the emotions and thoughts behind Classic so well and articulated arguments for and against in such a way. The part where you said about when WoW came out, we were all at times when we were in school or college, played with friends etc, that hits hard. I felt that and I think it's why I hold Classic so dearly. Thank you for making one of the most informative and in depth "for" and "against" videos I've seen.

[@casey5990]

Yogurt Panda also wowhead & thottbot & addons weren’t even out or were grossly underdeveloped. We had to figure out quests & near everything had mysteries to be solved

[@casey5990]

“NPC x lies to the north east of NPC y’s deserted camp. Please find x & bring him this message.”

[@pandabutter1266]

Hello fellow food panda

[@motorboatingenochsmanboobs4047]

People who get defensive over shit pop culture are the worst kinds of people. Imagine feeling defensive over a corporate triple A video game

[@EQOAnostalgia]

@@motorboatingenochsmanboobs4047 Idk... it's pretty easy to understand. It's immature i'll give you that. But people identify with products, because their memories are tied to them. That gives the space a real sense of ownership. It's not all that strange when you know that. This is why i stopped shitting on people who fanboi, i get it. They don't, shit man, let them have their fun and ignorant bliss lol.

[@iamalanresnicknorly4real]

I wish more of WoW's content creators spoke with the care, attention and understanding that Dan put into this one video & his entire catalogue of wonderful content.

[@Alucard-A-La-Carte]

They wouldn't get "rich" if they did that.

[@Eira_99]

"You think you want that but you actually don't"

[@DragynGirl]

I REALLY wish there was a way I could screenshot my Altoholic stats and send them to you. My main has 750 days 3 hours 14 minutes played. My total account, 1,533 days (apparently Altoholic doesn't do hours and minutes after 1k days). My time played shot up when I went on disability due to complications from Multiple Sclerosis 5 years ago. One of the things I love about BfA is that there is so much to do. I can do some of my Physical Therapy then play some WoW, 2-3 hours later do more PT, play more WoW. WoW helps me think about something other than my MS, it gives me something to focus on, what I can do in game, goals to set that have nothing to do with the MS.

[@garyfindlay8052]

WoW has saved so many people from isolation and dispondency.

[@happyclam1266]

Hats off to you friend!

[@Yor_gamma_ix_bae]

much love to you!

[@richardnixon8678]

I play wow since BC, and even tho i was so addicted and played almost 12+ hrs. daily, i always thought wow could be a very fun distraction for elder people or someone who is just having rough times with some sort of health condition. Nice to see you you had so many days of fun playing the game!!

[@cattysplat]

@@garyfindlay8052 The irony is the removal of forced grouping and forced social dynamics has resulted in a game where you group with people but never talk, and buy from people via auction house and never through a chat window. Retail WoW is EXTREMELY anti social and incredibly lonely compared to classic.

[@CentiZen]

I had never played a minute of world of warcraft before Classic came out. It still grabbed me and pulled me in harder than any other game I've ever played before, even without any nostalgic connection.

[@Shervin86]

Centi Zen not surprised at all... wow vanilla/classic allowed more time to play the game and learn it... retail is much more fast paced and you immediately become "a noob". Which will kill the motivation of new players, in essence it's built around the idea that you have played wow for years... Welcome to world of Warcraft 😁

[@marshallmcelmurry7087]

@@Shervin86 this is such a good description! I recruited a friend into the game early in BFA and he took the level boost immediately (against my advice). He was literally LOST when it came to what to do, how to do it, and had no clue what was going on really.... Classic allowed him to get an understanding of systems and a concept of the story that made the game much more interesting in his perspective...

[@rksworld4405]

@@Shervin86 I started with bfa and realy enjoyed the game and how it just put me out in the world clueless and lost :) Not doing well with classic atm I sadly feel like time is passing but nothing happens and I acieved nothing

[@hansjorgkunde3772]

@@marshallmcelmurry7087 Well end level noobs .. with no clue about aggro management, distance and how to play their role.... beside not having to play the game at all.... so not causing server load. Great for Blizzard, bad for all other.

[@nowheredan27]

Same

[@chanadlerbing8659]

Me, having played 40 minutes of WoW on my friends account back in 2013: “Yes I would like to watch this video about the moral, logical, technological, and social intricacies of the largest MMO the world has ever seen and what value a throwback version of that game has.”

[@PanAndScanBuddy]

Sounds like someone is ready for being recruited when Recruit A Friend returns! Reply to me with "Gold plz" if you want to join WoW when it drops to $4 near Black Friday.

[@krusher181]

The power of what made WoW soooooo huge, was almost all present in the original release. It got some great buffs, but when you’ve got too much free time; nothing is as addictive as WoW. Except drugs...

[@sashsoph6587]

Chanadler Bing same and I’ve played exactly one video game in my life. It involves puzzle solving

[@Veolynn13]

31:45 “and while some players compulsively level new characters over and over” hey, that’s me!

[@Spicy_Spores]

lol i used to be the same too :P

[@1un4cy]

as i had like 7 alts in bfa with i430 LFR gear, upgraded heart of azeroth, and lv5 legendary cape

[@Blutzen]

When WoW was "the big thing" I couldn't dream of being able to afford a $15/mo subscription fee or a PC that could run an _installable game,_ so I missed out on a lot of these specific experiences, _but_ I got to live the parallel universe version of it through the *only $5/mo* browser-based RuneScape which I started playing during what is now known as "Classic" when characters were 2D hand-drawn 4-frame animations wandering around a 3D world of paper-thin walls, and went through this exact #NoChanges movement in 2013 when "OldSchool" was released, which at the time was an exact replica of the game from 2007--aka "the good old days"--and having lived through those days in real-time the first time around I had absolutely no interest in going back and re-hashing it with a brand new account all over again. But the thing that _really_ gets me is the fact that when Old School had been out for a while, and the rose-colored glasses had been bleached by the harsh realities of playing what was already a pretty dinky MMO for its time in 2007 in the modern times of 2013, the game started being updated with brand new content that isn't even in the live servers now, polishing it and 'making it easier' to progress and level up, and all of the people crying about missing when the game was "hard" and how the current game had been "ruined" by being made too easy just... ate it up.

[@theJellyjoker]

Same here, the 15 dollar wall kept me out but because of that I discovered Elder Scrolls and never looked back.

[@crysanthiumvega]

Some people just...need things spelled out for them

[@LimeyLassen]

I don't really want class Runescape, I just want classic Runescape memes.

[@krusher181]

A lot of people went from Runescape to WoW, like me. Just couldn’t handle that better alternative existing... needed it. I was 11 when it came out though.

[@bleach00101]

FFIXMaster so I dropped playing runescape sometime right before starting high school so about 2009/2010. I’ve tried to get back into it on and off these past two years but all the changes make the game a lot more difficult for me to understand how best to advance. It’s not so much nostalgia that makes me enjoy the classic version more but more so the lack of in group knowledge I would need to have to be good at the game. This stemming from the lack of content or lvl skills available. Basically I like how even a gamer pleb like me could still know what they are doing

[@EnDTh3S1L3NcE]

"It stops feeling like options, and starts to feel like an obligation" That a point is exactly why i dont enjoy BFA, ive played WoW on and off over the years, not nearly as much of a die hard WoW player as the majority, but ive played a fair bit during the last 2 expansions (WoD and Legion) and the "to do" daily grinds just started really wearing me down, namely world quests, after Legion and WoD, getting flying was just tedious, it felt like a day job and once i got it, yeah sure i was glad i could fly, but it was nothing like the feeling of getting a blue drop in classic or an epic. I log on BFA, get bombed with stuff to do, world quests, island expeditions, heart of Azeroth power (Which after AP in Legion i was not excited about at all), ilvl constantly looming over me, etc etc, it just feels like every other modern RPG where instead of having freedom, im just given a connect the dots map of time filling content, it feels like im going down a check list, not looking forward to the goal at the end, but just that every box has a tick in it. When i played in vanilla, i only got to mid 30s before my time ran out (Was a scrub teen who couldnt convince their parents to get a sub, so i went on to playing privates for years til Cata) so i never got to experience end game, so right now with classic im having an absolute blast, i feel like im playing a game for fun again. Do i want to return to retail? Yeah absolutely, the Demon Hunter is by far my favourite class and i have loved playing one since their release in Legion, i love the lore and the story, but its just the overwhelmed feeling i get from everything getting pushed in my face that withers my excitement.

[@VulpesChama]

First things first: I get why someone would think that. Now my point: It's not a problem of the game, that it feels like an obligation, but a problem of the mindset of the player. I don't feel that I have to do anything, but have a choice in what I want to do. Sometimes I have goals I want to reach and have to do stuff for, that I don't really like. But that I want to do it is my choice. I can stop whenever I want. I don't want to go to deep into theorizing why some people feel obligated to do everything that is presented to them, or even feel like being forced to like everything that is presented to them. (I don't like everything in WoW. I particularly dislike petbattles. But that doesn't make the rest of the game worse. And I don't have to do what I don't like. And I like that.) The question is, why does it feel for some people like an obligation, even though it is a choice. I can only assume, I have no statistics or surveys behind me to give me clue, but I'd assume an unhealthy relationship not with games, but with the option of having a choice and being the one who must make the choice. You feel obligated to do "everything", but in reality you aren't. The game doesn't tell you you have to do everything, it simply shows you what you could do. The rest is as I would see it with us as players. Our choice, whether we do this or that or nothing at all. Even simply wandering through the world or doing some RP is within our reach. It just needs us to make that choice for ourselves.

[@Wyllowisp]

Der Schurkinist Because it has nothing to do with the player. You missed the whole point of his comment. He’s not talking about features, he’s talking about the handholding and the “Do this!” “Do that” pop ups instead of letting the player explore for himself and slowly learn the mechanics of the game. Instead of being a world full of monsters and quests, its a theme park with little rewards and toys where everything is fun and safe. Your post doesn’t make sense because choice isn’t exclusive to retail, there are plenty of them in classic but they aren’t in your face and you have to go out of your way to look for them.

[@EnDTh3S1L3NcE]

@@VulpesChama I get your comment, but much like Wyllowisp pointed out, its because its all constantly in my face. In classic i dont feel under constant pressure to have the absolute best gear, that i NEED to farm power to get my weapon (Legion) or Neck piece (BFA) to level them up, unlock more talents, etc. Theres components i like about retail, but just the non stop "Do this" checklist of items is not only overwhelming, its disheartening. Theres alot more i could expand upon about why i dont fully enjoy retail, and its not to say that i hate it, I love the visuals that have been done, some of the quality of life changes have been fantastic (Mount Journal anyone?) and the story telling imo has been great, but as for the actual gameplay, its ok, its fine, but to me it has lost alot of what made WoW popular and addicting in the first place, i play to have fun, not to check off a list and say "Sweet all my dailies are done"

[@VulpesChama]

Wyllowisp, before accusing someone of not understanding, you should actually read what was written in context. See, I don't have this "do this!"-feeling at all, it's more a "Hey, you can also do this if you want."-feeling. Which is why I would argue it has something to do with our mindset as players. We get something offered and then we choose. It's like going in a restaurant. You don't have to order everything, even though it is presented to you. But with food we kind of know how much we can handle, want to handle (or can pay.) With virtual products a lot of people have problems with having options. And yeah, maybe I am just a strange guy that simply doesn't care that someone wants me to this and that, but honestly I'm not that confident. I mean, there's also the simple detail that it could be a matter of different taste. I like being able to make choice and to make the choice of not doing something. Others don't. Maybe, considering this, I'd argue it's a mixture of both, depending on person. For some it's the simple thing of simply not having the "right" taste, for others it may be their mindset that's creating a problem. Yet one thing remains true. You don't have to do all that stuff. Presented or not. You make the choice, not the game.

[@Arctagon]

I understand both sides of the argument here, but there is a bit of a misunderstanding. ​@@VulpesChama: Your analogies don't quite work. There is no incentive to order everything at a restaurant, so a customer has no reason to do it. With WoW as it is today, however, you are incentivised for more or less everything, and the rewards are usually so powerful that it makes you feel like you lose out by not going for those rewards, especially if you want to stay competitive. 'If I don't do this emissary, I won't get all this azerite power, and I won't be as strong as the players who do.' If you actively engage in group content with a bunch of people you know, you may also feel obligated to make your character as strong as possible and maintain it that way, otherwise you are 'gimping' your group. I've experienced all of these things, and it really drains the fun and becomes a chore to the point where it feels like a job. That being said, I do also think Der Schurkinist brings up a few good points. While the game developers certainly can do something to make these choices feel less like obligations, I also think there is something we can do with our mindset. If most of the things we are doing in the game feel like chores, is it really worth doing them? When I was at this point myself, I eventually had to ask myself why I was doing it if I didn't enjoy it, and it lead to questioning why I was playing the game. I realised I spent most of my time in-game doing the things that felt like obligations, and little to no time at all doing the things I really enjoyed. At this time, I have finally broken away from it. I no longer care if I miss a day of 'dailies' or don't make sure not to lose out on any rewards. I play the game exactly the way I want to, and at my own pace. It was quite liberating to show the proverbial middle finger to world quests, M+, and the like, and take control of how I play the game. I'm not saying that everyone else should do the same, because we play the game for different reasons, but there is something to be said for some introspection, and asking ourselves why we are doing the things we are doing. Perhaps it isn't worth it anymore.

[@sprouting_lady]

I think part of the problem you're identifying with the almost overwhelming amount of options available in modern WoW, is one that's connected to trying to improve and add onto a game for 15 years: the core gameplay loop just gets old and worn-out, but you can't just replace it wholesale the way you might with a whole new game, so you have to find a way to bolt *new* gameplay loops onto it without also turning the game into a hot mess. That's obviously really hard to do, and the difficulty is that reasonable additions over the years have an additive effect and they tend to result in a system that no longer has a single definable core gameplay loop. It now has about 3 or 4 of them, and is trying to pull you in all those different directions; and this just gets more problematic when you introduce issues like time-gating these loops with dailies or weeklies so you feel obliged to adhere to a schedule. Avoiding this seems to be something MMOs really struggle with as they get older, as I remember a similar issue popping up in EQ around 2006. Frankly Blizzard has done a good job of keeping things from getting too unwieldly for a long time, but it's fairly clear that the game may be reaching a tipping-point on this problem soon if they don't refocus it. Of course, whether it *is* a "problem" from Blizz's perspective is an open question since elements of this design(like the aforementioned dailies) probably aid in subscriber retention.

[@khatack]

It's not the amount of options that is the problem with modern wow, it's the fact that every single one of those options is the most boring option.

[@cattysplat]

Blizzard making everything that was in the previous expansion worthless is a really destructive way to keep the new content the most relevant though. Even so much that almost every player will skip or avoid all the previous expansions, they even want you to boost characters to avoid the old content. Everyone who played the previous expansions basically gets burned and has to start over and over time thats going to piss anyone off especially with hundreds or thousands of hours invested.

[@SexycuteStudios]

We have a term for it. Feature creep.

[@xaviar10]

Reminds me of modern Runescape

[@OneTrueNobody]

One thing about that slower pace that IS interesting, though, is the feeling that you get from it. Shortly after WoW Classic happened, I started following a quest that sent me from one part of the world to another, and on the way there I just spent like two hours hiking through a snowy mountainous forest to get from one hub city to another quest zone. Taking in the sights and allowing myself to be mildly sidetracked now and then by things that looked interesting was one of the more positive gaming experiences I've ever had. It felt like I was actually on a Tolkien-style questing journey rather than just jogging from start point to end point to fulfill a list objective. It was immersive in a way I haven't seen an MMO achieve in a long while. Obviously there needs to be some balance to accomplishing that sort of feeling in an MMO. I feel like multiplayer gaming is by default a shot in the foot for any sense that "you can experience the world of this game to your heart's content" because if you want to slow down and smell the roses, someone else is always going to get impatient with you--in any genre, in every genre. I keep trying to imagine an MMO that doesn't suffer that issue but also has this kind of sprawling open-ness and a lack of overly streamlined convenience--because that over-streamlining is what kills emergent socialization and emergent experiences in gameplay. Who cares about exploring? Teleport, teleport EVERYWHERE. Put yourself on an automatic dungeon queue and get tossed into a random party of players and never speak a word to them. It's boring. It's a distillation of every aspect of multiplayer gaming that makes me feel I might as *well* be playing on my own. Social dependency comes with irritating problems but there comes a point where you overcorrect for that so far that you kill the positives that come with socializing at all.

[@hotwheelsdeepstate]

Outrage merchant is such a great term for a lot of the internet that I am totally co-opting for future use

[@Feasco]

"Got some good outrage for yah, stranger."

[@minivergur]

Khajit has outrage if you have coin

[@koth_harvest_final]

im going into battle. i need your strongest outrage MY OUTRAGE IS TOO STRONG FOR YOU TRAVELER

[@Madhattersinjeans]

Rage mage works too.

[@adino20]

Nope. It’s just as useless as the term “toxicity”.

[@Smokinbacon]

40 MINUTES OF CLASSIC WOW DISCUSSION?! WHY AM I SO EXCITED FOR THIS?!

[@krusher181]

Prob cuz it’s not another boring ass Asmongold video, which are all 40 minutes with 20 min of dead air.

[@rael7298]

@@krusher181 20 min of dead air is being generous, but yeah this video was presented really well!

[@williamaitken7533]

The commentary about how all the little subsystems can create pressure and anxiety really speaks to me. I will always hold one truth in my heart about multiplayer games: gamers will optimize the fun out of games. Those little subsystems are fun as long as you don't let them become part of your optimization routine. It's the role of the developers of the game to make sure that you don't NEED to be optimized to play the game, even at the highest tier of content. To me, this is illustrated best by the WoD days when raids were designed with the intention that you would have mods installed. Without these mods, many of the mechanics were almost impossible to do.

[@EQOAnostalgia]

Well said.

[@TheRealCristianLuca]

Eloquent, thoughtful, well put together speech, clean, clear, to the point, charismatic presence. Whats with the dislikes? Jeez.

[@anenemystand5582]

Well you know, when you express an opinion on the internet about an already divisive game there are bound to be dislikes.

[@General12th]

Just because the argument is put together doesn't mean everyone will agree with it.

[@andrejg4136]

@@General12th I tend to save dislikes for things I actively hate. If I merely disagree, I'll just leave a comment of "I appreciate this argument, but what about x".

[@raphael2407]

these people standing in a line for the quest is the weirdest thing I have ever seen in 13 years of WoW. xD

[@Soriichi]

Touché

[@marccarter1350]

They were not Indian then. They have no concept of waiting your turn, how to queue

[@FairbrookWingates]

Don't know if it's the weirdest I've seen, but certainly ranks up there!

[@timothymclean]

I'm shocked that everyone was so polite. Either there's a culturally-transmitted reflex stopping any of us from cutting in what we recognize as a line, or some level-cap players were ganking anyone who tried to rush in before returning to whatever they were doing on their phones.

[@Pho8os]

Gamers were way more polite back then and that is something I miss.

[@olookslike0]

I have never cared about Warcraft for a second, but when you popped up with a video on it, I knew I HAD to see this. I am your humble pupil; please inject my mind with that good insight, oh great Human Tidepod.

[@larala21mil]

Hey clearascrystal noticed you and agrees with you in that Human Tidepod is a very good aesthetic description of Dan

[@TheJordan9876]

Damn that old Totalbiscuit clip brought me back.

[@pnutz_2]

my favourite episode too

[@HistoricaHungarica]

IMO it's a good thing he left us behind... now it's time to left him behind. And no I don't care what you think of me for my opinion.

[@dvklaveren]

@@HistoricaHungarica That's a shitty thing to say you someone who just fucking misses someone else. We've already moved on, that doesn't mean we can't miss him.

[@dezereks]

It was great to hear his voice again.

[@HistoricaHungarica]

0utta S1TE And nobody asked OP's opinion either. Nor did yours. Pretender Not as shitty as some of his takes that he got championed for. Magnopere Anyád üzent a bordélyból, lógsz neki a szaxi árával.

[@minneyar42]

It's interesting to see what other peoples' WoW experiences were like because mine was pretty different from most. My wife (then girlfriend in a long-distance relationship) played WoW as something to do together, which meant we almost exclusively played as a pair with each other and rarely interacted with other players at all. We started just before BC launched and played up through Cataclysm, doing basically all of the content that it was possible to do with only two people. We had fun, but that also meant that when we ran out of quests, we were basically done with the game, because we hated raiding and didn't want to do anything that involved working in a party of people we didn't know. (coincidentally, that's the reason we *don't* play FFXIV, because you're required to do dungeons to progress through the main story) I never really understood the rush to get to max level and start grinding raids, because for me, that's where the fun ends. Exploring zones and doing quests is fun; killing the same boss over and over to try to get an item that has +1 better stats is not.

[@mistertadakichi]

For me, I started playing WoW in BC about 6 months after my friends, who had already reached level 58 and entered BC content. They were all voraciously consuming BC content and, as such, rarely had time to do low-level content with me. I ended up doing the grind as fast as possible myself just so I could actually play the game with my friends.

[@rhaeven]

Not that I'd try to convince you to play two years after this comment, but ff14 has recently finished working through all the required dungeons and made them playable with NPC allies

[@minneyar42]

@@rhaeven I was excited by this prospect, but unfortunately, it looks like the 24-man Crystal Tower raid is still required to progress.

[@acetown2263]

That 10 year statue commemorates $2000 spent on wow subs xD

[@falconJB]

yikes indeed

[@sharkofjoy]

That's way less than I expected.

[@Outplayedqt]

J B cheap as fuck entertainment, idk how that’s a yikes

[@falconJB]

@@Outplayedqt Expensive as fuck to me, I haven't spent $2000 on all my entertainment over the last 20 years.

[@cheezburgrproduction]

@@falconJB sounds like youre a ball-in-a-cup kinda guy

[@KanedaSyndrome]

Free me from Dailies and Achievements, Login rewards and "player engagement" mechanics. They make me stop playing as the game becomes a job.

[@Katharating]

So true. :)

[@PrimordialNightmare]

Can relate.

[@pcl5636]

Hell yeah m8

[@istvankovacs4154]

Try pre 2010 single player games. The graphics is shit compared to the new titles, but you can probably find what you are looking for.

[@jessicawhitmore5350]

But vanilla was also a job??

[@PhoenixAgent003]

So weird hearing TB’s voice now...

[@GeminiWoods]

Rest in Peace

[@vulcan0018]

I really miss him. And i do wonder what would he said about this year F up things that game making company and publisher do.

[@jsgdk]

I miss that guy 🙁

[@ZephWraen]

@@vulcan0018 His wife, Genna Bain, is still running his Podcast over on her youtube channel, and most of her thoughts and opinions are pretty in line with what his were (which makes sense, they were married for a while before he passed). Though she doesn't get quite as shouty as he did.

[@glensutton1324]

Ouch, RIP Mr. Bain, We all really Miss you.

[@amysakalov6915]

I do find it both amusing and sad to come back and rewatch this more than two years later as TBC Classic rolls into Phase 3 and WoW Classic lies all but empty. Everyone said they just wanted the old WoW back... only for it to turn into a giant competition for who could speed their way through the content fastest. People clamoring, constantly screaming, that they would go back and replay those old dungeons forever suddenly turning around and saying they would only run them like three or four times before they were done with them forever. Never have I felt so sad to have been right. After playing through it all back when it came out. After having left with Cataclysm. After having been one of the people who did all kinds of weird "optimized" behaviors just for the fun of living in a fantastical world with others. Watching the community pump itself up into a frenzy and then shrivel in upon itself as it raced to repeat everything, all with some vein hope that "This time I'LL BE THE COOL PEOPLE!" just makes the whole experience all the more bitter sweet.

[@NicholasBrakespear]

It wasn't the hardcore speedrunning types that killed it though. It didn't die because people burned through content. It died because those were the only people left, after it became very apparent very early on that the design was already compromised; that the sense of community was damaged from day one by Blizzard's handling of server populations (all that weird phasing stuff they did), their total failure to protect the in-game markets from bots, and the uncertainty surrounding the project. A lot of people were genuinely looking to settle into the vanilla game for as long as possible; to play with their friends, to bring in people who had missed it the first time around etc... only to find that it wasn't the same game, and that they didn't know how long they'd even be able to play vanilla before Blizzard shoved a Burning Crusade release out the door and changed the fundamental balance of the game, and whether there'd be separate servers for separate versions etc. Personally, I'm now gearing up to play Guild Wars 1 with my girlfriend. We're gonna blast through as much of it as we can. And you know what the main appeal is? The certainty. We buy the old game, we get to play the old game, the old game won't change, there are no updates planned for it; there is a mass of content waiting for us, finished, done, unchanging. That's the real difference, I think. When we all played WoW, it was our forever game; we didn't know where it might go, so it didn't matter. Going back to WoW vanilla, knowing exactly where it went? Knowing that if BC alone hit, the level cap would change and vanilla endgame dungeons would die? No. What the longer-term players needed was stability and certainty if they were going to stick around.

[@HallyVee]

Meh. We're still here. Still loving Classic. We never were the majority though, it was always 90% content locust. They just didn't have anywhere else to go yet.

[@mothshaped]

If you can find an active guild to join (my server has two main ones and pretty much everyone you come across is in one or the other) Classic doesn't feel too desperately empty at the moment. Zones are dead but across the whole server you can usually get a group together for a dungeon etc., the biggest loss for me as someone who enjoys professions is really the auction house. But then, there's a different kind of fun in having to be extremely self-reliant.

[@NicholasBrakespear]

@@mothshaped Speaking of self-reliant, I have discovered that it's entirely possible and fairly easy to set up your own little server to play alone or over LAN for vanilla, TBC or Wrath... replete with auto-scaling options and tweaks that make playing alone or in tiny groups viable across all content, and with an auction bot that puts a healthy selection of stuff up for sale automatically... oh, and you can increase the profession count so you can learn everything, to compensate for the loss of a fully functioning economy. You can even set it up so that dungeon elites and/or bosses reward honour, so you can even buy the PVP stuff without PVPing. Essentially, the end result is - you can play through the entirety of the vanilla to wrath content solo or with an incomplete group, and have all the content tweaked and scaled to be challenging but entirely viable.. even raid content.

[@ultimatehamsandwich734]

Do u really expect people to play WoW Classic forever? Of course people are going to quit at some point.

[@nicoledorosh]

The "needs more dots ok STOP THE DOTS" screaming guy always makes me laugh

[@kristinsaur]

As someone who hasn’t actually played SINCE classic, I found this oddly comforting and nostalgic.

[@shalimarlake7852]

Man hearing John Bain's voice threw me for a depressing loop for a second there.

[@dosbilliam]

I do kind of wish he hadn't used that clip, partially since TB can't respond, but also because that was from 2008, and probably didn't actually reflect his opinion after a period as short as maybe 6 months. :/

[@RedlegsBluelegs]

@@dosbilliam I actually think that it broadly lacks the context of what Blue Plz actually was. Blue Plz was the WoW Shockjock show. That era of TB's career was way more performative than his later stuff. The whole point of the show was to listen to TB theatrically go ape on WoW specific topics because that made for entertaining listening.

[@dosbilliam]

That clip in particular is kind of strange, since history ended up vindicating that since those badges were not only removed from the game, but what they became afterwards was ALSO removed from the game and turned into quite a large amount of gold. :P

[@Siriathion]

@@RedlegsBluelegs Agreed. It also misses the context of what TB was trying to say. I think it was an argument against giving out purple items for 5 man content, arguing that it would cheapen the rewards obtained from raiding. But we know that Dan doesn't like John for the Gamergate stuff.

[@DStecks]

Totalbiscuit sucked

[@schrodingerskatze6487]

21:00 A test of patience, huh?*starts getting Westfall Stew and Goretusk Liver Pie PTSD*

[@Minimeister317]

Wow, that was the quickest 40 minutes of my life, I was so intrigued the whole time.

[@redcitadel9123]

Totally! And I don't even play WoW !

[@stianhoiland]

When I first logged onto a Classic realm for the first time since vanilla, I was befuddled. I thought I had well understood what was good about old WoW and what was bad about new WoW, but now, actually standing there, in a field, in old Azeroth, something else than all my prior understandings confronted me. Even faced right with it, it was hard to put my finger on it. But eventually I understood. I noticed *the silence*. And when I noticed the silence, I noticed *the noise*. In old WoW, there's silence; and in new WoW there's *noise*. I hadn't noticed the noise in modern WoW until just this moment, now back in old WoW, when where the noise had used to be, now there was just silence. Like a fan turning off. So what was this noise? It was my own cognitive noise, and I called it "choice noise".

[@Tomasrrb]

I don't quite get it but it sounds interesting to me. Can you describe this further?

[@Andrei-ck7lv]

@@Tomasrrb I think he's refering to the point Dan already touched in the video about the consequences of having too many options vs very few options.

[@Ptaku93]

@@Tomasrrb I also didn't get this comment

[@dosbilliam]

I'll give a list of my own version to attempt to help explain: in Classic, my goals are simple; level up, get better equipment, work on my professions, and maybe work on some rep when I have the resources to do so. In Retail, there's all of that, plus the reputations from every expansion since, battle pets, achievements, trying to find the upgraded recipes for my professions from the past two expansions, all the stuff from BfA like expeditions, the WoD Garrison, World Quests and Emissary quests...there's a crapton of stuff to do and trying to focus on one thing makes me feel like I'm ignoring everything else. I've got a Mage that I made to grind out all the old reps since it'd be easier than doing it on my Paladin, but I've also gotta finish leveling that Mage up to 120, work on my Jewelcrafting from every expansion to get every recipe there is along with doing the same for Cooking...I'm probably forgetting several things like PvP stuff, but just the addition of achievements into that list is easily 85% of the stuff I worry about in Retail that doesn't exist in Classic. Hell, just finding transmog stuff or working on your Collections lists is a big thing; how much time have people wasting looking for the Time-Lost Proto Drake since Wrath came out, for example? All of that stuff is something I want to do, but it can't really compete with the simplicity of taking my little Gnome Mage around Wetlands and Ashenvale/Stonetalon, doing quests, finding herbs, using up my staggering amounts of food, and just focusing on seeing the game, reading the quests, and having fun talking to my guild while they post items I can't use for 20 levels and I respond with sadness and crying emoticons. I don't have any achievements hanging over my head, so I can ignore escort quests or not bother exploring every single area in a zone. I can focus on the few things Classic has instead of needing to bounce between 50 things to get rewards I don't really care about from them but are still needed to finish things that I feel I NEED to finish as opposed to WANTING to finish them. :S

[@jttcosmos]

@@dosbilliam Feel that. Garrisons were the nail in the coffin for me. Played since classic, active high level raiding in TBC and later in Wrath, then slowly ran out of steam, took a break, came back, rinse and repeat. Logging in after a day at work, only to spend the entire play time doing the darn garrison daily quests, from mining to harvesting etc., across multiple chars... Never saw anything else all of a sudden. Quit for good, never came back. Seeing the scenes from the current retail version reminds me of why I quit. Give the aimless running around, the exploring. Stop drowning me in daily quests and dozens of "urgent" things to do. Get enough of that in my day job. Maybe I'll take a peek at classic after all, just to stand at the pier in Booty Bay and fish for an hour or so.

[@KBash]

I've been into WoW for a loooong time, and BFA finally killed me. What you've indicated is true: I can't play this game anymore because it's too much to do with too many characters that I've collected over the years. Classic is a chance to finally get somewhere, and it won't move on without me.

[@PanAndScanBuddy]

Did you know there's a house in Boralus filled to every corner with puppies? And another full of cats? And in one of them is a fish tank with a new diving helmet Pepe!

[@gsczo]

While some players want the game to move so that they can keep moving and enjoying different and fresh things. Both classic and retail complement each other with 2 completely types of players.

[@SturgeonPilot]

I recently started playing WoW and I'm loving learning about the history and culture that surrounds it. I'm very grateful that new WoW makes it possible that I can solo and run raids/dungeons with only me and my partner because boy howdy are there some truly awful people who play WoW. Sometimes you do find a nice little pocket of goodhearted folks just playing the game and having a good time, I'll never forget being in Pandaria late at night and someone asking what brought us all here. Some were quarantining from covid, others had lost their jobs, some were recovering from surgery or illness and we all expressed well wishes to each other with genuine sincerity. That is the most populated WoW every felt to me, and that moment of connection and kindness is a cherished memory now. And if the game mostly contained those kinds of people I think social dependency would be a really enjoyable mechanic for me and I can see how if people did find some of that in classic how that would be something they'd want to eagerly go back to.

[@rickpgriffin]

I think I get where you're coming with grinding. With a game like, say, Chrono Trigger, almost no grinding is ever needed. Despite the fact you can basically go anywhere, there's no point to going anywhere until you're directed there, and no point to revisiting a place unless you're told to do so. So even though the world is ostensibly just as open as any other JRPG, it ultimately feels linear because the play experience is entirely directed and there's very little in the way of benefit from self-directed play. Which isn't a bad way to do it. Chrono Trigger has one of the tightest stories an RPG of its era could have. There's a little bit of evident self-directed play at the very end when you have a handful of sidequests to do and they're not at all evident, and there's also the whole New Game+ gimmick of playing the game again and fighting Lavos at different time periods. It does what it needs to do how it needs to do it, and because the story's good enough, self-directed play isn't a necessary component. But there's lots of games where you might want to encourage self-directed play. Game experiences where you just figure stuff out is few and far between, because that experience is fulfilled and disappears the moment that you've figured it all out, and now you need a completely different system to discover. Chono Trigger as a linear experience is never going to be exactly the same on subsequent plays as the first play, but it'll still have a similar shape. On the other hand, there's no way to play, say, The Witness like you're intended to play it for a second time. The shape of the second playthough versus the first playthrough of The Witness would be ENTIRELY DIFFERENT because of how you're supposed to direct yourself through the world.

[@sharkofjoy]

Very articulate point about The Witness! Well said.

[@bernarddestroyerofshopkins7019]

Hey it's the housepets guy

[@davidk7439]

oh shit I see you all the time on Twitter, didn't realize you watched Dan too

[@SuperCosmicSpaceMagnet]

It is so difficult to find a video discussing Classic and its relevence that doesn't involve hyperbole. This was an excellent listen - thank you!

[@pyd2215]

"Stops feeling like options and starts feeling like an obligation" Exactly why I want to but CAN'T love Destiny.

[@Revan-ek3su]

That's what has me taking a long break on Warframe, mainly if not entirely because of the Nightwave stuff.

[@NathanWubs]

It's a big fomo part that games especially mmo's are building in on purpose. you need to be spending all your time in there after all, instead of playing the many other games that you could be playing. Like the trails of cold steel 3 that will be out soonish.

[@cyan_2169]

And part of the reason why I've been having so much fun with Borderlands lately. There's no GaaS bullshit there to make you feel like you're somehow missing out if you don't hop on to play every day. It's just damn good gameplay.

[@AdraTheGhost]

I've been playing Destiny since beta of the first one. Never felt obligated to play.

[@Moostar95]

@@Revan-ek3su its ONE of the reasons I dumped my account. I love it when my games don't feel like work.

[@rileyosteen6470]

See, i actually really enjoyed aspects like having to go to a class trainer to learn skills, because it gave more reason to hang out in big cities, and it also made the games feel more.. roleplay-ey?

[@Josepy2u]

The 'Social Solo Experience' is such a succinct way to describe what I really want out of most video games.

[@Zelkiiro]

Same here. I want friends to talk to while I'm playing the game, but God help you if you show up and try to party with me when I just want to get some quests done.

[@undecidedmajor1664]

it’s a good thing the entire mmo market has decided to cater to you then

[@jtforseth900]

Thats essentially what my guild is in Classic. We help each other when we need it and love to play together but its not a necesity and nobody is that worried upset that they lose loot to a friend if we do.

[@blackflare]

we used to call it "alone together"

[@WarMomPT]

Just to point out something with Cata's rearrangement of storylines and advancement of the timeline, I agree, a lot of the Cata rework stuff is *really* alienating to new players. I started playing WoW when Warlords was the current expansion and hoo lordy, playing a Night Elf as my first character, even when Teldrassil didn't really get a huge update apparently, feels like I'm immediately being snowed under with the expectation of knowledge and understanding. Within literal seconds of starting the game, I have jargon thrown at me, about 'Malfurion Stormrage', the 'Emerald Nightmare', the 'Cataclysm', the 'Highborne Refugees' (two of those terms which are covered in an out-of-game book because Malf literally fucked off from launch to Cata!), and once I'm done with my tutorials, I'm sent off to Darkshore which very, VERY clearly was battered by the Cataclysm to a point where new players continue to feel 'lore overwhelmed', and then ferried off into some Alliance VS Horde stuff. Blizzard very clearly do care about the new player experience to some degree because in relatively recent history they massively tweaked the numbers for the levelling experience and it's generally considered to be more enjoyable now, but it's all built on the back of Cataclysm which, rather than be built to keep welcoming newbies while updating the world for old players, feels like it is built wholly on an assumption of the player being around since 2004.

[@OtakuboyT]

I started in Cata and just reading the wiki (which I already did for other things) cleared things up for me. It's was like moving to new town ans asking a librarian for some help.

[@PickledShark]

I played from original beta testing, until Wrath. Didn’t play again for nearly a decade, and tried again last year, and I cannot say enough how disappointing the experience was. I felt like I was intruding on a game for other people, who had been playing since the beginning. Like I had stumbled into an exclusive club. Gone was the game that had enthralled me as a high schooler.

[@marcomeme4875]

They should have revamped the leveling with no mercy from level 1-110 for BFA. 😕

[@burke615]

Well, Teldrassil finally got its huge update in BfA. ;-P (Explanation for non-current WoW players: The storyline for Battle for Azeroth, the current expansion, included the Horde burning the Alliance city of Teldrassil, making it uninhabitable.)

[@WarMomPT]

@@burke615 that's another thing, there's a sense of stuff added since cataclysm pilling on top of one another in a contradictory manner, or so I'm told. When some stuff (eg Anduin being on the throne after Varian) gets rolled out to all players, early quests still point to things that should not really 'be' there

[@Xarth]

The last part about there being a fine line between "options", and "chaos" is so true for many different games. It's also why I have such trouble playing games like Destiny for too long, so many things on Weekly / Daily timers that it begins to make my brain melt.

[@timothymclean]

17:27: ...My god, it's the physical incarnation of Poe's Law in the form of an MMO player.

[@mykaruest3620]

"Your face, it's a fucking square, alright. Six pixels and you're gonna love it." Tbh, I laughed way too fucking hard not knowing if he's ironic or not.

[@OccamSansRazor]

"Church schism, in videogame form."

[@happyclam1266]

Someone finally stated it correctly.

[@bug1494]

well that certainly explains why i am baffled why anyone cares, i dont go to video game church.

[@1337penguinman]

Proud WoW fundamentalist here. The rest of you are simply wrong and going to video game hell.

[@rudyziegler4704]

This is what I've been saying about the anti-flying crowd: their arguments have become so insane, so "You'll learn to love playing without flight, whether you like it or not," that they've become just as repressive as the Taliban.

[@Randomgen77]

6:15 HBomberguy voice cameos are like finding Easter eggs hidden by Sobek to show that he loves us.

[@elvellarambles9151]

77cicero77 Indeed. Someone must have been making the mummified-crocodile offerings in our place, as I know I’ve been slacking.

[@saltyjustice4444]

Son, Sobek is the god of semen. Those ain't eggs he's leaving for you.

[@zevaronxz7288]

HAIL SOBEK EAT SOY

[@Hannah_Em]

As someone who never played WoW at any stage (and still haven't), but grew up being a big fan of RuneScape and Guild Wars, I find myself coming back to this video pretty often and still finding a value in what it says. I'm still pretty active in OldSchool RuneScape and Guild Wars, which are in some sense equivalents of WoW Classic which I've been enjoying for quite a lot of years at this point, and it's... a weird blend of nostalgia and self reflection to come and see some of the same things that drive my enjoyment of those games, and how my understanding of them and how I relate to my experiences in them have shifted. Admittedly not everything is directly applicable, as both of those games took quite different paths to get to where we are now (OSRS was launched back in 2013 after the transition to Runescape 3 had sparked a similar "omg new game version is bad" phenomenon, bit since then it's had time to fully transition into being its own parallel game under active development with lots of independent content. Guild Wars... never really stopped being a thing; the developers decided to leave it up with a skeleton dev crew assigned to maintain it (and even deliver QoL updates on occasion) even as the studio pivoted to focus on its sequel Guild Wars 2). Nevertheless, there are a lot of parallel phenomena between the three games, particularly WoW and RS, and IMHO in some ways having a case study that I don't have a personal relationship to (particularly one that Guild Wars 2 was trying... pretty hard to emulate and compete with, I think) is almost a more incisive tool with which to examine my own relationship to nostalgic media. (tbf, this video originally came out less than a year after I'd realised I'm trans and began my transition; as I gradually begin to heal from the traumas of growing up repressing my identity, there's perhaps unsurprisingly quite a lot to unpack about my relationship to the games which were a form of escapism from the pain, depression and isolation of that deeply destructive reality I was trying to construct and maintain for myself lol) I guess the tl;dr is... thank you for making this, Dan, it's helped to contextualise a surprising amount of things for someone who's never played the game you're talking about.

[@meishangchung411]

How did you get so philosophical about the core values and transiency of MMOs it is just beyond me holy crap. Amazing job on this video. I was fully revelling in the nostalgia of my 20s in this v-essay.

[@FlyblackCelestia]

I am someone who feels the game has left me behind. To be honest, Classic has been a dream for me. When I am playing MMOs, I tend to like to just relax, chill out and spend some time doing little tasks with friends or alone. Later expansions have gotten harder and harder to feel like I can keep up with the curve, and nothing I do feels like it has any impact.

[@cattysplat]

There is far too much to do, but even worse there is far too much needed to play catch up, especially for a new player. This is why the game now offers buyable boosters to skip and speed up almost the entire levelling game. Without these playing alone on a brand new account feels incredibly isolated and pointless, when almost everyone is max level or simply grinding dungeons for fast XP, it leaves the open world dead and lifeless. The forced playtime to catch up never ends at level cap either, now you must grind your dailies, your AP/Azurite to stay competitive, your world quests to earn reputation and the primary way to earn resources, if you "choose" not to do this you will fall behind everyone else who is doing it, since the modern game is designed around these daily grinds.

[@cadeimond]

@@cattysplat But what I still don't understand, is why anyone feels like they need to "keep up"? Keep up with who? Why? I'm always "behind" and I could not care less. If you don't enjoy racing through dailies and things, just don't do it? I just log in and do whatever I feel like and I love WoW.

[@KJOokami]

@@cadeimond, some people just can't ignore it. Might have something to do with anxiety, or ADHD, or any one of a slew of other things that afflict people's brains that refuses to let them just ignore everything that the game throws at you. When I open up BfA and am immediately bombarded with a big-ass sign in the middle of the screen about all the things I could/should be doing at that moment, I'm immediately flooded by this overwhelming sense of having too much to do. Like there's a million things I could be doing, and all of them things I sort of want to do, but I'm indecisive so I can't figure out where to even begin, and then I just end up paralyzed and ultimately do nothing or barely begin one thing before just feeling stressed and logging out because why would I play something that stresses me out more than it brings enjoyment? I get that it's maybe hard to understand from a perspective where you don't feel any of that, but for people like me who can't help but associate all of those options with similar situations in real life where I have so many options that it's impossible to focus on any one thing without feeling like I'm missing out on something else, the whole... cluttered? nature of current WoW is just not something that brings me joy. Classic has a certain charm in its simplicity, and while I believe this video is right that ultimately we will reach a time where changes need to be made--or more content added--I still am far more happy with playing Classic for the time being.

[@Puerco-Potter]

@@cadeimond When you have that one friend that rushed the whole game and keeps telling you to do this or that to catch up, then as a person with anxiety it will stress you out.

[@cadeimond]

@@KJOokami and MatAle, cheers for taking the time to write that out, I think I get it now. If your perception is that you've got a to-do list a million miles long with no idea where to start, I can see how that would stress you the hell out. That's the problem with anxiety, it doesn't matter if it's entirely logical or not, it still feels the same: paralysing!

[@TheAurgelmir]

It's been ages since I played WoW, but I remember the "it was better in the past" already being there in TBC.

[@SupernaturalMonkey]

That was me. But for me it wasn’t gameplay, I think TBC was fine on that front, it was lore. It felt like they really didn’t put much effort into the story and lore of TBC and what they did do fucked up the lore forever (Draenei).

[@LimeyLassen]

I desperately need a longform essay on classic Maplestory now.

[@yordlop]

Omg yes. Such a great game before Big Bang.

[@unlimitedhearts]

Please. Dan I'm begging.

[@yordlop]

@White-Van Helsing Exactly!

[@koth_harvest_final]

ms2 is good at least. granted i haven't played in 7 months but

[@Wyllowisp]

@@koth_harvest_final MS2 is terrible, what are you on about.

[@hayleefish214]

Gosh, I've just remembered the time in 2008 when I tried to join the best raid guild on my server as a fresh Level 70 with all-Green equipment. I do miss that old server, but I don't think anybody I used to play with is on there anymore. Good video. It's brought back a lot of old memories of old WoW - I was 16 and in sixth form at the time, so I had a *lot* of time on my hands. I quite enjoy WoW now, as an adult who can just dip in for a bit, play and then dip out again. Still need to give Classic a go, though. EDIT: Came back to this video after having a ton of Asmongold's blind toxic cynicism just shoved into my recommendations. This is the sweetest of palate cleansers. Thank you.

[@casperchristiansen2458]

Daddy Dan was there when the Great Virtual Plague of 2005 occurred. He knows what terrors mankind has gone through.

[@abcd-lo4cr]

hearing total biscuit's voice :(

[@zepwnersoup88]

I was NOT ready for that one...

[@Tall_Order]

For me WOTLK was when WoW was at it's apex. BC took what made WoW classic appealing and gave us more of it, and WOTLK added onto that and slightly tweaking a few things. There was no cataclysm that changed the entire game yet.

[@caffeinedelusions]

Definitely. Wrath was Vanilla perfected.

[@raggedcritical]

True. Though I have to say it never had anything quite like the feeling of walking though the Dark Portal for the first time - that was pretty special.

[@Tall_Order]

@@raggedcritical Good point. Especially if you were a beta tester and get to see things in earlier development.

[@Bubbalicious18]

It makes me glad that I didn't grow up on classic WoW but rather Cataclysm and beyond. It's allowed me to appreciate Classic for what it is but also not put it on a pedestal as this sacred cow that cannot be touched.

[@Darby969]

I just miss how battlegrounds used to be. Battles in Alterac Valley would go on for days, people got the Wyverns and Trees out there, the wolf riders and other NPCs would absolutely whoop you if you came upon them. Now everyone just zergs and it makes me sad. They used to be a blast.

[@TonyTomatez]

100% agreed. It's too bad people just honor farm now. It used to be super epic. There's a video on KZbin somewhere about the history of AV and how Blizzard gradually destroyed it. It's a huge shame they used the edited version in Classic rather than the original.

[@michaelmano7261]

when there was only like 2 people who had no life and grinded rank 14. Now there are so many. I got exalted in AV in 1 day. back in the day it took weeks!

[@daredaemon8878]

Speaking as someone who bounced hard on WoW when he first tried it during Legion and just tried out classic for a lark? I'm currently level 50 in classic and enjoying the heck out of it. I have no nostalgia for classic, because I didn't play to have nostalgia for it.

[@Madhattersinjeans]

@@Deadlychuck84 Not really no. He goes on at length later on in the video how the more distilled classic wow experience has some real advantages that have been lost to time in the regular wow. The feature creep really hit wow hard. But there were good reasons for that feature creep.

[@SimChucky]

Same here, I gave WoW a pretty hard pass when I got to level 30ish in Warlords of Dreanor, never played it before save for some 2 week trials when I was young and impatient. Now I started with classic a month ago, am involved in a guild and have 2 toons at 50 and 27...

[@prisonerofthehighway1059]

As someone who started wow at launch and played 20-30 hours a week for about 5 years I can say definitively, vanilla through mists is an objectively different game than warlords onward. I came back in Mists of Pandaria and and was able to gear up and raid. When I came back in warlords, legion and BFA all I can do is get to level cap and then I’m stuck. I don’t know what to do. I wasn’t there when the new systems were implemented and nobody interacts so I can’t find anyone to show me. Mostly though, I just don’t care enough about the new game to go sift through the internet trying to figure it out. I love Classic WoW and I can’t wait for Classic BC and Wrath. It feels like coming home again.

[@drholistic8130]

Started in legion too. Lvl 34 on classic. Took a break for a month one time and i work alot. Got in it again now. I want my burning horse

[@ImAnOcean]

for a long time player who already played endless hours of vanilla years ago and came to hate certain parts of the game while loving most of it, a lot of changes over the years where for the better and the game imo got a lot of things right they revamped or changed and how they set the focus of the game. as a veteran player i dont wanna level my 20. character for endless hours and have to eat and drink after every questmob. i want action packed dungeons, raids and pvp. i dont wanna walk 15 minutes to that dungeon(ive seen this world plenty). there have been so many quality of life improvements while also adding new spells and abilities with every expansion that probably give new players a hard time. classic is like a slowmo version of todays wow, that is probably why it might be a nice and easy entry into the world of warcraft. anyways i quit the game because at some point a game will start to bore you. for wow it took me something like 10 years. thats a heck of a run for a single game

[@Unsensitive]

On Grinding: I have horrendous ADHD. Even in my 40's, after decades to learn coping mechanisms, I find repetitive tasks which require some thinking, patterns, or analysis and optimization, wonderful moments to rest my hyperactive brain. I lose myself in them, and it's meditative. This is why I loved classic. As the game went forward, grinding became not as viable, and being more optimal methods, bothered me. No more could I feel relaxed doing a quests, and grinding afterwards for awhile. It was all about quests stacking, and parallel performance.. not meditative at all. 😬

[@systemrestart120]

That "freeform unstructured play" is how I engaged with WOW back when I played in ~2007, I honestly didn't care about leveling or raiding or "progressing" for the most part, I just...... leisurely explored and completed quests as I felt like, helped assist new players with getting started, made my own little stories in the early/middle towns and cities, messed around in that PVP "capture the flag" game........ I played a Lot in the year I spent on WOW, and I think the max level I hit was 42. Didn't matter, because what I loved exploring and interacting with the world, and occasionally other players. And if I got bored, I'd just make a new character from a different race and have a whole new set of starting areas and quests to mess around with. I have actually had people get a little mad at me, saying I "play MMOs wrong", but I mean....... maybe it's not Intended Play, but I wasn't hurting anyone and I made a lot of fond memories.

[@jongibson4766]

"Only bringing the best geared players with the most optimal classes" *Cries in Tank Pally* "You should spec Holy" is the most accurate summary of my time playing WoW from Vanilla through WotLK.

[@Ultramatt17]

Hey, *somebody* needed to spec Prot for Improved Blessing of Salvation, and somebody needed to be Ret to get Blessing of Kings (which for some reason was capstone ability of the "dps" tree)!

[@caioferreira117]

35:50 Just a little comment on grinding on video games, as an autistic person with a very recent diagnosis (late 2020), I realised that I've used grinding as a form of stimming for years. I've never played WoW but I can't count how many hours I've spent grinding on Dark Souls or Pokémon, while listening to a podcast or music. Sometimes, there were days were my gameplay was basically just grinding. To be clear, I don't do that always, but there are some days I want to do just that.

[@christopherduncan803]

34:23 lets talk about 7 hours of killing yeti's in Winterspring so you can get 2 Pristine horns for an attunement quest.

[@jeffmorin1388]

Subbed to your channel for the in-depth storytelling autopsies. This was when I discovered you're my tribe.

[@TheSamgo]

It is kinda bizarre for me that I started playing the cultural milestone that it is WoW in 2019, in it's 2006 version. I was too young to experience wow at it's height, however since I started playing I finally get why lots of people love it. It's goddamn addicting, it's good, I like the pace, I like this slow burn of a world, I sinked in about 10 hours and I am still in the early areas with still a giant part of the map unexplored. It's good 10/10

[@Draukagrissah]

I just stopped watching the Asmongold react to this video video.. that dude is fucking bonkers. He looked at your play time, the play time on ONE character on WoW Live, that almost adds up to a YEAR if RTA... and said "that's IT?" Dude's brain has been broken.

[@jelmore49]

Great video! I haven't played WoW since 2012 so it was fun to both look back and also see what I've missed. "This ain't your daddy's Horde" and "Hashtag no changeeeee-" at 27:53 made me laugh out loud.

[@rohiogerv22]

I tried Classic and realized this was a game I had already beaten, and that made me sad. I realized what I really wanted were new adventures to go on, the way I used to go on them. Back in the early days of WoW, I was notorious for being a very slow leveler, because I was determined to do every dungeon the game had to offer at a level when it would still be a challenge for me. This meant, for example, hitting up my friends list, the general chat, and any random strangers who happened to pass by to see if any level 20-somethings wanted to do Shadowfang Keep, or Ragefire Chasm, etc... on Alliance. And if I couldn't find someone to do it, you'd find me idling away with quests below my level, easter eggs, world exploration, etc. You don't even talk to strangers in WoW anymore. You don't party with people in the overworld. You pop a Dungeon Finder, where you might be able to coax someone into saying "hi" before resigning yourself to silence. Or you join a guild, but that's not so special anymore in a world of Discord servers and Facebook group chats. I just want a game that's still inviting to, or even coercive towards, random unsolicited friendly interaction; asking a lot of random strangers and sometimes getting it. Retail's sure not that game, and Classic is less of it than it was then. Maybe the internet's just different now.

[@kumikey]

Nothing like a low-maintenance grind at the end of a hard day... meditative really is good term for it!

[@Katharating]

Amen! :)

[@xfan420bush9]

You have been conditioned

[@GruppeSechs]

I kind of agree. Especially with two levels worth of rest EXP. Just chill, grind, listen to a podcast, get lucky now and then with loot that sells for a pretty penny to facilitate your auction house wardrobe upkeep so you can avoid the occasional quest or dungeon, and do them when you get bored of grinding instead of being forced to. There was even some guerilla pvp here and there. Sometimes it's the good life.

[@Solereaper21]

Runescape might be the game for you then

[@gothicspoon]

@@xfan420bush9 Not sure if slaves look forward to going to work so they can relax

[@smallseal17]

There was one thing I was interested to see going into this. A buddy of mine, who has reactivated his account for every expansion and is now actively playing Classic, is quite enthusiastic about it, and specifically compared the person-first systems of Battle for Azeroth with the group-first systems of Classic, to the detriment of BfA. (he also specifically mentioned that Wow Classic doesn't have lootboxes or other Surprise Mechanics, which in his mind and mine was an absolute plus) Felt very smart when Dan brought that comparison up.

[@stormRed]

"A small group of 10 friends"

[@kelm102]

I thought this video was wonderfully put together. I played the game off and on for ~12 years, starting in June of 2005 and stopping some time between 2016-2018, after Legion but before Battle for Azeroth. The most progression I ever had was participating in LFR, which was enough for me, since I definitely fell into the category of the "Social Solo Gamer". The thing that came to mind that wasn't really touched on here is that people went into Classic expecting the nostalgia of 2004-2006, and while that nostalgia was still there (seeing the continents before they were wrecked in the Cataclysm expansion, etc.), the wonder of the game was gone. Everyone knew how to run the dungeons already, how not to get lost on the run to Mara, and how to min-max their respective classes. When the game initially launched, all of those things were still being learned. So, like you said, it's now just a race to the end game. I played WoW retail off and on for 12 years, but Classic for 3 months or so before I got bored and quit for good.

[@andrewcleary9952]

10:48 Your server had a queue? Lucky. Mine just went with the "luck of the draw" method, where the player with the best connection clicked on him first, and his group got the kill.

[@iKadaj]

wow, it's so nice to know "wanting to have other people around but prefer to play alone" is a thing because I've had people argue with me that "MMO = you're supposed to be in groups with other people at all times" and that you shouldn't play MMO's if you want to play solo. the vast majority of people I meet online have some form of social anxiety and many have some form of PTSD so I think people really need to open up to the mindset that "humans need to be in social settings but might have trouble actually interacting in those settings" and have more opportunities to 'be alone without being alone".

[@0Gumpy0]

Whenever I feel tempted to play Classic again, I just re-watch this video and it fills the void the same way. Cheers.

[@younggod5230]

As a new player who experienced only the new Orgrimar, it still had the effect you described for the original version. Sure the frame got more loaded but entering a huge place like that still sparked the imagination