Playing World of Warcraft RETAIL for the 1st Time!

I played WoW Classic for the first time ever last week. Now, I'm going to play WoW Retail for the first time ever TODAY. RIGHT NOW.
I'll, of course, share my thoughts on the difference between the two experiences 😎
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
★Watch live on Twitch: / day9tv
★Check out my Website: day9.tv
★Day[9] Merch: shrsl.com/2g4l1

[@StandardGaming]

Crazy how they based this whole game on Hearthstone huh

[@bigboi9225]

CLASSIC Blizzard, straight up STEALING from better games

[@blackwolves6925]

"Sarcasm"

[@guitaraffa]

Nah man, this game is based on Warcraft Rumble.

[@StandardGaming]

@@guitaraffa But wasn't that just a fantasy ripoff of that game Starcraft from the developer... uh... Snowstorm I think?

[@drdankenstein1753]

This game is all based on The Jailer's vision.

[@DanielSymons]

Level scaling is a scourge on all RPGs. So glad Day 9 understands this.

[@literallyjustgrass]

"I like games where I can look at the center of the screen, and don't have to look at the minimap" - Brood War player

[@hrafn7936]

🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@Tephr1te]

its so annoying having to listen to everyone in his chat saying that he shouldn't have chosen the tutorial zone when you literally dont have a choice on your first character for a new account. It's like they want to seem smart and they just come off as moronic.

[@TylerRolloGuitar]

All back seaters are moronic, these people probably look up movie endings in the first 10 minutes of watching a movie. When Game of thrones was popular, I can almost guarantee you they were also googling who died in the books to tell all their friends during the shows.

[@nabillun]

😂A classic, spouting stuff without as much as a factcheck

[@g_vo]

The worst part is they’re gonna force him to play BFA after, but chat will say he gets to choose the expansion 😭

[@professionalhater3929]

That’s twitch chat for you

[@cooldudep]

What happened to the snubby replies to this post. lel.

[@Invalidsyntx]

The sheer devestation in his voice when he heard about the level scaling sure was something.

[@Dannerrrr]

destroy the ENTIRE reason to level up.

[@AkiRa22084]

@@Dannerrrr You level up with ilvl.

[@Dannerrrr]

@@AkiRa22084 but when you level up, the opponent levels up. It's zero sum. Might as well go after the level 1 dragon instead of the level 100 dragon, if the challenge and rewards are the same.

[@Dannerrrr]

@@AkiRa22084 "I'm level 100, and I still can't smash villagers" what's the point in being powerful when everyone is equally powerful?

[@AkiRa22084]

@@Dannerrrr So, villagers don't have Talent points, like players do. They only get some stats with levels, while players get stats, Skills and Talents with levels. They are nowhere near as powerful as you even if you are the same level, since talents give you way more power than levels (also ilvl).

[@EwokPanda]

"This is the most exercise you get during the day if you're a World of Warcraft player." SHOTS FIRED!

[@Broockle]

thought the same 😅

[@karlkvalvik3073]

2:18:02 - This is what I came here for, and I was not disappointed.

[@itskhro]

While hes pretty much on point, the new talent system does help. You FEEL more powerful due to the modifiers and new stuff/interactions added to your character constantly, so its not horiontal gameplay. You can pull more and kill faster as you go. In this way, I dont mind it, but wish it was a little slower than current still.

[@calebowman9782]

That was worth the whole video

[@8thlvlMage]

@@itskhro Yeah but the game makes it so that pulling 5 or pulling 10 (or whatever meaningful amount) will always be manageable. You're trading one meaningful enemy for 1 group of enemies.

[@noneofyourbusiness4294]

​@@8thlvlMageto me, WoW is an endgame type of game. Minmaxing for raids, as I don't really care about PvP. So, while I despised levelling even during Wotlk, I still did it with almost every class, the only one I skipped was priest. Here's the thing: I had my levelling route figured out. It may not have been perfect, but it was efficient. Cataclysm played well into that. MoP was another skip for me, not because "durr pandas stupid", I just lost interest in general. I came back for the WoD launch. And man, was I pissed that there was a mandatory questline for each and every character I played. Sure, you could levelboost any other character with XP options, treasures and world quests. But in order to get anywhere, there's the prologue. Rep farming in tbc was bad, probably worse in classic. But I didn't mind that as much, as playing the same questline again and again

[@TheBaldr]

I don't get his point, there are nine expansion worth of exploring. Classic only had two continents, today there are eleven. It need s some handholding or your just going to get absolutely lost and still do even with the hand holding.

[@Awesomesausages]

The tutorial taking the absolute piss out of what a "quest" entails is as hilarious as it is absurd. Shoot a training dummy. Quest complete. Walk back to camp, quest complete, have some pants. Truly a thing of beauty.

[@roborob4296]

not any more than "i need 10 pieces of boar meat but it only has a 30% drop chance so go kill 50 boars"

[@demaratus8946]

@@roborob4296 Sure, from a gameplay standpoint every quest is just receive objective complete objective. It's kind of meaningless to point that out when the actual criticism is of the quality of the quest. It's much more engaging to talk to a butcher who asks you you fetch some extra meat in exchange for better food and the recipe than to be told to cast a spell at a training dummy. At least for a new player; the only real problem with classic questing is that its not engaging to do that butchers quest again for the 1367th time or even the 2nd or 3rd time tbh.

[@Sobepome]

@@demaratus8946 lmao that you think anyone is reading any of that they are functionally the same quest, it's just killing one training dummy instead of 500 boars.

[@maxpowers4436]

Its a tutorial you turd to introduce people to the concept of a quest. Longer quests literally happen within 10min

[@Smrt927]

The option to play tutorial island or original race starting zone only shows up if you've reached max level at some prior point (in the 20 year history of retail). Brand new accounts don't get a choice. Similarly once off tutorial island, you either get to go where you want or if it's a new account you have do BfA content. When next expansion comes out (later this year?) the new account default will be Dragonflight. Or you could do like D9 and just wander off and start doing Cataclysm content.

[@mr.grahamca]

it's either "played before exile's reach" or "played exile's reach once" I've never paid for wow so never got max level but still have the option when creating new characters now. I don't remember if it was like that the first time I created a character after exile's reach was added

[@TheBaldr]

It use to be that way. BFA is now optional, but they don't tell new players that. All player have access to Chromie for choosing an expansion to level in minus Cataclysm(which starts at level 30ish? They want you to do Vanilla up until then) and Dragon Flight. Now they are not going to tell new players about Chromie because they want a simple transition to BFA keep it simple. Tutorial island you only have to do once now, then you get the option of old starting zones.

[@Framed-Naraht]

So, long long ago I worked as a Blizzard Game Master, from Burning Crusade through Mists of Pandaria - one of the continuing goals of the dev team while I was there was that they wanted the playerbase to connect with the story. Vanilla and BC had a lot of story, that you had to go and find. And there were a lot of players who never knew who Illidan was in BC, because they never ran that specific raid. So each subsequent expansion, you see the story getting more in your face. Wrath had the Lich King showing up all over the place. Cataclysm literally had Deathwing nuking zones from time to time. Mists of Pandaria doubled down on a lot of the phased systems, and one central story. I haven't played since Battle for Azeroth, so I'm not super up to date on how things are now, but I suspect they've kept going in that direction.

[@vegeta1885]

That's good direction since MMO as a genre has split story telling unlike the previous RTS. AS LONG AS they don't replace gameplay with the story. This is a balance the devs have to look out for.

[@nimck6642]

What was the best thing about being a GM in those days? What are some wild player behaviours that you witnessed?

[@kylebennett4196]

Ick that explains it

[@Trazynn]

1:59:41 nailed it. Blizzard intention was to provide a smorgasboard of experiences that would lay ahead of the player to compel them into pursuing the world further. But As you said, that's not at all what beginning (or even veteran) players want out of a starting experience. They want to be nobodies starting in a sleepy backwater of the game where nothing happens. That's tantalizing, that tickles the imagination.

[@dfg12382]

Questing in retail is like hunting for easter eggs but you know where all the eggs are.

[@Adroyo]

Shit analogy

[@Broockle]

yes, but there are also eggs that are hidden, but all the players know exactly where they are in every dungeon and you just gotta follow them in a single filed line 😆

[@Tyranniq]

As someone who played WoW back in classic and then for the first two expansions, I also didn't appreciate the boar scene. I think what happened is that, over the many years of trying to keep the game fresh Blizzard constructed more and more elaborate forms of quests. And then they try to make this new tutorial and because they don't know how to do it normal anymore they end up putting in all these strange types of quests that they've created. But weirdly, those quests only made sense to be introduced to a player after many kill ten boars quests had gotten so stale that Blizzard had to invent new types of quest. It seems super weird because its like you're playing "future quests" from the future of the game.

[@vampxj220]

My favourite Day9 statement of this video "I just like games that are very punishing to be honest" (Starcraft) xD I totally feel the same, love the challenge!

[@artr0x93]

showing a problem before showing the solution is such a great way of putting it

[@beardedjb2273]

I'm an ex-teacher, now in software dev. It amazes me how onboarding and tutorials don't just use pedagogy as a basis for onboarding tutorial frameworks. Want to make a good tutorial that *ahem* teaches a player how to play the game, just hire teachers to do it. God knows they could use a decent salary as well. I use so much of my psych degree and teaching degree in my current role as UX designer. Some games (and software) brutally miss the mark for new user/player onboarding and tutorials.

[@SpaceChicken]

⁠@@beardedjb2273Cool insight. I love that you’re taking UX seriously as a teaching vehicle.

[@Kelvinian]

Sean is remarkably charitable about provisionally holding off on what his instincts (which are strong) are telling him -- about scaling, the absence of exploration in what is ostensibly an open-world game, of complicated abundance in the face of few meaningfully strong obstacles. What he's actually missing is only the scale of cynicism in front of him: the story aspects are shallow so as to allow a person to not care about it in the least. The scaling exists to deliberately remove incorrect decisions: when the correct decisions are already known by people who have played the game for years, this kind of shift would feel liberating, allow playing in a way that is different to how they had rotely executed before. And, of course, the fact that the 'real' game is actually the endgame: when every player character has the same base stats prior to customising talents and equipment, the obstacles can be calibrated into puzzles with specifically correct approaches and insurmountable punishes. Even more so when classes are homogenised into the three archetypes of dps, healer or tank. All this is obfuscated by an amusement park of minigames and micro-customisations, and all of this is in the service of maintaining a paradigm that hasn't really changed at its heart since WoW initially copied EQ: to create something that is most often a low-effort time sink, that is psychologically addictive and pacifying; an immense and impressive distraction that never fully ends. It is a hideously exploitative thing that is artistically bereft on purpose.

[@anthonypoff7815]

I'm diggin the shaven look Day9

[@sony2k0]

Sean, you didn't ask why, but here's why. Over the years there have been a couple of level and stat squishes. Classic started with 60, then it was +10 for expansion 1 and 2 (TBC and WotLK), then +5 for expansion 3 and 4 (Cataclysm and Pandaria). Then again +10 for 5th, 6th and 7th expansion (WoD, Legion and BfA). At lvl 120, expansion no.8 (SL) squished all of that to lvl 50, with max being 60. (because values for items and damage were getting ridiculous) Since then, we had expansion 9 (DF), with +10 levels, and expansion 10 is around the corner. We are going to be at max lvl 80 this summer with new expansion. As someone on reddit wisely said, "They 1. Never balanced it 2, Will never Balance it. 3.Most likely Don't know wtf to do with it". Hence the scaling. Also it's not uniform across the world. *(citation needed)* * Starting Experience: - Levels 1-10: Starting zones specific to each race or Exile's Reach, a universal starting experience for all new and returning players. * Default Leveling Experience: - Levels 10-60: Currently, the default leveling experience for new players is through Battle for Azeroth content using Chromie Time. This will transition to Dragonflight content later this year as the new expansion releases. * Chromie Time Alternatives to Default Leveling Experience: - Levels 10-60: Players can choose to level through the content of previous expansions via Chromie Time, including: * The Burning Crusade * Wrath of the Lich King * Cataclysm * Mists of Pandaria * Warlords of Draenor * Legion * Battle for Azeroth * Shadowlands * Scaling Outside of Chromie Time: - Levels 10-30: Classic Zones in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. - Levels 10-30: Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King zones. - Levels 30-35: Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria zones. - Levels 35-40: Warlords of Draenor zones. - Levels 40-45: Legion zones. - Levels 45-50: Battle for Azeroth zones. - Levels 50-60: Shadowlands zones. * Current Expansion Content: - Levels 60-70: Dragonflight - latest expansion and its new zones, quests, and endgame activities tailored to the newest expansion storyline and mechanics.

[@narex45635]

2:14{35 really loving the ironic placement of the line "whoops, I drooled" XD

[@AnselmWiercioch]

Whoever said WoW 1 vs WoW 2 at the end nailed it. WoW isn't a forever game. It's a living thing and a lot of what made classic great was the novelty of everyone experiencing it for the first time. Some of that is still retained in classic, but WoW as a game exists as a period in time, and the movement toward an "endgame focused dumbed down fighting big bosses with your friends adventure" is the natural progression of the thing. It can't be the first time every time.

[@PifnPaf]

I agree with you except dumbed down. The challenging content in Wow is not dumbed down.

[@casaroli]

I thought Sean hated the diamond tracker so much, he preferred death over it hahaha

[@roborob4296]

not gonna lie..... spent the whole time thinking how lame it is that backseatboss was just waiting for day9 to get to the dungeon portion to que up at the same time so he could be in there with him.

[@Cogbyrn]

I just noticed the music during the tutorial kicks into one of the Warcraft 2 Alliance songs. Incredible.

[@KafshakTashtak]

That Captain Garrick sounds like Ashley Williams from Mass Effect.

[@Allurian90]

They're both Kimberly Brooks, so good catch

[@joshuahensley9395]

1:16:44 I have to wonder if he would have just gone down into the hole/cave thing if the game had not put dots on the mini map, because it feels like the most yellow paint moment. You were given quests by people standing in front of the mouth of a giant hole in the ground and twice he heads off in different directions. Now the first time he did have another quest to do so it does make sense, and he is also reading chat, but him missing that running off to the side like that seems like it would not have happened in classic.

[@Tostitos78]

So enjoyable to watch him play. I love his humour.

[@Threeve703]

"creative confidence" remains one of the funniest things I saw in 2023.

[@onlyrealnumber]

2:14:00 Genuinely did not know that. What's the point of exploring if there's no danger anywhere?

[@Arcexey]

@onlyrealnumber the point is to get you to the wow store via psychological tricks. that's all retail wow is.

[@MrDfix1988]

Hey Day9 haven't watched you for about 2 years now, but shouting shoot her feels like coming home 😊

[@TheMcgreeb]

Retail wow revealing that Sean doesnt have 2FA on his Blizzard account.

[@nathanpintar6962]

Glad my assumption that you would be blown away by the glowing was right LOL

[@TylerRolloGuitar]

We ever gonna revisit BG3?

[@markreinink6364]

You saved my life, mount me!

[@Solklar]

Damn indeed, I'm pretty much having the exact same feeling about the tutorial, showing all available quests and objectives and scaling. Retail is pretty fun if you play very hardcore but that's about it.

[@Arcexey]

1:27:22 you had magic missiles and 2 fire spells and other usable items =) wow is also generally a multiplayer game, increasing the types of attacks you have by working together.

[@accel738]

Egg Man Sean has returned

[@teamredshirt]

35:28 (ish) That Gnome is definitely voiced by the same guy who did Mayuri Kurotsuchi in Bleach. Some voices you just recognize instantly.

[@Purkinje90]

55:39 "I'm old school, I wanna play myself." 🤣

[@JesperHasteen]

All your points are exactly why I'm playing classic

[@Metaljacket420]

Yeah I've played retail for a total of like 30 minutes, most of which was checking out my old time capsule lvl 70 Paladin from BC

[@pred4507]

Nearly all these points are exclusive to the tutorial and introduction though. A few things that he mentioned can also be easily disabled if you don't like them.

[@JesperHasteen]

@@pred4507 nah I've tried multiple expansions and my experience is spot on

[@HellecticMojo]

​@@pred4507"torture can be turned off" is not an excuse for the torture to exist in the first place

[@mikko3]

@@HellecticMojo Its only torture is you are slow

[@Falcon_Serbia]

I wanna see you play classic some more, it was quality entertainment lol

[@Bugsbysix]

Classic is a game based on exploration. Instanced group content is kind of an afterthought. But weirdly the end game of classic is all instanced group content. And so as players hit max level and did the end game content, there was a gradual shift in expectations that WoW isn't the exploring things game, it's the instanced group content game. And gradually as the game moved from expansion to expansion, the balance tipped more towards providing what's in the end game and hurrying people to the end game point. Spend thousands of hours gradually grinding up to level 120 and exploring each nook and cranny along the way? Absurd! That will put thousands of hours between players and the REAL GAME (instanced group content). So it's interesting to see Sean react to that disjunction. He got kind of acclimated to the classic experience and retail is, in so many ways, a COMPLETELY different game. I think both the exploratory classic experience and the instanced group content of retail are fine, good things. They're just SUPER different.

[@ThomasCMurphyIII]

This! Exactly this! This is probably the best explanation of the evolution of WoW over time that I've heard. I've also discovered over time that I prefer the classic gameplay experience because it has the nostalgia factor for me. I enjoy the exploration. I enjoy the slow pace. I find retail to be too hectic and too epic. One of my favorite parts of playing vanilla originally was accidentally wandering into a zone that was above my level and getting instantly killed, then having something exciting to work towards as I leveled. With the "choose your adventure" model of retail, I felt like the sense of wonder and accomplishment was gone. I think Sean's rant about level scaling reflects that same sentiment.

[@mikko3]

Then dont play, people really want new wow every 4 years and delete everything

[@Arcexey]

@Bugsbysix exploration based, aka the WORLD of warcraft lol.

[@Arcexey]

@@ThomasCMurphyIII that's why wow was good, because of the exploration and slow stuff. I even like slow quest text. the present day wow is entirely about getting your mind to enjoy instant gratification because that is the mindset of gambling. Item levels, loot boxes, daily quests, level skips, many different currencies, in game purchases, retail wow is a glorified mobile game.

[@maxpowers4436]

Perception of classic is warped any by classic I mean vanilla. In classic everyone levels and does end game stuff. Vanilla no, most people didnt get to end game start raiding and doing all this shit. Most people didnt do any of that. Vanilla was about exploration classic is not everyone used questie. You know the addon that told everyone everything. Secondly most players in retail are not dungeon or raid spammers most people are casual or mid level players. The perception that everyone is some high level dungeon spammer is warped beyond belief.

[@nathanielsmith4654]

Day 9 started a side job as a bouncer. I can see him out there with a cap on and some chains keeping the riff raff out of LA's finest clubs.

[@Sagragoth]

plays retail for 25 minutes "You know what I would prefer? Death."

[@Sagragoth]

I know he was talking about dying in game to reinforce consequences etc but it was a really good one liner lol

[@onceinawhile9454]

recently got into wow, but I never really enjoyed the questing aspect. I primarily enjoy the endgame content of Raiding / Mythic+ dungeons. I treat leveling a character on retail to max level to be the actual tutorial for how to play the class, as you are slowly introduced to each new ability/ talent tree. It's a flow state of doing enough individually taxing things that accumulate to an overall enjoyable experience. unless i already knew people who played at the endgame, I don't think i would have stuck around long enough to see it to then enjoy it.

[@onceinawhile9454]

Small follow-up - that Leveling doesn't matter in retail like it does in classic. I agree it doesn't really have any meaning, besides you getting used to the character during that climb. I can't say it enough that retail is designed for the max level content. obviously this doesn't play will to the new player experience, and is generally the most agreed upon criticism of retail

[@elephantality3753]

I feel your pain as I started the game last year as well

[@just_eirik]

One small benefit of the level scaling, with the fast leveling wow has, is that if you’re into the lore and the quests you won’t out level the quests in a zone where you want to experience the whole story going on there. Most people probably don’t care, but some people do.

[@HellecticMojo]

You don't need scailing for that. Also, if they are a lore>levels guy, then why would they care about outlevelling?

[@just_eirik]

@@HellecticMojo level scaling makes questing more fun. It’s not “quest > leveling” it’s “quest + leveling”.

[@HellecticMojo]

@@just_eirik whole benefit of quests is that it's better than leveling.

[@just_eirik]

@@HellecticMojo What do you mean “benefit”? I like leveling and I like quests. What’s hard to understand about this?

[@HellecticMojo]

@@just_eirik quests give more XP and loot than grinds. That's WoW's basic design since day 1

[@migueldc6845]

57:51 This part killed me 😂😂

[@Novacification]

Retail WoW is what happens when a developer is asked to imagine what it's like to be a new player or what players would enjoy doing, as opposed to actually being allowed to develop it based on their own passion as a gamer. It's very obviously "design by committee".

[@bufferc6362]

I guess a game developer develops games but a game designer designs games. The process of developing means to implement a thought into existence. But not coming up with a thought. Strictly speaking. The bigger a company the less are developers involved into game (or software) design.

[@HellecticMojo]

Except that the committee was the fanbase. Everything wrong with WOW was made at the request of the fanbase. "We want to fly everywhere" Fine, we'll redo the whole world so that it isn't an untextured flat plain. "wtf, why is the world messed up" "Raiding is too hard and tedious" Fine, we'll add difficulty levels "wtf, raiding used to mean something" "There's not enough side activities" Fine, we'll add garrisons, pet battles, and other stuff each expansions to occupy your time. "wtf, why is there so much clutter" Awful state of WoW is ironically not something I blame Blizzard for.

[@Novacification]

​@@bufferc6362 I don't think it's necessarily that black and white (even strictly speaking). Not to me at least. People can have good ideas for the design of the game regardless of whether or not they can do the actual implementation. I agree that there is more overlap for the term "game developer" for someone who can reason about game design AND implement game elements or generate art/assets vs someone who only does game design (not that game designers contribute less). However, someone who just wants to do programming (as an example) but doesn't have any opinion of whether a game feature works or not, is simply a programmer in my eyes (or software engineer or whatever the case may be). Regardless, when I say design by committee I don't necessarily mean that it was thought up by game designers and passed on to "game developers". I just mean that it reeks of the sort of over engineering that comes from designing a game based on thought up problems/experiences. Someone in a design meeting could mention that the player dying could be a negative experience. Then a group discussion led by people who are in charge, but don't play games, decide that the game should have a very managed and safe new player experience and counter arguments are ignored. All based on a thought up problem that may or may not have existed in the first place. It's the sort of process that reduces passionate people into people who have given up and just sit silently in disbelief.

[@Novacification]

@@HellecticMojo Yes, much of the state of the game is down to players complaining but I don't see a world where the terrible tutorial or the excessive use of cut scenes and "quick time events" as quest objectives are the result of player complaints. Existing players complain about current content. I doubt the majority cares much about the early game experience as long as they have the option to boost most of the way. Their complaints wouldn't have affected what Day9 experienced that much though, apart from quests being shown on the map. Day9's first hour of BFA is an excellent example of "wtf were they thinking". 3 or 4 NPCs having a conversation, with the player needing to click a thing or character to move the conversation forward, is more an interactive movie than gameplay. You don't even see this level of mock interaction in full on story driven RPGs. So while I agree with you overall; many of the things you mention have also been discussed for a long time and Blizzard has had plenty of opportunity to make improvements. Also, I'm sure many people like retail, especially the end-game. The people who wanted dungeon finder, gold tokens and level boosts aren't necessarily the same people who later complained about these things being added to the game. Retail players probably wouldn't want to have flying mounts removed in most areas or have one dungeon difficulty that they have to travel to before starting. I doubt many find the tutorial or old leveling content that inspiring though.

[@HellecticMojo]

@@Novacification players wanted onboarding for new characters quick as possible. So tutorial and leveling rushes you through much as possible. Things got railroady since WOTLC because flying meant that people would invalidate content. At the end of the day, nearly every problem in modern WoW is directly or indirectly the result of Blizzard listening to fans and fans are notoriously bad at comprehending the consequences of their requests.

[@panacco]

Day9 your videos recently have been a blast!

[@benl5251]

Damn Day9, looking fresh man. Nice cut!

[@BottlesOfSoap]

That rant about death as a learning tool is one I agree with, but I also have many friends who hated classic because they died too often and didn't seem to learn anything from it

[@mattweber2512]

Day9 himself didn't seem to learn much from dying in classic.

[@dimitriuss]

Josh stryfe hays Has had some good discussions on the slowness and "boringness" of old MMO design, and how it actually wasn't such a bad thing. These days, dying in a game like classic, most people will just find boring (it is btw) and that's something that game devs and players are trying desperately to avoid. As a result, devs don't design games that slow anymore, and we're left with these dopamine treadmills of instant gratification in game design. Your friends likely would have learned had they kept trying, but they probably just found it too boring to continue learning. It's not their fault, when you didn't grow up playing slower games, later in life, they are hard to understand the appeal of. It really is a dying design philosophy, and that's a tragedy in this age of every kid being diagnosed with OCD or ADHD, games are practically teaching people to have zero patience, no long term goals, and any gap between dopamine rushes is a waste of time when there are 15 other games on their desktop that are free to play that offer instant gratification.

[@vegeta1885]

"died too often and didn't seem to learn anything from it" That's just being stupid 101. Many of us did die lot of of times, but it forces you to rearrange strategy, because dying is annoying. It makes you learn the game, not telling you how to play the game.

[@maxpowers4436]

Thats because despite what classic andys tell you WOW is casual. When wow first came out it was shat on by the current MMO community of the time at how casual it was. No death penalty no dropped loot or anything.

[@joerivde]

38:12 that whole commentary is so true. Like he said while playing classic, a game is a set of (easy or hard) problems that you (the player) have to overcome. That's where the fun is of playing a game. Take that away and you might as well just watch a movie or read a book..

[@Octothorpology]

"if every decision can be made.... none of them can" -syndrome incredibles, 2004

[@thanittangson2102]

I feel like there must be some way to make a game that combines the best of both worlds - the slow exploration-based no-handholding experience of classic combined with the much more improved quality of life features and combat of retail. I feel like we could have a truly Elden Ring experience if this was done right - a massive world chock full of danger and the unknown with excellent moment-to-moment combat encounters that never feels boring and yet you can take it at your own pace.

[@KnownAsKenji]

A total refresh, WoW 2, unironically. Or another MMORPG that can bring something revolutionary and complete. Sadly it keeps feeling like we'll never get any of that.

[@mikko3]

@@KnownAsKenji And after 5 years of wow 2 the same people start crying. Season of discovery is perfect for you

[@barbdreams]

I was watching the steam live when the Creative Confidence BG3 moment happened. Had to pause this video to go watch that again because I was absolutely crying laughing.

[@lazyraichu2075]

Beautiful

[@Drakkart]

damn having played wow back when it released, ending up raiding nax before burning crusade, this is so painfull to watch...

[@heroclix0rz]

Game suggestion: Chants of Sennaar. I mean the real suggestion is Outer Wilds, but....😢

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

"Backseatboss" lol

[@svovy5358]

Some of the sounds effects legitimately were used in Hearthstone before World of Warcraft, In particular, Frostbolt

[@KvapuJanjalia]

Did he ever discover TAB targeting?

[@hilariousmax6732]

24:45 Sean really relating to Gen Z lol

[@Alexandterrara]

Wild seeing someone play through the first time modern wow. I can see why we dont get new players :D

[@lIIest]

that is a myth

[@Workplaylister]

@@lIIest It absolutely is not. Cope harder.

[@sseetthh]

'its a geomancer and it forgets its skills and headbutts me' well it is a quilboar.........................................

[@Blackhawkzwei]

Anyone else stopped playing wow for good quite some time ago, watched Sean play and now feels the urge to play again?

[@tristan8922]

i love how in 2 hours of play, Day9 sums up all (or most of) my problems with retail WoW and illuminates why many of us still flock to Classic, SoD, and private servers. Sadly, after blizz has treated SoD, my hopes for a true Classic+ have gone down the pooptube. I want to enjoy leveling, i want to feel weak and overcome that gradually, i want to be immersed in the environment and engage with the game. I don't want to teleport to max level. I want rewards to be earned. It's tragic that this has somehow become a minority opinion and all MMO's have resorted to spoonfeeding and handholding.

[@squidgyxombie]

I was hopeful for SoD until I saw it was just... super-charged Classic, with most additions being skills from retail. There wasn't any care to retain classic's difficulty.

[@cr0wmatic]

I can't eat a sandwich without mayo. But, I can eat one without mustard. So I'd have to pick mayo.

[@EpeenKing]

SHOCKING how different, and bad, the retail experience here is than classic.

[@EpeenKing]

Maybe not all caps shocking, but no wonder new players aren't getting into retail.

[@mikko3]

@@EpeenKing "but no wonder new players aren't getting into retail" new players get into retail every day

[@Nico78Not]

@@mikko3 ... No they don't.

[@EnderSword]

I hadn't played retail in like 10 years and tried it again a few months ago, and I have this same feel that I was on rails in this foreign area, and I got to the mid 20s in it and never felt like I had control over what to do or had time to like, go to town and just explore things. It was feeling like the new user experience in Retail now is more focused on simply accelerating you to the high level so you could play what other people are playing.

[@IrrieldeCZ]

This is why I level my alts in Outland, Northrend or in Cataclysm Azeroth. You pick up a dozen of quests in a single hub and the game let's you sort out your own pathing.

[@mattweber2512]

That's true, but it's also by demand. Even as early as BC players wanted ways to level up faster. Also WoW has like 10 expansions worth of stuff that doesn't matter anymore. There has to be some level of guidance at this point.

[@mikko3]

That is just untrue, you can literally do anything you want when ever you want

[@drdankenstein1753]

2:06:46 Why can't it be both?

[@Ziggybits]

@day9 I would love it if you played some Guild Wars 2. Just saying

[@KnownAsKenji]

What a boss move, going all-in on the bald while playing WoW retail to support Asmongold.

[@LKB_AAU]

Do spells just not cost any mana in retail wow? what is going on

[@dr.krieger5847]

I personally prefer retail over classic but c'est la vie. Something for everyone!

[@kylestonebraker3050]

I played WoW for a number of years and god all of the Lore Master achievements. I could likely count on my hand the number of quests actually read. There is something to be said for classic actually forcing you to engage with the content.

[@casaroli]

Or going to wowhead haha

[@LuckySmurf]

@@casaroli Why do people keep acting like Classic WoW has some aura of mystery when sites like wowhead exists? edit: By "classic" I'm referring to the official version Blizzard released, not the actual vanilla experience of original WoW when that content was current when WoW was first released.

[@RandomFlask175]

Original classic like 2004 had you engage with the content, do you seriously think 99% of people are going to "engage" with it? They're still boring ass quests lmao

[@Linguistie]

​@@LuckySmurfbecause using wowhead is not the default experience

[@LuckySmurf]

@@Linguistie I should have specified, but when I say "classic" I'm referring to the version Blizzard officially released, not the original vanilla WoW experience (where people actually had to figure stuff out for themselves).

[@spaceorbison]

It's so stupid it never leaves you alone to immerse yourself in the world....

[@heroclix0rz]

I'm the last one to defend what retail has become, but regarding the giant boar sequence, I think it was intended to introduce you, a brand new user, to the possibility of quirky and specialized vehicle quests. But primarily, I think they wanted to show you a bunch of damage numbers flashing on the screen, because that's the dopamine rush some people need to be interested.

[@willdecker5752]

You should give Elder Scrolls Online a try. I’d like to see you give it a try. Think you would like it

[@TheAcogshot]

I don't remember the tutorial being this hard?

[@arsteel2388]

As far as level scaling, the game that made me hate it was actually Diablo 4. I went from disliking it to hating it. I remember when I got to fight The Butcher and went "Man, if I'd been a few levels lower I would have won" because I'd been using the same gear for a while.

[@Ecrious]

He doesn't understand what he wants is in the end game for retail rather than in the start like classic, but the problem then is the reliance on addons to do everything for the player. Hot button topic.

[@SaiyanKCM]

Good choice shaving your dome. Looking good my man

[@Arcexey]

This isn't world of warcraft, this is Fornite, this is Raid Shadow Legends, this is Bejeweled. they've massacred our boy.

[@Rudepetsclub]

You can be critical of something without disliking it 😊

[@MattHembling]

And more importantly, you can dislike something without it being a mortal stain on your character

[@fwoqma]

i was going to agree until ☺, now i am spitefully against you

[@heroclix0rz]

In film they say "show, don't tell". Maybe the analog for games is "challenge, don't show or tell".

[@RodxSsk]

Imagine playing a game like Elden RIng, then BG3, WoW Classic, and then WoW retail waiting to find out things on your own.... Oh my sweet Day9, you are so adorably naive.... #CamelForLife

[@biomjolk]

This is like my dad learning about video games

[@DelPlays]

This version of the game is basically what Sean and his mods would've kept banning entire playthrough of Classic Era. The handhelding and "backseating" starts before you even touch the keyboard and it quite literally never stops. This time it's just not the chat backseating, but it's the game itself. And that's something that killed the whole community and made the whole game into a pipe run with 95% of it being dead content until you reach max level of current expansion. It does look shiny and new tho, with smoother animations. (Compared to Classic)

[@gamepiecevideo]

100% on lvl scaling!

[@EyesOnSurvive]

Altenton is the goat!

[@wh0racle3]

see i wish you played Classic a little bit longer, long enough to get Blink, Frost Nova, and Cone of Cold, then you feel like a real mage

[@t0nkatsu]

I wanted to see him do the Deadmines

[@Holyrelic1279]

i believe if you are a brand new player, you are more or less forced to go to exile reach, only folks with alts get the option of starting zone or not

[@AMVmushroom]

Damn that really sucks

[@DarkScreamGames]

​@@AMVmushroom Not really, the found people were bouncing off the old quest zones because they don't teach you anything. The younger generation for various reasons needs structure and clear direction to be comfortable, Ambiguity and potential for failure are terrifying to them- Not knowing what to do makes them feel anxiety and shame. Exiles Reach retains players, they drop off in BFA content usually (I watch a lot of "first timer" videos)

[@alexandretrajano8927]

PLEASE PLAY OLD SCHOOL RUNESCAPE, DAY9

[@ppensen]

Man that guy looks oddly familar to the dream character in bg3 haha 😉

[@MrDevilRays]

I kinda get what he means about his hatred of Level scaling, but what would he prefer instead? If a brand new player (or an alt, if you didn't boost it) to go through all 9 expansions? Honestly curious what he would want out of WoW, if he were to ever play it again.

[@SoTOreo]

I kinda disagree in terms of the gameplay loop being different in classic and retail.... even like he said the gameplay in classic was slow and dull but there was risk of death sure... so it FELT like more gameplay. but the retail tutorial experience is just everything you would get in classic wow just condensed and simplified and they hold your hand so yea theres little risk of failure. so yea its a much more rushed experience but it also gives you an idea of "is this game for you?" i know many people who got bored of classic wow on its original release because its so slow paced and takes too long to get to the games strong point which is dungeon and group play.

[@Tinypiranah]

The chatter that says the world scales isn't entirely correct though? The world scales up, not down so you couldnt go to badlands as a level 20 but you can stay in elwynn as a level 40 if you like

[@AkiRa22084]

It took him 29 minutes to read a Spell description...

[@g_vo]

Classic is a more immersive RPG that really focuses on the journey and class identity. Over time they changed and added so many quality of life features it’s just not the same game anymore. Retail is way more fast paced, more buttons and more streamlined. It’s all about getting to max level and doing the raids/dungeons rather then the journey to make it there. Anything that isn’t the current expansion is forgotten instead of being built upon. Love em both but they’re both unique in their own way.

[@ConfusedRaccoon]

I remember having like 7 mods that did everything that seems to now be standard. I had no idea it held your hand this hard now. Did he ever experience Hogger?