The value of WoW Classic is not just nostalgia



[ad_1]

I have died eight times before reaching level 10 of World of Warcraft Classic. Compared to World of Warcraft vanilla in 2005, it was probably much more effective than the first time. Whether you call the current version of World of Warcraft in "live" or "retail", you really only die in the open world if you make a stupid mistake. WoW Classic is an amazing reminder that the game once seemed very comfortable to knock down players.

In the two years since the announcement of WoW Classic at the BlizzCon 2017, the mood has changed dramatically. At first, the majority of the feeling was asking, "Why would anyone want to go back?" But a hardcore tribe of WoW vanilla fans, so serious in her old-school experience that she had chased down private black market servers to get the feeling that everyone was OG, felt very different.

No caption provided

In recent months, with the classic beta offering many players and streamers an opportunity to look back and let nostalgic love back into their hearts, it seemed like everyone was ready for launch day.

Indeed, too many people were ready for the launch day.

The queues were ridiculous, with over 20,000 waiting times over a half day on some servers. Fortunately for some, rotten for others, the server failures saw the queues turn a little faster, but the ones that broke down ended up being sent to the back of the server. waiting line. Blizzard has launched additional servers to spread the load and help people get in and have fun. But the reason so many people stayed in these queues instead of switching to an easy server is an important part of what people were looking for in Classic.

No, not the queue itself. "A real day, an experience, lol" was the scream of routing, but the reason people stayed on the ground was fundamental: people had planned to play with old friends and reform old guilds. a new server on the fly.

No caption provided

Classic is all about the community. Even at these early levels, the game plays a bit like why people fall in love with newer games that are touted for their difficulty. Yes, World of Warcraft is not really a "hard" game like Dark Souls, but to succeed in a minimum time, you need friends.

In 2005, WoW was perceived as so ubiquitous in the Silicon Valley circles that he's built a reputation for "new golf". A place where people met and met. Run a dungeon together. Fishing. Discuss your business sitting at Booty Bay.

Some of these things may have all been talked about, but in my own experience as a tech and game novice journalist, I made friends with future colleagues through the game. I joined a guild and Regularly spent time with people I had met in the industry, which helped to consolidate contacts and networks of work. If I had created World of Warcraft in recent years, years since I had automated random queues of dungeons and raids, as well as tools that allowed you to group with people without needing to type a word or know their names, I did not feel like I would have so easily built such networks of friends in the game.

No caption provided

In the early days of WoW Classic, where everyone was at a low level, sharing resources and lean crowds in the older parts of the game, spontaneous groups formed as people helped each other out. to complete their quests in order to progress a little faster and with a minimum of loss of life. . I've been invited to the band on my very first level one quest – "Hey, we have to kill things, let's kill things together."

The global chat channel in a multiplayer game was actually full of nice and helpful comments for once, as people answered questions or requests for help from each other. It was as if social media had all made us (or at least me) the jaded cynics we have become.

Crowds named for early quests posed a particular problem. At first, people had just formed circles and partied in groups of five. If you had the first shot, lucky, you and your four friends. But then, rumors began to circulate that some servers were spontaneous queues to eliminate bottlenecks. If I had not seen the screenshots, I would have thought it was an urban myth.

On one of the servers that was launched to lighten the queues too long, I jumped in just to be in the game, run, have fun. One of the most frequently asked questions during the online discussions was that this particular, bright and new server, with no waiting line at the door, was too empty. People wanted to play but they wanted to play with as many people as possible. Delays in waiting for boars or quest leaders were less disturbing than the idea that we could end up in Azeroth alone. Again.

Over the years, Blizzard has made World of Warcraft a game that gives everyone something to do at any time. Dungeons Raids. Battlefield. Arenas. World Quests. Mount pick up. Pet collecting. Pet Battles. Fishing tournaments. Transmog outfits. Whether you have five minutes or five hours, there is something to do. And there is a simple way to intervene and start doing it as soon as you log in. But all the changes had raised a big question that seemed impossible to Blizzard to answer: "Can you let me play WoW as he was before?"

World of Warcraft Classic provides it. And the reasons to play it are beyond its graphics and mechanics.

No caption provided

Today, with all these options in the main game, systems easy to queue up and get as a productivity specialist, the goal has become a series of successful metrics and trinket collections (and I love my collection of trinkets, by the way). The world itself, Azeroth, and the friends you have gathered along the way have moved into the background. We played in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, but we did it all by ourselves.

For a while in WoW Classic, I saw someone asking for signatures to form a new guild. I was on the other side of the area, but it seemed like a good thing to do. I'm not here to launch the XP as fast as possible, I thought; I am here to interact. To enjoy the trip. I let them know that I was going to help, finished my current quest and then went back to the hostel and registered me.

The guild called "Over there, over and over again".

Their: "Thanks for signing, once the guild is formed, do not hesitate to leave, of course."

Me: "Excellent name, I think maybe I'll stay."

[ad_2]

Source link