World of Warcraft: Retail, Classic and Private

[Norfleet]

Of course it's true. People do this all the time. The Korean Mafia has done this for decades. Hell, the Chinese buy entire gaming companies to launder money with.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It would be more credible if she elaborated on what apocalyptic threat she and the Jailer might have been referring to. I wouldn't jeopardize my civilization based on some evil cackling villain suddenly saying "actually I am not bad! I am trying to save us all! Just trust me!"

[mynameismortis]

It would be more credible if she elaborated on what apocalyptic threat she and the Jailer might have been referring to. I wouldn't jeopardize my civilization based on some evil cackling villain suddenly saying "actually I am not bad! I am trying to save us all! Just trust me!"

Can someone nuke the offices of blizzard? With the head karen inside of them?

[Finarfin]

I mean the animation wasn't bad, but this whole "I'm not the big bad, there is some other bigger badder so join me and be big bad with me so we can make azeroth some voidhole where we can live" is annoying, I hope Midnight or Last Titan will actually tell us or show us who or what this threat is.

[mynameismortis]

The threat would be titans of course, they are the bad guys behind everything, they are the voids lords in disguise!

[Breathe]

Does the server layering ruin the experience of Classic? By that I mean are people so separated and atomized that it feels like an isolated experience?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I mean the animation wasn't bad, but this whole "I'm not the big bad, there is some other bigger badder so join me and be big bad with me so we can make azeroth some voidhole where we can live" is annoying, I hope Midnight or Last Titan will actually tell us or show us who or what this threat is.

It's frustrating because Blizzard seems to - in part - be basing Xala'tath off of Emet-Selch. Snarky, floating ancient dark wizard pursuing an evil plan related to the god at the center of the world. But the execution is appalling. Emet-Selch told you within a few hours after meeting him in 5.0 what was going on, his motivations, his plans, etc. But here we are, running up on soon to be 3 years after Xala'tath's reintroduction into the main story at the end of Dragonflight, and we still don't have very basic information about what she is trying to accomplish, the why, how, etc.

[Oyster Sauce]

Does the server layering ruin the experience of Classic? By that I mean are people so separated and atomized that it feels like an isolated experience?

People constantly abusing layer changes to get access to resource nodes or to avoid enemy players is annoying and abusive, but I wouldn't say it makes you feel isolated. 2 layers tops on the most populated servers when Classic was new, then they dropped down to 1 when the population dwindled.

In general, there are more people in the world than there ever were in 2004 due to higher server caps, but they'll be less talkative due to Discord.

[mynameismortis]

I mean the animation wasn't bad, but this whole "I'm not the big bad, there is some other bigger badder so join me and be big bad with me so we can make azeroth some voidhole where we can live" is annoying, I hope Midnight or Last Titan will actually tell us or show us who or what this threat is.

It's frustrating because Blizzard seems to - in part - be basing Xala'tath off of Emet-Selch. Snarky, floating ancient dark wizard pursuing an evil plan related to the god at the center of the world. But the execution is appalling. Emet-Selch told you within a few hours after meeting him in 5.0 what was going on, his motivations, his plans, etc. But here we are, running up on soon to be 3 years after Xala'tath's reintroduction into the main story at the end of Dragonflight, and we still don't have very basic information about what she is trying to accomplish, the why, how, etc.

wasn't she introduced WAAAAY back in Legion/BFA?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I mean the animation wasn't bad, but this whole "I'm not the big bad, there is some other bigger badder so join me and be big bad with me so we can make azeroth some voidhole where we can live" is annoying, I hope Midnight or Last Titan will actually tell us or show us who or what this threat is.

It's frustrating because Blizzard seems to - in part - be basing Xala'tath off of Emet-Selch. Snarky, floating ancient dark wizard pursuing an evil plan related to the god at the center of the world. But the execution is appalling. Emet-Selch told you within a few hours after meeting him in 5.0 what was going on, his motivations, his plans, etc. But here we are, running up on soon to be 3 years after Xala'tath's reintroduction into the main story at the end of Dragonflight, and we still don't have very basic information about what she is trying to accomplish, the why, how, etc.

wasn't she introduced WAAAAY back in Legion/BFA?

She was the Shadow priest artifact weapon and would whisper to the player. So only a fraction of the playerbase that played that class and that spec even knew who she was. And then the artifacts were destroyed in 7.3.5. She then cameoed in the Horde war campaign in a BFA patch where Sylvanas releases her from the dagger, she possesses an elf body, and walks through a portal, and that's the last we saw of her for years. She was a minor part of a storyline that half of the playerbase didn't see. It wasn't until the final patch of Dragonflight that she was finally reintroduced as the big bad of the Worldsoul Saga in the main questline that everyone has to do.

[Algol]

I played WoW Classic solo a few months ago for, like, a month, AMA

(It wasn't all that)

[Finarfin]

I mean the animation wasn't bad, but this whole "I'm not the big bad, there is some other bigger badder so join me and be big bad with me so we can make azeroth some voidhole where we can live" is annoying, I hope Midnight or Last Titan will actually tell us or show us who or what this threat is.

It's frustrating because Blizzard seems to - in part - be basing Xala'tath off of Emet-Selch. Snarky, floating ancient dark wizard pursuing an evil plan related to the god at the center of the world. But the execution is appalling. Emet-Selch told you within a few hours after meeting him in 5.0 what was going on, his motivations, his plans, etc. But here we are, running up on soon to be 3 years after Xala'tath's reintroduction into the main story at the end of Dragonflight, and we still don't have very basic information about what she is trying to accomplish, the why, how, etc.

****, Emet-Selch truly was the best thing that came out of FFXIV. They really should've made her Femet-Selch.

[J1M]

People that would care about the story post-Cata have alts. They knew who she was.

[rusty_shackleford]

People that would care about the story post-Cata

""people"" is a strong word here

[Bhaalspawn Jr]

It would be more credible if she elaborated on what apocalyptic threat she and the Jailer might have been referring to. I wouldn't jeopardize my civilization based on some evil cackling villain suddenly saying "actually I am not bad! I am trying to save us all! Just trust me!"

Where's Iridikron in all this? I thought he was cool.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

It would be more credible if she elaborated on what apocalyptic threat she and the Jailer might have been referring to. I wouldn't jeopardize my civilization based on some evil cackling villain suddenly saying "actually I am not bad! I am trying to save us all! Just trust me!"

Where's Iridikron in all this? I thought he was cool.

A fellow Iridikron fan! No word on his status since Dragonflight ended. Dawn of the Infinite presented him as being extremely powerful, so it'll be interesting to see what the devs do with him in The Last Titan.

[LemonDemonGirl]

This one is slightly better but... Why?

[LemonDemonGirl]

At least this Bwonsamdi art looks ok though

[Oyster Sauce]

found a manifesto from my classic guild



also

i would like to test someting (hard hit cap) on my rogue 24% hit (i know it's crazy) but if my calculation are right she will be at 0 miss chance on dual weild so if i can come(cum too) on her next mc just for fun testing No dkp i dont care i just want to see how the toons goes in dps with a real core and if by any chance i can have a mc weapon cool if not i dont care ty! i dont know if ours rogues already test it,if yess message me i have couple of question. i repeat NO dkp reward foe me that will be my bill to pay

[Vergil]

found a manifesto from my classic guild



also

i would like to test someting (hard hit cap) on my rogue 24% hit (i know it's crazy) but if my calculation are right she will be at 0 miss chance on dual weild so if i can come(cum too) on her next mc just for fun testing No dkp i dont care i just want to see how the toons goes in dps with a real core and if by any chance i can have a mc weapon cool if not i dont care ty! i dont know if ours rogues already test it,if yess message me i have couple of question. i repeat NO dkp reward foe me that will be my bill to pay

At least there's no jizz pizza

[Maledict]

I'm binging WoW challenge runs (fishlocked, goldlocked, dungeonlocked, etc.) and the game looks magnificent. I can see why it absolutely dominates the MMO market. No other game can ever come close due to how long-standing WOW is, so it is absolutely abundant in content. Furthermore, it just "gets it". The graphics style is pristine. It has this relaxing child-like wonder to it but is meant for adults. If I played games enough per month (work gets in the way big-time) I absolutely would subscribe.

I don't get why HUmans are Alliance-locked though. They seem to have 2 human races with Worgen being werewolves. The horde just has dead humans, which sucks. There is also too many furry races.

[rusty_shackleford]

found a manifesto from my classic guild



also

i would like to test someting (hard hit cap) on my rogue 24% hit (i know it's crazy) but if my calculation are right she will be at 0 miss chance on dual weild so if i can come(cum too) on her next mc just for fun testing No dkp i dont care i just want to see how the toons goes in dps with a real core and if by any chance i can have a mc weapon cool if not i dont care ty! i dont know if ours rogues already test it,if yess message me i have couple of question. i repeat NO dkp reward foe me that will be my bill to pay

hate how people use having a job and kids as an excuse to never do anything fun
what's the point of living at that point

[Maledict]

I want to make an Undead Priest or Monk. Does either of those classes get less slouched as an Undead? As far as I can see this is the only way I can play as a human in the Horde.

Is there a point to playing just up to lvl 20 cap for f2p? Is there much I can do?

[Finarfin]

No. Undead stay hunched.

[Maledict]

I can't make a battlenet account. It says I'm not human. I give up.

[methoxetamine]

I can't make a battlenet account. It says I'm not human. I give up.

Bullet dodged, count your blessings

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Humans are not Horde because 1. the story and 2. the faction flavor.

1. The TLDR of the Warcraft storyline is that Orcs are aliens from another planet called Draenor. They were once many different nomadic tribes, but a demon impersonated the spirit of an orc ancestor ghost and appeared to an orc shaman, and led him on the path of rallying all of the orc clans and partaking in drinking demon blood and pledging their souls to evil. They then massacred their neighbors on their homeworld and used Fel magicks to destroy it, and then began setting their eyes on other worlds, the first one they invaded being Azeroth which is where most of WoW takes place on. The Horde wiped out half of the human kingdoms and also ravaged the high elves too. An Alliance of humans, elves, and dwarves was formed and they defeated the Orcs, but mercifully allowed them to live in internment camps. The orcs eventually escaped internment and migrated Westward to a relatively unpopulated continent called Kalimdor, but soon returned back to their warlike ways and have been the scourge of civilization.

There is no scenario in which sane, civilized people should want to join the Horde, when the righteous and strong Alliance is right there and welcomes anyone who is not a serial mass murderer. Except for the initial slaughter of the Draenei neighbors on their homeworld, the Horde has lost every single war it has ever waged. Defeated in the invasion of Azeroth at Blackrock Mountain. Their new capital city of Orgrimmar was raided by the Alliance at the end of MoP, and then again besieged by the Alliance at the end of BFA. And all of the splinter Hordes were destroyed like the Dark Horde, the Iron Horde, the Fel Horde, etc.

It has been an undead topic on WoW forums whenever the talk of new races joining the Horde comes up. The original four makes sense, but after that you get extremely egregious new race inclusions like elves joining the Horde when their kingdom was ravaged by the Horde and their kingdom was historically allied with the humans and shares the same values of civilization, chivalry, etc. John Staats in an AMA revealed that Elves were inserted into the Horde to raise the Asian Horde player population. And then other races like the peaceful, civilized Pandaren or Vulpera have comically had no coherent explanations for why they would chose to join the evil loser faction.


2. The point of the Warcraft franchise is that it is about visually distinct factions fighting each other, be it Horde vs Alliance in the first game, or Night Elves vs Scourge vs Legion in TFT. You do not want to have the same races on multiple sides and doing so dilutes the game. Night Elves being added to Horde as Nightborne is still a major source of discontent amongst Warcraft fans to this day (along with blood elves). If you want to play a civilized human, you should play Alliance as they are about being civilized beautiful peoples who worship the Light. You play Horde if you want to be a stinky pagan beastman dwelling in mudhuts.

Is there a point to playing just up to lvl 20 cap for f2p? Is there much I can do?

All of the expansions and their questlines up through BFA should level scale with you from level 10 onwards, so you should theoretically have access to all of the content in the game except for Shadowlands/Dragonflight/TWW. You can use Chromie time to help facilitate going through the story of certain expansions. The main issue is that you need to go through the first Dragonflight or TWW zone story to unlock Dragonriding, which makes travel more engaging and 2. is 3x faster than the old static flying. That means you have to pay. I think free trial accounts were able to get Dragonriding if they created a MoP or Legion Remix character, but there is no Remix event currently happening and probably won't happen for another couple years until towards the end of Midnight's patch cycle.

There are a lot of neat questlines you can do, but they might not be as impactful to you if you are not already invested in the Warcraft story. You also have the issue that for WoW's story, you kinda had to be there to get it. A lot of major story stuff has been removed, happened in out of print books or hard to find PDF short stories, happened in tweets that are now hard to find, etc. And there is just too much story to go through the whole thing in chronological order. There was a youtube cottage industry of people like Nobbel87 making 2 or 3 hours long story summary videos for people.

Much of the story is also locked behind timegated rep grinds. You would also have to do a lot of dungeons and raids, and you will not be able to do the vast majority of the raids while level and gear synced and with a full raid team that the experience was designed for. You will have to be grossly overlevelled and/or doing a transmog run with other overlevelled people, and you will be one shotting bosses before you get to see the story play out, and it will kill the experience. And many other issues. You are looking at a truly enormous timesink, and for what? You never really get a truly satisfactory story/RPG experience. You would get significantly more bang for your buck playing a real singleplayer RPG, or reading a VN or a book. FF14's story is much better presented.

If you really want to check out the best WoW storylines, then I would recommend doing the MoP or WoD levelling questlines. Sadly the actual best questlines in the game, the MoP legendary questline and the BFA prepatch War of Thorns campaign, were removed.


The best thing you could probably do in WoW is tour through the various high fantasy zones (again, getting Skyriding will make this more enjoyable). Admire the art and the music. And then maybe get to level cap for the current expansion (assuming you pay) and participate in the spectacular 25 man raid setpiece fights, which no other game has anything like.







You could also participate in RP campaigns hosted on Moon Guard, though with a free trial account capped at level 20, you might be unable to acquire raid/dungeon/quest/rep transmogs added after BFA. If an RP event happens in the Dragon Isles or Khaz Algar, you will be unable to attend.

[Maledict]

You wrote all that but Battlenet says I'm not human, so I can't make an account, so I won't play. Stay gay, *****.

[Finarfin]

Humans are not Horde because 1. the story and 2. the faction flavor.

1. The TLDR of the Warcraft storyline is that Orcs are aliens from another planet called Draenor. They were once many different nomadic tribes, but a demon impersonated the spirit of an orc ancestor ghost and appeared to an orc shaman, and led him on the path of rallying all of the orc clans and partaking in drinking demon blood and pledging their souls to evil. They then massacred their neighbors on their homeworld and used Fel magicks to destroy it, and then began setting their eyes on other worlds, the first one they invaded being Azeroth which is where most of WoW takes place on. The Horde wiped out half of the human kingdoms and also ravaged the high elves too. An Alliance of humans, elves, and dwarves was formed and they defeated the Orcs, but mercifully allowed them to live in internment camps. The orcs eventually escaped internment and migrated Westward to a relatively unpopulated continent called Kalimdor, but soon returned back to their warlike ways and have been the scourge of civilization.

There is no scenario in which sane, civilized people should want to join the Horde, when the righteous and strong Alliance is right there and welcomes anyone who is not a serial mass murderer. Except for the initial slaughter of the Draenei neighbors on their homeworld, the Horde has lost every single war it has ever waged. Defeated in the invasion of Azeroth at Blackrock Mountain. Their new capital city of Orgrimmar was raided by the Alliance at the end of MoP, and then again besieged by the Alliance at the end of BFA. And all of the splinter Hordes were destroyed like the Dark Horde, the Iron Horde, the Fel Horde, etc.

It has been an undead topic on WoW forums whenever the talk of new races joining the Horde comes up. The original four makes sense, but after that you get extremely egregious new race inclusions like elves joining the Horde when their kingdom was ravaged by the Horde and their kingdom was historically allied with the humans and shares the same values of civilization, chivalry, etc. John Staats in an AMA revealed that Elves were inserted into the Horde to raise the Asian Horde player population. And then other races like the peaceful, civilized Pandaren or Vulpera have comically had no coherent explanations for why they would chose to join the evil loser faction.


2. The point of the Warcraft franchise is that it is about visually distinct factions fighting each other, be it Horde vs Alliance in the first game, or Night Elves vs Scourge vs Legion in TFT. You do not want to have the same races on multiple sides and doing so dilutes the game. Night Elves being added to Horde as Nightborne is still a major source of discontent amongst Warcraft fans to this day (along with blood elves). If you want to play a civilized human, you should play Alliance as they are about being civilized beautiful peoples who worship the Light. You play Horde if you want to be a stinky pagan beastman dwelling in mudhuts.

Is there a point to playing just up to lvl 20 cap for f2p? Is there much I can do?

All of the expansions and their questlines up through BFA should level scale with you from level 10 onwards, so you should theoretically have access to all of the content in the game except for Shadowlands/Dragonflight/TWW. You can use Chromie time to help facilitate going through the story of certain expansions. The main issue is that you need to go through the first Dragonflight or TWW zone story to unlock Dragonriding, which makes travel more engaging and 2. is 3x faster than the old static flying. That means you have to pay. I think free trial accounts were able to get Dragonriding if they created a MoP or Legion Remix character, but there is no Remix event currently happening and probably won't happen for another couple years until towards the end of Midnight's patch cycle.

There are a lot of neat questlines you can do, but they might not be as impactful to you if you are not already invested in the Warcraft story. You also have the issue that for WoW's story, you kinda had to be there to get it. A lot of major story stuff has been removed, happened in out of print books or hard to find PDF short stories, happened in tweets that are now hard to find, etc. And there is just too much story to go through the whole thing in chronological order. There was a youtube cottage industry of people like Nobbel87 making 2 or 3 hours long story summary videos for people.

Much of the story is also locked behind timegated rep grinds. You would also have to do a lot of dungeons and raids, and you will not be able to do the vast majority of the raids while level and gear synced and with a full raid team that the experience was designed for. You will have to be grossly overlevelled and/or doing a transmog run with other overlevelled people, and you will be one shotting bosses before you get to see the story play out, and it will kill the experience. And many other issues. You are looking at a truly enormous timesink, and for what? You never really get a truly satisfactory story/RPG experience. You would get significantly more bang for your buck playing a real singleplayer RPG, or reading a VN or a book. FF14's story is much better presented.

If you really want to check out the best WoW storylines, then I would recommend doing the MoP or WoD levelling questlines. Sadly the actual best questlines in the game, the MoP legendary questline and the BFA prepatch War of Thorns campaign, were removed.


The best thing you could probably do in WoW is tour through the various high fantasy zones (again, getting Skyriding will make this more enjoyable). Admire the art and the music. And then maybe get to level cap for the current expansion (assuming you pay) and participate in the spectacular 25 man raid setpiece fights, which no other game has anything like.







You could also participate in RP campaigns hosted on Moon Guard, though with a free trial account capped at level 20, you might be unable to acquire raid/dungeon/quest/rep transmogs added after BFA. If an RP event happens in the Dragon Isles or Khaz Algar, you will be unable to attend.

You can count on Val to have informative and cool posts about the games and their lore.

[mynameismortis]

I had some "interesting" experience from TBC anniversary that reminded me why i stopped playing. I'm almost lv 67, did quite a few dungeons already have friends who are lv 70 and they told me the same things i have been experiencing.... How are these players alive? I will point a case from a few days ago where i did slave pens with a paladin tank,priest heal,mage,hunter and me ele shaman who was the TOP DPS + had most interrupts or any kind of CC use. Mage was spamming blizzard half the time the other half was AFK, hunter just used arcane shot and couldn't use traps. I swear it felt like eternity in this dungeon. This is also the average lv 70 heroic dungeon from what i was told and seen + loot rezzing for items before the start , tanks/healers demanding rezz for OS and if they are not given would leave. Does retail have such problems or is it just classic?