How’s WoW nowadays?

[danzibr]

How’s WoW nowadays compare to WoW back in, say… WotLK days?

For some background info, my wife and I started in BC, played pretty seriously, kept it up until partway through WotLK. She stopped playing, and I only played casually and occasionally (even skipping entire expansions) up through Legion. I know about Cataclysm, pet battles, artifacts, things like that, but again, only casually.

I ask because we’re thinking about picking WoW back up, probably roll Alliance this time (always wanted to), but it’d be a bit of an investment, need a new computer.

[animorte]

You just described my brother and his wife. We all played together during BC and WotLK. Those were honestly the best days. I was more casual around that time, getting into the "Pokemon" aspect a little bit, then soon moved on to other games. They continued to play into the next expansion seriously, even tried to get me back into it for their own guild for raids and top level PvP. After that though, they were more casual until eventually didn't play anymore. Then we all started having kids so it's been at least 6 years.

You played seriously, as in 25-person guild raids and/or capped 2v2/3v3? That's what we did. I just got tired of needing to do the same darn dungeons repeatedly in order to get the level-capped gear that was "required" to keep up. Only to do the same thing when gear updated the very next patch. I know it's all about the grind, but screw all that noise.

However, Classic WoW has been a thing and is currently back at BC, if I recall correctly. That was certainly the peak of WoW as far as we are collectively concerned, so that could be an option for you. Either way, there's plenty of stuff to do depending on which "jobs" you like to train and how much you get into the "Pocket Monsters" aspect. Or an endless grind to keep up with the rest of your raid team (however unorganized it may be).

I generally just preferred the various PvP modes with different characters capped at different levels (19, 29, 60).

[Kish]

Classic WoW has unfortunately moved on to WotLK, which stinks, so I'm not playing it. But if you want a comparison to what WoW was like when WotLK was first current, the answer is the Classic WotLK is better than original WotLK in every way: they've avoided a number of the mistakes they made the first time (most prominently the dungeon queue), at least so far. They're on the Ulduar patch now.

[danzibr]

You just described my brother and his wife. We all played together during BC and WotLK. Those were honestly the best days. I was more casual around that time, getting into the "Pokemon" aspect a little bit, then soon moved on to other games. They continued to play into the next expansion seriously, even tried to get me back into it for their own guild for raids and top level PvP. After that though, they were more casual until eventually didn't play anymore. Then we all started having kids so it's been at least 6 years.

You played seriously, as in 25-person guild raids and/or capped 2v2/3v3? That's what we did. I just got tired of needing to do the same darn dungeons repeatedly in order to get the level-capped gear that was "required" to keep up. Only to do the same thing when gear updated the very next patch. I know it's all about the grind, but screw all that noise.

However, Classic WoW has been a thing and is currently back at BC, if I recall correctly. That was certainly the peak of WoW as far as we are collectively concerned, so that could be an option for you. Either way, there's plenty of stuff to do depending on which "jobs" you like to train and how much you get into the "Pocket Monsters" aspect. Or an endless grind to keep up with the rest of your raid team (however unorganized it may be).

I generally just preferred the various PvP modes with different characters capped at different levels (19, 29, 60).
We were mostly raiders. A little bit of casual PvP, funsies.

And hm interesting... BC, the peak of WoW. From my limited experience with the new content, I can totally see that. Might be some nostalgia goggles though.

Thanks!

EDIT: @Kish ah I see your response, too.

Oh! I was aware of Classic WoW, but didn't realize it was different than the original in any way. Nice!

[Psyren]

Classic WoW has unfortunately moved on to WotLK, which stinks, so I'm not playing it. But if you want a comparison to what WoW was like when WotLK was first current, the answer is the Classic WotLK is better than original WotLK in every way: they've avoided a number of the mistakes they made the first time (most prominently the dungeon queue), at least so far. They're on the Ulduar patch now.

There are still a couple of Classic Era servers if you want to stick with Vanilla. They're not very populated however.

If you want to stick with TBC you're SOL; they judged that the number of people who like TBC but wouldn't want to move on to WotLK was likely too few to maintain a server for. (There might be some kind of revisitation of TBC Classic down the line one day though.)