PlayingWorld of WarcraftClassic in 2023 is like meeting up with an ex. You both know that you have very little in common now, but every now and then you check in to see if there’s anything worth holding onto. Meanwhile, playing WoW Retail feels more like reuniting with a childhood friend – you know it’s the same person underneath it all, but everything about them is different. In either case, it’s just not the same anymore. And yet, there’s an irresistible force that pulls me back into the game every time Blizzard releases a big patch or a brand-new expansion. The launch of Dragonflight in late 2022 was no different.
A few weeks before the release of Dragonflight I decided to jump back into WoW in preparation for the new expansion. This has been my tradition for close to 15 years, and I wasn’t about to break it now, especially since Dragonflight promised so many new features and improvements. Just to spice things up (and because Shadowlands is terrible), I decided to warm up with WoW Classic. It gave me a great perspective on the key differences between playing WoW Classic and WoW Retail in 2023, so I thought I’d share my experiences, anecdotes, and (mis)adventures from both games.
While this is a comparison piece between the two parallel versions of WoW today, for a more broad look that tells you if the game is worth playing as a whole,check out my 2023 World of Warcraft Re-Review.
Key Differences Between Classic And Retail
Classic World of Warcraft is basically just a recreation of the vanilla game without any of its many expansions. The developers made a few slight adjustments here and there but, for the most part, playing Classic feels just like playing World of Warcraft back in 2006 before the launch of The Burning Crusade, warts and all.
Following the success of Classic in 2019, two years later Blizzard decided to do something similar with the game’s first expansion, The Burning Crusade. Wrath of the Lich King, WoW’s second and most popular expansion, would end up getting the same treatment a year later. With the release of WotLK Classic, TBC Classic servers were shut down, however, the original WoW Classic continues to be playable and will probably not go away anytime soon.
In the interest of simplifying things, I’m going to refer to both WoW Classic and Wrath of the Lich King Classic as Classic for the purposes of this article. They are, after all, very similar in terms of gameplay and design philosophy. Everything up to and including Wrath of the Lich King is the first – and most popular - era of World of Warcraft. Let’s call it WoW Phase 1, if you will. Starting with the following expansion, Cataclysm, many things would end up changing, including much of the game world itself.
Meanwhile, ‘Retail’ is a colloquial term players started using after the release of WoW Classic and it simply refers to the current version of the game. It generally refers to the current expansion, but some players like to get a bit more specific and use it to denote the current patch. As of this writing, WoW retail is Dragonflight (patch 10.0.5). The developers advertised Dragonflight as WoW Phase 4, but it’s realistically more like Phase 3.5. There are some differences compared to previous expansions like Shadowlands and Battle For Azeroth, but there are far more similarities.
As far as Classic vs retail is concerned, you may look at them as being two different games set in the same universe. Classic puts a lot more emphasis on the leveling experience while retail is primarily all about the endgame. Leveling up characters is significantly more time-consuming in Classic, but you’re more likely to make friends along the way. Retail is pretty much the exact opposite in that regard, however, it makes up for it with more interesting and challenging endgame content. Visually, retail is definitely the better-looking of the two.
Tauren Death Knight level 61, Wrath of the Lich King Classic.
The ‘Classic’ Experience
Let’s begin with Classic. After completing the somewhat lengthy introductory questline, I made my way to the Hellfire Peninsula in Outland for what I assumed was going to be a rather uneventful questing experience. Hellfire Peninsula is, infamously, one of the dullest areas in Outland. However, things changed when I decided to speed things up by jumping into the Blood Furnace, one of the local dungeons.
Despite the fumbling, everyone in the party was patient and trying to help the Tank get better at their job.
After spending an embarrassing amount of time trying to remember where the entrance to the Blood Furnace actually was, I finally met up with my party and dove on into what is normally a pretty basic and linear dungeon. Once inside, we quickly came to realize that our Paladin tank was either new to the game or new to tanking and completely unable to grasp concepts like pulling, aggro, or line of sight, which caused us to get wiped numerous times and significantly extended our stay in the dungeon. Despite the fumbling, everyone in the party was patient and trying to help the Tank get better at their job in a situation that was becoming ever more frustrating.
Related:10 Essential Mods For WoW Wrath Of The Lich King Classic
In spite of all the encouragement, the tank ended up leaving and we had to find someone else to get us through the rest of the dungeon, but the experience left an impression on me regardless. Not because this was the first time I was seeing kindness and patience in World of Warcraft, but because I remembered how common it was back in the day. The only times when I was able to form something resembling friendships in this game was when playing the older expansions. Questing and leveling in old WoW is a more involved and sometimes annoying process, but it also gives players more time to meet fellow adventures and form connections.
The ‘Retail’ Experience
In stark contrast to my adventures through the Blood Furnace in Classic, my first experience playing one of the new Dragonflight dungeons was somewhat upsetting. Retail players expect excellence in all things, and one innocent mistake is often enough to get you kicked out of a party, which is exactly what happened to me during one of my first attempts at completing the Nokhud Offensive dungeon in Ohn’aran Plains.
Undead Mage level 65, World of Warcraft: Dragonflight.
I had just been questing for the Maruuk Centaurs, which entailed much the same fetch quests you can find in pretty much every other area of the game - collect 10 moose ears, collect 10 bear asses, tell Mary to be home for dinner, let John know that his sheep are running amok; you know the drill. Quests in WoW have always been boring, but back in the day you were forced to work with others to complete many of them and that’s not the case anymore. Every quest can be completed solo and you can reach max level even if you skip a good portion of them. Completing quests in Dragonflight is more about earning Renown with various factions than earning experience, gold, or items.
Since I wasn’t done questing here just yet, I figured I should do a dungeon to cleanse my palette and return afterward to the tedious task of helping the centaurs in the area. I queued for the Nokhud Offensive, the local dungeon, and was teleported inside moments later. To my surprise, the “dungeon” was just the Ohn’aran Plains, but now it had a bunch of bosses and different NPCs scattered around.
Before the last centaur had even hit the ground, I was kicked from the party without a single word.
My first reaction to finding myself in the very same place I was trying to escape was utter disappointment. However, since I had a quest there I figured I might as well go through with it and tried to catch up with the rest of my party, which was already miles ahead of me by the time I figured out that much of the dungeon revolves around the expansion’s newly added dragon-riding gimmick.
Sure enough, the first portion of the dungeon went smoothly as we cleared groups of mobs before taking on the bosses. Once three of the bosses were down, came the epic finale – the fight against Balakar Khan, mighty leader of Clan Nokhud and undoubtedly a fearsome opponent. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find out for myself because I was kicked out of the party on our way there and presumably replaced with a more competent player. When you’re playing a game that’s been around for as long as WoW has, people have certain expectations from you regardless of whether you’re a veteran or a newbie.
See, even though Dragonflight was less than a week old at that time, diligent players had already optimized the most efficient route through the dungeon, and clearly, it was already common knowledge that you have to make a beeline for Balakar Khan during the final stretch while avoiding all the mobs guarding the path leading to him. Sadly, I didn’t get the memo and by the time I pieced together what the plan was, it was already too late. I pulled some mobs while trying to catch up to my fellow party members - who were still continuing to race ahead of my limp non-upgraded dragon – and even though I immediately activated my Invisibility spell, every centaur in a mile-wide radius came barreling down on me, threatening to obliterate my frail undead body under a flurry of furious hooves.
One by one, my companions lazily trundled to my location and eventually saved me from the most horrible of fates – having to go back to the dungeon’s entrance and spend even more time in the Ohn’aran Plains. Needless to say, I apologized for my incompetence and promised to do better while the fight was still ongoing, but to no avail. Before the last centaur had even hit the ground, I was kicked from the party without a single word and forced to find a different, hopefully more forgiving, party.
Ironically, the next time I attempted the dungeon another player made the same mistake I had previously made and was met with the same swift punishment; I felt bad for them, but alas I wasn’t going to jeopardize my clearly fragile position in the party by saying as much. This time, I did get to face off against Balakar. Turns out he wasn’t that mighty after all, just another generic boss–an oversized Centaur with a slightly different skin, and possessing a handful of basic abilities like Stampede and Savage Strike along with some lightning-based AoE.
Whether you want to play Classic or Retail, unless you’re willing to take time out of your day to study boss mechanics and meta builds, you’ll have a difficult time finding enjoyment in this game when doing any sort of group content. I only used a simple dungeon as an example, but things get vastly more intense once you start raiding. Needless to say, there’s definitely an audience for that and I’m not surprised that many people are still playing it to this day.
As far as Classic is concerned, I find a lot more enjoyment in playing it compared to retail, but after spending countless hours in this game over the years it might be time to finally call it a day. Let’s face it, this is an almost ancient game at this point and while there are even older titles out there that I still love playing from time to time, the dated graphics, wonky animations, and general clunkiness of it all stops being charming and starts becoming annoying after a while. If Blizzard ever decides to make World of Warcraft 2, I’ll undoubtedly end up dedicating 100% of my free time to it. But for now, I’ve had my fill of Azeroth.
I’d still recommend Classic in a heartbeat to those who have never played the game before. But Retail? Not so much.
