WoW Classic is currently providing proof that a good online role-playing game simply has to be uncomfortable and time-consuming in certain areas. Because only if you take away a certain comfort from the players and constantly force them to have to team up with other heroes will a fascinating online community and the feeling of a big, lively world emerge in the end.

You may remember: In early 2018, in my column Legion is the better game, but vanilla* was the better MMORPG , I put forward the thesis, among other things, that the original WoW (buy now) was a significantly better online role-playing game than the Legion expansion of the time or other modern genre representatives for various reasons. Since the launch last week, WoW Classic has strengthened my opinion day after day.

Because while I’ve only recently written an extensive special on Final Fantasy 14 ‘s amazing community, it’s been a long time since I found the social interactions on an MMORPG server so important, frequent, and – in most cases – positive , as was the case in my first few weeks with WoW Classic. And when it comes to how well a game does as an MMORPG, I think that community aspect, that feeling of walking through a huge, persistent world full of players and interacting with them for different reasons, is extremely important.

Many modern online role-playing games torpedo this feeling because they want to attract as many players as possible to their servers and therefore grind down edges, put the comfort when traveling, for example, at the top, design content solo-friendly and offer umpteen options to achieve a goal ( e.g. different levels of difficulty for dungeons and raids).

Don’t get me wrong: With my job and family, I’ve become an occasional MMO player myself in recent years, who is happy to be able to complete the stories and many of the challenges in The Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy 14, Guild Wars 2 or WoW: BfA to be able to experience. At the same time, I also have to realize that a vanilla WoW back then or a WoW Classic today exerts a completely different kind of fascination on me.

Simply because you are constantly forced to team up with other players to master difficult quests, share rare quest opponents, find a group for a dungeon without the help of an automated tool, or later do the raids or successfully play PvP to be able to But also because the small successes feel much more valuable due to the higher effort. Or also because the world feels much larger due to the lack of fast travel options and thus a bit more intimidating, but also more fascinating.

For my part, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that WoW Classic will be enormously successful. On the one hand, so that I can still hang around on a well-populated server in a few months – because it will certainly take that long until I reach level 60. On the other hand, so that other developers might have the courage to develop a new online role-playing game that deliberately doesn’t appeal to the largest possible target group, but simply wants to be a really good MMORPG. Unfortunately, neither works in my opinion.

At the beginning of 2018 we still referred to Classic as the original vanilla WoW. That changed with the release of Classic WoW.

What is WoW Classic?

World of Warcraft Classic is a true recreation of the original WoW as you know it from 2006. All parts of the game – from combat mechanics and talent trees to character models and zones – have been recreated, contributing to the authentic experience.

Getting Started

All players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or game time on their accounts have access toWoW Classic at no additional cost.

1. Open the Blizzard Battle.net Desktop App and select World of Warcraft from the menu.
2. Select World of Warcraft Classic from the Version menu. If you have more than one World of Warcraft account, you’ll see a second Account drop-down list. In this column, select the active account you want to play with.
3. Click the Install button. The progress bar will tell you when your game is ready to play.
4. Click the Play button when the installation is complete.

You will need to select the realm you want to play on from several different realm types. Make sure you choose the same realm as your friends – in World of Warcraft Classic, you can only group with characters that are on the same realm as you!

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