Thinking about getting into WoW. Never played an MMO before, should I play retail or classic?

>Never played an MMO
Good, I don't see the appeal either

>>714523054 (OP)
idk but bump.
wish I had the time to sink into an MMO, I'd start up with you.

>>714523054 (OP)
Retail is not an MMO; Classic only if you're willing to swipe your credit card.

Turtle WoW

>>714523054 (OP)
its too late, you missed the golden years and you’ll never get to experience the kino that was WoW in this peak? why even live? just kys.

post it

>>714524284
>U
oist wgat?

>>714523873
>Classic only if you're willing to swipe your credit card
Found the retail tourist who doesn't actually enjoy classic (hence why he's swiping credit card to skip half the game)

>>714525287
>game is so ass people pay to skip it
classicsissies...

>>714525287
I don't care what you call me, classic is still a bot fest where everyone buys gold and pays to skip playing the game.

>>714523054 (OP)
Would.
Also retail & classic are completely different games, but you can try both with just 1 subscription. If you don't feel like paying money you could always try private servers.

>>714523054 (OP)
the real answer is that you should get the fuck away from the game and the genre in general but if you're stubborn then wait a few weeks and play project epoch

>>714525728
nobody is playing your dogshit meme server

>>714525795
okay

>>714523054 (OP)
I played TBC private server and got my orc shaman to lvl 60-something and then the server died lol.
I feel like playing dwarf paladin but I'm afraid whenever I'll go there'll be only mentally ill people (duh) who have played this game for 20 years and shout at me for not knowing the dungeon I play first time by heart.
I'm considering WoW SPP desu.

idk but definitely stay away from classic and private servers. classic is not vanilla at all. it uses the modern wow system of layering (basically creates multiple instances of even the barely populated zones)
in vanilla, people you interacted with early on would become familiar faces. you'd bump into them all the way throughout your leveling adventure. because you shared one single world. but in classic, you're in a permanent state of being partitioned off from other players. no more beefing with your fellow faction over contested farming spots. no more becoming an urban legend for the hostile faction to rally and shitpost about in general chat, by camping the one boat or road they all had to use. the world has no meaning when anyone can just layer hop if some other player is annoying them. nobody has to travel to odd places to get away from overpopulation issues. just layer bro. might not seem like a big deal if your interest is solo pve leveling and nothing else. but it also promotes botting to an insane degree. they hide on and manipulate their own bot layers to dodge reports.
the worst thing is that classic killed the private server scene. there's no hope of faithful custodianship like fans of everquest get to do. the egghead fans who cracked open wow server emulation moved on. the server runners that are left are businessmen. they buy ads on the internet so they can sell accounts and gold directly. maybe you can still have fun on their servers but they all have that gross feeling. play another mmo basically

>>714527516
>it uses the modern wow system of layering (basically creates multiple instances of even the barely populated zones)
wow fucking soulless
what were they thinking?

>>714527663
theyre thinking everyone is going to be on one server so they need layers
they were right btw

>>714527510
stormforge runs a regular TBC server that 'refreshes' every ~2 years. they just opened t6 content not long ago.

>>714523054 (OP)
someone without bias and actually plays both give us the rundown on the key differences

>>714523054 (OP)
play a private server
any wow version involving blizzard is completely infested with bots
to the point that most popular servers are up to 80% bot
on top of that you're vulnerable to blizzard's automated banning
you WILL get banned eventually just by playing normally
>win a roll over someone else? reported
>get to a node/herb before someone else? reported
>do X strategy in a bg/dungeon instead of Y? reported
I came back to blizz wow with sod, kept playing until anniversary launch
the moment of realization was when I had a character that HADNT talked at all, barely at around lvl 30, get a 2 week ban for "offensive language"
I had leveled exclusively through grinding, almost no quests, no dungeons, didnt sell anything on trade

>>714528584
>the moment of realization was when I had a character that HADNT talked at all, barely at around lvl 30, get a 2 week ban for "offensive language"

MMOs are not a genre you want to play in 2025.
99% of the people still playing them are still chasing a high they got in the early 2000s when the concept was novel and people actually wanted to socialize.
The only thing you're getting yourself into is a grinding simulator where the other players may as well just be bots because no one is going to talk to you.
The actual "gameplay" is ass as well.
Find literally anything else. Even gacha is better than WoW.

>>714528326
the key difference is that classic is very very easy and retail is hard
anything else is just cope. Nobody actually gives a shit about something something 2 hours of westfall questing when theyre running molten core for 5 years straight

>>714528726
>The only thing you're getting yourself into is a grinding simulator where the other players may as well just be bots because no one is going to talk to you.
That sounds somewhat based and is becoming a thing.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2382520/Erenshor/
Some will say: worst of two worlds, others will say best of two worlds. It's like MMO experience without humans. The peak mmo.

>>714523054 (OP)
Play Classic or a private server. Turtle WoW is popular and Epoch is looking to be similar, and is launching this month. Retail is not an MMO, nor is it even a very good game anymore. I'd generally recommend a private server over Classic just to give Blizzard less money, but subscribing for a month lets you test out both Classic and Retail if you care enough to try both.

>>714528726
>The only thing you're getting yourself into is a grinding simulator where the other players may as well just be bots because no one is going to talk to you.
This is something super weird for me. I played FFXIV and even in guild chat there weren't many people actually willing to chat.

>>714528953
>subscribing for a month
Wasn't there a trial for any character up to lvl20 though?

>>714528953
>turtletroon

>>714529014
play a small-medium pop private server
despite all its massive flaws, turtle is really good for this
the community knows it has to be good so the server doesnt die so people are cooperative
bots and gold selling are instantly banned

I had a good experience with a gm where, at 3 am on hyjal, I found a super geared bot farming gold from the satyrs
after 10ish mins it became obviously clear it was a bot from the robotic movements and targetting
I made a ticket, 5 mins later a gm teleports to me, we watch the bot another 5mins, and he gets banned

>>714529091
You can't play Classic with the trial unless they changed it but yeah you're right. Could just play a private server and then do the free trial to check out retail.

>>714528326
>Retail
Not even really an MMO anymore. More like a single player RPG with a queue system to get you into instanced dungeons. Its probably the best definition of a theme park MMO.
There is fun to be had, theres a metric fuckton of features, including 24 races, 13 classes, a full on pokemon minigame, etc.

But the biggest issue is, its a shambling frankensteins monster with 20+ years worth of features and systems stapled ontop of each other, it feels messy to play at times. Like you just get a ton of shit thrown at you and you're never quite sure if "Is this content people actually do? Or is it 10 years old and best to ignore it because nobody runs it and its not relevant anymore"

>Classic
A more true to its name classic MMORPG
But it is CLASSIC, as in OLD style. You have to level up everything, which includes shit like
>I found a new weapon I want to use
>So I have to travel to a city to find a trainer
>Pay them a fee to learn the weapon skill
>Then head out to the wilds and bonk shit on the head a few hundred times to level up the weapon skill until its actually useable

But it does feel more immersive, more challenge in the actual level up experience, more immersion etc. Feels more like an actual community

>>714527510
This isn’t a bad idea if you just wanna see all the content. But it does get pretty boring if you’re still into the social aspect of the game.

play private servers for a superior experience from devs who actually care about the game

>>714529091
Thats only for retail and on some nu-wow expansion they decided to rework the 1-20 content to be absolute fucking garbage, completely unbearable

>>714529274
literally no relevant content uses a queue and unlike classic you actually need a dedicated group to clear everything
Classic you dont need a guild and dont need to speak to a single person, its very clearly not an MMO

>>714529259
>small-medium pop private server
I dunno what small-medium pop would be
>turtle
I heard something about it but qrd? Is it "WoW but it's slow like Runescape" kinda thing?

>>714527510
>I'm considering WoW SPP desu
I tried it but at some point something snaps in your head and you go
>what the fuck am I doing, I'm playing dollhouse with bots, why am I running content when I have gm commands

>>714528726
Private servers are the only place you’re gonna find fellow boomers who want to actually socialize, some autistic, some not, some normalfags, but it’s the only genuine experience you’re gonna get, or the closest to it. Most enthusiasts of the game who miss the old days aren’t gonna be on any paid version of blizzard servers. You can even see that on this board, half of the people who still play retail are the guys sitting in /wowg/ who don’t acknowledge anyone outside of their little clique of coomer brained waifu posters.

>>714529519
Lol, makes sense. The best would be a small server for just you and a handful of your friends. But I guess a small private server is a second best thing.

>>714529516
no, turtle is by far the biggest vanilla server
and on top of that they kept developing it with the same game design spirit in mind
its the closest to a vanilla +
wow vanilla IS slow, it is extremely clunky, the client they use can legally drink in the US
but the community is good, the content is good, the balance changes are good
the only problem with turtle is its insistence on keeping the same server, which has been going on now for +5 ish years, so everyone else is 5 years ahead of you in raids, in gear, etc

>>714529516
It's just a vanilla-era private server with custom content. It's arguably one of the more popular private servers right now but I haven't played it very much.

>>714529738
>>714529849
Why is it called turtle?
Also should I try vanilla, tbc or wotlk? People say wotlk was the peak of old wow.

>>714529964
Its called Turtle because thats the name of the server, their logo, their pet, its good enough its recognizable, easy to use in game
if you've literally never played and want to experience leveling i'd recommend wotlk
but there arent really any good servers for it, warmane is popular but has a dogshit community

>>714523054 (OP)
Just use a repack and run your own server. You can easily create a WotLK server and see what the original was all about. Unless you REALLY desire to play with other people.

I wouldn’t give Blizzard money though.

>>714529964
It's just a name for it, maybe there was a reason why they named it that but I have no idea. They do offer alternate leveling styles that can reduce xp gain for those who want it, but I think they added those later.
I personally prefer vanilla, but it really doesn't matter all that much, as long as you find a populated server with a friendly playerbase it'll be fine.

>>714530163
>if you've literally never played and want to experience leveling i'd recommend wotlk
I played TBC private server like 10+ years ago with orc shaman, also played a bunch of FFXIV fairly recently.
I dunno man I have an itch for playing dwarf paladin.

>>714529964
almost all pservers are pvp. turtle was marketed as the evergreen casual comfy pve server with a slow drip of custom content. the people involved pivoted to focusing on it completely once classic came around and killed off the more popular projects they were involved in. not sure if the guy from these videos is involved but the girlfriend is. i only ever tried it for 5 minutes and got ignored by the only other gnome in the starting zone and quit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4jv6li0N7k

>>714523054 (OP)
How bad are you at games? How old are you?

>>714523054 (OP)
Don't waste your money and try Turtle WoW.

>>714530850
quitting in the first 5 mins is like going to the movies, seeing the opening credits, then leaving

>>714523054 (OP)
Don’t be a retard

>>714530850
>almost all pservers are pvp. turtle was marketed as the evergreen casual comfy pve server
Oh yeah, although pvp in WoW is not 'super' scary a PvE server sounds much more like my thing.

>>714530353
this is perhaps the most autistic answer to this question i could possibly imagine

>>714529964
Turtle's original gimmick on release like a decade ago was that it was a roleplaying and questing server, dedicated to the journey to 60 rather than max-level raiding and such. To that end, they had a natural 0.5x XP multiplier to lengthen the time you spent in each zone and allow you to maximize on quests (which would degrade in rewards if you started outlevelling them).

Eventually, their philosophy began to evolve (mostly because players bitched), they started to expand the concept into restoring lost content from WoW's alpha and turned the 'slow and steady' route of play into an opt-in challenge with some rewards attached, which would further spur and shape the "challenge mode" community. It's even further distorted at this point into full-on custom rebalancing and content, losing a bit of sight of its vanilla roots a bit and the stench of favoritism does linger on some of their more questionable ideas, but it's still better than anything ActiBlizzard can produce today.

>>714523054 (OP)
'Fraid you missed out, anon. WoW was good, but it's been dead and mutilated a long time.

>Nobody has posted that cutscene yet

>>714523054 (OP)
>>714528326
Classic is like an adventure game, and Modern is like an arcade game.

>>714531494
Theres not a single good raid boss in troontle you retarded shill

>>714532924
Only a buckbroke retailtranny would care about that, not someone getting into the game.

>>714533421
>i-its better than retail
>ok well all the content is dogshit b-but nobody cares
troontle shills are so pathetic holy fuck

>>714527510
There are very few decent private servers currently, and with classic most new servers are DOA. I wish I had more knowledge when I found out about private servers because my first one was some russian fully progressed server where I basically wasted my time.

>WoW thread
>troontle shills show up
Like clockwork

>>714533608
Not him but retail content is quite ass too

>>714533608
>raids are the only content!!!
Tigole the poopsocking kike is that you?

>>714523054 (OP)
Self-hosted solo private server. Look up Azerothcore. If you're interested in the social aspect of things, well... don't get your hopes up. MMOs have gone the same way as all online shit. People don't talk nearly as much anymore, either out of fear they'll break some Calvinball rule and get banned, or because they're balls-deep in a discord where they do all their chatting. Now, a good part of that is due to the age of the game. It's solved, and there's little wonder at the world or scenario. If you really want to experience MMOs in the sense I suspect you mean, you need to find an extremely new one where people still have a reason to be openly discussing and discovering shit.

>>714523054 (OP)
>thinking about getting into the Beatles, to which concert should I go?
A multiplayer game, especially an MMO, is by definition an event, not some isolated and abstract piece of art floating through the void like an auteur, story driven, indie game, like Papers Please, or whatever. 'Playing' WoW twenty years late is no different than going to the Nipon Budokan, Candlestick Park or seedy Hamburg nightclubs and wondering where the Beatles went.

>>714533879
Troontle loses at dungeons and pvp too

>>714534693
It's the same shit as classic plus additions. Retail is not even an option. Season of Discovery's balance is an absolute shitshow.

>>714535009
>Retail is not even an option
Because you're bad

>>714528326
>without bias
no such thing

>>714532924
>>714535313
>20 rupees have been deposited into your battlenet balance
good morning sir good job today

>>714535313
-t.

>>714534561
Probably the best post on the topic anyone will ever make

>>714523054 (OP)

>>714523054 (OP)
Private server.

>>714535313
If you were good you'd play SC2, but because you're bad.
What's that, SC2 is a completely different genre? It doesn't do the things you actually want from a game? Nah that's cope. It's because you're too shit to keep up.

You nu-wow troons are fucking hilarious. You always get pasted at any other (actual skill based) game but you still cling to these delusions of difficulty being the only factor.

>>714523054 (OP)
>Thinking about getting into WoW
Well, stop. Go do something else.

>>714523054 (OP)
setup your own private server with azerothcore and playerbots addon. i configured my bots to spam NIGGER all the time, theyre more alive than the current retail playerbase

>>714537928
>i configured my bots to spam NIGGER all the time, theyre more alive than the current retail playerbase
Based