What have your experiences been with the WoW Classic beta?

If you haven’t actually gotten to play on the WoW Classic beta, you’ve still gotten to see other people’s reactions and probably have watched a few people stream it. That’s the internet in 2019, some 15 years in the future from the first time we went around with this content, so I’m curious — what have you actually thought and felt, either playing in the old sandbox or seeing other people play?

So far my favorite take is, of all things, this forum thread where the sheer volume of people reporting things as bugs that aren’t bugs, but just the way the game worked back then. I think I laughed the hardest at Warrior health regeneration is working at the expected rate, which is a very nice way of saying Yes, you’re dying a lot, that’s how it was for Warriors back then. I’ve said it before and I know I’ll say it again, but guys, all those supposed ‘dumbing down’ changes that got made between then and now were for a reason, and in a lot of cases? That reason was because it’s awful. Much of WoW Classic is going to feel like getting a sandpaper massage compared to the game as it is now — a whole host of conveniences and improvements have been made over the years.

I mean, feared players and NPC’s running faster? No quest markers on the minimap? That’s all part of the experience, that’s the way it was. For me that’s part of the charm for this experience, and make no mistake, I do find WoW Classic charming. I ran around Teldrassil on the beta for a couple of hours and laughed myself silly, I had a great time. I’ll likely hop back on today and play around Mulgore for a while. It’s great fun. But for me it’s great fun exactly because it reminds me of how much like a cheese grater it could be sometimes, and it shows me concrete examples of how much better the game is now.

How about you? What have you found most interesting about WoW Classic?