How are you feeling about WoW Classic Season of Discovery so far?

World of Warcraft Classic Season of Discovery Phase 2 has been out for a full week now, and while not everyone may have been clearing Gnomeregan immediately, there are still new runes and items to discover, and other new activities to try out. Now that Phase 2 is underway, I’m curious to know, how are you feeling about Season of Discovery so far? One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about Season of Discovery so far is that it pushed me to try out two classes I had rarely been interested in, Shaman and Warrior (Alliance).

This isn’t exactly a revelation and I expect this season has pushed others to do same, since the experimental out-of-class abilities were the main draw in advertising Season of Discovery when it was first announced. I typically prefer casters in World of Warcraft so I figured Shaman would be a no-brainer for me but, interestingly enough, the character I’ve played most on so far is my Warrior and while I’ve enjoyed both phases overall so far, I had a bit of a better experience in Phase 1 than I have so far in Phase 2.

In Phase 1, I found the Warrior runes were more easily obtainable but I struggled to find runes on the Shaman side. Since I was already basically exploring a whole new class in a zone I was unfamiliar with, I found it a bit more difficult to navigate or have “Aha!” moments about where a potential Discovery could be. In Phase 2, one of the main obstacles I’ve faced is character levelling feeling a bit inconsistent with the level-band format, if not slightly punitive. Vanilla and Classic required significant time commitments to level up and I prefer that remain the case but I think some slight tuning of experience gains for quests relative to the current level-band would go a long way in making levelling feel better.

The WoW Classic team has been very candid about how Season of Discovery’s experimental nature represents a difficult task of balancing old and new world ideas — how do you take what you’ve learned over the last 20 years to put a unique spin on Vanilla/Classic WoW while simultaneously preserving the core tenants of that draw people back? I’m curious to hear your opinion about how you think they’ve done so far, what you’ve enjoyed most, and what you’re hoping to see in the future!