Definitely hardcore by all of today's standards. Not back then though.

The most brutal form of WoW wasn't as bad as FF11, Everquest, etc. I remember busting my ass to finally open up the 'Samurai' class in FF11. It was a long, brutal grind where any death means you LOSE experience. A big chunk too.

Spent so long finally unlocking Samurai as a class and then the first fight I get in, I die. I lose so much xp that I drop my level. When my level dropped, I lost my class as well because it had to be a minimum level.

You know how fucking soul crushing it is to do so bad at an MMO you can't even be the same class anymore!?

pan0phobik wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Definitely hardcore by all of today's standards. Not back then though.

Not sure why I keep seeing this. Being a world-first hardcore raider will take WAY more time in retail than in Classic.

Being a hardcore progressive raider (playing in more reasonable circumstances) will still take WAY less time to grind and farm in a given week in Classic than it will in current retail.

Being casual is the same in both, you're just casual. No expectations. Run around in circles and look at stuff.

Retail is far more "hardcore" and requires far more time and effort to play optimally than vanilla does. I hate retail. But this is just reality. Retail takes WAY more time/energy and skill to min/max and optimize in a given raid tier than Classic will. If the argument is how hardcore Classic WAS back in retail vanilla, it is STILL casual by the MMO's standards back then; it was designed for the casual market.

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

pan0phobik wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Definitely hardcore by all of today's standards. Not back then though.

Not sure why I keep seeing this. Being a world-first hardcore raider will take WAY more time in retail than in Classic.

Being a hardcore progressive raider (playing in more reasonable circumstances) will still take WAY less time to grind and farm in a given week in Classic than it will in current retail.

Being casual is the same in both, you're just casual. No expectations. Run around in circles and look at stuff.

Retail is far more "hardcore" and requires far more time and effort to play optimally than vanilla does. I hate retail. But this is just reality. Retail takes WAY more time/energy and skill to min/max and optimize in a given raid tier than Classic will. If the argument is how hardcore Classic WAS back in retail vanilla, it is STILL casual by the MMO's standards back then; it was designed for the casual market.

I think that when people are judging the games and saying that retail WoW isn't hardcore, we're meaning the entire game. Not just the raid scene. I agree with you that raids and their difficulty are EASILY much harder now, but an MMO is more than its endgame content.

When the word 'hardcore' is used, in this context at least, i'm thinking hardcore as in it's very unforgiving. You really need to know what you're doing to excel, to level faster, etc. The consequences of failure were greater imo. Retail doesn't have many consequences for much of anything outside of raiding imo.

pan0phobik wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I think that when people are judging the games and saying that retail WoW isn't hardcore, we're meaning the entire game. Not just the raid scene. I agree with you that raids and their difficulty are EASILY much harder now, but an MMO is more than its endgame content.

Right, but when we remove the casual aspect of the game and focus on the game that rewards effort or time, Retail takes more effort and takes more time longterm. Period. Can you buy a max level toon? Sure. But you can also dungeon grind to 60 in Classic in 3-4 days. The difference is that you can raid for 1-2 hours per week in Classic on progression. This is NOT the case on retail. Not even close. Retail requires more effort and more time.

pan0phobik wrote: ↑

5 years ago

When the word 'hardcore' is used, in this context at least, i'm thinking hardcore as in it's very unforgiving. You really need to know what you're doing to excel, to level faster, etc. The consequences of failure were greater imo. Retail doesn't have many consequences for much of anything outside of raiding imo.

The bar for vanilla is set really... really... really low. I agree that you may face more adversity early on in vanilla, but I would not agree that this makes the game more hardcore overall. If we look at vanilla vs retail in its entirety, vanilla can be beaten with time. That is the only requirement. In vanilla we think of EVERYTHING in terms of time, because this is the MOST valuable resource. Gold per hour. Xp per hour. Honor per hour. Speed running old raids to save time. Everything is time vs reward. However in retail, things are gated behind skill. Retail is definitively more hardcore overall as you can not simply beat everything with time. I am not pro retail, but I think that sometimes forums like this become a bit of an echo chamber with people who probably havent raided competitively in the past few retail expansions. Having raided in every expansion from vanilla-legion, and having played BFA, retail is more hardcore. This is factual.

If we are arguing about difficulty, this becomes a bit more nuanced because difficulty can be presented in a variety of different ways... However, from a hardcore aspect and addressing the TIME and EFFORT that it takes to succeed at the top end or in any progressive environment, Classic is the equivalent of a mini game to what people are doing in Retail to stay competitive, and will likely be treated as a mini game for many hardcore retail players.

tldr; a very unpopular opinion that is based on truth. dont read it.

I really love all MMORPGs on the market.
Especially lineage 2 classic where I can buy power leveling cheap xd

This is very tricky to argument but I will try my best.

IF you play WoW BfA casually, you will go through the game like a breeze, the game is setup for you to feel the storytelling and really good dynamics on leveling faster.

IF you play WoW Classic casually, you will feel the grind, the long quests and running across the maps, the game wasn't made at the time for questing up to 60, a route wasn't designed yet. Getting a raid and time to do it is very slow, and getting items can be a lot of work.

IF you play WoW BfA Hardcore, you will find a lot of shores and things you need to do every day, because high tier raiding is not for everyone, you need to invest the time, tactics, and have good mechanics.

IF you play WoW Classic Hardcore, you will be 60 in a few weeks and have everything cleared, just looking to max some things here and there, Classic is a small world for hardcore players in 2019, it was stripped down in information and hardcore players know it all.

Trying to add a tag into a game divided into 2 completly different games isn't going to work, because there are different types of players, and the game followed different paths from when it was created.

Example:

For me, the game is hardcore, I play it casually so it takes time to do every damn thing and I love it.

For someone with time or very good planning and discipline, welp, he may already have cleared it all and just been min/maxing these days..

So, hardcore or not, it all depends on the player itself.

MMO's are what you make them.

/thread

hardcore due to the time investment (the 1-60 grind, the R14 grind, and the amount of prep required to raid.. specifically once there is 3+ tiers of raids out)

obviously its not the most hardcore mmo ever made, but its not a casual game in my opinion.

Xcellers wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I think the main thing about Classic, is that it is a time-sink (but so was repeatable/world quests) and that its gear progression is much slower than the current loot pinata system, that envelops retail now.

The epic journey, and the logistics behind raiding is what makes it stand out, and sure if investing time into what you do is hardcore, then Classic will be hardcore aplenty.

I think this is a good way of thinking about it. It's as casual or hardcore as you make it out to be.