Is WoW Classic Worth Playing 2022?

Lately, I've been asked a lot questions about WoW Classic, such as 'should I play WoW Classic now?' or 'should I come back to WoW Classic?' or ' is it too late to start WoW Classic in 2022?'. Well, if you are trying to figure it out that whether WoW Classic is worth playing 2022, then the answer you'll get here is almost certainly yes!

World of Warcraft Classic is a server option for the MMORPG World of Warcraft. Running alongside the main version of the game, Classic recreates the game in the state it was in before the release of the first expansion, The Burning Crusade.

The true magic of WoW Classic is found in encouraging dynamic player interactions, an active world, an amazing community, challenging quests and accountability from players, that's why it is still popular in 2022.

Amazing Community



Classic WoW has tons of downtime, you may hate it, but it can force you to work together and interact with the community. World of Warcraft Classic is teeming with life because of this amazing community. Traders shout out their wares, offering much-needed magical items and equipment at reasonable prices. Players are lining up politely, waiting for their turn to complete quest objectives. Adventurers form parties for protection against dangerous low-level foes. In Barrens chat, you can even find someone who will tell you where to find Mankrik’s wife.

The start-up economy doesn’t hurt community relations either. There are no veteran crafters churning out items and dumping them in the auction house. Instead of going to the market for crafted goods, players are asking crafters to meet up and make them things in trade chat. It’s how MMO friendships start.

WoW Classic is big, but it also felt smaller because you ended up knowing pretty much everyone in community, or at least their guilds. And to a degree this is something we won’t know about until WoW Classic is out — if every player is effectively on the same server, it’ll be too big to replicate that feeling. So if that’s something you’re looking for, you may or may not get it.

Challenging Quests



Progression in WoW Classic is slow but rewarding, and there are dozens of different goals for you to pursue during their game sessions. You can hunt down the rarest mounts or pets in the game, search for epic loot with unique abilities, or simply focus on building up your character's weapon skills.

For example, in modern WoW you can tear through the quests in the Elwynn Forest starting area in a couple of hours, riding gryphons back and forth to Stormwind City for supplies and driving your heirloom mount between quest objectives. But there is no gryphon in Elwynn Forest in WoW Classic. There’s no such thing as an heirloom mount. There is a whole lot of walking and a whole lot of killing two dozen creatures to collect four or five quest items. 

So in WoW Classic, you have to walk everywhere. It makes the playing more boring and frustrating at times, but also gives the world a slower pace and a larger interaction with the world map. Rather than speeding past each other on mounts, you walk past people. You might pick a fight, you might help, or you might even join in a large spontaneous battle out in the world. 

The Same Server



In WoW Classic, players can only run dungeons in their realm, which means that your reputation is more important since you play with a smaller pool of players.

Further, switching between servers is heavily limited in WoW Classic, so your server is pretty much set in stone. Although this can be inconvenient - especially when the server is full - players are willing to deal with those inconveniences because of the community driven nature of WoW Classic.

If you wanted to abuse this system, you could wait to be the last person to select, and then say “need” and steal that loot. You could also select "need" and roll off against someone who actually needs the item. These types of looters are called Ninja Looters. If someone does this, and they are on another server, they will get away with it. If they are in my realm, I can call them out for “needing an item” from me. Smaller server communities can ostracize bad actors in the server chat.

In more extreme cases that server might legitimately refuse to quest with that player in the future.It is much more important to maintain your reputation in a local server ecosystem. Your reputation is on the line when you deal with collective loot, and your reputation is everything. 

Immersion



You’ve probably heard that WoW Classic is a difficult and long game. This is true, but it’s also a good thing. The world feels dangerous in Classic WoW. Your character is weak, it’s hard to make Classic WoW gold and buy all the best items unlike with WoW Gold in retail World of Warcraft, fighting enemies takes longer, and you better be careful not to pull too many! This all makes for a very immersive game. You get sucked into the richness of the world and your role in it, and then you realize that many hours have passed by.

In general, WoW Classic took us back to simpler times for a whole generation. A time before streamers, a time before Fortnite and a time before pay-to-win gambling loot boxes. While it is 15 years old it gets the basics very right for these two things. There is a lot to do, a lot to work for and a lot of friends to make.

If that sounds worthwhile to you I would for sure give it a shot in 2022.