What I'm also watching though, with some dismay, is a lot of people's desires to rush to 60, raid, clear the Core and Ony in the first month, and then what? Maybe High Warlord? Then what? I guess go grind Timbermaw? LOL! Seriously, then what? Wait for the next patch, and just raid with lulls in between I guess. Desultory PvP. They've forgotten the journey.
"Well because we have modern WoW and all of this knowledge, and because we're practicing on private servers, we're just going to clear content."
It's a little sad. They're still not going to experience Classic then. Back then yeah, we were all fumbling around a little at the beginning because the game was brand new (and very buggy, I might add). The players fumbling, Blizzard fumbling, and that was part of the journey. Now it's a race to the finish line. I wasn't particularly interested in that when Vanilla was LIVE.
Sure I raided, I PvP'd, but I never felt like I had to be the BEST at all of it and on top and make it into a job. I had to be competent, I had to not wipe my guild, I had to be fairly good to progress in PvP, and I did all of those things. But the best times I had in WoW were being on Vent and talking with friends as we'd go kill Ras to make flasks, or do runs of various dungeons for fun, or do pre-mades - and that's how we managed to play for years. It was about the journey. We took our time, we developed friendships, we shared our lives over Vent and in meet-ups, it was all for the fun of it.
In game, I'll never forget the sense of wonder as I entered each new zone, or found something new the devs had just added, or all of it. I enjoyed just listening to music and farming for things for my guild. Wonderful memories. And I will enjoy playing it again.
I have a plan though. I'm going to wait for these people to eat the content whole, then get bored. I give them two months, max. They're not interested in the quests, they're not interested in the lore (because we KNOW the lore now), they're certainly not interesting in grinding for long hours (and I'm willing to bet that some Blizzard execs are going to make some gold deposits to some accounts of some of these high-visibility players to make sure the players get their mounts, etc. in return for promoting the game), so they're going to play for money. Seriously. They'll play for the "fun" of being "FIRST!", then they'll play for subscriptions and the money they get from those. At first their Twitch broadcasts and YouTube channels will be filled with wonder, excitement, and fun. Later though, they'd better be good actors. Endgame Vanilla is very... not there. It wasn't then, it isn't now. I spent most of my endgame farming bugs. It was NOT fun. The Naxx invasion was. Again though, my favorite times at endgame were attuning new players and helping them to raid, and level, and stuff. Making new friends was what it was all about.
So I'm going to wait, as I said. I'm going to wait a month or two for them all to settle down a bit, and display themselves in Org or IF while sitting around, and then my family and I will go in and ENJOY ourselves. Maybe quest an hour or two a night. I'll fish and farm and play the AH a little. But yes, I think we're going to be filthy casuals (we don't have time or inclination to make WoW our jobs), and we're going to enjoy every second of it! I'll glance at the people who cleared content quickly as they sit around the cities displaying themselves, but I've seen it before (and worn it) so not interested. I'm interested in having fun with people I love.
If anyone questions that I've been there and played Classic when it was out, I'll invite them to look at my orc statue, or to head to retail where I can pull out my Baby Blizzard Bear or some damn thing from Classic - I can hand them ammo I've had in the bank for YEARS. I have a few screenies. I've been there, really. It was about the journey and friendships for me then, and it'll be the same now. :)
