Three Months of Classic Era

It's now been three months since I started playing on Classic era. Tirrona, the little night elf rogue I created to (re-)familiarise myself with the lay of the land, is level 31 and I'm still levelling her in small fits and starts - after all, there is no rush to achieve anything in particular.

Mostly I've been playing on Horde side though, where I serendipitously ended up in a very friendly and laid-back Horde guild. And there my progress has been pretty significant! In that first AQ40 I joined on my hunter, I was still BM spec, wearing a mix of blues with no hit rating and using vendor ammo. My damage output was near the bottom alongside the tanks, and I could barely even remember how to feed my pet.

I ended up respeccing to Marksman after a few raids because I was soon spending more time raiding than questing solo anyway, and the damage output for BM wasn't just poor but abysmal. Ever done Twin Emps as a BM hunter? You literally can't do anything but auto-shoot because Vek'nilash is immune to the magic damage from arcane shot...

Getting my hit rating sorted wasn't too hard once I actually started paying attention to it, and nowadays I can also make my own thorium-based ammo. I have a good relationship with the head mage, who knows to trade me a stack of bread for my pet at the start of each raid without me having to specifically ask for it. And with my epic bow and seven out of eight pieces of T2 (oddly enough it's the gloves that have been eluding me), my damage is solidly in the top half of the logs now unless something goes majorly wrong.

I've also been levelling my druid (who's my herbalist and alchemist) to not be completely reliant on the guild bank for consumables, and as she's currently level 55, she should soon be ready to tag along to the easier raids as well.

All in all, Classic era has been a really pleasant surprise. Even as I was looking at the smaller population as a positive thing, I was slightly concerned by how quiet things seemed during my first few days as a fresh leveller. However, there are people around, and my interactions with other players have honestly been nothing but delightful. Classic era has a very passionate community; it's just not very "in your face". You have to go out and find it.

There was also an adjustment period in terms of how things roll compared to how I experienced OG Classic. The smaller population means that everything's much slower and more deliberate. You can't always rely on finding what you need on the auction house; you may have to ask around and/or do some farming yourself. You can't always get group content done immediately because there isn't an infinite supply of people to form groups with, so you need to be patient and adjust to when others are both available and interested in doing the same thing as you. With the awkwardness of the Horde Onyxia attunement, it took about two months from me first winning the leaf in MC to me completing my epic bow, but I did get there in the end!

Ultimately everything is still achievable; you just have to appreciate that most people playing on era aren't in a rush, as they view it as more of a place to hang out than a game where they need to go through a checklist of tasks to finish and be done as soon as possible. Which, to be clear, is exactly what I wanted, but even so it took a bit of mental adjustment on my part as well. It's very easy to get frustrated when you're excited about a new drop and want to instantly take whatever the "next step" is (e.g. doing the next part of a quest chain, getting an enchant etc.) but it's simply not possible because the right items or people are not available. However, the goal posts aren't constantly moving either, so you've got time and simply have to learn to be patient. It always makes me smile when we do Garr and Geddon in MC, they don't drop a binding, and someone says "don't worry, we'll get it next week". It's partially a joke, but in a way also an expression of that sentiment. Your Thunderfury will still be cool whenever you do get it.

Oh, and finally, I've learned that playing on era servers means that the rest of the Classic community will largely ignore you and/or treat you as some weird kind of hipster. For an example of the former, look at this Wowhead article from yesterday about Season of Mastery coming to an end and opening transfers to era, which of course has the headline "Season of Mastery to Wrath Classic Transfers Now Available for NA" - yep, not even a mention of era, instead it's entirely about the additional option to transfer to Wrath that Blizzard agreed to add upon request. I've also seen e.g. reddit posts where someone specifically asked about vanilla Classic servers and would be told outright that those are dead and that everyone plays Wrath now.

The other day someone logged on in my Horde guild whose name I hadn't seen before and expressed huge surprise at seeing us in AQ40, because they too (despite of previously joining the guild?) thought that era was dead (oh yeah, get used to hearing that one repeated a lot too). Before logging off again, they asked incredulously whether we all just hated Wrath, which raised some eyebrows. Basically, you have to be cool with not being the popular kid doing the popular thing.

I'm really quite loving Classic era myself, even more so than I expected. Since Blizzard isn't actively promoting it, and most people aren't paying attention to it, it kind of feels like a hidden gem at the moment. I'm kind of hoping though that more people will end up discovering it eventually, especially once the shine of Wrath starts to wear off - and yes, I know Classic WotLK only just launched, but as I just laid out: playing on era is all about playing the long game.