I haven't written much about Classic in recent months, but I'm still thinking about it a lot. Especially in the shower for some reason.
You know how your brain will sometimes form somewhat random but extremely strong connections between things that aren't necessarily related? Like a certain smell instantly taking you back to a moment from your childhood, or a song always making you think of a specific person you once shared it with. I have something like that going on with WoW Classic, specifically the Barrens and Wailing Caverns, as memories of them come to mind every time I take a shower and wash my hair on a warm, sunny day.
I'm not sure why that is - I just know that when Classic launched back in 2019, I binged on it pretty hard for the first few weeks, which included thinking about it basically all the time, even when I wasn't playing - including in the shower I guess? Since I rolled several Horde characters back then, I also must have spent a fair amount of time in the Barrens, including running Wailing Caverns over and over, which logically would then have been something I was thinking about a lot. And I guess it must've still been warm and sunny in September 2019? Like I said, it's pretty random, and it does crack me up a little every time I shampoo my hair and suddenly remember that time I grouped with an undead priest outside Wailing Caverns.
Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent to start with, but I'm generally thinking about how I just kind of miss Classic right now. I find retail fun in its own way, but it simply doesn't scratch the same itch. At the same time, there's no Classic mode I really want to get into right now.
I did log into MoP Classic after the launch of patch 5.4 and checked out the Timeless Isle for a bit, but I was quickly reminded of just how many hours I spent grinding there in MoP Remix almost exactly two years ago now, and I just have zero appetite for doing all of that again, and more slowly at that.
Sometimes I cast my mind towards Season of Discovery and wonder whether I should go back and pursue some more of the goals I originally had for that mode before it potentially goes away... but the feeling just isn't there.
The anniversary servers seem weirdly alluring right now, mostly because I keep seeing people on my Battle.net friends list playing there, and I just miss that Burning Crusade feeling a bit. It's so weird now: I used to say that BC was my favourite expansion, then Classic came and ruined a lot of that for me because of how differently people were approaching it in the modern era, but with some distance I'm once again reminded that there were also vibes and content there that I still genuinely love.
I just don't want to get into the cesspit that are the anniversary servers, so I'm vainly holding out hope that maybe Blizzard will make Burning Crusade era servers this time around when Wrath of the Lich King comes around again. I was so disappointed when there was no interest in that back in 2022, but in fairness, at the time Classic era still looked pretty dead and I reckon there were probably people both in the community and at Blizzard who wondered whether having these era-locked servers at all had maybe been a mistake. But as mainline Classic progressed further into more expansions, the era servers truly came to life and have managed to maintain a healthy population ever since, even if it ebbs and flows a bit depending on what else is going on with other versions of Classic. Plus if it's true that Blizzard is planning to make a fresh set of servers go through the first three eras of the game every few years (as indicated by the leak), having both a BC and Wrath era server as final destinations for some of these characters would simply make sense to me. Or are you telling me that people would prefer to go through anniversary editions of Cata and MoP Classic?
Regardless, the demand for BC era might still not be quite there yet, and even worse, as WillE has suggested recently, it might actually be in Blizzard's best financial interests to not have them. Sure, they'll lose a few subs from people who don't want to progress into Wrath or whatever, but at the same time BC anniversary has apparently been extremely successful in terms of selling boosts, which can probably at least partially be blamed on the fact that there were several years when there was no way to play BC Classic officially and people had time to miss it.
So I know I'm probably going to be disappointed on that front, but I just can't help hoping. If BC era ever became a thing, I'd definitely roll up a character there to see whether I could find a BC-focused community with similar chill levels as the guys and gals on Classic era.
One way or another all the Classic news will be coming out at BlizzCon in a bit over a month, including the reveal of whatever Project Camelot turns out to be exactly - and whatever it is, I'll definitely want to check it out just to see what it's all about. So I'm kind of sitting here, thinking I might as well save that desire for Classic for the big reveals and new opportunities that will become available soon - but that doesn't mean that I don't still miss it in the meantime.
