WoW:Forever - a Classic Andy's Take ~ 1 the Visuals

Some days ago WoW:Forever launched. It was touted to be the big new thing. It might be, but to me it is not.

Most obvious on first log in are the graphics.
The unmodded look is not really nice. There's way too many things screaming "Look at me!"
Small golden arrows right side (left of the mini-map)
Small golden-green diamonds on my taskbar
Objectives to the right
Locked slots and a green thingy in my bags
Said bags not being bags, but one big inventory
Taskbars looking misalinged and jumbled.
and if I had not already disabled it in the menu, gold coins over junk items (no good for anything but being sold-items), like the tooth in this shot.

I left Retail somewhere in Battle for Azeroth. It was not an active quitting, slamming the door and cancelling my subscription, it was more a petering out.
    The last screenshot showing real action are from June 2019 and then I found a collection of good bye shots from August 2019. After this I have only found shots of achievements, dress up and suchlike.

For this reason I cannot tell if this UI is Retail pure or something in between.
At least it's not to my liking.

I downloaded an addon to make things look more like I was used to.

So far, fairly good. 

Let me start attacking. Melee

and spell

Ouch! Those effects are glaring. Worse so when the surroundings are darker. Here compared to how it looks in Classic.

Insert Forever in Classic screenshot to compare.

Sadly any in-game effect is like this, harsh, glaring, almost popping off the screen. Also lanterns, torches, lightening, fog, you name it ...

And the water is rippling no matter what.

It makes me kind of seasick, dizzy and queasy, if I try fishing.

For 20 years I have been able to play WoW by tuning down every possible setting. Now this is not possible any longer.

Classic will survive - but will it remain Classic?

Yes. I re-subbed, the kids needed my help, the Guild called. But I did not play with the same gusto. Too many changes, too many "holes" in the fabric of Classic WoW.

And some time today the newest patch will go live.
More changes are coming to the Era servers, which Blizzard promised to keep as a museum, unchanged. This time it's Dual spec, Insta-mail and some inane group finder tool.

Today I emptied all my mail and prepared once again for a prolonged absence.
I believe Classic will survive, but will it still be Classic as we loved it?
The HC challenge is not the same with the revives, even though they mostly stopped reviving when the streamers left. Stitches got a hit at the same time, Horde side going from the most populated (at times with 10 full layers) to the lesser of the four Realm/factions in Era HC.

Nek'Rosh, with its smaller community weathered the storm better, and is today bigger than Stitches.

Today I also counted the players and auctions on the two Era HC realms.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025 at 3 pm.

                        Nek'Rosh                                Stitches
                Alliance    Horde                    Alliance    Horde
Players     140            73                            106            33
AH           4617        1750                         5301           488

I then did the same for my beloved, maltreated RP realm, Hydraxian Waterlords:
23/1 Allyside and 12/0 Hordeside 😢

And the PvE cluster
                        Ally                   Horde
Players;       365 & 50+               178
AH             14.762                    5248

If I ever pull myself together to play in spite of the changes, I'll count again.

Hardcore, Integrity, and Fun no more

The news just reached me that they really are restoring players after the DDoS attack hitting known streamer guild.

This is not a text I ever wanted to read on the WoW forums:

I logged in, looked at my characters, looked at the other players running around in STW. I exited WoW and cancelled my sub.

Bear with me for a longer explanation:
When we played the honour-based version of HC, known as the IronMan Challenge back in original Cata onwards, server crashes and DCs were normal happenings for many of us. Old, crappy cables, old 'toasters', DDoS attacks, dog chewed my cable, overload ... you name it, it happened.

Many were the times, I rerolled.
- I still remember the day I rerolled the same character no less than 7 times because of DCs.
- Another day I lost a high level, at full mana and health, attacking one mob 4 levels under, 2 hits, DC, and return to a dead Challenger.

That day I made up my mind to keep on playing this toon, as those DC's were so not my fault (it was a broken something in our cables, repaired later that same week).

It just did not work. It was not fun any more; the exitement and joy had left my gameplay. I became reckless and soon she died by my stupidity. I rerolled, and had fun once again.

My old posts about this are still here:
IronMan Challenge

(if your linking works as stupid as mine, you'll have to scroll down a bit. The ones you're looking for are posted by  Dranina on April 16, 2012 - Click to enlarge to a readable size)

I got that same no fun, no challenge feeling logging in just now. Only this time I can't remedy it by rerolling.

As said I logged out and cancelled my sub.

...

I actually believe in big words like integrity, trust, equality, accountability – big words without which the world turns small and petty.

I think - in the period my sub is still running - I'm going to level an old-style IronMan on one of the Classic Era servers. Retail is not for me, and neither is Cata with all its changes.

There's only one thing that can save the integrity of WoW Hardcore. The Soul of Iron Buff. Implemented on all servers, of all types, and once broken, it is broken. No healing, no restore.

 I fear that Hardcore as we knew and loved it, ended today.

Where have I been, What have I done

If the old IronMan leaderboard still was working, you'd find my dead challengers all over it. From early 2012 (Cata) we had a community, in the beginning only with some kind of spreadsheet; then Stone and a couple more made a leaderboard, where you could register. Still it was mostly honour-based. I loved it, and I levelled in excess of 80 toons that way ;)

When Classic launched in 2019,  I was first off busy re-creating my old toons, levelling them and re-living the Vanilla experience. When I had done this, and Cata loomed at the horizon I had already rolled - and killed - a host of IronMan Challengers on Hydraxian Waterlords.

I was still part of the IronMan Community in Classic when the HC addon arrived. In the beginning we were welcomed aboard, but as we did not use green, blue ... etc. items, and also not ran dungeons, and - I think worst - did not fawn for their leaders or ask for appeals, we were marginalised, and I left. To return when the HC servers dropped.

As I was not much active in the forums, and do not follow streamers - when I have the time I prefer playing myself to watching others play 😇 - so all the whining in the Blizz forums mostly went over my head.

But it was not as fun as in the IronMan days, not least because it soon became a race to 60, boosting, fights and scrabbles over drops ... If I had just 1 € for each time I saw people announcing in chat that Perelli just left Goldshire, I would be rich today ;) The spirit and camaraderie of old had left. But I still had the leftovers of a guild, friends and even family levelling and playing with.

The old IronMan community was dwindling, many of the old challengers and programmers had either quit, died or were ill. So even when the API for Classic was finally given free, nobody was really working on it, and without a leaderboard this kind of challenge - spread over many servers and regions, tend to fizzle out.

Finally I made it to 60 as an ordinary HC character. I took a small break and begun slowly and carefully, levelling an old style IronMan Challenger -- don't let anybody tell you it's not tough. The first 20 or so levels are OK, but after this the divide between the quests, NPCs and so on and your expected strength - with greens/blues and talent points - grows steadily larger.

Then the notice of the restorations of the streamer guild killed in a DDoS attack, and incidentally all other hit by that same occasion - reached me. I lost any and all liking for any more HC. I went in-game, sent my mail off to the relevant alts and filled up their bank, preparing for a prolonged absence. Still I was hoping Blizz would realize the stupidity of their move - or make some kind of remedy-action.