Macworld - USA (2019-09)

30 MACWORLD OCTOBER 2019

MACUSER WOW CLASSIC IS A STEP BACK IN TIME

looks up a strategy and tells everyone
about it out of impatience. We know
exactly when this or that ability will be
removed from the game. We even know
exactly which items will sell best during
specific patches, so even the economy
lacks mystery. In a weird meta way, playing
Classic feels a bit like roleplaying the
roleplaying game. Or worse, it’s a little like
trying to watch Game of Thrones again
with the knowledge of knowing how it
ends and being unable to forget the
disappointments waiting down the line.
For most of its history, Blizzard’s
approach to WoW showed it adeptly
understood the old Latin adage that the
times are changing and we are changing
with them. Classic rejects that change.
That makes it a good fit for the current

tendency to wallow

in nostalgia—and to

our detriment. At the

most benign, this

tendency makes us

believe things were

better in the past in

part because we fail

to account for the

conditions that color

that perception. At

the worst, it leads to

cynical attempts to

cash in on that

perception while

doing little to move forward. Classic feels

like it touches a bit of both of those ends.

THROUGH A DARK PORTAL

I believe WoW Classic is most helpful for

the ways it shows enough time has passed

that players are ready to once again

embrace the system design of the original

game. Rather than releasing Classic,

though, I wish Blizzard had simply

experimented with reintroducing old

systems into the next mainline expansion—

although I well remember the blowback

when Blizzard tried to reintroduce crowd

control-heavy dungeons in the 2010

Cataclysm expansion. And now that Classic

seems like a hit—although I’m intensely

curious to see what the reception will be

like two months from now—maybe some of

Risen spawning Ragnaros for the first time on the Alleria server on
April 16, 2005.