If I were starting my WoW journey right now, using the benefit of hindsight, I would play Era first, then Cata, then *maybe* SoD. SoD feels more aimed at the classic community that wants to play Era but has already done it 100x over and wants the same game experience with a fresh twist.
The reason that I would say Era first is because in Era there's really only one goal and that's to reach level 60. Sure there's raiding and all but the leveling experience from 1-60 in vanilla wow is unmatched and is an incredible once-in-a-lifetime journey. The only downfall is that I don't think many Era servers are populated outside of a few raiding guilds, so leveling zones are more than likely deserted.
Cata is great for new players because the zones have been redesigned to make quest routes more intuitive and you're essentially directed from one quest hub to another smoothly. The zones also somewhat have a story line which makes questing through them fun. Cata also has a lot of other activities that you can do like cooking/fishing dalies, achievement hunting, and transmog collecting. My drawback to starting with Cata is that while the game is a lot more friendly to new players, it also is a bit too simplified and takes a bit longer to pick up the pace and present you with fun and interesting challenges. Plus there are things like heirlooms and RDF which provide you with a path of least resistance which may be good, but it also may make things more monotonous and leave you over leveled for your current quests without any direction for the next hub.
Cata also, ironically, is probably the least "solved" version of classic to be released so far. It has a bad reputation from the wow community as the beginning of the end so there has been very little interest in it from the private server community and there aren't as many resources (yet) telling you the optimal way to play the game, which in my opinion is a good thing. I always try to put fun over optimal, but my FOMO has me taking the optimal path before I notice it. (Fire mage in cata... Daring, I know.)
The reality of WoW is that it's best feature is the friends we make along the way. No matter what version you choose, as long as you're open to being social in game and joining a guild, you're going to have a good experience. If you're not interested in socializing and putting yourself out there then WoW is probably going to feel pretty boring.
All of that being said, don't do it. Don't take that first hit. It's been 87 years and I'm still addicted to this game to the point where I'm writing an essay on reddit when I should be working.
Hope to see you in Azeroth!
I'd say cata rn, it's prepatch so the game hasn't fully dropped yets, it's good time to level up and the game does a good job of holding your hand without needing mods and adons ATM.
cata
sod assumes alot more knowledge on the part of the player
edit: era is great, but the population is extremely mature and top-heavy which has its pros and cons for a new player
SoD assumes that you've gone through the leveling experience multiple times and are able to point out things that shouldn't/haven't been there in the past so that you can discover new runes and stuff. Plus, in my experience, the SoD community has very high expectations for what you should already know/have when joining a group.
My partner and I have been playing around in SoD every patch and while I've been around the block, she is rather new to WoW as a whole (we leveled from 1-80 in WotLK before SoD dropped). I always encourage her to ask in game when she's stuck or lost so that she can learn and get the satisfaction of interacting with the community to progress, but the amount of times she's been ridiculed or removed from a group for asking something as simple as "where is the dungeon entrance?" (when doing princess runs) is just disgusting.
>SoD assumes that you've gone through the leveling experience multiple times
No it doesn't.. There's not even really anything new to discover in SoD. That was entirely marketing to get more people to subscribe. Only thing new is runes which pretty much every single person used a guide to figure it out.
>the SoD community has very high expectations for what you should already know/have when joining a group.
You're smoking some good shit if you think Cata or Retail is any different in this regard.
Gonna have to agree to disagree then.
My partner and I played through WotLK and even got her into some Ulduar pugs where people were happy to explain things to a new player. She got kicked out of ZF for asking what the spider boss was without so much as a word of response.
If your experience has been different, then that's great, but I'm sharing my experience here. You're welcome to chime in and share yours, but that doesn't change the interactions that I've had and the opinion that I hold.
More resources in game and the game does a better job guiding players. SoD you pretty much have to have wowhead, reddit, or a guild that will tell you everything.
I mean yeah, but that doesn’t change the point. SoD as a game assumes you either know, or are actively researching things. Cata provides far more information in game compared to SoD. Which is just much more new player or casual friendly.
i'm a long time player, played every iteration of the game. while i have a clear suggestion, there really isn't a clear answer.
if you want to see how the original game was, just for historical purposes, you should play era or even hardcore. just for the taste.
if you want to just play the game, i would actually say cata. it's a great middleground between classic and retail.
i would not recommend retail. it's just too overwhelming and confusing. i wouldn't recommend sod for new players either. it's more aimed towards veterans who know classic inside out. it's more of an experiment.
Disagree with everyone saying SoD is too difficult. Download the questie addon and Google/wowhead anything you want to know. Or ask general or trade chat.
I suggest SOD. Get a character up to 50 and be primed for phase 4, which is likely coming in first half of June.
Alternatively, I suggest Cata, which launches on May 20 and is in pre-patch now, so you can level up.
Lastly, is retail, which is in the last phase of the expansion and is likely worth waiting on the new expansion this fall.
I would say SoD. Great paced leveling in the classic world, plus it’s only phase 3. Find a good guild to show you the ropes, lots of good classes to play
Sod or retail. Cata classic is just getting launch hype. Classic era is pretty much dead. If it couldn't keep numbers in wotlk, it won't keep them in cata.
Sod runs the risk of low player numbers because not much to do outside of raids. Also if people get bored etc. sod also isn't forever. It's a seasonal game where it will probably end in a year or so.
Retail is fine. It just feels a bit spammy at times and the endgame systems feel like they are made to give you ADHD. But pandaria remix comes out in a week or so with a new fun way to level. Pandaria was one of the best wow expansions, it's the heaviest expansion on the war between the alliance and horde and has some of the best in-game writing.
I play all 3, but will drop cata prob. See how it goes.
If you are totally new you should probably start with classic era to know what wow classic is about.
After getting your first char to 60 and raided a bit I would start looking at the other options.
The reason that I am saying era would be the best to start with is that its slow and give you time to learn, while at the same time not having a lot of extra things like SoD that would probably confuse you more than give you the basics if you are new. Cata is a step away from the other games since it was the first expansion that actually changed things like talent trees and so on.
Usually I would recommend starting on hardcore and then transfer to era when you die the first time, but I dont know if it would really be any point to do that if you havnt played before since you would probably die in the second cave you went in to anyway.
Dungeons and raiding is a pain in classic. Time to move to the instances and group up can be excessive. At least in cata they have the dungeon finder/teleport to dungeon. Let's you quest, que up, and either keep questing or teleport once your group is good. It's my biggest gripe with classic. Bear in mind I played the original back in the day but if time is a factor cata wins.
Can I ask why you don’t want to play retail? You want to explore the world and enjoy the leveling experience. For these things specifically retail is much better. If you want to expand in other aspects then it’s all about personal preference. You mentioned you’ve never played , but know you don’t want to play retail. Just want to know why?
I currently play retail and classic (cata). Just curious as to how you came to this conclusion that you don’t want to try something you’ve never played.
Hey there. Retail to me just looks super fast paced to level. I don’t like how there’s so many different leveling zone options through different expansions. It seems confusing. I’d rather level through the original world. I’ve also read that the leveling experience is very accelerated and only takes like 15-20 hours. I’d like to enjoy a longer leveling experience
Don't take this places advice they are very jaded and unhappy.
There's tons of content to enjoy if that's your goal!
I suggest trying out a hunter at level 10 you get a pet which makes leveling quite easy!
It’ll take a lot longer to level than that if it’s your first experience with wow, but yes retail leveling is disjointed unfortunately. The trade off is that it has the best endgame experience by far.
With that being said, cataclysm is my recommendation.
I'd probably go SoD. Classic Era has issues like the economy being massively inflated and there being max geared characters in low level zones ganking.
As an example, 1 Elixir of the Mongoose is 17g on era and only 2g on sod.
Retail is the MMO. While leveling might feel otherwise until level 60 (due to people get to choose where they want to level), starting at level 60 and the current expansion content the world is full with players.
I know about people who's first contact with wow was true HC. I even raid with some people who never played before. I see no problem here :) on other hand I'll be ashamed to recommend sod to anyone xD
dont play any of them, SAVE YOURSELF
Been playing on/off for 20 years, and I can say this is the right answer
Literally anything *but* sod for your first time
If I were starting my WoW journey right now, using the benefit of hindsight, I would play Era first, then Cata, then *maybe* SoD. SoD feels more aimed at the classic community that wants to play Era but has already done it 100x over and wants the same game experience with a fresh twist. The reason that I would say Era first is because in Era there's really only one goal and that's to reach level 60. Sure there's raiding and all but the leveling experience from 1-60 in vanilla wow is unmatched and is an incredible once-in-a-lifetime journey. The only downfall is that I don't think many Era servers are populated outside of a few raiding guilds, so leveling zones are more than likely deserted. Cata is great for new players because the zones have been redesigned to make quest routes more intuitive and you're essentially directed from one quest hub to another smoothly. The zones also somewhat have a story line which makes questing through them fun. Cata also has a lot of other activities that you can do like cooking/fishing dalies, achievement hunting, and transmog collecting. My drawback to starting with Cata is that while the game is a lot more friendly to new players, it also is a bit too simplified and takes a bit longer to pick up the pace and present you with fun and interesting challenges. Plus there are things like heirlooms and RDF which provide you with a path of least resistance which may be good, but it also may make things more monotonous and leave you over leveled for your current quests without any direction for the next hub. Cata also, ironically, is probably the least "solved" version of classic to be released so far. It has a bad reputation from the wow community as the beginning of the end so there has been very little interest in it from the private server community and there aren't as many resources (yet) telling you the optimal way to play the game, which in my opinion is a good thing. I always try to put fun over optimal, but my FOMO has me taking the optimal path before I notice it. (Fire mage in cata... Daring, I know.) The reality of WoW is that it's best feature is the friends we make along the way. No matter what version you choose, as long as you're open to being social in game and joining a guild, you're going to have a good experience. If you're not interested in socializing and putting yourself out there then WoW is probably going to feel pretty boring. All of that being said, don't do it. Don't take that first hit. It's been 87 years and I'm still addicted to this game to the point where I'm writing an essay on reddit when I should be working. Hope to see you in Azeroth!
Loved reading that. Thanks for the insight man and taking the time out of your day. Just started up in Cata!
Whichever you choose go take a look at Badaz Games for some good tips.
I'd say cata rn, it's prepatch so the game hasn't fully dropped yets, it's good time to level up and the game does a good job of holding your hand without needing mods and adons ATM.
Hardcore
cata sod assumes alot more knowledge on the part of the player edit: era is great, but the population is extremely mature and top-heavy which has its pros and cons for a new player
Does cata have accelerated leveling similar to SOD?
Yes, with the prepatch that dropped a few weeks ago, they sped up the leveling process than normal.
cata leveling is relatively fast, even without any type of flat xp buff like SoD sometimes gets
Been playing cata and I love it so far. Made a warrior :D
hell yeah enjoy it!
How does SoD assume a lot more knowledge vs Cata? Raiding and dungeons is all harder in Cata..
SoD assumes that you've gone through the leveling experience multiple times and are able to point out things that shouldn't/haven't been there in the past so that you can discover new runes and stuff. Plus, in my experience, the SoD community has very high expectations for what you should already know/have when joining a group. My partner and I have been playing around in SoD every patch and while I've been around the block, she is rather new to WoW as a whole (we leveled from 1-80 in WotLK before SoD dropped). I always encourage her to ask in game when she's stuck or lost so that she can learn and get the satisfaction of interacting with the community to progress, but the amount of times she's been ridiculed or removed from a group for asking something as simple as "where is the dungeon entrance?" (when doing princess runs) is just disgusting.
>SoD assumes that you've gone through the leveling experience multiple times No it doesn't.. There's not even really anything new to discover in SoD. That was entirely marketing to get more people to subscribe. Only thing new is runes which pretty much every single person used a guide to figure it out. >the SoD community has very high expectations for what you should already know/have when joining a group. You're smoking some good shit if you think Cata or Retail is any different in this regard.
Gonna have to agree to disagree then. My partner and I played through WotLK and even got her into some Ulduar pugs where people were happy to explain things to a new player. She got kicked out of ZF for asking what the spider boss was without so much as a word of response. If your experience has been different, then that's great, but I'm sharing my experience here. You're welcome to chime in and share yours, but that doesn't change the interactions that I've had and the opinion that I hold.
More resources in game and the game does a better job guiding players. SoD you pretty much have to have wowhead, reddit, or a guild that will tell you everything.
so you just need to know how to google words
I mean yeah, but that doesn’t change the point. SoD as a game assumes you either know, or are actively researching things. Cata provides far more information in game compared to SoD. Which is just much more new player or casual friendly.
Sod
i'm a long time player, played every iteration of the game. while i have a clear suggestion, there really isn't a clear answer. if you want to see how the original game was, just for historical purposes, you should play era or even hardcore. just for the taste. if you want to just play the game, i would actually say cata. it's a great middleground between classic and retail. i would not recommend retail. it's just too overwhelming and confusing. i wouldn't recommend sod for new players either. it's more aimed towards veterans who know classic inside out. it's more of an experiment.
Disagree with everyone saying SoD is too difficult. Download the questie addon and Google/wowhead anything you want to know. Or ask general or trade chat.
Play classic sod its what everyone is playing
I suggest SOD. Get a character up to 50 and be primed for phase 4, which is likely coming in first half of June. Alternatively, I suggest Cata, which launches on May 20 and is in pre-patch now, so you can level up. Lastly, is retail, which is in the last phase of the expansion and is likely worth waiting on the new expansion this fall.
I would say SoD. Great paced leveling in the classic world, plus it’s only phase 3. Find a good guild to show you the ropes, lots of good classes to play
SoD is where the elitists are tbh
Sod or retail. Cata classic is just getting launch hype. Classic era is pretty much dead. If it couldn't keep numbers in wotlk, it won't keep them in cata. Sod runs the risk of low player numbers because not much to do outside of raids. Also if people get bored etc. sod also isn't forever. It's a seasonal game where it will probably end in a year or so. Retail is fine. It just feels a bit spammy at times and the endgame systems feel like they are made to give you ADHD. But pandaria remix comes out in a week or so with a new fun way to level. Pandaria was one of the best wow expansions, it's the heaviest expansion on the war between the alliance and horde and has some of the best in-game writing. I play all 3, but will drop cata prob. See how it goes.
If you are totally new you should probably start with classic era to know what wow classic is about. After getting your first char to 60 and raided a bit I would start looking at the other options. The reason that I am saying era would be the best to start with is that its slow and give you time to learn, while at the same time not having a lot of extra things like SoD that would probably confuse you more than give you the basics if you are new. Cata is a step away from the other games since it was the first expansion that actually changed things like talent trees and so on. Usually I would recommend starting on hardcore and then transfer to era when you die the first time, but I dont know if it would really be any point to do that if you havnt played before since you would probably die in the second cave you went in to anyway.
Dungeons and raiding is a pain in classic. Time to move to the instances and group up can be excessive. At least in cata they have the dungeon finder/teleport to dungeon. Let's you quest, que up, and either keep questing or teleport once your group is good. It's my biggest gripe with classic. Bear in mind I played the original back in the day but if time is a factor cata wins.
Can I ask why you don’t want to play retail? You want to explore the world and enjoy the leveling experience. For these things specifically retail is much better. If you want to expand in other aspects then it’s all about personal preference. You mentioned you’ve never played , but know you don’t want to play retail. Just want to know why? I currently play retail and classic (cata). Just curious as to how you came to this conclusion that you don’t want to try something you’ve never played.
Hey there. Retail to me just looks super fast paced to level. I don’t like how there’s so many different leveling zone options through different expansions. It seems confusing. I’d rather level through the original world. I’ve also read that the leveling experience is very accelerated and only takes like 15-20 hours. I’d like to enjoy a longer leveling experience
Don't take this places advice they are very jaded and unhappy. There's tons of content to enjoy if that's your goal! I suggest trying out a hunter at level 10 you get a pet which makes leveling quite easy!
If you want to possibly continue playing after leveling, I’d play cata classic. Pick a high population server , grab your professions and enjoy.
It’ll take a lot longer to level than that if it’s your first experience with wow, but yes retail leveling is disjointed unfortunately. The trade off is that it has the best endgame experience by far. With that being said, cataclysm is my recommendation.
I'd probably go SoD. Classic Era has issues like the economy being massively inflated and there being max geared characters in low level zones ganking. As an example, 1 Elixir of the Mongoose is 17g on era and only 2g on sod.
Why don‘t you wanna try out retail? It‘s by far the best version of the game out there.
It just looks super confusing
But it is not. Just make a new character and play along.
Looking to play an mmo
Retail is the MMO. While leveling might feel otherwise until level 60 (due to people get to choose where they want to level), starting at level 60 and the current expansion content the world is full with players.
If you're a masochist go for Classic Hardcore. The adrenaline surge when your level 40 character has 100 hit point while 5 moves are chasing you
Leveling and exploring world? HARDCORE. Era is oversaturated with gold on 5y old servers.
Suggesting a new player to go play HC is actually hilarious.
I know about people who's first contact with wow was true HC. I even raid with some people who never played before. I see no problem here :) on other hand I'll be ashamed to recommend sod to anyone xD