One of the most storied games in history, World of Warcraft, is still providing entertaining content to millions of users. However, the interesting part about this is that this content comes from three different eras of World of Warcraft. In other words, three different expansions from WoW history are being played by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of players each. These expansions are WoW Classic, Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK), and Dragonflight (retail).
So, whether a player wants to reminisce in the older expansions of WoW or play the latest version of the game with new raids, classes, and zones, there is something for players from all walks of life to enjoy in World of Warcraft.
Retail: World of Warcraft – Dragonflight
First released in November of 2021, Dragonflight quickly became one of the most popular expansions ever released to the World of Warcraft universe. It brought in millions of new and old players with its new storylines and lore, dungeons and raids, and the hallmark feature, Dragonriding.
Potentially the most exciting part of Dragonflight is the ambitious content roadmap that has been laid out for the remainder of 2023. The first part of this content roadmap has just come to fruition on May 2nd, 2023. The newest edition of the Dragonflight story, along with a new zone and raid, hit retail servers and has enticed the players to jump into the new content. One of the coolest parts of this update is that the new zone is underground in a giant cavern, the new raid, Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible, is also in this area.
The final update the came on May 2nd was season 2 of PvP and mythic plus dungeons. PvP is the same as always, it just reset all the ratings, so players have to play their way back up the ranks.
On the other hand, mythic plus dungeons did see a big change. Not only did all of the mythic plus scores reset, but the dungeons players have access to are completely different. Making a total of eight dungeons, four are Dragonflight dungeons – Brackenhide Hollow, Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr, which is the Dragonflight remake of a Classic era dungeon, Halls of Infusion, and Neltharus. The other four are Freehold and Underrot from the Battle for Azeroth expansion, Vortex Pinnacle from Cataclysm, and lastly, Neltharion’s Lair from Legion. Not only do these dungeons provide a fresh challenge for millions of players, but they also can drop powerful gear that will help the new raid and other new retail content.
World of Warcraft Classic
Despite all the new content in retail, many players are still enjoying Classic WoW servers. First released in 2004 and re-released officially in 2019, millions of players are still playing the nearly 20-year-old Classic servers.
The new craze is called Classic Hardcore, and it has caught the attention of some of the largest gaming streamers ever, including Shroud, Asmongold, and Sodapoppin.
What makes this experience ‘hardcore’ is that various restrictions are put on the players to make playing the game extra challenging. The most important restriction is that if a character dies, it is deleted. A few other important restrictions are groups can be not larger than 3 people, and players cannot use the mail or auction house systems for any reason. Dying and using the mail/auction house systems are a core part of making the game easier to play and gearing characters, so playing Hardcore Classic makes the already difficult experience much harder.
While this may not seem like a good time, players who loved Classic WoW are enthralled by the idea of reliving the experience and making it even more difficult. The goal is to simply hit level 60, but countless players have played on a specific character for days or weeks, just to have their character die and start all over again. Very few people have reached level 60 as a hardcore player.
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Originally released in 2008, Wrath of the Lich King is widely regarded as the best expansion that has ever been released. It was by far the most played expansion with 10s of millions of players around the world playing. Backed by popular demand, it was officially re-released in 2022 for players to relive the nostalgia of replaying it.
Currently, all the original content other than the last raid, Ice Crown Citadel where the Lich King resides, is available to play. Most players on the WotLK are playing through the Ulduar raid and preparing for Ice Crown Citadel which will likely come out in the next few months.
While this nothing crazy like Classic Hardcore are revitalizing the WotLK servers, there are still hundreds of thousands of players enjoying the nostalgia. The most promising part of the about these re-released servers and expansions is that it is very likely that another one will come back in the future. Many players would come back to play Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, or Legion from the beginning again.
All three of these servers, Classic, WotLK, and Retail are available to play with a generic World of Warcraft subscription but do require separate downloads to them.
