6 Reasons We Can’t Wait to Dive Into World of Warcraft: Classic
40-Man Raids
Sure, 40-man raiding had issues: it was horrible to balance, it killed older computers, and you often had to take more than a few stragglers around. However, despite its obvious problems, it felt unironically epic to enter a raid with 39 other people and take down a boss.
40-man raids also demanded a reduced standard of entry, which allowed less experienced players to learn via playing. Carrying players at a lower skill didn’t feel like a bad thing in Classic as the manpower was needed, leading to a culture where the World of Warcraft pros would coach the newbies. Raiding at that size made it feel like a massively multiplayer experience, which retail World of Warcraft has sadly lost.
Mechanics, too, allowed a margin for player deaths; in modern World of Warcraft, too many raid bosses punish individual mistakes, propagating frustration. Overall, though, 40-man raids led to moments like the one below, which are etched in Warcraft folklore:
