Why Classic WoW Is Going VIRAL in 2023 | Asmongold Reacts 

He’s right. HC has been the most fun I’ve had with WoW since I was 13. WoW classic was a solved game and you had dungeon spams and boosting and all manner of stuff to speed things up and makes things easier. But the restrictions have made HC feel very similar to back in the day. Not the same of course and obviously it’s all a bit contrived, but Xaryu’s right. It brings back some of the mystery and danger that the game felt like it had back in 2004.

I think one of the main appeals of Hardcore modes is that they encourage real immersion and attention. How many games do you play today while chatting away on a voicecom or watching RU-vid in the background? How often are you actually paying attention to the game and thinking about what you're doing, as opposed to running on autopilot and waiting for that item you want to drop or something similar?

Asmon has turned into such a react channel now that he literally watches other people play his own main game now instead of playing it himself lol.

HC is easily the most fun I've had with WoW since the 2019 release, Xaryu spittin' pure facts. Plus the server is actually packed right now, gives that fresh kinda feeling almost.

Hardcore truly shows the vanilla sandbox. Everything has a value, items you probably never used are now good. Every item you drop feels insane. I think the OG rpg death penalty needs to come back. Hardcore shows us what a rpg is capeable of and I think to step into a good era, we need as I said the death penalties like huge xp loss or even item loss.

I played hardcore for a bit, but I want to play more because it felt very immersive and it made me pay attention to my surroundings and really feel like I was there and my life mattered

He's totally right. HC has made me feel the nostalgia that the classic release didn't give me. I'm loving HC. Happy to see it pop off.

Classic HC has a very potent element - it somwhat activates our primal fight or flight for survival. We get a little bit stressed...there are high stakes and we have to measure risks vs benefits. I didnt think much of it until I tried, and it's genius. I'm so addicted and it's all helped by the fact that you see all these people dying, trying to survive. There is more prestige the higher level you get. Being allowed to do each dungeon only once adds to the fun of grouping up, performing well and preparing to get all quests for it inadvance. Try it guys, its super fun.

There was a guild called "Defias Blackguard" on horde whose whole purpose was to kill the Defias Traitor, led by Ngor the around lvl30 rogue. He got banned on 3 different private servers for griefing for doing that, over and over and over again.

It feels nostalgic because the world feels full everywhere not everyone sitting max level full bis for the phase

Justice shall be done.

Man if Blizz drops dedicated hardcore vanilla servers I'm 100% renewing. You do everything and it slows the pace for everyone, and seeing people pushing stuff lvl 50 plus is exhilarating. Real feat of strengths through a daring community, that's where the real fun reside.

5:16 fun idea for the horde players: create a rogue named "Murk" or something like "Murkdeep", get to level 30, stealth close to that mob spawn location and go out of stealth when the mob spawn. Reward: free honor kills

Classic era graphics are probably most comforting because they remind you of the time when AAA games were nearly always pretty good. Minecraft proved that gameplay matters way more than graphics over a decade ago, yet still AAA game companies tend go for style over content.

Dunno about others but that's exactly how i played back in 2006. Took me couple months to get to lvl 60. Rushing to the top lvl never even occured to me. That was the best experience for me in wow. Doing some quests, dungeon runs for the cool gear at lvl 15, or getting one shot by "skull players" in Stranglehorn Jungle. I remember i took my time to farm out two swords from zul farak to merge them into one super dope 2h sword. Who cares i've outgrown it 5-7 levels later... Some of the best memories of wow when I think back was about leveling up and not even thinking of any end game grind at the time.

When Asmon jokes about classic players being too incompetent to raid Ulduar he's partially right but there's also many good players who enjoy the adventure more than or just as much as a series of challenging fights. I'm greatful we have classic but it's disappointing that this old mmo is the only one that can offer us this kind of experience

The biggest problem with people in WoW, is that everyone is rushing so hard. No one is actually trying to enjoy the game in a normal phase. I underestand people want world first, but man people will get burned out and have no content left to do. in Wrath back in the days, i was raiding with a guild that basically used a a year just to finish ICC. And trust me, i enjoyed every minute of it. Because the social aspect we had, the fun and the grind was amazing.

Not even a minute in and Asmon already has me in stitches. "I don't know why his steak is green, or why he's eating it out of a bowl" omfg gold. I'm using that

This sort of "Take it slow, go everywhere" method is something I do in Ascension. Ironman + Resolute mode (1x xp rates) makes you think about what quests you can do, what areas you can avoid, what risks you can take. It's probably not for everybody, but flexing your memory of content and maybe trying things you never did before is fun.

Asmon sure spends a lot of time (as a 32 year old btw) projecting these "gamer boomer" stereotypes on to classic players. Like...a LOT of time. He literally cannot look at anything classic related without without going on these "boomer gamer" tangents. Damn, getting little insecure about your own age there? It'll be okay.

Just a suggestion but every horde HC player should avoid this quest in ashenvale. 29:30 It's the escort quest that sends you into NE territory and it sucks bad unless you have help.

6:23 People have done that, but the addon detects that mobs shouldn't be in certain areas and then lets people get a free revive as it's considered griefing.

Will Asmongold ever understand that the debate about Classic vs Retail has 0,0 to with challange, complexity or skill ? How can a person be so smart and yet so ignorant at the same time ? The debate is about quality vs quantity, integrity vs Bobby, Art direction vs out of the box comicstyle garbage, hardship vs easy access, casual gaming vs enthusiasts. And btw, streaming classic and playing classic is not the same thing, because the point of classic was to meet new people and make friends, streaming doesn't involve any of that.

Back in real classic times, nobody was 20+ after 3 days. It took me months to get to max level and most of my guild as well. That was a different time back then, with less rush, not saying none, but less. We knew, level up was part of the MMO experience, and not only the end game.

This just makes me think of how there are two types of hikers- those who are pushing themselves to finish a long hike as fast as they can, and those who are stopping constantly to look at the views. I've always been the type to take 2x the amount of time as average players in any game because I have more fun exploring and goofing off. I'm about 200 hours into AC Odyssey and still only level 50 and haven't penetrated Atlantis yet lol

This is kinda how I played Classic, both on private servers and during the 2019 release. Take your time leveling with friends. Help each other to farm the best dungeon items / quest rewards and always keep professions and cooking at highest level. We were 3 friends playing, and we had so much fun helping each other and min-maxing from level 13 to 60. Trying to pick roles and professions that benefit us during our adventure. We played till opening of AQ and quit, because raiding is extremely boring in Vanilla (especially for ppl who have downed every boss since Vanilla) This game become awefully boring when you: 1) Rush to complete everything. 2) Play solo majority of the time. 3) Have to min-max raids that is uber easy and boring. It's fun to see people figure this out after like 15+ years LOL...

I've never played or cared about WoW in my entire life. I thought the game was trash and the only reason people still played it was for the nostalgia. But for the last month or so I'm addicted to watching HC progression videos on RU-vid. Maybe it's because I play HC myself in ARPGs but there's just a different vibe when you can literally die at any time if you're not paying attention or you make a mistake. It's also been fun to learn about a game I never had any interest in and I actually downloaded retail and have started messing around with a (retail) character of my own. There's a satisfaction for HC that you have to prepare for every single encounter and can only run dungeons a single time.

If you guys have ever seen Asmongold do a mythic dungeon you would know why he would never do the HC challenge

HC is fun because it reminds people that WoW is a game and not a race to min max all the time. HC on retail wouldn't work because the leveling sucks.

Installed classic this morning and played all day - it's been, phew, ~12 years since I last played...really enjoyed it. Started with a priest - brought back a lot of very happy times. I'm not in a rush to try HC - the thing is, I'm super paranoid and careful anyway...totally locked in to the game, so getting all the fresh I need right now. EU servers packed BTW.

Classic HC is how casuals like me experienced 2019 Classic. Everyone went to minmaxing to death and levelling inside the same dungeon for days. I took my time did most of the leveling by myself worked on professions etc. Reached 60 in like 8+ days /played.

classic won't die... even 5 years from now, classic will feel fresh again, it seems. just wait 'til VR catches on, and advances, it's going to be the classic mania all over again I bet.

I've never played Classic before, and I've never even maxed a wow character, but Classic HC is so much fun. I started last night and it is such an awesome adventure with a cool community.

For me wow classic during lockdown was one of the happiest experiences ever online. When real life started again and people stopped playing around TBC classic did any of you feel a bit depressed in a way? Like the good times were gone?

Yooo lol when he said "I'm doing this for potentially thousands, millions of people!" on the original video I imagined the clip going viral with Asmon. Mind blown.

I like how at past the 26min mark there are clips of all these intense fights to the death and then there's just this inquisitive little gnome that met his fate after falling through a piece of missing geometry. RIP Lekw he is falling in heaven now

I'm one of the people who played classic on release and I have to vouch that hardcore made me feel 12 again. Tested my current abilities haha was fun to die to a zhevra once i entered the barrens border.

There is something deeper about classic wow that people are yearning for. People are looking for the MMO where there is mystery, community, Fun lore, Danger and much more.

I've been trying it, it's super fun. Classic Release was fun. This feels like Dark Souls in Wow. Just immersive and treating mobs as actual threats is a good thing.

If Blizzard made this official and wanted to add a feature, they could add a graveyard where max level player names are displayed. Maybe as a perk, if someone has experience beating raid bosses, their gravestone could have added identifiers to show this.

I've been on vanilla classic but now you're inspiring me to go try out hardcore...

Progressing through 30's applies the "reduced metabolic efficiency" debuff until cleansed by release spirit

The fact that you can’t group for these quests where there is a line is the most ridiculous aspect of this challenge. Everyone in line helps you kill the mob anyhow, what’s the difference if we just group and make it faster for everyone?

this is so crazy me and my freinds were talking about this the other day how classic has so many players now

Loved the play by play explanations on the avoidable deaths!

Lol Xaryu yelling "I got grief!" cracks me up every time.

DM can get crazy near the boat section if you have a lower level in your party that aggros upper deck

Retail dorks ALWAYS say classic is easy like its a bad thing. Dude, easy is more fun. Sorry, its the truth. "Hard" does not equal "good".

"I don't know why his steak is green." that's what happens when you cook a whole foods steak Asmon.

This is hysterical. I told this WoW junky guild leader who was a co-worker at a government job in 2015 that if an MMO did a 1 life, roguelike server as an MMO it would pop off. He told me I should never consider developing a game and nobody would buy into it. F that guy, probably still leads that shortbus of a guild today.

People were botting and messing up the eco...but HC doesn't use trade or auction house

Add in the fact that the voice-over ai quest addon came out. It makes leveling more interesting.

TBH im having a good time in HC right now

Kind of hope asmon does this, it would take me back to the days when I first started watching him and he was doing the Ironman challenge

This video has me at. "frost bolt *poke* frostbolt." So modest. So calm.

Dude! The EU servers is on fire! Some servers is like it did not end when tbc went live.. Its so many ppl back.! Its crazy

There needs to be a proper hardcore private server with vanilla plus content

Its just too good. One could even say it's a... classic.

"That's what you get, that's what you fucking get" I could set this on new message notification 🤣

People have different sense of what is fun. Clearing hardcore Ulduar for some, but the very thing that attracts people and the reason you are making a reaction to Xaryus content is that is popular. Regardless of one’s own opinion, most people care less about achieving difficult content, they care more to enjoy the game and experience all those situations, when people fail for example or exactly the things that you are making fun of. There were always two kind of population that played WOW... the giga raiders that wanted to achiev difficult content and the people that wanted to enjoy and explore the world and played it in a more casual way. Sadly for those elitists, without the casual population, the game would have died long time ago and it would never had return at all. Accept the fact, you like it or not, that WOW would have never been so popular if it wasn’t for the casual population. Hardcore classic attracts those people back to vanilla.

*_Hardcore RPPVP is the ultimate trip._*

Answer: Cause it is not garbage retail trash used to milk players like a degenerate of both mindless time waste and money. It has a soul and respects ur time and its chill and fun. Retail enjoyers dont even like world of warcraft, they like world of collection, mindless get 1 mount 1 pet 2 tabard, kill 1 named npc, 12 random npcs, collect 8 random bs-craft. Dont make classic into retail like asmon wants. 2023 blizzard is gonna fuck it up if we get classic+

my preferred way to level even in 2007 was to get ahead of the curve and push through green quests.. been there, done that

People like Xaryu always seem to "like/enjoy more" whatever brings in more viewers at that particular moment in time.

the dopamine of "high risk, high reward"; that self entitlement for paving the odds seeking for affirmation; how the gravity of all things does highlight player's choice. reminds me of masocore (diablo 1 and retros) genres or akin to its lovechild "soulslikes"; it's all skill, all you. it's wild to see these feedbacks for an mmo game w/o dynamic narrative/writing, with how monotonous mmo's are, desynthesized of giving importance to individuality and instead of whats builds best based on general opinion.

i wasnt rushing classic 2019. first time to 60 took me 3 month and i loved every second of it!

i just found out about Classic HC , i didn't even play the game, but i like the survival aspect of it , and watching like Xaryu doing hard ass quest solo. shit is intense af

When Xaryu said "ahh the great outdoors". Im upset no one quoted dryads saying "ahh the great outdoors"

Good video, but I disagree with the premise that Hardcore is all the rage now because there is nothing to do in Classic. If that’s true, I’ve been doing “nothing” since 2019 and loving every minute of it. I must be a boring person, I dunno. Every new character is a new experience for me. My main just started doing Naxx and we’re at 6/15 now. Plus, I’m leveling other characters. I love leveling professions, reputations, and skills. Every time I create a new character, I learn something new. I don’t understand how someone can say that there is nothing to do in Classic. 🤦🏼‍♂️

I can't wait to get to this point of the game. Warcraft has been so interesting. Learning the lore of warcraft has been awesome so far

Hardcore WoW is amazing, it makes me discover parts of the game that i was brainlessly running through. I now have to pay attention, it isnt a race to the end game anymore, any moment can be the last one, so every moment needs to be enjoyable. I have to take the time to read quests, and make sure i wont get any bad surprise. My first time flirting with death was vs Foreman Bond in Hillsbrad Foothill, with him spawning 2 dwarves and stunning you. If i knew that he would do that, i would not have ventured down there, got down to 1% almost had a heart attack. So lets talk about the adrenaline rushes that it gives, a peaceful questing phase can turn into a nightmare in a matter of seconds. Im more scared of entering in a cave in classic WoW than any horror movie out there.

Well, nice that people have found renewed interest in the game. On the other side though, it also shows how people ruins things for themselves, when they try to live up to other peoples expectations and joins the rat race of getting to max level, grind pre-bis etc. etc. at neck breaking speed. Personally, it is not a thing for me. WoW isn't geared towards HC play and I can only imagine the rage towards others, when a party wipes in a dungeon lol! Also, why are people waiting in line for the Defias Messenger, instead of making a group...? Does not compute. Or does HC wow restrict group play as well?

Lol Asmon is just mad, he can't ride the hype wave because if he tried the hardcore challenge he would roll a warrior and die at level 4, his viewers will never let it down and being bad at games is something he is self conscious of

3:42 A turtle made it to the water....the cycle of the life can be cruel

This is why I always had at least one HC char in the diablo’s. EVERYTHING matters.

I hate it how Asmon automatically thinks every class in classic is easy.. A feral druid can easily have over 40 keybinds in classic, more than a retail warrior without arena targeting will ever have. I got rank 13 as a feral by solo stealth kills in battlegrounds and getting a world rank 15 phrase out of 20k players wouldn't easy either.

What's funny is that a huge portion of the people playing HC are from retail

the worst thing you cn do to hardcore classic is make it into a competition

HC classic feels right. For the first time since real vanilla my friends and I are playing TOGETHER again.

Most """"wow gamers"""" dont realize why hc has that special flavor to it is because it forced you to do something they're not use to: fend off by yourself instead of looking at guides for literally everything. Now imagine all the enjoyment you've lost in all games you've played because of you giga optimizing stuff while braindeading it.

If Classic HC is so easy and brainless Asmon should be all over it. He has spent hours going on about how he loves very easy games, how he hates challenge and how he is beyond hard games. Well, perfect Asmon, a super easy game just for you!

Hardcore community existed since the start of classic. I even have a run from years ago on my channel

Asmongold sounded like Dr. Phil when he said "what the hell" @ 4:10

Yo Asmond I just started playing classic wow earlier today, never touched it my life. I have two older brothers that have played for well over a decade. Figured it was time for me to give it a try, may not have a clue what I'm doing but still having fun!

i actually play hardcore classic on my own offline singleplayer repack, and its still better than 90% of the singleplayer RPGs and JRPGs i have played since FFX, because of how well the 1-60 progression was designed its going viral because people are craving for more games like this in most "modern" RPGs (past ps3 - 2008 era), they focus too much on storytelling your gear doesnt matter, professions and side content are more like extracurricular activities that very late in the game gives you the best weapon, but there will be no boss left to fight

First thought - "it's more clipable duh" As if that's a gotcha. It's a compliment.

Just died at level 8 from doing what everyone says not to do by going into a cave 😪

29:42 ye honestly idk wtf he was doing there trying to kill all these adds in melee as hunter

My policy with lines for mobs is if theres one I'll wait but if everyone is stacked on the mob spawn its free for all

The truth is that if popular streamer or even the most famous himself “Asmongold” go back and start playing classic, they will certainly pull the whole wow community/players along from retail.

Why Asmon is so rude to people that just want to play the game the way they enjoy it?

It's unfair to say people are playing because they want to stay relevant on twitch, the reality is some of us find it fun

If they did a official release with some cool cosmetic rewards and other creative rewards it would be very fun

It's like MMO's used to be like that. Maybe by the lack of resources at the time and maybe because of the grind and punishes that most game used to have back then. The lineal experience that much MMOs have and the fact that the "end" goal became just raiding, made the overall experience just a pipeline. Replacing stats, skins and some mechanics with each xpac. When the "World" by itself is the endgame and we you can lose much progress (Not always has to be hardcore) because you didn't pay much attention or just because you wander off without your party, is when a MMO trully shines and is meant to be what it always meant to be. A OPEN PLACE WERE ALL PLAYERS CAN SEE AND INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER. Instances were so amazing at the beginning of WOW (And overall a new way to play MMOs) but for years has made WoW souless compared to any other mmo that have a gathering of players beside a hub city.

ruleset of "hc" is a throw off for me. Not being able to group with your friends and doing dungeons only once. fuuuuck that.

Holy shit that life insurance joke about warcraft players hit me in my soul

I've done a few hc runs, I've got one still going. But I'm playing non hc classic right now and still having a blast. It's great! I hope this lasts a long time. I know the hype will eventually fade though.

100% agree I’ve honestly had the best time in hardcore and I mainly play retail. Asmond HC series?

I don’t think WOW. Will ever die because there are people like me who have played the original casually years ago and like me stopped playing for awhile, and im playing WOW classic and leveling a character and im having more fun now than I was back in the day. Maybe it’s age, who knows, but I’ve always loved WOW

Turtle WoW is breaking barriers