When starting a column, I’ve found it’s always best to kick off with gripping subject matter, so let’s talk about scheduling!
Earlier this year, I realized that my weekly schedule was so packed that, effectively, I did not have a day off. Like, ever. And I was burning out because of it. So I rearranged my routine to completely give myself off one day a week.
Giving myself that “gift of time” has been both weird and wonderful. I needed it, but it’s been hard to downshift to relax that day after a week of go-go-go. As weird as it is to say, I’ve had to relearn how to take it easy and cruise at a different speed.
Why mention this? Because this is exactly what WoW Classic does for me — and many other gamers — as well. Its very design gives a “gift of time” to players that aren’t used to this format. What do I mean by that? Let me explain.
I can sense a lot of quirked eyebrows at the notion of an MMO like this “giving” time when WoW Classic takes literal days of /played gametime to get to the level cap. Everything here is so slow and gradual, including 40 levels of jogging everywhere and waiting for boats to show up and parties to assemble. How could this give anything other than a headache?
To answer that, we have to look at how MMORPGs have evolved today. Your typical modern MMO is a game that’s worried it’s going to lose your attention, so it tries to keep throwing stuff at you as fast as possible. Things happen quickly — leveling, travel, dungeons, milestones, public events — and the game flings tasks at you all the time. Do this achievement. Make this happen in a limited span. Oh, here’s a side objective! Here’s a meter for you to fill. Here’s a ton of crap that’s going to clutter up your inventory but at least you got a ton of crap. Here’s a server event.
Not all of this is bad. After all, I play many of these games and appreciate when they’re tailored to bite-sized gaming sessions or keep the dopamine drip going with the latest task accomplished. But sometimes it feels like it’s too much, you know?
Let me trot out retail WoW for a point of comparison here. This is actually a great iteration of the game, but it still suffers from Stuff To Do overload. I don’t think I’ve been able to make headway in whittling down my questlog since the expansion dropped. Every day I log in, I have to decide which of the many, many time-limited activities are worth doing and whether I should ignore them to focus on actual story or quest advancement. I’m zipping about the place like a fly frantic not to get swatted.
It’s kind of exhausting after a while. And sometimes I need a break from it. I don’t even think I’m alone in feeling like this.
Older MMOs (EverQuest or Old School RuneScape) or older-style MMOs (say, LOTRO or Embers Adrift) like WoW Classic have a much different design philosophy than what I described above. They embrace the slow. They focus down your tasks to one or two things that might take a while. Going from point A to point B might take a chunk of your gaming session.
Like my silly scheduling story above, this style is a shift in pace that can be hard to embrace at first but ends up being the best part of the week once you get used to it. WoW Classic’s gift of time isn’t more of it, but a coaxing and encouragement that it’s OK to slow down and be more present in the world.
That deliberate pacing infects almost every aspect of this game as I play. It gives me more space to talk to others and goof off while we’re waiting for the boat to arrive. I don’t feel overwhelmed with a million quests when I know that I’m probably only going to get one, or two, or maybe three done in a session, so I should just focus on those. I greatly anticipate gear and level milestones, the long-term goal of saving up for a mount, the challenge of handling a limited inventory when you can’t zip back into town or pull out your yak mount to sell every two minutes.
Having this game tell me outright, “You’re going on a very long journey that’s not really about the destination at all” is something I can embrace. It takes the pressure off of frantically leveling and gearing and puts me in a more laidback attitude. I engage more with the community and am encouraged to help others when opportunities present themselves. I think about other long-term objectives to accomplish, such as leveling up certain crafting professions.
Here’s another thought: Because I can’t zip through WoW Classic in the span of a few nights, I’m less likely to grow bored with it and become antsy. That time spent creeping my way to level 60 feels well spent, more meaningful than if I got a level skip or jumped into a timewalking event.
I’m not saying that this is the only way that MMOs should be; I would argue for a variety of approaches and design. But it’s a good reminder that there’s a virtue in slowing down and really taking in a game rather than sprinting past it. There should be a maxim about that.
Stepping back into the MMO time machine of WoW Classic, Justin Olivetti offers up observations and ground-level analysis as a Gnome with a view. Casually Classic is a more laid-back look at this legacy ruleset for those of us who’ve never stepped into a raid or seen more than 200 gold to our names.
