‘Since when?!’: Retail renaissance looms as WoW players turn on creators who claim it’s ‘bad’

Hordes of World of Warcraft players finally trying retail WoW have been left awed by its quality and how good it is—and now they’re turning on the YouTubers and content creators who they claim gave retail WoW a bad reputation.

Retail WoW has carried a stigma in recent years, with people suggesting it has bad expansions, poor updates, and mixed gameplay. Much of this has been led by content creators in the MMO RPG space, with fans avoiding Retail for Classic due to the sentiment—until now. These new players, many preparing for War Within, were left flabbergasted by how good it is and then became incensed by the “lies” about its quality.

It’s true retail WoW has had less-than-stellar expansions, especially Shadowlands, with many updates failing to land with players and creators alike. The general claim on YouTube and Twitch that “WoW is 100 percent bad” is wrong though, players have heralded today, with many encouraging others to “form [their] own opinions.”

Players quickly agreed on a Reddit thread on Aug. 4 that many creators don’t seem to care about giving honest feedback” or even go as far as insisting retail is in the “worst possible state” it’s ever been—all while not playing themselves.

In the same outcry, veterans claimed “WoW is actually getting better constantly through time,” with constant retail changes since the launch of Dragonflight turning it into a great game again. These praised features ranged from talents to the new native edit UI feature, as well as dragonriding and an update endgame.

The numbers suggest WoW retail is far from “dead” too: The out-of-the-box WoW version sees around 167,315 players per day, according to WoW server population tracker MMO Population, while WoW Classic clocks in at around 83,856 daily.

These numbers may not be in the millions, but expansions tend to bring in new and returning players and with The War Within releasing in a few short weeks, we expect to see a boom in these player count numbers. So, now might be the perfect time to dive back into retail, see what’s new, form your own opinions, and get excited about this upcoming expansion.

Even I have returned to WoW to prepare a character for The War Within because I like the story and all the new content coming in this expansion. After being away from retail for so long, I agree that retail has become pretty impressive.