The last few weeks I’ve split my downtime between returning to World of Warcraft (WoW) and participating in beta testing for the Classic (original 2004) version of WoW. Returning to both games at roughly the same time, after not playing any version of WoW for almost ten years, led me to automatically compare and contrast the versions.

This post is a casual reflection on those comparisons with some ending thoughts on game design.​

One of the silver linings of being bed-ridden 70-80% of weekends for the past 5 months is being able to play video games guilt free. When you don't have the mental focus to do anything productive, and don't have the physical ability to do much of anything period, working your way through your  Steam backlog feels like a solid option.

During this mass-play of games, two games lodged in my designer-mind for similar reasons: The Witness and Vampyr. While these two games are very different from each other, they share a common design flaw: design choices that distract from the game's core elements.