Classic vs. Retail

It depends if you wanna date the game and get to know it or are you just looking for a quick bang? No judgment. Retail is the go to for a quick bang, knock it out, have fun, have some regrets later on because you recognized the flaws early but chose to ignore them. If you really want to date and get to know the game, play classic. It plays hard to get, takes it slow, and really makes you get to know the game and its story. At the end it will be way more work, and probably have more boring points, but will be more rewarding overall.

Totally your call. Both are very different games. There's really no right answer.

Go with Classic if you want that old school mmo experience, you like slower gameplay, and don't mind a little roughness around the edges. The classic leveling experience is very long and is kind of the bulk of the game.

Go with retail if you want faster, more polished gameplay that is much more streamlined. There is less of that oldschool rpg dna in retail. The retail endgame experience is essentially the game, with the leveling experience being more of an obstacle on the way to that endgame. Leveling in retail will be much easier and much faster and I believe you get a free boost with purchase of WoW to skip most of it on one character.

I love both for different reasons. I would encourage you to try both and see which one resonates more with you.

Go with classic if you want to feel like your decisions matter, gear found while leveling is actually useful. Stuff actually sells on the auctionhouse because people need it. You will die sometimes.... Tradeskills are useful. No heirlooms, no dungeon finder. You explore the entire world compared to retail everyone sits in a city and spams dungeons all day.

Make that choice yourself by creating a character on both versions and playing for sometime.
I prefer retail. Classic is more of a slower gameplay.

I started wow back up again due to classic but barely got past 40 before it was to much of a slog. Decided to give retail a shot and I love it.

I’m a “casual” so things such as LFD have been great. The faster pace is also nice. There is a lot of grind at the end of the game that I don’t like but so far the journey has been good.

Classic if you’re a fan of RPG mechanics like class quests that make you fetch shit from around the world, kill named mobs and get items from dungeons, usually to learn signature spells for your class to make you really feel like you’re a paladin or warlock or rogue or whatever. The leveling is also slower and more focused on the social/community aspect, so you’ll be seeing a lot of the same names and faces around. Classic is for the sort of player who takes the game seriously and will likely invest dozens of hours into one or maybe two characters.

Retail if you don’t care about class quests, don’t have the time or patience for slow leveling and just want to get to end game ASAP. Leveling is more of an obstacle on the way to end game content like raiding and dungeons (not that you can’t enjoy it in its own right) so it goes by much faster. It is more streamlined, polished, and geared towards the sort of person who wants to sit down after a long day at work, do a few battlegrounds, dungeons, level an alt, whatever and then log off when they feel like it.

Reetail

It depends what you’re after. Modern WoW is easy, smooth and fun, whereas classic takes ages to level and is missing a lot of modern quality of life features. I’d recommend trying modern WoW first, try dungeon finder and explore the world and then try classic, if any reason just to see the differences

I played classic and found it slower and more methodical. it's fun but can have its challenges.

Retail i prefered more but found that it can be a lot to absorb