Originally posted by Amarandes

Originally posted by Palebane

4. Volatile Earth, Fire, Water, and Life.  5 new reputations to grind to exalted with in order to progress at all. Heroic dungeons: Now that we've got enough stats from running this dungeon 100 times, we get to run it 100 more times so we can have enough stats to raid? The treadmill is WAY WAY worse now, in my opinion.

 I understand where you're coming from but in my opinion, the grind in vanilla was way worse than it is now. I'll add some more stuff I neglected to mention. Vanilla WoW had way more mat requirements than just the volatile elementals. In TBC, you absolutely have to grind reputations because you can't get into heroics without first getting revered reps with a specific faction. In addition you have to do a SPECIFIC dungeon to raise a SPECIFIC rep with a dungeons.

In Cataclysm you can jump into heroics without having the need to grind a rep to revered save for the ilvl requirement which I and many others had no trouble getting the requirement for. And you don't have to do any specific dungeons to raise a specific rep. You just wear a tabard into any dungeons you want and get rep for that faction.

On the subject of gearscore, I actually saw that addon being used much less now, probably because people realized that gear no longer represents skill levels because the heroics are much harder than in WOTLK.

I agree with you. It just seems like the grind is more necessary in Cataclysm. I never grinded in TBC or WotLK much, and it felt fine. In Cata it seems more like you pretty much have to grind something to get anywhere, to me.

Originally posted by Warzod

No no, he is right. It is better... if you're 7.

So you are enjoying Cataclysm quite a bit then

Originally posted by Palebane

Originally posted by Amarandes

Originally posted by Palebane

4. Volatile Earth, Fire, Water, and Life.  5 new reputations to grind to exalted with in order to progress at all. Heroic dungeons: Now that we've got enough stats from running this dungeon 100 times, we get to run it 100 more times so we can have enough stats to raid? The treadmill is WAY WAY worse now, in my opinion.

 I understand where you're coming from but in my opinion, the grind in vanilla was way worse than it is now. I'll add some more stuff I neglected to mention. Vanilla WoW had way more mat requirements than just the volatile elementals. In TBC, you absolutely have to grind reputations because you can't get into heroics without first getting revered reps with a specific faction. In addition you have to do a SPECIFIC dungeon to raise a SPECIFIC rep with a dungeons.

In Cataclysm you can jump into heroics without having the need to grind a rep to revered save for the ilvl requirement which I and many others had no trouble getting the requirement for. And you don't have to do any specific dungeons to raise a specific rep. You just wear a tabard into any dungeons you want and get rep for that faction.

On the subject of gearscore, I actually saw that addon being used much less now, probably because people realized that gear no longer represents skill levels because the heroics are much harder than in WOTLK.

I agree with you. It just seems like the grind is more necessary in Cataclysm. I never grinded in TBC or WotLK much, and it felt fine. In Cata it seems more like you pretty much have to grind something to get anywhere, to me.

That is absolutely ridiculous.

TBC was the most grindy expansion out of them all. I didnt care, it didnt bother me personally, i loved that people had to grind content in order to do more content. Thats how TBC started tho, halfway through and straight to the end it was constantly nerfed. Sunwell was really impressive tho.

Originally posted by Palebane

I had a lot more friends back in Vanilla. Most of them have left due to the Need Loot Now crowd. Superior? Not really. Superiority complex? Definitely.

 

1. 40 man raids meant that anyone could go. You didn't have to pass a gearscore or achievement check just to get in. It was more social than anything. Players did not have to all play thier best or jump through hoops to see the content without being constantly ridiculed. Getting players together and managing them was the game. It's a multiplayer game. The more the merrier.

 

2. It was simply a matter of loot. The only reason they changed it was the ocean of tears from casual players (of which I am one). If casual players didn't feel the need to be on par with everyone else and just enjoy the game for what it is, there would have never been a problem. Pure jealousy and greed.

 

3. Some perfectly viable, fun to play class specs have been destroyed by the homogynization of classes through the years. You list some good examples of how they fixed some classes, but what abou the hybrid specs that are no longer possible, such as Disc/Shadow? There is no longer any experimentation. The class structure does not allow players to fail. You play the class trees the way Blizzard tells you to or else.

 

4. Volatile Earth, Fire, Water, and Life.  5 new reputations to grind to exalted with in order to progress at all. Heroic dungeons: Now that we've got enough stats from running this dungeon 100 times, we get to run it 100 more times so we can have enough stats to raid? The treadmill is WAY WAY worse now, in my opinion.

 

5. You got me there, the quests are much better FOR SOLO PLAYERS.

I also had a lot more friends during vanilla.  Vanilla WoW is also the reason why most of them burned out and quit.  If Burning Crusade came out 4-6 months earlier most of them would have kept playing. 

1.  40 man raiding meant that anyone could go who was in a big enough guild.  If you were in a small guild you were out of luck and any larger guild that would let you tag along, prefered that you transfered to their guild to continue.  Once a guild got large enough it became a competition for raiding spots and gear became an important consideration.  To become eligible for Molten Core raiding you would need to get enough Fire Resistance gear or you would not get a slot.  As the guild progressed players who raided less often would fall back in the gear they required and would not be given a slot for a higher tier raid. People got excluded based on gear all the time.

2.  The problem with the end game gear was that it locked people out of content.  You had to grind a lot of MC even after you beat it to have the gear for BWL and AQ.  This meant that more casual players would fall behind and get excluded from raids.  The casual players essentially said that they enjoyed the game so far since they were being cut out of the new content, they saw no reason to keep playing.  Blizzard did the math and decided to make the game more accessible.  The epeeners started whining.

[quote]
Originally posted by Torik

---

Originally posted by Palebane
I had a lot more friends back in Vanilla. Most of them have left due to the Need Loot Now crowd. Superior? Not really. Superiority complex? Definitely.
 
1. 40 man raids meant that anyone could go. You didn't have to pass a gearscore or achievement check just to get in. It was more social than anything. Players did not have to all play thier best or jump through hoops to see the content without being constantly ridiculed. Getting players together and managing them was the game. It's a multiplayer game. The more the merrier.
 
2. It was simply a matter of loot. The only reason they changed it was the ocean of tears from casual players (of which I am one). If casual players didn't feel the need to be on par with everyone else and just enjoy the game for what it is, there would have never been a problem. Pure jealousy and greed.

---

---

I also had a lot more friends during vanilla.  Vanilla WoW is also the reason why most of them burned out and quit.  If Burning Crusade came out 4-6 months earlier most of them would have kept playing. 

1.  40 man raiding meant that anyone could go who was in a big enough guild.  If you were in a small guild you were out of luck and any larger guild that would let you tag along, prefered that you transfered to their guild to continue.  Once a guild got large enough it became a competition for raiding spots and gear became an important consideration.  To become eligible for Molten Core raiding you would need to get enough Fire Resistance gear or you would not get a slot.  As the guild progressed players who raided less often would fall back in the gear they required and would not be given a slot for a higher tier raid. People got excluded based on gear all the time

2.  The problem with the end game gear was that it locked people out of content.  You had to grind a lot of MC even after you beat it to have the gear for BWL and AQ.  This meant that more casual players would fall behind and get excluded from raids.  The casual players essentially said that they enjoyed the game so far since they were being cut out of the new content, they saw no reason to keep playing.  Blizzard did the math and decided to make the game more accessible.  The epeeners started whining

---

If you dont  want to read my whole reply I just want to say that this person lies, distorts and perpetuates the myths about classic WoW.

Originally posted by Amarandes

1. 40 man raids was the biggest mistake Blizzard made with vanilla WoW. Maybe its just because I had a very bad experience with this but this right here was the absolute worst feature of vanilla WoW and let me tell you why.

One of the painful aspects of raiding with 40 people is not the challenge of the instance itself, but the challenge of managing them. Its already hard enough for my guild leader to manage 25 people, imagine what it was like to manage other people. I know because I was an officer of a guild back in vanilla WoW. Raiding back then felt more like a second job then a game. I already have enough stress during the day and I don’t want to have to deal with it again when playing WoW. I want to jump into a raid right away, not having to manage 40 other people.

 

Thats funny because 40 man raiding guilds for me in classic was the best. Yes, it was hard to get a 40 man guild going but once a guild became established they became like rock steady franchises. Established guilds were more stable and players were more committed to guilds than in the expansions. If you were a hunter or  rogue, the most common classes in classic, and you got into a raiding guild you would NOT act like an ass or cause trouble because if you were gremoved, especially before character transfers (which didnt come to 2nd half of 2006), you wouldnt get into another guild of the same level but instead have to chance your luck with lesser progressed guilds.

On my real there were more stable raiding guilds in Classic than there were in WotLK. In Classic everyone knew the raiding guilds and how casual/hardcore they were.

By WotLK every Tom, Dick and Harry thought he could run a guild and the amount of poorly run guilds exploded. Guilds would come and go. Players also had no loyalty to guilds and gquit like crazy.

 

Additionally, the nightmare doesn’t just stop outside the instance but continues into the raid itself. We had about 5+ people that were always afk or underperforming during the actual boss fights and felt like we were carrying them through the entire raid. We had no choice but to let them stay because we don’t have any other people to replace them.With 40 people around, I only got to interact, socialize and got to know only 10 of them. With a smaller raid, I saw more interactions between guild members.

 

Heres a bizarre concept for you. Raiding is for raiding and not socialising. I got to know a LOT of members of my guild outside of raids in doing things like Silithus badge quests, Dukes and Abyssal Lords. And there was ZG and AQ20. Since those 2 instances were pretty easy, especially ZG rep and Idol farming, there was a lot of chat and socialising in those runs.

 

 

At times, my current guild felt like a family to me, something that I never got out of my vanilla guild. And when the boss drops only a 3-4 items, ugh the loot drama that goes with distributing them to only a small fraction of the raid, I’m not gonna talk about it cause you get my point.

 

Really? Every guild I've been in since Classic has felt nothing but a group of people coming together to farm EPICS and then log off or does something else.

 

You also had things like helping guildies and friends get Onyxia, MC, BWL attuned and helping people get their AD rep for Naxx attunement.

 

            In effect, you are spending more time looking for people and managing them than you actually do playing the game. Needless to say, the stress caused by 40 man raids finally caused my vanilla guild to implode by the time TBC came out. My vanilla guild made it to but never killed Ragnaros in the Molten Core.

 

There was a guild on ym realm that one shot every boss in MC up to Rag and 2 shot Rag on their first run. Admittedly they had some players with MC experience and this was in 2006 when MC was easy.

 

            Raid sizes do not determine how epic a boss encounter is. A boss can have 40 people attacking him, but if he just stands there and only attacks the tank endlessly, the encounter isn’t epic at all. Look at all of Wow’s dungeons from TBC onwards. Instead of the generic Tank and spank fight that we saw so often in vanilla WoW, bosses now have more interactive and interesting mechanics even with less people in a group. Such mechanics include managing debuffs, controlling another mob, interacting with the environment around the boss, etc.

 

Rubbish. If you never saw past Rag then how would you know? There is no feeling in WoW like the first time you down Rag. It stays with you forever. When I killed Lich King for the first time it was like "is that it?" And this was someone who first played Warcraft: Orcs and Humans back in 1995.

 

Managing debuffs? Chromaggus anyone? C'thun has to be one of the greatest boss fings in any mmo EVER. Level 60 naxx was just epic even though I, like many many many other people, never got past 4 horsemen.

 

            If I was to go back and redesign vanilla WoW, I would have put the raid cap at 10 and 25 man from the very beginning.

 

Glad you're not designing anything.

 

2.         End game was for hardcores only. If there was one thing that WoW did right from TBC onwards its that it proved that raids were not just for hardcores. No as a matter of fact, it proved that all MMORPGs don’t have to be hardcore for players to enjoy it. I remembered lasting only a month in EQ1 back in 1999. The severe death penalty was what drove me away from EQ1. Good riddance cause I really hate losing everything item I worked so hard to get.

 

Rubbish. I knew casual guilds raiding that were raiding MC, Onyxia, AQ20, ZG, Lord Kazzak and Azuregos. These guilds did not use DKP but slash roll, they did NOT force players to spec in anyway - tanks were 31/5/15. They didnt care if their healing priests were shadow spec. They never forced their players to enchant their gear or grind Zandalar rep for shoulder enchants or farm Jin'do or Bloodlord for idols to make head/leg enchants.

 

Try getting into even a casual raiding guild today without the correct spec and gems/enchants and rep enchants.

 

The raids of vanilla Wow started out pretty hardcore and so did TBC as well. Then Blizzard started to remove the barrier of entry and the hardcore vs casual debate intensified. First came the removal of attunements to many raids in TBC, the splitting of the raids into 10 and 25 man, extension of raid lockouts, and the introduction of “easy” (normal) and hard (heroic) mode.

 

Molten Core was pretty simple. Onyxia was pretty simple. Even most of Blackwing lair was simple. Razorgore was defintely a HUGE step-up from Rag and a lot of guilds had problems with him. But this was the only time that Blizzard made the first boss of a dungeon a lot harder than the previous tier - mainly because BWL was the first raid instance released after the game's relase. Even in BWL Razorgore, Vael were tough but once you got past those it was pretty smooth sailing onwards. Even Chromaggus and Nefarion werent that hard after a few attempts.

 

Things in Classic didn't get hard until Twin Emps. Twin Emps, Ouro, C'thun and Naxx were a big step up. But even if your guild didnt reach that far you had PLENTY of content to see.

 

Attunements were removed when that tier was removed as the highest level. Needing to get attuned to SSC/TK was removed in 2.1 and a little later the Champion of the Naaru was added. Hyjal/BT attunments were removed in 2.4 when SWP came out. But when you downed Vashj and Kael the satisfaction was immense. My favourite boss kills in WoW were Rag, C'thun, Vashj and Kael. Archimonde and Illidan were slight let downs and I never went far in SWP.

 

 

No longer do we have to play WoW 5-7 nights a week in order to raid. Do you guys even know why Naxxramas was brought back in the first place? Not because Blizzard is lazy but because less than 1% of the WoW population got to see the original Naxxramas.

 

Complete rubbish and lies. More than 1% of people saw Naxx. At LEAST 3 bosses in Naxx were easier than C'thun. Only 1% of players CLEARED Naxx. But as as I said there were LOTS of guilds stuck on fourhorsemen. LOTS. There were at least 6 guilds on my server either stuck on fourhorsemen and 2 had even cleared Naxx before 2.0 hit.

 

And there were plenty more guilds that had at least 1 Naxx kill. There were 15 bosses in Naxx.

 

And you never had to raid 5-7nights in Classic to clear content. I knew guilds who raided two nights a week and they were in BWL by the time 2.0 hit.

 

It is for this reason that it was brought back in WoTLK with the exact same boss mechanics. To this day, I still stand by Blizzard’s philosophy that everyone should have an equal chance to raid and see the endgame. We pay the same amount of money as the hardcores did so we deserve just as much right as they do to kill a major lore character like Arthas. Think its too easy? Then go do heroic mode instead cause I will gladly stick to the normal modes.

 

I pay the same membership fees as other golfers. I DEMAND to have a handicap of 0. Of course that would mean revamping every hole to be a 50 metre par 5. BUT I PAY THE SAME FEES AS EVERYONE ELSE.

 

Your $15 only covers ACCESS to the game. It does NOT ENTITLE you to anything.

 

 

 

            Needless to say, I would not be playing WoW today if these barriers were not removed.

 

I'm not playing WoW today because they were removed. So I negate you.

 

 

3.         Classes are more poorly designed then they are today. Remember the lolret? The talent trees and the itemization in vanilla WoW were so poorly designed that each of the classes had only one spec that was viable. Only warriors could tank. Balance druids cannot dps. Feral druids cannot dps or tank. Paladins cannot tank or dps. Shadow priests cannot dps. Shamans cannot dps. Do I need to go on? In addition, the items of vanilla raids were tailored to only one spec for each class. You are literally laugh at if you specced into any of the non-viable specs. Having only one spec that was viable forced people into roles that they do not like. One person may not like to heal as a paladin but if he/she wanted to see the vanilla raids, that’s all they can do. Today all of the 27 original specs are raid viable.

 

Firstly EVERY class had a MAJOR talent and ability overhaul. 1.6 Warrios and Warlocks, 1.7 hunters, 1.8 druids I think, 1.9 paladins then mages, priests, shamans and finally rogues in 1.12.

 

I will concede that the major failing of Classic WoW was that Blizzard gave revamps to classes like druid which, contrary to popular belief, made specs like moonkin viable but no gear for them. The only reason that fury warriors and shadow priests were used in raids was because there was enough non-tier drops for them to be useful. Some of the highest DPS in my raids were fury warriors and shadow priests afte their talent review.

 

Recently I went back and had a look at a 1.12 talent generator and I was surprised how viable some specs could have been if they had gear to match. For example a moonkin would have brought inervate (trainable at lvl 40 in 1.11), battle rez, motw and moonkin aura. But of course with very little leather spell damage gear it was impossible to use them.

 

I never said Classic was perfect, just the best.

 

4.         More grinding than today. If you think that grinding is bad today, you have no idea what it was like in vanilla WoW. Anyone remember the old honor system? Remember how long it took to reach rank 14 Grand Marshall? You literally had to give up your real life and play WoW pvp 24/7 to reach that rank. I’m not kidding.

 

I got to rank 12 on one character and rank 11 on another. I didnt play even close to 24/7. But you didn't HAVE to grind to rank 14. Getting to rank 10 was easy and gave you a pretty good blue set that was well itemised for classes.

 

Do you have to become an Arena Gladiator to play WoW now? Even by your low standards thats a stupid argument.

 

 

            Additionally, some raids back then have a very specific gear requirement. Nefarian, for example, required everyone to have an Onyxia Scale Cloak or they will die to his Shadowflame.

This in turn required guilds to kill Onyxia multiple times. And when new players joined their guild, they would have to kill Onyxia again and again just to get them that one single cloak. Many hours wasted instead of spending our time in new raids. I don’t know about you but I saw this as another unnecessary barrier of entry into raiding.  

 

We had no troubles in making Onyxia scale cloaks for the entire guild. By 2.0 we had a ton left over on our banking character.

 

            And don’t even get me started with the potion grinding. All throughout vanilla WoW, it was a time when there were no limitations on the number of elixirs we can use in raids. The number of elixirs and flasks that my guild would require us to bring to raids were ridiculous.

 

Either you and your guild were the worst players in history or you are LYING. If you never got past Rag then you wouldn't have needed insane amount of potions. On our first couple of rag kills we used a lot of fire resist potions and we mc'ed the mob in UBRS for the fire resist buff. Only the tank used a flask of the titans and that was only for the first two kills. Only guilds going for server firsts would use insane amount of potions and flasks (remember flasks back then required 30 dreamfoil + black lotus).

 

If everyone in your raid flasked and used potions and you STILL couldnt get Rag DOWN then you are the worst players in the history of the game and you are the PROBLEM. NOT Classic WoW.

 

Yes, the requirements for Naxx was hard (ie shadow resist potions for Loatheb - grinding grave moss was a PAIN). But the vast majority of bosses you didnt need many potions/flasks at all. And yes the nature damage in AQ40 could get insane and required nature resist gear but that added some variety to raiding. WotLK raiding was the same old boring thing week in week out.

 

5.         Unoriginal and poor leveling quests design.

 

I love classic quests better. If I wanted to play a linear, solo game I'd play a single player game and not pay $15 a month to play a single player game.   

Now honestly, how can anyone not like a quest like those?

 

They're great ... for a single player game.

 

6. Miscellaneous other PITA issues including paladin blessings that were only 5 minutes long, unlinked flight path, unlinked auction houses.

 

Another distortion and misleading information. With the paladin review in 1.9 blessings were upped to 15mins long. 1.9 (AQ/war effort patch) came out early Jan 2006. So thats a whole year before BC came out.

 

So in conclusion - since you were bad at the game its the game's fault?

 

 

 

 

People complaining about the difficulty of running 40 man raids, HAHAHA.

I guess it just goes to show how the demographic has changed over the years. The kind of people that used to play MMOs could run 100 man raids with little to no trouble.

ppl just say vanilla was better because its been way to long since vanilla was the current state of the game so they miss those times.... but they need to realize that if blizz never changed WoW from vanilla to what it is now (or any other way) the game would more likely have less ppl than EQ1 or DAOC as of today. If im not wrong those 2 games havent changed as much as wow did, and look at them.... they sux balls compared to wow right now.... the nostalgia causes wow veterans to say vanilla was better....nothing else

edit: cataclysm is not the best thing ever, but games need to evolve..... i like cata a lot, but i know it has lots of flaws and i hope the next expansion makes the game even better

Originally posted by fluzzyhead

So in conclusion - since you were bad at the game its the game's fault?

 

 

 

 

Honestly, you don't even have to be talking about WoW to realize your statement is exactly the sentiment shared by many gamers. Everything that happens to them - other than what they want to happen - is the game's fault... even when it's their own.

People choose to spend all their time grinding levels, ignoring all other content that's available. Then when they become bored of grinding non-stop... who do they blame? The developers.

People choose to strictly follow character templates and wiki walkthroughs that spell out every detail of the game for them, leaving them to do noting but follow the steps like the recipe on a cake box. They won't dare experiment or figure out a build that better suits them because it's "not how you're supposed to play". Then they complain about feeling "restricted" in their playstyle. Who do they blame? The developers.

And on and on...

Players paint themselves into a corner they needn't be in... and even while they're standing there with the empty paint bucket, and well-used paint-brush... they're cursing the developers for it.

That is a problem that has plaugued the MMO genre for years now, and is only getting worse. Players receive some coddling... their tolerance drops lower than it was before... they demand more coddling. They get more coddling, their tolerance drops even farther... they demand more coddling.

True Somewhat Recent Story: Someone in a MMO I was playing started complaining about a quest being too difficult, that it was unfair, that the devs were clueless and didn't know how to make a game, blah blah blah... All the usual complaints we see here which are basically people just saying "I didn't get my way and now I will pout and stomp about how bad the big mean developers are for it". The quest description told them exactly where to go, exactly what to look for. The map showed them exactly where to go, pin-pointing the location. The item they needed was glowing, quite conspicuously, among a bunch of rubble.

They didn't see it.

Why? They were facing the wrong way and not paying attention to where they were relative to the marker on the map. They actually kept running away from it. After giving them a chance to find it on their own (I always believe people should figure things out on their own - or at least try), I finally showed them where it was. They, obviously feeling stupid, started ranting about how "fail" the quest was because they "hid the item somewhere they knew people couldn't find it". I reminded the person I'd already found it with little trouble.... they just kept ranting.

Once upon a time, players could - with only some clues to go on, no quest helpers... not even walkthroughs were necessary... and people completed them. They weren't smarter or somehow more insightful. Nope. They simply weren't lazy, whiney brats who complained if they, heaven forbid, had to use that thing they call a brain to figure anything out for themself.  Once upon a time, doing a quest actually meant *doing a quest*... going out and solving something on your own. Now, doing a quest means "The developer tells you every single detail of every single thing you need to do. All the player's left to do is connect the dots and collect their reward".

... and people wonder why MMOs have become so boring.

Originally posted by rojo6934

ppl just say vanilla was better because its been way to long since vanilla was the current state of the game so they miss those times.... but they need to realize that if blizz never changed WoW from vanilla to what it is now (or any other way) the game would more likely have less ppl than EQ1 or DAOC as of today. If im not wrong those 2 games havent changed as much as wow did, and look at them.... they sux balls compared to wow right now.... the nostalgia causes wow veterans to say vanilla was better....nothing else

 

edit: cataclysm is not the best thing ever, but games need to evolve..... i like cata a lot, but i know it has lots of flaws and i hope the next expansion makes the game even better

Uhh.. actually the reason people don't play DAoC anymore is because the game was changed so much, all the fans were BEGGING for a classic server. And even in its current state, DAoC is a far better made MMo than WoW. So both your theories, out the window!

It's superior to Vanilla WoW for a new player. To an old player, it's icing on a cake which was already too sweet.

What people want back is the feeling of WoW in the early days, and that's not going to happen now matter how much you mess with talent trees, add new races, new zones, new shinies.

Stop giving yourselves grief and move on to a new MMO already.

Originally posted by Hyperwolf

It's superior to Vanilla WoW for a new player. To an old player, it's icing on a cake which was already too sweet.

What people want back is the feeling of WoW in the early days, and that's not going to happen now matter how much you mess with talent trees, add new races, new zones, new shinies.

Stop giving yourselves grief and move on to a new MMO already.

Win!  :)

I agree.  I played wow a few months after it was released.  It was fun for about four months...then I got fatigued on all the 10 mile fed-ex hikes you had to do.  The beginning quests took forever to complete (Kill 100 Boars to get 5 tusks)...and it took forever to get your first mount.  I realize earning things is some sort of right of passage, but that doesn't necessarily make the game fun.  FUN...that is what it's all about.  

My first MMO I ever tried was EQ and I was bored of that within two weeks..I just dont want to have to kill a million of something in the hopes I get the ingredients to make five blankets to give to Mrs. Butterworth just so I can get XP.  I want story..I want immersiveness...and above all else, I want PURPOSE for what I'm doing.  XP isn't enough...I dont want it to feel like I'm just trying to raise some number.  I want it to feel as if I'm part of the world doing something important.

So after my first stint with WOW, I went back to single player RPGs.

Then Starwars Galaxies came out and I loved that one.  I loved the fact I could be an assassin who could also play some good saxaphone and entertain my commarades.  It made me feel like I was part of the world...the fact I could buy property and have my own place heightened that feeling.  Then they came out with "The Update" and everyone fled...and I went back to single player RPGs.

Over last X-mas, I built a new computer, bought a desk and a comfy chair and picked up Cata....and now I'm hooked.  I was pleased to see they corralled all those boars up and rush you through those first 10 levels.  I like the fact they now stack quests on top of each other so I can do multiple things at the same time.  I like the fact the writing is a lot better and makes me feel like I'm doing more than trying to raise my XP.  I like the linear story telling at the beginning of some of the races (like the Worgen) as it really sets up my character and gets me into the world.  And yeah, as for the multi-player aspect, there have been at least four times when I had to tackle an elite where someone was nearby and asked them if they'd like to join me...I've met some good folks doing dungeons as well.   No problems with the community there.  

As far as I'm concerned, the World of Warcraft feels a hell of a lot more 3-Dimensional today than it did when I first started playing way back when.  I've enjoyed almost every moment so far.  I DO understand the nostalgia though.  I kinda miss my first character (Alliance Warrior) from my first experience with WOW.  Stumbling upon the first major city was one of those, OH HOLY F**** THATS AWESOME moments. 

Maybe Blizzard should do some sort of promotion...call it, "Throwback Wow" or something...and set up a server that's pure vanilla WOW and let you experience it again.  

I'll vote with the crowd that says WoW has gotten better over time for the most part.  But nothing beats the nostalgia of the early days of an MMO, and of MMOs in general (and that even goes for the nostalgia of MUDs for some:  not me though :).

Hell I have nostalgia for the orginal Doom for FPS genre as well, but it sure isn't better than the modern FPS.

The problem with modern MMOs and to a lesser extent modern FPS is it is hard to make such a huge advance that you will go "Cool this is Awesome!" again.  When you make a huge monumental leap like Doom did, and UO, and EQ1, and even WoW in its own way, then you don't have that similar game from your past that you are judging it against.  Doom and UO and EQ1 and WoW blazed the way and get the critical benefit of the doubt for doing so.  If you copy too many aspects of them, you get the inevitable critical comparisons.

I don't play WoW anymore but not because it isn't improving, but it just isn't improving enough and in any fundamental way...

This so called "vanilla wow" was fun at first, but eventually it did get boring, from a hardcore gaming perspective. Casual, depends on how much you play. However you find most people speaking about this "vanilla wow" without them ever experiencing the actual thing, and then tell others that they didn't play, "vanilla wow" ( hate calling it that, should be known as pre-bc) However, most of the people who played wow back then have moved on, BC was the best, because it didn't have 40 man raids and introduced allot of important stuff into the game, 40 man raids were a pain to set up, and guilds did need a solid leader system to be able to organise them. Most "casuals" would get on for a raid a night or so, and they would be fine gear wise, or PvP's would just do a bg or so, when able to. Therefore clearly showing that wow has always been a casual game, there are the players/ guilds that take it to the "next step" by raiding for 7 hours + etc... But generally its ALWAYS been for a more casual audience. This so called "vanilla wow" was not the be all and end all, cataclysm however is ALOT worse, and one of the most dumb and boringest things blizzard has ever baught to the game, they dumbed it down to the point were it got boring. just to grab hold of as many players as possible, but vanilla wow is only spoken like that, by the "observers" back then, people who did never do endgame etc... and could only remember the few "good points" about the original game.

My BEST times in WOW = Everything before the release of Burning Crusade.

I played on a PvP server called Bleeding Hollow and had a blast. 

WoW only comes 2nd to my SWG experience before NGE arrived there which killed the experience for me.

Don't get me wrong, I did keep up with WoW off and on till Cata arrived, however I think I finally suffered WoW burnout.

Maybe I am just a old timer now, however I do miss alot of the old mmorpgs which had soul, today these mmo's seem to be fabricated from the same chopping block.

Wow has changed since release. Some players like it others don't.

But if you do or not depends on your personal taste so neither side is really wrong.

Originally posted by Amarandes

1. 40 man raids was the biggest mistake Blizzard made with vanilla WoW. Maybe its just because I had a very bad experience with this but this right here was the absolute worst feature of vanilla WoW and let me tell you why.

One of the painful aspects of raiding with 40 people is not the challenge of the instance itself, but the challenge of managing them. Its already hard enough for my guild leader to manage 25 people, imagine what it was like to manage other people. I know because I was an officer of a guild back in vanilla WoW. Raiding back then felt more like a second job then a game. I already have enough stress during the day and I don’t want to have to deal with it again when playing WoW. I want to jump into a raid right away, not having to manage 40 other people.

            Additionally, the nightmare doesn’t just stop outside the instance but continues into the raid itself. We had about 5+ people that were always afk or underperforming during the actual boss fights and felt like we were carrying them through the entire raid. We had no choice but to let them stay because we don’t have any other people to replace them.With 40 people around, I only got to interact, socialize and got to know only 10 of them. With a smaller raid, I saw more interactions between guild members. At times, my current guild felt like a family to me, something that I never got out of my vanilla guild. And when the boss drops only a 3-4 items, ugh the loot drama that goes with distributing them to only a small fraction of the raid, I’m not gonna talk about it cause you get my point.

            In effect, you are spending more time looking for people and managing them than you actually do playing the game. Needless to say, the stress caused by 40 man raids finally caused my vanilla guild to implode by the time TBC came out. My vanilla guild made it to but never killed Ragnaros in the Molten Core.

            Raid sizes do not determine how epic a boss encounter is. A boss can have 40 people attacking him, but if he just stands there and only attacks the tank endlessly, the encounter isn’t epic at all. Look at all of Wow’s dungeons from TBC onwards. Instead of the generic Tank and spank fight that we saw so often in vanilla WoW, bosses now have more interactive and interesting mechanics even with less people in a group. Such mechanics include managing debuffs, controlling another mob, interacting with the environment around the boss, etc.

 I made it this far before I couldn't read anymore. Your more than welcome to your opinion that WoW is better now than it was in Vanilla, but it's quite obvious that you never raided much in Vanilla WoW.

EDIT: Got rid of the large, bold font.

OP is a joke. only if ppl realize that WoW is now only a HUB based game... sit in city and wait for Qs.. oh and grind for craft every once in awhile....

i quit wow for months... came back for cata.. and after 8 days of cata being released and went 11/12 in norm.. i QUIT again. who has fun grinding the same easy crap over and over.. sure there is harder verisons but lol... seriously?

Vanilla's 40man raid were the best, even if u were stuck in MC for long period of time like me. IT WAS FUN. had more of a social aspect. now-a-days it was more then just getting loot or gangbanging the raid instance quick as possible.

after said all that... i guess i do have to respect his opinion. ty

I personally enjoyed WoW a lot more years ago....

My warlock got nerfed over and over untill got me bored.... they never listened to the community about classes and they locked up talent trees so u have less and less options...

I´m glad some people think WoW is better now with Cat.... i just don´t have that feeling....

I quited playing after Cata was released.

Originally posted by Sirgrege

This so called "vanilla wow" was fun at first, but eventually it did get boring, from a hardcore gaming perspective. Casual, depends on how much you play. However you find most people speaking about this "vanilla wow" without them ever experiencing the actual thing, and then tell others that they didn't play, "vanilla wow" ( hate calling it that, should be known as pre-bc) However, most of the people who played wow back then have moved on, BC was the best, because it didn't have 40 man raids and introduced allot of important stuff into the game, 40 man raids were a pain to set up, and guilds did need a solid leader system to be able to organise them. Most "casuals" would get on for a raid a night or so, and they would be fine gear wise, or PvP's would just do a bg or so, when able to. Therefore clearly showing that wow has always been a casual game, there are the players/ guilds that take it to the "next step" by raiding for 7 hours + etc... But generally its ALWAYS been for a more casual audience. This so called "vanilla wow" was not the be all and end all, cataclysm however is ALOT worse, and one of the most dumb and boringest things blizzard has ever baught to the game, they dumbed it down to the point were it got boring. just to grab hold of as many players as possible, but vanilla wow is only spoken like that, by the "observers" back then, people who did never do endgame etc... and could only remember the few "good points" about the original game.

Dude plz use paragraphs...that block of test is a pain in the eyes to read.................

no offense...just advise ;)