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[RandomSeed]

Coop was a great way to make difficult content easier, and CC had a point while leveling. Coop now is one person 1 or 2 shotting a mob before the second can do anything. Enemies before WoD just have no health, compared to how much more powerful classes are.

Having to eat and drink every few fights was a real thing.

 

[joesmokey]

Servers were in a very 'delicate' state and often went down randomly or had horrible lag. Queues were massive and you generally alt-tabbed and did something else while waiting to get in.

Leveling was a fantastic justification for having a dual monitor setup. Quest markers were often pointing you to the wrong location of where the mobs/objectives were and some of the locations to find were completely obtuse. Having Thottbot open on one monitor was pretty much required.

People killed time by dueling in front of large cities, spamming the LFG channel to find people doing UBRS/LBRS, ganking low level opposite factions, and by putting together world PVP groups where you would go around contested areas. World PVP was very fun because resurrection timers back then were a pain. Running all the way back to your course could take minutes, so it was really satisfying if your group won the match.

End game raiding consisted of gearing up for Molten Core and Blackwing Lair by running Onyxia and UBRS. On my server, unless you were well connected, trying to get into a regular raid group was incredibly competitive. Sometimes you could apply to the guild on their own custom web forums and get accepted if your gear was good enough. For me, I eventually built my reputation around world PVP and became known that way. It took a long time and at that point most of my real friends had given up. I remember thinking when I had finally 'made it' on my server by getting invited to the private IRC server where the top horde/alliance communicated with each other.

Guilds did things differently, but generally 40 man raids relied on a dragon kill point (dkp) system. Players accrued dkp based on raid time and then when an item for your class dropped from a raid boss, people bid from their dkp pool. Some raid drop items had horrible rng (e.g. Talisman of Ephemeral Power), so you had guild veterans with massive dkp pools waiting to spend theirs on that one rare item. This often meant if you were a newer member, you could go for months/years without ever seeing a highly sought after item (especially since you had to constantly spend your dkp to catch up to everyone else). Progressing through 40 man raids meant you had to be well stocked with flasks of power, so herbalism was usually a staple trade skill. As a mage, you also had to sit and take what seemed like tens of minutes to make bread and water for all of the other magic classes.

Class balance in PVP was hilariously broken. As a mage, I could destroy warriors just by looking at them and the only thing I could do against rogues was use ice block. The Arcane talent tree was completely useless. People only specced up to get Clearcasting. Fire was useless for raiding thanks to Onyxia and Molten Core, so often you were forced to spec Ice. Generally you had to have a completely different talent spec if you were trying to do PVP or do raiding and resetting your talents back then was incredibly expensive.

Trying to find the best custom UI setup was a point of pride. Mixing WoW videos with metal or edm was also a favored pastime.

 

[ArtistDude88]

It felt more like a community as a whole because it was only your server. You start recognizing names, even for the opposite faction because of world PvP and battlegrounds. People became renown and mini-celebs!

Spoiler

ZODE

Raiding was amazing feat getting 40 people to show up at a specified time and be prepared to spend hours in there. Farming resistance gear. Saving up DKP. Paladin 5 or 15 minute blessings. Aura assignments by groups. Reagent stock piling. Have my old screenshot for a taste of the craziness:

Spoiler

RIP Decursive button spam

Dungeons were crazy difficult too. Quite a few were locked that needed keys (there once was a key ring on your hotbar!). They also took forever! (2+ hour BRD runs for attunement quests...Longer if you wanted to do a full clear) Meeting stones and Warlocks were the only way to get the party there (quickly, anyways). So 2 people had to fly/run to the location of the dungeon and summon the rest while worrying about getting ganked.

Economy was rough because it was truly hard to save up! I remember saving up 2000g for Foror's Compendium of Dragon Slaying to get my Quel'Serrar and it was painful hitting that trade button. I was a Pally so I had a "free" mount, but it still took lots of time and expensive materials to get it. But boy, I rode that charger everywhere because I was SO PROUD! I think I lapped Ironforge 20 something times.

Also, everyone LOATHED you if you were a Ret Pally.

Ahhh... Such difficult, but truly fun and memorable times.

 

[Loxley]

One of my favorite videos from vanilla WoW - Exploration: the Movie. It blew my mind back then, a lot of stuff in there never saw the light of day.

 

[Horp]

Classes didnt have the plethora of abilites they have now. Far from it. Warriors had no actual aoe tanking tool. Many healers didnt have aoe heals. This meant that a mix of classes was needed to do stuff, and in 5-mans you would have to adjust your tactics depending on the classes you brought. It was never a rush-in-tank-everything-aoe-as-fast-as-possible.
Even more so in tbc. Even fully decked out t5/t6 tanks couldnt aoe tank a full group of mobs in most heroics.

The game had less complex mechanics but due to the lack of abilities, lack of good alert tools and overall less clearly telegraphed stuff the game was a LOT harder.

I played from vanilla beta (before talents were a thing) to last wod. Stopped. Tried legion. Worse than ever.

 

[Chaos2Frozen]

What was it like!? By Community standards, what's the biggest change you've seen from vanilla to now. Also how was the economy and the feeling of doing the raid for the first time. ? To name a few

Standing in the middle of a fucking desert asking for group

 

[m_shortpants]

Probably the most immersive game I've ever played in my life, and perhaps will ever play.

People have posted more about why, but it really felt like there was a true human element to every part of the game. The world felt incredibly huge, so much so that you'd never see it all. It felt alive and dangerous.

I still remember when I was new to the game, I wanted a Defias Mask and I played Horde. Me and my low level buddy travelled through Stanglethorn Vale to go north to be able to get it. By the end of our journey, all our gear was broken and we had died more times than we could have counted. But it was an adventure. Not knowing where you were going, how high level the mobs were or the Alliance folks killing us left and right.

I have so many memories like that. What a game.

 

[justsomeguy]

Alterac Valley games would last over 24 hours.

I also had to arrive to raids 20 minutes early in order to generate enough food and water for the entire 40 man group

Ugh yeah. Conjuring 2 food or 2 water at a time was just painful.

 

[SargerusBR]

.

That screenshot is triggering me. Worst part is when i was a wow noob my UI looked a bit like that.

 

[ArtistDude88]

That screenshot is triggering me. Worst part is when i was a wow noob my UI looked a bit like that.

Triggering glorious nostalgia!

 

[Weevilone]

Laughing at that UI.

I remember having a 4:3 monitor and trying to have 40 people's health and mana all over the place. Good times.

Also remember buffing people every 5 minutes.. so many things people overlook when praising vanilla.

One of my favorite nights in vanilla, we 3 manned stuff with 2 mages and a holy paladin (lvl60). We did a Baron run and saved the prisoner, then cleared Dire Maul... and when we came out a rare boss in the arena was up, so we did that too. I still have the screenshots someplace.

 

[atbigelow]

It was a mechanical and balance garbage fire, There was so much gear that was absolutely worthless for people, Blizzard should still be shamed for all their plate with Spirit and Strength on it.

It definitely had a unique feeling to the world, though. It's just too be the game stats and such were a mess.

 

[Teriyaki Blues]

Desperately seeking anyone with a key for UBRS!

 

[Novocaine]

Everything was still new and everyone was still figuring shit out. You couldn't go on YouTube and find BIS guides, class guides or boss guides. If you were a dickhead it had repercussions because severs were self contained.

Also I had to start raids 30 mins early to summon water for everyone.

 

[bloodyroarxx]

Man the Ahn'Quiraj war effort, I remember checking every day seeing who was getting close to opening the gates.

 

[GasProblem]

I started playing WoW when Wrath of the Litch King came out, so I never experienced vanilla Still, good memories. I'm not a raider though, my internet connection wasn't good enough for that, would cut off every hour or two. I enjoyed just leveling up characters and crafting though. Played on a RP server, and saw some weird shit. Don't go to the Goldshire Inn.

I miss it. Chilling in WoW just felt really cozy.

 

[KO Traveling Hobo]

Vanilla WoW was a rough, janky mess full of wonder and excitement and organic, emergent gameplay. It was awful, but it was also singularly amazing.

I quit a few months into TBC, I think, then came back at some point and tried WotLK. The improvements and quality of life changes they've made are fantastic. It was incredible how much more user-friendly and robust the game had become. But it lost something important in the process. It no longer had that rawness, that organic feeling.

The real turning point, though, was in vanilla when they took away ledgewalking. It was all downhill from there.

My server (Burning Blade US) at least was pretty tight-knit. I could look at a battleground and tell you the class, spec and relative gear level of every person in there just by their names, because I knew everybody. And I still remember a lot of them. Case in point, a guy at work added me to battle.net a few weeks ago, I remembered his username, turns out he was my old Tarren Mill/early morning dungeon buddy from 2005.

I used to hang out in an IRC channel for my server and we would organize world PVP even before BGs. Got to know a lot of Alliance folks and ended up converting some of them to Horde, I still keep up with a few of them.

I loved hanging out on the server forums and reading all the guild drama and such. Moments like when that one infamous PVP warrior got himself an Ashkandi and the whole server let out a collective 'oh shit'. Or that time someone had a monopoly on the Stronghold Gauntlets plans, and made a point of not selling them to anyone in a guild he hated. But when he sold a set to someone, a warrior from that guild jumped off a nearby roof, traded the guy, equipped them and laughed at him.

My first Molten Core raid was an experience like nothing I'd ever had in a game before. It was run by an ex-Planetside outfit lead by a guy named Malorn (who I believe ended up being a designer on Planetside 2). I'd never even used voice chat for a game before and suddenly I'm having orders barked at me. I just tried to stay focused on my task, desperately keeping an offtank alive on Golemagg. The fight felt like it took hours. Ended up being good friends with said offtank for years, him and his twin brother ended up in the same raid guild. Still talk to him now and then.

I spent a LOT of time playing WoW back then. But I don't regret any of it, because it was an experience I can't really have anymore. It's not just that the genre has become more streamlined and accessible, throwing away community interaction in favor of convenience. A big part of it is just that I just can't get absorbed into a game like that anymore. I can't just log into another MMO and sit around in town chatting with random folks for hours, I have to be on that progression treadmill at all times. WoW was my real world for a while, work and such was just a break from it. I didn't even need an IM client for a while because everyone I knew was online in it all the time. Don't think anything like that will ever happen again.

Oh shit, I was on Burning Blade too! What guild were you in?

I was kind of a creepy lurker who spent way too much time on the BB forums. I blame youth.

 

[Brandon F]

Progression felt meaningful.
Levelling up felt like an event.
PVP zones felt dangerous(and frustrating), but doing some Metal Gear stealth work into enemy territory for a required class quest and finally succeeding was downright brilliant.

Granted many hated the slow climb to the endgame, especially for alts.
Nowadays the progression feels like a theme park ride, blink and its over(and every zone is a joke).
I suppose raiding and mythic dungeons are what fans really want, but I miss the world.

 

[Spikematic]

Best gaming experience of my life, pretty much. Was on a pretty infamous EU server pvp-wise. Leveling in Stranglethorn Vale was a real rite of passage.

 

[Xando]

What was it like!? By Community standards, what's the biggest change you've seen from vanilla to now. Also how was the economy and the feeling of doing the raid for the first time. ? To name a few

Looking for group was a pain in the ass back then but it was great for community building. Knew almost half the realm during vanilla/BC.

Didn't really start raiding until BC but i loved the game so much more back then

 

[Mamont1537]

Killing faction leaders was a big deal, at least on our RPPVP server (Defias was the best!)
People would get really pissed at opposing faction and gather revenge raids to kill their leader, which usually turned into massive wars in capital cities.
Then they added an achievement for that, leaders became farmed almost daily and nobody would care about that anymore. "Oh, there is an alliance group killing Thrall again, I guess I have to wait for npcs to respawn."

 

[Poppyseed]

I remember seeing a screencap of craigslist around 2006-2007 of a person who said 'I had sex with this person and they gave me enough gold to buy 3 mounts' or something like that

so I imagine vanilla wow was freaking wild.

I was there when that happened.

Not literally there, of course. But that was pretty infamous back in the day. She even defended herself at the time, as I recall (yes it was a she).

I quit playing when farming Living Essence in Felwood was a thing. The fact that I remember this all these years later should tell you just how powerful WoW is. The best game ever, - but I had to quit...

 

[BigDug13]

It was hard as nails and encouraged team work to get anything done.

It was also a time and a place, a "you had to be there" kinda thing. A freshly minted MMO from a popular franchise, with a huge world and rich lore.

From someone who came from Everquest...no it wasn't hard as nails.

 

[Pheace]

I started in DAoC and loved it but when I think back to fond MMO memories my first days in WOW are at the top. The atmosphere and the music, it was gloriously immersive.

 

[KevMan1815]

As a warlock the worst ability we had was summoning. To explain why this ability was horrible for raids first let me talk about soul shards.

Soul shards were required to do a few different abilities in vanilla. Soulstones, which were usually used as a wipe protection or if a boss attempt was going well a second chance on a vital role. Also you could make Healthstones, these were consumable items you could give to other players and they could pop them like a potion, but without using a potion. Each Healthstone and Soulstone cost one Soul Shard each. That means warlocks were expected to make sure everyone had a Healthstone for EVERY boss attempt (at least in our guild). So 40 of these Soul Shards used between however many warlocks in the raid. Our guild on a night had between 1-4 depending on who showed.

How did you get Soul Shards? You had to kill an enemy that could potentially yield experience. So no farming creatures in the newbie zone. You could get some on the way to bosses off of trash mobs in the dungeon, but if you were stuck wiping on a tough encounter over and over and over you went through these things fast. Many times in raids while the leader called for a break on a rough night I remember farming more damn shards for the raid.

So now the true topic at hand. Summoning. A warlock, with the assistance of two other players, could cast a channeled spell that created a portal two other players could click on to bring the summoned player to you from anywhere in the world (there were a few exceptions, but generally anywhere worked). This ability also cost a Soul Shard also. In our guild we would have a scheduled raid time that was the same every day (we were pretty hardcore on Illidan), but people were so lazy about getting to the raid that they would wait for warlocks to show up to summon them and make no effort to get there on their own. So not only are warlocks farming these Soul Shards to help guild progression, but now we are bringing the players to the raid, because they can't be bothered to walk out there on their own.

I would have people ask to be summoned when they were closer to the raid entrance than I was. I had people request summons when I was the only person at the raid instance. I would have people ask for a summon, they would appear, they'd realize they forgot some item they needed in their vault so they'd hearthstone back and I'd have to summon them AGAIN.

Now eventually they did some HUGE quality of life changes in regards to Soul Shards and now they are nothing like they were. But summoning... I hated it.

 

[Won]

Game was much slower in many ways. Lots of time sinks, like sitting down and drink to regain mana or having to go back to one of the cities every two levels to upgrade your abilities. Mounts being expensive and available later than today. Quests that send you to the other end of the world.

It was great.

Biggest actual change for me was when they made quest helper addons a built in feature. I would rather had them kill that stuff, but they were absurdly popular. Basically changed how you look and interact with the game world. Straight up genre killer.

 

[Paganmoon]

Oh boy, I remember rogue tanking a few times. It was awful, but it was so hard to find tanks sometimes that it seemed like a good idea.

It wasn't.

Genuine tactic we used for Instructor Razuvious though. 100% evade whilst priest got the MC in order.

For 5 man dungeons a friend who played shaman would take over tanking duties if tank left, worked alright, mostly.

From someone who came from Everquest...no it wasn't hard as nails.

hehe, yeah. People are talking about trying to organize 40 people. In Everquest, try organizing 72 people via text chat only, for a 2 hour Encounter (like 1 boss could take hours), add to that, no instances (mostly world bosses), and the threat of PvP on Vallon Zek servers. good times

 

[Piers]

Vanilla WoW?
The Corrupted Blood Incident.

 

[TheChewyWaffles]

Best gaming experience ever.

.

 

[Jiraiza]

Scholomance taking an upwards of 3 hours was one of the features of vanilla.

Usage of Thottbot.

I think my most memorable moments in vanilla were being in a pre-made BG group. I was entrusted to be the sabotaging Rogue who would go around attempting to ninja lightly guarded points, and boy was I good at that. With the combination of blind, sap, gouge, premeditation, and my ability to time Vanishes to nullify any debuffs, I was incredibly successful at taking points, even if it was guarded by two people. I would then be able to hold onto it long enough to disrupt the opposing team's rotation, or even take the point itself should I keep the guys busy enough for my team to come help. Needless to say, those were good days. Sort of wish I had recordings of those matches.

Another thing was joining my first raiding guild as a priest called cykos on Boulderfist US and their trial run, which was running you through all of Molten Core, got me the entire tier 1 set. And also the quest item to start the Benediction/Anathema quest chain. I loved that staff.

 

[Mamont1537]

Scholomance taking an upwards of 3 hours was one of the features of vanilla.

There was also BRD, which was like a giant underground city dungeon. If you tried to clear everything (or get lost in there, which was more likely), you could almost get several levelups in it.

 

[oc]

PVP had a ranking system where only a few people had access to the highest level PVP gear, meaning each server had one guy who would stomp everyone, it was pretty badass. Until people figured out that they could win trade and manipulate who was at the top and rotate it around, taking the achievement and prestige out of it.

There are a lot of old fun high warlord videos on YouTube, my favorite is this one:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FrnzhjNtPrg

This too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAR1CsAXLCw

 

[Nokterian]

Al right let me explain as Warlock from 2005. Oh yeah i had to farm for Soul Shards...just many many bags full. I had to make a one healthstone per person. Let that sink in i had to make one healthstone per person a 40 man raid..

First i needed my demons be it felhunter,succubus or anything else. I've walked (yes littearly walked) from eastern kingdoms to kalimdor since at that time getting your first mount was at level 40 and the faster mount at level 60.

I've walked so much in dangerous zones as a low level to get my demons it was something i will not forget.

Dire Maul took more than 3,5 hours to complete because it was fucking huge and so many trash, UBRS was orginally 15 man if i am correct, they changed it to 5 man later on.

People keep saying vanilla was the best, yes it was in a sort of way but comparing to now. Since Cataclysm revamped the whole world forever, i think despite everything i do not miss it.

 

[Lemonte]

Group quests and elite mobs were everywhere. I miss that. People in general chat were actually helpful.

 

[Nokterian]

Christ. I remember the quest to get the Warlock mount was a pain in the ass. I was Horde and had to travel to the Wetlands from Lordaeron on foot, through higher-level zones, and with no flight paths.

Took forever.

Said it in my other post..everything on foot..fuck what a pain in the ass was that but well worth it still have the achievement.

 

[Miletius]

For a more birds eye perspective --

Vanilla WoW was the mainstream introduction to MMO's. Because of that, it introduced a lot of people to what was great about them -- huge explorable landmasses, emergent gameplay, and really, a feeling of being in a living, breathing world. It was really something that had to be experienced in the moment. EQ and UO (along with other MMO) players got to experience it first, but WoW did it in a way that appealed to more than just the hardcore.

That being said, it could never last. WoW was great for it's time, but people eventually grew accustomed to conveniences that made the game better, overall. Along the way, you can argue that it stripped the game of its character -- and it did, to some extent in my opinion. But, most 2017 gamers would never go back to WoW -- for every moment of WoW there was some serious jank.

 

[DragonNC]

I was guild master at that time & damn......organising a 40 man Molten Core raid was a FUCKING DAILY FULL TIME JOB.
3 item drop from Bosses & how to distribute for 40 man...A PAIN.

 

[Nokterian]

Also, to hell with C'thun, Nefarian, or Kel'thuzad...

...these motherfuckers killed more players than anyone in vanilla.

Oh yeah that motherfucker indeed..westfall man.

Totally forgot how long Scholomance was and Deadmines. To me great experiences but how warcraft is right now with Legion it is great to me one of the best expansion to date (more alt friendly also).

I did not play many classes back then just warlock and later on death knight but now i play all classes because there fun.

 

[Stuggernaut]

The technical experience compared to now: Messy, but functional. No 50 addons running to make everything easy.

As other have said, the world felt HUGE and scary. You really felt like there were places you just could not go. Leveling was pretty grindy so it took a while. But man, some places were downright HARD.

Leveling mattered, and felt like you accomplished something. Getting your first mount was a huge deal. Now mounts are nothing.

Mage portals & food were helpful, and wanted.

You actually read the quests because the helper stuff on the maps was not there. If the quest was too cryptic, you could actually chat in general and get answers.

Some places were famous for various reasons...

- Barrens Chat
- Tarren Mill vs Southshore world PVP

To put it simply. WoW at the start had "feeling" and that faded with every addon, every expansion, and every addition to make the game easier.

For anyone that experienced it live, as it happened, we'll likely never see/feel that way again. What I wouldn't give to live it all again. So many great memories, friends, and family.

 

[HitchcockInTheZiplock]

It took me 3 months to hit 60, and I never got an epic mount. I had no idea what I was doing, and somehow I became friends with people who did, and grinded Lt General in pvp, and also got into a good guild who was clearing 40 mans. I took me a while to realize that I was playing with middle and high school people (I was prob 20 at the time with a full time job), and that I was really just burning myself out and would never get High Warlord haha.

It was my first experience with mmo, and I didn't really care about the story at all. I didn't care about grinding money, or even doing 5 man dungeons. from 60 it was either raid with friends or pvp with friends.

People always remember the world pvp. For me personally, Battlegrounds was where it's at. Overwatch is basically WoW bg, but it's waaaay harder to carry in OW because there's no gear imbalance. Instead of having everyone grind gear, they just used the simple mechanic of a special move on cooldown to replace that moment in WoW when it felt like one guy just came and destroyed your entire team.

 

[Nokterian]

The technical experience compared to now: Messy, but functional. No 50 addons running to make everything easy.

As other have said, the world felt HUGE and scary. You really felt like there were places you just could not go. Leveling was pretty grindy so it took a while. But man, some places were downright HARD.

Leveling mattered, and felt like you accomplished something. Getting your first mount was a huge deal. Now mounts are nothing.

Mage portals & food were helpful, and wanted.

You actually read the quests because the helper stuff on the maps was not there. If the quest was too cryptic, you could actually chat in general and get answers.

Some places were famous for various reasons...

- Barrens Chat
- Tarren Mill vs Southshore world PVP

To put it simply. WoW at the start had "feeling" and that faded with every addon, every expansion, and every addition to make the game easier.

For anyone that experienced it live, as it happened, we'll likely never see/feel that way again. What I wouldn't give to live it all again. So many great memories, friends, and family.

Mounts are still something, getting a mount drop from a boss with 000.1% change drop is being rewarding. I still read quests even with the new expansions, leveling is still fun sure it goes faster because going from level 1 to 110 right now without heirlooms to me is a pain to do.

Like i said Vanilla had things that worked and did not worked at all, it was new and fresh at that time but looking back on what WoW is right now blizzard has learned a lot from there mistakes.

 

[Previous]

Nothing else in gaming compares to the time I spent in vanilla WoW. Reading posts in this thread brings back a lot of memories.\

I remember reading WoWInsider when it was just WoW.com, Joystiq's corporate overlord AOL forced them to stop using WoW.com and turned it into a crappy coupon website. Now its just a crappy clickbait news site.

 

[JackelZXA]

You had to work really hard for stuff and it was really really hard to solo. Also alot of unexpected things would happen all the time and PvP servers were a real mother fucker. It was great and I miss it. I can't get into new WoW, it feels like I'm not really playing it every time I try to start a new character I get bored of the auto-win quests before I even hit level 20.

 

[Nokterian]

If anyone wanted to know how i got my Dreadsteed of Xoroth back in the day..read it and weep. Getting gold was not a easy thing to do, i asked random warlock back in the day to help in Dire Maul since he had other items i could not buy.

I did pay him some gold after we finished, now with the new class mounts in legion it did give a little throwback from the dreadsteed that is a nice touch same with paladin mount.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Dreadsteed_questline

 

[styl3s]

No one can be told what the vanilla wow was - you had to be there yourself. It was a very special moment in the annals of gaming.

I wish i could go back and play vanilla wow for just like a year.

I miss vanilla hunter and the way class quests were handled and the shaman totem quests still make me mad.

*EDIT
I don't know if they brought back those kind of class quest i am referring to i haven't played wow in forever. I'm sure they exist in some form but if you played Vanilla you know what i am referring to.

 

[FeD.nL]

It was the sense of community per realm that was just so great. I started out in februari 2005 on Dragonmaw-EU but when me and a couple of RL friends heard they were going to add fresh realms in April we all moved to Sylvanas-EU. That was also when I swapped to a NE druid.

Sylvanas was fantastic as a realm. We had Minimadness who was this Fem Gnome Warrior who was one of the first Grand Marshalls, Vurtne who was using us Alliance players for his mage vids, Sco guild leader of Might/Method, Emilyspear with the crazy playtime/farm. Started out in a dutch guild but when everybody started to reach 60 most of them went to MIGHT which would eventually become Method. I was pretty slow with levelling because of BF2 coming out in the summer and splitting my play time between them. So I only reached 60 in september or so. But I got geared pretty quickly due to my old guildmates helping me run through UBRS etc. Ended up in NEMESIS and started raiding with them. Then I took a break because my school results were pretty awful due to moving with my parents across the country and not fitting in.

Came back in the summer of '06 and ended up in the newly formed Eradicate which was led by the old Druid officer of Method. And this was probably my favorite time with the game. We were raiding 6 nights a week with a lot of new guys who had not raided before but we were clearing stuff at an insane rate. Resto druid was super fun to play as well due to Innervate becoming baseline and getting Swiftmend as another button. Because of our fast progression and Naxx just having come out quite a lot of our best geared players were approached by the top guilds (method, nemesis) because of most of our players being available for 6 nights a week. That eventually led to all kinds of guild drama, also because of DKP problems. And eventually I took another break because of getting a GF.

But still if I could go back to a single summer and do it again it would be that summer. It just was the right summer at the perfect time after a really bad year for me personally.

 

[Savitar]

Vanilla WoW was such a different beast to current WoW.

People usually acted better since you couldn’t jump server to server with your characters, you were semi on good behaviour otherwise news of who you were and what you did could spread fast making you infamous for all the wrong reasons.

Druids? Healers. Paladins? Healers. Shaman, probably the same. They could do other things and at times did but often healing became their job as they couldn’t tank as good as a warrior or fight like other classes.

Enemies hit a lot harder and had more health, there was a reason you had to heal up after a fight. You really had to watch how many you engaged, engaging several could be fatal easily enough for some people or classes.

Hunters had arrows or bullets, Paladins carried Ankh’s, Shaman had...something. Warlocks made soulstones which they only got via killing an enemy.

Hitting 60 was a pretty decent achievement in itself, it took much more questing. Oh and you didn’t get a mount until 40. Yeah until then you ran...which was nothing impressive. Want a mount and you hit 40, hope you had the gold for it. A lot of people didn’t.

Hit 60 and you manage to get an epic mount?! Dude, you were hot shit, those who did have mounts which started to be more people often only had the normal mount. Having an epic mount meant you were fast, so fast. It was mind blowing after spending hours remembering running everywhere across two continents for a majority of time. Sure getting a mount was cool but that epic mount....that speed........it was nirvana.

Most people were in green’s and blue’s. Green’s were common enough, blues could be gotten with some quest or lucky drops and dungeon stuff. But purples...now those were harder to get, people could easily get jealous of you if you had a purple because for a good long time, it was nothing to scoff at. You likely worked for it. Grinded for it. Paid a fortune for it. Basically you did something to earn it and it was the sort of thing some eyed with envy.

Fights had more tactics that needed to be done, essentially crowd control. It’s a lost art these days but back then you had to stun/sheep/daze some enemies to win a fight against elite mobs. If you didn’t you were going to die.

Rogues were godly. No seriously, you had naked rogues with only a pair of starting daggers killing people decked out in epics. If you can find it watch the World of Roguecraft vids from back then, you see how good they were and I kinda blame part one and two of that vid that brought enough attention to them that they got nerfed/fixed.

Rogues were so good and powerful, mainly because stealth back then was so much more than it is now. There was no flying unless you got a FP and those were far and long in between. It could take you a good many minutes to fly somewhere. On PVP servers rogues were easily 60% or more of the population due to their abilities/OPed nature.

Know the nature of WoW kinda has a “go go go go go go go” nature to it now? Back then it was more “slow slow slow”. Unless you wanted to die. Especially in dungeons and raids. You couldn’t rush. Not unless everyone was wearing epics out the wazoo. Even then you had to be pretty careful. Mana went a lot quicker, healers had to rest to get back their mana for one.

One of the big things about WoW back then was it did feel like a real living world. You couldn’t zip around like you do now, it took time to get there. It felt vast. It was half the experience in so many ways. It really made the game feel so much more that it lacks these days.

Hey you wandered into a zone slightly under levelled or extremely so. Guess what. You just pulled a crocolisk. Your going to die. You may get away and if you do you’ll feel so alive.

Hey did you hear there is a legendary weapon?! It’s orange.......ORANGE. What a weird strange thing. You’ll probably never see one. Does it even really exist?

Why are so many night elves hunters? Why are they so bad?

Who rules the battlegrounds? The Horde! Their racials when that was a big deal actually were more PVPed based and made a different. Will of the Forsaken was BIG.

Extensive quest chains that lead to extensive chains that lead to extensive chains that lead to extensive chains! That’s how you got to Molten Core.

Holy shit your doing MC?! Your one hard core Mfer. Hell being in a raider back in those days took longer overall, again enemies hit harder, had more health, respawned meaning you had to clear trash over and over again and running back into the instance from a grave yard could take a bit of time. Dungeons and raids in those days were hour long affairs. Minutes? Hahahahaha, that’s silly.

 

[Herbspiceguy]

Too many awful time sinks at endgame.

 

[Zelias]

I only got to about 43 or so in Vanilla (I wouldn't actually hit cap and do endgame until Wrath!) but I'll chip in. The world was much bigger, exploration much more of a thing. I still remember my first char - an Undead Mage - emerging out into Tirisfal Glades from Deathknell, an amazing experience. Flying mounts, teleports and other things have made the world much smaller since then.

Matchmaking didn't exist, so you had to look manually for groups. Again, now we have modern conveniences like LFD. Server communities were stronger, it mattered who you were. The good guys, the best players (or at least the most dedicated), the asshats were known. Everyone now is more or less anonymous, for better or worse.

Mounts took work, whereas now the cost is like a small roadbump as you level.

I'm not going to get into whether Vanilla was better than modern WoW, everyone has a side and it's a tired argument. All I'll say is that Vanilla was very different from modern WoW, which has perhaps traded the vast world feeling for modern conveniences we now expect. YMMV on whether that's a good thing or not.

 

[Millsington]

To echo what others have said, the community aspect was its greatest attribute for me. I (and probably most of the hardcore guilds) knew the majority of the level 60s on our server by reputation. My server (Bleeding Hollow) forums were great fun and a regular source of all kinds of drama.

Second was definitely exploring a huge unknown world, meeting people who were generally cool, and killing things for loot together.

There were bad things of course, notably the extremely high time commitments necessary to see endgame PVE content, and almost criminally high for PVP gear, exacerbated by its fairly poor method of rewarding items. Tons of issues with lag, bugs, and things just not working at all. Population balance on your server meant battleground queues could be instant or multi-hour, making it insanely easier for one side to get the rewards. Population balance also had a dramatic effect on the quality and frequency of world PVP.

For all of its problems, an incredible experience I'll never forget.