bemusedchunk
Banned
Rogues could dual wield shields before a very early patch.
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Try to explain to me WoW vanilla
- Thread starter MrMatt555
- Start date
Depends on what time frame and what section of the playerbase you look at
Early on, especially on a pvp server, there were very few holy priests because leveling up with one sucked, and they were useless in pvp.
Later on as more people got into raiding that started to change, but the raiding community was still small overall
MikeBreezy92
Member
I did that too. That was super fun lol.
Honestly as someone who raided back then, vanilla would never last these days. Too slow, too little content for todays standards of consume, consume, consume.
I remember it taking 4 hours to get to the first boss in Molten Core when we first tried it. Could you image spending 4 hours doing content with no reward these days?
It's pure nostalgia.
I remember it taking 4 hours to get to the first boss in Molten Core when we first tried it. Could you image spending 4 hours doing content with no reward these days?
It's pure nostalgia.
so many crocodiles....
Oh man... haha.... no Vanilla WoW thread would be complete without TheYanger's long paragraphs aggressively correcting the record.
In all seriousness, I don't always agree with you but I really do admire your commitment to the cause. I'm glad you find the game better now than it ever has been, and in many ways, I'd be hard pressed to argue otherwise.
I do think it's important to note, however, that when we're talking about something like the old days in WoW, people's perception of things is at least as central to the discussion as the rules of the game itself, though. Difficulty of raid bosses, for instance.... Obviously they were "easier" statistically but for many, this was their first time raiding, and it was only possible to do after wrangling 40-some-odd teenagers into some kind of vaguely cohesive group.
To me, it's sort of analogous to running, or something. I can run six miles today without too much exertion, and it might even work me harder than the first time I ran a full mile without stopping. But I remember that first mile as being more difficult because there were non-physical barriers to overcome as well, and I was less informed about a lot of the steps that could reduce the challenge.
Difficulty is just an inherently vague concept in games, but I think I just fundamentally disagree with your notion that Vanilla WoW's myriad inconveniences - many of which are remembered fondly - did not make actually make the game "harder."
In all seriousness, I don't always agree with you but I really do admire your commitment to the cause. I'm glad you find the game better now than it ever has been, and in many ways, I'd be hard pressed to argue otherwise.
I do think it's important to note, however, that when we're talking about something like the old days in WoW, people's perception of things is at least as central to the discussion as the rules of the game itself, though. Difficulty of raid bosses, for instance.... Obviously they were "easier" statistically but for many, this was their first time raiding, and it was only possible to do after wrangling 40-some-odd teenagers into some kind of vaguely cohesive group.
To me, it's sort of analogous to running, or something. I can run six miles today without too much exertion, and it might even work me harder than the first time I ran a full mile without stopping. But I remember that first mile as being more difficult because there were non-physical barriers to overcome as well, and I was less informed about a lot of the steps that could reduce the challenge.
Difficulty is just an inherently vague concept in games, but I think I just fundamentally disagree with your notion that Vanilla WoW's myriad inconveniences - many of which are remembered fondly - did not make actually make the game "harder."
ZombieSupaStar
Member
I played legion a bit last year how is the game now? I remember having fun then but people were a bit angry about the flying mounts thing.
Monkeyball
Banned
Stop with the nostalgia bs. I genuinely loved it while doing all that.
Buff-ahoy sequence started, gather around me for buffs!! Talk for 3 minutes, "Okay redo pally buffs" ...go over small change to strategy for 2 min ..."Okay, we're good, redo pally buffs" ...last minute strategy change, "okay, lets do pally buffs again." Also remember wearing a lot of cloth, especially just getting into MC as a pally as all of the plate was terrible for healing with no +healing on plate gear until you got to raiding.
blacklotus
Member
+Basically, the world was alive because of the players/community.
There was an Night Elf Rogue on Tanaris super decked that basically spent much of his time ganking horde. He was known in my server because of it. I died by his hands some times and it was so fucking cool.
There was a legitimate "hate" on the Factions. Not a bad thing, just a role play thing.
I remember going to the little Horde village in Ashenvale and just raving on the chat about "who wants to destroy Astraanar and those filthy aliance!!!??!?!"
2 minutes later there was a 40 player raid with levels ranging from 4 to just running to Astranaar only to be destroyed by the 60+ elite guards. But during the path, there will always be one lonely low level Aliance dude question that would be swallowed by 40 cows/trolls/orcs/undeads thirsty for violence. It was amazing and hiliarous.
Remember my sister baiting people to go outside Gadgetzan with her low level shaman only to be destroyed by my undead rogue lurking in the shadows.. etc.
For me vanilla was all about the world being super alive and questing with mates or alone while looking over your shoulder all the time, was simply fantastic.
What an experience. Loved it.
There was an Night Elf Rogue on Tanaris super decked that basically spent much of his time ganking horde. He was known in my server because of it. I died by his hands some times and it was so fucking cool.
There was a legitimate "hate" on the Factions. Not a bad thing, just a role play thing.
I remember going to the little Horde village in Ashenvale and just raving on the chat about "who wants to destroy Astraanar and those filthy aliance!!!??!?!"
2 minutes later there was a 40 player raid with levels ranging from 4 to just running to Astranaar only to be destroyed by the 60+ elite guards. But during the path, there will always be one lonely low level Aliance dude question that would be swallowed by 40 cows/trolls/orcs/undeads thirsty for violence. It was amazing and hiliarous.
Remember my sister baiting people to go outside Gadgetzan with her low level shaman only to be destroyed by my undead rogue lurking in the shadows.. etc.
For me vanilla was all about the world being super alive and questing with mates or alone while looking over your shoulder all the time, was simply fantastic.
What an experience. Loved it.
ZombieSupaStar
Member
Anyone from shattered hand back in the day?
Copperfield and his hate for gnomes. And Death and Taxes raid progress news lol.
Copperfield and his hate for gnomes. And Death and Taxes raid progress news lol.
I was such a noob when I first started playing OG WoW. I had a night elf warrior decked out in gear purely bought from a vendor, ran past a fellow night fellow wearing the same shit, we both stopped next to each other for a few seconds and then ran oppiste direction. Hilarious.
But, many great memories in vanilla.
First time I ever played, I made a human mage. Ran out of Elwyn Forest towards Stormwind and saw a dragon right by the gates/bridge, to this day I had no idea what it was? Dunno if it was kited or was a random in game event?
Did anyone see it?
But, many great memories in vanilla.
First time I ever played, I made a human mage. Ran out of Elwyn Forest towards Stormwind and saw a dragon right by the gates/bridge, to this day I had no idea what it was? Dunno if it was kited or was a random in game event?
Did anyone see it?
This thread brings back memories...
Im gonna state first and foremost that Vanilla Wow and the first expansion The Burning Crusade is in my top 3 gaming experiences ever. The only others that had the same amount of a impact, and that i put insane amount of time in is FFVII and Phantasy Star Online.
I also think all these three games hit me at a somewhat perfect timing age wise. When vanilla Wow launched i was around 23 years old, having moved to my own first apartment 1 year before it. No other game has hooked me they way Wow did.
I mean it was freaking common for me to wake up Saturday morning, eat breakfast, go to the gym 1 hr, come home, and then play wow at least 12 hrs straight, eating in front of the computer as well. Here is the thing, i genuinely enjoyed every minute of it!
Toxicity was very rare, instant gratification was very rare, stupid achievements did not exsits, own webpages with forums dedicated to specific servers where that servers
player base hung out and posted regularly where a thing.
World pvp was actually a thing, and something very cool. I mean there was a quite famous asian horde Warlock named "Drakedog" who put out some incredible cool world pvp videos at that time (Warcraftmovies at the time but they should be on youtube now if you want to watch), and rumor said that the alliance side on his server often tried to raid him once he was online, because of the fact that he was a very skilled pvp player, and obviously did major chaos and death to the alliance side.
Attunements where a thing you know, so hey if you wanted to experience high end PVE content you could not run it on some lower difficult level just to see it.
This actually worked as a great motivator for myself, as i wanted to see what the raid PVE content world had to offer. When i set my foot in a raid it felt kinda "special" back then, beacuse you had to work to get there.
A hard 5 man instance generally took at least 1 hour to complete, often more, and some of the heroic versions in The Burning Crusade of the 5 man dugenouns required A LOT of skill, coordination/TEAM WORK, and good gear.
There is a video on youtube from preachgaming regarding the first expansion The Burning Crusade and the PVE content, and what went really wrong after that.
Blizzard did something incredible cool at this time...
Basically all the top pve guilds where progressing and trying to down bosses as usually, and before ANY of them had finished the highest/hardest PVE raid at that time, you know what Blizzard did...?
They open up/gave access to the "main" raid instance Black Temple of the expansion with the main character Illidan as the final boss. I can only imagine the motivation and fuel this gave top guilds at that time.
Im gonna state first and foremost that Vanilla Wow and the first expansion The Burning Crusade is in my top 3 gaming experiences ever. The only others that had the same amount of a impact, and that i put insane amount of time in is FFVII and Phantasy Star Online.
I also think all these three games hit me at a somewhat perfect timing age wise. When vanilla Wow launched i was around 23 years old, having moved to my own first apartment 1 year before it. No other game has hooked me they way Wow did.
I mean it was freaking common for me to wake up Saturday morning, eat breakfast, go to the gym 1 hr, come home, and then play wow at least 12 hrs straight, eating in front of the computer as well. Here is the thing, i genuinely enjoyed every minute of it!
Toxicity was very rare, instant gratification was very rare, stupid achievements did not exsits, own webpages with forums dedicated to specific servers where that servers
player base hung out and posted regularly where a thing.
World pvp was actually a thing, and something very cool. I mean there was a quite famous asian horde Warlock named "Drakedog" who put out some incredible cool world pvp videos at that time (Warcraftmovies at the time but they should be on youtube now if you want to watch), and rumor said that the alliance side on his server often tried to raid him once he was online, because of the fact that he was a very skilled pvp player, and obviously did major chaos and death to the alliance side.
Attunements where a thing you know, so hey if you wanted to experience high end PVE content you could not run it on some lower difficult level just to see it.
This actually worked as a great motivator for myself, as i wanted to see what the raid PVE content world had to offer. When i set my foot in a raid it felt kinda "special" back then, beacuse you had to work to get there.
A hard 5 man instance generally took at least 1 hour to complete, often more, and some of the heroic versions in The Burning Crusade of the 5 man dugenouns required A LOT of skill, coordination/TEAM WORK, and good gear.
There is a video on youtube from preachgaming regarding the first expansion The Burning Crusade and the PVE content, and what went really wrong after that.
Blizzard did something incredible cool at this time...
Basically all the top pve guilds where progressing and trying to down bosses as usually, and before ANY of them had finished the highest/hardest PVE raid at that time, you know what Blizzard did...?
They open up/gave access to the "main" raid instance Black Temple of the expansion with the main character Illidan as the final boss. I can only imagine the motivation and fuel this gave top guilds at that time.
RedSparrows
Member
It is nostalgia in the sense that I am not sure I'd want to play that again EXCEPT to relive that precise feeling (even though if I did it now, the raid would do it in 10 minutes).
But that's what this thread is celebrating, and how Vanilla WoW is seen. This nostalgia is, by definition, not 'realistic', but that's not the point, and 'realism' about our memories is not what we value.
I loved it too
I loved waiting in DM for 45 minutes whilst our engineer went to IF to get mats for a bomb to blow the last door because we had no rogue and for some reason couldn't get the key to open it. I KNOW it was frustrating nonsense by all game design standards, but my memories of it are nothing but positive - mainly because the world's feel benefited from such scale and pace.Head of Onyxia?
https://wow.gamepedia.com/Head_of_Onyxia_(original)
I miss attunements for raids, fuckit, to an extent anyway. Sometimes it was a fun adventurous chain which made sense for the story.
Still bitter everyone got free Dreadsteeds after I did the bloody quest. Did the quest at 70 though because I didn't start properly (dabbled only a couple of times in Vanilla) but we 3 manned it and that was... tricky.
Like many others said, though my view's a bit different because I really got into it during TBC and I still think a fair amount of the community/communication aspect was still around at that point, it was all down to community. Removing reasons to actually communicate and ultimately form bonds which keep you coming back so you can play with the people you've met in game killed that aspect.
PvP ranks with rewards weren't in for quite a while (like, almost a year iirc), and rank 11 was absolutely a grind. compared to rank 14? no, but it was still a LOT of pvp man idk.
You know Kalimdor was very bad for Alliance when you had to do a 30 mins(or was it longer?) deathly run to reach the human starting zones because the experience was so much better there.
A Serious Man
Member
These runs were always an adventure, it was great. Along the same line, the night TBC went live some friends of mine and I decided to run to Netherstorm after we had spent a few hours questing in Hellfire. We weren't really aware of what the zones looked like or what to expect. We died constantly but it was an amazing experience and felt like we were the first to explore something on the server. Getting to Netherstorm, with its dark, mysterious atmosphere, in the dead of launch night and with no other players around is one of my favorite gaming memories.
Nah wasn't that.
Was a moving dragon, the a Stormwind knight kneeling.
I am 1000% sure I saw this.
Hippopuncher12
Member
This thread made me go to the armory, and look up some of the people I used to play with, and I found most of them that didn't change names or whatever. Not a single one that has played past level 80 save one that went to 90. I really miss my old Skullcrusher and then Darkspear people. I moved to Azuremyst long ago, and it was never the same.
RedSparrows
Member
Back near launch a friend took three of us for a walk through Theramore and into the swamp. We had never been there and were excited.
Crocs ate us repeatedly. We got lost. One friend raged and quit. Still no idea what the guy wanted to show us. It was bizarre.
Crocs ate us repeatedly. We got lost. One friend raged and quit. Still no idea what the guy wanted to show us. It was bizarre.
birthbystars
Member
Tarren Mill was a constant warzone between Horde and Alliance, and it was amazing.
Deputy Moonman
Member
I rolled a gnome warlock, but still had to pay for epic riding speed. I remember farming the crap out of living essence and essence of fire in ungoro crater, and also essence of water and felcloth in Felwood to make money. Then I did something similar in Burning Crusades for epic flying and farmed motes of fire in the throne of kil'jaeden ceaselessly.
A Serious Man
Member
Don't follow strangers into the swamp.
Learn your place, OoMkin!
It's hard to describe how crowded Ironforge was back then. Center of the fucking universe.
Another truth about early Vanilla WoW as Alliance.
1. Almost everyone wanted to be a Night Elf.
2. Darnassus is the worst.
3. Iron Forge is the best.
4. All of the good Alliance early quests were over on the other continent.
5. You gotta run there, and that shit takes time and goes through some dangerous places.
Another truth about early Vanilla WoW as Alliance.
1. Almost everyone wanted to be a Night Elf.
2. Darnassus is the worst.
3. Iron Forge is the best.
4. All of the good Alliance early quests were over on the other continent.
5. You gotta run there, and that shit takes time and goes through some dangerous places.
racketpunch
Member
40 man raids, no group finder tools for anything, crazy talent trees, no flying, hard to grind for mounts especially epic ones and pvp was such a grind. Ahh the good ol days but I would never want to go back to all that. People are crazy for wanting to but maybe I'd be open for it if I had the same amount of responsibilities back then.
I undertook a great journey to get from Ironforge to Stormwind so I could level my Gnome mage
I did not know about the tram
SillyEskimo
Member
GankzyMcfly
Member
Basically how it works, is the core of the game is a later core (likely the core of the game just before tbc) but the balance within the core is tweaked to match the balance at various stages of WoW's life. All of the "updates" come out relatively when they would have come out in retail. For example, about a month ago bwl and AV were released as well as the associated quests etc. I'm pretty sure AQ 40 is scheduled to come out in nov. or something. They have a timeline explaining which content comes out when.......https://www.elysium-project.org/timeline most of the people in my guild are people who never got a chance to down Nax before TBC, so that's pretty much our goal and we're just preparing for that basically.
Funny, I did the opposite b/c my friend was leveling a night elf.
60EffPeeEss
Member
Has any current MMO got a place as bloodthirsty as Stranglethorn Vale?
That place was insane.
That place was insane.
HackTheSlash
Member
Was thinking about, Un'Goro crater was it called? Where the dino like monsters were. I remember the first time going into some of those caves and they had some of the most beautiful crystals that glowed.
RedSparrows
Member
Wish I was on NA time, I'd apply to join in a flash!
MisterAnderson
Member
Yup! I have fond memories of this. So is this still in the game but no one uses it anymore?
Yep, it's still there. It's technically still faster than flying between the two cities, I still use it once in a blue-moon.
You haven't lived until you tried to run from Ragefire Chasm to try and do Deadmines as horde.
STV was a deathtrap. Especially on a PvP server.
Nesingwary's Expedition was one place I always dreaded going near. So many rogues.
KO Traveling Hobo
Member
Un'Goro was such a cool zone. Hunting the towering devilsaurs for their lucrative leather was a thrill, and it was full of Nintendo references for some reason.
I remember when I levelled my first alt in TBC, my Mage was at 70 at that point and this level 50 kept ganking my druid. I logged out, came back and camped him for like an hour.
HackTheSlash
Member
So purty.
zerokoolpsx
Member
40 man MC raids while being clueless on ventrilo.
Farming fire resists for Onyxia lol.
No lfg or queue oh any kind. Gotta form your own groups.
PvP in Southshore and Tarren Mill is where it's at. Not even STV could compete.
The dread of doing quests on a PvP server and rogues can stun you with no diminishing returns.
Thunderfury on a hunter.
Sense of community with guild members. Talk about gf"s, ex, breakups, work, kids, etc. I got to know guildies and what was going on in their lives. Some of them met irl. Wish I kept in touch with some of them after quitting. I doubt any of them still play anymore after a decade.
Nowadays, most guildies hardly say anything to you. It's not the same, logging on, doing whatever you need to do and logoff.
Class skills and mounts were expensive, especially the epic mounts. I had to borrow almost 900 gold to get mine. They thought I was gonna gquit after. I paid the guy back with interest.
Traveling took so much longer without flying.
People doing nothing, but hang out in Origrimmar or Ironforge.
10 man ubrs wipes lol.
10 man Scholo runs.
Getting to 60 took months. No heirlooms, leveling guide, or anything.
People always lowballing you on enchants since Inscription didn't exist.
Gold sellers spamming their services. A lot of Chinese farmers back then.
Raiding was a 2nd job.
My grades suffered dramatically when I was addicted to Wow.
Getting epics back then actually took effort and a 40 man raid.
People thought I was nuts when I had 110 days played on my mage in vanilla. My gm played way more than me at 200 days.
Farming fire resists for Onyxia lol.
No lfg or queue oh any kind. Gotta form your own groups.
PvP in Southshore and Tarren Mill is where it's at. Not even STV could compete.
The dread of doing quests on a PvP server and rogues can stun you with no diminishing returns.
Thunderfury on a hunter.
Sense of community with guild members. Talk about gf"s, ex, breakups, work, kids, etc. I got to know guildies and what was going on in their lives. Some of them met irl. Wish I kept in touch with some of them after quitting. I doubt any of them still play anymore after a decade.
Nowadays, most guildies hardly say anything to you. It's not the same, logging on, doing whatever you need to do and logoff.
Class skills and mounts were expensive, especially the epic mounts. I had to borrow almost 900 gold to get mine. They thought I was gonna gquit after. I paid the guy back with interest.
Traveling took so much longer without flying.
People doing nothing, but hang out in Origrimmar or Ironforge.
10 man ubrs wipes lol.
10 man Scholo runs.
Getting to 60 took months. No heirlooms, leveling guide, or anything.
People always lowballing you on enchants since Inscription didn't exist.
Gold sellers spamming their services. A lot of Chinese farmers back then.
Raiding was a 2nd job.
My grades suffered dramatically when I was addicted to Wow.
Getting epics back then actually took effort and a 40 man raid.
People thought I was nuts when I had 110 days played on my mage in vanilla. My gm played way more than me at 200 days.
Thread is a trip down memory lane. Listening to the vanilla soundtrack as I've read through all the pages. I had many great and enduring memories and feelings from vanilla WoW that were never quite the same in subsequent expacs.
One negative that I haven't seen brought up much was the blanket debuffs that so many trash and bosses would hand out to all 40 raid members, particularly in MC and toned down in BWL and beyond. Just a constant wave of decursing and dispelling, even using decursive. Not sure why that was ever considered good design beyond a few mobs debuffing you so new raiders would learn what dispel is.
One negative that I haven't seen brought up much was the blanket debuffs that so many trash and bosses would hand out to all 40 raid members, particularly in MC and toned down in BWL and beyond. Just a constant wave of decursing and dispelling, even using decursive. Not sure why that was ever considered good design beyond a few mobs debuffing you so new raiders would learn what dispel is.
ShaggsMagoo
Member
A ritual every newly created undead character got to experience. Meeting and greeting the welcome bears of Western Plaguelands.
JayBabay
Member
Some of the best memories I've had in gaming came during the early days of WoW. It really was a encapsulating experience for me. The way a random stranger helping you with a quest would end up in a big guild and offer you a spot with them down the line.
The excitement of preparing for a big raid, trying to prove your worth during the chances you got in the beginning when someone doesn't show up or can't make it.
Having real life friends that played made the experience that much better. Sometimes you would have friends that stuck together the whole time, other times you had that one guy who would always try to better himself haha joining another guild and leaving everyone behind!
The excitement of preparing for a big raid, trying to prove your worth during the chances you got in the beginning when someone doesn't show up or can't make it.
Having real life friends that played made the experience that much better. Sometimes you would have friends that stuck together the whole time, other times you had that one guy who would always try to better himself haha joining another guild and leaving everyone behind!
ryanofcall
Member
-Meeting other friendly (same faction) Players was exciting
-Meeting other enemy (opposite faction) Players was scary (and also exciting)
-Getting level 60 (level cap) was a big deal, since it took veeery long...
-...So was getting a Mount
-Duelling in front of Ironforge was so much fun!
-As a druid I farmed gold in the plaguelands with a mage!
-Everyone laughed at non-healer (DD or Tank) druids
-You could only spec one set of skills (not save several different ones)
-Dat world event Onyxia (40 people raid) Questline 😍
-Meeting other enemy (opposite faction) Players was scary (and also exciting)
-Getting level 60 (level cap) was a big deal, since it took veeery long...
-...So was getting a Mount
-Duelling in front of Ironforge was so much fun!
-As a druid I farmed gold in the plaguelands with a mage!
-Everyone laughed at non-healer (DD or Tank) druids
-You could only spec one set of skills (not save several different ones)
-Dat world event Onyxia (40 people raid) Questline 😍
It could have been one of the green world boss dragons. There was one that spawned in Duskwood which is right near Stormwind. I think they put a leash on them after they were kited to major cities a few times, so it may have been before they did that.