Support NeoGAF

[luulubuu]

There are too many great QoL changes now to give them up for a vanilla server. I feel like Legion is scratching the itch of TBC and WotLK for me, I quite enjoy it now after 7.3 but I do miss the city raids and interactions around it.

You subbed just when I quit. I wont forget

 

[blackjaw]

I was my guild's main tank for awhile, and I spent all the money I saved up for my epic mount to buy the quest starting book that leads to Quel'Serrar.

Took so long to save it up a second time.

I bought mine the day before BC dropped...

 

[TheContact]

I've played MMOs since 97 staring with UO. I never got into EQ but I played DAoC (great fucking game btw) and on day 1 I went to WoW since I was a huge blizzard fan anyway. I've played wow from day 1 to today with some breaks here and there.

Vanilla was a different game than it was today. Wow vanilla compared to other MMOs was a lot less punishing and demanding despite the fact that the game is almost a cake walk today. Leveling took a while. My first 60 was a hunter and I remember it took 32 days /played to get there. Every level you got you had to visit a trainer to learn a new skill. Talent trees were a lot cooler but ultimately everyone chose the same "cookie cutter" build. You didn't get mounts until lvl 40 and when you hit 60 you could unlock the 100% speed mount, but most people couldn't afford it unless you had been saving up since level 1. There was no LFG system so everyone was a lot more social. There was no cross realm shit so you made a legit name for yourself on your server for better or worse. Everyone knew each other and it felt like more of a community. If you were a raider you stood out because you were the only ones who would get epics. I remember being in cities and getting a lot of whispers complementing me on my gear because most people who didn't raid were in blue quality items. Also a lot of class specs were useless in the raid setting. If you were a paladin you were holy and that was it. Your job was to keep blessings up on everyone and put out some ok heals. Warriors were your only tanks despite that paladin and druids had a tank spec. They were terrible. You had to farm for mats for potions and the raid content was demanding and some fights required resist gear. I remember farming marauding for nature resist greens and blues for AQ40 and equipping them in some fights over my purple gear due to needing the resist. Also there were a lot of cock block fights such as Vaelsrtrasz in black temple. Saw a lot of guilds break up because of him. Naxx was truly special. A very hard raid which I think only less than 1% of the population even step foot into.

Pvp (when they implemented bugs) was a grind too and required a lot (a LOT) of time in order to get the highest rank to get the best gear. You also compared to ranks vs other players on your server so if someone put in more time you could lose your rank. Enhance shamans were OP with windfury and there was a lot of one shots in pvp as there wasn't the mitigation damage there is today.

I miss vanilla a lot I have a lot of memories of wow up until WotLk where imo the game started going downhill. Cataclysm was the worst thing that happened to WoW

 

[Atomski]

No flying mounts.. There was actual world PvP..and lots of tasty ganks.

 

[Tecnniqe]

You subbed just when I quit. I wont forget

Oh shit, called out!

 

[Zafir]

Definitely a time and place experience.

The grinds were intense. It took me a few months to get to 60 for example, but you got through it because the world was great and you wanted to be a max level person with the mount and good raid gear. The quests were honestly pretty rubbish, I know I leveled mostly through dungeons because of it.

Dungeons were pretty annoying to get groups for, having to spam chats to get a group for them. However, unlike MMO's now, people would actually talk and communicate. You'd make friends through them which could help you do content in the future. I know through dungeons I met a guy who then introduced me to his PvP buddies, and we ended up often doing PvP together.

Raiding was kind of hard to get into since not many guilds could get 40 people to do a raid at a given time. I was kind of lucky in that someone wanted a Paladin when I hit 60, and since I leveled through dungeons - I basically already had the gear. Even during raiding though everyone was friendly to each other - we'd all have a laugh, it was pretty fun, despite it being pretty sad you dying on a boss over and over every evening.

I'll always remember the Ahn Qiraj opening, where everyone had to pitch in and help, it was an amazing experience. I think that's the thing with Vanilla, as everyone else has said, it's all about the community. You'd be really good friends with your guild mates. You'd know a lot of people on your server, including horde if you played PvP. If someone did something really bad, word would spread and they'd be ostracised for it.

I quit when TBC came out, I just got sick of the grinding. I did try and come back later into TBC's life, but I feel like that's when the elitism started setting in. I guess the drop to 25man raids caused it to a certain degree. 40man raids allowed a lot of wiggle room in terms of some people not being as optimal. Where as 25man didn't have that as much, you needed everyone on the ball. People would call out anything if it seemed "in-optimal" in their eyes. I know I got bitched about the fact I didn't farm this 5man dungeon for a piece of equipment ready for the 25man raid. It was a stupid complaint really, It would have helped very minorly and looking at the dps tables (or well hps tables), I was doing perfectly fine in comparison to the other paladins - mostly above them despite my so called lack of gear.

Sadly, that kind of elitism is common place even in normal dungeons these days. I know I quit XIV:ARR not long after getting to 50 when it first came out because it was irritating trying to get a group for dungeons. Everyone required you to have done the dungeon before/got the gear from it before you can do the dungeon with them. Which begs the question of how anyone is meant to get the gear so we can do the dungeon if we need the gear to do it. :? Gear score is a great example of it, everyone requiring x gear score before you can join them - as if you just can't perform with gear before that magical cut off point.

 

[mysocksarepink]

Played since day one.

Spell rank clutter

Grinding to 60.

Hillsbrad

PvP system that was designed for players who didn't sleep. I placed rank one on my server one week. I was in front of that screen virtually 7 days in a row!! And I think I only hit PVP rank 12. NOPE.

I met a group of guys I'm friends with still today in a WhatsApp and we stil play other games.

We would reroll on every new server, race to 60 and try for server bests in raids.

https://youtu.be/bR0E77kcUL4

Video in 2006 first downing nef. The cheering after was beautiful. Raiding 5 days a week and going to school on little to no sleep was chaotic.

Those moments will never be remade, but I'm glad I have them

 

[luulubuu]

wow vanilla in one picture:

 

[Dezzy]

The interesting thing about classic WoW is that when we look back, we talk about how hard and grindy it was, but in 2004, many people called WoW easy mode, baby's first MMO and casual, just because of how it compared to others that were already out.

 

[neoemonk]

It was legitimately difficult to save enough money to get a mount, and everyone hated paladins and warlocks for getting them for "free".

You didn't get it until level 40 either.

 

[Freeman76]

There not what???

Tell us!!!

He is talking shit.

Vanilla wow took ages to do anything

 

[lazygecko]

wow vanilla in one picture:

The troll and human have post-vanilla barbershop haircuts.

 

[luulubuu]

The troll and human have post-vanilla barbershop haircuts.

you to me right now:

 

[TheYanger]

wow vanilla in one picture:

Time to be a nerd: Why is a troll working with a human and a night elf? Why does the human have a hairstyle that didn't exist in vanilla? phony ass screenshot fam EDIT FUCK BEATEN

He is talking shit.

Vanilla wow took ages to do anything

It really didn't. It's all about relativity. wow today takes ages to do anything compared to most non-MMOs, for example. But it's trivial to level compared to vanilla. Vanilla was trivial compared to DAoC which was trivial compared to EverQuest. At the end of the day, taking something like 15-20 days of /played time to max out doesn't seem bad for an era of the game that lasted 2 years.

 

[luulubuu]

Time to be a nerd: Why is a troll working with a human and a night elf? Why does the human have a hairstyle that didn't exist in vanilla? phony ass screenshot fam EDIT FUCK BEATEN



It really didn't. It's all about relativity. wow today takes ages to do anything compared to most non-MMOs, for example. But it's trivial to level compared to vanilla. Vanilla was trivial compared to DAoC which was trivial compared to EverQuest. At the end of the day, taking something like 15-20 days of /played time to max out doesn't seem bad for an era of the game that lasted 2 years.

Stop, let me breathe


The image was to mention the thing that happened in Qiraj with the mobs, I remember those being undefeatable or something close to that

 

[StayDead]

Alterac Valley games would last over 24 hours.

I could polymorph people for over 50 seconds (and in a particularly douchey moment, did it to our guilds warrior in a duel just after he completed Thunderfury).

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

EDIT: The game in general was super rough, but in a super charming way. Abilities like Dampen Magic had no % cap, so as a mage you could get a particular Air Elemental in Sithilus to hit you for 1 damage. I managed to solo farm the entire zone by kiting and killing 25+ of the things per pull, driving everyone else out of the area. In turn, I single handedly crashed the Air Essence (valuable enchanting material) market on my server by severely undercutting the competition.

I started just before TBC and started raiding during that.

I know that feel.

 

[jipewithin]

World was more alive because you actually go in there to do stuff. Realms had actual communities which were pretty much destroyed when cross realm battlegrounds were introduced. It took a long time to get lvl60, 5man dungeons were pretty long (blackrock depths was insanly huge). Many talents were useless, paladins were op compared to shamans, PvP was hugely imbalanced but I dont think it has really gotten any better.

Stopped raiding in Wotlk and just leveled up to max in Cata and WoD, dropped pretty much after that both times. Didn't buy Pandaria or Legion. If legacy servers were introduced MAYBE I could try vanilla again, but only if there would be some quality of life improvements. Like UI changes, longer buffs and more mana water. Little things.

 

[StayDead]

I remember when I first started, it took me 12 hours to get to level 10. You can nearly hit level 40 in that time now, it's insane!

 

[TheYanger]

Stop, let me breathe


The image was to mention the thing that happened in Qiraj with the mobs, I remember those being undefeatable or something close to that

Nah, it was a great event, I Was there on the first server that did it but they were hardly unkillable, mostly the server was lagged to shit and literally never recovered. Medivh broke so thoroughly during that event, that we went from a relatively lagless, though very high pop server, to literally unplayable at peak hours. Was pretty sad really, two of the top guilds in the world were there and had to transfer away when we got free transfer offers during Naxx. Like, if anyone pulled Thaddius it literally crashed everyone on Medivh in Naxxramas.

Similar anecdote that I doubt many others remember, but right after the first honor patch came out that had rewards, there was a banner you could use that gave people some stamina or something. At the time everyone was still working on Ragnaros in MC, and the servers kept crashing when people were pulling Rag. Eventually we worked out with the 4 other guilds attempting it A) to give everyone a heads up before every pull, and B) after many hours/days of this, that it was the fucking pvp banners being used that were crashing it. Every top guild had someone with it that was using it when they could, and every time it got used it would instantly shut down all Molten Core instances.

We also came back up from one of those crashes in the same instance as a horde guild (I was alliance), which was entertaining, and finally in BWL a few months later when nobody could get past the busted gate after Vael, the server crashed and we zoned into the same instance as Ascent, another horde guild. Good times.

 

[Gamerdude99]

Certainly one of them

It was legitimately magical

Expansive exploration, adventurous, wonderous, dangerous

People didn't know every nook and cranny, there weren't endless databases to tell you every micro detail about every pixel in the world

This is on the first page but I thought I'd respond.

The coolest thing about vanilla wow for me was the exploration. As the poster said it took a couple months before these thottbot type databases showed up (or at least gained popularity)

The addition of those databases added to but also subtracted from the game imo.

I remember spending about two hours trying to finish one simple fetch quest. The quest directions were so vague I had no idea where to go and it drove me bonkers so I eventually abandoned it, wasting a lot of my time

On the plus side, I would explore just to explore, and it was rewarding and fun. One time I found a small hut nestled away and hidden in the mountains of one of the starting zones, which sold recipes which were rare and novel for the time ( a recipe to make a mech dragon war pet) I bought them and flipped them on the ah to buy my first mount.

I remember complaining on the forums because the database sites killed the exploration aspect for me. Whenever I saw a unique piece of gear, all I had to do was Google it to find out where to get that piece, vice socializing with the person and asking. I personally didnt like this because for me, it boiled down the game to googling the best gear/leveling spots and going there, versus experiencing the reward of finding something novel.

I posted this on the wow forums, but they didn't agree with me and I was quickly flamed. I still hold this viewpoint for mmo type games, but I just don't know a realistic solution to solve it.

They can't match that level of adventure in vanilla wow, and won't ever the way things are data mined these days.

 

[moerser]

good luck as a fire mage in mc/bwl.
playing paladin? (alliance only) you heal.
playing shaman? (horde only) you heal.
playing druid? you heal.
playing priest? you heal.
warriors were essentially the only tanks, because pala and druid tank specs sucked.
almost every spell had a lot of ranks, all of which were in your spellbook. so if you forgot to pull the new rank out on your action bar you gimped yourself.
want to do a battleground? travel across the whole fucking world to queue at the bg entrance.
there was a time when an alterac valley bg could last for 24+ hours.
fancy a mount from another race? you would have to get exalted. you could donor runecloth for a tiny bit of rep. took either a lot of time or a lot of gold.

it was a fun time, but there are just sooo many qol changes now in the game, i dont think i would want to play on a vanilla server again.

 

[TheYanger]

This is on the first page but I thought I'd respond.

The coolest thing about vanilla wow for me was the exploration. As the poster said it took a couple months before these thottbot type databases showed up (or at least gained popularity)

The addition of those databases added to but also subtracted from the game imo.

I remember spending about two hours trying to finish one simple fetch quest. The quest directions were so vague I had no idea where to go and it drove me bonkers so I eventually abandoned it, wasting a lot of my time

On the plus side, I would explore just to explore, and it was rewarding and fun. One time I found a small hut nestled away and hidden in the mountains of one of the starting zones, which sold recipes which were rare and novel for the time ( a recipe to make a mech dragon war pet) I bought them and flipped them on the ah to buy my first mount.

I remember complaining on the forums because the database sites killed the exploration aspect for me. Whenever I saw a unique piece of gear, all I had to do was Google it to find out where to get that piece, vice socializing with the person and asking. I personally didnt like this because for me, it boiled down the game to googling the best gear/leveling spots and going there, versus experiencing the reward of finding something novel.

I posted this on the wow forums, but they didn't agree with me and I was quickly flamed. I still hold this viewpoint for mmo type games, but I just don't know a realistic solution to solve it.

They can't match that level of adventure in vanilla wow, and won't ever the way things are data mined these days.

This is a specific you experience, though. Thottbot existed BEFORE the game was in open beta even. Hell, we had sites like this in EverQuest 5 years prior, there were mods that would walk you through the questing experience even in Vanilla. The fact that you were ignorant of that stuff and it reduced your fun once you weren't, that's totally fair, but that wasn't the game, that was simply you being in the dark about it (to your benefit apparently, it's not a bad thing).

 

[Strings]

almost every spell had a lot of ranks, all of which were in your spellbook. so if you forgot to pull the new rank out on your action bar you gimped yourself.

To be fair, this had a lot of cool applications, since lower rank spells had lower cast times (and applied correspondingly lower duration debuffs). You could fire off 1 second frostbolts that applied like a 1s slow for 20 mana.

 

[SiegfriedFM]

Vanilla? You noobs. Now closed beta, that was the thing. Being a night elf, levelling up to 12 without ever seeing another race, then taking a teleport to Menethil (because ships weren't implemented yet), then corpse running all the way to Ironforge and ressing there because the trip was too hard to do living, and then having to bug a warlock in Stormwind to get some people together to summon you because there wasn't a train and the Blackrock Mountain zones weren't open.

 

[moerser]

To be fair, this had a lot of cool applications, since lower rank spells had lower cast times (and applied correspondingly lower duration debuffs). You could fire off 1 second frostbolts that applied like a 1s slow for 20 mana.

absolutely. also, lower rank heals for mana conservation.

 

[Azzurri]

Way different era of MMOs back then. When WoW released it was considered the casual MMO because the systems at the time were so much more casual then EQ, UO and the other MMOs at the time.

 

[Murder. She Wrote]

imo wow was at its crackiest in vanilla. The speed and difficulty of levelling coupled with the "just one more quest" made the game very hard to stop playing. Also, you got something for levelling up. A yalent point and of your level was an even number new spells/new ranks. Its very psychological but it felt good to level up. New wow you can go multiple levels without getting anything(but who cares you level up way too quick and two shit everything)

But dont take out words for it, there's a very successful private server that always has thousands of people playing. Give a try, see what you think.

 

[jchap]

To be fair, this had a lot of cool applications, since lower rank spells had lower cast times (and applied correspondingly lower duration debuffs). You could fire off 1 second frostbolts that applied like a 1s slow for 20 mana.

Level 1 flash of light + cloth healing gear on my paladin

 

[luulubuu]

Nah, it was a great event, I Was there on the first server that did it but they were hardly unkillable, mostly the server was lagged to shit and literally never recovered. Medivh broke so thoroughly during that event, that we went from a relatively lagless, though very high pop server, to literally unplayable at peak hours. Was pretty sad really, two of the top guilds in the world were there and had to transfer away when we got free transfer offers during Naxx. Like, if anyone pulled Thaddius it literally crashed everyone on Medivh in Naxxramas.

Similar anecdote that I doubt many others remember, but right after the first honor patch came out that had rewards, there was a banner you could use that gave people some stamina or something. At the time everyone was still working on Ragnaros in MC, and the servers kept crashing when people were pulling Rag. Eventually we worked out with the 4 other guilds attempting it A) to give everyone a heads up before every pull, and B) after many hours/days of this, that it was the fucking pvp banners being used that were crashing it. Every top guild had someone with it that was using it when they could, and every time it got used it would instantly shut down all Molten Core instances.

We also came back up from one of those crashes in the same instance as a horde guild (I was alliance), which was entertaining, and finally in BWL a few months later when nobody could get past the busted gate after Vael, the server crashed and we zoned into the same instance as Ascent, another horde guild. Good times.

That was a fantastic post, thanks for sharing and correcting me

 

[Pilgrimzero]

World felt big and everything you did felt like an accomplishment.

Now it's a carnival ride.

 

[TheQuickBrownFox]

Raiding was both fun and painful at once.

As a raid leader and an Officer, guild raid "management" was difficult at times.

You would have a 50 slot vent servers. Where ye only people that were to talk were the class leaders, MT and Raid leader.

All other comms were to be done in class raid text chat channels.

It was basically heading cats.

BUT that felling when you, as a guild got your first Ony kill that is just something you will never forget in your gaming life. Or Rag in MC.

Then came the DKP....

 

[RandomSeed]

I seem to still have some pictures from the beta if the dates and my memory are correct, but most of the tga files are corrupt.

Same old backpack

Saying goodbye to the beta with a friend

 

[Xyphie]

I've always felt most of the "vanilla magic" people feel is because so much of the Internet was in its infancy and limited the speed at which information spread making things feel more epic than they really were. Online video was barely a thing in 2004/2005 as YouTube didn't exist yet for instance.

The one thing I miss about vanilla is that loot wasn't handed out like candy and you had to put in time for it. People remember iconic items like Ashkandi, Arcanite Reaper and Benediction even today for a reason. I can't name a single item from Legion or WoD. Because of this previous raid tiers didn't instantly lose all their value like they do now as LFR gear can be had with ease.

It's mostly nostalgia jerking though. Spending 40g in pots just to wipe on Patchwerk in 15 seconds and lose all my buffs is not something I want to go back to.

 

[Audioboxer]

First time I ever played some random player struck up a conversation with me and genuinely walked me through a whole chunk of the night elf starting area. I won't forget that random person. Hours of help... just to help a newbie.

 

[Mupod]

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.



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.

Aegis of Fire (Mu)

if you're really old burning blade you might remember Eyelaser Ninja Pirates though.

BB forums were great to read about all the alliance guild drama from the sidelines. Also:

 

[Piers]

The one thing I miss about vanilla is that loot wasn't handed out like candy and you had to put in time for it. People remember iconic items like Ashkandi, Arcanite Reaper and Benediction even today for a reason. I can't name a single item from Legion or WoD. Because of this previous raid tiers didn't instantly lose all their value like they do now as LFR gear can be had with ease.

That's one of the biggest accessibility problems in MMO, right? Because designers want the rare drop rates to actually be a rarity amongst the player base, who inevitably end up twisting them to being a standard for builds.
I hated reading guides for gears in some MMORPG because so many of them were centred around luxury gear that wasn't really seen as such in the eyes of those writing them.

 

[Finaj]

The problem with a game like WoW feeling "unexplored" is that there's no way for Blizzard to replicate this. Players are so good at datamining now that there's very little the Blizzard can hide (with the exception of riddle mounts that are put in every patch).

 

[TheEndOfItAll]

Here is my greatest WoW Vanilla story.

In Vanilla, retribution spec paladins were crap, despite being the shit in the Warcraft games, paladin DPS was brutal, so unless you were rolling holy or protection, don't bother raiding.

Well, I was in a large guild that was rather behind on the server in terms of raiding Molten Core. The first time we finally took him down, I was resting behind most of the team healing the tank. It was exhilarating and one of my greatest moments in gaming.

Riding on that high, those of us that weren't too tired helped fill up slots with another guild to take on Blackwing Lair, the next raiding tier. First boss, Razorgore, appears almost immediately and I get disconnected two minutes into the fight. Trying like hell to get back in, and by the time I finally do, I discover that somehow I haven't died, and that there are only three people left with the boss and all his adds are dead: a warrior tank, a warlock, and some other healer. I had a full mana pool having done little in the raid so I healed away at the tank and tried to do some minor damage. Lock falls. Healer falls. It's just me and the tank and I am running low on mana. Boss is down to 1%. Warrior dies and Razorgore charges me.

I quickly swap to my two-hander and hope for a lucky hit. I charge up a Hammer of Wrath thinking it could be the final hit.

It misses. Razorgore one-shots me and the raid wipe is complete.

Razorgore's health left? 1k, just about average what HoW was doing at the time.

10/10 would get screwed by RNG again.

 

[Aomber]

It was really hard compared to now. I leveled a warrior and I could barely scrape by fighting two enemies at once while leveling - think Dark Souls, where you have to be very careful how many enemies you pull. PvP was a much different experience back then as well with the open world factor.

I never raided in Vanilla, but it was a pain in the ass from my understanding, having to coordinate 40 people. That said, I watched some Everquest recently and that game is a whole other level with 72 people raiding at once.

Anyway I digress, Vanilla was cool at the time and it's nostalgic, but it was rough. Other than the open world PvP getting killed, Burning Crusade (the first expansion) was overall better, just general QoL improvements, better raids, etc.

 

[akileese]

You fought the raid boss of the Molten Core, a fire lord, with a bunch of shitty green armor because it had fire resist. If you didn't have enough of it you did not raid.

Vanilla was an experience like no other, but they really made it better with TBC if the goal was mass adoption of the game. Vanilla WoW still had too much Everquest in it for mass appeal.

 

[Coriolanus]

Not true, WoW was the first MMO that adressed other frustrations from other MMO's at that time.

Exactly whatI'm talking about. wow was successful because it was NOT any of those things. wow had a very slick ui and user experience in general, was extremely open and easy to get into, and let you casually level at whatever pace you wanted with virtually zero grinding (close to max level the quest density wasn't quite there, but it was very close).

I mean, it obviously was all of those things, especially where 40mans are concerned. Just so happens that the other mmo's at the time were even more unpolished, frustrating and grindy. Wow did a lot of things better than them, but there still was much to be improved.

You fought the raid boss of the Molten Core, a fire lord, with a bunch of shitty green armor because it had fire resist. If you didn't have enough of it you did not raid.

And then you got some epic gear with *very dubious* stats, that often wasn't even as good as blues. Alas, set bonuses. Then they released far better gear with T2. Then they made that gear irrelevant in whole chunks of AQ cuz nature resist lol, go farm mara gear.

Gods.

 

[HackTheSlash]

Man, lots of good memories. I played Vanilla all the way to Lich King. I was seriously addicted to the game. I ended up revolving my life around it. It was sad, but at the same time in the beginning it was such an amazing experience. I made a bunch of in game friends who i still chat with today. I remember when i bought the game at Walmart, even though i was in my 20s, the cashier talked to me as a child. "Be careful with this game, i hear its very addicting!" Of course i laughed and shrugged it off. Little did i know, she was right. At that time in my life it hit all the right buttons for me and gave me an escape i so desperately needed.

Gold was tough to get back in the early days. I remember one particular instance when i hit 60. Seemed like a big accomplishment back then. But i didnt have enough gold to buy my mount. My guild got together and donated money to me so i could get it. Man, what a great fuckin group. I of course paid it forward myself when i was able too.

By the time Lich King came out, i was finally sick of the changes. It wasnt the same game anymore (to me). By that point the community really started to get toxic and it was a 'one for all' attitude. The positive social aspect seemed almost gone. So i quit cold turkey. It was tough at first! My life revolved around this game for so long i found myself with nothing to do. SO i bought a 360 at that time, and well thats another story.

About the time Draenor dropped, i figured, what the hell...ill dive in and see whats new. Played for a year. But it clearly wasnt the same experience and didnt renew my sub. And i doubt ill ever go back to retry it again.

 

[lazygecko]

First time I ever played some random player struck up a conversation with me and genuinely walked me through a whole chunk of the night elf starting area. I won't forget that random person. Hours of help... just to help a newbie.

I also ended up imprompty mentoring a complete beginner through Teldrassil. Must have been some time during BC or WotLK. Had to lecture them about proper etiquette for need/greed rolls and everything. I remember that person being completely awestruck once we got out of Teldrassil at how big the world was.

 

[Darkstorne]

Jesus Christ. 40!? I can barely get 6 for destiny lol

And the funny thing is, I came to vanilla WoW from Lineage 2 and used to laugh at the tiny 20-40 player raids because of the 100-200 person Antharas raids and castle sieges I was used to seeing =P

 

[Finaj]

I think some of you need to take a look at Mythic-difficulty Kil'jaeden, which to this day only 60 guilds have beaten, if you think that the game is easier/has simpler mechanics.

Vanilla WoW bosses were difficult because you had to coordinate 40 people, certain classes/specs were just straight up useless, and you couldn't even survive certain encounters without specific resilient gear, which was absolutely an unfair and lazy way to make bosses harder.

 

[Aomber]

I think some of you need to take a look at Mythic-difficulty Kil'jaeden, which to this day only 60 guilds have beaten, if you think that the game is easier/has simpler mechanics.

Vanilla WoW bosses were difficult because you had to coordinate 40 people, certain classes/specs were just straight up useless, and you couldn't even survive certain encounters without specific resilient gear, which was absolutely an unfair and lazy way to make bosses harder.

You had me at Kil'Jaeden - I didn't realize he's a raid boss in Legion. I never got to do Sunwell when it was difficult. Very unlikely I would do Mythic whatsoever since I'm a much more casual gamer now but that sounds fun.

What's the current state of Warlocks?

 

[akileese]

I mean, it obviously was all of those things, especially where 40mans are concerned. Just so happens that the other mmo's at the time were even more unpolished, frustrating and grindy. Wow did a lot of things better than them, but there still was much to be improved.



And then you got some epic gear with *very dubious* stats, that often wasn't even as good as blues. Alas, set bonuses. Then they released far better gear with T2. Then they made that gear irrelevant in whole chunks of AQ cuz nature resist lol, go farm mara gear.

Gods.

Also never forget the suppression rooms and the hours and hours of your life you wasted there. Good god. For perspective, those things can still take two minutes to get through just running due to slow speed. Imagine how long it would take if you had to clear the entire thing.

Vanilla also had the hardest raid the game ever had (and the only one my guild never completed), Naxxramas.

 

[Lonely1]

I think some of you need to take a look at Mythic-difficulty Kil'jaeden, which to this day only 60 guilds have beaten, if you think that the game is easier/has simpler mechanics.

Vanilla WoW bosses were difficult because you had to coordinate 40 people, certain classes/specs were just straight up useless, and you couldn't even survive certain encounters without specific resilient gear, which was absolutely an unfair and lazy way to make bosses harder.

How many guilds ever downed Kel'thuzad? Even at TBC, Nax40 was more challenging with a raid of 30 T4-5 lvl 70's than Kara and Gruul.

 

[Pheace]

This was a time when I would've laughed at anyone suggesting an MMO (even WoW) reaching a MILLION players! Unthinkable! Still baffles me to this day. I doubted there were even a million people playing MMO's back then (alt accounts were extremely common for DAoC) and trying to convince any gamer to pay a monthly fee to play a game (WHAT?!) just led to a similar bafflement on their faces.

---

That was also one of the things that really surprised me. I had 3 accounts for Daoc, and absolutely felt I needed at least 2 to get by properly (dedicated buffer). All in all it was really useful to have. And here came WoW and that came almost completely sucked that need from me. I could focus on one account and I really didn't feel like I was missing out on much at all. (I did eventually get another but it was such a different experience)

 

[60EffPeeEss]

I've only played on private vanilla servers that were 1x, but it was amazing. Scriptcraft, Scripcraft 2 and a bunch of others.

There was no rush to hit max level and start raiding because dungeons felt fun to explore, they weren't corridors, and world PvP always made things exciting as hell, even though Rogues were incredibly OP and some classes were almost useless solo (Warriors for sure).

The world felt more fun to goof off in than just a place to grind levels and resources from. Mind-controlling people off the Booty Bay boat, convincing people to pick up Corrupted Blood in Plaguelands, raiding enemy faction cities to try and kill their faction leader, all sorts of stuff that felt encouraged due to needing to chat to organise, rather than just open a menu to be teleported into an optimised dungeon group. You socialised with other players and and I really believe that is key to an MMO being enjoyable. Its like light roleplay.

I really miss it.