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[JCizzle]

Pandaland made me quit after playing since beta. Badass orc warlord expansion though? Yea I resubbed for that.

Man, I'm not one to crap on opinions, but you missed a lot of good stuff just because of pandas. MOP probably had the best zone designs the game has ever seen. So vibrant and full of life. Let alone all the other stuff like fairly well received raids, pet battles, brawlers guild, etc. Definitely take time to play through some of that stuff!

 

[Loxley]

Pandaria was a stupid concept. This feels more like Warcraft and more nostalgic. Not sure what they were thinking with Pandadia. I just think they always wanted to add pandas to their game. I remember they wanted to do that a loonng time ago but something about China stopped them

Stupid concept maybe, but fantastic execution. The Pandaren (and Pandaria) were a great addition to the game - they were some of the best zones Blizzard have done to date. I still don't get it - this is the same game that features a race of walking/talking walrus people...but pandas were too silly? Seemed like a sensible fit to me.

 

[lazygecko]

Vanilla mostly did, at least for people with PvE tastes

This whole notion that raiding is what the entire game is about and that the "real game" doesn't start until endgame didn't really solidify until some time after WoW was released. This peaked around the WotLK/Cataclysm era when Blizzard started making design decisions around "herding" the playerbase towards the latest raid content. The early era of WoW was still somewhat more leaning towards the classic MMORPG mindset of just having this large virtual world. This mindset started to come back for Blizzard with MoP when they realised that perhaps not everyone was that interested in raiding.

I started playing in 2005 but never really got my feet wet with raiding until the expansion. I spent a lot of time during vanilla just leveling different classes and it took me almost a year to get my first dedicated level 60 I could stick with. I imagine a lot of players had a similar experience. Leveling was a much more drawn out process back then since it wasn't just considered inconsequential padding before the "real" game start. You were out in the world and met plenty of other people doing so, and I imagine this is where many got their favorite vanilla memories from. I know I did.

 

[ampere]

For some reason I was thinking those two dates were reversed. I still think with it that close to release we'll see a lot less about what's going to be there day one and what's going to be in the future of the series. I don't think titan was cancelled the day they announced it was cancelled, there was likely a winding down for a long period over the last year, and I expect we'll hear of what their plans are for all those developers.

Freeing up one of their five teams from Titan will mean big things... especially since it wasn't their smallest team.

Perhaps. They had mostly cut down the team for Titan a year ago though, with most of them going back to WoW. This recent cancellation of Titan was during their analysis of what direction Titan should go and was done with a smaller team.

 

[Sothpaw]

Man, I'm not one to crap on opinions, but you missed a lot of good stuff just because of pandas. MOP probably had the best zone designs the game has ever seen. So vibrant and full of life. Let alone all the other stuff like fairly well received raids, pet battles, brawlers guild, etc. Definitely take time to play through some of that stuff!

I should clarify, I played through the quests and leveled to 90. Didn't like the looks of the zones at all in addition to being totally turned off by the entire concept of the expansion. No worries, all of the improvements will be incorporated into WoD, along with a concept that I love.

 

[mclem]

This whole notion that raiding is what the entire game is about and that the "real game" doesn't start until endgame didn't really solidify until some time after WoW was released. This peaked around the WotLK/Cataclysm era when Blizzard started making design decisions around "herding" the playerbase towards the latest raid content. The early era of WoW was still somewhat more leaning towards the classic MMORPG mindset of just having this large virtual world. This mindset started to come back for Blizzard with MoP when they realised that perhaps not everyone was that interested in raiding.

I started playing in 2005 but never really got my feet wet with raiding until the expansion. I spent a lot of time during vanilla just leveling different classes and it took me almost a year to get my first dedicated level 60 I could stick with. I imagine a lot of players had a similar experience. Leveling was a much more drawn out process back then since it wasn't just considered inconsequential padding before the "real" game start. You were out in the world and met plenty of other people doing so, and I imagine this is where many got their favorite vanilla memories from. I know I did.

Ah, I think that's a difference in play style, then; as someone who steadfastly stuck to one character (and indeed, still do, convenience alts aside - my attitude is that I'll level a serious alt once I feel like I'm sufficiently good with my main), it felt like when I hit the cap the only real option to continue PvE progression was to do dungeons leading into raiding leading into more raiding. Unlike nowadays it did feel rather like raiding was the only real long-term option for endgame for PvEers, but you'd absolutely get a different experience if you preferred to play in a way that didn't get to endgame.

I did feel that I had more options at endgame to entertain myself outside raiding in Wrath than I did in Vanilla.

I'm not one for "The real game doesn't start 'til endgame" - I *love* the levelling process - but it's more that, in Vanilla, 'When you *get* to endgame, your options are limited'.

 

[Fjordson]

Even leveling is better now than in vanilla. The revamped zones are infinitely better than the old ones with their pacing and the quality of their questlines. And they're even populated with other players again thanks to cross-realm zones.

 

[DonasaurusRex]

Even leveling is better now than in vanilla. The revamped zones are infinitely better than the old ones with their pacing and the quality of their questlines. And they're even populated with other players again thanks to cross-realm zones.

this may be true....but i think the sword of omens is gone... didnt they change teh zone.

 

[fluffydelusions]

Been playing on and off since later 2006. Still a great game, I'm aware that I have probably spent over £300+ in subscriptions and expansions but I still enjoy it.

Also, Vanilla sucked.

The way I usually look at it is I spend $50-60 on a new game or $15 for a monthly sub. I will put A LOT more hours into WoW for that $15 month than that $50-60 game. Also (IMO) nothing like playing a new xpac at launch. So much fun.

 

[kswiston]

Erm, it's still roughly 2/3rds. I'd say that's at least somewhere near.

The fact that WoW even has half of its peak numbers as it approaches it 10 year anniversary is nuts.

Lets be conservative and say that monthly sub prices have averaged $8 worldwide (to make up for cheap Chinese subs), and that WoW has average 7.5M subs over its 10 year life. That's over $7B in revenue not counting box sales on the game and expansions, or their paid services and microtransactions.

 

[Marinius]

Good to see that it's still going strong. This game has changed the whole gaming scene in so many ways.