I remember being really cross that my sister got a beautiful horse and I couldn't afford to keep up with a mount of my own. Gosh how I miss the feeling of playing WoW as your first MMO.
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Try to explain to me WoW vanilla
- Thread starter MrMatt555
- Start date
I remember being really cross that my sister got a beautiful horse and I couldn't afford to keep up with a mount of my own. Gosh how I miss the feeling of playing WoW as your first MMO.
Paasei
Member
Took a long time to level from 1 to 60. Around a month if you'd knew where to go.
Questing zones never really had (enough) quests for the indicated levels you could spend... leveling there. Take Arathi Highlands for example, a lvl 30+ zone with only elites to kill in Stromgarde and lvl 35+ mobs. A lot of fun if you just enter at lvl 30 yourself.
Grouping up to kill elites was pretty much mandatory if you wanted to defeat one, not in all cases, but most definitely the vast majority.
The 60% mount was available at lvl 40 and costed a ton of gold, not even mentioning the 100% one at lvl 60.
Mana wasn't a cosmetic blue bar like it is today and energy didn't restore every second but just a chunk after a few seconds.
Only one spec sort of actually worked for any class, or some weird mix of 2 tree's. But there was always at least one tree you could pretty much throw out of the window. This changed a bit over time as more specs became a little more viable, but most of that truly had an effect on raid setups during TBC.
Battlegrounds came in later, AV and WSG were the first to arrive and that "killed" (not very true on healthy servers) world pvp. No group/raid/battleground finder, you actually had to move your ass over the places where you could sign up for said BG and make a group through chat and then move to the dungeon.
You even had to make a group inside a Battleground before it started for a while, either resulting in 2 uneven groups, or if you were lucky one would simply invite everyone.
Winterspring being the most finished zone to get to lvl 60 still had you move all over the damn world to do quests. When you look back it was quite unfinished. The lack of quests in many zones that are considered proper questing area's today, just wasn't there.
I miss my old server, Sylvanas-EU. One of the very few realms that remained very balanced in Horde/Alliance ratio for a much longer time than most other servers. Now it's just an Alliance infested server with 5 Horde players (over exaggerating but you get the idea), and my Undead mage is still there today.
Some raiding guilds I've played in during that time: Serenity, Ascend, Event Horizon and Federal Bureau of Moo (best guild on horde side together with Affliction).
Vanilla WoW was great fun for it's time. At the same time I don't really care if they would implement it again. It won't be the same as it was back then anyway. With that I mean that it won't feel new and fresh. People on the internet were generally different in those times as well and not just in WoW. Less trolling and screwing each other over and just more cooperative, helpful and meaningful.
Vanilla was quite the hardcore experience, and I'm glad I got to experience it and managed to understand it enough to end up raiding as a 13 - 15 year old kid.
Playing it a few weeks after launch and I still play today, although with quite a few breaks in between, I still think it's the best game I have ever played. A game that still manages to entertain me after (almost?) 13 years, is crazy. Casting aside the issues I also have with some changes.
The most silly fact is that when I bought the game I didn't even know it was an MMO, rofl. I always thought it was a Warcraft 3'ish game where you directly control the hero character, instead of a RTS overview.
A time where we could laugh at pictures like this:
Questing zones never really had (enough) quests for the indicated levels you could spend... leveling there. Take Arathi Highlands for example, a lvl 30+ zone with only elites to kill in Stromgarde and lvl 35+ mobs. A lot of fun if you just enter at lvl 30 yourself.
Grouping up to kill elites was pretty much mandatory if you wanted to defeat one, not in all cases, but most definitely the vast majority.
The 60% mount was available at lvl 40 and costed a ton of gold, not even mentioning the 100% one at lvl 60.
Mana wasn't a cosmetic blue bar like it is today and energy didn't restore every second but just a chunk after a few seconds.
Only one spec sort of actually worked for any class, or some weird mix of 2 tree's. But there was always at least one tree you could pretty much throw out of the window. This changed a bit over time as more specs became a little more viable, but most of that truly had an effect on raid setups during TBC.
Battlegrounds came in later, AV and WSG were the first to arrive and that "killed" (not very true on healthy servers) world pvp. No group/raid/battleground finder, you actually had to move your ass over the places where you could sign up for said BG and make a group through chat and then move to the dungeon.
You even had to make a group inside a Battleground before it started for a while, either resulting in 2 uneven groups, or if you were lucky one would simply invite everyone.
Winterspring being the most finished zone to get to lvl 60 still had you move all over the damn world to do quests. When you look back it was quite unfinished. The lack of quests in many zones that are considered proper questing area's today, just wasn't there.
I miss my old server, Sylvanas-EU. One of the very few realms that remained very balanced in Horde/Alliance ratio for a much longer time than most other servers. Now it's just an Alliance infested server with 5 Horde players (over exaggerating but you get the idea), and my Undead mage is still there today.
Some raiding guilds I've played in during that time: Serenity, Ascend, Event Horizon and Federal Bureau of Moo (best guild on horde side together with Affliction).
Vanilla WoW was great fun for it's time. At the same time I don't really care if they would implement it again. It won't be the same as it was back then anyway. With that I mean that it won't feel new and fresh. People on the internet were generally different in those times as well and not just in WoW. Less trolling and screwing each other over and just more cooperative, helpful and meaningful.
Vanilla was quite the hardcore experience, and I'm glad I got to experience it and managed to understand it enough to end up raiding as a 13 - 15 year old kid.
Playing it a few weeks after launch and I still play today, although with quite a few breaks in between, I still think it's the best game I have ever played. A game that still manages to entertain me after (almost?) 13 years, is crazy. Casting aside the issues I also have with some changes.
The most silly fact is that when I bought the game I didn't even know it was an MMO, rofl. I always thought it was a Warcraft 3'ish game where you directly control the hero character, instead of a RTS overview.
A time where we could laugh at pictures like this:
People remember wrong a very unpolished game.
See my other posts..level 60 mounts for both warlock and paladin where not 'free' we had to do quests you never had to do and spend more gold on materials and gold it self to even get the mount.
GrinWithoutaKat
Neo Member
Unfortunately I never played vanilla, but I started WoW just after BC came out. It's one of my favourite gaming experiences of all time, and part of me really, really wants to get back into it, but I know I can't do it casually. It took up pretty much all of my free time back then, and when I couldn't be playing the game, I was reading up on the most optimum spec trees, gear and rotations.
I was lucky in that a friend invited me to join a guild made up of her RL friends that used to play D&D together, but since they'd all ended up moving away and living in different parts of the country, WoW was the perfect replacement for them to all get back to playing together. They really showed me the ropes in the early days. I started out with a blood elf hunter, but soon went back to the start with a blood elf priest. We'd do a Karazhan raid every sunday morning and it was such a great feeling make slow progress through it.
Eventually I reached a point where my priest couldn't really improve, so I created a paladin. I loved getting into a new class and doing all the research again. I am not very good at most video games, but I think I was very good at WoW. It was just down to research, but I found myself really nailing all the different roles. Again I maxed out the paladin as both a tank and a healer, so started a rogue. On the rare occasions our guide didn't need me to heal our Kharazan or Zul Aman runs, I'd get a chance to take the rogue in and even just after hitting 60, I'd be near the top of the DPS charts.
Wrath was the high point of WoW for me. It was the part of the lore I cared about the most, and the world just seemed breathtaking. I remember getting the game a day early, and along with my regular levelling buddy, taking that zeppelin to the Howling Fjord for the first time. Reaching the top of that cliffside elevator and seeing the nordic giants roaming around still sticks in my mind. I focused on my paladin this time, and levelled a Death Knight as an alt. Got invited to a Naxxramas run on the DK, in a sort of invite-only PUG, and we ended up getting the achievement (and the title!) for beating it without anyone dying. That led to being invited to one of the bigger raider groups on the server, and I was part of the first completion of Ulduar on the server.
As much as I was loving it all (as well as raiding with my DK, my paladin was still doing the 10-man stuff with the original guild, and collecting a ridiculous number of mounts), I realised the amount of time I was spending on the game wasn't healthy and just sort of turned it off one day and never logged back on. The temptation to take a look again has been so strong at times. Northrend is one my favourite video game locations ever. I don't think I'd could just play a few hours a week though. I'd feel this compulsion to be as good as possible, and with a game like WoW, that was possible for me by just researching, rather than having to rely on some natural skill level like a shooter or fighting game might need.
I was lucky in that a friend invited me to join a guild made up of her RL friends that used to play D&D together, but since they'd all ended up moving away and living in different parts of the country, WoW was the perfect replacement for them to all get back to playing together. They really showed me the ropes in the early days. I started out with a blood elf hunter, but soon went back to the start with a blood elf priest. We'd do a Karazhan raid every sunday morning and it was such a great feeling make slow progress through it.
Eventually I reached a point where my priest couldn't really improve, so I created a paladin. I loved getting into a new class and doing all the research again. I am not very good at most video games, but I think I was very good at WoW. It was just down to research, but I found myself really nailing all the different roles. Again I maxed out the paladin as both a tank and a healer, so started a rogue. On the rare occasions our guide didn't need me to heal our Kharazan or Zul Aman runs, I'd get a chance to take the rogue in and even just after hitting 60, I'd be near the top of the DPS charts.
Wrath was the high point of WoW for me. It was the part of the lore I cared about the most, and the world just seemed breathtaking. I remember getting the game a day early, and along with my regular levelling buddy, taking that zeppelin to the Howling Fjord for the first time. Reaching the top of that cliffside elevator and seeing the nordic giants roaming around still sticks in my mind. I focused on my paladin this time, and levelled a Death Knight as an alt. Got invited to a Naxxramas run on the DK, in a sort of invite-only PUG, and we ended up getting the achievement (and the title!) for beating it without anyone dying. That led to being invited to one of the bigger raider groups on the server, and I was part of the first completion of Ulduar on the server.
As much as I was loving it all (as well as raiding with my DK, my paladin was still doing the 10-man stuff with the original guild, and collecting a ridiculous number of mounts), I realised the amount of time I was spending on the game wasn't healthy and just sort of turned it off one day and never logged back on. The temptation to take a look again has been so strong at times. Northrend is one my favourite video game locations ever. I don't think I'd could just play a few hours a week though. I'd feel this compulsion to be as good as possible, and with a game like WoW, that was possible for me by just researching, rather than having to rely on some natural skill level like a shooter or fighting game might need.
Pheace
Member
Yeah no, compared to pretty much every MMO out there at the time World of Warcraft was polished as fuck. Why do you think "polish" suddenly became a buzzword for the MMO's in the few years after that?
Sure, compared to the MMO's we see now and even WoW later, it feels very unpolished but compared to the messed that were MMO's back then it was extremely well done.
(US release had a lot of issues though but those were server issues. The EU beta (~2 weeks later) ran like a dream and while there were lag issues again those were server issues again, the game itself ran great and played great even on weaker systems.
TatteredHat
Member
Queuing as a concept didn't exist, you had to actually interact with people.
What I remember most was city raids and defending our city leaders.
Throwing fake raids at one city to draw their attention so the other cities would be close to empty as they otherwise was chuck full of enemies.
Defending in itself was a game of where are they, is this a "fake raid" and so on going back and forth by boats and what not as word spread. It was great, and I've not seen that happen again
I don't mind queuing as much as some do, it's a nice feature but at the same time the general game changed which caused less of a community driven thing and more of a something else?
It felt so real because there was so much details that seems trivial or annoying, and maybe it was at the time but it just grounded the world in reality.
Like it was so hard and an investment to get 16 or 18 slots bags! You had to find a taylor or spent a lot of money in the AH. Same for buying new bank slots! Should I save for my mount or should I get more space ahah.
Like it was so hard and an investment to get 16 or 18 slots bags! You had to find a taylor or spent a lot of money in the AH. Same for buying new bank slots! Should I save for my mount or should I get more space ahah.
Not enough quests, had to deal with summons and personally with people to do a single dungeon, money was in at outrageous state, broken classes, the skill tree talents, class based quests...
As today, wow has never been better. I do enjoyed my time with vanilla, but a lot of the good stuff people associate with good memories is just because nostalgia, imho.
I never understood this, we had to pay for the mount spell at the trainer, like everyone else. Plus, a lot of paladins and warlocks ended up just buying a regular epic mount because it was hassle free. They both involved long quests that required expensive materials worth hundreds of gold. Some were from NPC vendors with fixed price, but others depended on player economy, such as Arcane crystals, which meant that sometimes you'd get screwed and ended up paying more in total than other players. This combined with the fact that some steps were required to be performed in Scholo, which were usually 10 manned back in the day because nobody knew what the hell they were doing back then, made it pretty dificult to get a 5 man group going specifically for the extra summonable bosses for your quest. I remember grinding for the whole quest chain and then sitting on this last step for ages, specifically for this reason. Meanwhile I was already to deep in it and completely broke and couldnt afford a regular mount. It was a pain, but it looked pretty good at least.
KyanMehwulfe
Member
Original Rank 14 system was pretty crazy.... And by original, I don't mean all of vanilla, even. Blizzard made Rank 14 easier twice -- once shortly after Arathi Basin was added, and the second time when Ahn'Qiraj was added.
So the original Rank 14 system 'balancing' was only there for about 3-4 months.
The main change was that you lost less Honor when your weekly Rank was too low.
E.g. A friend of mine was Rank 13 and got Standing 4 for the week... he actually lost 1/3rd of the entire Honor bar and went down to Rank 12 -_-
Which was pretty crazy on Stormreaver (3rd or 4th biggest PvP server) because the top 30 players or so were all playing 24/7 o.0 Only way to get in the Top 10 was not just play 24/7 but play 24/7 in pre-mades. Which he did. And he got Standing 4, and de-Ranked o.0 He was a Mage so he gave up lol and just went for the Blackwing Lair staff instead.
E.g. When I was Rank 13, it took me 3 or 4 weeks to reach Rank 14. One week for some dumb reason, a guildmate decided to get Standing 1 (at Rank 12) so I got stuck with Standing 2. My 'Honor XP Bar' only went up 10% -_- Would have taken 10 weeks at Standing 2 to go from R13 to R14. Standing 1 on the server filled it up 30% or 40% though so ended up taking me 3-4 weeks (I forget which).
I think the 2 'Honor XP Bar' changes with the Arathi Basin and Ahn'Qirah patches maybe increased the +Honor XP Bar a little bit.... so maybe R13->R14 always took 2-3 weeks or something. But the big change was that if you were R12 or R13, and got Standing 4 or 5 ... it didn't just outright screw you and de-Rank you. You didn't really gain much Honor XP Bar but at least you didn't lose so much either.
So basically even getting Rank 14 in late 2005 or anytime after 2006 -- or anything other than a high population PvP server, I guess... -- was a lot easier than doing so during the those first few months of AV and WSG in summer 2005 on a big PvP server. Which says a lot because even on a medium server in 2006, it was still a crazy 3-4 month grind. But summer 2005 on a big PvP server, it was just ruthless -- like SWG Jedi levels of grinding mixed with FF11 style Deleveling o.0
Worse grind than anything I ever saw in EQ, FF11, SWG, etc combined Q_Q because you could lose so much progress even if you played 24/7
So the original Rank 14 system 'balancing' was only there for about 3-4 months.
The main change was that you lost less Honor when your weekly Rank was too low.
E.g. A friend of mine was Rank 13 and got Standing 4 for the week... he actually lost 1/3rd of the entire Honor bar and went down to Rank 12 -_-
Which was pretty crazy on Stormreaver (3rd or 4th biggest PvP server) because the top 30 players or so were all playing 24/7 o.0 Only way to get in the Top 10 was not just play 24/7 but play 24/7 in pre-mades. Which he did. And he got Standing 4, and de-Ranked o.0 He was a Mage so he gave up lol and just went for the Blackwing Lair staff instead.
E.g. When I was Rank 13, it took me 3 or 4 weeks to reach Rank 14. One week for some dumb reason, a guildmate decided to get Standing 1 (at Rank 12) so I got stuck with Standing 2. My 'Honor XP Bar' only went up 10% -_- Would have taken 10 weeks at Standing 2 to go from R13 to R14. Standing 1 on the server filled it up 30% or 40% though so ended up taking me 3-4 weeks (I forget which).
I think the 2 'Honor XP Bar' changes with the Arathi Basin and Ahn'Qirah patches maybe increased the +Honor XP Bar a little bit.... so maybe R13->R14 always took 2-3 weeks or something. But the big change was that if you were R12 or R13, and got Standing 4 or 5 ... it didn't just outright screw you and de-Rank you. You didn't really gain much Honor XP Bar but at least you didn't lose so much either.
So basically even getting Rank 14 in late 2005 or anytime after 2006 -- or anything other than a high population PvP server, I guess... -- was a lot easier than doing so during the those first few months of AV and WSG in summer 2005 on a big PvP server. Which says a lot because even on a medium server in 2006, it was still a crazy 3-4 month grind. But summer 2005 on a big PvP server, it was just ruthless -- like SWG Jedi levels of grinding mixed with FF11 style Deleveling o.0
Worse grind than anything I ever saw in EQ, FF11, SWG, etc combined Q_Q because you could lose so much progress even if you played 24/7
You had to search out people on your server to put together dungeon groups and then physically meet up there.
It was a hassle, yeah, but the instant queue crap removed any sense of importance or urgency or stakes to the dungeon runs and by extension lessened the satisfaction of completing them. Post insta queue teleporting stuff, you can do dungeon runs without even knowing where the dungeon actually is. The idea that the dungeon is a physical place in the world became some sort of formality rather than anything that mattered. It's completely world breaking. Excessive insta this and that and teleportation and so on changed the game world from being a place that felt like a world to being sort of a silly virtual sandbox where nothing matters. Last time I played WOW was probably 2010, and I fucking hated it.
It was a hassle, yeah, but the instant queue crap removed any sense of importance or urgency or stakes to the dungeon runs and by extension lessened the satisfaction of completing them. Post insta queue teleporting stuff, you can do dungeon runs without even knowing where the dungeon actually is. The idea that the dungeon is a physical place in the world became some sort of formality rather than anything that mattered. It's completely world breaking. Excessive insta this and that and teleportation and so on changed the game world from being a place that felt like a world to being sort of a silly virtual sandbox where nothing matters. Last time I played WOW was probably 2010, and I fucking hated it.
Oh man that picture reminded me we had keys! Keys to dungeons and raids that is, you had to do stuff to get them, made you valuable as you could open up a place for a group if no one else had one. I had a big collection once upon a time. Can't remember when they got rid of them but it was a staple of vanilla for a good amount of time.
Pheace
Member
Ah, that's not what I'm talking about when I talk about polish. Those are Quality of Life improvements, and yes, WoW has come far in that regard in the last decade+.
What I mean by polish is how well the game ran and played, how full and alive the environments felt, how great the music was and how it complemented the game, how smooth a gameplay experience it was compared to pretty much most MMO's out there at the time. And while we no doubt all remember bugs we ran into at some point or another, it was miles better than the other MMO's I was trying out.
I got the game for Christmas 2004. I played it for about a year (I think it took about 6 months to get my Dwarf Hunter to 60), but then I realised I was never going to really enjoy the end game raiding so I stopped playing. I've never even played any of the expansions.
I was in the IGN guild which was great. But again, once everyone got to 60 and started raiding I feel out of it a bit. Then they merged with some other guild.
I was in the IGN guild which was great. But again, once everyone got to 60 and started raiding I feel out of it a bit. Then they merged with some other guild.
nkarafo
Member
It felt more like an adventure rather than a casual video game where you quickly check boxes. It was difficult to reach the point where you start gaining epic items. As such epic items were indeed "epic" because not everyone had them. Let alone full epic sets. Unlike now where even guildless players run around with fancy armor riding dragons.
The world also felt like a proper big place, with proper distances between zones, there weren't any flight mounts and not everyone could afford epic land mounts either. As such, things like mage portals, summons and other travel spells were very important.
Also 40 man raids. Not all guilds could do them. I remember i killed my first raid boss 3 or 4 months after i reached level 60 because my small guild had to evolve first. It felt like a big, difficult task that only the dedicated, veteran adventurer could face. Plus there was no way a random group that big could handle it. So when i entered Molten Core for the first time to test ourselves on trash mobs, a place i could only hear about for so long, there was a feeling of pride and awe. It was the best Role Playing moment in a video game for me.
The world also felt like a proper big place, with proper distances between zones, there weren't any flight mounts and not everyone could afford epic land mounts either. As such, things like mage portals, summons and other travel spells were very important.
Also 40 man raids. Not all guilds could do them. I remember i killed my first raid boss 3 or 4 months after i reached level 60 because my small guild had to evolve first. It felt like a big, difficult task that only the dedicated, veteran adventurer could face. Plus there was no way a random group that big could handle it. So when i entered Molten Core for the first time to test ourselves on trash mobs, a place i could only hear about for so long, there was a feeling of pride and awe. It was the best Role Playing moment in a video game for me.
Yeah. I stopped playing after the first expansion rendered all my hard earned items useless because there was a huge gap between vanilla items and the expansion ones. But when i returned to Cataclysm i couldn't believe how casual/newbie friendly the game turned out. Like you said, i didn't even have to know where the dungeons are or travel outside the town. Convenience is good and all but if you don't even have to earn it it just makes the game meaningless.
It was very mysterious for me at least. I didn't know anything, never played a game that big. So I would get lost. There were no quest markers, so you had to read the directions the npcs gave you very carefully.
It was amazing. There's no way I could do it now though. It was time consuming, only a high school or college student could pull that off.
It was amazing. There's no way I could do it now though. It was time consuming, only a high school or college student could pull that off.
Epic Items were actually Epic. It was rare for people to have epic gears and the ones who did were part of an elite, and people would constantly gear-check you at Orgrimmar.
Epic gear was so epic that you knew the name of all your items and the important items for other classes. You could even recognize them by looking at the enemy and they commanded respect! Watch out! An Elf warrior with blade of the Untamed incoming!
I played a resto shaman, but I liked PvP the most. Itemization for shamans was crap until the tier 3 sets, and drops rates were very low anyway. My gear was a mismatch of different sets. T2 set + ZG set + Aq20 set. The Hand of Nefarian never dropped for me, so I had to settle for a hammer of the Gathering Storm as my top tier weapon PvP weapon. Yes, I PvP'ed as resto shaman but stacked on +spell damage gear! (+healing didn't gave you spell damage).
I had a very good reputation of a good PvP'er that knew how to heal, survive and kill when necessary.. I had various rogues and warriors that loved to group with me for Battlegrounds and world PvP. One was a very good arms, High Warlord warrior that became my arena partner in the TBC, but I'm specially fond to grouping with my guild main tank. We would hit Battlegrounds an attack directly the enemy base. Between the two of us would kill up to 5 alliances and take the point. A protection warrior (with Thunderfurry) and a resto shaman tearing it up! Was so much fun!
Another fond memory, while farming Cenarion cicle rep, I was ganked by a group of alliance (about 8-10). I hit my R14 Warrior friend which was around the same area and proceed to kill them all! They only could get us down in the end after several respawns, since we were fighting close to a reviving angel. After that, they posted on the realm forums, complaining how it was unfair that the warrior (who was a very famous PvPer), and his shaman healing bot, were ganking them and spawn camping! It... was... so.. much... fun!!!
I was proud of not being only a healing bot. I was also good duelist. I like to think I was among the best shaman duelist in the server. I found myself fighting constantly 1v1 against the best PvPers on the sever. I looked forward to it. I could kill lesser lvl 60 alliance groups by myself too.
And then there was the time when I respecced elemental. I could instant kill anyone! R14/tier3 warriors, paladins, warlocks. I was invincible 1v1 and i could down a group of 3 lesser geared characters in seconds. Man, there's a certain charm on broken mechanics.
tl:dr. Vanilla was awesome.
Epic gear was so epic that you knew the name of all your items and the important items for other classes. You could even recognize them by looking at the enemy and they commanded respect! Watch out! An Elf warrior with blade of the Untamed incoming!
I played a resto shaman, but I liked PvP the most. Itemization for shamans was crap until the tier 3 sets, and drops rates were very low anyway. My gear was a mismatch of different sets. T2 set + ZG set + Aq20 set. The Hand of Nefarian never dropped for me, so I had to settle for a hammer of the Gathering Storm as my top tier weapon PvP weapon. Yes, I PvP'ed as resto shaman but stacked on +spell damage gear! (+healing didn't gave you spell damage).
I had a very good reputation of a good PvP'er that knew how to heal, survive and kill when necessary.. I had various rogues and warriors that loved to group with me for Battlegrounds and world PvP. One was a very good arms, High Warlord warrior that became my arena partner in the TBC, but I'm specially fond to grouping with my guild main tank. We would hit Battlegrounds an attack directly the enemy base. Between the two of us would kill up to 5 alliances and take the point. A protection warrior (with Thunderfurry
) and a resto shaman tearing it up! Was so much fun!Another fond memory, while farming Cenarion cicle rep, I was ganked by a group of alliance (about 8-10). I hit my R14 Warrior friend which was around the same area and proceed to kill them all! They only could get us down in the end after several respawns, since we were fighting close to a reviving angel. After that, they posted on the realm forums, complaining how it was unfair that the warrior (who was a very famous PvPer), and his shaman healing bot, were ganking them and spawn camping! It... was... so.. much... fun!!!
I was proud of not being only a healing bot. I was also good duelist. I like to think I was among the best shaman duelist in the server. I found myself fighting constantly 1v1 against the best PvPers on the sever. I looked forward to it. I could kill lesser lvl 60 alliance groups by myself too.
And then there was the time when I respecced elemental. I could instant kill anyone! R14/tier3 warriors, paladins, warlocks. I was invincible 1v1 and i could down a group of 3 lesser geared characters in seconds. Man, there's a certain charm on broken mechanics.
tl:dr. Vanilla was awesome.
Bjoern the Smexy
Member
I remember leveling up would take forever. It took me WEEKS just to get to lv40.
Also weapon types had a proficiency meters. The more you used a weapon type the better and more accurate you were with it.
Fighting just one wolf when starting fresh took forever.
It was horrible.
Also weapon types had a proficiency meters. The more you used a weapon type the better and more accurate you were with it.
Fighting just one wolf when starting fresh took forever.
It was horrible.
I started being a more dedicated player during TBC and I remember most if those still apply. Mounts were crazy back then. I remember doing that damn quest to get the 100% mount for my Paladín and it was really, really grindy. Being a tank and having a spell power weapon instead of a proper tank one. Having my friend list full of healers I had previously teamed up so I could whisper them and find a group more easily. Spending 2 hours during a dungeon and not having half the group leaving at the first wipe. And how small guilds had a hard time because the people they geared in entry level raids and HCs moved to top guilds once they could.
Quite special, I'd say, even if it's not vanilla. But it's a been there by then. By today standards I dunno if I would enjoy it as much as I did. I wouldn't mind to try though.
WoW just went in the same direction gaming did. More QoL features, easier to play in small chunks everything that isn't the top tier content. There will always be people that enjoy the old style (remember the summoning stones and the skirmishes happening in dungeon entrances?) but it belongs to an era I don't think it's coming back.
Quite special, I'd say, even if it's not vanilla. But it's a been there by then. By today standards I dunno if I would enjoy it as much as I did. I wouldn't mind to try though.
WoW just went in the same direction gaming did. More QoL features, easier to play in small chunks everything that isn't the top tier content. There will always be people that enjoy the old style (remember the summoning stones and the skirmishes happening in dungeon entrances?) but it belongs to an era I don't think it's coming back.
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.
XANDER CAGE
Member
I hope that we get another game with such an essential community aspect someday. I unfortunately started playing MMOs relatively "late" - as in, during the years where the now-standard conveniences were starting to roll out and populations in games like DaoC were starting to wither - and the short taste I had of that experience left a huge impression. The closest I got was about a year of playing EVE.
Sometimes I think about looking into Everquest progression servers or DaoC or things like that, but I'd love to experience a new shared adventure with everyone else for the first time. I really hope we get that chance before the book closes on the MMO genre, if it hasn't already.
Sometimes I think about looking into Everquest progression servers or DaoC or things like that, but I'd love to experience a new shared adventure with everyone else for the first time. I really hope we get that chance before the book closes on the MMO genre, if it hasn't already.
Legion by far is the most fun i had in this game for a long time, artifact weapons and now with the crucible are so damn fun.
Invasions points are very addicting right now, love World Quests..seeing lots of people in the open world that was the point to do that.
It is also the most alt friendly right now with 7.3 before it was a cumberstone with alts not anymore.
All classes are very well balanced and loads of fun, i leveled them all up to 110 and got 10 out of 12 class mounts.
RedSparrows
Member
It was needlessly frustrating, class roles were very limited, it was unimaginative in its progression.
It is one of my favourite games ever. No other game evokes such feelings. The game world, the community, the raids.
The sense of place, the weight of the world, the danger, the treasures. All meant so much. Incredible game.
It is one of my favourite games ever. No other game evokes such feelings. The game world, the community, the raids.
The sense of place, the weight of the world, the danger, the treasures. All meant so much. Incredible game.
I gave up with Legion when everything I did was hit by time-gated and rep gated stuff, I came back with 7.3 and now at 930+ ilvl a week later and I'm absolutely hooked. Seem to be doing great with my class too. I too love the new zone and world quest, only thing I dislike is the dismount/daze in Argus as it happens far too often unless you use an item.
I hope they don't add flying to that zone, its great to actually see people and not only flying around tagging the elites and flying to the next one.
RenegadeXV8
Banned
I just remembered that one of the things I miss the most out of TBC were Heroic Dungeons. Essentially high-difficulty instances for 5 players. Every trash mob pull had to be planned out beforehand and bosses had very little room for error. For the most part you were stuck in there for at least an hour with the same group of people.
Generally, if your group managed to complete one, everyone added each other as friends and you tried to stick together, as finding competent enough players was a difficult process even in a large guild.
10 years later and I still talk to and game with some of the dudes I grouped with in Heroics.
Generally, if your group managed to complete one, everyone added each other as friends and you tried to stick together, as finding competent enough players was a difficult process even in a large guild.
10 years later and I still talk to and game with some of the dudes I grouped with in Heroics.
I'm playing legion since release and it did take a small break in january but when 7.1 hit i came back and kept playing. I've been enjoying it since release, legion by far from release is more fun than i ever experienced in a long time. There will be no flying on argus see it as Isle of Quel'Danas from TBC.
It still happens with relative frequency on some servers. I'm on Moon Guard (US) and I think Stormwind gets attacked by Horde players at least once a month.
AnathemicOne
Banned
Community, definitely community. I spent more time just chilling with my friends and guild rather than leveling. I never hit max level until BC came out.
In terms of community, I think the biggest change has probably been the addition of the Looking For Raid/Looking For Group queueing tools.
In Vanilla, you were forced to get out and meet a lot of people on your server if you wanted to be able to do 5 man dungeons and group quests. Now, 5 man dungeons are considered super casual content that is kind of meant for randoms to just faceroll (even most of the more "difficult" variants). Group quests sort of just don't exist anymore (you could argue some of the elite WQs in Legion kind of count, I guess, but most of them are easily soloable by most classes).
Raiding was even more difficult to put together. The first raid introduced in the game was designed for 40 people. In most cases, you needed to use that same kind of social networking you did to meet people for small group content to try to get into a guild that had enough people and was organized enough to accomplish raiding. I never really encountered pick up group raiding until maybe the very end of vanilla, and it was usually for the easier (at that point) raids. Oh, and just because you put together a guild of 40+ people, doesn't mean your group was good enough to actually do content. Lots of guilds on my (pretty casual) server were stuck in the MC/ZG/AQ20 raid farm stage forever, and could never manage to jump up to the next set of raids. My guild, while not the best on our server, was near the end of AQ40 (Twin Emps) before breaking up. Never did anything in Naxx at all except some trash farming one time for fun. Anyway, yeah, all those cliche stories you would hear about raid drama and people being shitty to each other are pretty true, haha. Now, you can see raid content without really having to worry about the social aspects of it. You can queue a casual-friendly, sort of easy mode version with randoms through the Raid Finder, and even the starting "Normal" difficulty for raids are pretty easily grouped for through the cross realm group finder.
TL;DR version: I feel vanilla WoW required much more personal investment - especially socially - to have meaningful character progression, a requirement that has consistently tapered off with each subsequent expansion release. Many current/former players lament the direction the series has gone over time, and while I have a lot of great memories and nostalgia for that time in the game, I don't think it's a playstyle I could go back to today.
In Vanilla, you were forced to get out and meet a lot of people on your server if you wanted to be able to do 5 man dungeons and group quests. Now, 5 man dungeons are considered super casual content that is kind of meant for randoms to just faceroll (even most of the more "difficult" variants). Group quests sort of just don't exist anymore (you could argue some of the elite WQs in Legion kind of count, I guess, but most of them are easily soloable by most classes).
Raiding was even more difficult to put together. The first raid introduced in the game was designed for 40 people. In most cases, you needed to use that same kind of social networking you did to meet people for small group content to try to get into a guild that had enough people and was organized enough to accomplish raiding. I never really encountered pick up group raiding until maybe the very end of vanilla, and it was usually for the easier (at that point) raids. Oh, and just because you put together a guild of 40+ people, doesn't mean your group was good enough to actually do content. Lots of guilds on my (pretty casual) server were stuck in the MC/ZG/AQ20 raid farm stage forever, and could never manage to jump up to the next set of raids. My guild, while not the best on our server, was near the end of AQ40 (Twin Emps) before breaking up. Never did anything in Naxx at all except some trash farming one time for fun. Anyway, yeah, all those cliche stories you would hear about raid drama and people being shitty to each other are pretty true, haha. Now, you can see raid content without really having to worry about the social aspects of it. You can queue a casual-friendly, sort of easy mode version with randoms through the Raid Finder, and even the starting "Normal" difficulty for raids are pretty easily grouped for through the cross realm group finder.
TL;DR version: I feel vanilla WoW required much more personal investment - especially socially - to have meaningful character progression, a requirement that has consistently tapered off with each subsequent expansion release. Many current/former players lament the direction the series has gone over time, and while I have a lot of great memories and nostalgia for that time in the game, I don't think it's a playstyle I could go back to today.
A Serious Man
Member
Random memories:
AV matches would take hours to finish. Getting in was a frustrating experience but god was it epic.
Spending half my life grinding that tower in WPL for Crusader enchant drops.
Running BRD, Maraudon, Sunken Temple, LBRS, Dire Maul or any of those out-of-the-way dungeons that no one ever did. Travelling there and then spending a couple hours in this far off, almost hidden place that no one was familiar with always compelled me. There was something mysterious and forgotten about them. BRD especially since it was so huge and immersive and you really felt like you were lost down in the bowels of this mountain. It's an experience you can't get with dungeon finder and these short, 30 minute dungeons.
Wall-walking into Hyjal, Old Ironforge, the gnomish airport, the troll village and other unfinished places. Probably the closest a video game has ever come to feeling like actual exploration. Even dungeons had places to explore, like you could wall-walk out of ZF and half of Tanaris and Thousand Needles were explorable inside the instance.
Kiting world bosses into cities. A hunter friend and I kited Teremus all the way from Blasted Lands into SW a few times and let him wreck havoc.
Anyone remember that epic Alliance quest line in Blasted Lands that sent you to Azshara and back multiple times and gave you a 16 slot bag on completion? I loved the long quest lines the game had (the Zelda one in Feralas and Un'Goro was another one) and we ended up two-manning the raid boss at the end of this questline by kiting him off that mountain and into Nethergarde Keep.
I've got too many world PvP memories to count. Hillsbrad was always fun but I think I have more good memories stalking through Stranglethorn.
Grinding the mobs that appeared outside of Karazhan in the weeks leading up to BC and selling Netherweave cloth on the AH for absurd amounts of gold.
Everything about the AQ event. Maybe grinding mats wasn't the best but that kind of event is what the game needed more of.
AV matches would take hours to finish. Getting in was a frustrating experience but god was it epic.
Spending half my life grinding that tower in WPL for Crusader enchant drops.
Running BRD, Maraudon, Sunken Temple, LBRS, Dire Maul or any of those out-of-the-way dungeons that no one ever did. Travelling there and then spending a couple hours in this far off, almost hidden place that no one was familiar with always compelled me. There was something mysterious and forgotten about them. BRD especially since it was so huge and immersive and you really felt like you were lost down in the bowels of this mountain. It's an experience you can't get with dungeon finder and these short, 30 minute dungeons.
Wall-walking into Hyjal, Old Ironforge, the gnomish airport, the troll village and other unfinished places. Probably the closest a video game has ever come to feeling like actual exploration. Even dungeons had places to explore, like you could wall-walk out of ZF and half of Tanaris and Thousand Needles were explorable inside the instance.
Kiting world bosses into cities. A hunter friend and I kited Teremus all the way from Blasted Lands into SW a few times and let him wreck havoc.
Anyone remember that epic Alliance quest line in Blasted Lands that sent you to Azshara and back multiple times and gave you a 16 slot bag on completion? I loved the long quest lines the game had (the Zelda one in Feralas and Un'Goro was another one) and we ended up two-manning the raid boss at the end of this questline by kiting him off that mountain and into Nethergarde Keep.
I've got too many world PvP memories to count. Hillsbrad was always fun but I think I have more good memories stalking through Stranglethorn.
Grinding the mobs that appeared outside of Karazhan in the weeks leading up to BC and selling Netherweave cloth on the AH for absurd amounts of gold.
Everything about the AQ event. Maybe grinding mats wasn't the best but that kind of event is what the game needed more of.
People that are nostalgic for vanilla wow will tell you it was hard. it wasn't. EverQuest was hard ina ll the ways people pretend vanilla wow was, vanilla wow was successful precisely because it was casual and easy and soloable.
It was still an amazing experience. The game has become more streamlined over time, but the actual content has largely improved as the players, ui, and designers ahve all become more sophistocated over time.
All of the things people reminisce about fondly are things that also had tremendous downsides which is why they don't exist now. Group finder: Yeah, having to 'meet' the people 'on your server' (as if that really mattered) was always nice, but the flipside was all the time you'd spend TRYING to find a group, god forbid you're not a desireable class let alone spec, you'd be shouting in LFG or general chat for ages. The group finder exists because that experience is awful.
It's just one of those things, it was a great game, it's still fun with nostalgia on private servers today, but the GAME is largely better in its modern form.
The best stuff in Vanilla wow is all the random stuff they tried that never really went anywhere. It was just so experimental back then. Stuff like the AQ gate event (Medivh represent), the Naxx opening event and attunement, the long keying questchains for Ony or UBRS, the dire maul arena and its random rare mob bosses with neat loot that you had ot pvp people to get, stranglethorn arena, or even the dire maul tribute run stuff. Things like that are legitimately awesome and we rarely get such random one off stuff of that quality anymore. A lot of the inconveniences of the day led you to spend a lot more time online, farming with guildies or friends or whatever, which was a legitimate connection. I think this is SOMEWHAT replicated today in Mythic + dungeons, but it's both a blessing and a curse not to have to play 24-7 to compete in that sense.
It was still an amazing experience. The game has become more streamlined over time, but the actual content has largely improved as the players, ui, and designers ahve all become more sophistocated over 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).
All of the things people reminisce about fondly are things that also had tremendous downsides which is why they don't exist now. Group finder: Yeah, having to 'meet' the people 'on your server' (as if that really mattered) was always nice, but the flipside was all the time you'd spend TRYING to find a group, god forbid you're not a desireable class let alone spec, you'd be shouting in LFG or general chat for ages. The group finder exists because that experience is awful.
It's just one of those things, it was a great game, it's still fun with nostalgia on private servers today, but the GAME is largely better in its modern form.
The best stuff in Vanilla wow is all the random stuff they tried that never really went anywhere. It was just so experimental back then. Stuff like the AQ gate event (Medivh represent), the Naxx opening event and attunement, the long keying questchains for Ony or UBRS, the dire maul arena and its random rare mob bosses with neat loot that you had ot pvp people to get, stranglethorn arena, or even the dire maul tribute run stuff. Things like that are legitimately awesome and we rarely get such random one off stuff of that quality anymore. A lot of the inconveniences of the day led you to spend a lot more time online, farming with guildies or friends or whatever, which was a legitimate connection. I think this is SOMEWHAT replicated today in Mythic + dungeons, but it's both a blessing and a curse not to have to play 24-7 to compete in that sense.
Maybe the problem is, is that there are too many servers.
Not true, WoW was the first MMO that adressed other frustrations from other MMO's at that time.
Slicker UI, more active combat..easier to understand mechanics. No penalty when you died..most of all seamless open world no other MMO did this.
Walking from Northshire to Westfall with out a loading screen? Amazing even today the world feels big when traveling even in flight.
Eh, Moon Guard is RP. There ARE too many servers, but they merge them when they're too low too, so it's not that on its own. The reality is people don't do that kind of thing because 13 years later most people aren't interested in participating in largely pointless activities. World pvp gets mourned all the time, but the reality is it's unrewarding and 'do it for fun' stops mattering when you've already done it two dozen times.
I feel PvP in general is unrewarding.
Not to mention 1v1 OWPvP is so dumb as or vs a tank.
Rygar 8 Bit
Jaguar 64-bit
spent over a week solo farming scarlet monastery graveyard for trash to sell to buy my first epic white raptor on my troll warrior
then a few days after i got that i was farming for skull flame shield in the plague lands killing random ghouls when one dropped a hand of edward the odd that i sold for 2.5k gold was like great would of been nice to get that before i spent a week farming sm graveyard
used that money to buy the guild leader his mount and the rest of it i spent on a arcanite reaper and i forgot whatever the enchant was but it was expensive didnt matter anyway because about 2 weeks later ragnaros dropped spinal reaper and i got that
making all my farming for nothing thats what it was for me a series of grinding for things but ending up having that time wasted still loved it though
then a few days after i got that i was farming for skull flame shield in the plague lands killing random ghouls when one dropped a hand of edward the odd that i sold for 2.5k gold was like great would of been nice to get that before i spent a week farming sm graveyard
used that money to buy the guild leader his mount and the rest of it i spent on a arcanite reaper and i forgot whatever the enchant was but it was expensive didnt matter anyway because about 2 weeks later ragnaros dropped spinal reaper and i got that
making all my farming for nothing thats what it was for me a series of grinding for things but ending up having that time wasted still loved it though
You had to walk to everything. You spammed for a group, get them and make people actually go all the way to the other side of the world going through enemy territory. Then there was always the jackass that didn't want to travel and was like "you didn't get a lock? Fuck this" and left the group. Also of you had the key to ubrs you basically were a celebrity that could ask for anything and you had to get a lock to summon that guy.
I remember being amazed as a kid at how huge the world was. At the time it actually felt like a giant living breathing world with infinite possibilities. I remember taking the flight path from Ironforge to Stormwind and seeing the Searing Gorge and Burning Steppes and thinking "wow, I'll never get to a high enough level to go to these places".
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 had such a hard time getting money in vanilla that I didn't get an epic mount until wotlk.
RedSparrows
Member
This. Then you hit those zones and realised next was MC or BWL...