Will WoW ever be what it once was?

[Tinykong]

Excuse me? lv 80 and launch day, I thought we're talking about Vanilla? Also I vividly remember leveling swords, it wasn't that bad and it's RPG too. What is bad about an MMO having RPG elements, isn't that what they were based off of?

Are we not comparing things from vanilla to now?

Weapon skills were part of vanilla. At level 80, if you didn't max it out, you had to stand somewhere and AFK for a few hours to level up your weapons.

Tedium for the sake of tedium is bad design. Why do you think they removed it?

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

I think people saying "golden age right now" are trying to convince themselves that they don't miss the real golden age.

Or that they have a different view on what the "golden age" is. You know what opinions are right?

[Senistian]

Define "Golden Age". To a new WOW player this IS the golden age. To a vanilla player it's not and never will be again.

Z.

this exactly. It depends on who you ask as to what WoW's golden age is/was.

[Duronos]

Are we not comparing things from vanilla to now?

Weapon skills were part of vanilla. At level 80, if you didn't max it out, you had to stand somewhere and AFK for a few hours to level up your weapons.

Tedium for the sake of tedium is bad design. Why do you think they removed it?

So basically any RPG element in an MMO is bad. k....

I leveled crossbows in BC, that took about 30 mins of autoattacking a few things. I play on a BC server and it took me 15 mins to level up swords at 70.

[Monteverdi]

Short answer - no, WoW will never be what it once was.

There is no magic reason why WoW is declining in subscribers - though many people want to wax philosophical on all of the 'mistakes' Blizzard has made that have doomed WoW. There also is no magic solution to bringing the subscriber numbers up.

WoW is 10 years old. New players are not going to be subscribing in any great volume to a 10 year old game. Many people who started playing the game at launch have graduated high school/college, gotten married, set up respectable careers, started families, etc. The game is aging, and just as we can't stop ourselves from aging, neither can WoW be stopped from aging.

Does this mean the game is dead? Very much no. The game is still very much alive, and very much the biggest MMORPG out there - and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. WoW still has a long, respectable life ahead of it, it's just no longer in its prime, and that's ok.

[Tinykong]

So basically any RPG element in an MMO is bad. k....

I leveled crossbows in BC, that took about 30 mins of autoattacking a few things. I play on a BC server and it took me 15 mins to level up swords at 70.

If AFKing while you mindlessly attack mobs is fun, why did they remove it? It's not fun, and people complained about it. Why do you think there is a FoS for leveling weapons and fists? It was tedious, boring, and arbitrary. Bad design is bad design.

Weapon skills are just one point, there are countless others. The LFD/LFR tools are vastly, vastly superior tools for finding and making groups than the old meeting stone tools. I hope you like watching TV while you play, because in vanilla, when a tank dropped out of your DM run (which, I hope you had a staff, otherwise you're clearing 30-45 mins of trash again after you spend an untold amount of time waiting for a tank) you had to sit and wait for someone to maybe possibly show up.

The list goes on and on.

The game is vastly superior now than it was in vanilla. The part that sucks now is the community, and I don't think that has anything to do with the game's systems, because trolls and ***holes exist in every game community. If you are in a quality guild, with quality players, there has never been a better time to be playing WoW.

[Meatboll]

Are we not comparing things from vanilla to now?

Weapon skills were part of vanilla. At level 80, if you didn't max it out, you had to stand somewhere and AFK for a few hours to level up your weapons.

Tedium for the sake of tedium is bad design. Why do you think they removed it?

Not always.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9CQ3...dex=91#t=5m13s

[Duronos]

If AFKing while you mindlessly attack mobs is fun, why did they remove it? It's not fun, and people complained about it. Why do you think there is a FoS for leveling weapons and fists? It was tedious, boring, and arbitrary. Bad design is bad design.

Weapon skills are just one point, there are countless others. The LFD/LFR tools are vastly, vastly superior tools for finding and making groups than the old meeting stone tools. I hope you like watching TV while you play, because in vanilla, when a tank dropped out of your DM run (which, I hope you had a staff, otherwise you're clearing 30-45 mins of trash again after you spend an untold amount of time waiting for a tank) you had to sit and wait for someone to maybe possibly show up.

The list goes on and on.

The game is vastly superior now than it was in vanilla. The part that sucks now is the community, and I don't think that has anything to do with the game's systems, because trolls and ***holes exist in every game community. If you are in a quality guild, with quality players, there has never been a better time to be playing WoW.

Please don't make this into a LFD/LFR argument... You're going to lose, just don't do it.

[Deleted]

I think this question needs to stop being asked, as it has been asked with every patch and expansion ever put out, and no answer has ever been satisfactory to those who ask it.

^ I agree. It's kinda annoying me with all these posts about 'old' wow and stuff. World of warcraft is evolving, Getting older, moving on. you know?

[Tinykong]

Please don't make this into a LFD/LFR argument... You're going to lose, just don't do it.

Ignoring the community aspect, and speaking from a systems stand point, which tool works better: LFR/LFD or sitting by a stone hoping someone gets added to your group?

lol if you try to say that meeting stones are superior to LFD.

[Duronos]

Ignoring the community aspect, and speaking from a systems stand point, which tool works better: LFR/LFD or sitting by a stone hoping someone gets added to your group?

lol if you try to say that meeting stones are superior to LFD.

You're a funny one, LFD/LFR is what kills community... Case and point.

[Tinykong]

You're a funny one, LFD/LFR is what kills community... Case and point.

It all depends on your perspective. I have a close knit group of friend I've been playing with for a long, long time. We usually have more than 5 people online, sometimes we don't. When we don't, we can instantly fill in whatever role we need with LFD. In vanilla, we'd be twiddling our thumbs hoping to find someone.

I'd rather have LFD and not always need it, than not have LFD, and log off because we can't find the players we need to fill a group.

All large games have toxic elements of their communities, wow is no different. Take off the rose colored glasses and admit to yourself that wow's systems are improvements over vanilla. If you want to talk about the community, that's a different discussion.

[BatteredSausage]

You're a funny one, LFD/LFR is what kills community... Case and point.

No it doesnt , the people playing kills the community with there shitty attitude.

[Fedexkilla]

Nope as you can't go back in time, so it's a stupid question to begin with. The other part of the answer would still be no as the part of the community that's in a self-induced coma stuck in Vanilla-TBC can't come to grips with the passage of time.

[IdTheDemon]

No.

The social aspect of Wow that Vanilla had when it came to world pvp, exploring the world on foot, the emphasis on grouping up with people while questing and having server involving activities/questlines is gone and won't come back.

At the same time, I'm glad I don't have to dedicate 30+ hours a week to raid/PVP to get gear. I'm also happy that there are alternative ways to make money, making flasks isn't the torture it was in Vanilla, getting a raid geared isn't as RNG dependent/time consuming and that many overall quality of life changes for classes made the game more enjoyable.

[Duronos]

No it doesnt , the people playing kills the community with there shitty attitude.

And LFD provides a form of anonymity because most the people you play with aren't from your server therefore no bad reputation. Ever played LoL, it's the same kind of thing, make anyone feel somewhat anonymous then many of them become dicks.

---------- Post added 2013-05-21 at 06:20 PM ----------

It all depends on your perspective. I have a close knit group of friend I've been playing with for a long, long time. We usually have more than 5 people online, sometimes we don't. When we don't, we can instantly fill in whatever role we need with LFD. In vanilla, we'd be twiddling our thumbs hoping to find someone.

I'd rather have LFD and not always need it, than not have LFD, and log off because we can't find the players we need to fill a group.

All large games have toxic elements of their communities, wow is no different. Take off the rose colored glasses and admit to yourself that wow's systems are improvements over vanilla. If you want to talk about the community, that's a different discussion.

You basically just said something you could do before LFR, finding that one spot in Trade chat or LFG chat (before it was removed) wasn't that hard. You make it sound like the hardest thing in world. AND THEY ARE NOT IMPROVEMENTS!!!! NOR WITH THEY EVER BE!!!! Community is at an all time low due to those implementations. Cross-server shit is the bane of this game, it ruined a lot of the game.

[Deleted]

-Come over here, lads. I have a story to tell you.
The children couldn't understand at first. But the fire was cozy, and they were cold. They sat around the old man, listening.
-I... i remember.
A tear dropped and ran down his cheek.
-I remember WoW... i remember it for how it once was.
He started crying, wailing out loud. The children all hug him. They knew that time wouldn't be back, and he did aswell.

You have reluctantly accomplished my day, fine sir. I am overwhelmed with giggles as I am typing.

[Kynes]

Vanilla

Dungeons and Raids
- Dungeon mobs putting debuffs on you for 10+ minutes. Extremely prevalent in instances like Scholomance, Stratholme, etc.
- Paladin Blessings lasting 5 minutes. By the time you were done blessing the 40th player in your raid, the first person's buff ran out.
- Paladins going 31 points in Ret to pick up Kings, and healing raids.
- 8 debuff limit on mobs. Increased to 16 when AQ came out. (3 patches later)
- Losing your rolling Ignite or Deep Wounds due to debuff limit.
- No summoning stones.
- Warlocks using their entire bag space for soul shards to summon with.
- Warlocks running out of soul shards to summon.
- People whose sole duty was to ressurect people and stay out of combat.
- Creating a 15-man raid for UBRS, and discovering that noone had the key.
- Disbanding the 15-man raid for UBRS because noone had the key.
- Farming resistance gear when you were walled by bosses (Ragnaros, Vaelastrasz, Triple Drakes, Sapphiron)
- Farming mats to give people gear like Onyxia Scale Cloak.
- Having people with Onyxia Scale Cloaks quit raiding, and farming more mats to give new people gear like Onyxia Scale Cloak.
- Boss mechanics that involved you DYING ~ Baron Geddon, Vaelastrasz.
- Running back after wiping for weeks on Twin Emps.
- Running back redux on C'thun.
- New recruits running back on Twin Emps and C'thun without the bug mounts.
- Trash on the way to Twin Emps.
- Trash on the way to C'thun.
- Not having enough mages for Viscidus.
- Farming mats for raiding gear for weeks and weeks in Felwood.
- Druids, Priests, Shaman, and Paladins only heal.
- No dual-spec.
- Babysitting perfect group compositions - Warrior, Rogue, Rogue, Rogue, Shaman.
- Faction imbalance with Windfury for Horde, and Salvation for Alliance.
- Server crashes crashing the raid as well, including soft-resetting all the trash. This happened. A lot.

PvP
- Raiding players dominating the PvP scene - warriors with Ashkandi/Dark Edge of Insanity and 3 Priests cruising through 20+ players.
- Organized groups of honor farmers with no in-game system to match them against other organized groups. Complete pubstomps in AB and WSG every 5 games or so.
- Being in that organized group and playing 8+ hours a day to keep up with weekly cap and getting ranked up.
- Honor being awarded only on Tuesday maintanance - no real-time update.
- Free Action Potions.
- Engineering Grenades - AoE 5-second disorient.
- Shadowmeld Aimed Shot.


Burning Crusade

Dungeons and Raids
- Farming resistance gear when you were walled by bosses (Hydross, Solarian, Mother Shazzrah, Illidan, etc).
- Wiping in Hyjal to a boss and having to do the entire trash wave again.
- Being walled by bosses that didn't meet your DPS checks, with literally 2 mechanics ~ Brutallus, Kaz'rogal.
- Boss mechanics that involved you DYING ~ Teron Gorefiend, Azgalor.
- Warlocks going Shadow Mastery/Sacrifice and spamming Shadow Bolt.
- Babysitting perfect group compositions - Shaman, Warlock, Warlock, Warlock, Mage.
- A large amount of buffs being group-only, including Heroism/Bloodlust.
- Protection Paladins being downright necessary for Hyjal Trash, Shattered Halls.
- Protection Paladins being downright useless for anything else.
- No dual-spec.
- Replenishment implemented, only available from 2 Specs - Ret Paladins and Shadow Priests. Later added to Survival Hunters, Destruction Locks (lol), and Frost Mages (double lol).
- Race-specific abilities with negative effects: Orc Blood Fury inflicting Mortal Strike on self, Troll Berserking more effective at lower max health.


PvP
- Unkillable Soul Link / Shadow Mastery (SS/SM) Warlocks.
- Unkillable Resto Druids.
- Soul Link / Shadow Mastery (SS/SM) Warlocks and Unkillable Resto Druids together.
- Arena games that lasted hours when the above Comp faced a mirror.
- "Welfare epics" by playing 10 games a week and getting arena points for it.
- Getting arena points in chunks, once a week, on Tuesday maintainance.
- Rogues with Warglaives in Arena.
- Gearing for arena with 5/5 PvP gear and 3/8 Sunwell gear.
- Holy Paladins could only use PvE gear to be competitive.


Yeah, golden age.

[Punchbag]

Vanilla

Dungeons and Raids
- Dungeon mobs putting debuffs on you for 10+ minutes. Extremely prevalent in instances like Scholomance, Stratholme, etc.
- Paladin Blessings lasting 5 minutes. By the time you were done blessing the 40th player in your raid, the first person's buff ran out.
- Paladins going 31 points in Ret to pick up Kings, and healing raids.
- 8 debuff limit on mobs. Increased to 16 when AQ came out. (3 patches later)
- Losing your rolling Ignite or Deep Wounds due to debuff limit.
- No summoning stones.
- Warlocks using their entire bag space for soul shards to summon with.
- Warlocks running out of soul shards to summon.
- People whose sole duty was to ressurect people and stay out of combat.
- Creating a 15-man raid for UBRS, and discovering that noone had the key.
- Disbanding the 15-man raid for UBRS because noone had the key.
- Farming resistance gear when you were walled by bosses (Ragnaros, Vaelastrasz, Triple Drakes, Sapphiron)
- Farming mats to give people gear like Onyxia Scale Cloak.
- Having people with Onyxia Scale Cloaks quit raiding, and farming more mats to give new people gear like Onyxia Scale Cloak.
- Boss mechanics that involved you DYING ~ Baron Geddon, Vaelastrasz.
- Running back after wiping for weeks on Twin Emps.
- Running back redux on C'thun.
- New recruits running back on Twin Emps and C'thun without the bug mounts.
- Trash on the way to Twin Emps.
- Trash on the way to C'thun.
- Not having enough mages for Viscidus.
- Farming mats for raiding gear for weeks and weeks in Felwood.
- Druids, Priests, Shaman, and Paladins only heal.
- No dual-spec.
- Babysitting perfect group compositions - Warrior, Rogue, Rogue, Rogue, Shaman.
- Faction imbalance with Windfury for Horde, and Salvation for Alliance.
- Server crashes crashing the raid as well, including soft-resetting all the trash. This happened. A lot.

PvP
- Raiding players dominating the PvP scene - warriors with Ashkandi/Dark Edge of Insanity and 3 Priests cruising through 20+ players.
- Organized groups of honor farmers with no in-game system to match them against other organized groups. Complete pubstomps in AB and WSG every 5 games or so.
- Being in that organized group and playing 8+ hours a day to keep up with weekly cap and getting ranked up.
- Honor being awarded only on Tuesday maintanance - no real-time update.
- Free Action Potions.
- Engineering Grenades - AoE 5-second disorient.
- Shadowmeld Aimed Shot.


Burning Crusade

Dungeons and Raids
- Farming resistance gear when you were walled by bosses (Hydross, Solarian, Mother Shazzrah, Illidan, etc).
- Wiping in Hyjal to a boss and having to do the entire trash wave again.
- Being walled by bosses that didn't meet your DPS checks, with literally 2 mechanics ~ Brutallus, Kaz'rogal.
- Boss mechanics that involved you DYING ~ Teron Gorefiend, Azgalor.
- Warlocks going Shadow Mastery/Sacrifice and spamming Shadow Bolt.
- Babysitting perfect group compositions - Shaman, Warlock, Warlock, Warlock, Mage.
- A large amount of buffs being group-only, including Heroism/Bloodlust.
- Protection Paladins being downright necessary for Hyjal Trash, Shattered Halls.
- Protection Paladins being downright useless for anything else.
- No dual-spec.
- Replenishment implemented, only available from 2 Specs - Ret Paladins and Shadow Priests. Later added to Survival Hunters, Destruction Locks (lol), and Frost Mages (double lol).
- Race-specific abilities with negative effects: Orc Blood Fury inflicting Mortal Strike on self, Troll Berserking more effective at lower max health.


PvP
- Unkillable Soul Link / Shadow Mastery (SS/SM) Warlocks.
- Unkillable Resto Druids.
- Soul Link / Shadow Mastery (SS/SM) Warlocks and Unkillable Resto Druids together.
- Arena games that lasted hours when the above Comp faced a mirror.
- "Welfare epics" by playing 10 games a week and getting arena points for it.
- Getting arena points in chunks, once a week, on Tuesday maintainance.
- Rogues with Warglaives in Arena.
- Gearing for arena with 5/5 PvP gear and 3/8 Sunwell gear.
- Holy Paladins could only use PvE gear to be competitive.


Yeah, golden age.

Everything about this post is right. I mean literally. Everything. If you were warm nutella, i'd scoop you up and swallow you down in a heartbeat.

[Fagatronics]

-snip-

Yeah, golden age.

I know rite? Especially since 8 million people joined during Vanilla and 3 million more joined during TBC. Those people are dumbs. We showed them by losing ~2 million subs in 6 months!!! Better yet Bliz expects more losses before MoP's end, that's why the golden age is now!

/sarcasm