I never expected Vanilla WoW to be that good

[Ringthane]

Just to mention: There are a lot of people that did not had the chance to play WoW from the beginning (me including) and i think letting this people experience WoW Vanilla would be a pretty neat thing. Not sure why Blizzard so relentlessly refuse to do it.

Follow along with the bouncing ball:

Because it's their game.

How are you not understanding this? They own it and they do not want you to play it.

You know why you can't buy a car without airbags, or ABS, or all the other safety features that have come out in the last 20 or so years? Because the car companies do not want you to. Sure, you can still buy classic cars without those features. But you'll probably pay for it in other ways - maybe higher insurance, less fuel efficiency, or whatever.

After all, none of us were around when the Model T was introduced. By your logic, you should be fine with somebody taking away the car you drive and giving you a Model T to drive. Why don't you try that and let us know how it goes. And hey, none of us were around when a lot of the fancy new medicines we take for granted were introduced. Next time you get sick, since you're so into the past, why don't you try a few of the older remedies and let us know how they go.

Cause the past is so much better than the present, right?

[Guy4123]

Follow along with the bouncing ball:

Because it's their game.

How are you not understanding this? They own it and they do not want you to play it.

You know why you can't buy a car without airbags, or ABS, or all the other safety features that have come out in the last 20 or so years? Because the car companies do not want you to. Sure, you can still buy classic cars without those features. But you'll probably pay for it in other ways - maybe higher insurance, less fuel efficiency, or whatever.

After all, none of us were around when the Model T was introduced. By your logic, you should be fine with somebody taking away the car you drive and giving you a Model T to drive. Why don't you try that and let us know how it goes. And hey, none of us were around when a lot of the fancy new medicines we take for granted were introduced. Next time you get sick, since you're so into the past, why don't you try a few of the older remedies and let us know how they go.

Cause the past is so much better than the present, right?

You're kinda bad at analogies.

[Deleted]

It’s funny. I actually started playing vanilla again recently, just to prove to myself that it was nostalgia talking and that the grand old lady had, indeed, gotten old.

Unsurprisingly, I’ve fallen in love with World of Warcraft again. My friends likewise. People make much of the “journey” or the “adventure” and I’d echo that, but some of the other issues flat-out make the game more believable. How can it be immersive to get this quest text:


I then book it up to where I was told to go, round up six of these ghouls, and melt them with nary a button-press. You can make more chums in a couple of vanilla days than you can in months of retail because imperfect classes did well when they were supported, and they could support others in return. Now? Every character has a hotbar of win buttons no matter the situation.

Ultimately, I think the issue is that everything has become so transitory that nothing is valued. Quest rewards are laughably powerful nowadays, and you leave behind whatever you were wearing previously without giving it a second thought because you only had it for twenty minutes. The effort to make smaller things with your profession was worth it originally, because you actually went out and wore them. Some quests were too difficult at the level you got them, so you’d scoot to another area and come back when you’d levelled up a bit or got more gear. Hitting an even ding was important and fun, as you got upgraded spells and talent points to spend.

None of the lustre for these things has dulled.

Not even a little.

So perhaps, just perhaps, we’ve found out the real reason Blizzard won’t put up vanilla servers.

Because their live ones would end up abandoned.

The original World of Warcraft, with the upgraded graphics and UI improvements, would arguably (and ironically) be the “WoW killer” that Blizzard have done so well to stave off so far.

Good post, sums it up nicely.

[melodramocracy]

Even a few dozen people posting in a thread does not a huge appetite make.

It didn't stop the infamous WoD no-flying thread.

[Deleted]

It didn't stop the infamous WoD no-flying thread.

Well the world outside of garrisons is dead because apex turned out to be complete crap in my opinion, why not have flying as convenience?

[melodramocracy]

to add to this, any new metal band is far superior than Iron Maiden and Metallica...think about it..they have better guitars now, better drums, better microphones...those who still like Iron Maiden more is just pure Nostalgia...they just need to take out the rose tinted headset of their ears and hear the new bands..

Off topic, but this is sarcasm, right?

[threads]

I like how people keep playing the nostalgia card when many people in this thread are playing vanilla on a daily basis. Can't you kids read?

they are in denial

[Flaks]

Is this a masked "we need vanilla servers plox"? It had its charm but it also had it's bad. Got a healing spell? Well you're healing. Also shamans sucked.

I love this mentality like everyone was constantly raiding and nothing else mattered.

A much smaller percent of players ever got to raid back then than ever again. Most players were content with leveling, dungeons and bgs (like all expansions ever actually) and played whatever spec they felt like. There wasn't this huge push for everyone trying to get into raiding end game that happened during end tbc and wrath.

[Zafire]

Off topic, but this is sarcasm, right?

I think he has a good point. People talk about all the new pretty stuff/bugs/quality of life changes being the reason Vanilla WoW is inferior.

It's completely possible that we liked the theme of the game and it isn't rose tinted at all. I still like Final Fantasy 7 more than I like Final Fantasy XII and I replay both of them every 2-4 years. I like Final Fantasy X more than Final Fantasy VIII. A great world and immersion is what does it for me, and WoW hasn't had that since WotLK.

[Deleted]

Well, I have never played vanilla, but started early in TBC, so I think my leveling experience was close to vanilla. I have really good memories, even though I chose Holy Paladin as my main (I fell in love with Holy Shock in the talent tree when I saw it). It was slow but I had so much fun playing it. But it was fun because it was my first experience in wow. Since then, I managed to level only one alt to max level - because of how boring the leveling felt to me. That's why I would never try vanilla/TBC servers. Because I know it's only partial nostalgia in me. You can't deny that noone has rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. And you can't say that noone would enjoy vanilla and everyone is feeling nostalgia.

Even the endgame in TBC wasn't that stellar for me. I grinded out flying mount, I grinded out reputations and now what? I focused on PVP, because I enjoyed playing my Shockadin. Raiding was to time-demanding (I played a lot, but in random times) and HCs were not worth spamming trade chat for me. It was only Wrath where I really felt I have a lot to do and I really enjoyed the expansion, but I'm still bitter towards it for destroying shockadins and overnerfing paladins. Would I try Wrath server? Maybe, if the achievment pool would be linked to retail achievments (so that I could earn achievments for my whole account in retro servers) and I could transfer my char to retail when the server inevitably dies 2-3 years later.

But there is also MoP. For me the best expansion made for WoW. Great lore, great atmosphere, each zone had unique feel. It was different, yet it still was warcraft. I had a lot to do. I loved LFR raids. I even took a break because I felt there was too much to do and I couldn't do everything . Even even though it was best expansion for me, I'm unsure I would try MoP retro server. I just want to progress my characters forward, not to create new ones that are stuck in single expansion.

So my conclusion is that I wouldn't probably play on any retro server. That doesn't mean I'm opposed to creating retro servers. It would be a good experiment, but I'm afraid it would draw too much resources from retail, which is the thing I care most about. It would definitely cost something - hiring new people or replacing people moved to implementation of retro servers and the same for customer support. I guess there is some middle ground - let's create retro server (there would have to be a large and fierce discussion about what past wow version to pick - see my preferences), but those wanting it would have to pay the costs. Let's call it WoW Remastered with upfront 40$ cost. Playing it would need also monthly subscription of 10$-15$ that is separate from retail subscription. And you could even have combined subscription which would be only 5$ extra to retail subscription. This way the retail would be mostly unaffected by retro servers and retro-crowd (no insult intended) would have their servers without limiting retail. And if not many people come to retro server because of the costs? Well, then the interest for it was overblown, blizzard will have to deal with the losses and would never try such thing again. And if the assumption made by retro-crowd are corrent? Blizzard would make profit. Either way, we won't have our answer, unless blizzard tries this.

[Atelniar]

[...]I'm afraid it would draw too much resources from retail, which is the thing I care most about. It would definitely cost something - hiring new people or replacing people moved to implementation of retro servers and the same for customer support.

I have this to say:

Patch 6.1: Twitter integration.

Retro/Vanilla/Classic realms, whatever you want to call it, would at least be content.

[Deleted]

From someone who loved Vanilla. I also loved Draenor levelling, I mean the 90-100 part. Everyone was levelling, areas were populated, some world pvp - it really felt like MASSIVE-MORPG. But in Vanilla it could last for a month or even more. In Draenor I levelled in less than a day. That is not fun, sorry.

And I'm not even mentioning the money paid for original content and for the expansion content. Same price, a lot less value.

For those wondering, I stopped playing Draenor after levelling to 100 and getting PVP gear. It just felt like I was constantly alone.

[Guy4123]

From someone who loved Vanilla. I also loved Draenor levelling, I mean the 90-100 part. Everyone was levelling, areas were populated, some world pvp - it really felt like MASSIVE-MORPG. But in Vanilla it could last for a month or even more. In Draenor I levelled in less than a day. That is not fun, sorry.

And I'm not even mentioning the money paid for original content and for expansion content. Same price, less value.

For those wondering, I stopped playing Draenor after levelling to 100 and getting PVP gear.

They need to make an expansion that raises the level cap by 40 levels instead of this piddly 5 or 10 crap they do. Leveling IS a lot of the content they add in expansions but it's over and done with way to quickly. The leveling content is just to controlled and on a set of rails, just like the dungeons are now. All the new dungeons are like The Stockades and none of them are like Blackrock Depths which almost felt like a 5 man raid not a dungeon.

They should add a couple 10 mans back into the game too like Strath and Scholo used to be.

[Charge me Doctor]

This is all just nostalgia, pure and simple. Does that mean vanilla WOW was a bad game? No, not by any means. But would I want to play it today? Probably not, just like the Dune 2 example.

It's hardly nostalgia, some people really enjoy spending 1 hours of their lifetime to get their night elf to stormwind to level in westfall. Some do not like that.

I do have urges to play on old patches exactly because of nostalgia, because every single time i log into a private server and see old UI - i go "oh yeah right, i've seen this for last, like, 10 years". "oh, good, these troggs again". "better go to stormwind than level in dun morogh". "do i want to spend time on a profession? these green +2 stam pants are definitely not worth it"
and quit in, like, an hour. Because i've seen it already. Game have little to no replayability for me, i've seen it all, i've experienced it all, i want new stuff, i don't want old stuff.

But some people want exactly that - old stuff, not for nostalgia reasons, but, probably, because this old stuff is actually new stuff for them.

[papajohn4]

Off topic, but this is sarcasm, right?

Of course is sarcasm as zafire also explains...i just wanted to point out that new technology does not always mean better product especially in the category of arts, music and gaming.. People often dismiss vanilla because it is "old" and the game now have more "features", better technology, better engine etc...

[meroes]

Vanilla has undeniably more content than any xpac. There is also more reason to group, which is a big draw for some people. I have put more time into Vanilla private servers than Pandaria and WoD. It's definitely not just nostalgia. Objectively there is more sense of community and more things to do outside of raiding.

Also, originally WoW had a much slower pace of progression. It felt like traditional RPGs from the 90's and early 2000's. WoW is no longer that type of game. Even though there have been many improvements since Vanilla, added together they've changed the game to a point I struggle to enjoy.

[Charge me Doctor]

It's about getting pleasure during the time spent in the game. You don't like that only if you dont get enough pleasure during this time. In Vanilla and BC you get much more pleasure from moving all over the world, and hang out in the locations for hours.

So if you want to compare old and new WoW, you should put them in equal conditions: how much pleasure you get from moving on foot in both cases? I think the answer is obvious.

Of course we need new content, but this content needs to be of good quality, I mean a desire to return to it again and again, as it was in Classic and BC.

Even if we talk about nostalgia, the new content does not cause same nostalgia many years later.

It's a subjective feeling. When i first stepped into WoW and made my dwarf paladin i spent literally 30 minutes taking screenshots of me casting holy light over and over again. Then i complained about cast time, because you had none in wc3. Then i was disappointed about it not damaging under enemies. Then i rerolled.

Now i feel nothing to pre-cata locations. Literally nothing, i've been there for so long and i've seen them all - what do you expect me to feel?

Draenor and MoP looks amazing, i still have my hearthstone to my MoP farm for quick access for these locations to just fly there and look at stuff. I'm sure in next 1 year i'll get bored of it, but hey, legion will be out and new locations to explore. Sure, i do remember how i handled level 90 rogue as a level 87 mage when i was leveling at Kun-Lai summit, this location brings lots of memories, and sure there is some nostalgia involved, just like it was in vanilla. The only reason why i spite "returning" to this content is because it's linear, there is nothing "new" (aka unexplored) to look for.

But when you talk about pre-cata experience - you may played in vanilla as horde and never actually touched anything on alliance side - go for it, roll an alliance toon and explore the world like it's new. Never played as a blood elf? Their starting location is awesome - you should definitely check it out. These things are small but they sure add up into great feelings. But i've done that, so i don't feel anything towards it.

It just took much more time to explore WoW back then (again, thanks to lack of information, now you know everything about the upcoming patch before its even released), and you had incentive to go and check it out, instead of alt+tabbing into wowhead. Now i feel like i level 1 character to a max level and go "gg i'm done".

For fucks sake, in vanilla i leveled priests of all races up to 50 something to see their racial priest abilities. Now i would just google them instead of spending literally months on that. Spend 1 minute. Or spend 1 month. Yeah, talk about time efficiency

[Deleted]

This shows you what kind of impact the game really made, and what kind of massive legacy it already has.

Now we already have second-generation nostalgia people: guys who weren't there back in the day in the first place, but develop a nostalgia by hearsay. Kind of like those crappy bands that are popular right now, where 19 year olds dress up like in the 70ies and play music that sounds exactly like it. Nostalgia by proxy - genius concept! Whatever makes you hip and edgy, right?

I think the word you're looking for is enjoying retro stuff.
Also try to comprehand the idea of something being completely new to someone despite being old.
How can you call something old when that something is being experienced by you FOR THE FIRST TIME.

Something doesnt need current year release date to be enjoyable... it's possible trust me.

[Pua]

I think the word you're looking for is enjoying retro stuff.

That's true, but it's not even that in the current example.

The reality is that players new to World of Warcraft are finding that the vanilla experience is much better for them. Nothing is disposable, the world feels alive and threatening, and you don't run around like an unstoppable machine. Looking for something without the map telling you exactly where to go is explorative, in a way you can't recreate synthetically with ease.

I spent about two hours trying to get through Shadowfang Keep last night, and enjoyed every minute. Nowadays? It takes 10, and you spend most of it running after an endless pack of mobs that never seems to die before it's added to.

As I hinted earlier, vanilla is still a great game in ways that the current game isn't.

That's why new players are enjoying it.

[NorthWay]

They need to make an expansion that raises the level cap by 40 levels instead of this piddly 5 or 10 crap they do.

Thank you for saying exactly what I have been thinking for a while now - I thought I was alone.

I'll make a controversial claim: The game started dying the day the first expansion came out. Not because of ill will or sloppy work, but becuase they didn't have any metric to evaluate what adding 10 levels did to the game.
10 levels is not enough to set up a good long leveling experience. It is not enough to stretch out gear so it can be relevant for many levels if it is blue/epic/perfect stats. It is not enough to have a number of item sets during leveling. It is not enough to make crafting feel good and necessary for leveling.
Just 10 levels compresses the experience way too much, it becomes a gameplay and balancing problem.

But I will give Blizz credit - they really tried during TBC. It halfway worked. They tried applying all the same factors that they spread across 60 levels to just 10. It must have been challenging for them. For later expansion they shed more and more of this. Personally, I know that during WoD leveling I never kept a single green to mail to my next alt that was waiting for leveling - something I've never done before as I always though there was some nice gear that would be worth it to hang on to for an alt.

The "fix" might not necessarily have been to make an expansion the size of all land in Vanilla combined, it could perhaps have been done with what they actually made or something 20-50% bigger. Think of the original Barrens, it was easily 10 if not 13 levels worth of leveling in a single zone. STV possibly closer to 15. How many were there per zone in TBC? 3? Why the difference?
Some more quests and a more Vanilla tempo for expansion leveling could have made the leveling process feel like a journey again. Another 5/10 levels just becomes a speedbump, at least mentally, and with raiding as the endgame content then doubly so.