I never expected Vanilla WoW to be that good

[Echo of Soul]

Vanilla it still has the old school game feeling which resonates with a lot of people. About once a month I like to spend a couple of hours playing HoMM3 (1999), I still find Morrowind more fun than Skyrim. They are less streamlined, dares to challenge the player without holding his hand. Current WoW is barely a RPG. You level up in no time doing very streamlined quests where the map tells you exactly what you need to go and do. Once you hit max level you almost immediatly get into the highest tier of raids skipping months of progression.

That's why I feel the only MMORPG I can play at the moment is FFXIV. It still keep true to the old MMORPG experience. Some people may not like that, they want to rush through content and that's fine. Some people might not like the theme of the game and that's fine too but for me it's the only choice left.

Would I play WoW if it returned to its roots? Absolutely, but sadly I don't see that happening, Blizzard have made up their minds on this.

[Pantalaimon]

I don't support the misguided idea that vanilla servers would save the game, but let's quickly look at that statement and would it actually means when people say it. Vanilla WoW and the current version of whatever retail is at the time are completely separate games. Bringing back Vanilla helps no version of the game outside of what you're bringing back, in this case Vanilla WoW. Players returning to play the Vanilla version of the game only does not positively contribute to the design of WoW or the community of live because returning vanilla players wouldn't be playing on anything except Vanilla. The only way people can try and argue it benefits live in a roundabout way is by saying it would bring Blizzard profits by which to funnel into the live retail game to improve, which has already been debated and is highly unlikely. So let's not pretend that players coming back to play the older versions of the game would benefit live game design or community on live because they are two games and have nothing to do with each other at this point.

[Kallisto]

It's not delusional at all. Private vanilla servers are extremely popular, and gaining in said popularity.

Sorry but 10k MAX on a free private server is not extremely popular.

[Deleted]

Sorry but 10k MAX on a free private server is not extremely popular.

And the (self pro-claimed I might add) sub numbers probably also needs a tweak. I personally have two accounts on the "The Biggest One", one for each race, simply because I can. It's kind of amusing to remind myself of some of the bonkers design decisions that were made in Vanilla, but I wouldn't want to pay for it if it came to that.

[Pantalaimon]

Sorry but 10k MAX on a free private server is not extremely popular.

Inb4 posts quoting six digit figures for inactive accounts on a certain N named server.

[Deleted]

I'm an oldie, ex WoW player (2005 EU release night - mid 2011). I happened to find this thread by accident and found it interesting - made me think. That said, I haven't seen the game since Cata and have heard/read very little about it which means I don't really know much of the state of the game today. Though I do remember vanilla.

Imo vanilla had some things which disappeared over the years:

1. Community. This has been mentioned in this thread, but the heart of the game disappeared with all the cross server stuff. Pugs may have always been "bad" even back in vanilla, but that's how you populated your friends list and got to know people. I had a friends list of around 40-50 people (excluding my own guild) in vanilla. There were 5 left when I quit the game. I still have contact with many people I met during vanilla from all over Europe, I even met a few of them IRL while travelling. An mmo should encourage group play and activities, or else you can as well play Skyrim. I felt WoW didn't do this enough after BC.

2. Living world. Disappeared slowly with flying mounts, then more with the cross server stuff with phased zones and LFG-finder. Also adding more game space with each expansion was making the players spread out and the world dead.

3. Engaging gameplay. I don't like calling it "dumbing", but that's what it was. In vanilla/BC you could tell a good player from a great player from his playstyle. Groups needed to coordinate in order to be successful. A good tank knew how to pull and hold aggro, a good healer knew when to use which heal / ability and a good dps knew how to handle threat, interrupts and crowd control. Remember "OK sap X, sheep Y, stunlock Z while I tank C"? No? then you didn't play vanilla. The good thing was this was needed even in the earlier dungeons. The game taught the player his class all through the levelling content with group play in mind.

The last years when I played I was just spamming thunder clap, rend and cleave while the rest of the group pushed whatever DPS ability they had while the healer was watching How I met you mother and spamming heals. In wotlk you could clock a 5 man in 10 minutes. What's the fun in that? My best times in WoW, outside raiding, were in the old school end game five mans: strat/scholo/BRS/BRD/DM (OK, some of these were 10 mans before the patch, but I enjoyed them as 5 man content). BRD was my favourite: massive, unforgiving with tons of bosses.

4. Raid progression. During vanilla/BC there were different guilds progressing on different tiers at the same time. Usually two or three guilds on each faction and server were "top tier" (hardcore). The rest of the guilds were still progressing below. This meant that all decent players could find a guild to raid with IF they wanted to. Vanilla content didn't get obsolete until BC. Many people were happy just doing 5 mans or exploring / socialising / leveling alts - they didn't need or want to raid at all. My biggest concern with the vanilla raids were the need for 40 players and the logistics involved. If vanilla had offered the wotlk model the game would have been better.

5. Linearity. The old dungeons were great because they felt like real dungeons. You had optional ways to go, keys unlocking doors, optional parts to do, option to do bosses in a certain order, etc. At TBC the dungeons became linear corridors so people wouldn't get lost. The level designers from vanilla should have a medal or a cookie or something.

6. The little things. You could tell the devs back then had fun developing the game. Remember rare spawns in dungeons? Remember optional bosses like the postmaster or father flame? Remember needing keys to open up dungeons making them feel "exclusive"? Remember things like world bosses? Collecting gold to purchased epic mount? The omfg moment when an epic dropped in EPL knowing this drop would pay for your epic mount? Timed baron run for Tier 1.5 (that was really challenging and FUN in mixed greens/blues)?

With all that said, I do understand the changes. WoW has been catering to a different audience since late BC. Originally WoW catered to the RPG nerds from Everquest and WC3 but later on changed to kids/fps players. Guess which is the bigger audience? Blizzard is a company wanting to make money. Nothing is strange about this, and I still have respect for them for making the most successful computer game in history. I finally accepted the game was no longer for me and quit - but I would probably still be playing if the game had continued in the vanilla spirit.

Would I play on a retail vanilla server? Maybe. Will I pick up the game today and play expansion X (is it still the panda expansion?) ? No.

[RoKPaNda]

Sadly having a lot more fun on a vanilla server than I have on retail for quite some time.

[Queen of Hamsters]

It's not delusional at all. Private vanilla servers are extremely popular, and gaining in said popularity.

The live game is losing players at breakneck pace.

The evidence suggests that I'm right. If taking evidence into account and drawing a conclusion from it is "delusional", I suspect you need to read up on what the word means; I can only assume you've misunderstood it.

It is delusional, the live servers wouldn't be abandoned. One big selling point of Classic servers, is that they're free. Would official Classic servers be played? Sure they would but seeing how they'd be separate from the Live game in everything (characters, achievements, mounts, pets, transmog etc etc) it'd be a niche that would be filled by a minority, not everyone. Just like millions aren't playing those FREE classic servers today.

- - - Updated - - -

2. Living world. Disappeared slowly with flying mounts, then more with the cross server stuff with phased zones and LFG-finder. Also adding more game space with each expansion was making the players spread out and the world dead.

3. Engaging gameplay. I don't like calling it "dumbing", but that's what it was. In vanilla/BC you could tell a good player from a great player from his playstyle. Groups needed to coordinate in order to be successful. A good tank knew how to pull and hold aggro, a good healer knew when to use which heal / ability and a good dps knew how to handle threat, interrupts and crowd control. Remember "OK sap X, sheep Y, stunlock Z while I tank C"? No? then you didn't play vanilla. The good thing was this was needed even in the earlier dungeons. The game taught the player his class all through the levelling content with group play in mind.

.

2: The living world is there. You just have to go out into it rather than spend time in cities. Cross-realm zones made the world even more alive in low levels. Flying didn't kill shit, when MoP came out the world was a FRENZY of people being out, since Blizzard actually added stuff that required you to be out in the world. Pandaria zones stayed alive throughout the expansion thanks to the world content that remained relevant. WoD's world being dead (despite not having flight) MAY be down to the Devs fucking up adding stuff to do in the world that people would find worthwhile.

3. The game has only gotten mechanically more complex, both in classes and instance mechanics, so it's always weird when you people act as if there was some sort of superhuman skill to learn from playing at that stage of the game...You still tell good players from bad by their playstyle and performance and there's a reason for why the best players of CURRENT WoW clocked over 900 wipes in HFC. More people may see raids thanks to LFR, a small percentage kills bosses on the highest difficulty though and that is WITH the wealth of information, addons, greater pool of class abilities, theorycrafting and accessibility offered...

Was Classic challenging? Of course it was, to the players of that time. A lot of inexperienced people, few to no guides, logistical hurdles (few gear drops, 40-men raids), time requirements, tuning being what it was all added up to the difficulty in Classic... Still mechanically (bosses, classses), the game was NOT more complex. Bad players have also always been a part of the game. My brother once said that his 40-man team had 15 people that were really serious about raiding and evolved to clear content whilst current up until they downed Ragnaros HC in Firelands. The rest were (his words not mine) ranging from mouthbreathers to mediocre levels of gameplay, along for the ride that the guild HAD to accommodate since they wanted to down raid bosses.

From the Developers themselves:

At the launch of WoW, there were two formal raid zones: Onyxia’s Lair and the 10-boss Molten Core, the latter of which was originally only accessible by traversing Blackrock Depths. During the first few months after the game’s release, instances in general didn’t have any cap on the number of players that could enter at once, as long they were all in the same group (15-player Stratholme and Scholomance “raids” were not uncommon back then). With the upper limit on group size set at 40, 40-player raiding became the de facto standard for the early raid zones, since bringing more players generally made things easier (with a few exceptions).

When the world of Azeroth was brand new, and the overall pace of leveling was significantly slower than the norm today, such that the primary occupation for a majority of players was simply striving to reach max level. And even for the most cutting-edge players, many of whom were familiar with the leveling experience from the beta, it took two months from release for the first group to defeat Lucifron, the first boss in Molten Core.

Therefore, applying the tried and true principles of Internet forum logic, Lucifron was clearly more challenging than Garrosh—or any boss in the past 5 years for that matter. OK, maybe not. The delay was due not to the bosses’ difficulty, but rather the fact that it took even the most dedicated groups with extensive raiding experience from past MMOs that long to assemble a sufficiently large group of level-60 players who had obtained the appropriate dungeon and endgame quest gear. In many ways, that was the most challenging aspect of classic WoW raiding: the logistics of assembling and maintaining a sufficient roster with sufficient gear.

Over the year and a half to follow, Blackwing Lair, Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, and the original version of Naxxramas were introduced, providing an increasing level of challenge for groups that had already completed Molten Core. These raid zones all were tuned around both a full 40-player group and the expectation that players possessed a significant amount of raid gear, which meant that by definition fewer and fewer people were able to participate in each successive tier of content. New players joining the game during the summer of 2006, at the height of Naxxramas progression, had virtually no hope of ever seeing Kel’Thuzad. At best, they might level quickly and get enough dungeon gear to join a guild that was still doing Molten Core.

Full link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/139...back-4-28-2014

Logistics, tuning and time restraints is the theme I see for what made Classic raiding challenging.

Blizzard not focusing on making dungeons as punishing as they were back then relative to player skill and abilities is not the same as "the game is easy now lol"...Where they've chosen to focus challenge, it's pretty damned punishing, moreso than anything before since fights only become mechanically more complex to keep up with the players. If the "difficulty" we've sacrificed from Classic equates to logistics, tuning and time restraints, I'd say that's a good trade-off...and those that prefer that sort of "difficulty" have their Nostalrius.

I have to say though, it would be interesting to see how large a percentage would kill Classic raid bosses on an official server...If they made it separate from Live (own support and maintenance team, own sub fee, characters separate from characters on live) I think I would actually be open to the prospect of an official classic server...huh.

[KaPe]

Inb4 posts quoting six digit figures for inactive accounts on a certain N named server.

And claiming all that data is absolutely correct, while Blizzard is either lying or it's all bots.

[kary]

Actually, Cataclysm watered down the whole 1-60 leveling experience. Any challenge that was left was swiftly removed with the revamp of the old world. The 80-85 zones were essentially soloable (I can't remember a single Cata non-daily quest that required a group). The Heroics were slightly harder than LK heroics for a couple of months, but that was quickly reversed before even the second major patch.

My post was in reference to heroics, keep up zzzzzz
Also, vanilla leveling wasn't hard. Annoying and tedious maybe, but not hard.

[smallz]

And claiming all that data is absolutely correct, while Blizzard is either lying or it's all bots.

Blizzard isn't lying about their subs, since they don't publish numbers anymore.

The pirates who run the big scary pirate server though have very little reason to lie about their numbers, as they do not have to answer to shareholders.

Also their data acquisition methods are very transparent and openly reviewable on the forums. And from personal in-game observation I have no hesitations about believing them.

10k is still not a large amount of players in the big picture though, obviously. But it does show that a free vanilla realm could definitely have a good and stable population.

[Daffan]

old game (vanilla, tbc, some of wotlk/cata) is fun because you can progress through content.

My favorite thing about WoD is hitting level 100, afking in a bg for 701ilvl and then HFC, where everything else in the game is obsolete.

[Deleted]

2: The living world is there. You just have to go out into it rather than spend time in cities. Cross-realm zones made the world even more alive in low levels. Flying didn't kill shit, when MoP came out the world was a FRENZY of people being out, since Blizzard actually added stuff that required you to be out in the world. Pandaria zones stayed alive throughout the expansion thanks to the world content that remained relevant. WoD's world being dead (despite not having flight) MAY be down to the Devs fucking up adding stuff to do in the world that people would find worthwhile.

And cross server stuff killed server community

Maybe the world was alive again during the panda expansion. I didn't play it so I wouldn't know. Flying, portals and teleporting to/from instances did have an impact on the game when I was still active since it didn't force players to enter the world outside the cities at all. I levelled a couple of alts 10-80 never leaving the Orgrimmar AH since I'd just teleport to the instances. I was forced to play that way if I wanted to do any dungeons at all. In vanilla a lot of the stuff during the levelling process required a group, so people in the same zone would spontaniously get together and quest (and make new friends for future instancing). There were no portals or teleports unless you had a party and a warlock for summoning. If you wanted to go somewhere you took the old horse or a flight path once you had discovered it. The world was full of people going places or doing stuff, but then again the world was much smaller considering there were only two continents available. I haven't played or even seen the game since Cataclysm so that's what I'm comparing with. If the world is alive again that's great.

3. The game has only gotten mechanically more complex, both in classes and instance mechanics, so it's always weird when you people act as if there was some sort of superhuman skill to learn from playing at that stage of the game...You still tell good players from bad by their playstyle and performance and there's a reason for why the best players of CURRENT WoW clocked over 900 wipes in HFC. More people may see raids thanks to LFR, a small percentage kills bosses on the highest difficulty though and that is WITH the wealth of information, addons, greater pool of class abilities, theorycrafting and accessibility offered...

I disagree. They have removed mechanics that used to matter and was very important for teamwork which a post TBC player hasn't even experienced. Threat/mana management, crowd control, aggro and patrols = gone. You are doing a mistake comparing vanilla difficulty (all players back then) with heroic modes today (a very small percentage) which is not applicable to the majority of the playerbase. Noone has argued the heroics modes are easy - they are probably harder than ever, but it's an unfair comparison. Compared with vanilla the game has less demands on the individual player's skill / playstyle in the default mode of the game which also include non raids. Threat, aggro and crowd control are all important mechanics for trinity based games. Taking those mechanics away makes the game mechanics less complex (easier). Fact.

When I think about it they did try to bring a bit of this aspect (CC) back to the 5 mans in the beginning of Cata, but the forums got so full of tears they had to nerf it back to the faceroll tactics This makes me believe a very small % would be able to finish, let's say, classic Scholomance with a vanilla setup.

Was Classic challenging? Of course it was, to the players of that time. A lot of inexperienced people, few to no guides, logistical hurdles (few gear drops, 40-men raids), time requirements, tuning being what it was all added up to the difficulty in Classic... Still mechanically (bosses, classses), the game was NOT more complex. Bad players have also always been a part of the game. My brother once said that his 40-man team had 15 people that were really serious about raiding and evolved to clear content whilst current up until they downed Ragnaros HC in Firelands. The rest were (his words not mine) ranging from mouthbreathers to mediocre levels of gameplay, along for the ride that the guild HAD to accommodate since they wanted to down raid bosses.

Again a common misunderstanding from players picking up the game later. 1-2 months after release the players had learned the game, it's not like the game was so complex even back then that it took years to L2P. There were plenty of guides, both videos and written. I think I even still have a PDF called 'A Complete guide to MC' somewhere. "My brother once said" and what his guild did or not do is irrelevant and not a good argument. Many bosses from classic (post MC) were more complex or on par with some of the ICC/TOC bosses. Ask your brother to compare Bonelord (is the name correct? first boss in the instance) from ICC with any boss in BWL. When they recycled Naxx for WOTLK they removed a lot of stuff from the instance to make it more accessible, aka easier.

I'm not saying ALL the bosses in vanilla were more complex than today's game, that would be weird, but for people who never experienced vanilla you get the impression they think all boss mechanics were tank and spank and could be done with 20 out of 40 people in the raid idling.

I haven't tried the LFR tool in WoW but my guess is a lot of "mouthbreathers" are using it and killing bosses. I may be wrong if the LFR raids are actually demanding teamwork, cooperation and tactics from the individual LFR player.

Also, the game is more than only killing raid bosses. Everything about the game used to be harder and take more time. In classic doing 5 mans and UBRS was a big part of the gearing / attunement process.

From the Developers themselves:

Some people (including me) prefer a slower pace and taking your time doing stuff in the game. I prefer spending 2 hours in a massive dungeon using strategy to gear up my character in front of a 15 minutes button mashing mindless activity. I don't think it's rewarding. That's partly why I quit the game. For the old schoolers this was their preference for a role playing game. Other people prefer fast and quick rewards and I totally understand that. It's a matter of taste, and it's not up to you to decide what people should prefer. It boils down to two different target audiences: RPG players and action game players. The latter audience is a lot bigger and brings more subs, the former wants vanilla or a vanilla style game back. Blizzard/Activision are of course aware of this. Nothing strange, and I respect it. WoW is a great game if you enjoy action focused hack/slash games with rpg elements in a multiplayer environment.

I have to say though, it would be interesting to see how large a percentage would kill Classic raid bosses on an official server...If they made it separate from Live (own support and maintenance team, own sub fee, characters separate from characters on live) I think I would actually be open to the prospect of an official classic server...huh.

If not to stop this debate But to be honest, probably many, if they went through the much harder effort of gearing up, finding a guild and getting attuned.

[Deleted]

Enjoying the "biggest" one. 12k players online at peaktime is amazing. Didnt vanilla WoW servers have 5k max and then queues started? Either way, the lowest I saw was 7.6k which is great. Lvled to 18 on my horde toon and 22 on my alliance one, and the zones are always packed with people.

The thing is, the server has been out for a year and it seems to be growing in popularity. So much for the people who always chant "OMG PEOPLE WOULD LEAVE VANILLA WOW AFTER A WEEK WHEN THE NOVELTY WEARS OFF" if blizzard ever decides to make one. Ive already interacted with more people on there who are outside my guild than on retail WoD.

With AQ patch this summer and Naxx during winter its looking good and ill deffo play it alongside Legion.
Also, apparently theyve been working on TBC aswell, which will let you transfer your character to the TBC server when it arrives.

And another thing, theres quite a few "big" names on twitch playing there, although theyre not allowed to stream it due to ToS. (Soddapopin, Cdew, Venruki and Towelie to name a few).

Is the server perfect? No, mining nodes can mess up and be unreachable at times and since im playing from Japan theres some lag during peaktime aswell but its deffo playable.

[Echo of Soul]

Is the server perfect? No, mining nodes can mess up and be unreachable at times

That happened a lot during vanilla so it's working just like it used to :P

[Pua]

Those vanilla servers are FREE. As much as I enjoy playing on The Biggest One, I wouldn't simply pay for it.

I don’t believe Blizzard would charge for a vanilla server. It’d probably be a “if you’re a subscriber already” kind of deal. It may also be worth bearing in mind that live servers are also free for people who are using coins, and the circumstantial evidence suggests that the percentage of players doing that is also increasing.

It’s not that big a deal.

Sorry but 10k MAX on a free private server is not extremely popular.

Two things:

1) There are several of these servers (vanilla, TBC, Wrath).
2) How many live servers have 10,000 players?

It is delusional, the live servers wouldn't be abandoned. One big selling point of Classic servers, is that they're free. Would official Classic servers be played? Sure they would but seeing how they'd be separate from the Live game in everything (characters, achievements, mounts, pets, transmog etc etc) it'd be a niche that would be filled by a minority, not everyone. Just like millions aren't playing those FREE classic servers today.

No, it's not delusional when you take into account what I already told you (rather than flatly ignoring it) and when you also consider player behaviour. A significant amount of Warcraft’s “stickability” is in the communities that people become part of. Players tend to struggle to find reasons to log in when their friend list gets obliterated, and many would make the jump if they had buddies that did.

As an example, the classic server I play on has now had the patronage of four of my friends for the better part of a year, thanks purely to me playing on it – and I’m just one person.

I needn’t remind you of why the design of vanilla was better for a lot of players looking for a more traditional MMORPG experience, and why that same phenomenon exists today. What I feel I should remind you is that the popularity of private servers is in spite of them being private servers.

There’s a stigma attached to them that makes people less likely to give them a try, a stigma that’d be removed if Blizzard decided to make their own.

Look, I get it. This is the Internet. Extreme language is commonplace, and calling people “delusional” when you wouldn’t do it in real life is just the way Internet personalities roll. I do get it, honestly.

But there’s enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that live retail servers would lose a lot of their lustre if they had to compete with a legitimate MMORPG in the guise of the original World of Warcraft. And if Blizzard cleaned up the bugs, UI shortcomings and gave the game a graphical overhaul?

I think it’d be extremely popular.

Also, vanilla leveling wasn't hard. Annoying and tedious maybe, but not hard.

You obviously never did it.

Levelling in vanilla was substantially more difficult than it is now, for a number of obvious reasons that people tend to dismiss because it doesn't fit their narrative.

[D3athsting]

Enjoying the "biggest" one. 12k players online at peaktime is amazing. Didnt vanilla WoW servers have 5k max and then queues started? Either way, the lowest I saw was 7.6k which is great. Lvled to 18 on my horde toon and 22 on my alliance one, and the zones are always packed with people.

The thing is, the server has been out for a year and it seems to be growing in popularity. So much for the people who always chant "OMG PEOPLE WOULD LEAVE VANILLA WOW AFTER A WEEK WHEN THE NOVELTY WEARS OFF" if blizzard ever decides to make one. Ive already interacted with more people on there who are outside my guild than on retail WoD.

With AQ patch this summer and Naxx during winter its looking good and ill deffo play it alongside Legion.
Also, apparently theyve been working on TBC aswell, which will let you transfer your character to the TBC server when it arrives.

And another thing, theres quite a few "big" names on twitch playing there, although theyre not allowed to stream it due to ToS. (Soddapopin, Cdew, Venruki and Towelie to name a few).

Is the server perfect? No, mining nodes can mess up and be unreachable at times and since im playing from Japan theres some lag during peaktime aswell but its deffo playable.

Entered a vanilla server yesterday and i immediately realized how blizz managed to DESTROY leveling experience, made party with another guy there in dun morogh, still died 2 times until level 8, totally different game fron live where you steamroll everything from 1 to 100, i remember vanilla being hard but i was no longer used to that diff lvl after being in world of farmvillecraft for so long...
@Goeres is NxxxxxxxS BXXXXS the name of the server?

[Pua]

Entered a vanilla server yesterday and i immediately realized how blizz managed to DESTROY leveling experience, made party with another guy there in dun morogh, still died 2 times until level 8, totally different game fron live where you steamroll everything from 1 to 100, i remember vanilla being hard but i was no longer used to that diff lvl after being in world of farmvillecraft for so long...

If you're going to take on something three levels higher than you, you can expect a rough time of it.

Something of similar level adds?

Time to run.

[Echo of Soul]

Entered a vanilla server yesterday and i immediately realized how blizz managed to DESTROY leveling experience, made party with another guy there in dun morogh, still died 2 times until level 8, totally different game fron live where you steamroll everything from 1 to 100, i remember vanilla being hard but i was no longer used to that diff lvl after being in world of farmvillecraft for so long...

This was what sucked me in the first time I played WoW. The whole levelling experience was an adventure in itself, I didn't even know what would happen when I hit level cap and I didn't care and that's an important part of any mmorpg in my opinion. The only mmorpg that has given me that same feeling in recent years is Final Fantasy XIV and I've stuck with it because of that fact alone.

When levelling becomes a chore, when it's boring and pointless that's when you start losing new players. I'm playing The Division at the moment and whenever I get an upgrade be it a weapon or a piece of armor it feels great since it'll help me on my continued journey to level cap. WoW doesn't do that at the moment. You replace gear so fast that it has lost all its flare, even at endgame. You can't finish a zone in its entirety before quests become grey and it's perfectly clear that the goal is to reach level cap as quickly as possible and jump on the gear treadmill.

[Boxilot]

I can only speak from my own point of view but yes, I also like vanilla better than current WoW. It is immersive, it is fun and dangerous, I've participated in a lot of group content (in which people actually helped each other and talked to each other), and people don't mind things taking time. I actually feel genuinly happy putting one point of parry in my skilltree, or more stamina, because I now know that my character has grown stronger and questing will be easier.

There are of course negatives. The way too long spawning times, some of the completely broken specs etc, but despite that the game is a whole lot more engaging. Private servers are also plagued with elitists, which isn't too much fun, but there is also those that just wanted to RP in the old world and revel in nostalgia.

Vanilla WoW certainly isn't for everyone, but it was popular in its time, and there are still a lot of people who prefer that immersive world over the very menu-based we have now.