Why would people rather have a Vanilla server than a WotlK server?

[swagster]

WotLK was the sweet spot. From pvp to pve, from hardcore to casual. Patch 3.3.5 was icing on the cake.

Shifting away from WotLK formula was a huge mistake, WotLK literally pleased everybody and that's why it had over 12 million subscribers, I don't remember disliking anything, it simply was the best.

From the dialogue and the background story, the music, the atmosphere, villain and artwork. Everything fits perfectly. The gameplay was good and the community really was different in Wrath. There was no LFR. No cross-realm zones.

Naxx, ICC, Ulduar, TOC, the chopper, the mammoths, beautiful zones with amazing musical ambience and great quest lines. Wintergrasp was fun, VoA was a neat way to gear up, especially for alts.

The accessibility ICC had was amazing, you could pug it and still down things because Ventrilo etc.

I can honestly say I haven't even had half the amount of fun in the game as I did in wrath. Chain running dungeons back then was a blast. the 10 man raid was fun and manageable with a group of friends. It was a total blast. Pugs were amazing.

Class mechanics were a lot more fun, warriors in particular, stance dancing made them incredibly fun.

There was a lot of class uniqueness, not everyone had interrupts, not everyone had dispel protection, unfortunately Blizzard ruined everything with their "Bring the Player Not the Class" philosophy.

[Spotnick]

Because the content of WOTLK is still in the game.

While Vanilla was removed when they did Cataclysm.

[Kokolums]

Wrath was terrible. HP was blown out of proportion at lvl 1, so leveling felt like you were wearing one of those fake sumo wrestler suits and you just bounced off mobs. DKs were too strong and ruined PvP in the 50s and 60s brackets. the 5 man dungeons were stupid easy. i unsubbed in disgust when naxx was current content. i came back for ICC to try the raid which was pretty good. i dont miss wrath tho.

[C J]

WotLK was the sweet spot. From pvp to pve, from hardcore to casual. Patch 3.3.5 was icing on the cake.

Shifting away from WotLK formula was a huge mistake, WotLK literally pleased everybody and that's why it had over 12 million subscribers, I don't remember disliking anything, it simply was the best.

From the dialogue and the background story, the music, the atmosphere, villain and artwork. Everything fits perfectly. The gameplay was good and the community really was different in Wrath. There was no LFR. No cross-realm zones.

Naxx, ICC, Ulduar, TOC, the chopper, the mammoths, beautiful zones with amazing musical ambience and great quest lines. Wintergrasp was fun, VoA was a neat way to gear up, especially for alts.

The accessibility ICC had was amazing, you could pug it and still down things because Ventrilo etc.

I can honestly say I haven't even had half the amount of fun in the game as I did in wrath. Chain running dungeons back then was a blast. the 10 man raid was fun and manageable with a group of friends. It was a total blast. Pugs were amazing.

Class mechanics were a lot more fun, warriors in particular, stance dancing made them incredibly fun.

There was a lot of class uniqueness, not everyone had interrupts, not everyone had dispel protection, unfortunately Blizzard ruined everything with their "Bring the Player Not the Class" philosophy.

I personally agree with this (though didn't start till BC), but for me WotLK was by far the best experience in the game, loved every part of it, especially the music <3

[Zdrasti]

Vanilla and to a degree TBC were dramatically different in design from the rest of the expansions. Wotlk and everything else follows the same basic formula with varying degrees of success.

[Vineri]

Why not have all, or a Vanilla server that progresses to WotLK over 5-6 years. With patch / progression as it would have happened 2004-2010.

When Cataclysm comes out, it would be customary to unsubscribe, as a sign of respect.

[RoKPaNda]

I enjoyed WotLK, but I enjoyed Vanilla WoW more.

The sweet spot for PvP was definitely not Wrath. lol. PvP died in mid-TBC. Wintergrasp was pretty one sided, the only reason it got a lot of interest was because of VoA. I did enjoy 10 man raiding, but that was fun in Cata as well.

[Vineri]

WotLK was the sweet spot. From pvp to pve, from hardcore to casual. Patch 3.3.5 was icing on the cake.

Shifting away from WotLK formula was a huge mistake, WotLK literally pleased everybody and that's why it had over 12 million subscribers, I don't remember disliking anything, it simply was the best.

From the dialogue and the background story, the music, the atmosphere, villain and artwork. Everything fits perfectly. The gameplay was good and the community really was different in Wrath. There was no LFR. No cross-realm zones.

Naxx, ICC, Ulduar, TOC, the chopper, the mammoths, beautiful zones with amazing musical ambience and great quest lines. Wintergrasp was fun, VoA was a neat way to gear up, especially for alts.

The accessibility ICC had was amazing, you could pug it and still down things because Ventrilo etc.

I can honestly say I haven't even had half the amount of fun in the game as I did in wrath. Chain running dungeons back then was a blast. the 10 man raid was fun and manageable with a group of friends. It was a total blast. Pugs were amazing.

Class mechanics were a lot more fun, warriors in particular, stance dancing made them incredibly fun.

There was a lot of class uniqueness, not everyone had interrupts, not everyone had dispel protection, unfortunately Blizzard ruined everything with their "Bring the Player Not the Class" philosophy.

I'd only call you out, that LFG was a precursor to LFR and LFG was introduced worth WotLK. When LFG came out, subs started falling mid WotLK.

[F1reheart]

Why would people rather have a Vanilla server than a WotlK server?

They do want a wrath server


But we gotta start somewhere. The idea is that we'd get vanilla, progress through patches in a blizzlike manner then launch a TBC server, etc etc.

[Relapses]

The title of this thread should be "Do you want a blue unicorn or a green unicorn?" because there's no tangible possibility of either version of these Legacy realms happening.

[Deleted]

WotLK was the sweet spot. From pvp to pve, from hardcore to casual. Patch 3.3.5 was icing on the cake.

Shifting away from WotLK formula was a huge mistake, WotLK literally pleased everybody and that's why it had over 12 million subscribers, I don't remember disliking anything, it simply was the best.

From the dialogue and the background story, the music, the atmosphere, villain and artwork. Everything fits perfectly. The gameplay was good and the community really was different in Wrath. There was no LFR. No cross-realm zones.

Naxx, ICC, Ulduar, TOC, the chopper, the mammoths, beautiful zones with amazing musical ambience and great quest lines. Wintergrasp was fun, VoA was a neat way to gear up, especially for alts.

The accessibility ICC had was amazing, you could pug it and still down things because Ventrilo etc.

I can honestly say I haven't even had half the amount of fun in the game as I did in wrath. Chain running dungeons back then was a blast. the 10 man raid was fun and manageable with a group of friends. It was a total blast. Pugs were amazing.

Class mechanics were a lot more fun, warriors in particular, stance dancing made them incredibly fun.

There was a lot of class uniqueness, not everyone had interrupts, not everyone had dispel protection, unfortunately Blizzard ruined everything with their "Bring the Player Not the Class" philosophy.

I actually agree, they should have kept the formula but just tweaked around the edges.

[zephid]

WotLK was the sweet spot. From pvp to pve, from hardcore to casual. Patch 3.3.5 was icing on the cake.

That's your opinion. I liked Vanilla and TBC better than WotLK.

[RoKPaNda]

I'd only call you out, that LFG was a precursor to LFR and LFG was introduced worth WotLK. When LFG came out, subs started falling mid WotLK.

That's a joke right? Giving people things to do at end game did not make subs drop off. That's an absolutely ridiculous notion.

[Avaddon]

Jesus christ another one of these threads.. It was not 'simply' the best time in WoW, the amount of flak ToC got was fucking extraordinary and PvP was fucking so far from balanced. DK's / Ret's / Warrs with SM and DBW were fucking one shotting clothies / leather wearers because of Armor Pen. Wintergrasp was great, ICC was good but was out for too long, Ulduar was absolutely incredible, Naxx was okay, Ruby Sanctum was pretty meh. And apart from WG / Grand Tournament dailies there wasn't really a whole lot to do in the world.

This is why Blizzard pumps out shit games, people complain and fucking whinge and then the next expansion sucks balls even worse and people are like "AH REMEMBER BACK IN THE PREVIOUS EXPAC HOW WELL WE HAD IT! SUCH GOOD TIMES!" when really it wasn't that great, it was just better than the current state of it.

It's too late for Blizzard to make any drastic changes to the game at this point and revert the shitty ones, however I would like to see them at least incrementally test small things, for example the LFG concept was great when it wasn't cross-realm and didn't auto teleport you there. I think returning to that system or at least trialing it for a month and getting feedback would be great. There are so many old designs and concepts that they could use to improve the game as they're moving FORWARD.

People need to remember this game needs to move forward, not backwards. There is so much fantastic lore in this game that should be told and experienced by us; it's just a matter of how blizzard presents it to us in a playable format. I think a company that doesn't try new things is doomed to fail rather than a company that does try new things but learns from their mistakes.

I understand the options of all these spells in our spellbook was something that gave us a lot of variety in playstyles but pruning them and perhaps adding more abilities that could prove to be more useful is always a choice they can make in the future. To make things clear I am not a fan-boy standing up for Blizzard, I have played since vanilla and experienced all there is to offer, do I think WoD was an absolute piece of shit garbage, somewhat yes. But there have always been things in every expac that have pissed me off. If anyone remembers BM hunters when season 1 of arena started you would know even BC had its fair share of issues.

TL;DR WoW and its players need to move forward, but Blizzard needs to incorporate feedback into how they can present this to us in something at least the majority can enjoy.

[hulkgor]

Because WotLK suffers from the current WoW's problems.

Vanilla is a lot different than any other expansion\time period, and it was a vastly more social and engaging\immersive experience.

Hence why people enjoy it.

I'd fucking play the shit out of a vanilla legacy realm, maybe even TBC, but nothing after that. If i wanted to play a poop exp, might aswell just stay on the live version.

Also, half of WOTLK raids sucked balls. Naxx rehash sucked and was way too easy, ToC was utter crap, and both sartharion and malygos sucked as raid encounters. and yes, even if Ulduar was amazing... that alone didn't save the expansion.

[Bryntrollian]

I'd only call you out, that LFG was a precursor to LFR and LFG was introduced worth WotLK. When LFG came out, subs started falling mid WotLK.

Thats funny, because subs didn't actually drop off until a month or two into Cataclysm...

[Avaddon]

Because WotLK suffers from the current WoW's problems.

Vanilla is a lot different than any other expansion\time period, and it was a vastly more social and engaging\immersive experience.

Hence why people enjoy it.

I'd fucking play the shit out of a vanilla legacy realm, maybe even TBC, but nothing after that. If i wanted to play a poop exp, might aswell just stay on the live version.

Also, half of WOTLK raids sucked balls. Naxx rehash sucked and was way too easy, ToC was utter crap, and both sartharion and malygos sucked as raid encounters. and yes, even if Ulduar was amazing... that alone didn't save the expansion.

There's no "if" Ulduar was perhaps the best raid to make it into the history of WoW, each and every fight was unique, varying in difficulty and there were enough bosses to keep it interesting for awhile. Its what raid designers should be using as inspiration. Sure HFC has 13 bosses but heroic and mythic have no mechanics that have any 'wow!' factor. Although I haven't killed M Manno / Archie yet but even if they did have some sort of wow factor mechanics thats only 2/13 bosses that are actually great.

But yeah I just think raids these days are missing those mechanics that keep you engaged, I think ToT had a few good fights, Lei Shen was definitely interesting on Normal and Heroic, Garalon was fun too, Idk I could probably pick and choose bosses throughout many expacs that kept me and my guild engaged and made the game fun. And I enjoyed doing The Undying / The Immortal as well as Champion / Conq of ULD I thought they were an added bonus of content that kept things interesting too.

[Kahmal]

WoTLK is where Blizzard shot themselves in the foot. I say it all the time. Your right is was a great sweetspot between but it's design was what lead to WoW's decline.

Vanilla was Vanilla, it was great but had it's problems, TBC improved on Vanilla and fixed many of it's problems. WoTLK...instead of improving and building off TBC they decided to shake things up and make dramatic changes. It's something they do with every xpac now sadly.

Leveling content was a joke in WoTLK you could plow through groups of mobs no problem, mobs weren't tooned to be nearly as challenging as they were in TBC. At max level in Vanilla and TBC I would often need to ask my friends for helping killing certain mobs, WoTLK Elite mobs were easy to solo down. The need of companions started to dwindle.

5 man Heroics became an AoE fest, while previously in Vanilla and TBC each pull had to be done carefully if not cleverly avoided all together.

Crafting got streamlined. This is what started the gold inflation. Before if you wanted to craft an epic you normally had to go out and farm the mats, the mats were so simple to get now though you could just craft epics on your CD rotation and continue flipping them on the AH. TBC and Vanilla, this "World Content" that we miss so much was very much fueled by the need for gold just to get by and pay for basic things such as your repair bills (who complains about repairs these days?). Aside from Daily Hubs we would farm up Elemental Plateau or Tyrs Hand in Vanilla.

WoTLK had no solid raiding philosophy either. I think the best sweet spot was the actual "Hard Mode" difficulty, of 3D Sarth and Ulduar. What made these great is it provided challenge for those sought it and additional loot. This made it feel optional and not just another tier of progression. It also felt so much more organic, by meeting criteria to fight the boss in it's hardest form other then just entering in a higher difficulty. 3D Sarth for example was hard because you fight Sarth with the 3 dragons you neglected to kill. Yogg was harder because you refuse the keepers help, etc. More importantly Hard Mode only dropped a few extra pieces of loot. ICC and ToGC for some reason added an entire new tier of loot inflating the living hell out of item levels. I would like to see the math on what ilvls should be had it not been for so many difficulties.

And the truth is since everyone has access to the final raid now at launch, people run out of content faster. The sub dropp off was no where near as dramatic during Vanilla and TBC, this is because most people in Vanilla haven't even cleared BWL (Hell I never killed Rag). In TBC most people never cleared BT let alone Sunwell, most just got through Kara and were lucky to be mid way through Tier 5. The pacing was far slower and there was something for most players to work towards.

All of these problems bled into future expacs.

[Dhrizzle]

WotLK made some big changes to core parts of the game and not necessarily for the better.

Mobs in the world became much less threatening, the first tier of raiding had Naxx set to current LFR difficulties and 2 dragons that took way too long to kill for the loot. Daily quests were like a list of chores you had to complete for pocket-money, TotC was a failed experiment which, combined with the fact I was sick to death of snow and skulls, put me off raiding ICC. Justice badges meant you would keep running the same old dungeons for new loot despite wearing gear several tiers higher than the intended, even though entry-level gear made then AoE snooze-fests (birth of the "gogogo" mentality.) Prot warriors went from being fun and challenging to basically DPS who charge in first.

On the plus side destro-locks probably had their most enjoyable iteration midway through the expansion, there was some top-notch lore involving the Titans and the origins of the gnomes/humans/dwarfs/dragons, Ulduar was a magnificent raid and the terrain design was a massive step up from Vanilla and TBC.

[Daffan]

WotLK was the sweet spot. From pvp to pve, from hardcore to casual. Patch 3.3.5 was icing on the cake.

Shifting away from WotLK formula was a huge mistake, WotLK literally pleased everybody and that's why it had over 12 million subscribers, I don't remember disliking anything, it simply was the best.

From the dialogue and the background story, the music, the atmosphere, villain and artwork. Everything fits perfectly. The gameplay was good and the community really was different in Wrath. There was no LFR. No cross-realm zones.

Naxx, ICC, Ulduar, TOC, the chopper, the mammoths, beautiful zones with amazing musical ambience and great quest lines. Wintergrasp was fun, VoA was a neat way to gear up, especially for alts.

The accessibility ICC had was amazing, you could pug it and still down things because Ventrilo etc.

I can honestly say I haven't even had half the amount of fun in the game as I did in wrath. Chain running dungeons back then was a blast. the 10 man raid was fun and manageable with a group of friends. It was a total blast. Pugs were amazing.

Class mechanics were a lot more fun, warriors in particular, stance dancing made them incredibly fun.

There was a lot of class uniqueness, not everyone had interrupts, not everyone had dispel protection, unfortunately Blizzard ruined everything with their "Bring the Player Not the Class" philosophy.

Toc 5 man and icc 5 mans were lame. ICC had accessability because they skipped everyone past everything else with 5 man gear, not long later - everyone ran out of content and they had to make ruby sanctum.