One simple thing that made old WoW better than modern WoW.

[Wilfire]

Old WoW had clear-cut goals and a structured character progression path to follow. You would do dungeons and heroics until you got BiS and then you would put dungeon-grinding on the backburner and stick to doing only the daily heroic for badges etc. You would do dailies for an X amount of days until you got your desired reward (be it vanity pets from Argent Tournament or enchants from Sons of Hodir). You would finish a raid and then move onto alts or other aspects of the game.

Modern WoW trades this progression path for a set of rather nebulous goals. You keep running WQs (which are really just dailies), normals, heroics and mythics indefinitely because you can almost never get BiS from them (and legendaries are by far the worst offender, being extremely rare and boosting character power in very strong ways). This is exacerbated by the fact and you can now get raid-equivalent gear from aforementioned content. Rep gains have become grinds (WoD) and more recently randomized grinds (Legion). You keep running raids including lower difficulties even after clearing them for a chance at warforged / socket / tertiary. Basically, the game is built in a way that has you endlessly chasing a carrot on a stick. In my opinion, games being "beatable" is one of the staples of gaming that shouldn't be sacrificed in favor of "endless content".

tl;dr I don't really feel my character growing when I'm running the same dungeons on the 365th day of the expansions as on the 1st.

[Mad_Murdock]

You don't beat a game, you finish it. When you are finish, either quit playing or find a different reason to play. Not much has changed other than the window dressing

I'm never got to run Normal mode dungeons just because there is some rare chance it might drop heroic loot. it unlikely I'll be running LFR just because it might drop something I want, unless maybe it's piece 4 of a set.

Only a small percentage of people are going to do everything over and over because someone else is making them.

[Battlebeard]

Where do you draw the line between old and modern WoW?

You speak of daily HCs, and I think of TBC. Then Argent Tournament, which is obviously WotLK.

Is anything pre-Legion old?

I'm just curious, because to me, old WoW is Vanilla, and rest is more or less modern. Cause the difference is THAT huge. More changes from Vanilla to TBC than from TBC to Legion more or less.

[Darktbs]

--SNIP--

Don't post spam

[Ratyrel]

I don't think you really have an argument. Any stage of WoW was grindy, "old WoW" more so than any other (remember Furbolg feathers? 40 man raids with awful gear chances?). Mythic+, the only real difference introduced in Legion, is simply an alternative to raiding, which of course remains finite or "beatable".

[Deleted]

Old WoW had clear-cut goals and a structured character progression path to follow. You would do dungeons and heroics until you got BiS and then you would put dungeon-grinding on the backburner and stick to doing only the daily heroic for badges etc. You would do dailies for an X amount of days until you got your desired reward (be it vanity pets from Argent Tournament or enchants from Sons of Hodir). You would finish a raid and then move onto alts or other aspects of the game.

Modern WoW trades this progression path for a set of rather nebulous goals. You keep running WQs (which are really just dailies), normals, heroics and mythics indefinitely because you can almost never get BiS from them (and legendaries are by far the worst offender, being extremely rare and boosting character power in very strong ways). This is exacerbated by the fact and you can now get raid-equivalent gear from aforementioned content. Rep gains have become grinds (WoD) and more recently randomized grinds (Legion). You keep running raids including lower difficulties even after clearing them for a chance at warforged / socket / tertiary. Basically, the game is built in a way that has you endlessly chasing a carrot on a stick. In my opinion, games being "beatable" is one of the staples of gaming that shouldn't be sacrificed in favor of "endless content".

tl;dr I don't really feel my character growing when I'm running the same dungeons on the 365th day of the expansions as on the 1st.

So by old WoW you mean Wrath? What about Vanilla? Vanilla had no heroic dungeons. In Vanilla you did a handful of dungeons, or you farmed stuff or you raided a little bit depending on how good you were, how much time you had and how many friends you had that would take you with them.

You complain about running the same dungeons over and over? You think Vanilla or even TBC and Wrath were better? In Vanilla you had even fewer choices, with Stratholme, Scholomance and Blackrock Spire.

[Deleted]

Ehhhmm... i'm i the only finding it like playing the same game as it was but with more polished and profound elements?
I mean even the expansions that we say they sucked... it was the story that sucked/be not interesting or the content releases (yes Cata 1 year DS) ... or things like those.
Or pretty stupid content (like garisssons, but i remember in TBC me trying to find quests in Swamp of sorrows...and i just couldn't- pretty empty area aka shitty content).
Balance issues were like...always in WoW since vanilla. It got more balanced, it dropped again, then it became balanced again..(it's more of a start/end expansion thing than a whole expansion).
Or rep grind, there was always a rep grind for one thing or another...
Professions... you do less things than you used to do, maybe a bit less meaningful expansion after expansion.., on the other hand they are less grindy..
If i had a problem with after WOtLK expansions ... it was merely balance issues...or story issues ...
pEven teh so called "better" gear/talents customization, well... there was always the cookie cutter thing... It still is, sometimes less sometimes more...
Gear...again... You needed those stats,again you need those stats...
In a more casual gameplay now it is more friendly and that's not really a problem... since it doesn't actually mean casual=bad, more likely it is casual=less interested in competition/tends towards fun... he can be a good player and a hardcore can be a total garbage and many times they have an annoying attitude that makes them even more garbage as human beings- which MATTERS.
As for new players...there is a bad and a good thing combined. Leveling is just too fast... i mean, you can have an 110 in 1-2 weeks, without really burning yourself...but without actually understanding things... for example, level 40 people don't know s---t about their class/mechanics etc., and it's not that someone will sit and explain them...They get less familiar with their skills.. and they are actually learning to be half decent at 100 or now at 110... And another fact, they don't really learn the games history... does it matter? Yes and no... If you know what are you playing you get more attached to it...Now it's like changing continents and just learn the current history out of nowhere... For someone that just came in the game... it just doesn't matter till 110... At least they could throw some scinematics to explain some things for people that can be interested in learning the lore a bit...like when you change expansion content...Like: " this a story, when heroes faced Lich King Arthas...a great battle took place/him him and her died...her/him/him became heroes and warchiefs and blablabla story" it doesn't ahve to be a movie...just some things to clear things out for them...
Thus it might tone up the immension before last levels/content...

Everything else, it's the same game...and maybe that's why we like it in a way..

[Shadowferal]

Today's WoW; if "fun" is detected, it's gets nerfed.

[Sabever]

Today's WoW; if "fun" is detected, it's gets nerfed.

So true. Or, we keep telling the devs what we want and they say, no you don't you want this thing that caused massive sub losses instead.

[Pony Soldier]

This sounds more like a WotLK baby going on about how WotLK was the best expansion. Calling it "old WoW" is one giveaway.

Anyway this topic of "old WoW is better than new WoW" is getting really old. People who say "old WoW" is better than modern day WoW are out of their minds and blinded by nostalgia. As someone who played since the late vanilla days, if I had a chance to change WoW back to what it was, I wouldn't even think of it. Back then WoW felt like it had no direction, it was just all over the place with it's classes, talents, and quests and was just an overall complicated mess. WoW was like that one kid in school who was a nice kid but was always disorganized and dropping papers and forgetting things.

Today, WoW is more organized, refined, polished, and dumped all the useless garbage we all THOUGHT we needed but really we didn't and as a result made the game make more sense and simpler to understand instead of having to do some kind of research project to figure out how the game works. What Blizzard did was make WoW more user friendly and as much as I get annoyed with Blizzard and their decisions on certain things I must say they did a pretty damn awesome job overall especially in Legion.

With that being said WoW is still the same game. It just had some spring cleaning done and has been reorganized to make things neater and more accessible. The problem is people can't adapt to the changes and just look back at "old WoW" and say that it was better only because they were used to how it was back then. Change it up a bit and it's suddenly "WoW is dead" or "WoW sucks now it's too casual" because you know the more complex the game is the better it is. We should be playing WoW with paper, pen, and a graphing calculator, that's hardcore!

[wladimir89]

Old wow was like a 18-20 yo girl with full glow and now she is in her 30s,lost all her glow.

[SteveRocks]

Old WoW had clear-cut goals and a structured character progression path to follow. You would do dungeons and heroics until you got BiS and then you would put dungeon-grinding on the backburner and stick to doing only the daily heroic for badges etc. You would do dailies for an X amount of days until you got your desired reward (be it vanity pets from Argent Tournament or enchants from Sons of Hodir). You would finish a raid and then move onto alts or other aspects of the game.

Modern WoW trades this progression path for a set of rather nebulous goals. You keep running WQs (which are really just dailies), normals, heroics and mythics indefinitely because you can almost never get BiS from them (and legendaries are by far the worst offender, being extremely rare and boosting character power in very strong ways). This is exacerbated by the fact and you can now get raid-equivalent gear from aforementioned content. Rep gains have become grinds (WoD) and more recently randomized grinds (Legion). You keep running raids including lower difficulties even after clearing them for a chance at warforged / socket / tertiary. Basically, the game is built in a way that has you endlessly chasing a carrot on a stick. In my opinion, games being "beatable" is one of the staples of gaming that shouldn't be sacrificed in favor of "endless content".

tl;dr I don't really feel my character growing when I'm running the same dungeons on the 365th day of the expansions as on the 1st.

The whole "carrot on a stick," style is part of what makes an MMO an MMO. Also, earning reputation with factions has always been a grind.

It sounds like you are new to WoW and that's great, but maybe the MMO genre is not for you if you want a sense of completion or finality.

[Staalsy]

Oh look an opinion stated as fact.

How quaint

Sent from my SM-G935P using Tapatalk

[shadowmouse]

Vanilla had one HUGE advantage over current wow. I didn't have to listen to players who were thirteen when WoW came out going on about their glory years and how much better things were then -- often years after they quit playing.

[Aradur]

One simple thing that made old WoW better then modern WoW: Nostalgia

/thread

[Cthulhu 2020]

Whenever someone makes a thread about how "WoW was better before because..."

They really should title it "What I liked about WoW years ago that isn't around any more"

Because hell, I've noticed some people have some pretty bad tastes when it comes to old stuff that used to be in this game.

From the sounds of it, OP started in Wrath, which means the game was still very much new and had that new game smell to it.

[Deleted]

lol, old WoW and heroics....

[Deleted]

They only thing I really miss is Servercommunities, and having to get to know people and meet them along the way while leveling. And if at 60 you were good, you got invited again to the next dungeon-run and made friendships. The only thing that I don't like today is the anonimity.

What i certainly will not miss is going scholomance for weeks when it was a 10man raid that took 2 1/2 hrs for a headpiece hat only hat int/spirit (Warlock). It took me around 50-60 runs to even see it drop, and after i had it i noticed that it was utter crap. Also I will never miss Tank-Pieces with spirit/int on them...

What I miss about bc was the early heroic-days as a fury-warrior. When every little mob cleaved for 50% of your health, you learn quickly how to stand behind mobs

[ShiyoKozuki]

Old WoW had clear-cut goals and a structured character progression path to follow. You would do dungeons and heroics until you got BiS and then you would put dungeon-grinding on the backburner and stick to doing only the daily heroic for badges etc. You would do dailies for an X amount of days until you got your desired reward (be it vanity pets from Argent Tournament or enchants from Sons of Hodir). You would finish a raid and then move onto alts or other aspects of the game.

WOTLK wasn't old WOW.
Old WOW was vanilla/TBC.

[Darkguyver2020]

Today's WoW; if "fun" is detected, it's gets nerfed.

When most peoples definition of "fun" is using items or mechanics in an unintended or exploitative way to bypass certain obstacles. (Brulfist idol, Emerald Winds and Rocfeather kite). Then yes, nerf "fun" into the ground, Blizzard!