Why Vanilla WoW?

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

You mean like the thousands of players playing on unofficial legacy servers not realizing how boring and shitty it is?

They're playing for free in most cases and thousands isn't that much when an mmo needs 300,000 or more to keep the doors open. I don't care if blizzard adds legacy severs or not but they play a free version of the game. Let's see what happen when they have to pay for access.

[Deleted]

There are a lot of games that do come close now though and if WoW was still the same game it was in vanilla, you'd be alone with your 20 friends in that game... Or more likely, it would be long dead.

You don't know that. If instead of totally destroying the battle system in 3.0, they persisted on improving it (without altering its core elements as they did at the time) as they did in TBC (by fixing a lot of the broken specs) nobody knows what would have happened because it simply hasn't been done and no MMORPG has been released since the mid 2000s with such a game design.

Yeah, there was nothing that even came close to WoW at the time.
There are a lot of games that do come close now

No, not really. At least no MMORPG (which is a declining genre). For an uneducated player games might be similar to what once was before 2009, but in reality no games come currently close in game design to how MMORPG were designed in the early 2000s (and that's why some players ask for wow vanilla). Which is a huge opportunity for developers currently.

I m not saying things were perfect back then but the games evolution since then strayed in the wrong direction, especially in regard to the battle system.

[deniter]

Yeah, there was nothing that even came close to WoW at the time.
There are a lot of games that do come close now though and if WoW was still the same game it was in vanilla, you'd be alone with your 20 friends in that game... Or more likely, it would be long dead.

What are these games you're refering to? I haven't spent a dime in MMOs since 2010 and i'm currently trapped in vanilla WoW only. All the new ones crash and burn left and right or are PvP action games.

[Deleted]

Why Vanilla?

Well...

Why not?

[Edison]

They're playing for free in most cases and thousands isn't that much when an mmo needs 300,000 or more to keep the doors open. I don't care if blizzard adds legacy severs or not but they play a free version of the game. Let's see what happen when they have to pay for access.

Why would people flock to vanilla private servers if vanilla is so bad and not just play the current version-private servers? Almost everyone I asked whilst
playing on a vanilla-realm would be willing to pay for it.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Why would people flock to vanilla private servers if vanilla is so bad and not just play the current version-private servers? Almost everyone I asked whilst
playing on a vanilla-realm would be willing to pay for it.

It could be comformation bias and I personally played on a private server because it was free. There is a zero percent chance I would ever pay for legacy access. They can flock because they enjoy vanilla and it's free.

There are fully scripted vanilla servers with working naxxaramas and world content. I personally think it's naive to assume everyone will hope on board or move to legacy wants money gets involved.

There are no fully scripted working version of live wow to compare with vanilla. They're all in development while they're in progress and other legacy servers are closers to compleltion. I thinks that's a pretty big factor but we'll see.

[Joeydivision82]

I'm just waiting for someone to say Vanilla sucked because Paladin gear dropped for Horde and Shaman gear dropped for Alliance, when in reality that was only the final stretch of Vanilla during the prepatch event.

[Varaben]

U know? Nostalgia. Pretty much just this.

And probably becouse some people miss the old vanilla more rpg-like old style gameplay, even if it would be broken, unbalanced and bordeline unplayable for moder's day standards.

What I don't understand though, is when people say "just" nostalgia. Because nostalgia is as valid of an emotion as anything else. Would we say a game is "just" fun? or has "just" replayability? or "just" graphics? Nostalgia does mean that it may not appeal to new players, since they are comparing a very old game to today's options, but that's OK. Vanilla WoW still had more players than the vast majority of MMOs out there, even today.

For me, it's partly nostalgia, partly the fact that things took a while and thus felt like achievements. The gear treadmill being so fast today doesn't feel like an achievement once you've gotten there. Do you feel good about having 870 or 880 gear, relative to having full T1 or T2 back in Vanilla? Of course not, because it was easier and took less time. \

Just like in life, kids who are handed everything (i.e. born with a silver spoon) don't typically appreciate the hard work it took to get there. They take it for granted. The same is true with today's WoW. You're handed opportunities and so is everyone else. You don't have to toil to get 850 or 860 ilevel. You can just queue up for LFR and you're well on your way.

It's obviously not everyone's cup of tea, but there is clearly a following for this kind of gameplay, as evidenced by the thousands of concurrent players on certain less than legal servers out there.

[Pull My Finger]

This is so stupid. The game was more popular back then than it is now. Yes, it was new and the market was different - but to pretend everything was worse is just ridiculous.

It'd be like me saying all music today is better than all music in the 80's, and if you think differently it's just nostalgia. It's stupid.

Bad comparison. The game today is objectively better than the game 12 years ago. So, that's that. To me, claiming otherwise is what's "stupid".

People aren't in touch with their own feelings. That's all. It's perfectly evident all the time through the fact that you hardly ever see accurate descriptions and opinions about Vanilla WoW. Nobody knows what they're talking about, really. It's human. There's the idealized memory of the past and there's reality. Very often two different things. And people just confuse how they felt back then with how the game was. It's like calling your first girlfriend your best and deepest relationship ever just because you have this idealized memory of the "first love" that naturally feels different than everything that came after it.

So yeah, nostalgia all the way.

[Edison]

It could be comformation bias and I personally played on a private server because it was free. There is a zero percent chance I would ever pay for legacy access. They can flock because they enjoy vanilla and it's free.

There are fully scripted vanilla servers with working naxxaramas and world content. I personally think it's naive to assume everyone will hope on board or move to legacy wants money gets involved.

There are no fully scripted working version of live wow to compare with vanilla. They're all in development while they're in progress and other legacy servers are closers to compleltion. I thinks that's a pretty big factor but we'll see.

Yeah I don't have any doubts about that, ofcourse some people wouldn't want to pay for it.
But the people I played with are grown ups that can afford 12 euros a month and enjoys vanilla, so naturally they would pay for a official server.

Not gonna touch the subject on if blizzard would make a profit tho, I have no clue about that.

- - - Updated - - -

Bad comparison. The game today is objectively better than the game 12 years ago. So, that's that. To me, claiming otherwise is what's "stupid".

People aren't in touch with their own feelings. That's all. It's perfectly evident all the time through the fact that you hardly ever see accurate descriptions and opinions about Vanilla WoW. Nobody knows what they're talking about, really. It's human. There's the idealized memory of the past and there's reality. Very often two different things. And people just confuse how they felt back then with how the game was. It's like calling your first girlfriend your best and deepest relationship ever just because you have this idealized memory of the "first love" that naturally feels different than everything that came after it.

So yeah, nostalgia all the way.

Indeed, any game that wasn't made in the last 2 years is just bad. And people who wants to play them just suffer from a bad case of nostalgia, stupid people! You can only enjoy current games, that's a fact!

[Revi]

Bad comparison. The game today is objectively better than the game 12 years ago. So, that's that. To me, claiming otherwise is what's "stupid".

People aren't in touch with their own feelings. That's all. It's perfectly evident all the time through the fact that you hardly ever see accurate descriptions and opinions about Vanilla WoW. Nobody knows what they're talking about, really. It's human. There's the idealized memory of the past and there's reality. Very often two different things. And people just confuse how they felt back then with how the game was. It's like calling your first girlfriend your best and deepest relationship ever just because you have this idealized memory of the "first love" that naturally feels different than everything that came after it.

So yeah, nostalgia all the way.

What objective criteria are you using to measure how good a game is?

And since those objective criteria exist and so easily used, why doesn't the game industry use them to make the best game in the world?

[Hyrja]

Excitement of getting blues, epics.
Community
No flying made the world look VERY large
and the most important thing: Nostalgia and reliving memories of the past.

[Deleted]

Well I can assure you it isn't a RPG at all anymore, on a game design standpoint.

This sounds extremely vague.. I don't know why Vanilla would be considered more of an RPG than Legion. There is really no reason to think that.
In fact, I'd say Legion is more of an RPG than Vanilla ever was, due to the mainquests.

If it's about people not raiding Undercity anymore or something like that, well, that's up to the players - not the game.
They never rewarded raiding cities, other than that bear mount in TBC. Yet people did it. Nowadays no one does it, but that's probably because the game actually offers a lot more now.

Is this supposed to say that Vanilla was more of an RPG, because you had to "imagine" everything?
Are RPG supposed to have you click only 1 spell or something, or shouldn't it have any QoL stuff in it? I really don't understand that statement.
-----------------------------------------

If there is one thing that Vanilla has over wow right now, is that you have to commit to it more.
But if I'd want to play something like that, I'd go for FF14 honestly... because grinding is real in that game, and so are professions.

[Pull My Finger]

Indeed, any game that wasn't made in the last 2 years is just bad. And people who wants to play them just suffer from a bad case of nostalgia, stupid people! You can only enjoy current games, that's a fact!

Never said that, why are you saying such silly things, is there a problem?

[Aggrophobic]

What are these games you're refering to? I haven't spent a dime in MMOs since 2010 and i'm currently trapped in vanilla WoW only. All the new ones crash and burn left and right or are PvP action games.

You kidding right? There are thousands of games on Steam, Origin, everywhere.
You did not have close to the amount of choice in games back in 04 compared to what you have today. A few of my friends that I started playing WoW with play Tera. I've played alot of SWToR and still do now and again.
Theres games like LoL, Overwatch, CSGO

Also, if you don't pay for your games, no wonder they are crashing "left and right", eh?

In any case, playing on private servers is stealing and no matter how much you want vanilla back, you're doing to wrong.

[Pull My Finger]

What objective criteria are you using to measure how good a game is?

Why make this disingenuous global discussion out of it? Let's stick to WoW, that's what we're talking about here.

Everything about current WoW is better than Vanilla. Questing, for example, is lightyears ahead of the early stuff. They've become so much better at telling stories in outdoor content. The quests are both more convenient in the right spots and offering a way bigger variety of gameplay, always having interesting stuff here and there that's a change from the usual "bring X of Y" formula. The pacing is infinitely better.

Do we need to discuss graphics, zone design, geography, architecture, music, cinematics? Come on.

Newer dungeons and raid bosses are infinitely more interesting, complex, challenging and creative and they're coming up with really cool ways to get more interesting gameplay out of the old trinity model.

There's so much more stuff to do in the game, and way more freedom to play the game the way it fits you best, make more of your online time and have fun. There's stuff in there for everyone. You can go all out in terms of collecting, cosmetics etc. Raids are constantly high quality. Dungeons are finally awesome again. There's tons of fun outdoor stuff to do. There's a adequate difficulty setting for any type of player.

Classes and specs are a million times better. No spec is "broken" (no matter how much all the dorks are using this term to justify their childish whining), you're not pigeonholed into one particular role, every spec has something interesting and flavory about them, the rotations and playstyles currently strike a perfect balance between accessibility, straight-forward, fast-paced gameplay, but also intricate mechanics that are easy to learn but still offer a high ceiling for "optimum" if that's what you're going for.

UI, accessibility and QoL has improved so much since then. The game is more customizable than ever, there's good tools for everything, and there's so many different systems in place to find groups, make friends, tune into the game, manage your time etc.

So all in all - design is better, practical gameplay is better, aesthetics are better, wealth and variety of content is better, accessibility and usability is better, so really, what in the world are you nostalgiacs talking about.

And since those objective criteria exist and so easily used, why doesn't the game industry use them to make the best game in the world?

Again - why the nonsense, let's stick to WoW? That's indeed what Blizzard is doing. They're making the best WoW ever today. So.

Also - a global reply to your global question: in martial arts, if you know your opponent, know his fighting style and physique and know what he's good at, what he's bad at and you know the "correct" gameplan to beating him - how come people still lose?

[salate]

There are alot of people who cant move on and live with nostalgia. All I liked in Vanilla > alot of wall jumping and locations which we had no clue about (like closed grim batol, caverns of time, uldum gates... Many islands without story (south tanaris, or southern-west of stranglethorn)). I love the game for its secrets. Looking back... I understand that game became MUCH better. Yes, we lack community, but does it hard to make a new one with Battle Tag nowadays? You like a player, you give him your btag, you jump together in joy. You can always ask your friend to tank for you a mythic or do a load quests. The world was different, we had to deal with elite quests > thats why we needed people to join.

Damn, I still remember how people cried in Cata "The game is easy we want harder stuff", when Cata heroics went live... DAMN ITS TOO HARD TO HANDLE, PLEASE NERF. Like wtf?

So, no matter how hard nostalgia hits you, we should move on. Trying to relive some past events = you will be disapprointed 100% agree.
(Some people want to feel so cool with one shots, but it's, i guess, their personal problems, lol )

The Legion is the best Xpac for me. I really like to play DH and Hunter. Thanks BLizzard, I guess, you do damn great job!

[Sfinna]

I played during vanillia; I was a 14 year old girl back then with a ton of free time. I loved it.

But I'd never go back.

I try not to let nostalgia affect my views. If I'm going to be honest, the game was much worse back then.

[Atherius]

As a player who first started WoW in cataclysm and have 28 days on Kronos Vanilla server as well as 16 days in Legion, i'll go quickly over the things that I like about vanilla

- More social than Legion and people are much less toxic. There's no crossrealm so people tend to care more about what they say and also helps out eachother. The guilds help eachother out with the making of legendary items since they require A LOT of materials from raids. There is of course the douchebags and goldsellers in chats, but they're not a big issue if gm's do their job. (this can change from server to server, but this is my experience)

- The content isn't outdated as soon as the next tier is released. There's always the reason to go into molten core for a BIS legendary in vanilla, or BIS trinkets from Blackwing Lair. Not a big thing, but it's worth mentioning. Could ofcourse be seen as a negative thing that you're forced to do outdated content for that 1% dropchance, but I think it's the opposite

- Epics don't grow on trees. They're not hard to get once you start raiding, but then again only 2-4 items drops per boss for a 40m raid. That's not a lot, and getting items actually feels good in vanilla Then again, not getting anything for a month sucks balls, but I didn't feel that was a big thing (atleast to me). The joy of getting a BIS item at the end was worth it

- It was fun and something new. I hadn't been to 50% of the areas I discovered while questing between 1-60 when I leveled up in cata.

Just my few cents. Overall, Legion is a much better game as a whole, but I still think vanilla was fun. And at the end of the day, that's what matters Fun!

[Deleted]

It's just so different .. Current game is really an arms race farming stuff getting stronger all the time.

Vanilla can be completely pointless shit that you can just enjoy and have fun with, and community actually matters in vanilla compared to current WoW.