What made classic wow better than current?

[Deleted]

The only thing I miss from 2008 (started exactly 9 years ago yesterday, coincidentally) is the feeling of freshness and being overwhelmed by the world, and the first time I stepped into Outland.

I am in the camp that believes the game gradually gets better (only declined in WoD in my opinion but even then I had things to do). In term of convenience, game play and overall fun? It is much better now in my case.

[Relapses]

My question was why are people still playing vanilla, if its so bad, like you claim?

...and? People playing on illegal private servers isn't proof of anything. People still play old ass SNES games. It doesn't mean that the games made decades ago are any better than the ones made today. It just means that some people enjoy different things and have different tastes in games. But just because there are people who enjoy Vanilla WoW emulation doesn't mean that it's somehow better than the retail version. In fact, if you were looking at it by the numbers retail players outnumber those on Vanilla realms nearly ten to one.

Ultimately, however, none of this means anything since you cannot prove the purely subjective opinion that one version of the game was an improvement over any of its other iterations.

[PewPewArrowz]

Class mechanics... sure. Ret Paladins aren't there yet still after all these years, but better than Vanilla. Fight design not so much, cause in my opinion Uldaur was the best raid ever with a hard mode that you had to trigger for each boss. That was epic. Art design is kinda lol? I like better in game art, but that's not going to make me more likely or less likely to play your game. I agree with GradeAUnderA here where I don't care about graphics when the gameplay sucks.

But the core element people keep overlooking is gameplay. Modern WoW's gameplay really sucks, and basically focuses on grinding. Vanilla WoW had difficulty, and really forced you to think about how you approached everything.



- - - Updated - - -



On my account I have an armor set you can't acquire anymore called SoulForge. Back in Vanilla you can upgrade your dungeon sets to a higher level with some nice stat boosts. I think in Cata they removed it and now you get transmog gear that looks like it from that monthly fair. That or have the corrupt ashbringer which is extremely hard to get your hands on.

And I have the Rhok'Delar, unobtainable since Wrath hit. I also had nearly full Crypstalker armor but since Bank space was a thing back then I vendored them at some point in time since I never even thought that transmog would become a thing, except the bow cause well its a quest item so its lodged into my account. Whats your point? The 0.5 Tier was just a random set of events that costed gold and time. You playing ret in Vanila is worrying as a thought since hybrids only existed on paper, we actually had a Shadow Priest in the guild, was always dead last on meters, but was a nice guy, didn't die to stupid shit and was an officer.

Please enlighten me what was difficult about Vanila WoW, since you are so proud of the 0.5 Tier you're flashing you must've been a hardcore dedicated raider, no?

- - - Updated - - -

My question was why are people still playing vanilla, if its so bad, like you claim?

- - - Updated - - -

I don't know mate, I'm trying to figure it out myself, I'm not here to pass judgement as to why people like stuff, but to argue with cold facts that actually were, like some say difficult etc.. I haven't played on a private Vanila server so I don't know the experience is the same, better or worse.

- - - Updated - - -

I know I have some of the PvP titles they put in Vanilla and some of the tabards. But I seem to remember them adding the titles back again so if that is true then that wouldn't work. The Feat of Strength achievements only really started in TBC so those wouldn't help either. I'm kinda stumped here on what proof there is that anyone could show.

You could literally screenshot the part where your sub is active, but its not about proof. Also those tittles are character bound I believe, I'm not able to use my Commander tittle on any other character apart my Hunter from Vanila.

[Cheze]

Thank you for being the high authority on this. Clearly you know more than any of us on any wow related subject.

If YOU say that I can no longer enjoy the classic version of WoW, who am I to disagree, right? After all, Psy. Dr. Cheze has, in years of extensive research, detected that there is no way that anybody genuinely liked classic wow for what it is (and not just for the first time experience) and with this we can finally end all debates about it.

Thank you Cheze.

lol, I didn't say any of that

you're more than welcome to enjoy whatever you want, that doesn't mean vanilla was a better game than current

[Charge me Doctor]

So did Paladins. If you ran out of mana then that means you spent mana on expensive abilities. Like as a Ret Paladin I could limit myself to Seal of Command Rank 1 which still did good damage except for Judement. But if you're low on mana then you aren't Judging anyway. As a healer it's required to use less powerful but mana efficient lower rank heals. That's mana management. Generally if you ran out of mana that means you or the raid screwed up at some point.

Sorry but you just used 2+ paladins to judge wisdom and no one ever run out of mana.
I never ever seen a paladin in a raid use SoComm since judging wisdom + SoC gave you literally all the mana in the world.

And seriously, using different rank of heals? Now we have way better system for healing when you actually make choices, while juggling ranks was strictly "low ranks are faster to cast, cheaper and less effective"

[Cheze]

Class mechanics... sure. Ret Paladins aren't there yet still after all these years, but better than Vanilla. Fight design not so much, cause in my opinion Uldaur was the best raid ever with a hard mode that you had to trigger for each boss. That was epic. Art design is kinda lol? I like better in game art, but that's not going to make me more likely or less likely to play your game. I agree with GradeAUnderA here where I don't care about graphics when the gameplay sucks.

But the core element people keep overlooking is gameplay. Modern WoW's gameplay really sucks, and basically focuses on grinding. Vanilla WoW had difficulty, and really forced you to think about how you approached everything.

vanilla had just as much grinding; many parts of it were a lot more grind-y than the modern game. Vanilla also wasn't more difficult, some parts of it were just slower. I mean yeah, if you needed 12 mobs or whatever for a quest you probably couldn't chain pull all of them. Killing them one or maybe two at a time wasn't more difficult through, it was just more laborious.

[Klingers]

I think Legion has done a lot of things right, but character progression is something done far worse than vanilla. Not in terms of grind or time commitment, but clearness of intent and self-pacing.

Hear me out: From a PVE perspective, back in Vanilla you had one clear way to progress your character:

• Level
• Dungeon
• Raid.

There was an insane time commitment to stay competitive at the top level, but the path was clear. And entirely up to you how much time you spend on it each week.

Let's fast forward to how you properly "progress" a Legion character:

• Level
• Dungeon
• World Quests
• Order Hall Campaign
• Order Hall Missions
• Artifact Knowledge
• Artifact Power
• Mythic Dungeons/Mythic-Plus Dungeons
• Gated multi-tier crafting profession recipes
• Three Raid difficulties

There are so many arbitrary single-expansion systems, extra bars to fill, caps, gates, scaling item level drops, titanforge procs, gear socket procs, etc etc... It's very hard to ever feel like there's an end to the treadmill and that's less of a good thing than you might imagine. In vanilla if you BiS a raid tier, you basically "won".

[Bapestar]

You would have to be a very closed minded, and selfish person to not understand people enjoy different things. Add insecure as well. I doubt you guys would even be fun to be around with in rl. Retail and Vanilla are both great games, play what you like and stfu.

[Doomchicken]

Now that's a grown-up way to discuss something, right? Everyone who disagrees with me is a fanboy and wrong. The fact that there are huge communities who no only remember but actually enjoy classic WoW gets straight up ignored.
"I do not share your passion so your passion is wrong."s?

Coming from the guy that called someone and I quote "A fat hairy loser" over someone talking bad about classic wow that's hilarious irony.

I've been a gamer for 20 years

Irrelevant.

I have played and leveled several chars during classic's lifespan (and beta). And I have very fond memories of mobs being absolutely unrelenting and deadly on every char that I have leveled with the exception of my Hunter (pet tanking + feign death made that one a cakewalk).

Anecdotal Evidence.

So I say vanilla WoW had a dangerous world.

Opinion, not fact.

Not even comparable to nowadays WoW where you can quite literally put in a jerk off session in the middle of nowhere and tab back into the game with your char alive and well with 5 mobs wailing on him/her.

Hyperbole (there's a shocker)

How can people be so absurdly dishonest?

Irony part 2, considering your previous line I quoted.

And even if it WAS true that (blizzlike)private servers have different health/dmg values than the original realms...

Considering that the large private server that blizzard shut down confirmed it on their own website, then either they're full of shit or they did what they said. Believe them or not, that's up to you.

[PewPewArrowz]

vanilla had just as much grinding; many parts of it were a lot more grind-y than the modern game. Vanilla also wasn't more difficult, some parts of it were just slower. I mean yeah, if you needed 12 mobs or whatever for a quest you probably couldn't chain pull all of them. Killing them one or maybe two at a time wasn't more difficult through, it was just more laborious.

You can't pull 12 mobs even today, not unless you're super overgeared, the case was the same back then.

[Bapestar]

...and? People playing on illegal private servers isn't proof of anything. People still play old ass SNES games. It doesn't mean that the games made decades ago are any better than the ones made today. It just means that some people enjoy different things and have different tastes in games. But just because there are people who enjoy Vanilla WoW emulation doesn't mean that it's somehow better than the retail version. In fact, if you were looking at it by the numbers retail players outnumber those on Vanilla realms nearly ten to one.

Ultimately, however, none of this means anything since you cannot prove the purely subjective opinion that one version of the game was an improvement over any of its other iterations.

Never said that.

[Relapses]

You would have to be a very closed minded, and selfish person to not understand people enjoy different things. Add insecure as well. I doubt you guys would even be fun to be around with in rl. Retail and Vanilla are both great games, play what you like and stfu.

...way to pull a complete 180 from your previous post. I don't know what you're looking to accomplish here other than making yourself out to be a tremendous hypocrite.

- - - Updated - - -

Never said that.

:facedesk:

You heavily implied it since the person you quoted was mentioning that the game "evolved and improved" and now you're being intentionally contradictory. Do yourself a favor and stop while you're ahead.

[PewPewArrowz]

Sorry but you just used 2+ paladins to judge wisdom and no one ever run out of mana.
I never ever seen a paladin in a raid use SoComm since judging wisdom + SoC gave you literally all the mana in the world.

And seriously, using different rank of heals? Now we have way better system for healing when you actually make choices, while juggling ranks was strictly "low ranks are faster to cast, cheaper and less effective"

The downranking thing was completely gutted in TBC I believe as well, since Blizzard figured out that literally nobody used the high ranked spells cause they costed alot of mana and decided listen bois, lesser ranks cost more mana now. Also from the things these 2 are saying you can obviosly see they never actually raided so to argue is mute, for them Vanila was the pinnacle cause they could inspect people and say "one day I want to be like that guy" but never really try and in his case get Soulforge armor :-)

[Charge me Doctor]

My question was why are people still playing vanilla, if its so bad, like you claim?

- - - Updated - - -



They are, you lose.

People are not playing vanilla. Private servers are not vanilla, it's a shell of vanilla full of people who either seek for old feelings towards the game, want to try out vanilla experience (and take what they have there as what vanilla wow used to be back in 2007, while it obviously wasn't), people want to have fun in a different game or they want to make fun of people who think that they are playing vanilla servers or want to participate in emerging economy of WoW.

Private servers are not the same as vanilla used to be. People are different. Internet is different. Players used to be complete and utter shit by todays standards while doing most difficult content of old time. Sheer amount of hunters who didn't know that you have to unequip your weapon on nefarian or failed to do so so i had to trade my spare green-quality crossbows to them was astounding.

Sure it was fun. Sure it is still fun for some people, but saying that it's the same as 2007-8 is just being dumb and delusional.

[Doomchicken]

But the core element people keep overlooking is gameplay. Modern WoW's gameplay really sucks, and basically focuses on grinding. .

Vanilla: Grind fire resist gear, grind nature resist gear, grind levels, grind gold for mounts
Burning Crusade: Grind levels, grind shadow resist gear, grind gold for flying mount (more so fast speed flying)
Wrath: Grind dungeons for VP
Cata: (didn't play)
MoP: Grind dailys, grind timeless isle.
Wod: Sucked
Legion: Grind Ap, Grind world quests.

There's always been a grind. People on average are much more likely to tolerate a grind when they haven't been doing the same grinding for 12 years.

[Deleted]

To be honest, right now I simply have more fun with vanilla than retail, I get more fun value for my time put into the game.

[snapT0rmentt]

Pros
-The entire world was filled with people doing stuff
-Aggro management
-Mana Management
-No LFR, LFD made server communities
-Epics were in fact epic and VERY hard to get
-Gurubashi Arena and Dire Maul arena full of people
-Eating, drinking and first aid were mandatory while leveling for the majority of classes #hard leveling experience
-Class diversity
-A lot of flavour stuff for the sake of roleplay value. Nowadays everything is the same for the sake of "game balance"

Cons
-Game Balance

Lol aggro management?
You mean sunder armor spam.
Mana Management? You mean not use the highest level version of your skill.
A lot of flavour stuff? You mean walls of text? Without any voice acting, animation etc

Rose Coloured glasses at its best

[Charge me Doctor]

The downranking thing was completely gutted in TBC I believe as well, since Blizzard figured out that literally nobody used the high ranked spells cause they costed alot of mana and decided listen bois, lesser ranks cost more mana now. Also from the things these 2 are saying you can obviosly see they never actually raided so to argue is mute, for them Vanila was the pinnacle cause they could inspect people and say "one day I want to be like that guy" but never really try and in his case get Soulforge armor :-)

Downranking is not something blizzard considered as intentional gameplay decision (just like PTR flamestrike rotation of fire mage, or blind hooking of Roadhog) iirc, in TBC they started this whole "this heal is fast, this heal is cheap" but it because an actual good system only in WoD/Legion.

You know how hindsight is a thing? If you look at private servers now - everyone is playing in hindsight since vanilla WoW has ended and all it's secrets are revealed, so you can power level, get your bangla-whatever pet, rank him up for top DPS and feel good about yourself without investing much into it.
It's the same case of humans thinking "what could happen, if i could go back in time and do something differently?", "i used to be a total noob when i played vanilla, how would it feel to be a pro?" - you log in into a private server, use your knowledge to your advantage and don't realize that vanilla actually was full of total noobs with 1% of actually good players, while private servers are 99% good players with 1% noobs.

You literally could get by playing an "arms" warrior with an int staff "because it has higher damage than my axe" and no one gave a fuck, since out of 40 players in your raid only 10 players were required to actually do shit.

[Devilyaki]

It was new and no one really knew shit about it for a bit, fan sites were small and not like today.

[Geldor]

I think Legion has done a lot of things right, but character progression is something done far worse than vanilla. Not in terms of grind or time commitment, but clearness of intent and self-pacing.

Hear me out: From a PVE perspective, back in Vanilla you had one clear way to progress your character:

• Level
• Dungeon
• Raid.

There was an insane time commitment to stay competitive at the top level, but the path was clear. And entirely up to you how much time you spend on it each week.

Let's fast forward to how you properly "progress" a Legion character:

• Level
• Dungeon
• World Quests
• Order Hall Campaign
• Order Hall Missions
• Artifact Knowledge
• Artifact Power
• Mythic Dungeons/Mythic-Plus Dungeons
• Gated multi-tier crafting profession recipes
• Three Raid difficulties

There are so many arbitrary single-expansion systems, extra bars to fill, caps, gates, scaling item level drops, titanforge procs, gear socket procs, etc etc... It's very hard to ever feel like there's an end to the treadmill and that's less of a good thing than you might imagine. In vanilla if you BiS a raid tier, you basically "won".

Well, and if you couldn't go on raiding - it stopped, whereas now you have options. Even if you only solo-play, you still have a small chance to get a small upgrade.

You can't say one is better than the other. It appeals to different players, and the Legion system should be more appealing to a wider player base. It's exhausting for people who want to chase "BiS" and be finished, that's true.

Same goes for things like AP. A lot of people were unhappy that there is no character progression after you max. level. This system guarantees that you can marginally improve your character even if you are not a raider or someone who likes to M+.

So the new system might be worse for you, but I think you can't objectively say it's worse than Vanilla.