What made classic wow better than current?

[Sithalos]

Simple answer here: Nothing.

[Charge me Doctor]

In old times, when I was questing in Western Plaguelands and pulled some damn elite, a nearby paladin of the same level went out of his way to keep me (then us both) alive. *AND THEN* we talked and he said that he had a problem with some quest and we went and tried to do it (and wiped three or four times, but pulled it off). And the next day I was looking for him in the friend list, and we quested together, and when in a week or so he was not online for a few days and I managed to outlevel him by 3 levels and he whispered, I was glad to go from Azshara to Eastern Kingdoms and help him level to the same level as myself. And that was a stranger.

More likely he would just wait for the quest mob to finish you off to get this mob to himself. You played on some unicorn and fairy realm my friend, people used to let each other die to get drop quest items, and even intentionally pulled huge packs of mobs, healed you and died (BoP'ed, FD'd, etc) near so mobs aggroed on you after that.

Couple of days ago we had a good healer in our mythic+ runs, we added her on battlenet and asked to stay on our discord server. She did. Now we are friends and do stuff together daily. Community didn't died, it's people who ruin community, if you want community to be "as you remember it to be" - you need to act properly - you need to act, not passively expect everyone to do everything for you.
People who "glued" together vanilla communities aren't gone, they are fucking tired of that shit, because being nice and proactive is hard, no one appreciate that, everyone take that for granted and chant "wow, what a great community we are amirite?" then go complete silent, keep needing on BoE items (pre-fix) outside of guild runs only to sell them on AH or dump them in GB until it rots out or becomes obsolete.

[Holofernes]

Nothing you wrote does anything to disprove what I said. If the communities were indeed strong and tight-knitted, as people like to claim, then the addition of those grouping tools wouldn't affect those communities. The communities killed themselves, simple as that, and are using the LFG tools as scapegoat. A strong community stays together despite adversities.


This is completely useless and irrelevant information. Mostly because it's anecdotal, at best.

early wow : mostly intelligent, university / elderly people , mostly with xp from oldschool mmorpgs like ua or eq played on the "better" levels.

wow now : mostly unemployed, kids play. hencefor the "lazy reward solo playstyle" mentality.
someone who ever stepped a foot in eq or ua would think that modern wow is a solo game now.

[Deleted]

It was another age of gaming. Nowadays people expect progress with minimal effort while back then you had to figure out things by yourself or you wouldn't get anywhere. All games were like this back then.

[Ielenia]

early wow : mostly intelligent, university / elderly people , mostly with xp from oldschool mmorpgs like ua or eq played on the "better" levels.

wow now : mostly unemployed, kids play. hencefor the "lazy reward solo playstyle" mentality.

That is purely conjecture with no evidence whatsoever, based on nothing but bias and anecdotal evidence. You're literally pulling things out of the blue (using a less insulting expression).

[zorkuus]

early wow : mostly intelligent, university / elderly people , mostly with xp from oldschool mmorpgs like ua or eq played on the "better" levels.

Yea that's a big load of crap. WoW was the first casual MMO and many vanilla players hadn't even touched an MMO before.

wow now : mostly unemployed, kids play. hencefor the "lazy reward solo playstyle" mentality.

The unemployed and kids have a lot of time on their hands = they have time for hardcore timewastes.
Can't really say the same for the university people, and those with jobs and families.
You didn't really think this through did you?

[Raone]

It was new and nobody knew what they were doing, which made it great.

The first time I played terraria it was the best thing ever, bosses were brutally hard, I died all the time, took me forever to craft anything, this was all because I was a complete newb ... but my 2nd playthrew and then third I breezed threw it without any effort 1 shotting bosses and beating the game in like a couple days instead of taking weeks. Thats pretty much vanilla wow, its amazing to look back at because back then it was all new and shiny but I honestly can't look back and find a single thing that made it better.

Other then maybe the community feeling, but I hated looking for tanks/healers who if you managed to find one wouldn't want to do that specific dungeon because no gear they wanted was from there ...

[Eleccybubb]

early wow : mostly intelligent, university / elderly people , mostly with xp from oldschool mmorpgs like ua or eq played on the "better" levels.

wow now : mostly unemployed, kids play. hencefor the "lazy reward solo playstyle" mentality.
someone who ever stepped a foot in eq or ua would think that modern wow is a solo game now.

What absolute nonsense. Everquest barely hit 1 million players before WoW came out which back then was a record for an MMO. I know because as a kid I played that and FF11 bordering on hardcore and the moment WoW hit Everquest started to decline slowly before going into a freefall. But sure insult the retail playerbase. It just proves to me that you have no actual arguments and just want to insult the retail playerbase.

[Deleted]

When was the last time you saw a healer managing his mana without casting any spell to let spirit recover mana?
Last time you saw anyone drinking/eating while leveling?
Last time you downloaded a Aggro Addon?

Probably since TBC.

[AeneasBK]

What absolute nonsense. Everquest barely hit 1 million players before WoW came out which back then was a record for an MMO. I know because as a kid I played that and FF11 bordering on hardcore and the moment WoW hit Everquest started to decline slowly before going into a freefall. But sure insult the retail playerbase. It just proves to me that you have no actual arguments and just want to insult the retail playerbase.

I'm not agreeing with him specifically but you think it's unfair to say WoWs macro game systems are aimed at a more "immediate gratification" mindset than beforehand? Because I think that's pretty hard to deny.

It seems people are pretty divided about what makes WoW an MM-O. Because such a tiny amount of the content requires communicating with a human being. The argument that WoW is a single player game holds a lot of weight. Most counter arguments are purely semantic - "Its got MMO in the gentre title" "There are mulitple people playing it" etc.

Fact is you can buy the game now and get into the top percentiles of progression without typing a single word to another player. That's (to me) a single player game.

[Akka]

Objectively Vanilla is a MUCH worse game experience, however due to a large group of us, all at the right age (high school/college)

Maybe one day the parrots on the forums will realize that there was actually quite a lot of people in their high 20s and 30s and even 40s during Vanilla.
This myth that Vanilla players were all kids is just yet another idiotic claim that should die with the "nostalgia" garbage.

I swear at least 95 % of everything that is said on Vanilla comes from a pool of myths that has been built over the years by people who either have never played it, or have just ended up buying it through the force of repetition.

[Eleccybubb]

I'm not agreeing with him specifically but you think it's unfair to say WoWs macro game systems are aimed at a more "immediate gratification" mindset than beforehand? Because I think that's pretty hard to deny.

It seems people are pretty divided about what makes WoW an MM-O. Because such a tiny amount of the content requires communicating with a human being. The argument that WoW is a single player game holds a lot of weight. Most counter arguments are purely semantic - "Its got MMO in the gentre title" "There are mulitple people playing it" etc.

Fact is you can buy the game now and get into the top percentiles of progression without typing a single word to another player. That's (to me) a single player game.

Never said it wasn't. I said the poster was talking absolute nonsense nothing more. WoW was a casual alternative to a lot of MMOs even when it came out.

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Maybe one day the parrots on the forums will realize that there was actually quite a lot of people in their high 20s and 30s and even 40s during Vanilla.
This myth that Vanilla players were all kids is just yet another idiotic claim that should die with the "nostalgia" garbage.

I swear at least 95 % of everything that is said on Vanilla comes from a pool of myths that has been built over the years by people who either have never played it, or have just ended up buying it through the force of repetition.

And so is the myth that the majority were "elderly, intelligent, university students, mostly with xp from oldschool rpgs" and all that crap other people here have been spouting. WoW was a brand new MMORPG for a lot of people young and old.

[Holofernes]

When was the last time you saw a healer managing his mana without casting any spell to let spirit recover mana?
Last time you saw anyone drinking/eating while leveling?
Last time you downloaded a Aggro Addon?

Probably since TBC.

u didnt level a low geared ele shaman in legion for sure. And about the aggro addon: its still of good use on m+ on skittish weeks, if u want to live as melee

and mana mangement went to casting low-throughput basically cheap spells since cata, and our healers went oom a lot on progress in emerald raid. Priests die on purpose to be an angel and Heal the shit ouf a raid at the end of a fight was pretty normal in en myth. (i think both have the legendary that rezzes them afterwards too). our moonkins give innervates to our healers, and yep spirit or non-casting regen was cut down in i think cata ? so nobody does it, because the mechanic has changed.

[Akka]

And so is the myth that the majority were "elderly, university students, mostly with xp from oldschool rpgs" and all that crap.

Except :
1) I'm not claiming any kind of "majority". I'm just pointing at the stupidity of making said claim.
2) It's hardly a common myth, considering it's the opposite which is always claimed.

Though I'm pretty sure the average player age haven't increased that much, if any, since then.

[Eleccybubb]

Except :
1) I'm not claiming any kind of "majority". I'm just pointing at the stupidity of making said claim.
2) It's hardly a common myth, considering it's the opposite which is always claimed.

Though I'm pretty sure the average player age haven't increased that much, if any, since then.

I doubt it has I agree with you there. I never meant you specifically btw I just meant someone who posted that earlier and it made me facepalm basically. My point is the stupidity is coming from both sides. Not just one.

[Xkiller9000]

leveling, requirements for raiding, gearing, dungeons

[Akka]

I doubt it has I agree with you there. I never meant you specifically btw I just meant someone who posted that earlier and it made me facepalm basically.

Yay, there is ONE person which made such claim, that must obviously be a myth, compared to the fuckton of people which made the opposite claim... (which is also factually false)

[Muh]

the novelty back then.. nothing else

[Paperfox]

When Nost was up I gave it a try just to try it out. I was actually surprised at it.

I had no guarantee of being able to survive an encounter with a single mob and so I found it to be much more immersive. Contrast that with WoW now where I have the full suit of heirloom gear and if my toon dies, then it means I fell asleep.

[Holofernes]

Never said it wasn't. I said the poster was talking absolute nonsense nothing more. WoW was a casual alternative to a lot of MMOs even when it came out.

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And so is the myth that the majority were "elderly, intelligent, university students, mostly with xp from oldschool rpgs" and all that crap other people here have been spouting. WoW was a brand new MMORPG for a lot of people young and old.

it might be, but not for those who raided sucessfully in vanilla. people who had no xp in mmorpg would have never been able to organize a group of 60+ people to form a raidteam. All raidleaders of sucessful teams i have ever known in classic are old school veterans of ultima or everquest, and i have never seen a good raidleader that startet with wow later than tbc. Because those guys learnt the social skills of managing a big team in the game.

And i didnt insult the playerbase. Of course there were a lot of kids, those who were lvl 2x to 3x, occupying the "barrens chat" while the guys i ment were doing onxyia, molten core, and waiting for bwl to open up.