What made classic wow better than current?

[Echo of Soul]

You are basically calling macdonalds "the best food ever on the planet".

Therefore its obvious you are talking out of your butt when referring to vanilla since the only experience you have of that is through private servers. Facts for you, I don't care about nostalrius because there is much more to a multiplayer game than just pure content or technical specificities.

But hey keep telling yourself that WoW is just getting better and that no other MMO does something better because "lol it has more playerbase so its good".

MMO genre is dead since several years, and WoW is just a farce impersonating an MMORPG. There is nothing RP about the game since ages

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Um no this is the usual misconception about RPGs. Playing a ROLE is not just picking a class and doing dungeons and quests like you do in diablo. Playing a role in any good RPG supposes having the notion of choices and consequences and freedom of destiny. Where is that in WoW? Does your character have any dialogue option? Any say in how he wants to handle things? What he wants to do? No you are basically on the most extreme theme park possible which is something alien to any good RPG. Hell everything is so combat focused in this game (while the war aspect being handled pretty badly too, the irony), that you can't even be a diplomat, a pirate, politics, nothing of that exists in this game. WoW is about as subtle as a hack n slash and most recent MMOs have been tainted by this everquesty-grindy-diabloesque design

Ask any good table top RPer out there, D&D wasn't about "muh killing dragons muh getting this +3 sword" it was about impersonating and developing your character like a real human being, not just a robot that kills stuff and gets +50 stamina.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIalyAYLd0I

Legion qualifies as a RPG, be it the bare minimum of requirements for a RPG but still a RPG. It's not Skyrim levels of RPG or even vanilla levels of RPG but still technically a RPG. It doesn't feel like it because so many of the RPG elements have been peeled off over the years.

[Darsithis]

Legion qualifies as a RPG, be it the bare minimum of requirements for a RPG but still a RPG. It's not Skyrim levels of RPG or even vanilla levels of RPG but still technically a RPG. It doesn't feel like it because so many of the RPG elements have been peeled off over the years.

Not the "vanilla" levels of RPG? What exactly defines that and what changed that suddenly makes it less of an RPG?

[Ielenia]

You are basically calling macdonalds "the best food ever on the planet".

Got anything other than strawmans to use in responding to my posts?

[Huehuecoyotl]

I'm aware of what D&D is, and have participated in many real-life RP events.

There are different levels of RPG, from the most simplistic to the greatest of the open-world, "go your own way" mentality. WoW is an RPG, that's a fact. Now, you don't have to like or play WoW, but calling it anything else is incorrect.

Calling modern WoW an RPG is like calling a roller-coaster a racing game. A game is an RPG when you have genuine choices, and those choices have impacts on your story. Having the story told at you, with zero choice in the direction, sequence of events or end result, is not an RPG. If you have had anything to do with D&D you must know that, so I don't understand why you are trying to defend this position.

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Not the "vanilla" levels of RPG? What exactly defines that and what changed that suddenly makes it less of an RPG?

If you can't see the difference between a zone where you have some choices of which quests you do, and in which order, and a zone where the story plays out exactly the same every time you play it, then I honestly don't know what to say to you.

[Darsithis]

Calling modern WoW an RPG is like calling a roller-coaster a racing game. A game is an RPG when you have genuine choices, and those choices have impacts on your story. Having the story told at you, with zero choice in the direction, sequence of events or end result, is not an RPG. If you have had anything to do with D&D you must know that, so I don't understand why you are trying to defend this position.

RPG does not necessarily mean you have a lot of control over the story. Many, many RPG's are, in the end, linear trains from start to end. Yes, there are side-quests and choices that can change if certain characters are present or not, but in the end, you still progress from start to finish with the overall story the same. From the oldest D&D CRPG's (gold box) to games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, you still play the same person, you still make the same overall choices (always good!) and the games usually still have close to the same endings. Fallout is probably the most varied of RPG's I've seen on the computer (except for 3 & 4).

Unless you play a tabletop, DM-crafted game or a larp, you will always be led from choice to choice.

If you can't see the difference between a zone where you have some choices of which quests you do, and in which order, and a zone where the story plays out exactly the same every time you play it, then I honestly don't know what to say to you.

Classic's zones didn't give you a choice. In the end, you almost always ended up doing every quest, not because you wanted to but because you had little choice if you wanted to gain another level. Even so, a good portion of leveling in classic was grinding mobs because you ran out of quests to do. Please don't act like classic gave you any choice in questing or zones.

[Vash The Stampede]

Not the "vanilla" levels of RPG? What exactly defines that and what changed that suddenly makes it less of an RPG?

I won't argue that it's less of an RPG, cause that's silly. Mostly cause we're trying to lump WoW into category, which doesn't work so well. By definition it's an MMO RPG. The MMO portion of the game though has diminished cause players are mostly solo play until dungeons and raids, which wasn't the case in Vanilla. One could even argue that dungeons and raids are sorta solo play, cause you just queue up and automatically get thrown into a raid or dungeon. You really don't have to speak to anyone to play with them. To make matters worse the community is allowed to become more toxic, cause realms mostly don't matter anymore. So what interaction you do have with players is no longer met with consequences, and you do have a large audience. Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad Anyone who's ever been in a LFR can see where I'm going with this.

RPG also relies on a lot of story telling, which WoW certainly does. Admittedly the story in Vanilla was mostly absent, and you're left with your imagination. Which drove a lot of people to speculate which kinda worked. Think of Dark Souls where the game on purpose leaves bits of info absent so you come to your own conclusions. Modern WoW certainly exposes more of that story but a lot of it is in books. Which puts people in the dark unless they go buy those books, or listen to people who have on YouTube. It's kinda like Destiny where people have a lot of hatred for the game cause it lacked story for an RPG type game. More of that story was exposed if you buy the DLCs.

[Huehuecoyotl]

Classic's zones didn't give you a choice. In the end, you almost always ended up doing every quest, not because you wanted to but because you had little choice if you wanted to gain another level. Even so, a good portion of leveling in classic was grinding mobs because you ran out of quests to do. Please don't act like classic gave you any choice in questing or zones.

Modern WoW zone: 100 quests, you start at quest 1, you finish at quest 100. The story is told at you, your input is irrelevant.

Classic WoW zone: 100 quests. You come into the zone from one direction, you might find a particular one first. That might start you on a quest sequence. You might finish it, you might not. On another toon you might start the zone from a different place, and begin with a completely different sequence. Your story becomes the tale of the man that moved from place to place, and made a difference by carrying out those heroic tasks. Or it could become the tale of the man who ignored them. Sure, those individual quests have fixed stories. But you are controlling how they are told, and indeed whether they are told. It's not a perfect RPG, but it is miles better than what you get today.

Are you honestly saying that you don't think there is any difference? Really?

[thunterman]

Modern WoW zone: 100 quests, you start at quest 1, you finish at quest 100. The story is told at you, your input is irrelevant.

Classic WoW zone: 100 quests. You come into the zone from one direction, you might find a particular one first. That might start you on a quest sequence. You might finish it, you might not. On another toon you might start the zone from a different place, and begin with a completely different sequence. Your story becomes the tale of the man that moved from place to place, and made a difference by carrying out those heroic tasks. Or it could become the tale of the man who ignored them. Sure, those individual quests have fixed stories. But you are controlling how they are told, and indeed whether they are told. It's not a perfect RPG, but it is miles better than what you get today.

Are you honestly saying that you don't think there is any difference? Really?

That's because when WoW started there was 60 levels and loads of zones, an expansion is 5-10 levels and a handful of zones, having that `enter from a random place and it's different everytime` vibe is impossible, unless they make a needlessly huge amount of zones just so you can have a choice. Legion levelling to some extent provides exactly what you are complaining about though, it's funny. You enter the game, choose your path, and follow it. Much like you did in Vanilla. Scaling zones going forward are going to provide a much better experience, especially if it's rolled out across all the zones. Being able to level from 1-max in anyway you wanted would be awesome. Did you ever level multiple toons to 60 in Vanilla? If you did you would understand why I don't take your point seriously, levelling was AMAZING the first time, OK the second, from there on out it was a chore, same quests different names, the good old endless grind. Atleast the quests themselves today are allot more interesting.

[Demithio]

Not the "vanilla" levels of RPG? What exactly defines that and what changed that suddenly makes it less of an RPG?

Yes, technically still an MMORPG. Technically. However, I'm not sure it entirely fits now in the practical definition of an RPG as known through the years. While it still is somewhat of an RPG, many of the RPG elements (and design) have been stripped from the game over the past several years which severely weakened its strength as an MMORPG in the real world, known, definition. So basically it comes down to, do you want more or less RPG. These days we clearly have much less, which was never massively huge compared to others, but we certainly had more in the past then the present. Some like that, some don't.

[thunterman]

I won't argue that it's less of an RPG, cause that's silly. Mostly cause we're trying to lump WoW into category, which doesn't work so well. By definition it's an MMO RPG. The MMO portion of the game though has diminished cause players are mostly solo play until dungeons and raids, which wasn't the case in Vanilla. One could even argue that dungeons and raids are sorta solo play, cause you just queue up and automatically get thrown into a raid or dungeon. You really don't have to speak to anyone to play with them. To make matters worse the community is allowed to become more toxic, cause realms mostly don't matter anymore. So what interaction you do have with players is no longer met with consequences, and you do have a large audience. Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fuckwad Anyone who's ever been in a LFR can see where I'm going with this.

RPG also relies on a lot of story telling, which WoW certainly does. Admittedly the story in Vanilla was mostly absent, and you're left with your imagination. Which drove a lot of people to speculate which kinda worked. Think of Dark Souls where the game on purpose leaves bits of info absent so you come to your own conclusions. Modern WoW certainly exposes more of that story but a lot of it is in books. Which puts people in the dark unless they go buy those books, or listen to people who have on YouTube. It's kinda like Destiny where people have a lot of hatred for the game cause it lacked story for an RPG type game. More of that story was exposed if you buy the DLCs.

I see this argument allot, about the lack of community. It would appear you need a tool ingame that helps you talk to people... Seriously. Join a guild, go and talk to people.. It's not hard. The people are the same as they were back then, the tools save everyone time when you want a quick dungeon I have no problem with LFD, and although I personally wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole, LFR. They are there for a reason, Quality of Life, 5 days a week, I got an hour or two tops to play, by your logic I don't deserve to do a dungeon because.. Reasons? If you don't like it, don't use it.. no one is forcing you. An hour is not long enough to find the people and do the dungeon the old way. To put it frankly, if it weren't for these systems I would certainly not be playing anymore, along with allot of others. As the community aged and got jobs and families, playtime decreased, systems had to be put in to allow these people to play still, as you know, my subscription is equal to yours, why should you be able to do more than me? I managed to work, have a family and continue to raid at a high level, as I have done since Vanilla thanks to the things everyone else is so against. Without the ability to play effectively, I'd estimate that a very high percentage of the playerbase would of gone by now, wow would be gone altogether, if not, in decline, F2P maybe.. See my point, no?

[Huehuecoyotl]

That's because when WoW started there was 60 levels and loads of zones, an expansion is 5-10 levels and a handful of zones

And when they built that game, and all that content, they didn't have a game at all, just the hope that one day they could build something that would have half a million paying players. Now they have millions of players giving them more money than they could ever have dreamed of back when they started, and an expansion that costs the same as the original game gives you a handful of zones.

So no, it's not "impossible" as you say. They just don't want to put the time, money and effort into it when they have customers who seem to be satisfied with scraps instead of a feast. And a roller-coaster instead of a off-road adventure. Sad really.

[Kallisto]

So no, it's not "impossible" as you say. They just don't want to put the time, money and effort into it when they have customers who seem to be satisfied with scraps instead of a feast. And a roller-coaster instead of a off-road adventure. Sad really.

Of course they don't want to build a New Kalimdor and EC sized expansion. Because it would take forever to make from the ground up, with people losing their shit if a tier takes more than 6 months to be replaced there's simply put not enough time to create an expansion of that size with todays graphics.

[Vash The Stampede]

Yes, technically still an MMORPG. Technically. However, I'm not sure it entirely fits now in the practical definition of an RPG as known through the years. While it still is somewhat of an RPG, many of the RPG elements (and design) have been stripped from the game over the past several years which severely weakened its strength as an MMORPG in the real world, known, definition. So basically it comes down to, do you want more or less RPG. These days we clearly have much less, which was never massively huge compared to others, but we certainly had more in the past then the present. Some like that, some don't.

Not really. I'd like to argue that WoW wasn't really thought out when it was originally developed, cause they weren't expecting the game to be as huge as it became. You can see this in Vanilla where zones were left completely alone, and you see portals all over the place that go nowhere. God knows I was always amazed by the giant gates of Gilneas. Otherwise the story was mostly told the same way. And it's not like the choices you make have any real effect in the game. BY WOTLK we did get FMV and better interaction with the main villain Arthas, which I liked.

One could argue that the MMO part of WoW has declined, but not the RPG. Story writing though is another subject.

I see this argument allot, about the lack of community. It would appear you need a tool ingame that helps you talk to people... Seriously. Join a guild, go and talk to people.. It's not hard.

Back then you had incentive to talk to people because everything was hard. Friends made things easy, if not possible. With Legion why waste my time talking to people if I get the job done faster and better? The only exception to this is Mythic raiding, which I don't do due to lack of good incentives.

An hour is not long enough to find the people and do the dungeon the old way.

This is more of Blizzards fault than anything. Realms got smaller, and server transfers cost money. It's not uncommon to find your realm suddenly dead. The more dead it was, the harder it is to find people to play with. And if I remember right, Blizzard likes to throw new players onto empty realms, which just made the whole experience bad from the start.

On private realms you can server transfer your characters for free. Kinda makes you wonder if there was a better solution to this problem.

as you know, my subscription is equal to yours, why should you be able to do more than me?

Because time isn't the only factor, but skill as well. If you want more than me, then Git Gud. Time can make up for skill but it's not the only way to get things done. If the game did need these shortcut systems then Blizzard should have made realms that had them, while leaving other realms alone. And you know, make server transfers free. If there's a PvE and PvP realm, then why not a casual realm and a not casual realm? It can be done.

Without the ability to play effectively, I'd estimate that a very high percentage of the playerbase would of gone by now, wow would be gone altogether, if not, in decline, F2P maybe.. See my point, no?

Too late for that. The game has F2P elements without the actually free part. Did you forget that WoD hit an all time low that we don't know about cause Blizzard stopped reporting #'s? Also people can buy game time with Gold, which is very F2P like mechanic. Mostly meant to stop players leaving by letting the whales pay for their subscriptions.

[Darsithis]

Modern WoW zone: 100 quests, you start at quest 1, you finish at quest 100. The story is told at you, your input is irrelevant.

Classic WoW zone: 100 quests. You come into the zone from one direction, you might find a particular one first. That might start you on a quest sequence. You might finish it, you might not. On another toon you might start the zone from a different place, and begin with a completely different sequence. Your story becomes the tale of the man that moved from place to place, and made a difference by carrying out those heroic tasks. Or it could become the tale of the man who ignored them. Sure, those individual quests have fixed stories. But you are controlling how they are told, and indeed whether they are told. It's not a perfect RPG, but it is miles better than what you get today.

Are you honestly saying that you don't think there is any difference? Really?

Your description is inaccurate. All of the zones, even in Legion, have branching storylines and you do not even need to do them all. You don't, for instance, to finish the Pillar in Val'sharah, need to do Bradensbrook. You don't have to complete the blue dragons in Azura. There is a lot of choice in terms of what quests you do.

There is no difference between classic and Legion in this respect except for:

1 - Quests are now the appropriate level for the zone. No more picking up level 16 - 20 quests when you're 10 in Darkshore.
2 - More quests, but each story is more guided, showing you what to do next
3 - Quests are more tightly grouped so you don't have to run around the world to complete a trivial quest for worthless rewards.

It's still an RPG. Classic's questing was worse in a lot of ways. Even up until Cata it was still pretty bad.

[Demithio]

Not really. I'd like to argue that WoW wasn't really thought out when it was originally developed, cause they weren't expecting the game to be as huge as it became. You can see this in Vanilla where zones were left completely alone, and you see portals all over the place that go nowhere. God knows I was always amazed by the giant gates of Gilneas. Otherwise the story was mostly told the same way. And it's not like the choices you make have any real effect in the game. BY WOTLK we did get FMV and better interaction with the main villain Arthas, which I liked.

One could argue that the MMO part of WoW has declined, but not the RPG. Story writing though is another subject.

I think maybe were talking about story interaction vs game play elements that would be considered RPG elements. Less story interaction in old WoW but more things that would be considered RPG-like game play elements. You know, those things that some people here often label 'waste of time, pain in the ass' type of things that should be removed (and unfortunately have been removed), whereas some others (like myself) may consider desirable RPG elements.

[Deleted]

It's still an RPG. Classic's questing was worse in a lot of ways. Even up until Cata it was still pretty bad.

As much as i love Vanilla/BC i must agree on the "questing" of Legion being superior.

I always hated leveling so much to the point of only having one max level character.
But in Legion for the first time i was able to have 3 max level characters. That's a personal record for me and it's because of the fact the quests are all gathered up and are strategically placed to do them all in one go.

Too much convenience is bad for the RPG genre BUT leveling is such a boring thing for me that i love what they did with the quests in Legion.

[Hexme]

To put it simple

*class diversity
*talent trees that actually made hybrid builds (I loved going prot/ret)
*epics that felt "epic", I'll also add tier bonuses which were GODLY to have
*class unique gear like librams and totems, they were stat sticks but they gave unique bonuses to some spells
*pvp was amazing and it was everywhere

[ping-pong]

The usual dude pretending to know anything about vanilla or MMORPGs for the matter since that thing called Legion doesn't deserve to be called MMORPG at all

You should consider stopping to post. Anything. Anywhere. About any subject. That way people will at least be in doubt that maybe you are intelligent but just quiet. When you write, you shatter that illusion. Your choice really.

[Dekkers]

Felt more like a world and less like a theme park.

[darklady]

It seems better because it was new, but, when I look back, it really sucked. I wan an enchanter, and it was a pain to have to swap out runed rods all of the time. So did going to different parts of the world to train for expert, journeyman, artisan. No one wanted to do Uldaman, and one of the enchanting trainers was there. Banking was a pain, especially if you were a GM, because there was no guild bank. Most of the classes were crap, especially paladins and shamans. Questing was quite a bit harder back then, so it wasn't uncommon to see bones all over the place. Most players today don't even know what that means. Having to clear high level 5 mans to get max level spell books and mats for head and leg enchants...and most needed a key to access them. More grind. Drops were shit. There were no guarantees epics would drop after clearing raid content. Yeah, I'll take the game today.