What made classic wow better than current?

[Deleted]

I saw this fella's video on this very subject. I agree with pretty much 100%. He also did an opposite view video which also is a good watch. .

I love that guy Fevir. He has a lot of good videos. My favorite is "Why MMO's Suck Now"

[Lillemus]

This... a million times.

1> Leveling was rewarding. Each level after 10 rewarded a talent point (sometimes two) it felt great to open the panel and open up a new talent or add another 2% of this or that. Every two levels you had new spells and more powerful ranks of spells made available to you. Certain levels were really memorable.. like 20 for some of your signature spells, level 40 for your first mount, level 60... not because it was time to raid... but because NOW it was time to focus on gearing for raids... now you just jump into heroics and LFR... just so meh.

Ah, and grinding mobs for many many hours in the 30s because for some reason that was a very dead zone for leveling.
Yes, leveling was a very special thing in Vanilla for many of those who did it, I loved leveling, heck, I leveled a 2 characters at 60 before I actually got into raiding. For me personally however, WoW broke me, I will never ever be able to play another game with the same naivity as I did in vanilla, I am always looking to min/max now in any RPG really, I won't necessarily go online to look up builds, but I will do my testing in game rather, I approach games with an entirely different level of cynisism after having played WoW. So even if a similar experience would be made available to me today, I would not approach it like I did back in the day or with a similar awe

2> Community was amazing. The video talks about this in depth... but having server permanence allowed real life social constructs to apply. You rolled on a server and invested in a toon. That toon's name was known, it had a reputation... as a great tank, healer or DPS, or as an asshat, guild hopper, gear whoring ninja. This counteracted the anonymity the internet offers by rending all the time you invested in a character moot if you treated other people poorly.

I touched on this in another response here, but was it really? I was a fairly casual player and what I remember was the upper echelon of players being insular, the fellow in the video spoke a lot about every knowing everyone which is just blatantly untrue, the upper echelon knew eachother - and were quite insular. You have to remember that the large majority of players in Vanilla never actually raided. The whole thing with "vetting" players helping them level up, I've never heard of that except when doing it for a rl (good) friend or doing it with someone's alt, back then the guilds didn't have to recruit, they had plenty of applicants coming in at all times and could pick and choose.

3> Endgame had progression. You ran dungeons to gear for raids (or in BC heroics), heroics for dungeon sets to raid. You had BiS lists you could go after. Set goals that felt amazing to achieve piece by piece. That is entirely gone from the game. Craft all your pieces, click on nuts and squirrels, do dungeons, do LFR... meh do whatever we'll give you gear.

Whereas I find that item progression has been sped up far too much at max level if you arrive a bit later in the expansion I feel like you should have a look at your list, you're literally saying that the fact that we have more than one path to getting gear is a problem? I'm no longer forced to run dungeons, now I can either run dungeons, craft my gear, go do world quests or LFR (apparently).

4> Gear. Deterministic loot was better than RNG loot. Period. When an item is unique, and designed for you to complete certain stats to reach the next plateau... it has greater value and feels more rewarding when you acquire it. When it doesn't matter what and where you go you cna get a random item that has the same stats, it devalues the world and the content, making it all feel like the same activity, with random drops.

Items today are designed (maybe even too streamlined) for you to reach a certain plateau, but back in Vanilla it sure seemed random, with just a random assortment of stats on items, I mean, the rogue tiers had spirit and strength on them for literally no reason

[Echo of Soul]

Items today are designed (maybe even too streamlined) for you to reach a certain plateau, but back in Vanilla it sure seemed random, with just a random assortment of stats on items, I mean, the rogue tiers had spirit and strength on them for literally no reason

Strength = Attack power. I'm pretty sure rogues want that. And it wasn't random, if an item had spirit on it it always had spirit on it, and the same amount every time.

[InfiniteCharger]

And you'd be wrong in that assessment, considering WOW was designed to be a more casual MMO, so it just did what was being done at the time... only "less hardcore". To say that WoW was designed with 'challenging and difficult content' in mind is just plain wrong.

That is not what I said. I said the game at the timed was designed the way it was and for that time and the way it was designed most people were not entering not to mention clearing raid content. Versus the game as it is designed today which explicitly designed to allow a large majority of players to enter and clear raid content. There weren't even enough players running raid content in vanilla to even justify the concept of multiple difficulties.

So you are making a straw man argument.

The game was different and the differences are the result of intentional design decisions. The presence of multiple difficulties of raid content was based on player feedback BTW. But I wasn't talking about why the differences exist, as opposed to the fact that the differences existed and aren't subjective personal opinion.

I had no problem with old WOW and I have no problem with WOW now. They both have their pluses and minuses. My honest opinion is that MMOs are still evolving and they are in some ways moving away from the original vision of what a MMORPG should or could be. Not sure if that is based on player feedback or business decisions, but time will tell how things will play out. Wow will continue to evolve and in a sense regardless of what many people say, the DEVs do seem to listen as a lot of things have been implemented in the game based on player feedback. The problem is that any change has consequences and unfortunately this means more people who dislike them as a result.

[Ielenia]

That is not what I said. I said the game at the timed was designed the way it was and for that time and the way it was designed most people were not entering not to mention clearing raid content.

What I am saying is that the game developers purposely and intentionally made raiding in vanilla to be difficult

No, that's exactly what you said. You said WoW Vanilla was purposely made to be difficult.

[Kyanion]

No, that's exactly what you said. You said WoW Vanilla was purposely made to be difficult.

Maybe you can help him remove his foot from his mouth.

[Selah]

I'd argue that the game as a whole, and the majority of it's components are far better than vanilla. I think the one thing that vanilla really had going for it was community. People were far more engaged with each other as much as the game.

[therealbowser]

The community.

[ping-pong]

I'd argue that the game as a whole, and the majority of it's components are far better than vanilla. I think the one thing that vanilla really had going for it was community. People were far more engaged with each other as much as the game.

Sadly true for most gaming communities. Priorities shifted, spoiled whiny brats figured out they can make more tantrum online then IRL. Frustrated people figured out it's a good opportunity to blow some steam. Also entitlement is a big problem. Everyone suddenly want to change the game to suit their needs, more and more people want to clear hardest content while they invest so little time in developing skills. Whining instead of having fun became a big thing. I don't see a solution there though... perhaps giving honor system like "helpful", "friendly" etc like in LoL? People might try to be excellent to each other just for the points... and later they find out that they enjoy such atmosphere and healing begins

[Lillemus]

Strength = Attack power. I'm pretty sure rogues want that. And it wasn't random, if an item had spirit on it it always had spirit on it, and the same amount every time.

1 str = 1 AP, 1 agi = 2 AP and crit, I think at least, anyhow, agi seriously outperformed str at every turn, and since you'd barely been considering str a stat during levelling where "of the monkey" were godlike items and it just felt a bit awkward that these subpar stats were present. As a sidenote I'm not sure if stacking spirit while levelling was in fact viable to keep up your HP, but I never met anyone who did that.
And I realise that the stats on them were static, I believe that drops from raids today also have static stats, the person I responded to was suggesting that the items were streamlined to help you advance to the next tier, I meant random in the sense that rogues didn't want spirit in a raid setting and much preferred AP or agility over strength. And to a certain extent stats were quite random in Vanilla as well as uncommon items were a big part of your setup for a good long time.

[Charge me Doctor]

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.

I knew many players from my guild who made a choice to level without doing quests (usually lineage 2 people). I don't think that it's really a "choice". I understand that people complaining about WoW not being an RPG simply use "no true scotsman" fallacy tho.
I also don't understand how classic wow was "more rpg" than current one, since your whole class usually was pigeonholed into a certain, very limited role.

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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?

What a pile of horse shit. You either do ALL THE QUESTS in a zone for pity 2 levels, or you farm crabs on a shore for 2 levels instead. There was no "choice" whatsoever, you either do everything, or gimp yourself to level on mobs (tho, even if you do all the quests you still have to grind).

Currently the system is the same - you go to a location, do all the quests. Right now it's way more convenient and fleshed out than it used to be, and your explanation of "the man that moved from place to place" is simple fluff, you can apply that to current wow if you wish, but you don't, because you don't wish to do so.

[Gegora]

To be honest I always thought that nothing could be compared to classic wow or TBC. But i downloaded Vanilla wow couple of weeks back and played it, but it is worse then i could remember it haha, I find this expansion beter then Classic.

[ThatsOurEric]

The short answer is absolutely nothing.

[Akka]

1 str = 1 AP, 1 agi = 2 AP and crit, I think at least, anyhow, agi seriously outperformed str at every turn

Agi only gave 1 melee AP up to WotLK.
Agi was better because dodge, AC and Crit, but strength wasn't bad and it allowed to have more global AP (due to diminishing returns when stacking one stat) than if there had been only agi.
Also, everyone always complain about Vanilla itemization, but I don't see a problem in items not being perfectly itemized, as long as it's not hampering one class more than others.

As a sidenote I'm not sure if stacking spirit while levelling was in fact viable to keep up your HP, but I never met anyone who did that.

As a rogue it wasn't terribly efficient, but as warrior it was very good, and I actually did it. I valued spirit on my gear rather well (only for leveling ofc) and kept some ring with +13 spirit for a long time, and it massively cut downtime between fights.

[Charge me Doctor]

2) not for everyone the community wasn't 'amazing' your guild was the community for a lot of ppl, they were the only ones whos opinion you cared about not the greater server, one guy spamming about some guy ninja'ing an item didn't get seen by the wider community and ninjas and general asshats didn't get shamed out of servers.

Frankly, it's still true for mythic raiders, since you can just grab players from the other server (without an expensive transfer) - in mythic guilds players are known usually by-name.

And seriously, i've been through SO many players doing mythic keys. I think that most 880-mouth-breathing-healers-who-were-carried-through-heroic-raids are in my blacklist now. On the other hand, 4 REALLY good mythic-raiding healers are on my friends list now. Mythics are the best thing in WoW

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1> Leveling was rewarding. Each level after 10 rewarded a talent point (sometimes two) it felt great to open the panel and open up a new talent or add another 2% of this or that. Every two levels you had new spells and more powerful ranks of spells made available to you. Certain levels were really memorable.. like 20 for some of your signature spells, level 40 for your first mount, level 60... not because it was time to raid... but because NOW it was time to focus on gearing for raids... now you just jump into heroics and LFR... just so meh.

Picking between your MotW giving you 3% more stats (i must add for clarity - it's fucking 0,06 to all stats and, like 2 armour) or 20% chance to get 10 rage when you jump into bear form. You sir is a liar. Not a single same person felt gratified over trivial shit like this. Sure, getting a thing like SoComm on paladin was cool, but by getting it you are playing wrong, because you should be spending these points in holy instead. See? Almost all cool stuff was gated behind making bad long-term decisions. Having "a choice" between 3% more armour in a form, or having 15% more speed in another form or reducing the chance that you'll be detected while prowling (spend 5 points just to make one of your abilities actually usable!) wasn't rewarding, at all.

What powerful ranks are you talking about? It's simply a difference between an ability doing 20 damage or 40 damage. And more often than not (i'm talking about healing spells there), there was no point to rank them above rank 5. Whats engaging about needing to run all the way back in town and spend money to get a stronger rank? Don't get me wrong, if all the spells would be learned the same way as warlocks learned their demons - it would be cool, but buying ranks of spell is just shit.

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4> Gear. Deterministic loot was better than RNG loot. Period. When an item is unique, and designed for you to complete certain stats to reach the next plateau... it has greater value and feels more rewarding when you acquire it. When it doesn't matter what and where you go you cna get a random item that has the same stats, it devalues the world and the content, making it all feel like the same activity, with random drops.

Yay for int mail drops for horde pre level 40 i guess?
I mean, you, right now, just explained what happens in legion - gear is actually balanced towards specs that are going to be using it, instead of paladins running around in cloth "cus it has crit and int"

[Farrarie]

the people

[Deleted]

It was just a different game.

I wanted to say it was better because that is what I feel when I think about it. But, if I want to be honest and treat the new game with respect I'm just going to say that it was a tottaly different game.

It was a timesink, it was grindy, it was slow. But at the same time it created a connection with your char and truly imitated an open online world.

The WoW we have now is great in many ways, but its not an MMO right now - it's has more of a MOBA feeling with rpg elements.

And the gear look now is just ridiculously epic. I persnally can't stand the fact that you cannot distinguish a powerful hero from a noobie - everybody looks like super-mega-hyper hero. In vanilla you had to really work on your char to be somone. And it's not a joke - before TBC and other expansions the gear had a lot of variety. TBC introduced a lot of the same looking armors with different colours and it has been like this since then. I mean how many different pieces of questing armor does legion have? like 1 for each type? with 5 different colors? that is just a joke.

I gave Legion one last chance but I'm quiting and now for real. This game has lots of things to do but is not fun for me anymore. I liked the times when seeing raid content made you someone. Now its only about mythic which doesnt even give you better looking gear sometimes than LFR. It's just not a game for me anymore.

[Deleted]

Of course WoW vanilla is not better in terms of mechanics, confort and technology. But as Raenor here just said, it was different and some people preferred that. No need for the usual fanboys on both sides to say "wah wah vanilla sucked Legion is perfect game" or "Legion is just bad, vanilla was perfect". Both are lies and try to pass subjective opinions as facts.

However I won't retract my statement on WoW poor RPG experience. To me WoW vanilla was already bad in terms of RPG, I'm not arguing on that.

[Maudib]

Picking between your MotW giving you 3% more stats (i must add for clarity - it's fucking 0,06 to all stats and, like 2 armour) or 20% chance to get 10 rage when you jump into bear form. You sir is a liar. Not a single same person felt gratified over trivial shit like this.

What powerful ranks are you talking about? It's simply a difference between an ability doing 20 damage or 40 damage. And more often than not (i'm talking about healing spells there), there was no point to rank them above rank 5. Whats engaging about needing to run all the way back in town and spend money to get a stronger rank? Don't get me wrong, if all the spells would be learned the same way as warlocks learned their demons - it would be cool, but buying ranks of spell is just shit.

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Yay for int mail drops for horde pre level 40 i guess?
I mean, you, right now, just explained what happens in legion - gear is actually balanced towards specs that are going to be using it, instead of paladins running around in cloth "cus it has crit and int"

Call me a liar again...



MANY people enjoy "that trivial shit". It's called an MMO, progression, a rewarding experience. Not that craptastic, make max level in 6 hours bullcrap people with ADHD play today between rounds of Hearthstone and fapping to Panser.

Of course vanilla wasn't perfect... but it was and IS amazing. Legion? Is a huge borefest. I am playing vanilla now and having a BLAST leveling several toons, enjoying the community, LOVING adding my lying ass 2% this and 1% that. I have 10 time tokens in inventory on my main in Legion... and haven't played in months... both games are "free" to me now.. and I choose vanilla over Legion.. hands down.

[Deleted]

LuL at Legion borefest

Yeah because endless grind of vulture or murlock hoping for dropping quest item, was mind blowing



At least if you want to point out which features were better in vanilla than Legion, point the right one like Community, not bullshit like talents