What made classic wow better than current?

[Canderous1]

the only thing better back then was the fact that it was new, and for many players it was their first mmo experience. I can only liken it to everquest when i started. exploring the unknown.

aside from that, its better now.

[Deleted]

I'm tempted to say nothing or rose tinted glasses but I'm going to be a bit more useful now.

Here is what made wow better.

It was different from the usual MMOs like everquest and Final Fantasy XI. It set a new paradigm and for years it was the best at it.
Now it is lagging behind with its lack of housing or dynamic alternative to quests, irritating bag system and painfully dull leveling and class design.

WoW is way better than what is was in Vanilla (but not nearly as good as WotLK) but Vanilla was better compared to its peers than current WoW is compared to current MMOs.

[God Save The King]

Literally nothing supports that statement

[Deleted]

Literally nothing supports that statement

I don't think we have the same definition of literally. And I have a degree in linguistics.

[God Save The King]

I don't think we have the same definition of literally. And I have a degree in linguistics.

I'm using the oxford informal definition. *shrug*.

For an alleged linguist, that should be pretty obvious.

[Bearshield]

Classic WoW was a different game than the game is today so it's really difficult to compare. It also depends on how you play the game, what is good to one person, isn't necessarily good to another.

For me, as a semi-casual/semi-hardcore player:

Classic Pro's:

The talent system allowed for hybrid builds and did not have to be tweaked on every encounter
Hybrids could reasonably perform more than one task in a group, rather than being limited by spec
Raids had one difficulty setting and unless you were a hardcore raider, you always had "new" raid content to look forward to. (examples: I never finished Naxx or AQ40 but did everything else)
Completing dungeons required cooperation, you didn't just face pull and aoe everything
Group content gave you the opportunity to meet people from your server, potentially making new friends in the process

Today pro's:

Hybrids do not have to prove they can do something other than heal in order to be allowed to tank/dps in a group
All specs have access to tier and raid viable gear
While some classes may be better suited for an encounter than others, there are no encounters that only one class can handle
There are alternatives to structured raiding for gearing alts
World bosses are accessible to everyone, not just the one guild that camped their spawn point for 2-3 days

[Deleted]

I'm using the oxford informal definition. *shrug*.

For an alleged linguist, that should be pretty obvious.

Informal. Yes, that was your first mistake. Mine is formal.

But this going to get us nowhere. Care to ellaborate on what you don't agree with, Bruce?

[McNeil]

While I'm not really a fan of using scores from major gaming sites as a metric, its atleast something to judge the so called ''better'' game:

Vanilla:



Legion:



All pretty good scores but vanilla scores the best. Then again its just ratings.

[Eleccybubb]

While I'm not really a fan of using scores from major gaming sites as a metric, its atleast something to judge the so called ''better'' game:

Vanilla:



Legion:



All pretty good scores but vanilla scores the best. Then again its just ratings.

Yeah because Vanilla isn't biased with more reviews is it?

It's not something to judge the "better" game at all. IGN are a fucking company who rated a game 7/10 for having and I quote "too much water".

[Deleted]

Like I said, Vanilla popularized the genre and WoW had no real competitor for years (save for Guild Wars maybe). With ESO, Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy XIV around of course Legion won't get the same ratings.

But Legion IS better in the sense that a lot of things improved over the years. Graphics improved. Not by much, but still noticable. We have more classes, races and professions to chose from, a much bigger map to explore, we have a decent quest tracker, achievements. we can organize the inventory, we have a transmog log....etc.

Vanilla had no central storyline, very little endgame, and organized PVP came with a patch.

[McNeil]

Yeah because Vanilla isn't biased with more reviews is it?

I didn't count in the amount of reviews, just at how high the ones are from the ones that rated both. Kinda shows how many gaming sites no longer exist to this day.

[Eleccybubb]

I didn't count in the amount of reviews, just at how high the ones are from the ones that rated both. Kinda shows how many gaming sites no longer exist to this day.

And half of those are shitty reviewers. Like I said IGN for example gave Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby 7/10 for "too much water" and "too many HMs". Hard to take that kind of shit seriously. Also there is an extremely minor difference between the few. To claim it's the better game because some random guys scored it 5 more or .5 more is moronic at best.

By that logic any game with a sequel that get's scored .1 or less than it's predecessor is worse right because some random people wrote about it?

Game critics are opinionated just like us. Their scores are opinionated. To use them to claim a game is better by fact is ridiculous and desperate at best. Especially when there is barely any difference between the scores.

[God Save The King]

Informal. Yes, that was your first mistake. Mine is formal.

But this going to get us nowhere. Care to ellaborate on what you don't agree with, Bruce?

Not a mistake. Using the second or third or informal or archaic definition is fine, so long as proper context is provided. The mistake was you attempting to enforce a formal definition to a clearly informal use of the word, in an attempt to make me look bad.


Anyway, I feel like every aspect of the game as improved. Naturally, people have varying tastes, thoughts, and opinions, so what I consider better is of course subjective.

Major points, ones I usually see brought up.

Community: While the general community is more or less as toxic, there have been huge strides outside of the game since Classic. First things like wowhead, mmo-champion, wowpedia, wowwiki, etc. Eventually we evolved into the ventrilo/teamspeak/mumble communities; I remember spending a decent chunk of time on the curse ventrilo a while back. Today, we have robust discord servers for classes, professions, guilds, and general communities. I've met some of the most informed and kind people on these servers. Plus it's super easy to make your own server, so I can invite my friends and form little communities, now beginning to span games and platforms. You've lost server community, but I personally never really cared for or valued it.

Raiding: The difficulty in raiding has shifted from preparation in Classic to Mechanical in Legion. Gone are the days of endless farming for all the consumables, gold, etc. No more headache trying to organize 40 people, or manage 10 man and 25 man teams in TBC. In legion, there are a few consumables you need to collect before raid, but they're fairly trivial to acquire. Augment runes can be a bit pricey, but those are really optional. Couple that with few enchants and few sockets, and raiding is cheaper than ever (except maybe in WoD). The challenge of modern raiding comes from the bosses, Classic raiding just couldn't hold a candle to even TBC raiding, let alone WoD/Legion raiding.

Challenge: Like raiding, the challenge in Legion is focused on the mechanics of the end-game. I never really enjoyed the pain of leveling 1-60 Pre-Cataclysm. 10 minute corpse walks, needing food/drink after each pull, the inaccessibility of group quests and dungeons, skill ranks/trainers, and the lack of travel options made leveling back in the day very tedious, punishing, and time-consuming. It wasn't hard, it just took forever and minor missteps were heavily punished, plus players had very few routes to get around roadblocks aside from grinding levels or traveling halfway across the world.

[McNeil]

And half of those are shitty reviewers. Like I said IGN for example gave Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby 7/10 for "too much water" and "too many HMs". Hard to take that kind of shit seriously. Also there is an extremely minor difference between the few that are the same. To claim it's the better game because some random guys scored it 5 more or .5 more is moronic at best.

By that logic any game with a sequel that get's scored .1 or less than it's predecessor is worse right because some random people wrote about it?

I don't agree with most of these reviewers and I believe for a long time that they are just getting paid to give good reviews, its just another metric for people that are hellbent on which game is better. They often get written by just a single person who ofcourse doesn't speak for the majority. If I were to review WoW games they would both get a 7.5/10 or something, I've never been a fan of giving away 9/10, 10/10 ratings like candy.

[Eleccybubb]

I don't agree with most of these reviewers and I believe for a long time that they are just getting paid to give good reviews, its just another metric for people that are hellbent on which game is better. They often get written by just a single person who ofcourse doesn't speak for the majority. If I were to review WoW games they would both get a 7.5/10 or something, I've never been a fan of giving away 9/10, 10/10 ratings like candy.

Something we agree on with the ratings at least. But I maintain my stance. Using a game score to say one game is better than the other when that itself is someones opinion is moronic.

I mean off topic a bit here but look at No Mans Sky for example. Hated by a lot and still somehow gets 4 star reviews.

Also my personal ratings on each one.

Vanilla. 7/10
TBC. 8/10
Wrath of the Lich King. 9/10
Cata 6/10
MoP. 9.5/10
WoD 4/10
Legion 8/10

MoP gets the highest because it kept me subbed throughout the entirety and I thoroughly enjoyed most of the story and PvE content. PVE content is a big thing for me. And for once I was enjoying myself in PvP which was rare. Even in Arenas too. Basically MoP was the only time so far I've been entertained by all aspects of content.

Naturally WoD gets the lowest because it was in my opinion a steaming pile of hot garbage that tried to pass a selfie camera which was essentially a screenshot addon and Twitter integration as a major patch. Along with lack of content. However zones were well done, some music was pretty good and Dungeons were fun especially on Challenge Mode.

[Deleted]

Not a mistake. Using the second or third or informal or archaic definition is fine, so long as proper context is provided. The mistake was you attempting to enforce a formal definition to a clearly informal use of the word, in an attempt to make me look bad.

Wow, you are very bad at spotting a joke, aren't you? Sorry I'm picking on you, but if you just burp out: "literally everything is wrong" without going into details, it's impossible to take it seriously. Now that you actuall give me something to work with:

Anyway, I feel like every aspect of the game as improved. Naturally, people have varying tastes, thoughts, and opinions, so what I consider better is of course subjective.

Major points, ones I usually see brought up.

Community: While the general community is more or less as toxic, there have been huge strides outside of the game since Classic. First things like wowhead, mmo-champion, wowpedia, wowwiki, etc. Eventually we evolved into the ventrilo/teamspeak/mumble communities; I remember spending a decent chunk of time on the curse ventrilo a while back. Today, we have robust discord servers for classes, professions, guilds, and general communities. I've met some of the most informed and kind people on these servers. Plus it's super easy to make your own server, so I can invite my friends and form little communities, now beginning to span games and platforms. You've lost server community, but I personally never really cared for or valued it.

Raiding: The difficulty in raiding has shifted from preparation in Classic to Mechanical in Legion. Gone are the days of endless farming for all the consumables, gold, etc. No more headache trying to organize 40 people, or manage 10 man and 25 man teams in TBC. In legion, there are a few consumables you need to collect before raid, but they're fairly trivial to acquire. Augment runes can be a bit pricey, but those are really optional. Couple that with few enchants and few sockets, and raiding is cheaper than ever (except maybe in WoD). The challenge of modern raiding comes from the bosses, Classic raiding just couldn't hold a candle to even TBC raiding, let alone WoD/Legion raiding.

Challenge: Like raiding, the challenge in Legion is focused on the mechanics of the end-game. I never really enjoyed the pain of leveling 1-60 Pre-Cataclysm. 10 minute corpse walks, needing food/drink after each pull, the inaccessibility of group quests and dungeons, skill ranks/trainers, and the lack of travel options made leveling back in the day very tedious, punishing, and time-consuming. It wasn't hard, it just took forever and minor missteps were heavily punished, plus players had very few routes to get around roadblocks aside from grinding levels or traveling halfway across the world.

I fail to see how any of this contradicts what I said. I said the current wow is way better than Vanilla (But worse than WotLK, maybe because WotLK was the last time zones could be cleared in a chronological order, we had no content drought, and we were before cataclysm and WoD).

BUT Vanilla had no challengers to its title, and Legion has plenty. It's no longer the best MMO of its time despite all the improvements. And that's why Vanilla seems better for some. That and rose tinted glasses.

So you saying Legion is better than Vanilla is actually supporting my argument.

[God Save The King]

I fail to see how any of this contradicts what I said. I said the current wow is way better than Vanilla (But worse than WotLK, maybe because WotLK was the last time zones could be cleared in a chronological order, we had no content drought, and we were before cataclysm and WoD).

BUT Vanilla had no challengers to its title, and Legion has plenty. It's no longer the best MMO of its time despite all the improvements. And that's why Vanilla seems better for some. That and rose tinted glasses.

So you saying Legion is better than Vanilla is actually supporting my argument.

You have never stated an opinion to me, only challenged my use of the word literally.

I never attempted nor cared to argue with you. You quoted me first, and inquired. I wasn't attempting to contradict or argue with you.

Glad to know you agree.

[Deleted]

You have never stated an opinion to me, only challenged my use of the word literally.

I never attempted nor cared to argue with you. You quoted me first, and inquired. I wasn't attempting to contradict or argue with you.

Glad to know you agree.

Okay, now I am confused. If you never cared to argue with me why did you say: "Literally nothing supports that statement." Right after my original post.

[God Save The King]

Okay, now I am confused. If you never cared to argue with me why did you say: "Literally nothing supports that statement." Right after my original post.

Coincidence. I was referring to the thread title: "What made classic wow better than current".

I didn't address you, mention your post, nor quote you. I see the stem of confusion though. I didn't even realize I posted after you until you mentioned it, right now.

[Sencha]

While I'm not really a fan of using scores from major gaming sites as a metric, its atleast something to judge the so called ''better'' game:

Vanilla:



Legion:



All pretty good scores but vanilla scores the best. Then again its just ratings.

"Professional" reviews don't mean anything. They are just paid to show high ratings, especially from big companies. Look at user reviews instead.