What made classic wow better than current?

[Kazgrel]

Nothing has killed WoW. Legion is still the number one subscription MMO by a tremendous magnitude. This was true even during WoD.

Hence my second sentence there.

WoW may be dead to me, but to say it is dead, period...hilariously incorrect.

[Relapses]

Hence my second sentence there.

WoW may be dead to me, but to say it is dead, period...hilariously incorrect.

Sorry, it's hard to differentiate the hyperbole from the people who actually believe some of the stuff I see posted in this thread. ._.

[Niwes]

This. Blizzard cut their own wrists by changing the formula and catering almost fully to casuals. Instead of alienating their original, long term player base, they should have made minor changes for casuals and worked on keeping the real fans happy. They never realized that most casuals usually have a short attention span when it comes to keeping with any particular game. The original formula (vanilla/TBC - or even wotlk) would have produced much better retention over a longer period. The casuals stilled played back in the vanilla / TBC days, they adjusted to the game. they adapted, and learned to play the game as it was designed. Yes, some washed out, but that can be expected with any game. WoW also kept mostly full retention of the original player base back in that period. Now, the 'hardcores' are mostly all gone due to being alienated by the content, and the casuals fade in and out of the game when they get bored.

I for one would be still be paying and playing if Blizzard had stuck to the original formula. Perhaps not as much as I used to, but I would still be subscribed and doing what I could with the time I have. As it sits now, and for the foreseeable future, I have zero intentions of ever subscribing again.

exactly. full agree.

i remember the days in TBC. it wasnt like there were NO casuals and only genre fans. there were a lot casuals, and beginners and idiots too. but (as you correctly said) know what? they didnt run away in panic, like the newer wow seems to mention ("if we dont have a lot of "casual stuff"/pisseasy things/no-deep systems, casuals dont play our game"). no, as you said, they learned, they adapted, they got better. maybe slowly. maybe while doing stupid things and low dps. but nowhere i saw this guy going like "meh, i dont like that game, its too complex, it takes too long, i have no fun.". never met that ppl. nowhere. wether in vanilla nor in TBC. and i wasnt that "i live in my encapsulated raid guild blob" guy.

exactly as you said, blizz catered to the wrong audience. instead of further developing good systems into great systems, and finetune all the stuff, while adding side by side new stuff, the reinvented the whole wheel with catering to the masses in mind.

and also, as we both said, just looked at the good quarter numbers, but forgot that they should invest in their longterm paying customers instead doing things for ppl leaving that game after 2-3 months and never came back. they just didnt realized that a mmorpg xpac has a fat time/effort/money investment, that you have to stabilize with a solid customer base to be economic.

or in short: they were greedy and shortterm thinking. quarter numbers is all that matter these days, because market is changing fast. but IF you are in that lucky spot, that you already have a stable and giant customer base, this route is the wrong way and just stupid.

and we all know the result of such management descissions (when ppl like mike morhaime wanna please the activision shareholders, mostly by great quarter numbers): systems like the wow token (every wow token ever passed the AH gives blizz 5$ extra), connected servers instead realmpacking (the transfers are an absurd great money creator), more marketing, less investment, and so on.

stupid, that some silly management economics destroyed a great game. wow retail is still ok in some parts. but what great paltform wow had? what had this game could be, if they had focused on core of that stuff? that would be a damn great paralell universe.

of course there are ppl out there sayin: if that happened, wow would be dead today. but i dont think so.

its so sad that blizzard, a great gaming company, full of real game lovers, that made games for gamers by gamers, went down that long way from the top down to a cheap eyeblinder moneymaker, catering to everyone.

[Ielenia]

exactly as you said, blizz catered to the wrong audience. instead of further developing good systems into great systems, and finetune all the stuff, while adding side by side new stuff, the reinvented the whole wheel with catering to the masses in mind.

It's so ironic, seeing posts like this, full of arrogance and elitism, implying that WoW wasn't, from its inception, a game designed to "cater to the masses". From the get-go, WoW was all about accessibility, and, as time progressed, it only continued to become more accessible. I'm sorry if it hurts your 'elitist' feelings, but it's the truth. WoW was never designed to be 'challenging', but, instead, it was designed to be more accessible than its competition.

[Effenz]

Well, my point is that cata didn't kill wow. My point is that by the time cata came out the killing blow had already been delivered but most elite masters of forum analysis can't figure it out. I'm basing this off of the exact chart people who say cata killed wow use.

The point is: people who post in the forums are not good at analyzing data.

Well as I said before(not to you though), I say "killed" and not killed because WoW isn't dead by a long shot.
Noone is really capable of finding a set reason why, because the reasons differ with every single person who quits.

[rybat117]

From limited time on vanilla private servers, I feel like classic had a real liveliness in the world. A lot of this was simply in the fact that there was no flying; the world was massive, and having to traverse it on foot added to the scale of the place. In addition, the threat posed by mobs made you careful about where you went, and made fights seem like real encounters. Overall, I guess you could credit realism for why I like vanilla. I still play on live way more than any private server, and can say that Legion has made massive improvements in this respect.

[Sansnom]

This. Blizzard cut their own wrists by changing the formula and catering almost fully to casuals. Instead of alienating their original, long term player base, they should have made minor changes for casuals and worked on keeping the real fans happy.

"Casuals". First, what is a casual player?

WoW at its inception was suppose to be the most friendly, accessible and easiest MMO game. No death penalty. No mandatory PvP. No player looting other players. No endless grind. Easy rewards from just questing.

They never realized that most casuals usually have a short attention span when it comes to keeping with any particular game. The original formula (vanilla/TBC - or even wotlk) would have produced much better retention over a longer period.

Would it? That would mean the focus would on long levelling. Each expansion would require a one year or more levelling period. Much like Vanilla. Not saying this a bad idea. In fact, I would like to see this. But that development needs to be paid for. Some has to give if the focus is on levelling for one or two years and less on end game. That means the most obvious choice of reducing development would be raids.

Would the "hard core" players be happy with that? Would be considered as even more evidence that Blizzard is focusing on "casuals"?

The casuals stilled played back in the vanilla / TBC days, they adjusted to the game. they adapted, and learned to play the game as it was designed. Yes, some washed out, but that can be expected with any game. WoW also kept mostly full retention of the original player base back in that period.

Now, the 'hardcores' are mostly all gone due to being alienated by the content, and the casuals fade in and out of the game when they get bored.

And you know this? How? You have access to Blizzard customer database?

Blizzard only released subs number. 8 million. 10 million. 12 million. 7 million. We all based the success of the game on this one single number. We all make one big assumption. That the 8 million or what ever players at Vanilla are the same players today. We don't. Blizzard never released their players turnover. For all we know, the number of original players at the start vanilla could be just in the tens of thousands.

Blizzard once mentioned that WoW had 100 millions accounts. Assuming Legion has around 7 million, that is a 7% customer retention rate.

We do not know how many new accounts are being created from new customers.

[Deleted]

The more I play I legion I think "there were very few who were lucky in vanilla but now being lucky is mandatory".

[Daffan]

And yet Blizzard, who has all the data of what players actually did, obviously agrees with me, not with you. After BC they never toyed with removing catchup mechanics. The data were obviously quite compelling.

Blizzard didn't get the idea for Flex until half a decade later, nor the technology for any of the other solutions I listed.

Catchup mechanics was the answer to let people see all the content due to low participation rates at the time, because it was easy to implement, if Naxxramas 40 had magnitudes higher attendance due to other solutions (If they existed back then) it's not guaranteed they would of had to add catchup in the first place.

It's like, if we had super effective solar power in the 1800's, normal petrol as a fuel would have been a dumb idea.

But the biggest point is we have all those solutions now, so contrasting to Vanilla/TBC participation rates is folly. It's not non-linear vs linear. It's non-linear vs linear with no xyzabcd features to back it up.

[Charge me Doctor]

Yes but it's a huge difference in doing one dungeon 10 times for a reward versus doing a dungeon 10 times in one difficulty, and then 10 more times in another difficulty, and then 10 more times in another difficulty, and then 10 more times in another difficulty, all for the same reward with bigger numbers attached to it.

How many times did you do Scholomance for example? Maybe 50 spread out over 2 years? How many times have you done Maw of Souls in the last 6 months? Probably hundreds?

So... doing dungeon multiple times for a reward vs doing a dungeon multiple times for a reward. I don't see a difference honestly

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It's about a continuous journey vs a repetitive. Running on a treadmill can be just as challenging as running outside but you're not seeing something new, you can't look behind you how far you've come or ahead to see how long you still have to go, you only have numbers on a screen telling you.
Non linear progression lacks immersion and satisfaction. It's like D3, you're gearing for gearing's sake, not in order to see something new, and you keep doing the same thing over and over again, just making your enemies stronger.

Well, i've already "completed" vanilla, there is nothing new for me on PS except things that they've got wrong because of lack of sniffs from official servers and, well, just wrong things like druids running around with "of quality" items or playing fucking molten core full of mages and fury warriors (who were shit at this patch, but because admins decided to put 1.12.1 talents into 1.4 game with redesigned weapons it's fine and blizzlike)

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There's a huge difference. Working for weeks or even months in order to get to the last boss and then finally downing him vs downing him on day one and then spending maybe a week or two progressing in order to kill him yet again, and then going into farm mode for months.

If you play only for gear I can see if there's no difference. But if you play in order to move yourself on step further on the journey it's a huge difference.

If you down guldan in day one - you play on way lower difficulty than you should be and do that mostly for alts.
And no, it's the same, you work towards killing last boss for months and finally down him. Maybe do couple of farm runs for BiS trinket for your main DPS.
Except in vanilla you are forced to "spend maybe a week or two progressing in order to kill him yet again" as you speak, because you needed gear to progress in next raid.
Just FYI - nerdscreams happen only once - on a first progression kill, then it's on farm until new content is released. It was like that from release of raids.

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Seems exactly as today : one spec produces better result, and bleeding edge raiders only use such spec to get the absolute best output.
And everyone else plays the spec they like. As someone said, "no one but the world first crowd does that".

thank god that bleeding edge raiders are only 1% so we peasants can play whatever we want, because most of our, peasants, DPS loss is from fuck ups and lack of gear, which is not a case for bleeding edge raiders.

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They definitely lost all because of archaeology! I mean decline started with damn archaeology correlation=/=causation and that stuff.

they've lost all customers because "Stormstrike has a new icon" patch obviously

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Ok so, I'll try to help you comprehend. I went through raid x , y and z in a day using lfr with the current setup. First time there, didnt even know what the mechanics were. Steam rolled them with a bunch of people I didn't know, cool. Yes, it was fun for a short time. But, been there, done that. Saw what the raids had in them and the bosses. Don't want to do them again because why bother? .

No you didn't, you've seen practically target dummies with bosses models. LFR is not endgame, it's akin to watching a video on youtube and then say "ok, i've seen all raiding content, what's next?"

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Was talking about stuff like sinestra but sure. You know, the boss that barely anyone saw while it was current content.
Also; you're crazy if you're thinking blizzard taught you to play while leveling 1-60, 60-70, or 70-80. There were just as many clueless people at max level in Vanilla/TBC/WoTLK as there were in Cata. Only difference was you did normals in the previous expansions instead of doing heroics; most people didn't do heroics in TBC until well after launch, and heroics in WoTLK got nerfed to obsolescence once you got ilvl 200~ gear (naxx 10). Cata heroics were still mildly challenging in BWD normal gear until the nerf.

Sinestra was so fucking fun. DBM didn't worked at all on her, while mechanically she wasn't that hard. We realized A LOT about our fellow raiders who we used to think were good, but actually it was an addon playing for them. Derp.

[Effenz]

So... doing dungeon multiple times for a reward vs doing a dungeon multiple times for a reward. I don't see a difference honestly

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Well, i've already "completed" vanilla, there is nothing new for me on PS except things that they've got wrong because of lack of sniffs from official servers and, well, just wrong things like druids running around with "of quality" items or playing fucking molten core full of mages and fury warriors (who were shit at this patch, but because admins decided to put 1.12.1 talents into 1.4 game with redesigned weapons it's fine and blizzlike)

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If you down guldan in day one - you play on way lower difficulty than you should be and do that mostly for alts.
And no, it's the same, you work towards killing last boss for months and finally down him. Maybe do couple of farm runs for BiS trinket for your main DPS.
Except in vanilla you are forced to "spend maybe a week or two progressing in order to kill him yet again" as you speak, because you needed gear to progress in next raid.
Just FYI - nerdscreams happen only once - on a first progression kill, then it's on farm until new content is released. It was like that from release of raids.

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thank god that bleeding edge raiders are only 1% so we peasants can play whatever we want, because most of our, peasants, DPS loss is from fuck ups and lack of gear, which is not a case for bleeding edge raiders.

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they've lost all customers because "Stormstrike has a new icon" patch obviously

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No you didn't, you've seen practically target dummies with bosses models. LFR is not endgame, it's akin to watching a video on youtube and then say "ok, i've seen all raiding content, what's next?"

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Sinestra was so fucking fun. DBM didn't worked at all on her, while mechanically she wasn't that hard. We realized A LOT about our fellow raiders who we used to think were good, but actually it was an addon playing for them. Derp.

I remember having a minor freakout on sinestra when I missed a grip on the dragonspawn. Anxiety attack, ho!

[blitz156]

To me, Classic was better in that it didn't feel so spoon fed and hand outs type. I'm actually surprised and happy with how they're handling flying now though. You gotta earn it.

There are a lot of factors, but here are some that come to mind;

The journey was a lot of the fun, but now players seem so fixed on end result. I want it now, I got it finally, rather than I got it yay! Parts of that varied through the xpacs and vanilla (grinding for tier gear), and legion handles some things better, but still.

Now the journey is more grindy since you zombie through stuff without having to think hard. So you only look forward to end result. (How many enjoy leveling anymore? A lot would consider it a chore). End result takes too long so it's made easier. Reach end result. "oh, well that's it." Cancels subscription lol.

Teleporting everywhere kills it too. Zombie-ing through dungeons just AoE'ing everything also makes it a drainer, barely have to think or co-operate. Completing dungeon runs without even speaking a word to your team is successful? Is that right like that? Don't even care what classes we team up with now, it doesn't alter our tactics or play-style accordingly. So it's boring and feels like a grind rather than achievement completing something.
Also, there was a stage you didn't even need to know where dungeons were in the world cause you just teleport everytime.

A lot of the Classic stuff admittedly did take too long, but I think there needs to be a middle ground. Okay so for dungeons, CC'ing all the trash every pull makes runs too long, but there has to be some in between point.

The quest helper. Quests are zombie mode cause you don't even need to read them. (But there was an addon doing that so blizzard did it themselves anyway, didn't see a way around it.)

All the automation ease of play use type stuff like that makes it less interactive.

Blizzard said at one time I think that a lot of players when cancelling subscription don't have time anymore, particularly the veteran players. Which is fair enough, so they made things quicker and easier. But I think it got to a point being too much. Also, probably partly misunderstood that "I don't have time anymore" could really be "I don't want to make time anymore".
If you do something you really enjoy, you'll make the time.

Thanks for reading

[Charge me Doctor]

Now the journey is more grindy since you zombie through stuff without having to think hard. So you only look forward to end result. (How many enjoy leveling anymore? A lot would consider it a chore). End result takes too long so it's made easier. Reach end result. "oh, well that's it." Cancels subscription lol.

It's your choice to level at extremely fast pace and "zombie through stuff without having to think hard". I still enjoy leveling, i don't equip heirloom items (because the flood of green items from quests is already unstoppable), i don't go to dungeons more than once, and i completely skip TBC questing because it's shit (i used to skip classic questing too (usually by dungeoning and grinding mobs), because it was boring as fuck since i've been doing a lot of it already, Cata kinda changed it to better). The only thing that i miss is importance of a profession you pick - some crafted items used to be really good, now it's just a waste compared to how much time you spend leveling it up to your current level.

Teleporting everywhere kills it too. Zombie-ing through dungeons just AoE'ing everything also makes it a drainer, barely have to think or co-operate. Completing dungeon runs without even speaking a word to your team is successful? Is that right like that? Don't even care what classes we team up with now, it doesn't alter our tactics or play-style accordingly. So it's boring and feels like a grind rather than achievement completing something.
Also, there was a stage you didn't even need to know where dungeons were in the world cause you just teleport everytime.

Kills what? Kills your downtime in the world since you spend less time alt+tabbed into youtube while flying?
Honestly, what is better, single-target-auto-attacking each mob to death, or AoEing them to death? Protip: it's all the same, one of these two is faster tho. I don't recall talking much to other players in a dungeon besides "mage water pls". What stops you from communicating with party members now? If you think that people used to be all communicative and talking StRaTeGiEs in a dungeon in vanilla - you are wrong, you just gave leader to a tank (and hope that he won't masterloot anything) and he puts marks on targets, then you do what you have to do.
And again, you don't need to know where the entrance to the dungeon is, but you can get this knowledge. Even in vanilla 99% didn't know how to get to fucking mara without an addon

A lot of the Classic stuff admittedly did take too long, but I think there needs to be a middle ground. Okay so for dungeons, CC'ing all the trash every pull makes runs too long, but there has to be some in between point.

CC'ing "all the trash every pull" wasn't even a thing. Common "time-eaters" back then were:
1) waiting for group to assemble
2) waiting for everyone to "finish their quest and i'll be there"
3) waiting for patrols to gtfo
4) waiting for mana users to eat
5) slowly progress forward because main "damage dealt" graph was "autoattack", "wand attack", "auto shot" and "pet attack"
6) running/drinking/ressing AFKers after death, because a warrior decided to actually use his ability "Charge" to pull stuff instead of throwing a knife. God damn these players using their abiltiies.

The quest helper. Quests are zombie mode cause you don't even need to read them. (But there was an addon doing that so blizzard did it themselves anyway, didn't see a way around it.)

Quest helper wasn't blizzards idea, it was community that made it, it was community that used it, it was community that forced it onto each other (omg he don't know where this shit drops what a noob without quest helper/questie/whatvere the fuck). In fact, majority of "QoL" changes (even people-who-didn't-played-vanilla-but-played-PS-and-think-that-it-is-vanilla hated LFG system was created by community, blizzard just removed the mandatory addon from the list of mandatory addons and simplified the process)

Blizzard said at one time I think that a lot of players when cancelling subscription don't have time anymore, particularly the veteran players. Which is fair enough, so they made things quicker and easier. But I think it got to a point being too much. Also, probably partly misunderstood that "I don't have time anymore" could really be "I don't want to make time anymore".
If you do something you really enjoy, you'll make the time.

Blizzard said a lot of things, this can be one of reasons for changes, but WoW was always about accessibility - everyone should be able to play it, but community forgot about it, helping newbies became something frowned upon and this whole "just kick the noob and get a good guy instead" mentality developed in community over time.
Now, this case was brought up in mid-TBC, when exp required for leveling in vanilla was reduced - do you really think that anyone in his sane mind will level a character from 1 to 60 over the same time it was required back in 2004? It isn't the case of "well people just don't want to put this time in", but it's in most cases was impossible to do certain activities (good luck finding a group for dire maul in TBC when 2k out of 3k pop were capped and no one was at your level to run dungeon).
The game became too long over the time and exp requirements had to be dropped, because it divided community too much and alt-play was impossible for regular player (who often paid money for others to level their characters which is not cool (but i made a plenty of money for doing that in mid-TBC, that's why i hate questing through vanilla-TBC)

[Rogalicus]

It's your choice to level at extremely fast pace and "zombie through stuff without having to think hard".

It's not, even without heirlooms you still quickly outlevel locations and just 2-shot mobs instead of oneshotting. It's nothing more than a mindless grind.

[Relapses]

It's not, even without heirlooms you still quickly outlevel locations and just 2-shot mobs instead of oneshotting. It's nothing more than a mindless grind.

How does this differ in any from the Vanilla grind?

Oh, right. Every two mobs you'd have to eat food. I forgot how exciting this was.

[Charge me Doctor]

It's not, even without heirlooms you still quickly outlevel locations and just 2-shot mobs instead of oneshotting. It's nothing more than a mindless grind.

How is 20-shotting mobs to get even less experience of vanilla is more than a mindless grind? I mean, is it health pool/damage output of player that makes mindless grind not mindless grind? Because, universally, killing mobs is considered to be mindless grind, because mobs are just mobs and don't fight back that much, they exist to be beaten to death

[Effenz]

How is 20-shotting mobs to get even less experience of vanilla is more than a mindless grind?

Nostalgia. Nostalgia makes taking forever to kill one mob feel more rewarding.

[blitz156]

It's your choice to level at extremely fast pace and "zombie through stuff without having to think hard". I still enjoy leveling, i don't equip heirloom items (because the flood of green items from quests is already unstoppable), i don't go to dungeons more than once, and i completely skip TBC questing because it's shit (i used to skip classic questing too (usually by dungeoning and grinding mobs), because it was boring as fuck since i've been doing a lot of it already, Cata kinda changed it to better). The only thing that i miss is importance of a profession you pick - some crafted items used to be really good, now it's just a waste compared to how much time you spend leveling it up to your current level.

Nice, fair enough.

Kills what? Kills your downtime in the world since you spend less time alt+tabbed into youtube while flying?
Honestly, what is better, single-target-auto-attacking each mob to death, or AoEing them to death? Protip: it's all the same, one of these two is faster tho. I don't recall talking much to other players in a dungeon besides "mage water pls". What stops you from communicating with party members now? If you think that people used to be all communicative and talking StRaTeGiEs in a dungeon in vanilla - you are wrong, you just gave leader to a tank (and hope that he won't masterloot anything) and he puts marks on targets, then you do what you have to do.
And again, you don't need to know where the entrance to the dungeon is, but you can get this knowledge. Even in vanilla 99% didn't know how to get to fucking mara without an addon

Fair call. But there had to be something done to counter that; sit in 'capital city of xpac' and just TP where you want to go. At least they improved that over time though giving more reason to go out in the world.
But I disagree your view on dungeon runs and how they were. My first experience that solidified my love for WoW was as a noob in Deadmines. Little did I realise I partied with a top-tier raider alt and he structured and explained the game well for us scrubs. It was fun as, we learnt each others abilities, co-ordinated CC. Attacked at precise moments. We all had a job to do and if we did it well we got through it easier. I remember in UBRS or something having to learn how to kite that dragon properly so you could buy the team some time and breathing room. Made you care about your class and feel defined. There were situations that could make your class shine other than Skada/Recount meters. Now you just run in and not give a shit and spam all your abilities without caring of any consequence, tank doesn't even need to pull just bring mob packs to him, AoE that shit. And it's not about that you can't talk (lol) it's the lack of incentive or reason to.

CC'ing "all the trash every pull" wasn't even a thing. Common "time-eaters" back then were:
1) waiting for group to assemble
2) waiting for everyone to "finish their quest and i'll be there"
3) waiting for patrols to gtfo
4) waiting for mana users to eat
5) slowly progress forward because main "damage dealt" graph was "autoattack", "wand attack", "auto shot" and "pet attack"
6) running/drinking/ressing AFKers after death, because a warrior decided to actually use his ability "Charge" to pull stuff instead of throwing a knife. God damn these players using their abiltiies.

Yeah, some valid dark points to classic.

Quest helper wasn't blizzards idea, it was community that made it, it was community that used it, it was community that forced it onto each other (omg he don't know where this shit drops what a noob without quest helper/questie/whatvere the fuck). In fact, majority of "QoL" changes (even people-who-didn't-played-vanilla-but-played-PS-and-think-that-it-is-vanilla hated LFG system was created by community, blizzard just removed the mandatory addon from the list of mandatory addons and simplified the process)

Yeah, I believe Blizz were just forced to add it, unless they otherwise made questhelper count as cheating. But that wouldn't go down well.
There was a game screenshot, I forget which, where someone photoshopped the hud to have quest markers and guides for everything imaging how much it would neuter the game. A cancerous thought but funny to imagine. Wish I could remember what it was. The closest thing I can think of is The Witcher 3 quest style compared to WoW... or was it skyrim.. Anyway..

Blizzard said a lot of things, this can be one of reasons for changes, but WoW was always about accessibility - everyone should be able to play it, but community forgot about it, helping newbies became something frowned upon and this whole "just kick the noob and get a good guy instead" mentality developed in community over time.
Now, this case was brought up in mid-TBC, when exp required for leveling in vanilla was reduced - do you really think that anyone in his sane mind will level a character from 1 to 60 over the same time it was required back in 2004? It isn't the case of "well people just don't want to put this time in", but it's in most cases was impossible to do certain activities (good luck finding a group for dire maul in TBC when 2k out of 3k pop were capped and no one was at your level to run dungeon).
The game became too long over the time and exp requirements had to be dropped, because it divided community too much and alt-play was impossible for regular player (who often paid money for others to level their characters which is not cool (but i made a plenty of money for doing that in mid-TBC, that's why i hate questing through vanilla-TBC)

Things don't have to go slow, but should be remain engaging. A lot has been sacrificed for the sake of speed imo.
"just kick the noob and get a good guy instead" - The whole ilvl thing is replacing that now. Don't have to prove yourself. Shame if you can do good dps cause you chose the right stats, but careful if that makes your ilvl low, you will get you declined anyway. So ignore stats, ilvl is king.

None of us miss the bad in Classic obviously, but there were some good feels too. Now if only they can integrate the good somehow without bringing back the bad stuff. Compromise perhaps, but how much.

[Bleu42]

Well I've got my personal 3 big gripes, but there's plenty of other issues as well.

1) Quests felt like actual quests; they actually took brainpower to complete. Vague, sometimes cryptic text was all you got to figure out where to go, and they weren't marked on your map.

2) The only one who got to zip around the world were Mages. The rest of us had to learn flight / boat / zeppelin paths to find the quickest way somewhere. The world felt FAR bigger back then because getting to another continent took some time.

3) The game didn't make you feel like the most badass overpowered hero in the galaxy back in Vanilla. You were just another adventurer that gets kind of thrown into the mix, teaming up with other players to hopefully take down some evil. I absolutely hate the direction WoW has gone with this notion; now it's like they don't want to acknowledge there's millions of other players, and instead now I'm some chosen god among men who the npc's think can solo all the baddies.

[Effenz]

Nice, fair enough.


Fair call. But there had to be something done to counter that; sit in 'capital city of xpac' and just TP where you want to go. At least they improved that over time though giving more reason to go out in the world.
But I disagree your view on dungeon runs and how they were. My first experience that solidified my love for WoW was as a noob in Deadmines. Little did I realise I partied with a top-tier raider alt and he structured and explained the game well for us scrubs. It was fun as, we learnt each others abilities, co-ordinated CC. Attacked at precise moments. We all had a job to do and if we did it well we got through it easier. I remember in UBRS or something having to learn how to kite that dragon properly so you could buy the team some time and breathing room. Made you care about your class and feel defined. There were situations that could make your class shine other than Skada/Recount meters. Now you just run in and not give a shit and spam all your abilities without caring of any consequence, tank doesn't even need to pull just bring mob packs to him, AoE that shit. And it's not about that you can't talk (lol) it's the lack of incentive or reason to.



Yeah, some valid dark points to classic.



Yeah, I believe Blizz were just forced to add it, unless they otherwise made questhelper count as cheating. But that wouldn't go down well.
There was a game screenshot, I forget which, where someone photoshopped the hud to have quest markers and guides for everything imaging how much it would neuter the game. A cancerous thought but funny to imagine. Wish I could remember what it was. The closest thing I can think of is The Witcher 3 quest style compared to WoW... or was it skyrim.. Anyway..



Things don't have to go slow, but should be remain engaging. A lot has been sacrificed for the sake of speed imo.
"just kick the noob and get a good guy instead" - The whole ilvl thing is replacing that now. Don't have to prove yourself. Shame if you can do good dps cause you chose the right stats, but careful if that makes your ilvl low, you will get you declined anyway. So ignore stats, ilvl is king.

None of us miss the bad in Classic obviously, but there were some good feels too. Now if only they can integrate the good somehow without bringing back the bad stuff. Compromise perhaps, but how much.

The thing about it is, while you seem pretty reasonable, most of the people here focus on the bad in legion and completely deny any of the bad from vanilla. It's silly tbh.
I miss a lot of classic wow. Would I play it again after playing subsequent expansions? Hell no.

(A lot of the ilvl issues go away when you don't pug. Pugging has always been cancer)