What made classic wow better than current?

[Deleted]

For me it was not meeting a single person around Brill for months.

[Effenz]

I remember that. I also remember seeing people auto attacking in dungeons. When asked why, they needed to raise weapon their skill to use their weapons. Imagine a tank was doing this. Hmm.

I also remember getting a nice weapon, better than the current one, but was also totally useless because my skill meant I could not use it to the full potential.



On one hand it made sense, on the other, it was annoying.



Yeah. But look at the posts regarding the AP grind.

See you can even liken AP to weapon skill. The more you use it the better you get etc etc. The stupid masses will come in here, raging, claiming that all the rpg elements are gone tho

[Akka]

I also apologize for snapping, I get a lot of the reason for the vanilla love, but some of the defence over the really minor game play aspects, it seems like ppl are putting more value onto things that were removed and not really remembering WHY they were removed in the first place.

Or they just disagree with the "why" - usually, the pro-Vanilla and anti-Vanilla have basically opposite opinion on features that divide them, one seeing them as a pro and the other as a con. So, often, it's not that they "forgot" why the feature was removed, they just found the reason not valid.

Typically, the need for a rogue to make poisons : one will say "it's a waste of time, you just buy the reagents and do it, let's just directly buy them (or make them a permanent aura or whatever)" ; the other see this as fluff which adds immersion to the game and makes his class feels more unique.

For weapon skill, one thing I agree is that they didn't do a lot with it - they might have expanded it a lot more. But the removal is more due to "streamlining" the game than anything else - just like they "streamlined" nearly all stat and variety away to end up with just "attack/spell power" and the five secondary ones.
I liked the idea of having to learn how to use weapons and to skill them up. It was part of an idea of learning skill, and it allowed to imagine your character specializing in some weapons and not others - my rogue, for example, was strictly close quarter (so only fist and daggers), and she could point her skills and show she never, ever, used any other weapon

That's your call, some people like feeling that the world they're playing in feels like a world.

Just standing in one spot and warping to a dungeon on the other side of the map, and returning to where you left off when you're done, makes it feel more like an arcade or action game and less like a role playing game. Some people don't care about being immersed, but a lot of people do.

Exactly.

[Effenz]

Or they just disagree with the "why" - usually, the pro-Vanilla and anti-Vanilla have basically opposite opinion on features that divide them, one seeing them as a pro and the other as a con. So, often, it's not that they "forgot" why the feature was removed, they just found the reason not valid.

Typically, the need for a rogue to make poisons : one will say "it's a waste of time, you just buy the reagents and do it, let's just directly buy them (or make them a permanent aura or whatever)" ; the other see this as fluff which adds immersion to the game and makes his class feels more unique.

For weapon skill, one thing I agree is that they didn't do a lot with it - they might have expanded it a lot more. But the removal is more due to "streamlining" the game than anything else - just like they "streamlined" nearly all stat and variety away to end up with just "attack/spell power" and the five secondary ones.
I liked the idea of having to learn how to use weapons and to skill them up. It was part of an idea of learning skill, and it allowed to imagine your character specializing in some weapons and not others - my rogue, for example, was strictly close quarter (so only fist and daggers), and she could point her skills and show she never, ever, used any other weapon

Exactly.

That's why you do dungeons higher than lfg/lfr.

[Heathy]

Streamlining is fine, because other game play elements are added to the game, eventually you have all these separate systems, game rules and gameplay elements that you have to eventually remove the bloat and make room for things that actually matter. if weapon skills were still in the game today, then blizzard would have had to create an artifact weapon for every weapon each class can use, so we're looking at hunters having like a gazillion different artifact weapons for a start.

the poisons, i mean i played rogue quite a lot in vanilla for pvp, I didn't find much game play in the poison making it just wasn't very dynamic thats what stands out to me, compare it to alchemy, thats dynamic things happen it has diversity, poison making did not. similarly hunter arrows, it made sense that hunters could run out of ammo and screw themselves but most ppl didn't run out of ammo because if you had half a brain you would always leave town with a full quiver so i mean there wasn't any inherent gameplay it was just fluff. lets say a hunter in your group did run out of ammo, then what you wait 20 mins while they hearthstone and fly all the way back, no thanks, i'd rather boot the hunter and get someone else.. oh yeah before the voting system aswell where you could just boot with impunity.

[Effenz]

Streamlining is fine, because other game play elements are added to the game, eventually you have all these separate systems, game rules and gameplay elements that you have to eventually remove the bloat and make room for things that actually matter. if weapon skills were still in the game today, then blizzard would have had to create an artifact weapon for every weapon each class can use, so we're looking at hunters having like a gazillion different artifact weapons for a start.

Imagine how bloated and convoluted loot tables would be if there were still int/str plate int/agi mail int/agi leather and int cloth? Along with the diff secondaries.

[Deleted]

Not knowing whether or not an item is actually good or not.
Itemization overall was so bad that even the sets were mostly bad to have for many classes.

On the plus side, item level in turn did not matter (and was not shown on items) and knowledge on the game and mechanics was pretty bad/nonexistant for most players, thus making things like running a simple dungeon an actually thrilling experience.

However, if you compare it to nowadays' wow the classic wow is but an unfinished game that would not get the same playerbase if it were released today since anything else was mostly worse or needlessly complicated.

[Heathy]

Imagine how bloated and convoluted loot tables would be if there were still int/str plate int/agi mail int/agi leather and int cloth? Along with the diff secondaries.

I do find the gear a little too formulaic these days, although to be fair legion has been giving out various epic items with equips and ofc the legendaries have amazing bonuses on them that would have made you cry if you saw them 12 years ago, there was some depth to the stats in vanilla, i liked stacking spirit and aiming for stupid regen, playing the 5 second rule. crit and haste were really quite rare on gear and the old system of actual percentages instead of the rating system. that was different. so much of this is soo long gone though i barely remember it anymore. but yes there was way too much gear that was completely useless for anyone, cloth gear 'of the monkey' among others.

then again i don't really remember many ppl taking min/maxing too seriously, most ppl just used whatever they got, the gear i ended up with was a mix of mc/aq20 pieces, i remember that intellect was pretty much the best stat to stack for a priest so it was just equip the gear that has the most int and try to maintain any set bonuses. i don't really miss the days before healer homogenization there was always a lot of pressure on priests and its great that raids these days the effort is spread around more evenly. old me(younger me) was pissed that I was no longer going to be the best healer 'how dare they' i would say, but in hindsight, yeah, i'm not too bothered that my class isn't the be all end all raid carrier anymore. and for other classes ofc, we've seen what its like when a dps can't get a bis legendary this expansion, could you imagine what the game would be like if we we're playing pre-homogenization where it doesn't matter what gear legendaries or whatever you have your holy pala is never out healing a priest or your druid or your shaman, the whine would be deafening, ppl are so used to all classes being somewhat equal the way things worked would never fly again. not many ppl would be happy always being second best.

this thread has been quite interesting no doubt, Its a shame so many ppl just don't like the game anymore because of certain changes here and there, you can tell some of the aspects of legion have tried to bring back some of those things that ppl miss, the artifact weapons and talent trees, its basically the same thing guys, seriously, ok, so there are no 'talents' that you don't get to choose between, lets face it, a talent your not picking isn't much of an impactful choice it doesn't really matter that the weapons don't have any unpicked options, the actual system itself, very close to what ppl were saying they missed in the talent trees. i've even read it in this thread, 'levelling up and putting a point into a tree that gives you more damage or more healing or more movement speed or a new ability' etc etc. that is exactly what the weapons are this expansion, something you level up that gives you permanent power increases and new abilities and procs, each spec has one, each one is completely different. i mean what more could they really be? it couldn't really get any closer.

mythic+ again, ppl complaining that 5 mans die out too fast and are too face roll and you don't even have to go to the instance anymore, fixed. there is still a lot of depth in the game today without it also having the time sinks of vanilla.

[Akka]

Streamlining is fine, because other game play elements are added to the game, eventually you have all these separate systems, game rules and gameplay elements that you have to eventually remove the bloat and make room for things that actually matter. if weapon skills were still in the game today, then blizzard would have had to create an artifact weapon for every weapon each class can use, so we're looking at hunters having like a gazillion different artifact weapons for a start.

Thing is, to relate to the previous post about differing perceptions, what I find "bloat" is kinda the opposite. Fluffy baseline mechanisms which affect the entire system ? I'm fine with them. Artificial mechanisms which are linked to artefact weapons ? THAT I find bloat. In fact, what I see in these artifact weapons is just the equivalent for old mechanisms and talent trees of the "Frankenstein servers" - only taking the ugliest superficial part of the Vanilla element, while leaving the actual meat. Worst of both worlds.

the poisons, i mean i played rogue quite a lot in vanilla for pvp, I didn't find much game play in the poison making it just wasn't very dynamic thats what stands out to me, compare it to alchemy, thats dynamic things happen it has diversity, poison making did not. similarly hunter arrows, it made sense that hunters could run out of ammo and screw themselves but most ppl didn't run out of ammo because if you had half a brain you would always leave town with a full quiver so i mean there wasn't any inherent gameplay it was just fluff. lets say a hunter in your group did run out of ammo, then what you wait 20 mins while they hearthstone and fly all the way back, no thanks, i'd rather boot the hunter and get someone else.. oh yeah before the voting system aswell where you could just boot with impunity.

Yeah, there weren't in-depth gameplay elements linked to it. They were here for fluff, for immersion. Maybe Blizzard should have actually introduced gameplay in them, but I think their worth was their existence in itself. It's a bit like nice graphics : you absolutely don't need them, the game would play exactly the same if it were in black and white with just big cubes instead of models, but it would certainly feels much less immersive.

Blizzard seemingly converted to the myopic "efficiency" design, where they removed bit by bit everything which wasn't strictly linked to "ability that directly does damage/healing". Here goes all the stat, the buffs, the debuffs and in the end it just feels like an action game instead of MMORPG - everything instant action, but shallow, formulaic and absolutely not immersive.

[Heathy]

I definitely think there was a more DnD feel to the game and it did have mechanics that were very close to a sort of dnd style rule set perhaps just not going all the way. that may have been down to the way classes actually worked and everyone filled a specific role. the combat was slower as if you could almost count the dice rolls and individual actions.

with the introduction of things like mastery though, that stat brings an entire mess of depth from each spec in the game having varying different masteries. thats just depth that wasn't there in classic. gearing options that didn't exist. sure even today mastery is terrible for some specs, to me that means that specs mastery needs buffing, but well, its not like they have only removed complexity, it has also been added.

its a bit of a stretch to compare the removal of poison making to playing the game like a ascii mud. i don't feel as immersed as i once did but i'm going to put that down to the fact that i've played the game to death at this point, the whole uncertainty aspect of the game is just gone for me these days, in the beginning when you were all wide eyed and didn't know what to expect, that is when immersion was at its greatest. but not due to specific game play elements, as others have said its just because it was new. hell i was playing diablo 2 before wow so i went from sprites to full 3d open world, it was magical.

i still get immersed in raids and dungeon runs, i still try to rp in the world, if isee ppl dying ill heal them, i ressed some random dude yesterday as he got melted by a world quest mob and helped the poor sod finish the quest, you have to create your own immersion, its never going to be new again but you can still immerse yourself in the game. a lot of the enjoyment i get from the game is progressing with my bro and guildies, i guess i have my own mini community that keeps me playing, but that is what kept ppl playing in vanilla the guild social aspect was 50% of the raid night at least.

if you don't have a guild these days i can see how the game can just feel like a boring repetitive too fast grind, in some ways it can be, but you have to pace yourself, its only a race if you want it to be. there seems to be plenty of time to gear up between tiers without playing the game as a second job.

as for the game becoming too action orientated and fast paced. blame that on player skill and intuitiveness, the same encounters that were difficult 12 years ago, really are just not difficult any more. that could be down to the increased tool kits, in the end i don't think i'd still be playing the game today if the tool kits didn't become more diverse over time.

still most ppl are way more skilled than the average player during vanilla, the old encounters just don't hold a candle to the complexity of encounters today and the requirement of each player.

some pages back ppl were talking about resistance gear, gear that you used once for one boss and didn't need again, to me resistance gear and bosses that required it were like alternate game mechanics, today blizzard pile more and more abilties onto a boss, back then you had a boss that does a specific type of damage. I mean sure it would be cool if there was the occasional resistance based fight still, but, not having them anymore, its not a huge loss, they were extremely gimmicky. another aspect was elementals and elemental mob types having high resistance to their respective element type. made perfect sense, also made some specs useless against that type of mob, fire mages in molten core?

there was quite a lot of things that probably looked cool on paper but eventually turned out to be dead ends in terms of game play.
most ppl who miss classic should probably take solace in the fact that, those mechanics that you miss were probably brain stormed to shit and they still came up empty so, i rather doubt they were deliberately removed to piss ppl off and make the game less immersive.

someone may have linked this before but i was looking for random bits of info on classic that i may have been mistaken on or completely forgotten about and i did find This thread listing various things i either didn't know or forgot about, its reminding me of how broken the game was in certain ways compared to today. although some of the items on the list do make me remember various things that once were. some things i remember quite clearly, I can honestly say though that as a game, its more fun to actually play, healing in general is harder, but definitely more fun than it was. and that is really the main thing, is the game more fun to play than it was, yes, it is. perhaps i'm jaded after maining a priest for so long but just for my class, its a lot more fun to play than it was, objectively. disc and holy today are light years ahead of the vanilla versions of those specs mechanically they differed very little if at all. i remember a build something like This being pretty much the best build while atonement wasn't a thing so holy and disc were essentially the exact same thing, but having more mana was always better than having slightly bigger heals, it was a no brainer. for me there was very little choice, that build with minor variation, that was mainly it, how to win as a priest in vanilla, i use a spec like that for pretty much the entirety of my raiding experience so the whole of 2006 or until the tree was changed. really though with the 40 mans, it didn't matter so much what you went for so long as you took inspiration, that was the only talent that actually mattered iirc.

[Tome]

I remember that. I also remember seeing people auto attacking in dungeons. When asked why, they needed to raise weapon their skill to use their weapons. Imagine a tank was doing this. Hmm.

I also remember getting a nice weapon, better than the current one, but was also totally useless because my skill meant I could not use it to the full potential.



On one hand it made sense, on the other, it was annoying.



Yeah. But look at the posts regarding the AP grind.

I think that's where I did differ with the weapon skills.

When I got a new weapon, especially a sought after one but didn't have the required weapon skill for it, I went from "I hope I get it" to "I can use it soon" when it finally dropped, and was overly excited for it. I didn't have that feeling of "I can't use it yet, it's so frustrating, so annoying, blizz fix pls."

I personally enjoyed that feeling, the wanting of a weapon I didn't have yet, to a weapon I now actually have, its right there, and it's just teasing a little bit until I start levelling my weapon skill some, which didn't take very long at all either. Just had to sit down an evening or something and just relax, listening to music while you hit away for an hour or less even.

[Vineri]

Classic wow was new and the only MMO of its kind out there. That is what made it better than today's version. Now there are tons of games with better graphics in the market. So lots of options to fulfill that craving for something new. Wow today is old.

Ton's of games with better graphics. Check.

Lots of options to fulfill those craving for something new. Check.

WoW today is old. Fail.

Checksum error.

[Ielenia]

Classic wow was new and the only MMO of its kind out there.

Actually... you had Lineage and EverQuest already as 'veterans' of the "fantasy 3D MMO" before WoW has even gone live, so... no, WoW as not the "only MMO of its kind", back then.

[Armourboy]

Actually... you had Lineage and EverQuest already as 'veterans' of the "fantasy 3D MMO" before WoW has even gone live, so... no, WoW as not the "only MMO of its kind", back then.

And tbh WoW succeeded because it was in many ways nothing more than a refinement of those games. They made them easier to get in too, less complicated, and in general just had better systems. There were games before WoW that has better individual systems, but most didn't have the overall grasp on systems like WoW did.

I came from SWG, a game where you made you own content in the early days. SWG essentially had one system that was amazing, a system I can't believe someone out there has just down right copied, and that was the crafting system. It was easy and complex at the same time, and if you loved doing it, you could spend years just doing that. However pretty much everything else stunk, or at least stunk in the way they implemented it.

[Ielenia]

And tbh WoW succeeded because it was in many ways nothing more than a refinement of those games.

WoW succeeded because it was an easier, more accessible game, and because of the massive success of Warcraft 3 and its expansion. Not just because it was easier.

EDIT: If WoW as just "easier" than the competition, without all the success from Warcraft 3 and its predecessors, I don't think WoW would be half a success as it is, today. I imagine it wouldn't even exist anymore, by now.

[Requimortem]

See you can even liken AP to weapon skill. The more you use it the better you get etc etc. The stupid masses will come in here, raging, claiming that all the rpg elements are gone tho

Except it's literally nothing like Artifact Power. Before you try to call others out on their intelligence you may want to take a step back and realize you're not exactly the brightest bulb around.

[Ielenia]

Except it's literally nothing like Artifact Power.

Going to provide any evidence that Weapon Skill doesn't work, from a lore standpoint, similar to Artifact Power? Or just going with the 'no your wrong' kind of answer?

[Requimortem]

Going to provide any evidence that Weapon Skill doesn't work, from a lore standpoint, similar to Artifact Power? Or just going with the 'no your wrong' kind of answer?

I'm not sure what sort of "evidence" you think I could possibly produce. Then again, what evidence could you possibly come up with that says they're the same? The only way they would be comparable is if we were discussing an item that raised your Weapon Skill (which there were none to my knowledge).

By the way, it's "you're" not "your".

[Eleccybubb]

Classic wow was new and the only MMO of its kind out there. That is what made it better than today's version. Now there are tons of games with better graphics in the market. So lots of options to fulfill that craving for something new. Wow today is old.

Well that's a load of old bull because there were plenty of MMOs back then other than WoW. FF11, Lineage, Guild Wars, Everquest, Everquest 2 and the list goes on. Also great graphics don't make a great game.

[Ielenia]

I'm not sure what sort of "evidence" you think I could possibly produce. Then again, what evidence could you possibly come up with that says they're the same? The only way they would be comparable is if we were discussing an item that raised your Weapon Skill (which there were none to my knowledge).

No, the two were compared compared in the sense of "your weapon skills become stronger as your character becomes more accustomed to it."

By the way, it's "you're" not "your".

*FWOOSH*

That's the sound of the point going right over your head. I purposely misspelled "you're" and did not add a coma (since the correct spelling is "no, you're wrong") to illustrate the type of thoughtless response yours was, since it boils down to just you calling him wrong without offering nothing to counter his comparison.