Vanilla players 2005 vs 2017

[Yarathir]

Started in TBC, but if I had to give up all the QoL improvements again, knowing and being used to how the game has improved since then, I'd quit. TBC was great for its time, but that's just it in my opinion.

The only thing that changed is the sense of wonder, and that can't be brought back in my opinion. It was being a newbie in a world I hadn't explored before. Today, I know Azeroth in and out, aside from the few new zones added per expansion. I will never look at it with the same sense of mystery again. Not even if all WoWhead and Thottbot (and so on) data were to be scrapped today, and there would be no more datamining.

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wanna see the most funny thing in the world?

the whole video is like super descriptive and tons of detail, massive paragrapsh on some things then look at when it gets to dps
on stats and gear

and on the dps

Lmao, seems about right.

[Daara]

Easily done now, but not with 2004-2006 mechanics. Easily done.. Oh yeah Naxx 40 with greens. Everyone did that, so everyone can relate. Not.

What you are saying is that a major guild did something incredible; thus it's easy as pie. Did I understand correct?

Yea, that's what I'm saying. I cleared Naxx 40 in Vanilla. I know what top tier players were like and I know what the average player was like, I use to go into Warsong gulch and could solo 3-4 people on my rogue easily when I had my cooldowns, renetaki's, and thistle tea. The average player now is better than the top players were back in Vanilla. Hell, just asking our healers to heal on the move was "crazy". I'm willing to bet that over half of top tier players still clicked the vast majority of their abilities. I know I was still clicking some skills even at the end of Vanilla.

If you took top tier players from now, or even just above average players. They would clear MC and BWL in uncommon/rare gear with the proper resist gear/onyxia cloaks. It was done in Vanilla and would be even easier for players today. People are just that much better now than they were back in 2005. Just go watch some videos from then and you'll understand.

Could they clear AQ/Naxx? No, probably not. There were actual gear checks in those instances and the mechanics started to ramp up in difficulty and were really punishing. But they could certainly kill several bosses.

[Teri]

It was not Blizz-like. If Ragnaros was killed in greens, it was a stunt, not representative of what others can do. Link the video. It might actually be neat to watch (?).

The 1st boss was difficult enough to kill in greens, let alone the 10th boss. I'll assert a no. Vanilla Ragnoros downed with greens? NO. There would be no attack power. Incoming damage would be insane without fire resists. The fight would last a whole 20-30 seconds before defeat. (all 40 players dead)

That is, if you even got past Domo. Somehow ...

I remember our first MC raids had people in SOME greens, not ALL greens, some gimicks like frost spell damage or shadow vulnerability actually worked quite well due to how resistances were coded, frost spells also functioned different as I think they used a binary resist system (100% dmg, or 0%, no partial resists).

Of course the majority of gear was dungeon blue sets, and dark iron gear on tanks for some bosses etc.

Ragnaros in greens? No way.

I do remember killing rag before sons at some point late vanilla on a partial Alt-raid but gear caught up so much by then we had ZG, AQ20, and such...

[Daara]

I remember our first MC raids had people in SOME greens, not ALL greens, some gimicks like frost spell damage or shadow vulnerability actually worked quite well due to how resistances were coded, frost spells also functioned different as I think they used a binary resist system (100% dmg, or 0%, no partial resists).

Of course the majority of gear was dungeon blue sets, and dark iron gear on tanks for some bosses etc.

Ragnaros in greens? No way.

I do remember killing rag before sons at some point late vanilla on a partial Alt-raid but gear caught up so much by then we had ZG, AQ20, and such...

What was hard about Ragnaros? As a rogue I literally sat on his ass and did my rotation and when he went down we killed adds. Wow tough fight.

[Hottage]

Vanilla > retail.

Why? Because RPG mattered. Because skills mattered. Because stats mattered.
Retail? Ah your fine, no skill, no problem. You have no idea how to do this fight? We'll complete it with or without you; your choice if you want to be present.

Some people "pretend" to be Vanilla players .. but you can spot them, as soon as they start saying how easy MC was. BWAHAHAHA! You know .. I know.

No really, Molten Core was tuned for about 25-30 of the players to actually be competent.
You'd have healers deliberately stay out of combat the whole fights just to resurrect people.

Molten Core hard for totally green guild's who just first stepped into it, after two or three runs and a few gear upgrades it became almost laughably trivial for every fight except Ragnaros.

[ls-]

Yea, that's what I'm saying. I cleared Naxx 40 in Vanilla. I know what top tier players were like and I know what the average player was like, I use to go into Warsong gulch and could solo 3-4 people on my rogue easily when I had my cooldowns, renetaki's, and thistle tea. The average player now is better than the top players were back in Vanilla. Hell, just asking our healers to heal on the move was "crazy". I'm willing to bet that over half of top tier players still clicked the vast majority of their abilities. I know I was still clicking some skills even at the end of Vanilla.

If you took top tier players from now, or even just above average players. They would clear MC and BWL in uncommon/rare gear with the proper resist gear/onyxia cloaks. It was done in Vanilla and would be even easier for players today. People are just that much better now than they were back in 2005. Just go watch some videos from then and you'll understand.

Could they clear AQ/Naxx? No, probably not. There were actual gear checks in those instances and the mechanics started to ramp up in difficulty and were really punishing. But they could certainly kill several bosses.

TBF, I wouldn't say average player now is better than top raider in Vanilla, average player/user is always bad, but your typical normal/heroic raider is definitely better. Raiders aren't average players.

Obv I'm talking about organised raiding.

[Teri]

What was hard about Ragnaros? As a rogue I literally sat on his ass and did my rotation and when he went down we killed adds. Wow tough fight.

It wasn't hard in any way compared to current standards, but there was some minimum dps/hp required, certainly not greens on ALL the raid due to his fire damage output, also some minimal dps required or you'd get too many sons of flames, or melee weapons would break due to melt weapon.

With 40 people there's a lot of leeway for having some low geared players.

Big difference doing MC in greens/blues, compared to having MC , BWL , ZG , AQ epics, I experienced both :P

Also if you'd do it today, you'd be prepared and know the exact mechanics, high res videos, web sites, 2005 wow info websites were still fairly limited.

[Charge me Doctor]

I remember our first MC raids had people in SOME greens, not ALL greens, some gimicks like frost spell damage or shadow vulnerability actually worked quite well due to how resistances were coded, frost spells also functioned different as I think they used a binary resist system (100% dmg, or 0%, no partial resists).

Of course the majority of gear was dungeon blue sets, and dark iron gear on tanks for some bosses etc.

Ragnaros in greens? No way.

I do remember killing rag before sons at some point late vanilla on a partial Alt-raid but gear caught up so much by then we had ZG, AQ20, and such...

You literally can't be in full greens at leve l60, you will have some blues just because how leveling used to work

[Teebone]

Classic WoW was a mess, and I would not play it. Only reason WoW felt so great back then was the sense of exploration, and the sense of something new and fresh.

The fact that every competitor was an even worse mess of grinding/poor qol didn't help either. WoW was the greatest game of it's time. But times change. WoW, sadly hasn't changed much.

[Teri]

You literally can't be in full greens at leve l60, you will have some blues just because how leveling used to work

Of course, some blues too, items got buffed/changed many times during vanilla, 1.4 added a ton of blues to dungeons.

It was a scenario someone was saying all greens.

[Vineri]

Of course, some blues too, items got buffed/changed many times during vanilla, 1.4 added a ton of blues to dungeons.

It was a scenario someone was saying all greens.

Tanks and healers in Greens smooth everything over. To the grave.

[Daara]

TBF, I wouldn't say average player now is better than top raider in Vanilla, average player/user is always bad, but your typical normal/heroic raider is definitely better. Raiders aren't average players.

Obv I'm talking about organised raiding.

You're right, I should correct myself. The average raider is better than top tier raiders from Vanilla.

[Teri]

Tanks and healers in Greens smooth everything over. To the grave.

Yes it would have been a mess with 2-3k hp with no resists.

[Daara]

You literally can't be in full greens at leve l60, you will have some blues just because how leveling used to work

You could totally be in full greens at level 60. Ever hear of Joana? The fastest leveler in vanilla? Guy leveled in whites and greens faster than anyone in the world and had the speed record at like 4 days played time.

[WowIsDead64]

You "we want Vanilla back" guys always forget about reasons, why Blizzard don't want Vanilla and other old xpacks back. Have you ever watched "World of Rouguecraft" video?

[Armourboy]

You're right, I should correct myself. The average raider is better than top tier raiders from Vanilla.

See I would disagree, but that's because the difference in tools and knowledge we had then compared to now isn't even comparable. Often times, especially early on, players were basically playing blind. Theorycrafting was in it's very infant stages, and we certainly didn't have the tools we have now to min/max nearly as well. Players also didn't have access to near the number of mods we have today, nor were the ones we had nearly as useful as what we have today ( outside of maybe decursive). Shoot in some cases there were arguments on going about certain mods being cheating. Finally many classes played so differently then that even if you did have skill you couldn't do many of the things we do today. There is just so much that has changed that I really think it's unfair to compare.


That said, back to the OP, It wouldn't bother me at all to go back, in fact by other means I did just that. Yes many of the complaints people throw out are true about mounts and walking, specs being terrible and all that good stuff. What I found though is that with this knowledge I now have leveling was much more efficient. You know going in which specs were bad, so you avoid them. You don't waste time on stuff that gave you insanely small gain for the amount of effort required until you have the larger things done.

It is true that going back would have its down sides, but even today there are certain things that would be positives over what we have ended up with ( mainly dealing with community)

[rda]

There is just so much that has changed that I really think it's unfair to compare.

Agree.

Boss mechanics are obviously more involved now, but in many places things have been made incredibly simpler and easier to operate. Ie, in vanilla / TBC a hunter had to time his shots to avoid clipping - the performance difference between folks who cared to do that and folks who didn't was huge (easily 20-30%), and that was something you had to watch constantly (it's like manual transmission vs automatic on a permanently hilly road).

[Fojos]

with a statement like that you either 1 Not a gamer or 2 did not ever experience classic

That's what most of us who played at release experience. It was only good because of the mystery and exploration. It felt refined compared to the alternatives of the time, but by todays standards it would be garbage.

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The community was good back in 2005, not the game.

Good and good, it was still toxic back then. It was definitely more inclusive, more competitive realm-wise. You weren't anonymous in a mega-server like today. If you were in one of the better guilds most on that server knew who you were.

[Karlz0rz]

Classic WoW was shit, I just didn't know any better.
I would not enjoy it at all with my current knowledge.
Nostalgia is a bitch though!

[lokoma]

modern gamers don't know what a good game is and consider some of the greatest games ever made to be garbage.
it's just sad to me it's like watching a work of art like the mona lisa being used as toilet paper....

here is one of the best breakdowns i have even seen