Comprehensive list of rpg elements removed from WoW

[ls-]

Lel, it's so hilarious to see people here arguing about RPG leftovers in PvP, whereas vocal PvPers, esp hi-end PvPers, want no RPG in PvP at all: instant max level, capped artefact/gear, etc. This way people could play any class/race combo anytime.

P.S. JIC, I don't want any of that, moreover I'm strongly against this kind of thing.

[Teevo]

And lo did the people cry out for sustenance, and OP did give them only

[Nerovar]

Seriously? It's still based on rolls for damage, it's still based on various classes and races, it's still based on damage modifiers obtained from gear, it's still based on level, it's still based on so many RPG elements that if you don't see them you don't know what a role-playing game is.

Most mobas have more "RPG" elements than WoW PvP. Gear is negligible, level doesn't matter since you only get matched with people who are (roughly when it comes to low lvl PvP) the same level as you. Races have a ridiculously small influence except when Blizzard decides to buff/nerf some of the racials drastically (they're basically just an extra talent).
All you do is choose a certain template that is made up of three pretty basic factors: Your class, your race (for one spell and a few percentages that don't really matter) and your artifact weapon (which is basically a colour by numbers grind) and then choose your talents depending on the enemy team. You gear doesn't have any meaningful impact on your gameplay as well as your enchants, gems, your professions or literally anything you do in the game. So what exactly makes you think that WoW PvP somehow qualifies as a roleplaying game?
Hell, even League of Legends probably has more customization than WoW PvP at the moment.

[Hellrime]

I do miss the feeling of gear looking different, but that is probably going to fall into the elitest category by some LFR pro. I remember the first time I saw someone in 25-man Naxx gear. I had to have it and that is when I focused on being more aware and min-maxing, ultimately making me love difficult content. Now anyone can look like they have cleared Mythics, and really kind of drives down the appeal of Mythics with nothing else separating you from the average player beyond an achievement. Someone who performs their job extremely well is rewarded usually, that really should be no different than a person in an MMO. It inspires others in the game.

[Ishayu]

I counter argued your whole post in my original post, i just cant be bothered typing the same shit for the 100th time.

Its Level-->Get gear-->Get more gear-->Get more gear->Level.

And you are obviously daft enough to not understand i meant "Expansion-->Gear up-->Gear up-->Expansion" with the "Level".

Exploration is lost to datamining, also there was never any exploration, you were just bad, Thottbot had every info we needed, every single piece of info existed there about vanilla WoW, and for the few of us that spent more time or had a clue, elitistjerks had the rest.

Stop living in your delusion, only thing that changed in WoW is the "Ease of access of information", back then i had to answer the 100 idiots asking me "WHERE DID YOU GET THAT!!!" versus "Oh i know Wowhead exists, ye"

Absolute ****ing nonsense. If you claim that numbers is what makes WoW exciting, might I suggest an Excel spreadsheet with an exponential function it? Then you can slowly increment x and watch y grow. How exciting! No? Then maybe you should consider the notion that the growth of numbers is not what made WoW exciting, and it still doesn't.

Thottbot was a thing that existed, yes, but that doesn't mean there were no exploration.

First and foremost, Thottbot wasn't able to datamine out of the client, because much of the information was not on the client at all. In order to figure out mob spawn rates, loot, bosses, enemy abilities, and hundreds of other things, you had to install an addon which wrote it down, and then you had to manually upload it to the cloud. Remember, this was 2004. There were still people on dial-up then, and in fact WoW claims to support 56k modems, though this was quickly dropped and 256k became the minimum requirement. There was no dungeon journal, the map was grayed out and addons didn't yet exist to change this, etc. etc.

So no, you couldn't just go on Thottbot and find anything, because Thottbot might not know about it, and even if it did, your internet might not be fast enough to get at the website while also playing the game.

I actually have a BradyGames WoW strategy guide behind me, and it's so sparse on information it's surreal. You get a general map of the areas and some class knowledge out of it, but ultimately it's nothing like what we have today.

While we certainly have the internet power today to always download information from WoWHead, that wouldn't matter if Blizzard didn't openly allow and even support data mining efforts. This is a policy I strongly disagree with, and every time I see a hidden item and the community rallies to find it, and I see all the excitement that causes, I am reminded why I am against it.

However, this is not what is killing WoW for me anyway. It's a chink in the armour, sure, but it's not the end of the world.

This is still the case. I'm sorry, NOBODY saw the wonders of Blackwing Lair on Thottbot. It just wasn't a thing. You've made it up, you have bad memory, call it what you will.

Secondly, seeing an item on a stat sheet or on some friggin' website, or seeing people talk about it, or even seeing a video of it on Warcraftmovies or whatever, is NOTHING like actually being there and doing it. WoW is a video game, and as such it is interactive entertainment, and as such it is designed to take advantage of player interaction and engagement. It doesn't really come into its own before you can directly interact with it. Watching videos of it can still be decently entertaining, but it's nothing like playing it.

Thirdly, but most importantly, is that because the excitement is in the playing and personal experience of something for the first time, asking players to do the same thing over and over for small gains just does not work. It just doesn't. Blizzard thinks WoW is like Diablo. It isn't. It mustn't be. It cannot work with those same kind of gameplay rules, and I think Legion, despite having TONS OF CONTENT, still not doing that well on the subscriber count compared to even Warlords of Draenor, which was practically empty, is proof of that.

Sure, we have lots to do, but it's all unrewarding, boring busywork. The only times I've truly felt like I was in the vanilla wonderland again was very early Legion and the release of Return of Karazhan. Otherwise, it's been no better or worse than WoD. When people asked for a lot of things to do, I'm pretty friggin' sure they weren't asking for easy, boring busywork with no exploration or cool stuff at the end other than some mount or a title (aka a piece of text).

They were asking for stuff like Suramar or Return to Karazhan - sprawling, deep dungeons with occasionally difficult encounters that couldn't be explored any other way. You had to do some effort to get to them, some effort to get through them, there were some good rewards in the meantime, and the places just looked absolutely freakin' awesome. Every quest you complete, every boss you kill was a new adventure. Mobs wouldn't scale to fit your skill level either. There was just a world, and there was you, a challenge, and your skill, and you were encourages to rise up to that challenge, prove your skill, see the world, and conquer its rewards - and repeat this process a few dozen times. THAT is WoW at its best.

[Sencha]

Thanks for the list. Sad to see all of these have been removed...

I don't remember when that was changed, but CCing a mob aggro'ed the whole pack.

[potis]

snip

I am not even sure what you are rambling about and why it concerns me.

Why internet connection matters about the experience of someone with Vanilla, makes no fucking sense.

As i already said, as someone in the minority, that saw all of Vanilla had to offer, with pretty much near BiS gear for its time, i can say for a fact compared to today it was a shit game.

It was new and exciting for its period and everyone rides on that nostalgia which as i already mentioned, you can get the same nostalgia if they lock their files so they cant be datamined and remove the dugenon journal.

And WoW isnt doing "Bad" cause its changed, its doing "bad" cause new blood doesnt care for it, there is nothing else about it, the generation of gamers after 2010 does not care for time consuming games, they are not cool,they are not fast, and they are not -free-.

Either way, pointless discussion you are arguing about 4 different things that have nothing to do with my post.

[Ishayu]

I really cant explain it, i just felt alot more into the gamme and enjoyed it so much, there was just so much more to it than today and the community was amazing, i knew most of the people on my server and still do, it was the game i dreamed of playing after playing warcraft 3 the sence of being a person in these zones you saw in warcraft, seeing thrall ect in person, everything about the game was just grand and epic, you just dont get that vibe with legion. vanilla was an epic journey, legion is just a basic hack and slash menu based single player mess. i despise it.

The journey from 1-60 was incredible

Well, I do agree, but at the same time, I don't really think you explain it very well. But it's pretty clear - it's the exploration of the wide open world and the community of players in that world with you that drew you in. It was like that for a lot of us, but it took me many, many years before I could formulate why it worked, and I only figured it out because I took classes in game design and started going to game jams, talking to big companies, getting contacts, etc. That little ball of magic Blizzard conquered there is extremely difficult to untangle and explain, but it's awesome.

- - - Updated - - -

I am not even sure what you are rambling about and why it concerns me.

Why internet connection matters about the experience of someone with Vanilla, makes no fucking sense.

As i already said, as someone in the minority, that saw all of Vanilla, i can say for a fact compared to today it was a shit game.

It was new and exciting for its period and everyone rides on that nostalgia which as i already mentioned, you can get the same nostalgia if they lock their files so they cant be datamined and remove the dugenon journal.

And WoW isnt doing "Bad" cause it changed, its doing "bad" cause new blood doesnt care for it, there is nothing else about it, the generation of gamers after 2010 does not care for time consuming games, they are not cool,they are not fast, and they are not -free-.

Either way, pointless discussion you are arguing about 4 different things that have nothing to do with my post.

Right, bunch of things here.

First, to say that you explored all of WoW and then calling it a "shit game" is completely hilarious. It probably took you somewhere in the region of 2000 hours of gaming to see it all, maybe even more. You played a game for 2000 hours, and you think you think it's a shit game. Like, either your life is very boring or you don't know what "a bad game" is. I choose to believe the latter.

Next, you bring up the point of datamining, where you completely agree with me despite the fact that you're claiming to argue against me and calling my post nonsense and rambling. Clearly, there are many things you don't understand. You don't understand the game you love, and you don't understand my explanation of it either.

And yes, WoW is doing pretty badly. It's a fallacy to call WoW old. It's been continually expanded and content has essentially been repeatedly replaced. Though the old content is, for the most part, still here, it's not relevant. We're not doing it. The Broken Isles could effectively have been a stand-alone game, and nobody would have batted an eye for the most part. Practically everything got overhauled with this game. All the content, all the systems, everything.

Secondly, the bad internet connection is VERY relevant to the Thottbot argument. People didn't use it. Maybe you did, but most people didn't, and those that did use it generally didn't learn complete information off of it, and they certainly didn't explore the world on it.

EDIT: On the subject of new players, the game isn't getting them because it doesn't do for them what vanilla WoW did for you, and new players aren't interested in vanilla WoW because that really is very old. When you log into a live WoW server for the first time today, you're seeing people riding around on motorcycles, gankers, flying mounts, instant guild invite to a complete wasteland where nobody cares about you, everything is easy and soloable, if you need a group, don't talk to anyone, just get a random group. Like... if I hadn't gotten into WoW and made my friends back then, I wouldn't be here today. I definitely not would EVER pick up Legion as a new player.

[Leenaleena]

Please tell us. Which points of his list are COMPLETELY wrong and faulty?

I'll wait the whole day if I have to.

Apart from the ones I mentioned in the bracket?

Please refer to the poster above you. I will however highlight the flawed points as I saw them. There may be more though.

Each classes has unique quests to unlock specific stuff: mounts for warlocks and paladins, postures for warriors, druid's forms, poisons and Certificate of Thievery for rogues etc.

We got that back again, so moot point. Paladin and warlock mount quests were even made reminiscent of the old quests. Class campaigns/mount quests might not be much, but they are in the game, making the point worthless.

Warlock's Ritual of Doom needed four other people to summon the Doomguard... and one of them was randomly sacrificed! With great power came great responsability. Fun times.

It now is an order hall upgrade, and only requires two more warlocks minimum. One of the three still dies.

Breathing bar was shorter and quests that required you to go under water didn't auto-give you water breathing buff like now.

Few quests offer some sort of quest item that allows water breathing/movement speed when walking underwater. But they do not give it automatically, nor on ALL the quests.

Skinners could skin either normal leathers or scales (used for mail armor). Now only normal leather exist.

As I already mentioned, leatherworkers still have leathers AND SCALES. TWO DIFFERENT ITEMS. You could argue that there is only one 'rare' leather used for both.

Blacksmiths and engineers could craft Skeleton keys and small bombs that you could buy to open lockboxes or doors.

Unless I am mistaken, blacksmiths had that every add-on so far (I know I used them in Cata). In Legion though it's the jewelcrafters who can craft keys, or as it is actually called atm: a Jeweled Lockpick.

No more gemming (finding a new piece of gear and gemming and and enchanting it it was so satisfying, why did they remove it??)

You still need to gem gear, but the socket became an RNG element.

No more enchanting (we still have enchanting, it's just nowhere near as good as it once was)

You still need to enchant gear, but it's not every item anymore (I suppose because ever enchant had some sort of quest to acquire it, and they didn't want to do even more quests)

Class / spec design sucks (rogues no longer feel like rogues, Shadow priests no longer feel like shadow priests etc)

That one is purely personal opinion. I like some classes/specs.

Alchemists and jewelcrafters needed alchemy labs to make some of the best flasks and reagents.

I suppose that one was meant towards all profession specific locations, which still exist. Tailors need to head to Suramar for some items, and blacksmiths always need to head to the Firmament Stone to create demonsteel. Rank 1 recipes for alchemists require the alchemist's table in Dalaran.

[potis]

snip

Again, not sure where you are trying to get, now you are challenging my hours of gaming to see a game world.

WoW for 2005-2007 didnt suck, i was also a 18 year old retard wanting to be better than anyone, and i was, i could 1 shot anything cloth moving with just my first attack, if i had to press a second button it means it wore plate or wore same gear level as me, which only 1 guild on the server of the opposite faction did and i only met them in PvP.

Yes, my 18 year old 2005 self liked WoW Vanilla, my 30 year old with more brain thats not stuck in the past can tell you WoW was a shit game compared to what it is today.

And all your complains are from nostalgia, mostly from exploration which i can agree on, if you are shit at games and cant use the interent, exploration is important, i wasnt, therefor i cant share your feelings.

[Deleted]

That's a nice list but good riddance.

[Ishayu]

Again, not sure where you are trying to get, now you are challenging my hours of gaming to see a game world.

WoW for 2005-2007 didnt suck, i was also a 18 year old retard wanting to be better than anyone, and i was, i could 1 shot anything cloth moving with just my first attack, if i had to press a second button it means it wore plate or wore same gear level as me, which only 1 guild on the server of the opposite faction did and i only met them in PvP.

Yes, my 18 year old 2005 self liked WoW Vanilla, my 30 year old with more brain thats not stuck in the past can tell you WoW was a shit game compared to what it is today.

And all your complains are from nostalgia, mostly from exploration which i can agree on, if you are shit at games and cant use the interent, exploration is important, i wasnt, therefor i cant share your feelings.

This is absolutely precious.

I'm not challenging your playing hours, I'm challenging your assertion that the game wasn't fun. Who the hell plays a game they don't like for 2000 hours? And now you go on to admit that it was fun, contradicting your previous view.

You then go on to say that it was only fun because you could dominate people in it. I mean, okay, you could dominate people in it. You could also have dominated people in Unreal Tournament 2004 or Counter-Strike or DOTA and all those other games that also existed and were popular at that time, so why WoW? Riddle me that.

Now I've noticed you've started talking about community and your power relative to the community and how you felt about that. This is an important aspect of the game that Blizzard actually also killed. Are we starting to make headway here? I guess we'll find out.

[glowpipe]

Almost everything on this list is useless chores you had to go through. No one wanted it and thats why its gone. You say its a great feature they removed, it was only minor annoyances and thank sargeras its gone

[potis]

snip

So now you are assuming i didnt also play those games

You also assumed earlier, i required "X amount of hours" to see the game.

Different skill level, less hours required and many more other things.

My point stands, not everyone is a scrub that requires hand helding to do stuff, or requires other stuff.

I explained before, my immature self enjoyed destroying others, sure i can agree with that, i didnt care who i destroyed or the community around it, i simply enjoyed destroying.

Community hasnt died, it just got scaled from "server" to "world".

Stop trying to find miniscule flaws in the argument or loop holes.

Not every player is of the same skill level, intelligence, or time to play, it simply doesnt work that way.

My 18 year old self had the time, and the brain to not play much and do everything.

It was called "Little to no sleep when things were new cause you know, lots of time?" and "Arcane Crystals" i didnt have to farm my pots or anything, i just mined and sold, made thousands when others had nothing and was able to barely play, and raid, and then play Dota or CS or AoC

[Nerovar]

Got it, you don't know what a role playing game is and think they all have to be one specific thing. Good for you.

Your definition of a roleplaying game is watered down to a point where it has nothing to do with the original concept. But I guess there's no arguing with you.

[Ishayu]

So now you are assuming i didnt also play those games

You also assumed earlier, i required "X amount of hours" to see the game.

Different skill level, less hours required and many more other things.

My point stands, not everyone is a scrub that requires hand helding to do stuff, or requires other stuff.

I explained before, my immature self enjoyed destroying others, sure i can agree with that, i didnt care who i destroyed or the community around it, i simply enjoyed destroying.

Community hasnt dead, it just got scaled from "server" to "world".

Yeah, no. Sorry. You didn't see all of vanilla without playing thousands of hours. I'm not buying it. It took 200-300 to get to max level, even for very good players it took 200, and after that you spent a lot of time meeting people, talking, being in guilds, finding groups, and farming content. And getting to Naxxramas... I'm sorry, I don't believe you killed Kel'Thuzad without 2000 hours put into the game. Not a chance in hell.

And if you did put that many hours into WoW, there hasn't been much time to play anything else, assuming you also had high school or college at the time, which I would strongly assume.

EDIT: Also, I should mention that I don't appreciate you talking down to me. A smart person doesn't use "I'm smart" as an argument. Demonstrate it, make me believe it, don't just say it is so. You're speaking to a software engineer specialized in mathematical modelling, design, parallel and cluster computing, and so on, who also happens to design and play video games in his spare time. No, that's not really relevant to the discussion, but if you want a pissing contest, you're going to lose, so drop it.

[Cæli]

Here's the most valid point I especially find detrimental to be currently removed from the game :

When hard raid mode was first introduced (in Ulduar), it was done via in-game action, ie: you had to do trigger specific things during an encounter. Now it's via a click on a menu. (this kind of gameplay removal -World of MenuCraft-)

Weather was alot more prominant in some zones barrens, for example was mostly sunny but sometimes rained, Felwood, it rained alot winterspring was often heavy snow, ect.

Lots of group quests so you have to, well, make group while leveling.

Speaking of trainers, you had to see a trainer in town to learn your new class skill/spell. Now it automatically spawn in your action bar as you level.
Some spells only worked on specific mobs, strengthening the lore. Paladin's exorcism for example was to be used against undead/demons while now it works the same on any mobs.

You need to travel to dungeons and battleground. Now you don't even need to know where they are.

Quests objectives weren't displayed on your map. Quest items didn't sparkle (or had an outline) and quest givers didn't show up on the minimap. Also quest mobs didn't have their names highlighted for you.

[potis]

Yeah, no. Sorry. You didn't see all of vanilla without playing thousands of hours. I'm not buying it. It took 200-300 to get to max level, even for very good players it took 200, and after that you spent a lot of time meeting people, talking, being in guilds, finding groups, and farming content. And getting to Naxxramas... I'm sorry, I don't believe you killed Kel'Thuzad without 2000 hours put into the game. Not a chance in hell.

And if you did put that many hours into WoW, there hasn't been much time to play anything else, assuming you also had high school or college at the time, which I would strongly assume.

If you have read my previous post you would have learnt that i didnt kill Four Horse/Sapph/Kel, as i said, most if not all of Vanilla, depends how people see it.

Secondly again you are assuming i did all those things alone.

Thirdly, 300 hours for level 60 ?What are you, blind or you are missing both hands?

And as i already edited above.

Was 18, all the time in the world, its called little to no sleep, let me explain how 11th February to March was of 2005..

Play till 4-5am, sleep to 6am, take the bus, sleep in the bus, attend Uni as many hours required, make sure to consume 2-3 coffees, return, sleep in the bus, good 3 extra hours of sleep combined or morning/noon, play, repeat for a good while.

Not proud of it, doesnt mean it didnt happen.

Either way, i have no reason to explain my life story to someone that considers leveling at 60 as hard, tedious sure, hard? Or lots of time required? No, i call it "Bad".

[ro9ue]

I agree with a lot of your first points but then it seems you slowly devolve into just random stuff.

In general, I liked WoW when it was a little more rough around the edges. Those strange areas are where a lot of the interest was. But the Blizzard polished those out, and while making the game far more accessible, they've obvious lost a lot more in the process. I think there's a balance to be had between a disorderly mess and so rigid and stale.

[Deleted]

No its not stop cryin and move on you TROLL ;

Yes it has.