It doesn't feel like much of anything matters ingame anymore?

[Demithio]

Accomplishment, prestige and immersion did not exist to satisfy only 5% of the playerbase; they had very real effects on pretty much everyone that played during that time (Vanilla & TBC mainly).

Accomplishment: Every aspect of the game required a decent amount of effort to complete.

Prestige: You were not given mounts, epics & legendary gear for free, so there was prestige for the people that were able to obtain these items. Not to mention there was a feeling of satisfaction knowing that every player in the game wasn't able to obtain epic/legendary gear.

Immersion:
- Server community
- Seeing people in the world that you recognize
- Grouping with people in the world to complete certain quests
- Seeing people with cool gear & mounts (this is not immersive in modern WoW because everyone has these things for free)
- Exclusive content
- A bunch of little things like ground travel, active zone chats, keys for dungeons/raids, world pvp, summoning people to dungeons, etc

All of this stuff effected every caliber of player, and it all ties into the community as well ... the community couldn't have existed in the way that it did if these other elements were not present. That's not to say that Vanilla and TBC's systems for producing accomplishment, immersion, community and prestige were perfect because they weren't at all. But there should have been an effort to preserve these things while simultaneously removing the negatives of these expansions rather than wiping the slate clean and creating an entirely different type of game.

Couldn't agree more. I think you're one of the few people here that gets it, sadly. Vanilla and TBC had their flaws for certain, but they had the fundamental mechanisms for creating a compelling and thought provoking experience. Blizzard chose to discard these mechanisms, instead of using them with QoL updates to create a better and more epic experience for the whole of the player base. A shame really.

[Mercane]

Accomplishment, prestige and immersion did not exist to satisfy only 5% of the playerbase; they had very real effects on pretty much everyone that played during that time (Vanilla & TBC mainly).

Accomplishment: Every aspect of the game required a decent amount of effort to complete.

Prestige: You were not given mounts, epics & legendary gear for free, so there was prestige for the people that were able to obtain these items. Not to mention there was a feeling of satisfaction knowing that every player in the game wasn't able to obtain epic/legendary gear.

Immersion:
- Server community
- Seeing people in the world that you recognize
- Grouping with people in the world to complete certain quests
- Seeing people with cool gear & mounts (this is not immersive in modern WoW because everyone has these things for free)
- Exclusive content
- A bunch of little things like ground travel, active zone chats, keys for dungeons/raids, world pvp, summoning people to dungeons, etc

All of this stuff effected every caliber of player, and it all ties into the community as well ... the community couldn't have existed in the way that it did if these other elements were not present. That's not to say that Vanilla and TBC's systems for producing accomplishment, immersion, community and prestige were perfect because they weren't at all. But there should have been an effort to preserve these things while simultaneously removing the negatives of these expansions rather than wiping the slate clean and creating an entirely different type of game.

The problem with the 'old WoW' vs. 'Modern WoW' argument, is there's 13 years of people acquiring things. There's over 400 mounts in the game, and some of the rarest are available right now as either a drop from a trivial raid boss with a less than 1% drop chance, or selling for a gold cap on the auction house. Nothing is ever going to compare to anyone's first experience getting a rare mount, that legendary that took effort or extreme RNG to acquire, or anything else that happens in the game. Right now, if you have it- there's a better than 'fair' chance that someone else, also, has it.

I don't really understand why people get so polarized around the 'server community' topic- I played in Vanilla, trade chat then wasn't any better then than trade chat is now. It was very much the same bored idiots trolling other bored idiots and anyone with sense ignored all of them. The whole arguing point of this topic just questions if you're even in a guild, and if you are- do you like being there? If the answer is 'No', join another one. My server's community means exactly fuck and all as far as I'm concerned because I do literally everything in game with friends, friends I've been doing shit in game with for the better part of a decade now- They're idiots, but they're lovable idiots, and more importantly, they're my lovable idiots. We drink, we laugh, we wipe- we do it all again next week.

The whole 'grouping with people to complete certain quests' is more alive than it has been in several expansions- and that's through world quests, mythic+, normal/heroic PUGs, and literally anything else you want to dive into, you can, without the tediousness of sitting in trade chat for an hour trying to compete with a dozen other people that are all better than you for 'reasons'.

The community now is your guild or the circle of friends you play with, and as far as attunements, dungeon keys, and all that other nonsense? Nobody has time for that anymore, the average age of MMO gamers is mid-30s- people have careers, families, kids and responsibilities to look after and after all this is Blizzard we're talking about- a game company that makes all of their games as accessible as possible- why you ask? Because that's where the money is. WildStar and Rift (to a lesser extent) tried to do all that server community/attunement crap and look where that got them, milking the playerbase of a dead game so they can hopefully fund another project, that probably won't be successful.

[risingforce]

Comparing to vanilla, because one must always compare to vanilla.

Things like your name, transmog (or just gear back then), how you were percieved by other players on the realm, your "skills" or lack thereof, your professions, what keys you had, even your personality... all meant so much. It was all rolled into you/your character and the connection was real.

I try to connect to my character these days but it's not the same at all, because none of those things matter any more. For me it's led to a kind of disconnect. Anyone feel the same?

OP -coming to the realisation that "It doesn't feel like much of anything matters ingame anymore," well perhaps it could be argued, that it never did; it's an MMO, nothing matters because it's a game. It's a pastime. What matters is the personal experiences, social interactions, friendships created, happy and sad accomplishments, the frustrations and the sweet rewards you make along the way... collectively, this is your story, and it's that what matters. I feel that when the personal experience of an MMO (social, personal) becomes second place to the 'game' then yes, a lot starts to 'not matter' --and suddenly the pastime becomes a chore.

Anyway OP, not disagreeing with your feelings, I absolutely believe your frustrations and all I'm trying to do is to encourage you to remember what does matter! All the best.

The effort it took to level a character to max level alone made it feel very personal to you. I remember referring to my characters by their names back then, where as now I mostly refer to them by "my rogue" or "my druid". I think that speaks volumes. Partly it's the way I play the game too though

I still prefer the way things are now, sacrifice some of the 'mattering' to gain access to more classes and what not. I play casually and don't invest much so it's fine by me

Yes, but we were 10 years younger, we're older now responsibilities, time, matters more now than then; hence we remember the 'good' times too easily forget that we more carefree we were in Vanilla and how (literally everything) was a new experience, and that [novelty and nostalgia] is a very hard set of circumstances to compete with let alone recreate without reinventing the wheel.

Not a dig at you, just quoting and I play much more casual now, but I feel that is a thing players like us (long term subscribers) can because Blizzard has allowed us to do so by design, without sacrificing (as you say) some what matters (or contributed to our vanilla memories) we can play more casually; certainly for me, and most of my friends, we could have no experience of WoW currently if it were as grindy as Vanilla. I know people who raid Mythic 1 day a week and do so because they are extremely accomplished players and organised both socially and IRL, that this is even possible has to be commended.

[Haywire5714]

Okay lets take this point by point because all of this is complete nonsense.

The problem with the 'old WoW' vs. 'Modern WoW' argument, is there's 13 years of people acquiring things. There's over 400 mounts in the game, and some of the rarest are available right now as either a drop from a trivial raid boss with a less than 1% drop chance, or selling for a gold cap on the auction house. Nothing is ever going to compare to anyone's first experience getting a rare mount, that legendary that took effort or extreme RNG to acquire, or anything else that happens in the game. Right now, if you have it- there's a better than 'fair' chance that someone else, also, has it.

The goal isn't to emulate players first experience because that's obviously not possible. Just because players can't feel accomplishment, prestige and immersion to the same extent that they did when they first experienced these things doesn't mean that they shouldn't or can't exist anymore.

I don't really understand why people get so polarized around the 'server community' topic- I played in Vanilla, trade chat then wasn't any better then than trade chat is now. It was very much the same bored idiots trolling other bored idiots and anyone with sense ignored all of them. The whole arguing point of this topic just questions if you're even in a guild, and if you are- do you like being there? If the answer is 'No', join another one. My server's community means exactly fuck and all as far as I'm concerned because I do literally everything in game with friends, friends I've been doing shit in game with for the better part of a decade now- They're idiots, but they're lovable idiots, and more importantly, they're my lovable idiots. We drink, we laugh, we wipe- we do it all again next week.

Server community was a lot more than just "bored idiots trolling other bored idiots in trade chat". This is what server community was actually like:

- Developing relationships with players that you met in the world or have run dungeons with in the past.
- Reputation: if you were a good player people knew about you, if you were a toxic player people knew about you.
- Active community involvement in all aspects of the game not just heroic/mythic raiding & high mythic+.
- Active zone chats created the feeling of a massive multiplayer experience whether you believe that it was mostly comprised of trolling or not.

Essentially the main problem is that you think people should be satisfied because a resemblance of community exists if you're in a raiding guild. Well the thing is, this small piece of community that remains will not satisfy anyone that enjoyed old WoW for what it was. You can't just tack on a little bit of community here, a little bit of prestige there, a little bit of immersion there and expect the vast majority of people who liked those things to be satisfied. If all the elements of old WoW and modern WoW had been preserved from the beginning ... the game would truly cater to the vast majority of people (which legion does not do at all btw) because players on both ends of the spectrum would have everything that they wanted.

The whole 'grouping with people to complete certain quests' is more alive than it has been in several expansions- and that's through world quests, mythic+, normal/heroic PUGs, and literally anything else you want to dive into, you can, without the tediousness of sitting in trade chat for an hour trying to compete with a dozen other people that are all better than you for 'reasons'.

The problem is that without any elements of server community in the game, any grouping that happens for non-guild content (world quests, normal/heroic PUGs) does not emulate an mmo experience in any way similar to old WoW. Another thing that ties into this is the process of developing relationships and actively trying to find groups in non organized content less efficient use of your time then just doing the content solo. Not only does server community barely exist at this point, but there isn't even any incentive to play with other players in non-organized content.

The community now is your guild or the circle of friends you play with, and as far as attunements, dungeon keys, and all that other nonsense? Nobody has time for that anymore, the average age of MMO gamers is mid-30s- people have careers, families, kids and responsibilities to look after and after all this is Blizzard we're talking about- a game company that makes all of their games as accessible as possible- why you ask? Because that's where the money is. WildStar and Rift (to a lesser extent) tried to do all that server community/attunement crap and look where that got them, milking the playerbase of a dead game so they can hopefully fund another project, that probably won't be successful.

You're right, accessibility is where the money is and it should be preserved. However remove all the good aspects of old WoW in the process of obtaining accessibility is not at all where the money is because at that point you've alienated a lot of your playerbase.

Attunements and dungeon keys are nonsense huh? Well I'll tell you that these features went a long way in providing immersion and accomplishment within the game and if the negatives aspects had been eliminated (the difficulty guilds had to recruit new players for raiding because of attunements is something that could have been fixed) rather than removing them completely, the game would have appealed to a much wider audience.

Regardless of what you believe that average age of MMO gamers to be, just because many players don't have much time to play the game anymore doesn't mean that the elements of old WoW and new WoW cannot be preserved. Their time would be better spent slowly progressing their character at their own pace through meaningful content that provides meaningful rewards alongside an active community rather than what happens now where all content and rewards in the game are meaningless because they can be accessed, completed and obtained very quickly on lower difficulties with hardly any effort, and hardly any real community involvement (see points for server community above) upon hitting max level.

[littlelark]

Comparing to vanilla, because one must always compare to vanilla.

Things like your name, transmog (or just gear back then), how you were percieved by other players on the realm, your "skills" or lack thereof, your professions, what keys you had, even your personality... all meant so much. It was all rolled into you/your character and the connection was real.

I try to connect to my character these days but it's not the same at all, because none of those things matter any more. For me it's led to a kind of disconnect. Anyone feel the same?

Maybe that's because Vanilla was over 12 years ago and you're not a kid with a flourishing imagination anymore? And you have your own identity and agency so you don't seek that in a virtual persona anymore?

[Soeroah]

Collections are really the only thing that matter in the long run in this game, which is why it confuses me sometimes when people treat collectors like they are playing the game "wrong".

Everything else tends only to matter short-term, unless you get a collection reward exclusive to playing X at a high level that gets removed as a reward later.

[Mercane]

The goal isn't to emulate players first experience because that's obviously not possible. Just because players can't feel accomplishment, prestige and immersion to the same extent that they did when they first experienced these things doesn't mean that they shouldn't or can't exist anymore.

I was merely trying to point out that there's 13 years of WoW History logging in everyday, of course the mount that dropped on Argus isn't going to be anywhere near as special as your epic mount from Vanilla that you grinded for weeks to get.

Server community was a lot more than just "bored idiots trolling other bored idiots in trade chat". This is what server community was actually like:

- Developing relationships with players that you met in the world or have run dungeons with in the past.
- Reputation: if you were a good player people knew about you, if you were a toxic player people knew about you.
- Active community involvement in all aspects of the game not just heroic/mythic raiding & high mythic+.
- Active zone chats created the feeling of a massive multiplayer experience whether you believe that it was mostly comprised of trolling or not.

Essentially the main problem is that you think people should be satisfied because a resemblance of community exists if you're in a raiding guild. Well the thing is, this small piece of community that remains will not satisfy anyone that enjoyed old WoW for what it was. You can't just tack on a little bit of community here, a little bit of prestige there, a little bit of immersion there and expect the vast majority of people who liked those things to be satisfied. If all the elements of old WoW and modern WoW had been preserved from the beginning ... the game would truly cater to the vast majority of people (which legion does not do at all btw) because players on both ends of the spectrum would have everything that they wanted.

And there's still such a thing as server reputation, if you're super involved with your server. The difference is, that now- you don't have to be. I'll admit I don't know what the 'server community' is to roleplayers, casuals, or people that don't belong to a guild with less than 250 people- because I've been part of a huge guild community for a very long time, and two separate gaming communities for ages.

I also don't know how Legion doesn't appeal to the masses, there's content for literally everyone. Raiding, PvP 'Prestige' and Brawls, Pet Battle Dungeons, Artifact Skins, a 5 man gearing system- what is Legion missing? Again, I'll openly admit I have difficulty seeing WoW as something other than a Cutting Edge raider. In my opinion, there's something for everyone- please tell me what's missing and for who.

Attunements and dungeon keys are nonsense huh? Well I'll tell you that these features went a long way in providing immersion and accomplishment within the game and if the negatives aspects had been eliminated (the difficulty guilds had to recruit new players for raiding because of attunements is something that could have been fixed) rather than removing them completely, the game would have appealed to a much wider audience.

Regardless of what you believe that average age of MMO gamers to be, just because many players don't have much time to play the game anymore doesn't mean that the elements of old WoW and new WoW cannot be preserved. Their time would be better spent slowly progressing their character at their own pace through meaningful content that provides meaningful rewards alongside an active community rather than what happens now where all content and rewards in the game are meaningless because they can be accessed, completed and obtained very quickly on lower difficulties with hardly any effort, and hardly any real community involvement (see points for server community above) upon hitting max level.

I mean, personally, I'm a fan of an attunement system and a bigger fan of a 'you can kill it or you can't' raid environment. I also think Normal, Heroic and Mythic is redundant and stupid, that creates an artificial sense of progress for more casual players; but you can't have these things in a game geared toward accessibility. People bitched about the Kara attunement, the Arcway/Court of Stars Attunements, and continue to climb gripe mountain to shout at the heavens about anything locked behind a rep grind. The game has changed, because the players have changed. Ultimately, what is best for the long term, is best for all of us- Blizzard tends to be much more responsive than other MMO developers.

[Teri]

The game worked fine without achievements and single difficulty 2004-2008.

But internet/gaming changed a whole lot so going back won't ever work or be the same.

[Haywire5714]

I was merely trying to point out that there's 13 years of WoW History logging in everyday, of course the mount that dropped on Argus isn't going to be anywhere near as special as your epic mount from Vanilla that you grinded for weeks to get.

It's not about the Argus mount being not as special as the epic mount from Vanilla. The problem is that the Argus mount is not special at all because prestige doesn't exist in the game anymore; everyone has cool gear and cool mounts for free so how is it supposed to matter to you or anyone else. If prestige had been preserved the Argus mount could've been an item that matters a lot more than it does now.

And there's still such a thing as server reputation, if you're super involved with your server. The difference is, that now- you don't have to be. I'll admit I don't know what the 'server community' is to roleplayers, casuals, or people that don't belong to a guild with less than 250 people- because I've been part of a huge guild community for a very long time, and two separate gaming communities for ages.

You don't know what server community meant to anyone apparently if you deny that any of those points I mentioned in the previous post (under server community) didn't effect every single player in the game during that time.

I also don't know how Legion doesn't appeal to the masses, there's content for literally everyone. Raiding, PvP 'Prestige' and Brawls, Pet Battle Dungeons, Artifact Skins, a 5 man gearing system- what is Legion missing? Again, I'll openly admit I have difficulty seeing WoW as something other than a Cutting Edge raider. In my opinion, there's something for everyone- please tell me what's missing and for who.

And this is the main problem, most people on this forum say shit like this. There is a fundamental misunderstanding of what appealing to the masses is because you and everyone else seems to believe if a small portion of the game appeals to a certain type of player then that's completely acceptable. Well it's not ... and this is why people complain on the forums because while they do enjoy certain aspects of the game that were added for them, the rest of the game does not appeal to them at all when it never had to be that way.

For example, I'm a semi hardcore raider:

Aspects of the game that appeal to me:
- Mythic Raiding
- Mythic +
- My guild

Aspects of the game that appeal to me but have been taken away:
- Community
- Prestige (gear, mounts, etc)
- Immersion
- Gameplay with high skill ceiling (depends on the class)

So currently the only way I can enjoy the game is by playing high end content; does that mean Legion appeals to me? Because if I hate everything else in the game it definitely doesn't feel like it. The fundamental misunderstanding is that you think every player is being appealed to because a few pieces of content were added in the game specifically for them and therefore they should be perfectly satisfied with the game in it's entirety. Pretty much everyone on the forums posts shit like this and it's complete nonsense. I would wager that the actual percentage of people that enjoy every single aspect of Legion, and are really excited to play Legion every day is about 1%. That's who Legion actually appeals to.

I mean, personally, I'm a fan of an attunement system and a bigger fan of a 'you can kill it or you can't' raid environment. I also think Normal, Heroic and Mythic is redundant and stupid, that creates an artificial sense of progress for more casual players; but you can't have these things in a game geared toward accessibility. People bitched about the Kara attunement, the Arcway/Court of Stars Attunements, and continue to climb gripe mountain to shout at the heavens about anything locked behind a rep grind. The game has changed, because the players have changed. Ultimately, what is best for the long term, is best for all of us- Blizzard tends to be much more responsive than other MMO developers.

The amount of time players have to play the game on average has probably changed. But that is the only change. In terms of how people act and perform in certain situations along with what people like and dislike ... this has remained the same. Everything makes sense when you look at things from this perspective:

The vast majority of people tend to take the path of least resistance because it makes sense to do so. In old WoW the path of least resistance was to communicate with other players to achieve their goals in the game. In modern WoW the path of least resistance is to pretend that you're in a single player game until you're geared up enough to raid in a guild.

The vast majority of people like the good aspects of old WoW and the good aspects of modern WoW, but what they get stuck on (particularly the forum community) is the negatives that came/come with all of these systems. And they will cling to these negatives in a discussion to claim that nobody actually enjoyed these good aspects of whatever expansion because of these negative reasons. But what they should be saying is: these aspects of the game were good and they could have been really great if these negative aspects were fixed/removed, rather than disregarding the validity of their existence entirely because of a few negatives.

[MoanaLisa]

The goal isn't to emulate players first experience because that's obviously not possible.

There are many that would thoughtlessly disagree with you. We see threads and posts every single day that express the sentiment that if the developers would just do X or Y, it would exactly be like the game used to be and that "first experience" would be the playable norm.

I think that's a much nonsense as you do. Players that complain about the game not being the same as vanilla have been around for years and you could give them an expansion that replicates the vanilla experience and I very much doubt that they would see it that way. For them, the game has changed and they haven't.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing but it's not a sustaining lifeblood for an extended game like World of Warcraft. If the game were the same now as it was in vanilla, i.e. unchanged in most respects, there's a good chance it would be dead and out of business.

A comment about community: It would be nice if Blizzard could think of a way to foster larger communities of players. Unfortunately what's there--chat channels and the like--served pretty well years ago but won't serve now. The darker side of "server communities" is that when it's brought up, you can see people posting who really can't wait to get their blacklist going again so they can start driving people out of the "community". And those people aren't likely to be any healthy part of an actual server community in any case.

The difference now is that you have to work to have a community. It's possible to do but it requires co-operation and a willingness to spend some time on it. It won't just be given to you. Many RP realms still have fine communities so making a community and keeping it viable is possible. You just have to work at it. Start talking in trade and the other chat channels. Try to start up small groups in those channels old-school. If there are so many people wishing for this to happen it will be fine. If not, then know the reality that things have changed.

Relatively new players in a relatively new game are naturally going to create a different community than players that have been around for ten-plus years. I used to run a new player guild on a relatively well-populated server some years ago and we finally folded it because there just weren't a lot of new players any longer. That very fact is going to change a community, server or otherwise, in drastic ways. Ways that won't be fixed by anything Blizzard can do.

[Mercane]

It's not about the Argus mount being not as special as the epic mount from Vanilla. The problem is that the Argus mount is not special at all because prestige doesn't exist in the game anymore; everyone has cool gear and cool mounts for free so how is it supposed to matter to you or anyone else. If prestige had been preserved the Argus mount could've been an item that matters a lot more than it does now.

Except Prestige is still in the game, it's just not nearly as prevalent- again, because there's over a decades worth of content strapped on to the game itself. There's the obviously Mythic only mounts that still carry some prestige attached to them, especially if your team is one of the first people on the server to down the boss. I still get whispers, all the time, whenever I ride around on the Mythic Gul`Dan mount. But then- there's other mounts that are either insanely rare, Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent; or others that have a low drop rate- Invincible that still mean quite a lot, to quite a lot of people (It's one of the few mounts I don't have, and I did LK25 when it was current).

The only thing in your entire argument that I agree with, is a relative lack of immersion, simply because our characters have become 'larger than life' at this point- and instead of being just another idiot with a sword, you're the pinnacle of your class order and the commander of all your factions forces. I do however have a much stronger attachment to my Paladin and Mage than I do any other of my characters and always transfer them with me, wherever I go, even if I'm not maining them at the time- simply because they're exalted to every faction in the game, I've completed Loremaster on both of them, and they both have high RBG titles and a few Glads.

And no, I have no idea what the server community meant to everyone- only me. Sure it was easier to identify people, and know who was good and who wasn't- but I've gotten past a lot of that, especially in Legion- where I can do different content, aimed at different player ability, with different people. Especially because I'm part of an in-game community, that spans a few guilds, that facilitates that. It's not the game's lack of community you're struggling with, it's your own.

[Kithelle]

God forbid someone make observations and suggest things they think would improve the game.


not /thread.

I didn't see any suggestions to make the game better...in fact a lot of what I've seen so far made the game worse back then.

Yeah because waiting hours for a dungeon, taking days to get a level (Assuming you don't live WoW), and looking like a clown weren't what I call things that would improve the game.

There isn't much in Vanilla that would make the game *better* but some people can't seem to move on and take off those nostalgia glasses and honestly look at Vanilla.

I played Vanilla...it wasn't fun when you compare it to now with all of the quality of life changes that has been made over the last decade...I didn't enjoy having to stop and eat food so much...so for possibly hours in a city spamming various chat channels or at a meeting stone to get a dungeon. I sure as hell didn't enjoy looking like a clown...I didn't enjoy the way they treated hybrids...I didn't enjoy having a bunch of talent options that were essentially useless pit traps that newbs fell into (Not that the current system is great, but it's more forgiving)

I feel more connections to my characters now than I did then...because I can customize how they look...I don't have to look stupid...I can make a character of my own because I'm now the thousandth clown wearing the same gear because I don't have a raid team. Other than a few bad eggs being named I never saw any server reputations thrown around.

[Deleted]

Yes, but we were 10 years younger, we're older now responsibilities, time, matters more now than then; hence we remember the 'good' times too easily forget that we more carefree we were in Vanilla and how (literally everything) was a new experience, and that [novelty and nostalgia] is a very hard set of circumstances to compete with let alone recreate without reinventing the wheel.

Nope people had responsibilities back in vannila just like they do now. Nothing have changed about that. There are plenty of young neckbeards wanting to spend their time in WoW but sadly WoW isnt worth of that time anymore. What is huge problem is that people have expectation to get everything in short period of time with no effort. Instead having fun level and have sense of acomplishemnt for little casual things like dinging level 60 Blizzard just made every aspect of the game medicore and unrewarding experience in order for players to explore eveything in the game without any struggle. Difficulty levels have no place in true mmo game.

[Antius]

I won't paint everything in vanilla wow with a rose color but I can honestly say the community was much better back then. Random strangers helped just to help and rarely expected anything in return. I'm not saying people don't do that now but it is a rare occurrence unless it is an irl friend or a close guildmate.

[Schattenlied]

I didn't see any suggestions to make the game better...in fact a lot of what I've seen so far made the game worse back then.

opinions are opinion.

taking days to get a level (Assuming you don't live WoW)

AKA you're one of those people who didn't see leveling as the content it was meant to be, you were entirely focused on the destination and missed the journey. I enjoyed leveling back then, all the way up through WotLK I was always leveling a character on the side because I liked doing it. I don't like it anymore because it's so now easy (by design) that I can (and have) do almost all of it with a naked character with no weapons and not feel like I'm in any danger.

Endgame was not and shouldn't be the only content.

and looking like a clown

Yes, transmog was an improvement for most people, but we didn't have that until MoP and plenty of people loved the hell out of WotLK despite that.

There isn't much in Vanilla that would make the game *better* but some people can't seem to move on and take off those nostalgia glasses and honestly look at Vanilla.

You say that as if private servers don't exist, and we can't go play through it again and see it as it truly is without the nostalgia glasses. I genuienly believe the game is going downhill at this point, and we could stand to push the rock back up the hill for a couple expansions in game design philosophy.

didn't enjoy having to stop and eat food so much...

And I don't enjoy never having to stop because my character is literally never threatened at all unless I'm in a mythic dungeon or a raid... When everything besides dungeons and raids are faceroll easy, nothing else is enjoyable.

so for possibly hours in a city spamming various chat channels or at a meeting stone to get a dungeon.

could have been fixed without annihilating server community, by adding the dungeon finder system without making it crossrealm.

I didn't enjoy the way they treated hybrids...

no one is asking for that back, so why bring it up? No one is saying "make the game vanilla exactly", they are saying "vanilla did do some things right and some things wrong, so let's bring back the few things it did right".

I didn't enjoy having a bunch of talent options that were essentially useless pit traps that newbs fell into (Not that the current system is great, but it's more forgiving)

the current system is literally the same, they both are littered with absolutely worthless horrid talents, so how is the current one more forgiving, because they can be changed at will in a rested zone at no cost? That could have been done to the old talent trees just as easily without devolving the talent system down to "does his fight have AoE or ST?" that 90% of the row choices are now.

I feel more connections to my characters now than I did then...because I can customize how they look...I don't have to look stupid...I can make a character of my own because I'm now the thousandth clown wearing the same gear because I don't have a raid team. Other than a few bad eggs being named I never saw any server reputations thrown around.

And I feel less, because there is no effort involved in making the character, leveling the character is faceroll easy, getting a decent transmog, throw pocketchange gold at it or faceroll through some old content. No effort, no connection.

[Themanintobuildafire]

The effort it took to level a character to max level alone made it feel very personal to you. I remember referring to my characters by their names back then, where as now I mostly refer to them by "my rogue" or "my druid". I think that speaks volumes. Partly it's the way I play the game too though

I still prefer the way things are now, sacrifice some of the 'mattering' to gain access to more classes and what not. I play casually and don't invest much so it's fine by me

The only character I refer to my name is my main. You are right, every other character is by class.

I have 163 days played on my main. I know not a long compared to some, but I feel a real connection to that character I don't really feel to my other 11 characters.

[Kallisto]

For example, I'm a semi hardcore raider:

Aspects of the game that appeal to me:
- Mythic Raiding
- Mythic +
- My guild

Aspects of the game that appeal to me but have been taken away:
- Community
- Prestige (gear, mounts, etc)
- Immersion
- Gameplay with high skill ceiling (depends on the class)

Bull fucking shit. You're making up BS to try to get people to follow your line of thought and you know it.

Community is there if you want it to be. My realm has a discord that is alive, a skype channel for guild officers that is active daily. If your realm isn't doing that then that's a problem with your dead realm or you're just choosing not to get involved.

Prestige is still there. You just want to have everything and anyone little bit less than you to still be floundering in EN until 8.0 Sorry never going to happen. Difficulty levels are content and have been considered content in games during 80s, 90s, 2000s and early 2010ss. Also better business to have 80% of playerbase see a raid, not 5% like before LFR

High skill ceiling still there, if it wasn't anyone could walk into0 method and basically be a world first raider, hint they can't.

Immersion? That's up to you as well.

[Daedius]

Games have been the same ever since the day of Pong!

[MoanaLisa]

I won't paint everything in vanilla wow with a rose color but I can honestly say the community was much better back then. Random strangers helped just to help and rarely expected anything in return. I'm not saying people don't do that now but it is a rare occurrence unless it is an irl friend or a close guildmate.

It was a different time for one thing. For another, new players in a new community in a relatively new game act differently than players that have been around the same game for 10 years plus.

The way the game is played now, especially by players who have been at it for a very long time, is to get through everything as quickly and directly as possible. There are consequences that spawn from that mindset.

I can just imagine the uproar that would ensue if Blizzard released a 10-level expansion where the leveling took three weeks minimum.

[Haywire5714]

Alright I'm back, i'll start responding to some of these

There are many that would thoughtlessly disagree with you. We see threads and posts every single day that express the sentiment that if the developers would just do X or Y, it would exactly be like the game used to be and that "first experience" would be the playable norm.

I think that's a much nonsense as you do. Players that complain about the game not being the same as vanilla have been around for years and you could give them an expansion that replicates the vanilla experience and I very much doubt that they would see it that way. For them, the game has changed and they haven't.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing but it's not a sustaining lifeblood for an extended game like World of Warcraft. If the game were the same now as it was in vanilla, i.e. unchanged in most respects, there's a good chance it would be dead and out of business.

I mean, I'm not going to try and defend what other people say. If what you say is true and lots people want to believe that it's possible to emulate ones first experience playing WoW then they can believe that if they want to. I obviously don't agree, but I do firmly believe that the good aspects of vanilla have positive, game changing effects for the vast majority of players and these points do not disprove that.

It's fair to assume that if the game remained the same since vanilla it would probably be dead by now, but I'm not, and have never suggested that the game should be the same as vanilla so I don't understand what the purpose of this point was tbh.

A comment about community: It would be nice if Blizzard could think of a way to foster larger communities of players. Unfortunately what's there--chat channels and the like--served pretty well years ago but won't serve now. The darker side of "server communities" is that when it's brought up, you can see people posting who really can't wait to get their blacklist going again so they can start driving people out of the "community". And those people aren't likely to be any healthy part of an actual server community in any case.

I'm not exactly sure why you mentioned this either. There's always going to be bad apples in the community no matter what but that doesn't mean community isn't important and that doesn't mean there shouldn't be an effort to preserve it. You can believe that "chat channels and the like" would be different if you want to, but I don't believe that you've backed up that argument with any good reasoning ... and even if you did, "chat channels and the like (whatever that means)" is only one part of what it means to have a server community so you wouldn't be disproving anything that I am trying to say by doing this.

The difference now is that you have to work to have a community. It's possible to do but it requires co-operation and a willingness to spend some time on it. It won't just be given to you. Many RP realms still have fine communities so making a community and keeping it viable is possible. You just have to work at it. Start talking in trade and the other chat channels. Try to start up small groups in those channels old-school. If there are so many people wishing for this to happen it will be fine. If not, then know the reality that things have changed.

If you have to "work" to have a community then that's obviously a bad thing because if that's the case the vast majority of people aren't going to have a community lol (which is who blizzard should be catering to right?). You're never going to convince everyone in the game that enjoys community to "work" for it; and even if you could it still wouldn't be a suitable replacement for a real, active and natural community so what was the point of even mentioning this?

Relatively new players in a relatively new game are naturally going to create a different community than players that have been around for ten-plus years. I used to run a new player guild on a relatively well-populated server some years ago and we finally folded it because there just weren't a lot of new players any longer. That very fact is going to change a community, server or otherwise, in drastic ways. Ways that won't be fixed by anything Blizzard can do.

Believing that the community will be drastically different than vanilla is completely irrelevant because it doesn't matter if the community is different? Regardless of if the community is "different" (requires context) than vanilla or not it is still very possible for Blizzard to create a healthy and active community within the game. Do you agree with this or do you truly believe that no matter what Blizzard does a healthy and active community cannot exist in this game anymore?

Except Prestige is still in the game, it's just not nearly as prevalent- again, because there's over a decades worth of content strapped on to the game itself. There's the obviously Mythic only mounts that still carry some prestige attached to them, especially if your team is one of the first people on the server to down the boss. I still get whispers, all the time, whenever I ride around on the Mythic Gul`Dan mount. But then- there's other mounts that are either insanely rare, Heavenly Onyx Cloud Serpent; or others that have a low drop rate- Invincible that still mean quite a lot, to quite a lot of people (It's one of the few mounts I don't have, and I did LK25 when it was current).

Okay I'll admit that I was wrong when I said that prestige is completely gone from these items ... but can you please admit that prestige is not anything similar to what it used to/could be? Like seriously here's a list:

- Quality of items is a complete joke now: common, rare, epic, legendary it doesn't mean anything ... everyone has these things.
- Rare/hard to obtain mounts still exist in the game .. this is true. But you have to admit that these mounts are way less meaningful when everyone else cool mounts for free. How can you not agree with this
- Completing a raid is definitely less prestigious and important when everyone else can also complete the raid on lower difficulties ... do you not agree with this either?

I don't even understand why I have to explain this to people it seems so obvious. Is it not obvious that prestige, immersion, accomplishment and community exist to a far lesser degree then they have existed in the past? It it not obvious that this is a problem that effects the vast majority of players? Is it not obvious that the game could be much better if these things were preserved?

Bull fucking shit. You're making up BS to try to get people to follow your line of thought and you know it.

Community is there if you want it to be. My realm has a discord that is alive, a skype channel for guild officers that is active daily. If your realm isn't doing that then that's a problem with your dead realm or you're just choosing not to get involved.

Prestige is still there. You just want to have everything and anyone little bit less than you to still be floundering in EN until 8.0 Sorry never going to happen. Difficulty levels are content and have been considered content in games during 80s, 90s, 2000s and early 2010ss. Also better business to have 80% of playerbase see a raid, not 5% like before LFR

High skill ceiling still there, if it wasn't anyone could walk into0 method and basically be a world first raider, hint they can't.

Immersion? That's up to you as well.

I was wondering when I was going to get a moronic reply like this. It was bound to happen ... it happens in pretty much every thread that goes the distance.

I'm not going to respond to every point you made in detail because it's really not worth it my time, and most of that stuff has already been addressed in my previous posts. Were you to take the time to read and attempt to understand my points, while also attempting to understand my intentions rather than immediately assuming the worst you would realize this.

If you have any specific things you want to discuss then we can discuss them. But if you're too focused on making me out to be the bad guy then I'm not going to bother.