Why people bother with vanilla?

[Queen of Hamsters]

Do you quit raiding on live after the world first happens? "we defeated all raids, the only thing that remains is some pvp perhaps"

A guild getting World First =/= everyone's done it though.

Raids on Classic servers are not and will not be quite so exclusive, nor will a Classic server be getting new stuff for players to overcome.

And that's fine, that's what some people want.

[Millyraynge]

TBH it will never happen that we will see a 100% original vanilla WoW. If they would do so, 95% of the hypers would leave the servers around level 10. The non-existing comfort, the technical/mechanical limitations of a 1.12 build would not enough to keep the players for a long time. Even the hardcores on the pirat servers are not interested in a 100% 1:1 absolute blizzlike wow. Even the hardest bosses would die 5 times faster (TTK) than back in the days, just because the fact BiS or Min-Maxing is completely normal nowadays. Killing Vael in 1min with original numbers shouldn't be a prob for example, just because we have more knowledge than in 2005. It's like to send a 10 years old child 200 years back in time, this child would be a god of knowledge and wisdom.

[Deleted]

You are asking the wrong question.


If so many people in this community want to play the old game, the content that they already have seen and beaten, then that speaks volumes of what they think of not just the current game but the future of it.


If you cooked a meal for all of us in this thread, and we showed up to your house and said "uhm...ill just have some bread and butter" then you question should not be "Wow, why do they like bread and butter? I dunno lol", your question should be "wtf did i do wrong with my dinner?!"


The underlining topic of vanilla servers is a direct critique of WoW dev team and the things they have done upon this game for the last several years. Its not just about not liking the current game, its also about having zero faith in them making it better.

[justandulas]

Because in many ways it's a better, more focused game.

I love WoW now and still raid mythic in legion so I'm not bashing it in it's current state. A lot of the QoL issues have been addressed and it's easier to get into/play the game than ever... but somewhere between dungeon/raid finder, different difficulties of raids, and gear handed to you on a silver platter the essence of original WoW was lost.

No longer is it a struggle to survive in a cruel world filled with enemies of all kinds, but now it's just how fast can you get to end game and get your item level up. It lost a lot of it's old school MMORPG elements for more modern streamlined RPG elements with MMO mixed in for heroic/mythic raids. It's still a great game, but some people prefer the WORLD feeling of vanilla where everything feels connected, big, and downright dangerous.

Like someone else said... it breeds a different MMORPG player than current WoW does.

[Queen of Hamsters]

You are asking the wrong question.


If so many people in this community want to play the old game, the content that they already have seen and beaten, then that speaks volumes of what they think of not just the current game but the future of it.


If you cooked a meal for all of us in this thread, and we showed up to your house and said "uhm...ill just have some bread and butter" then you question should not be "Wow, why do they like bread and butter? I dunno lol", your question should be "wtf did i do wrong with my dinner?!"


The underlining topic of vanilla servers is a direct critique of WoW dev team and the things they have done upon this game for the last several years. Its not just about not liking the current game, its also about having zero faith in them making it better.

... What an over-simplification of the topic at hand.

Guessing you've missed the countless posts from people whom will be playing Classic AND Live, or not bother with Classic because they don't think it matters or already did it when it was current...

Millions of people show up to the house and eat and love the meal, so...

[Moozart]

Dont get me wrong vanilla was great when it released but now there is nothing left to beat in vanilla, we defeated all raids, the only thing that remains is some pvp perhaps, why would you even bother with a game you have already defeated? there is nothing to progress upon, i never understood this vanilla server thing, it makes so sense.

most of them suck at the new content and thought they were "gods" in the old content. It like the people that go buy computers and get pissed because most of them no longer have CD roms. They have a hard time getting with the times. Id bet most of them also "twink"

[Ex Cinis Cineris]

A guild getting World First =/= everyone's done it though.

Ok world first was a bad comparison, how about 20% of guilds have cleared the raid. Its extremely unlikely the op cleared everything in vanilla when it was content so I assumed he meant the community as a whole. Either way I feel like the main reason why people want to play vanilla is to complete raids they have either never done during vanilla or complete the content they didn't finish.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Like someone else said... it breeds a different MMORPG player than current WoW does.

It really doesn't though.

LFR-players of today are capable of going to Classic and beat the final raids, all they need is time and patience. They won't come back from the Classic server and suddenly be Mythic level players on Live.

I remember when Classic was used to say "it bred our best players!", and then someone showed how many in World first guilds started playing later than Classic.

[Teri]

I think you missed my point - it was about the leveling, NOT about being at the level limit and doing content. It was about dinging, getting that often usless talent point, it was about the miriad of stories around Azeroth that were self-contained, it was about taking weeks, months to level - not a few days.

The journey TO level 60, not being at 60.

For some players it was about the leveling, for me it certainly was early on, RP server and everything.

But then I got recruited in a hardcore raiding guild, the game completely changed. Even while we had alt-run MC/AQ20/ZG runs later, max level content was the focus for at least the last year+

If you started 2004. It does not take 1 year to level up.

Our guild completed thunderfury, sulfuras, Opened the AQ gates first, had several high ranked 13/14 pvp players, I got rank 13 somewhere 2006 during naxx.

Vanilla lasted 2 years and I already had leveled 40+ in closed beta as well.

[Teri]

It really doesn't though.

LFR-players of today are capable of going to Classic and beat the final raids, all they need is time and patience. They won't come back from the Classic server and suddenly be Mythic level players on Live.

Raid skill wise, sure, vanilla mechanics were simple.

Logistics wise, you cannot compare solo queue LFR to a 40+ man guild organization. And here I talk the happenings that happen outside of the raid, crafting/resists/consumables.

You cannot get Onyxia cloaks solo, many high end fire resist gear needed tons of mats (especially dark iron plate, required rep as well), and attunements needed groups and patience.

[justandulas]

It really doesn't though.

LFR-players of today are capable of going to Classic and beat the final raids, all they need is time and patience. They won't come back from the Classic server and suddenly be Mythic level players on Live.

I remember when Classic was used to say "it bred our best players!", and then someone showed how many in World first guilds started playing later than Classic.

I respectfully disagree. LFR players aren't capable of keeping up with the Jones' in vanilla because the biggest obstacle was TIME commitment. And 40 man raids were nothing to sneeze at. Mechanics wise, sure; they pale in a lot of ways to mythic raids today BUT 40 good people together is significantly harder than 20.

And Naxx in vanilla still remains the hardest raid in blizz history by a mile. Nothing ever comes close.

It isn't just the raids themselves but the fact the time commitment was astronomical, and the successes that came with them could be easily measured in gear where as today there's 4 different difficulties all with the same matching gear (+- stats) and it takes away a lot of that original RPG charm.

[Koward]

I will try it, see if the magic still works.

I do fear that without the original playerbase, the experience wont be the same.

I think the private servers answered this question too. They created communities behaving in very similar ways to the old one.

I believe the game makes the community. In fact I think it applies to things outside of WoW, people just adapt to the rules and behave like they need to, and in vanilla you need to socialize so you do.

[Skulltaker]

Heh no the issue is you just cannot see why vanilla had more traits in common with an RPG then oegion ever has.

It is NOT about content numbers or how streamlined ir cohesive it is. It is about how organic it is how real the world feels to us.

And i am trying to explain why many prefer vanilla but you seem to be so convinced of legions superiority or how it has xyz and streamlined things meaning better that you cannot see how the imperfections in vabilka actually were a boon.

If being frank btw i actually feel late tbc/wrath was wows best era. The worlds were immersive and large leveling was not easy as all hell just yet, you could find random shit and not just be guided to almost 3/4 if not alk quest hubs or even quests, gearing had a nice middle ground, talents were still in a place people could make wacky but fun builds and more.

All in all it was a VASTLY different game whose focus truly seemed to be on longterm rpg style play over todays more arcadey super fast paced style

Name one rPG element Vanilla, or any other addon had, that isn't present today.

[Sotsu]

One of the things I wonder about the new server is how 'original' will it be? Is it just gonna be a WoW 1.X server and all the mistakes that have been fixed will be present once again?

Will paladins, druids and priests go back to being only healers? Will warriors go back to being the only viable tanks? Do we get to go back to cookie-cutter, lackluster talent trees? Or will we see the original classes with better mechanics, making it a new game to learn, giving everyone that sense of being lost that people yearn for?

[Queen of Hamsters]

Raid skill wise, sure, vanilla mechanics were simple.

Logistics wise, you cannot compare solo queue LFR to a 40+ man guild organization. And here I talk the happenings that happen outside of the raid, crafting/resists/consumables.

You cannot get Onyxia cloaks solo, many high end fire resist gear needed tons of mats (especially dark iron plate, required rep as well), and attunements needed groups and patience.

And all those things have been done just fine by modern players, so...

[RobertMugabe]

It amazes me how some people here are salty for legacy servers being release. If you don't like Vanilla, then simply don't play it ffs. You don't need to prove a point here.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I respectfully disagree. LFR players aren't capable of keeping up with the Jones' in vanilla because the biggest obstacle was TIME commitment. And 40 man raids were nothing to sneeze at. Mechanics wise, sure; they pale in a lot of ways to mythic raids today BUT 40 good people together is significantly harder than 20.

And Naxx in vanilla still remains the hardest raid in blizz history by a mile. Nothing ever comes close.

It isn't just the raids themselves but the fact the time commitment was astronomical, and the successes that came with them could be easily measured in gear where as today there's 4 different difficulties all with the same matching gear (+- stats) and it takes away a lot of that original RPG charm.

LFR-players are playing Classic as we speak just fine. Do you honestly believe that all the people having played Classic, evolved into good players? Do you honestly believe that only Mythic level players from Live, go to Private servers?

And no, Naxx 40 is not the hardest raid in Blizz history, not even close. Time restraints = why so few saw it. On Private servers, it's cleared within a night of players getting together a raid party.

I'll just leave this here for anyone with delusions on what it took, takes and will take to get raid clears in Classic:



Also:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...%94A-Look-Back

Quote: When the world of Azeroth was brand new, the overall pace of leveling significantly slower than it is today, such that the primary occupation for a majority of players was simply striving to reach max level. And even for the most cutting-edge players, many of whom were familiar with the leveling experience from the beta, it took two months from release for the first group to defeat Lucifron, the first boss in Molten Core.

Therefore, applying the tried and true principles of Internet forum logic, Lucifron was clearly more challenging than Garrosh—or any boss in the past 5 years for that matter. OK, maybe not. The delay was due not to the bosses’ difficulty, but rather the fact that it took even the most dedicated groups with extensive raiding experience from past MMOs that long to assemble a sufficiently large group of level-60 players who had obtained the appropriate dungeon and endgame quest gear. In many ways, that was the most challenging aspect of classic WoW raiding: the logistics of assembling and maintaining a sufficient roster with sufficient gear.

Over the year and a half to follow, Blackwing Lair, Temple of Ahn’Qiraj, and the original version of Naxxramas were introduced, providing an increasing level of challenge for groups that had already completed Molten Core. These raid zones all were tuned around both a full 40-player group and the expectation that players possessed a significant amount of raid gear, which meant that by definition fewer and fewer people were able to participate in each successive tier of content. New players joining the game during the summer of 2006, at the height of Naxxramas progression, had virtually no hope of ever seeing Kel’Thuzad. At best, they might level quickly and get enough dungeon gear to join a guild that was still doing Molten Core.

End Quote.

The private Classic servers, run risks of being shut down. But players reach 60 and clear raids more effectively thanks to 13 years worth of knowledge about the game.

The Official Classic server, will not be shutting down and won't have new expansions come out, players will be able to get to 60 and clear raids with no time-restraints at all in terms of what content comes out and becomes relevant.

[Terahertz]

Name one rPG element Vanilla, or any other addon had, that isn't present today.

- Going back to a trainer to learn new spells
- Hunter pet happiness
- Ranged weapon ammo requirements
- Professions boosting a character's strength
- No cross realm/LFD stuff means your reputation matters = more immersive world
- The numerous amounts of removed abilities that added flavor to classes such as Eyes of the Beast, or even purchasing poisons from a vendor to apply to your weapon.
- Sporadic quests around the world, although annoying, also added to a more alive feeling world.

Many of these weren't specific to vanilla, but still reasons why people like to play older versions of WoW. If it was up to me I would've gone with wotlk servers instead of vanilla but I'll still try out the classic server, especially because I won't have to fear that my progress will be wiped at some point in time.

[helebelemon]

Nostalgia more or less. Everyone was new in vanilla, thus the community was very far from the toxic one it is today. Unfortunately, people asking for it and using private servers aren't aware of the cause of their problems as they commonly incorrectly believe that the game itself today is the problem. When you have so many, like-minded, and nostalgia-inspired gamers playing together, the community will be fine since most of everyone is trying to replicate the experience. When you introduce the general population of WoW players that experience is going to sour quite quickly.

Either way, best of luck to the people who wanted it.

[Koward]

- Going back to a trainer to learn new spells
- Hunter pet happiness
- Ranged weapon ammo requirements
- Professions boosting a character's strength
- No cross realm/LFD stuff means your reputation matters = more immersive world
- The numerous amounts of removed abilities that added flavor to classes such as Eyes of the Beast, or even purchasing poisons from a vendor to apply to your weapon.
- Sporadic quests around the world, although annoying, also added to a more alive feeling world.

Many of these weren't specific to vanilla, but still reasons why people like to play older versions of WoW. If it was up to me I would've gone with wotlk servers instead of vanilla but I'll still try out the classic server, especially because I won't have to fear that my progress will be wiped at some point in time.

Class quests to learn new things during your leveling, tomes to get spells and spell ranks, also some spells you could only use on undeads and demons.
And the Horde and Alliance economy were separated except in the Goblin auction houses.
Travelling to dungeons without teleporting with a GUI tool.
And Warlocks had to steal souls of their ennemies for their summonings.
Components for many spells in fact. Paladins, mages..