WoW Vanilla: What was it like?

[Fahrad Wagner]

Hey guys!

I started playing WoW in December 2007, so a year into TBC and I've never had the chance to experience vanilla. I've heard many things about how it was back then, on many different levels (good and bad) but I still can't have a clear idea of what it whas like. I was wondering if you would like to share your experience of what the game was like then and maybe list some major points that could give me a general idea?

I'm quite excited for this, since I've always been a bit sad not being able to experience the game in its original form.

[Thornquist]

Im just going to give one point here: Faction pride.

Before Belf Paladins and Draenei Shamans, the factions felt very much unique and fostered strong Horde/Alliance rivalry.
As a Horde I detested pala bubbles, and Alliance players hated shaman totems.

The rivalry continued of course, but I dont think it had the same weight as in the Vanilla years.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Im just going to give one point here: Faction pride.

Before Belf Paladins and Draenei Shamans, the factions felt very much unique and fostered strong Horde/Alliance rivalry.
As a Horde I detested pala bubbles, and Alliance players hated shaman totems.

The rivalry continued of course, but I dont think it had the same weight as in the Vanilla years.

That's interesting! Do you think that spirit will be just as strong on the new classic servers?

[Drikkink]

A lot of the cushy stuff you're used to won't be there. Summoning stones didn't originally summon like they did in BC. They were a posting board for people looking for groups. Hunters had to buy ammo and usually keep multiple bows/guns on them as they would frequently break in combat. Repair bots were not a thing as I recall. Soul shards were stacks of one and you typically wanted at least 2 or 3 per raider among all your warlocks to finish summons and soulstones. Leveling is slow. Mounts weren't until 40 and, unless you were a warlock or paladin, were prohibitively expensive at that point. Epic mounts were ungodly expensive. Raid mechanics were 0. For the most part you had retard checks and gear checks. Either your raid was smart enough to not die to the first one or they weren't. Either your raid was geared enough to beat the second one or they weren't. And you bashed your face into an immovable object until you could finally move it.

[Thornquist]

That's interesting! Do you think that spirit will be just as strong on the new classic servers?

Hopefully, but it will atleast be stronger than retail, Im confident in that.

[Deleted]

From my experiences in private servers socializing is always rewarding. Was in a guild and we actively sought alliance to get into fights. People communicated alot in the chat and questing often turned into spontaneous PvP groups. Lots of griefing though but it's hilarious when a 60 comes to hillsbrad to exact revenge on behalf of noobs. I got alot of new vanilla memories just last year from a private server. PvP skirmishing in STV turned into a massive fight and getting our asses kicked made us try all kinds of corpse run/ressing tactics.

Alot of trivial stuff nowadays could be challenging and absolutely rewarding in vanilla. Almost like a survival game since you gotta have food and drinks and keep leveling professions to really prosper.

[Useful]

I played a shaman and had much fun. Also i had a lot of free time so i grinded every possible stuff and was famous for pvping and my videos. Good times.
PS Cheers - Redbanshee Shadowmoon.

[Fahrad Wagner]

A lot of the cushy stuff you're used to won't be there. Summoning stones didn't originally summon like they did in BC. They were a posting board for people looking for groups. Hunters had to buy ammo and usually keep multiple bows/guns on them as they would frequently break in combat. Repair bots were not a thing as I recall. Soul shards were stacks of one and you typically wanted at least 2 or 3 per raider among all your warlocks to finish summons and soulstones. Leveling is slow. Mounts weren't until 40 and, unless you were a warlock or paladin, were prohibitively expensive at that point. Epic mounts were ungodly expensive. Raid mechanics were 0. For the most part you had retard checks and gear checks. Either your raid was smart enough to not die to the first one or they weren't. Either your raid was geared enough to beat the second one or they weren't. And you bashed your face into an immovable object until you could finally move it.

Well as said, I've started in BC so some of these things I've experienced as well haha! Like ammo and mounts at level 40 and being expansive etc. But for what I didn't know, that's interesting, thanks for the insight!

--

Thank you guys for sharing your experience as well! Keep it coming, it's very interesting.

[lllBlackSunlll]

Hey guys!

I started playing WoW in December 2007, so a year into TBC and I've never had the chance to experience vanilla. I've heard many things about how it was back then, on many different levels (good and bad) but I still can't have a clear idea of what it whas like. I was wondering if you would like to share your experience of what the game was like then and maybe list some major points that could give me a general idea?

I'm quite excited for this, since I've always been a bit sad not being able to experience the game in its original form.

Been playing since '05, as a Warrior and Priest. Back then I thought the game was very alive and always something to do, which is true, but only because everything that was niche took very long. Needed fire resist? Better go farm ZF for 3 days to get your fire resist trinket. Need to get to Swamps of Sorrow? Hopefully no alliance are around (yeah right) to gank you. Want to rank up in PvP while getting sick loot? Go find 3 other friends and share your account to constantly BG for months to have a full-set. Everything just took longer, and that extended the game's life.

But the game was fun because it was a new experience and the best there was at the time. About 3 years ago I went to play on a private vanilla server and the game was exactly the same. Got to level 60, even did some raiding... and was bored. To get anything done took a lot of time. Again, plenty to do, but it was like watching a video at .75 speed. We have become spoiled, WoW is a lot better game than it was before and we have higher standards.

Imagine playing Mario 64 as if it was released today. The game was excellent when it came out, but if Nintendo released the game today, the forums would be loaded with tears, and for good reason. I will be playing on a Classic server, but probably just to get to 60 then never touch it again. Classic servers are a gimmick and will only survive if they have relevance to the latest version, ie achieve mounts/pets only accessible in Classic and give it to your BfA character.

[zeoh]

Hey guys!

I started playing WoW in December 2007, so a year into TBC and I've never had the chance to experience vanilla. I've heard many things about how it was back then, on many different levels (good and bad) but I still can't have a clear idea of what it whas like. I was wondering if you would like to share your experience of what the game was like then and maybe list some major points that could give me a general idea?

I'm quite excited for this, since I've always been a bit sad not being able to experience the game in its original form.

The nostalgia bit:
Imagine logging in for the first time to this new MMO that nobody has played before. Swarms of new players running around everywhere (and admittedly frequent lag and crashes due to Blizzard underestimating the player-interest) and not a single person knew the first thing about what they were doing. Some would be figuring out the first quests of Northshire Abbey (or Deathknell, you horde scum!) while others were simply wandering around, killing the occasional wolf while exploring this strange new world. Now, take that experience and stretch it out over the span of 6 or 7 months (because nobody knew how to hit 60 quickly!) where every little thing you ran across on your journey to 60 was brand-new to everyone and exciting.

The realistic bit:
Now obviously none of this is going to be "new and exciting" to most people, and obviously there is an element of nostalgia involved for all the proponents of classic. But the feeling of risk-vs-reward that you had back in those days was equally as thrilling, if not more so. As many classes, you might only be able to deal with 1 or 2 mobs at a time without dying, struggling to generate that last bit of rage for an execute before you yourself die instead of your prey. Or you might be at low health, no mana, and trying to staff/wand down that last target out of the pack of 4 that you're dealing with before it finishes you off. This is what people mean when they say that the old version was "challenging." It's not about the mechanics, which were obviously simpler since it was the first iteration of the game. It's about the overall "tuning," or the challenge rating if you like, assuming you know a thing or two about D&D.

That's what gives it the old RPG feel, and what immerses you into your character like no other game or expansion since. You may get to fly on the flight paths to get somewhere quicker once you've been there, but the first time around you're walking through this massive pair of continents, seeing all the dangers of the world and completing quests along the way. You'll never "just fly over it" at any point. It puts you in your character's skin, so to speak, and makes your decisions and battles feel that much more important to you... because you're really working at it. You're pouring your blood sweat and tears into being an adventurer in Azeroth, and that makes success for your character feel that much more like success for yourself. For old school RPG players, there are truly very few things that can compare.

[Deleted]

Leveling zones filled with players and spontaneous world pvp

There was no transmog so there is process of information when you actually look at someone. Their achievements in raids are there for everyone to see.
If you manage to complete a tier set you become famous.
It's very hard to get epics because only 2-3 items drop per boss for 40 people in the raid.

You need to farm the same raid for months to be able to gear up all 40 people.

You needed to farm resistance gear for specific bosses.

It's basically all about the prestige that came with raiding and having a guild.
If you dont have the time for a guild it will be very hard for you to have a single epic.

A lot of world zones filled with players farming...materials and crazy stuff.

You need to eat/drink after killing 1-2 mobs. Mobs are very difficult to kill. I've seen a video of a rogue killing a grey level mob and it still took a lot of time.

[Thorad]

Molten Core and Stranglethorn pvp. Corpse running. The game had a very ''Dark Souls'' vibe to it, if you know the game you know what I mean.

Enhancement shamans and PoM+Pyro mages one-shotting everyone.

Everything was hard, the mount you get at lvl 40 is only %60 speed or something like that and super expensive, and you could only dream about having a %100 mount. When venturing out you needed to stick to the road to not get killed by mobs. Going to lvl 60 was no small feat.

The hilarious scenes where a warlock summons random people off a cliff and gets hatemails.

Ninja Looting. Think of having a 40 man raid finally downing a boss and an epic has dropped. Everyone can loot it, there is no roll.

Due to the sheer amount of time you needed to get epic gear, farming, the people who were full epics were literally the definition of ''no llife'' and were at the pinancle of the nerd hierarchy.

[Deleted]

Gameplay wise it's much much worse than current WoW. If it manages to catch the feeling of original Vanilla (which it won't for me at least, because back then it was all new and epic because of that.. Now I know the world inside out so the best part isn't there) it will be great. Don't expect it to be a great game in the sense that you'll enjoy the mechanics, just try to get the epic feeling and you will enjoy it.

[lanesia24]

Hey guys!

I started playing WoW in December 2007, so a year into TBC and I've never had the chance to experience vanilla. I've heard many things about how it was back then, on many different levels (good and bad) but I still can't have a clear idea of what it whas like. I was wondering if you would like to share your experience of what the game was like then and maybe list some major points that could give me a general idea?

I'm quite excited for this, since I've always been a bit sad not being able to experience the game in its original form.

Leveling will feel extremely slow and tedious. A lot of classes die if you pull 2 mobs at a time early on in the game. You will have to eat and drink regularly. A lot of quests will be near impossible until you significantly out level them. Expect to need others to complete a lot of quests. Travel is also extremely slow. Most specs are useless at end game. If you want to tank end game roll a warrior. If you play a paladin/sham/druid/priest you'll be healing.

[Heathy]

what was it like, well considering the only games I was playing online before wow were counter strike pfft, and diablo 2, so ofc loading into wow a large persistent world, no more 8 ppl per game. kinda amazing initially, most of my memories are pretty vague now but certain things stand out, like doing dungeons for the first time, the sunken temple was quite mysterious by the time i could run it. it actually took a while until i found a group that could clear it my first few runs in there didn't go too well or too far. my first char was a hunter and I did some of the strath scholo and brs raid groups before they capped the dungeon sizes. main problem was that a lot of ppl made hunters and so it eventually reached the point that i had to reroll if i was going to get into a guild, so basically once i hit 60 i messed around for a bit, then rolled a priest, got that to 60 and the week i got to 60 i was invited to a guild just starting to do ZG.

honestly the thing that stands out to me was guild atmosphere, 40 ppl screaming on TS when a new boss dies is louder than 25 ppl. I remember being a pretty godly healing class that had no equal class. that smug superiority stands out to me playing a role that your the best at is something you don't really get any more the balance these days makes everyone roughly the same, where as in classic hybrids weren't that great no where near the class parity of today.

class synergy was a little different, iirc shadow priests did a debuff called shadow weaving, which made warlocks do more shadow damage, while they did curse of elements that made mages do more damage, so each class brings some sort of buff for another class or the whole raid, similar as it is today but more 60min buffs requiring regents.

lots of other little things, potion stacking, the mage blood potions from ZG faction rep made me instantly want to go alchemist I handed those beastly pots out to my fellow priests, think that was changed with tbc there was no guardian and battle elixirs you could just pop all sorts of potions and stack them. potion cooldowns were shorter as well iirc. so you could mana pot multiple times per fight. i think food and drink buffs were seperate, today its just well fed but iirc you could get a food and drink buff in classic. mounts didn't have a nice storage window they are an item that takes up bag space. its been so long since that time the game is practically entirely different now. the amount of QoL that has happened over the years is pretty extensive. not to mention classes themselves, I didn't get prayer of mending or penance until TBC so classic priests, although the best healers hands down, didn't have the class identity that they do today (there was no dps healing shadow priests don't count those heals were weak as hell), the class is a lot more fleshed out than it was during classic. in some cases playing a class at level 60 is going to be like playing a class at level 1, your going to have about 4-5 buttons you press often and about 10 buttons you hardly ever press at all. today i think i have something like 21 binds and i use all of them frequently enough. some spells that were removed still exist though like fear ward and divine intervention.

Think i mostly played as disc for classic because no one bothered to click the lightwell, spirit buff was awesome so was power infusion since it could be cast on other ppl. i found disc to be the better longevity spec, smaller heals but quite a lot more longevity.

I don't remember fire resistance being that important once you'd done a few molten core clears iirc in t1 I only need like 100 fire resist and the pala aura gave you something like 60 or 80. a couple of pieces of t1 gives you all the resists you'll need to kill raggy. fire protection potions helped on our first few kills and stacking resists but there comes a point where healing and damage out pace the need to even bother using resistance gear. not sure how it was later on but resistance fights in general were kinda few and far between. these days i'm thinking ppl will be able to kill ragnaros before the submerge even sooner than guilds managed to in the past simply down to skill difference of players between then and now.

[xxf2dxx]

Hey guys!

I started playing WoW in December 2007, so a year into TBC and I've never had the chance to experience vanilla. I've heard many things about how it was back then, on many different levels (good and bad) but I still can't have a clear idea of what it whas like. I was wondering if you would like to share your experience of what the game was like then and maybe list some major points that could give me a general idea?

I'm quite excited for this, since I've always been a bit sad not being able to experience the game in its original form.

It's like building a house brick by brick by yourself instead of renting a condo for 2 years just to move into another one afterwards.

[Infernix]

Tedious, time-consuming and boring as fuck.

[Fahrad Wagner]

Thank you all for sharing your experience, keep them coming, it's very interesting to see how it differs from one person to another.

[Deleted]

It simply was (and still is) the best multiplayer game ever created. Current wow is dogshit compared to it.

[Thrackerzod]

I had more in game friends back then because you got to know people on your server, there was no cross realm anything. Also no automatic group finders so you had to actually talk to people and form your own groups, and you all had to walk to the dungeon instead of getting magically ported inside. Each server had it's own community and it felt a lot closer to me than now where you just get auto grouped with a bunch of strangers you will never see again.