Have you actually played Vanilla?

[-Havok-]

My WoW account creation date is one day after the official release. I had to wait for Amazon to deliver my Collectors Edition.

[Kiingy]

Wasn't saying it was proof. Just asking a question.

I have the statue they sent out to people who played from the start. I also have a mount(that isn't the AQ mount) that they took out of the game DURING classic. I'm sure there are other things like recipes or something.

As for the mounts, if you mean the old epic non-armored mounts, while they were removed during Classic, during Cata there was a bug where if an Alliance player transferred Horde while having all faction mounts they were given one of those removed mounts due to Alliance at the time having 1 extra mount.

As it had no direct Horde side equivalent, it would pick one of the since removed mounts.

[Deleted]

Also started at EU launch, wanted a break from FFXI, felt so weird having an action bar lol

[ahgsfds]

Vanilla: I did start at patch 1.8.0, cleared AQ40 up to C'thun and 4 bosses in old Naxx. Being like 19y old back then MMO experience was failry new for me, but with some effort I got my arse into hardcore raiding guild. My pc back then was utter shit, with like 15 fps in BWL. My overall Vanilla experience is one word: Nostalgia.
TBC: I had to stop playing till I got new PC so I was like 2 months late in 70's race and yet, I decided to reroll tree druid, best decision ever I made in WoW (I had an offer to sell my druid for like 1500 eu, my druid > money). At the begining I was playing in very little social guild mostly clearing Karazhan and sometimes Gruul in coop raid with other guilds. Then some info about 2.4 and first Sunwell screenshots came, it was looking so fabulous that I changed guild to well, still social, but also excellent at raiding. I was there at 1st Illidan and Archimonde kills, at Mu'ru and KJ. TBC was great, ez gold from dailies, almost perfect raiding model (!0 and 25m raids being different, got my ZA bear too).
WotLK: Boomkin time in NAXX, break from WoW at start of Ulduar cause of IRL stuff, then back like a month before ToC release. Went back to resto for Ulduar (my 1st Ulduar was HM XT kill, had so much fun that I still love Ulduar), ToC (with like 5 tier sets cause I could have them), ICC with 10m glory on 2 toons and I now hate both ICC and ToC. ICC cause of extremly long content draught before Cataclysm and ToC cause it was just shit.
Cataclysm: hard 5ms (and twats buying greens just to get heroic5m ilvl and lacking in dps to actually finish them), quality time in Firelands as a kitty (hit cap? whatever, kittens didn't need it back then, crit was waaaaaaaay better) and then Dragon Soul... new 5m instances were amazing (End Time and Dragon Soul masterpieces), but raid with new LFR was utter crap. Made me quit WoW.
MoP: I bought it, bought game time just to see how it will turn out, and it did turn out to be my fav expansion. 1st tier was kinda boring, guild I did play with for tbc, wotlk and cata kinda died, but I could easly join another one with mostly the same people (I got asked to do so for ToT release). ToT was amazing raid, I still like it SOO time I went more social playstyle (work hours etc, I couldnt raid nolife) and with it, tankadin. Green fire chain, amazing, playing alliance and raiding Ogrimmar even better.
WoD: more killing orcs, garrisons and shit raids (Hellfire wasn't that bad, but lads, HFC content draught), worst xpac.
Legion: I had a lot of fun at the begining, cleared Nighthold (nice raid) and another /wowquit cause of irl issues. Now I did resub and we will see how it turns out, so for its good (just ap grind is useless).

[urasim]

As for the mounts, if you mean the old epic non-armored mounts, while they were removed during Classic, during Cata there was a bug where if an Alliance player transferred Horde while having all faction mounts they were given one of those removed mounts due to Alliance at the time having 1 extra mount.

As it had no direct Horde side equivalent, it would pick one of the since removed mounts.

I have the reigns in my bag and the mount learned. So, yeah, I don't fall under that bug.

[Grevmak]

Started somewhen BWL was released already, was fairly young so I didn't do shit but farm Deadmines and feel like a hero in my full Defias gear as a Hunter.

[Akani]

Yes. It was a truly amazing experience and a truly amazing game at the time. I 100% do not think it holds up to modern gaming standards, but I don't think it really needs to compare to retail in order to be a great game for its time. Hell, if you compare Vanilla to the time it was made and Legion to the time it was made I would say that Vanilla wins hands down, but a direct comparison is just ridiculous.

And even though I have no current plans to play Vanilla because I've already played it and "beaten" it to the extent that I want to, I might boot it up just to take a trip down memory lane. Every couple years I buy an N64 to play some old games then sell it back a couple months later and that's a testament to how incredible those games were for their time. But very few games are timeless, and Vanilla WoW isn't one of them.

It really does irk me when people say it's so much better or harder than retail though. It clearly isn't. And that's okay, becauseif you compare it to games of its time, especially MMO's, instead of modern games it's clearly the best. There's no contest.

TL;DR: Yes, Vanilla was awesome. I just wish people didn't feel the need to exaggerate it. The game was great enough without making ridiculous exaggerations.

[RotDog]

Nope, I started in MoP. I plan to visit Vanilla just to see it. I wish I had started much earlier on, but the earliest I would have started would have been when WotLK was released.

[GRAMMARAXIS]

Hard to believe the ratio here considering the population of Vanilla compared to Wrath. Unless people are counting those-that-should-not-be-named outlets.

I'm just waiting for someone to say they remember using Wowhead when Thottbot was all we had.

Though it's hard to prove that one played back then. I'd only be able to do it because of the original Collector's Edition pets. And some Tier 3 armor -- but that could be on the Black Market Auction House. Might have Tier 2.5 paladin somewhere.

[callipygoustp]

Nope, started two weeks after TBC had been released.

[Todrazok]

Yes. I started in late Vanilla and got my character to lvl 57 when TBC launched.

[Flaks]

Hard to believe the ratio here considering the population of Vanilla compared to Wrath. Unless people are counting those-that-should-not-be-named outlets.

I'm just waiting for someone to say they remember using Wowhead when Thottbot was all we had.

Though it's hard to prove that one played back then. I'd only be able to do it because of the original Collector's Edition pets. And some Tier 3 armor -- but that could be on the Black Market Auction House. Might have Tier 2.5 paladin somewhere.

Thottbot? Allakhazam was where it was at. I hadn't even heard of mmo champion; found out about it sometime around when 2.2 was launched.

[WickedMONK3Y]

I was 20 and accidentally bought the US version so ping was awful, but I did not know better at the time being 20 and only just starting to earn my own money, and then I bought the EU version and it was loads better, played through BC and Wrath then life took over and only started again at the end of Cata. I did a lot of vanilla dungeons but the guild I was in was never going to be ready for Raids so never got to experience the vanilla raids until towards the end of BC, and the BC raids mid Wrath etc. I personally prefer forward movement and progress though so most likely wont play Classis but I was never a Classis hater either

[masterjc]

started playing vanilla during 1.2.1 patch
on wowemu
since that I played all expansions. sometimes on private, sometimes on official.

also, I did all loremaster quests before Cataclysm hited servers.
and all those old quests.. especially escort ones were so hard. and not so good

all quests were like escort someone
kill sometrhing
loot/bring something
and tat's all
no mechanics nothing else

[fredrasaurus]

Played up until level 10, hated the game. I was pretty young though.

[Deleted]

Played from day one and made my characters on Shadow Moon EU which was one of the only 4 servers that have ever been closed down. I sure know how to pick em.

[SL1200]

No i started in the middle of BC.

[kyoloco]

yeah but it was overrated

TBC was better

[Extinguished]

I had a level 26 warrior, but i can't consider that i played Vanilla.

I consider myself a player from TBC, started 2-3 weeks after release, so my vote goes for "NO".

[Deleted]

yes. I think i Joined in maybe 1.4 or 1.5
played a druid and started on Burning Blade on EU. Lord it was a great server, but way to full, then a server mitigration happend, and everyone pretty much just moved their charcters to Grim Batol.