What was your favorite part of experiencing Vanilla?

[orgonutil]

Wailing caverns, tanking scarlet monastery as shammy, alterac valley and molten core

[Feel The Power]

When BC finally came out. But no, really it was exploring and the newness of it all, as it was the first MMO I ever played and never saw a game so big. I was ridiculously bored by the end of it though, and I remember most people on my server complaining about the same.

[Elapsed]

Leaving it to go onto better things.

essentially this, My favorite part of vanilla was it ending and TBC coming along with Flying. I don't live in nostalgia, I enjoy the current content to the fullest

[Thoughtcrime]

Community was fantastic. It didn't matter if you focused on pvp or pve; the good players on my servers all knew each other. We came together on unofficial forums to bridge the language barrier and share info, arrange pvp events, discuss players we loved and hated on both factions and just get to know one another. There were a lot of top 10 player lists hahah. Your reputation as a player and a person meant something, even the shit bags had to reign it in or be blacklisted from groups and guilds. You were playing with the same people year after year with no option to leave the group and queue up with another random gang of faceless strangers.

Exploration was wonderful. Just being lost in an enormous world and having no idea what to do was an experience. We didn't have resources to google and get all the answers, we were just experimenting and figuring shit out for ourselves. For me that feeling wasn't matched until I first played Dark Souls. I remember starting a gnome mage along with my friend who rolled a dwarf warr. My girlfriend at the time wanted to be a night elf priest and we just had no idea how to meet up and play together. Our first saturday afternoon was spent running around the Eastern Kindgoms looking for a way to get to Darkshore; being eaten by wolves and vultures. Just a level 10 gnome and dwarf trying to get to Kalimdor via the classic route of Badlands. It was an utter waste of time, and it was glorious.

Seeing Ragnaros for the first time.

[Deleted]

Soloing Ragnaros on top of dark portal as a lvl 255 fire mage, using frost bolts.

[Spl4sh3r]

There was so much to do.

[Dug]

It was new and exciting, something that will never be recaptured. A harsh truth some people don't want to accept.

[CapybaraSlayer]

After playing a pserver since I started late TBC, my favourite part was leveling. It took longer, so rushing it would lead to burnout so I leveled quietly and slowly. Every level, and every new item I got felt at least a tiny bit significant. I enjoyed travelling on foot without a mount for the first 40 levels, it makes the world feel so much larger than it actually is. Close behind that would be the good guild community I found myself in.

[OperationFerret]

Grouping for sure - being invited to a Shadowfang Keep dungeon run was almost on par with being invited to the Fellowship of the Ring... and if you could CC properly you were totally part of the cool kids club.

[shaunika123]

meeting random players out in the world
the music and the atmosphere of exploring a whole world(i remember when i first entered ashenvale as a horde, i was legit scared)
dueling my ass off in front of org (god i miss dueling actually being relevant)

[Revak]

The immersion in the exploration surrounded by the music. I leveled a night elf holy priest and to this day I get chills from the music and some of the sounds in those forest areas of the starting zones.

Damn, I can hear it in my head now and am gonna log in (keep a level one toon in there) just to go run around. LOVED this game when I first started playing. Amazing!

[Uselessrouge]

leveling and dungeons it was new... i played Daoc befor that it was a full pvp game


i get it poeple think classic was fun but i dont think the game would last 3 months if it was released like that today

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

I find it hard to vote here, because many of these things are very diluted when compared to the current game.
Exploration is my first inclination, but looking at exploring the current game in comparison, its not even remotely as rewarding.

I'd say the main thing that I loved about experiencing Vanilla was it was my first MMORPG.
I loved seeing all the people, but not necessarily grouping with them.
I loved exploring the world, but not necessarily because it was exciting to do so.
I loved the raiding, but only because having 40 people together felt really exciting. The content itself is very disappointing, looking back.