Wow Vanilla servers, player mentality and GW2

[Ogretron]

Again we are talking 1 server out of 50, that would be added, noone looses anything. And the meta argument in my OP was the indication that the majority of the wow community still wants the current game design over anything else. Therefor GW2 won't be a wow slayer.

And why stop at only one server? What if I want a BC server? Or a Wrath server? Also, which version of vanilla would be the one to make? What if I liked an earlier version than the one that was created? If Blizzard were to create old servers they would have to create a server with every single patch to be fair to everyone. Do you think it's so easy now?

I have no idea why you bring up people wanting vanilla servers and GW2 not being a WoW slayer. GW2 is going to be nothing like vanilla WoW, so the original post makes no sense. It just seems like you want to just argue about something.

[Wilian]

What if I want a BC server? Or a Wrath server? If Blizzard were to create old servers they would have to create a server with every single patch to be fair to everyone.

I support the notion of BC and Wrath servers aswell. As for the rest, don't be silly. That is border line hyberboling. I wouldn't say no to some sort of gating though. Like Isle of Quel'danas opening after 100 Illidan kills or so. Vanilla gates itself just fine with AQ cockblocking the way to Naxx.

[zardon3001]

Sadly it is just nostolgia talking. Class balance in vanilla wow was a joke. While the idea of going back to the time that if you actually successfully raided it meant you were good at the game, I never want to go back to classes being pigeon holed into a single role.

I feel you here, definitely don't miss being an OOC resser... /shudders

[guser]

hopefully gw2 will be nothing like vanilla.. except the sentiment of being something completely new

[Fencers]

hopefully gw2 will be nothing like vanilla.. except the sentiment of being something completely new

Classic WoW was the greatest watershed of the genre till that point in time. It is very likely MMOs would have faded to the end of the genre shelf otherwise.

Any developer would be so lucky to even reach partial parity with what Blizzard achieved. One may not enjoy Warcraft for some reason or other. This is fine. To suggest WoW was anything less than monumental to the genre is slightly foolish. It is one of the most important games ever made.

[ophion1990]

I wonder, if blizzard did decide to make vanilla servers... how many people would play it? You would still pay a subscription fee just to play an outdated game... Are you seriously gonna raid MC/BWL over and over again? No, most people would probably play both MoP and vanilla, making raiding rather hard. Since putting together a raid schedule that is balanced around 40 other player's raid schedule's is kinda ridiculous. And even if you get 40 good and devoted people to raid with, what are you gonna do when you finally clear naxx? Redo a yearlong farm on an alt? Or get carried by your guild to speed it up ofcourse.

As for PvP... it requires addons to make it remotly fun tbh... stepping back down to no focus target or not even having an enemy cast bar, wow. Not to mention this system wasn't rewarding for skill at all.

I might play on the realm for a bit but I'm pretty sure I'd get sick of it before even reaching max level. Also Blizzard has more pressing matters then catering to people who still pay for the current game but whine about wanting the old version of the game back. Like figuring out how to deal with low pop servers for example.

[Wargon]

the only thing Vanilla servers would accomplish is to get all these people who obviously didn't play vanilla to stop talking about how it was better in every way.

The first affordable car was amazing, It showed a lot of people something that they weren't able to see before, and people loved it so much.
Does that mean that if we traded our modern cars with A/C power steering, Airbags, cruise control, etc. for one of those first ones that we would be amazed by cars again, instead of taking them for granted? I think not.

People need to realize why vanilla was so awesome for a lot of us when we played it, and realize that going back to vanilla is not going to make this game as fun as you remember it. If its not fun to you anymore, hope for changes that make it fun, or leave it. Making it outdated/old isn't going to make it fun for you again.

[Harry Botter]

I really have a mind full of )(&)#&#)(*^##*$%#* right now. Guild Wars 2 is in no way like World of Warcraft. In my opinion GW2 will have a much more satisfying experience. In WoW you never really reach any goals, you just kill this boss and wait to kill the next boss. The gear is the only reward in WoW because you have to have it to get passed the next patch of content. Eventually it all gets irrelevant and pointless after a month or so. I know in GW2 you get gear but it is not the same, you dont HAVE to have the gear to be able to kill the boss, you want to kill the boss because you want his phat lewtz and the bad ass looking gear he drops.

I loved Vanilla WoW but it's time is over, after the dedicated are released (if they were) people would complain about nothing new being added, and then start to whine about servers dedicated to the other expansions as well. People really need to realize that change is good.

[terrahero]

Sadly it is just nostolgia talking. Class balance in vanilla wow was a joke. While the idea of going back to the time that if you actually successfully raided it meant you were good at the game, I never want to go back to classes being pigeon holed into a single role.

This, so much this!

Who here actually played Vanilla WoW. Now think back to that experience for two seconds, take your awesome friends out of the picture and actually look at how the game was. Allow me to remind you of a few highlights.

-You have a healing tree, you are a healer. Period. So what if you have (two) dps tree(s) and/or a tanking tree. So what if you are in full plate armor, stand in the back of the raid and spam one single button for 5 minutes.

-Speaking of button spam, everything was so automated with addons the game practically played itself. I made a script that repeatedly used the F key. To the F key i had an addon bound that would cast my efficient flash heal on whoever had the lowest health in range. I was afk the whole fight and ended top healing done.

-You are a warrior, you are a tank. The only tank. Fuck paladins and druids and their tanking trees, they couldnt hold a candle to Warriors. This also gave warriors-players a disproportionate amount of power as they were rare (only tanking class) and very important.

-Hello hybrid gear! You got a dps, tank and healing tree? We'll give you ONE set with stats for all 3 trees on it! LOL enjoy wearing cloth instead of plate because its better.

-Elemental resistance hoooo. Fire mage? Not in molten core! IMMUNE IMMUNE IMMUNE IMMUNE. Infact, everyone was pretty much restricted to one single most viable tree to the point you didnt really have a lot of choice anymore.

And pvp wasnt any better.

-lolstunlock

-loliwinbutton

-lolwarriorburst

-lol no diminished returns

-lol no capped CC duration. Enjoy your 18sec unbreakable fear.

-lol unbalanced racials (immunty to almost every major CC for extented period of time, undead ftw?)

I could do this all night. Vanilla WoW sucked, what you people might feel is simply nostalgia. You had fun back then as it was all new and you played with your friends. Now its the same old, with guides to tell you what to do on everything and your friends long ago left or you did.

[Hellgaunt]

Classic WoW was the greatest watershed of the genre till that point in time. It is very likely MMOs would have faded to the end of the genre shelf otherwise.

Any developer would be so lucky to even reach partial parity with what Blizzard achieved. One may not enjoy Warcraft for some reason or other. This is fine. To suggest WoW was anything less than monumental to the genre is slightly foolish. It is one of the most important games ever made.

This is a rather shoddy attempt at counterfactual history. You can do better than this surely.

---------- Post added 2012-03-18 at 10:31 PM ----------

[...]

I could do this all night. Vanilla WoW sucked, what you people might feel is simply nostalgia. You had fun back then as it was all new and you played with your friends. Now its the same old, with guides to tell you what to do on everything and your friends long ago left or you did.

But it was fun for the elite group of players that had a lot of time to invest into the game (I unfortunately belonged to that group) and who didn't care much about 1v1 at all. We played for the TEAM effort - and all the imbalances in the game got softened out. Tbh, though, TBC was more fun with its broken instances than Vanilla was.

[Hellspawnxxx]

Transmorg in WoW has proven to me more entertaining then running current raid dungeons. hunting down and trying to aquire diffrent looking sets of armor is very enjoyable to me and was enjoyable to millions of Guildwars 1 players aswell. This perferbiable carrot you meantion doesnt have to be just about grinding for better stats. it also applies to esthetics.

In Guildwars 1 I spent many hundreds of play days farming over 12 sets of armor. None were any more powerful then the rest but they looked really cool. I dont base my skill as a player by my gear score. I base it on my skill as a player so having esthetic rewards rather then gear grind is much more appealing to me. also it allows me to play with my friends even if they are only casual which i cant do with my casual friends in WoW cause they arent geared for teh latest content.

Guildwars 2 appeals to the Masses which the masses are casual they have some hardcore stuff but not much. im ok with that my days of raiding for 6-8 hrs 3-4 days a week with Exodus are over...

[Fencers]

This is a rather shoddy attempt at counterfactual history. You can do better than this surely.

In what manner? The broadening of the market Warcraft brought dwarfs all previous MMO to that point. And continues so today through emulation, parody, cultural reference, design intent and goal.

What MMOs of that era widened the market beyond niche and what & how did their design facilitate this to a greater degree than Blizzard's World of Warcraft?

I have a hands-on knowledge of the genre from 1988 to present if you'd like to discuss anything in those eras.

[Yoshimiko]

I might be skirting the rules here, but looking at the more populated private realms - I don't think a subscription fee is really an issue.

I played on a PVP realm for a little while, and saw tens of thousands of players playing BC, WOTLK, and Classic servers just because they enjoyed it more then. I enjoy BC pvp(specifically season 3) far more than the other things that are offered today. There are a ton of BC guilds, Probably at least 1 per server - There are a handful of classic guilds - I'd guess at least 1 per 3-4 servers. There are a handful of WOTLK guilds as well. Whenever some realms were dated in the past - I knew players who used Proxies to play in other countries (namely Chinese servers) just because they happened to enjoy it more.

Some of us do not enjoy x or y. Give us back a or b. I hate Cata. I think it's the worst point in all of WoWs history. Everything is terrible, in my opinion. PVE is the worst it's ever been, Pvp is almost the worst its ever been - everything I enjoyed doing has been nerfed to the ground(Queueing for specific bgs? Sure - but you don't get any rewards. Do 2s? Yeah cool - but you can't get any gear, aren't allowed to have a shot at titles - oh and those awesome mounts? /nope.). The only thing I enjoy in wow is doing old content, because the new stuff is god awful.

Wotlk was okay. TBC was when I had the most fun. Classic was a mix of frustrations, and enjoyment. Other people will see this differently - but there IS a group of people who want this. It's not very hard to host 3 extra servers that offer something different from the most current expansion. They would get a new following, the pure pvpers would greatly enjoy themselves - and they'd kill half of the need for private realms. win-win-win-win for everyone. But just like Obama and Marijuana - they are stuck with their stigmas towards something and refuse to accept what the players want.

[Hellgaunt]

In what manner? The broadening of the market Warcraft brought dwarfs all previous MMO to that point. And continues so today through emulation, parody, cultural reference, design intent and goal.

What MMOs of that era widened the market beyond niche and what & how did their design facilitate this to a greater degree than Blizzard's World of Warcraft?

I have a hands-on knowledge of the genre from 1988 to present if you'd like to discuss anything in those eras.

All I'm saying is that you made the assumption that "what if" WoW was never produced then MMOs would be forgotten and dead as a genre. You're assumption that Blizzard alone as a company was capable at that time to expand the market is shoddy.

If WoW was never made I'm sure the MMO genre would be as alive as it is today though possibly way more fragmented in probably a host of different games. GW could be said to have sprung up from the MUD-based genre as much as from UO or EQ.

---------- Post added 2012-03-18 at 11:09 PM ----------

But just like Obama and Marijuana - they are stuck with their stigmas towards something and refuse to accept what the players want.

It's not the player's fault there isn't any official servers like this, its Blizzard's. If Blizzard would support it, the playerbase would not care one bit.

[Fencers]

All I'm saying is that you made the assumption that "what if" WoW was never produced then MMOs would be forgotten and dead as a genre.

Not dead. I said "at the end of the genre shelf" implying niche.

At the height of their popularity the previous MMO games market never commanded as many users pre-WoW. Within or without.

You're assumption that Blizzard alone as a company was capable at that time to expand the market is shoddy.

I am not sure you know what the words "shoddy" or "watershed" mean. Capability has nothing to do with actuality. Blizzard did expand the market- so much so they were the market for years. This is provable in $ and cultural impact. By what means is this dishonest?

Show me by contrast the decedent design in cultural influence of say, Meridian 59 to the degree of World of Warcraft?

The course and directed of the MMO market was forever changed after World of Warcraft. By definition, that is a watershed point in the industry.

[Hellgaunt]

Blizzard was undeniably very successful with WoW. It's a cash cow but your argument is still shoddy (:inadverdent misleading argument) in the way that you argue because WoW took monopoly it also expanded the market for MMOs, which I sincerely doubt you made any business analysis of

You could as well pursue the hypothesis that "what if" WoW was never made the market would be more fragmented than now and less contracted. WoW has a huge following but also a very steep entry-cost and is expensive to play - but because it has a huge following it also has a huge market-moving power (other companies look at the business model and try to emmulate). Monopolies in economic studies have shown to contract markets rather than expand it. Hence the postulate that WoW didn't expand the MMO market, it contracted it.

This is true if you look at the total number of people playing computer games now. MMOs have since the 'invention' of the WoW-mmo style market claimed less of the total gaming market than other parts of the gaming industry.

So in all effect you could say that WoW made the MMO market even more of a niche today than back then, or at the very least didn't expand the market. Blizzard cannibalized the MMO genre and made it stale for years.

[Fencers]

Blizzard was undeniably very successful with WoW. It's a cash cow but your argument is still shoddy (:inadverdent misleading argument) in the way that you argue because WoW took monopoly it also expanded the market for MMOs, which I sincerely doubt you made any business analysis of

You could as well pursue the hypothesis that "what if" WoW was never made the market would be more fragmented than now and less contracted. WoW has a huge following but also a very steep entry-cost and is expensive to play - but because it has a huge following it also has a huge market-moving power (other companies look at the business model and try to emmulate). Monopolies in economic studies have shown to contract markets rather than expand it. Hence the postulate that WoW didn't expand the MMO market, it contracted it.

This is true if you look at the total number of people playing computer games now. MMOs have since the 'invention' of the WoW-mmo style market claimed less of the total gaming market than other parts of the gaming industry.

So in all effect you could say that WoW made the MMO market even more of a niche today than back then, or at the very least didn't expand the market. Blizzard cannibalized the MMO genre and made it stale for years.

By expand I believe you are speaking about playstyle variances and not total player-ship and entry. Which is highly dubious and not at all germane to my point of a watershed for the market.

[dgkiller]

WoW and GW2 are both completly different games. WoW has always been a really big story and lore with great PvE fights and sense of epicness defeating the latest bosses with everyone screaming loud and proud about a new kill. WoW's PvP while I did enjoy the Vanilla BG server fights alot more than it's current form of small scale repeated PvP still was not what I would call exceptional to my taste. I had played DAOC for years prior to WOW and always missed DAOC wishing for a sequel. When Warhammer came out and was done by some of the peaple that did DAOC I was very excited to get a game that would be about PVP first again but WH fell short with a crappy game engine that felt laggish and the design of the world pvp wasnt good enough to take on their scenarios sp the game went into rapid decline not long after launch.

Now GW2 is coming and we can only judge on the info we are given from podcasts and press events with ANet's articles. From everything they have done so far the world PvP is pretty much what I would have hoped for in a DAOC sequel type game for PvP. 3sided battles creates WAY more action in world PvP and assures multisize battles (zerg, group, solo) all over the map instead of doing the mistake of many other games trying to do world PvP with 2 factions where it just ends up being 1 side dominating the other one. The map is designed to spread the action around and gives purpose to doing so. The combat mechanics of GW2 is something different than what I've seen in other games and looks very good to me. I am looking forward to a release and seeing how a PvP oriented game is gonna do in today's MMO world.

[Hellgaunt]

By expand I believe you are speaking about playstyle variances and not total player-ship and entry. Which is highly dubious and not at all germane to my point of a watershed for the market.

The watershed that happened, was that there was a before WoW and there's an after WoW. Before there were no monopolies, after WoW (2007+) Blizzard had achieved ntotal monopoly. Today that monopoly is diminishing since the market is becoming a bit more fragmented with the successes of SWTOR and RIFT. However both games cannabalized on WoW and didn't expand the MMO genre as a whole.

The MMO market's relative share of the total gaming revenue is declining rather than increasing, and total revenue in the MMO market isn't growing either (as in contracting the market).

[grandpab]

I feel you here, definitely don't miss being an OOC resser... /shudders

Know your role shaman!!