Reasons why vanilla World of Warcraft was so popular.

[Deleted]

That "Woooah..." feeling is gone for everyone who had it. If you're waiting for the next game that will give you that feeling, you'll be waiting 'till you die. It's like sex - that first "So THIS is what I've been waiting for!" feeling never comes back no matter how many partners you have. Sure, there'll be good times again - but you can only have your "first time" the first time :P

I hope when they perfect immersive virtual reality, that we will have that 'first time' feeling again, because right now, every game just feels like every other game.

[charlieprince]

Vanilla was popular because of the timing of when it was released and because it toned down on the grind compared to other games at the time.

So yeah, WoW is king because it was "first" and because it was "easymode".

this. just this.

in order to fully understand what's been going on with WoW.. you have to have been there FROM THE START

Furthermore.. you must have played other mmo's FROM BEFORE WOW to understand why wow took off

I've played: Everquest, Final Fantasy XI, Lineage 2.. and honestly speaking, WoW came in and changed the landscape

you would NOT UNDERSTAND unless you knew what was going on in the mmo-landscape

it's well known that before WoW ever got released, Blizzard raided EQ's top and best guilds (Legion of Steel, FOH, etc)

EQ was king and fell quickly and hard because of surprisingly.. WoW introducing new things changing the way you saw mmo's forever
- the now-standard model of questing ? = !
- instanced/personal raids/bosses.. this was a major hit because people had grown tired of EQ's open-world waiting for that spawn with thousands of other people
- (ironically) CASUAL play

yes, no game gave an easier and better road to max level than wow.. the "Hardcoreness" and "elitist" factor came in pretty much once you hit max level but what really distinguished wow from the rest was it's ease and FUN factor

ironically.. a lot of the things WoW did.. I see in Guild Wars 2.. it doesn't come trying to be a clone of anything (imagine if wow tried cloning eq?!).. it's coming in with its own vision of an mmo-experience and truthfully speaking, it is better.. it's an mmo-evolution

I am 33 now.. frankly speaking I've played a lot of games.. I am no longer in my early 20's where gaming was life but this past GW2 BWE has brought out something in me I thought I'd long since outgrown.. the hardcore gamer who'd game 16hours non-stop to the point I'd forget basic human necessities such as eating (yes, several times I forgot to eat lunch and dinner!)

in my gaming life.. there's only 2 games that have brought out that insanity in me.. Everquest, World of Warcraft and now Guild Wars 2

[Eroginous]

Most of the people don't know how the intial success of World of Warcraft did happen. I would like to mention some points why the game did become so popular. Feel free to add more or discuss.

1) Warcraft 3 - most of the new players don't know what Warcraft 3 was or they knew, but they have never played it. Warcraft 3 was one of the greatest strategy games of all times and without doubt it was the best strategy game of its era. This game was revolutionary in every aspect, it had great graphics, gameplay, amazing music and sounds, great map editor and let's not forget the great story it had. I can say that the majority of vanilla WoW players(me included) played a lot of Warcraft 3. We all wanted to visit great places from game, explore them, do the quests and do it with your friends or even other random people. I can't even describe how if felt when I visited Ashenvale or Barrens - it was beyond amazing.

btw there was bonus campaing in Warcraft 3, where you played as Rexxar and did quests given to you by NPCs, while you were gaining levels and items. Does it sound familiar?

2) Leveling - people tend to hate on vanilla WoW leveling, but I have to disagree with them. Yes, leveling was tought, but we loved it. Mobs had high hp pools and were hiting for a lot, pulling more than two will most likely result into corpse run. You had to actually use your brain, develop a strategy and use all your class abilities effectivelly to level up quickly. Even AH was very important for quick leveling. Quests were very simple, but most of the time you felt like part of the world and you even felt like you are helping npcs - like in real RPG

3) Social aspect - As I mentioned, leveling was pretty hard and the best way to make it easier was to group up with other players. I like how friendly people during vanilla WoW were. You could just talk to random person and 95% of time he would respond in friendly way. I've mad countless friends in vanilla.

4) No addons - yep, there were almost no addons and it was great. You don't know where the quest mobs are? Ask friends, guild or even general chat. Try to do this in WotLK or Cata, you would get typical "google it, use wowhead" answer. Addons are taking the fun factor out of the game. Why are people using addon to help them with rotation or addons like DBM? That's just silly.

5) RPG aspect - Why am I mentioning this? Back in a day... No, seriously. Back in a day you had to carefully choose your class and stick with it. There were no alts, only some people who played a lot could afford this luxury. Your character was part of you, you were part of your character. It was great, because this game is RPG after all and not just some Dota or LoL game.

Why am I writing this? I just want to tell people that WoW wasn't always only about raiding, arena and daily quests. It was far more. Game had soul, it felts like RPG and leveling was important and possibly the best part of the game. The true mmorpg.

Wow became popular because it had the Blizzard logo attached to it, which brought with it so many different types of players that normally would not have considered playing an MMO. On top of that, it brought with it very good features and iteration over its lifespan that other MMOs have never been able to keep up with.

Even a new title such as SWTOR does not do a good job of improving on what Wow has done for the MMO community, leaving many things to be desired by those who are used to Wow. Without making a claim that Wow is the best MMO out their, it has undoubtedly set a standard within the community that all MMOs have to live up to in order to capture the experience and the audience that Wow has.

[Ausr]

1. None, WoW was at it's peek in WotLK

Well, assuming you weren't there for the launch like some of us were, when WoW was released, the most the developers estimated to ever have was around 200k-300k. But something clicked with people and it turned out to be much, much more popular than they thought at release. Which is why you'll see people post about downtime, etc.

Don't think he was talking population numbers if that was what your post is.

However, the OP and many others, have their rose tinted glasses engaged and believe things in the past were much easier.

[Solitare-sp]

The simple reason is that for the vast majority of people it was their first MMO, so many things which we take foregranted it was the first thing we did.
Simple things like getting a green from a drop or a quest or discovering a chest in a camp! Getting mining and upgrading from Copper to Tin was a big thing..

Then of course grouping up and tackling places like the deadmines, or the vast trek for alliance to get to Scarlet monestry, or working out even how the hell to get to Maradoun not least getting lost there.


In addition there was a lot less known about the game, most players didnt automatically use add-ons or websites as a first port of core, so there was a lot more of learning about the world and your character.

All those things were new, fresh and full of wonder. Now when we play, or get a new MMO, it's just another lvl or upgrade which is meaningless

[Barky]

Rose tinted goggles is what makes Vanilla popular. You're new to an amazing game where everything makes you literally go "Woaaaaaah...", you can't have that more than once.

Looking back at it, Vanilla was actually pretty bad. The community was good though, because it was required.


>> That's my personal view, btw. Not for anyone else.

seems your view is well shared. I played Vanilla back in the day and it was fun, but the new xpacs have always been better in content, but worse in community, there seems to be a correlation between the difficulty in content, and the general idiocy of the player base.

Nevertheless, get in a guild with friends / people you don't hate, and then the only idiots you contend with are the occasional LFR / LFD simpletons.

[knumskul]

I don't understand your last point. What do you mean people couldn't afford alts? I had many, and so did everyone else and their mother. Alts that raided and PvP'd.

Oh, and DBM existed and was used in vanilla, too. I used it. Did you even play vanilla?

I call bullshit. There were many alts, not max level alts. I'm pretty sure OP is talking about max level alts that raid. Back in Vanilla, raiding was reserved for the hardcore who had loads of time to spare, unlike these days.

Also call bullshit on your "there were loads of addons". DBM didn't exist in vanilla. It only came around in late Vanilla. People used CT Raid back then as there wasn't a raid UI. And the only addons people ever used were CT Raid and decursive, not much else. The rest were really required.

[microtonal]

Vanilla WoW may or may not have been more popular than other MMOs on the market in 2004, but the implication that this has any particular relevance in 2012 is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how time and causality work.

The people who think that WoW was at its peak in vanilla can go rent an apartment with the people who think that Load was Metallica's best album, right across the hall from everyone who thought that Final Fantasy VII was the worst game of the series.

There are lots of vacant units in Outvotedbythemarketville.

[Soisoisoi]

Nevertheless, get in a guild with friends / people you don't hate, and then the only idiots you contend with are the occasional LFR / LFD simpletons.

Exactly. I may be in a casual/social raiding guild currently, and even if people aren't the best at what they play (we're 5/8HC, though) - it's the best damn guild I've been in tbh. :3

[Sinnermighty]

There were many addons in Vanilla.

[Deleted]

I played in vanila, the game was not better. The community was yes, people was more friendly, but i do not miss the 45 min wait time for getting a group in in iron forge, then to spend 30 min getting there, because flight points where not connected. and getting the 1k for epic mount was SO expensive because there was not really daliys so getting money where much much harder, i had to collect darkmoon cards from dungeons, many many dungeons to get mine. Then if 1 left, you better hope you had an alt, or a friend in IF to look for the last one for you.
So dungeons was harder, not for any good reason but you wasted a lot of time, but yeah instant getting there and fast queing even as dps.
Leveling was boring, it was hard and slow, and not in a good way, you saids many people want it back? i say more people who was in vanila is happy about that it does not take 3 days for getting from 59-60.
But yes Social aspect was better, people where friendly, when you saw a random person you buffed him/her and attacked the mob just for helping.
And there where addons and sides like wowhead or thottbot, so you are wrong with that, but i can not see how it is bad we have more of that now?. If you dont like it, you dont need to use it.

But now is better also in SO many ways. I got my 60% ground mount as level 46(you had to be level 40 back then and it costed 100 gold that was much more back then)
You had to save EVERY copper to get it, it was So expensive, and like i said, the epic ground mount, the so called 100% speed mount was 1k and that is like 120k now, i raidied and i had that mount. I remember standing in ironforge watching people with blues and greens, how they saw my druid on the epic mount and full epic, people whispered me " wow that is nice gear where have you got that" or " what is that color of your gear".

There was much much less people back then, not even close to the 12 milions wow have now.
So how was back then better, the only thing there was better was the community( i would love if you respons to this)

[Caiada]

3 reasons.

Warcraft 3 - Yep, I agree with that.

It laid the foundation for the rest of WoW's success - Obviously. Also leads into the next point...

It was way more casual than EQ and every other MMO

The game has improved on its main goals dramatically over 7 years, and there's just no getting around that. Anyone pretending that Vanilla Wow would be successful today is delusional.

[Cwimge]

The amount of nostalgia in this thread is sickening- wow has had its up's and downs but a few facts remain unchanged. Illidan is way to popular, Ulduar is overrated and Classic wow was about as fun and worth the effort as bashing your head against a wall. Classic is a relic, a result of poor judgement and first-time ignorance as blizzard tried to appeal to the first generation of mmo players- people who played even more broken and worthless games.

To surmise- wow classic was new, it was Warcraft and even in its first stages better then EQ- a trend of growth and improvement that continues

[Gorno]

The only thing I miss about Vanilla WoW is the community. Other than that the game is much better now.

[vihtahousu]

There was absolutely nothing better in vanilla than current state of WoW. It was just new and memories grow sweeter with time.

[Maelstrom51]

Having played in the vanilla era I can say with confidence that the game is much, much better now.

[Sentinel]

I joined because I saw the Southpark episode, and it looked cool...

I got to about level 36 on a Hunter, and 30 on a Druid (got my Druid the Private title from Vanilla BGs... Heh) It was too confusing with their quest system to learn specifically where to go and what to do. Oftentimes, no matter how much I read the (green-titled, because I didn't know when to move on) quest text, I couldn't find the spot it wanted me to go to.

[Ferocity]

The amount of nostalgia in this thread is sickening- wow has had its up's and downs but a few facts remain unchanged. Illidan is way to popular, Ulduar is overrated and Classic wow was about as fun and worth the effort as bashing your head against a wall. Classic is a relic, a result of poor judgement and first-time ignorance as blizzard tried to appeal to the first generation of mmo players- people who played even more broken and worthless games.

"Ulduar is overrated"... For only these words alone, your opinion on anything preCata has no relevance.

[Valeron]

Nostalgia

Personally I thought it was pretty darn terrible. I would have never gotten back into the game after the first two weeks if it were not for some of my gamer friends.

[Kolbyr]

In Vanilla:

Questing was non-existent between about level 40-60. Your options were to either 1) grind out the levels killing thousands of mobs or 2) go through each zone hoping to find the 5 or 6 quests to do there.

Many of the specs were next to useless. If you were a paladin, you were a healer. If you were a warrior, you were a tank. If you were a hunter, you were MM.

Gear itemization was a mess. Old paladin gear had int, spirit, stam, str, agi, and mp/5 on it. Other classes were similar.

If you didn't get in to raiding first, you didn't get in. By the time I was ready to start raiding in Vanilla, second tier was already current. And since very few people were doing tier 1 any more, there was no way to get geared for current raids. So most people hit level 60 and had next to nothing to do. No dailies, no heroics, only 3 BGs, no mini games, no quests to finish up, no achievements to grind.

Etc, etc, etc.