WAIT FOR 5 SUNDERS! - Vanilla raiding, casual PoV (all /rw was caps lock in vanilla!)

[Deleted]

Aah the Kael'thas pugs. Long time ago we entered TK around 18.00 and started going towards Void Reaver. After many wipes on Void Reaves trash something miraclous happened and everything started rolling. After "some" struggling Kael'thas finally died around 04.00 and sleep had never tasted so good.

Dat feel

[Evilcakez]

I hope your still following this Caduceus, you should really post that on the WoW fourms, and see how long it takes for the devs to close the fourm, I would post it just to see how many people like playing with that kind of play style, versus what we have now, I like playing with the Vanilla / BC style, not that junk we have now TBH.

[Deleted]

raise back then you felt like you had "earned" your loot.

purple was more than just a colour.

T0 and T.5 had meaning and were a show of skill and dedication but not a requirement to raid.

your individual realm had it's own personal rivalries with the other faction due to bg's and "meeting similar enemies again and again"

raids were actualy BIG efforts and affairs, compare UBRS to MC, while ubrs was stil big and good it had nothing on mc or bwl or naxx.

Alternative mid-tier raids on a THREE day lockout an instance of FUN fights which people still went back to do even when a tier ahead ZG/AQ20.

there used to be much more Choice as to where you were going to raid.

cata started well. 3 choices with very different fights inside

then we had firelands which was only a few boss more than BWD.

then we had dragon soul -> and LFR casuals invaded, hardcore raiders were Forced to raid lfr to stay at the top edge due to how op some 4 piece bonus's were.

lfd simply shifted casuals from "seeing the content in a few months when next tier/expac arrives to "seeing incredibly easy versions of bosses which don't prepare them for normal mode" as to many mechanics can be ignored or just don't happen ( heal debuf on spine you can 2 heal spine lfr) morchock crystals barely scratching when red, several 4 ooze combos are doable etc

[Deleted]

Oh wow, such a blast from the past with the subject title. I remember Warriors raging so much if you touched a mob before 3 sunders, good times!

[cherb]

Agreed. I never understand why people think wiping for 12 hours was fun or killing Ony 20 times to get a helm. As a casual, I just show up to a raid a couple of months later, and get all the loot drops because no one needed it anymore. 2 to 3 raids is all I need to gear up to full. I think it's more fun to play the game without worrying about loot drops.

I think it's more the fun you have with the people you play with. No one would have fun during a 12 hour raid if you didn't enjoy the company and conversation of the 39 other people in the raid. I'd personally rather have fun wiping endlessly for a couple of upgrades, and truly enjoy playing with the people in the guild, rather than come in late and snatch up a bunch of gear that no one needs anymore. It's not about the gear, its about the people you play with.

[Deleted]

People waited for sunders? We used to have a hunter pull, tank taunts when it gets into melee range and then hunter FD. Instant threat lead. It is not like warriors had any real range pull back in those days.

Lots of bosses were immune to taunt back in vanilla.
I remember having to wait for several minutes, afk-autowanding the boss while our tanks were trying to build their aggro (on bosses like Razorgore, Broodlord Lashlayer or Onyxia). But it's not like we brought locks for their dps anyway (good old times being a curse/summoning/healthstone bitch ).

[Deleted]

Since I'm a hunter like the OP, I'll also share some of my story.

Starting out in MC it was just awesome. Even though mechanics weren't very impressive, the sheer size of the instance and bosses made it worthwhile. Things like LOOT THE DOG!! and WAIT FOR SUNDERS were very common. We even had a healer or 2 assigned to always stay out of combat so they could rez people. We always tried to balance our classes for 5 each (Yes, really) and basically had a blast in the hunter channel (every class had its channel). I remember how special it felt when I looted my leaf and how cool it was when I finally completed it after hours of camping for the demons. More than anything else: I remember ragnaros comming up for the first time: HOLY SHIT this guy is going to fuck us up. Even though we wiped horribly it was incredible. When we finally killed it, it felt extremely rewarding. Getting my tier 2 legs from him was only surpassed by the feeling of getting 8/8 T2 after months and months of farming BWL. Onyxia was also great fun (Group 1,3,5,7 LEFT, Group 2,4,6,8 RIGHT! Stop DPS! KILL THE WHELPS! WATCH THE BREATH!), although a bit less impressive. Skinning her sure felt good though.

Moving on to BWL: I guess this was a great instance to shine as a hunter, traps on the first boss were essential, kiting adds was required, tranq's on chromaggus required good coordination (especially since it was actually hard to hitcap) and on nef you had to make sure you didnt break your weapon... It was awesome, and the good setting (killing dragons, wearing dragonstalker, drake fang talisman, prestor's, etc) added alot to the feeling of something that just fitted great.

Then AQ came: awesome event! Server crashes aside this was really cool to see. Bosses were starting to get more complex (bug trio for example) and the size of the instance was very impressive. After finally smashing the Huhuran NR wall (lots of green dragon slaying ^^) we got over twins and onto C'Thun. C'Thun trash did want to make me cry sometimes, but the encounter itself was great. 1-shots on fails (funny pulls sometimes ) were hilarious.

At naxx I wasn't able to kill all bosses with my guild, but even so it was a well thought out instance with a very, very good setting. Fun times and again a time where hunters could shine by kiting/trapping properly.

[Glurp]

I'm confused. You raided for 12 hours in a single day and your parents were worried you would skip school to play wow the next day.

But you were casual. I'm sorry... If you devote every single sunday to raiding for 12 hours non stop you're not casual.

[Crashdummy]

Vanilla was a new game, and it was the only MMO oriented to casuals.

Yes, thats right, vanilla was oriented to casuals, hardcores of that time were playing EQ and UO.

There was no alternative, every casual that wanted to play an MMO HAD TO play WoW.

Times have changed, now we have a lot of alternatives, and for WoW to remain (like it ALWAYS had been) he most casual friendly MMO things need to change. This change started in TBC, wcontinued in Wrath, and then Blizzard at the start of Cata they decided to change the design that made WoW the most sucessfull MMO by making things harder than the previous expansion.

The result was the worse expansion ever in the history of WoW.

[Bellentino]

I only started raiding in the Burning Crusade but lemme tell you this, on my guild's first attempts into Karazhan I vividly remember the first few trash packs leading to Attumen and spending an entire raid night on the first two bosses... Then advancing to Maiden and the Opera Event...

The mystery of Karazhan was the allure it had... To keep pressing on, to see what else was beyond. Ugh. I miss those days dearly

[fangless]

I'm not going to read this whole thread, but I giggled at 5 Sunders.

Agreed. I never understand why people think wiping for 12 hours was fun

Because that was what fantasy games were about, fighting huge ass dragons. I hadn't fought anything like that before (Aside from Phantasy Star Online, which wasn't really an MMO, but still had a huge ass dragon fight) . You just hit 60, you go do the long ass quest chain to get attuned (sucked 5x as much for us Horde). You FINALLY get to zone in, and fight this big beast. It's new, epic, fresh. We spent all of a Saturday attempting her, and killing it finally was ridiculously awesome. I just hit 60, and here I am slaying dragons. That's what you imagine when you starting playing a fantasy MMO.


Also, the OP's video of Cthun... lol. That was EVERYONE'S first pull attempt.

[Hulari]

12 hours? Pff nothing.

Ulduar release I raided pretty much all day. We did 25man raiding from 9AM up until 6PM with a couple half hour food breaks. Once the majority of the raid were a little burnt out the more hardcore bunch starting raiding 10man from 7PM through till 5AM. It's my equal favourite raid day compared to when we did Immortal the patch before.

Let's not forget that either. I was tanking the adds on Kel'thuzad and I was sat shaking in my chair as he dropped down his last 10%. Never will a single gaming moment overcome that feeling when he died and the achievement popped up.

[Rakoth]

12 hours? Pff nothing.

Ulduar release I raided pretty much all day. We did 25man raiding from 9AM up until 6PM with a couple half hour food breaks. Once the majority of the raid were a little burnt out the more hardcore bunch starting raiding 10man from 7PM through till 5AM. It's my equal favourite raid day compared to when we did Immortal the patch before.

I am not sure if I should feel sad or happy for you. I remember playing that much, almost flunked out of school.

Good thing I didn't, went on to lead a meaningful life, I have a fiancée who loves me, a great job and about to buy our first car, and our first house.

I used to raid 6 days a week, and use the 7th to farm consumables. I thought this was fun, it wasn't, it was a job. I was the 3rd rogue on my realm to reach 70 in TBC, once I logged off at 70, I got really sick from all that exhaustion. I don't miss it, I don't want it back. I want to play casually and play it as a video game, something that doesn't matter.

My fiancée, my job, our cat, these things mater. WoW doesn't.

[Tkaczu]

I think it doesn't matter if you have raided for 12 h per day in vanilla, sence of great accomplishment once you killed boss after few weeks of wipes was worth it and it was a factor that was making you sitting next days for another 12 h. I started as clueless druid in vanilla that cleared MC, Onyxia and 2 bosses in BWL. There was no option for AQ40 or naxx, my guild was not able to clear BWL so none was moaning about the "seeing content". WOW was just different with very simple thing, that if you don't clear raid 1 you wont get into raid 2. Heck even tier sets bonuses were supporting next raid dungeon you were going get into, what was realy nice stuff and even more wanted (current + 5% to random ability sets are joke if you compare them to T3 bonuses). So time when "every warrior was a tank, and every tank was a warrior" was more demanding but also more rewarding. I liked it and I miss it. Any funny moments from vanilla? Many! Like autowanding Onyxia at the beginning of fight (must have looked hillarious with casters shooting minibolts from sticks), warlocks with bags filled with HS, and mostly elemental boss in MC with small adds. They were moving in circle around boss crossing each other and each warlock had to target "his/her" elemental for the rest of fight (no raid marks!).

[painweaver]

Agreed. I never understand why people think wiping for 12 hours was fun or killing Ony 20 times to get a helm. As a casual, I just show up to a raid a couple of months later, and get all the loot drops because no one needed it anymore. 2 to 3 raids is all I need to gear up to full. I think it's more fun to play the game without worrying about loot drops.

It's fun because you actually get a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of prestige when you finally get something you worked so hard for. Instead of lolsteamroll through the newest raid on easymode the first day it is released.

Oh waiting for five sunders....I always caught shit for trying to time a soulfire or shadowbolt right on the 5th.

It's a different game now with extremely different players. A lot has changed since then, some for the better, but mostly for the worse- unfortunately..