WoW from a Vanilla player's perspective.

[Goretex]

---------- Post added 2012-08-19 at 04:59 AM ----------

[/COLOR]

Its just a different game now. I don't care about mechanics and progress, I care about "world" in World of Warcraft, so for me it got way worse.

Vanilla: it was all about having fun with other players. It was a social game, you had many friends everywhere. World was alive. Mechanics didn't matter, accessibility didn't matter. Killing boss that had crappy mechanics with 39 friends was more epic than killing boss with complex mechanics with 9 friends.

Now: its all about mechanics and accessing latest content. It is not a social game anymore. Guilds are tiny, people rarely communicate outside of their guilds. World is dead, everyone is sitting in main hub.

I have more and cooler friends now than I ever had in vanilla. I would try and ask for help when I needed it and would get horrible responses in vanilla, like "i'm too busy" "I don't know you why should I help" and alot of other players being new to the game not knowing what I was talking about. Idk but for me the social experience has gotten better. At leats now I got more guildies and friends that are willing to help than I had in vanilla or BC.

[Fenixdown]

Poll results show me the following.

Rational thought WoW players : Still on top
Vanilla/BC white knights : still just zero

Good job, rational thought WoW players. Keep on doin' what you all do.

Sincerely,

A fellow vanilla/BC player

[Tacotruck]

I have been playing since Original Beta but I will admit WoW was, and is, my only MMO. Raiding has always been kind of uninteresting to me, I was here for PvP.

IMO the game has overall gotten much better over the years, especially in losing so much annoying crap like feeding pets. Yes it did lose a bit of coolness along the way. Not going to visit the spirit of the cat to get your cat form is one example of coolness lost, but on the other hand, not having to drown on bottom of the ocean in order to get aqua form is certainly an improvement.

I love LFR, it allows me to dip my toes into raiding without all the BS of guild politics.

[theK1ll577]

Came into this thread expecting the usual rose tinted glasses bullshit I usually see from fellow vanilla players. I was disappointed in a good way.

Never has any thread on mmo-champion more deserved a sticky than this one. Not only have you brought up an excellent source of discussion that I can completely agree with, you've also pointed out a different way at looking at this, and the mindset that causes it.

10/10.

Why thank you very much.

---------- Post added 2012-08-19 at 10:54 AM ----------

Can't get full tier gear from just vendor. You still have to do raids to get the tokens.

You can only buy outdated tier pieces...

[Deleted]

Poll results show me the following.

Rational thought WoW players : Still on top
Vanilla/BC white knights : still just zero

Good job, rational thought WoW players. Keep on doin' what you all do.

Sincerely,

A fellow vanilla/BC player

Nope, you don't get it. The original players mostly aren't around any more as they don't like where the game went. So these polls will always show the current players as voting for now as being best as that is all they have experienced. It's a futile poll. Also, the tone of your post is very condescending. Not going to help you.

[Wildtree]

Nope, you don't get it. The original players mostly aren't around any more as they don't like where the game went. So these polls will always show the current players as voting for now as being best as that is all they have experienced. It's a futile poll. Also, the tone of your post is very condescending. Not going to help you.

All you do now is assuming.... You got no proof.
I am still around, and I know plenty of Vanilla players, some of them for years. Yet I still voted the game to be better.. Because if you don't look through pink tinted glasses, you know very well how bad vanilla actually was, already from the plain technical end. Bugged like hell.. And botting/cheating was a lot worse than it is today.
Getting one shot with 30k dmg in a BG, a number that wasn't even theoretical achievable, no thank you. I prefer today's game stability over that.

[Deleted]

If the raiding model was as good as it was in the past they wouldnt need to put in loads of mini games to keep people playing, and paying.

[DanBowie]

Never played during vanila days but knowing that was over 8 years ago I def wouldnt want to go back to a design that old.

[Bigbazz]

The game is much better now, but the game has taken a different direction. It's much more accessable, fast to reach your goals, easy to gear up and a lot of things handed to you on a plate, everyone gets cookies. But I still think in many ways the game is much better now.


I had the most fun during TBC and Wrath, that content and lore was the best for me. I think people dont like it because the game got old, I enjoyed it less because of that, but also because I don't like the everyone gets cookies attitude, i like that it is accessable and I like many of the changes but a lot of that killed the game.

Sit around in orgrimmar and wait for your queue to pop, while everyone else of all types and abilities does the same in the same gear as you. Cataclysm has been by far the worst for everyone sitting around in identical gear, something that was complained about in TBC but has only gotten much worse.



Many of the issues that people complained about (not all) in TBC and Wrath have simply gotten worse in Cataclysm, all these negative aspects definitely have a role to play in the dislike of the expansion. Though Vanilla players also said the same things about both TBC and Wrath, it was the same old then. Maybe in 2-3 expansions people will be talking about how good Cata was... though I doubt it ^^.

[Armourboy]

I wouldn't say the game is worse, its just a different time and a different era. We all sit around and talk about how great Vanilla or TBC was, but in the end, the only thing that made that era better was the sense of accomplishment. Past that, just about everything else about the game was worse.

People act like the community was something special and everyone was all super nice, they weren't. The general consensus back then was that Raiders were all douchebags, and tbh lots of them were. Lots of people put up with lots of crap back then just to be able to raid, most people won't do that today. People weren't anymore helpful back then either, and I'm just as guilty as anyone on that deal.

Things like gear were just as easy to get in TBC as it is today. The difference was we all did it through BG's and Arena's mostly, but you still had badge gear and epics out of heroics. Sure it was a bit tougher at the start of the expansion, but we still ended up steam rolling instances just like we do now.

I had a lot of fun back then, and after 7 years I finally took a short break and played some other games. It didn't take me long to figure out that WoW still is the best MMO on the market, even if I hated Cata. I think sometimes people blame the game, but really they just need a break.

As the second poster in the thread said, I would give anything to be able to go back and be a noob again. That feeling of awe that you get when you first start playing MMO's just can't be replicated once you've reach vetern status.

[Twitch1991]

This game has improved a significant amount since vanilla. Vanilla was full of bugs, imbalance, and Blizzard was still getting the RPG thing down. I know many people will argue, but that's my opinion!

[Deleted]

In general the game is better than it used to be in my opinion. Many things about the gameplay has been improved, and it often puzzles me why people seem to prefer things the way they were. It seems there is a romantic view that everything was better in vanilla. Just to take an example, I hear a lot of people complaining about the way AV works today, saying that it used to be a lot more fun. But if I remember correctly, a lot of people weren't satisfied with the old AV back when it took hours to complete. I'm not trying to start a discussion about AV, my point is simply that a lot of the complaints seem to have more to do with attitude than the actual gameplay.

[Armourboy]

In general the game is better than it used to be in my opinion. Many things about the gameplay has been improved, and it often puzzles me why people seem to prefer things the way they were. It seems there is a romantic view that everything was better in vanilla. Just to take an example, I hear a lot of people complaining about the way AV works today, saying that it used to be a lot more fun. But if I remember correctly, a lot of people weren't satisfied with the old AV back when it took hours to complete. I'm not trying to start a discussion about AV, my point is simply that a lot of the complaints seem to have more to do with attitude than the actual gameplay.

I can only speak for me, but I would love to see the old AV back simply because it would make the BG unique. Everything has turned into, hurry up, go go, win fast or lose fast, just as long as its fast.

I think people always talk about wanting change, in the end though, most people hate change.

[Deleted]

If you are going to poll, then at least make the choices understandable.

1. Worst then it was.
2. Still the same old.
3. Better then it was.

I have no idea what "Worst then it was" is supposed to mean. Is this even English? I can understand that "then" is probably "than", but the phrase "Worst then it was" makes zero sense--when you are comparing something using "than", how on earth does one use "worst" instead of "worse". Did you mean "Worse than it was"?

If you obviously new what he was trying to say, why bring it up?

Moron

[Aquamonkey]

I can only speak for me, but I would love to see the old AV back simply because it would make the BG unique. Everything has turned into, hurry up, go go, win fast or lose fast, just as long as its fast.

I think people always talk about wanting change, in the end though, most people hate change.

Why can't we have both? Deathmatch BG and the "race to kill the boss" BG.

EDIT: Or king of the hill (not king of the 3/4/5 hills).

[sumocide]

Some things changed about the game that I like. Arenas were a a nice addition even if it often boils down to comp. Cutting down on travel times, even if they went too far in the other direction now. Also it certainly improved in the button mashing part, that's a lot more interesting then it was. But the overall gaming experience has been compressed so much. And it is served to you in easily consumable parts while the game is holding your hand, so it doesn't feel like an adventure anymore.

I believe Blizzard is very aware how they changed the game and why. They said they don't want to go back to the time when the game was such an encompassing task that some people where neglecting their children for it or even keeling over dead while playing the game. And I understand that.

[Armourboy]

Why can't we have both? Deathmatch BG and the "race to kill the boss" BG.

EDIT: Or king of the hill (not king of the 3/4/5 hills).

Well I could still see leaving resources in, but AV wasn't a " race to kill the boss" in Vanilla. The original AV was about tactics rather than just brute force, defense as well as offense. I thought the original AV was a perfect blend of PvE and PvP, and think it would be a nice change of pace.

[Fenixdown]

Nope, you don't get it. The original players mostly aren't around any more as they don't like where the game went. So these polls will always show the current players as voting for now as being best as that is all they have experienced. It's a futile poll. Also, the tone of your post is very condescending. Not going to help you.

HA! Puuuuuuuuuuulease! Try that on someone who doesn't read these forums on a daily basis. All the vanilla/BC white knights do is live on MMO-Champion so they can post their same dribble, no matter what other people seem to think or can refute as false and nothing more than nostalgic bravado.

Also, I only condescend people who act like they want to be talked down to. Read about five "MoP is for children LULZ" threads and tell me those people should be talked to as if they were adults.

I do unto others, and I treat everyone else as if they follow the same rule. Treat someone with respect and you get respect from me in kind. Treat someone like crap for no reason, and guess what I treat you like.

[Kobzol]

It doesn't have to be the fact that you were a teenager, our brain generally tends to remember the good things and forget the bad ones.. and thus we see Vanilla through rose-tinted glasses I miss some things from Vanilla, but the game is generally better and more complex in many ways today and I can't wait for Mists.

[Aquamonkey]

All you do now is assuming.... You got no proof.
I am still around, and I know plenty of Vanilla players, some of them for years. Yet I still voted the game to be better.. Because if you don't look through pink tinted glasses, you know very well how bad vanilla actually was, already from the plain technical end. Bugged like hell.. And botting/cheating was a lot worse than it is today.
Getting one shot with 30k dmg in a BG, a number that wasn't even theoretical achievable, no thank you. I prefer today's game stability over that.

I voted that the game is better and I've been around since Vanilla too. However, the number of people who have quit WoW is several times greater than the number currently playing. http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/...ds-Rob-Pardo.2