WoW from a Vanilla player's perspective.

[khalltusk]

"Hybrid tax" sounds not bad, I remeber SHAMAN? => HEAL, PALADIN? => HEAL, PRIEST? => HEAL, DRUID? => HEAL...

I played a Rogue and my main will allways be a Rogue but I still think, after 7 years of playing, that the hybrid tax was a bad thing.
"Hybrid tax" and the "Holy Trinity", thats what I hated the most in Vanilla. YOU HAD TO HAVE Warrior-Priest-Mage even for LBRS... It was not good, not fun and group/raid composition was boring as hell.

Sure I liked vanilla WoW, I liked to pvp before the Honor-Ponts existed. I liked doing dungeon runs, without valor points. I enjoyed beeing in a guild, before guild perks.

But I know very well, there were hours/days with no character progression, because I couldnt find a dungeon group, because there wer no Battlegrounds, because I got no spot in the main raid or because there wer no other item upgrade path beyond raiding in 40m size raids, in big guilds.

So I like MoP very much. I like it when I log in anytime of the day and I can do *something* to progress with my character. I can do dailys, Repfarming for very good gear. I can do RandomDungeon, RandomPvP, RandomLFR anytime.

If you played vanilla, like most people casually, then you should know what "LACK OF CONTENT" really means. :-)

This is something I do remember,

The time there were no battlegrounds, world pvp is all you had. Most of it was ganking people in BRM or maybe fighting over a world boss. Tarren mill... was the only real PVP there was. Then battle grounds were added you HAD to go to the battleground entrance and queue from there. they then added later on NPCs in major cities to queue from (now you just click a button anywhere to queue)

When all I did was PVP I had some very good PVP gear, (got to blood guard I think when I moved to a pve guild) initially I went a healing/enhancement spec then switched to resto when my warrior friend came along for battlegrounds. Gave him WF totem and watched the kills come in as I healed him.

You also used lower ranks of spells to reduce mana cost (for healing in raids or interrupts). That is something I kinda missed a bit but its nothing major.

[Ciddy]

You nailed it, Tauren quests in mulgore I LOVED the music and everything. Going to thunderbluff for the thirst time and doing the quest with the spirit wolf thing. brilliant. Mulgore to this day is my fav area for atmosphere despite what happens in the rest of wow it always felt like mulgore was this nice little place that wouldnt see wars/cataclysms! :P

Yeah. I think I would've been perfectly happy if the entire game turned out to be a bigass Mulgore where you just did hunting quests all day.

[headtrip]

Adding anecdotal evidence:

Got 45min UDStrat runs down to just under 20minutes. No CC, wearing no epics. Just brawling.
It was fast. It was fun!
Just came down to understanding game mechanics.
Part of the illusion on why I feel so many people remember vanilla as harder is because of their lack of understanding for mechanics.

[Extremeties]

The "world" no longer feels like a "world". Once they started pumping out instance after instance after instance and disconnecting the game world the game went down. I still play it, dont get me wrong but the game in my personal opinion and a few buddies who've played since launch all agree that it isnt nearly the same as it once was. Raids dont "feel" like raids. More so bombrush bosses, collect loot, onto the next boss. Its exactly like dungeons. Days of Molten core raids, BWL raids, actually planning, communicating with ppl and your guild, and when there was the feeling of an actual world, THATS when the game was great.

[khalltusk]

Yeah. I think I would've been perfectly happy if the entire game turned out to be a bigass Mulgore where you just did hunting quests all day.

hehe :P The leveling experience then was great purely because it was better than anything around. I also leveled up at night that first day as I got home from work my mates were on vent playing their level 20-30 characters and I was making my fresh level 1 for the first time. (the leveling now is so much better but ofc its not the same as when I first played as this is all familiar to me now)

I still remember that night, my friends all doing dungeons im level 4 or something in first hour and they wanted to know what race/class I took. I said "Tauren shaman as we got wookie on a warrior ovego on a priest and nick on a rogue". Ovego stated shaman seems good idea as I can heal and dps and tank. I was chuffed! sure enough I caught my mates levels up and we then hit the same instances together. I did have to learn the quests as I went (actually read the quests and had to figure out where it was I needed to go and what to kill/click and check thottbot or ask if I was stumped) Now I can just see on the map but back then and even into wrath I did it the old fashioned way. Do I prefer the new way? YES 100% yes!

Still Mulgore was and is a fantastic looking zone. I do wish they would update thunderbluff a bit but ill settle for baine getting some screen time.

[frigoffrick]

I just came back to WoW after a 9 month absence. I've honestly PvP'ed for roughly a week straight and have earned all the honor gear I can get already. PvPing every day in vanilla, have people queue for my pre mades to reach and achieve High Warlord took absolutley forever. It was challenging, and took more than a week to achieve.

I don't PvE anymore, I don't have the time or it. However, when I did PvE in vanilla I was still in highschool and I generally had the time to raid full time after school hours. I was in a top notch raiding guild on my server. All I remember is it taking months to down 4 horsemen. Now I see guilds and pugs clearing heroic raids in a week as well.

My view will always remain that Vanilla and TBC were the games that took dedication and skill to actually feel like you achieved and won something, but that's just my perspective.

[Hovsa]

I sure remember and cherish it, HOWEVER the game is better now on every level.

On every level?

• Paid server transfers have left High pop servers close to 1:0 or 0:1 horde/ally ratio, while low pop servers are dead wastes.
• General anonymity through paid services and dungeon finder has affected the community for the worse.
• Exploring is dead... you can fly everywhere within 10 minutes or less.
• You can't join a battleground without half your team being bots.
• Blizzard are either clueless or just don't care when it comes to balancing PvP. (pushing hybrid classes into healer roles again)
• Any1 i ever knew in wow has stopped... (not because "they grew up", but because the game is a cashcow at this point)

I think that pretty much sums up how i currently feel about a game from the company who replaced their brilliant lead developers in late vanilla and replaced them with idiots like Greg Street, Jeffrey Kappland & Co.

[Maklor]

Dude I don't even disagree with you, the experience is worse but the game is better.

[Tomana]

[*]Blizzard are either clueless or just don't care when it comes to balancing PvP. (pushing hybrid classes into healer roles again)

Because vanilla PVP was absolutely balanced?

[Edison]

The game is worse now imo, there's no "adventure" anymore. I've leveled a couple of alts just to have something to do and everything is dumbed down, handed to you and just way to easy. You can't really die at all unless you're extremely stupid. Epics is being handed to you and and everything is just bad now. Yes i'm nostalgic, but Vanilla and TBC was better IN MY Opinion.

[Fummockelchen]

Back in my day, those stones were used to queue for dungeons and not for summoning.

Yeah right you queued for dungeons in Vanilla...

[kallekaka]

Games stay the same, you age and your views change.

ummmmmm, no
the game itself is getting easier every expansion and almost every patch lol.
I dont understand how u can say its the same..... seems like u just started it.
GTA 2 stays the same. WoW changes

[Karnudge]

Definitely not the same. The big thing in current WoW that's so much worse than vanilla is that the World doesn't seem very big at all. No one is ever forced to go out and explore the World...of warcraft. Game should be called "Current Tiny Continent....of Warcraft"

[Masterpd85]

better, because now each class has 3 specs, whereas before several classes only had 1 spec and a few more only had 1 spec choice allowed if they wanted to pvp/pve.


- ret paladins used to melee hit and judge, and they had to cast hammer to execute their target... if it crit'd.
- hunters had a melee spec with melee attacks.
- threat generation = "wait till 3 sunders are applied, then keep a close eye on your threat meter so you don't die"


...oh I could go on all night about vanilla.

[Nathanmitchell]

Still great game to play

[Aquamonkey]

Yeah right you queued for dungeons in Vanilla...

Nobody used them, but that's what there were for until TBC.

[Proxeneta]

Vanilla was awesome, Burning Crusade just as awesome, WOTLK kinda meh because most of the content was fucking easy, Cata sucked balls, MoP kinda sucks balls with all the dailies. I feel bad for people who never got to experience Tarren Mill and X-roads horde/alliance clusterfucks, who never got to see hordes invade Redridge only to get their ass kicked by Alliance 5 minutes after, I feel bad that they have to run around in empty zones thinking that it was always like that. I'm glad I got to experience that.
Also LFR is complete fucking bullshit, Blizzard needs to stop with the idea that everyone deserves to see everything even if they only play fucking pokémon battles and fish, trying to make this game applicable to every human soul out there, they should not pamper to EVERYONE because it is impossible to please everyone and it only makes the game worse for people who were around at the beginning.

[JimmyHellfire]

Also LFR is complete fucking bullshit, Blizzard needs to stop with the idea that everyone deserves to see everything even if they only play fucking pokémon battles and fish, trying to make this game applicable to every human soul out there, they should not pamper to EVERYONE because it is impossible to please everyone and it only makes the game worse for people who were around at the beginning.

Yes, it's impossible to please everyone, and I think they should just do stuff to please me. And I propose: they should change how raid access works. The number of attempts on a raid boss should be determined by how many pet battles you did within a lockout period. And for every full stack of fish, you're allowed to roll on one item.

Oh, and this applies to the normal and heroic modes only (double requirements for heroic of course). LFR you can just jump in directly.