If most People don't raid, why did Classic - TBC have such a huge following?

[Jaylock]

I see threads all the time talking about how the majority of WoW players don't raid and so forth. If that is the case, and if content was so "unaccessable" back in Vanilla and TBC, how come so many people played for so many years? Vanilla and TBC lasted about 4.5 years until WoTLK came out. How come so many people were subscribed for so long if most of them didnt do any raiding?

The answer is the grind and the journey. The slow, yet steady progress of their characters over time. The expectation that gear was something to be treasured and took patience and effort to obtain. Acquiring new gear was a gem in itself. 5 man content was the end game content for those players. Getting into a managable BRD that could last 3 hours with the hope that maybe 1 or 2 peices of gear would drop for you was the reward.

Getting to 60, and then thinking "ok, so what do i do now?" And having soooo soo many options open to you. Do I work on saving up money for my epic ground mount? Do I work on the paladin / warlock quest chains to obtain my class mount? Do I interact and socalize with people on my server, make some friends, and do some 5 man content to get a new blue upgrade? Do I do some of the challenging group quests that I may have overlooked? Do I try to upgrade my dungeon set through the quest chains? Do I work on getting myself attuned to the several raids so i can be ready to raid later on? Do I enter molten core to just check out the entrance?! Do I find a guild so I can maybe kill some stuff in MC / ZG? etc etc etc.

You understand my point.

[Alidori]

Are you talking to yourself? What's the question? You already answered your own >.>

[Grocalis]

The answer is the grind and the journey.

No, the answer was it was "easier" then anything else out in competition with it. That, added with the fact it was the still white hot "WarCraft" brand coming off WC3, meant people flocked to it. The rest was positive word of mouth due to how "new and fresh" it was.

All that wore off starting in BC, but people held on. Changes had to be made for Wrath which increased the population by making the content itself "easier", keeping a bit on the curve. Cataclysm failed because they didn't understand the lessons of Wrath. The population is at a point now that the journey will never be able to have the same power to the majority of people. They have now seen it all before.

[Howard Moon]

The demographic has changed since then.

[Itisamuh]

I'd say it's more to do with the fact that the game was new and people were still awed by it and the genre as a whole. People just now starting usually love it, it's the veteran players that are getting more dissatisfied as the years go by. Nostalgia is a killer, and the more you're into something, the less you can happily adapt when that something changes. I can't agree that the grind was ever a good thing, though.

[reckoner04]

The following of WoW now is "huger" than it was back then . Otherwise, I agree with your second paragraph to some extent. I absolutely disagree with the third though.

[BeastmasterGuardian]

Classic and TBC were the LEADERS in the new style of MMO. EQ and others were slowly falling by the wayside. They were popular because they brought something no other MMO at the time had. It was not about raiding, or PvP, or anything in particular. It was about exploring an entire world, maybe on horseback, and not being limited to 3 or 4 areas in a game. Possibilities were endless... still are imo.

[dd614]

A lot of the folks who raided hard in Vanilla and TBC are now adults with new interests, jobs and families. They can't or won't dedicate the same amount of time. Wrath on to MOP has brought in new players whose interests differ from those who joined the game in Vanilla/TBC.

[Kisho]

Here's a fun game to play. Next time you get the urge to make a thread, stop and think: is it really useful? Has it been said about 5,000 times before? Do I REALLY need to spew yet another thread onto the forums, contributing to the endless spam?

Your thread starter also reeks of you trying to tell people the 'right' way to think. You're not opening a discussion, you've just created a strawman in your head and thrown your opinion at it, even though nobody said anything to prompt it.

You're also pretty much entirely wrong, since MoP has more players than classic or TBC ever did. Even Cataclysm had more players, even at its lowest point.

Can we stop with the vanilla/TBC cocksucking, please? Sure, they were fun, but the game is in a far better state now than it ever was during vanilla or TBC.

[Bluesftw]

the answer is : it was fresh and only mmo on the market made with such scale, alot has changed over the years to make things more accesible to sunday players

[Deleted]

No i dont understand your point at all actually?
What are you trying to say? Dont we have enough to do now or what?
Seems to me like you are just rambling really.

[Jtbrig7390]

--snip-

No it is because of 3 simple things.

1.Because Wow came out as the most casual MMO if you wanted a grindy MMO then play Everquest1/2 SWG/COH/GW1 ect....
2. Because its warcraft and has blizzards name on it.
3. The cartoon graphic style was appealing to many people.

People always go "Well back in Classic/TBC things where so much harder and the grind was bla bla bla. In Everquest 1 it could take you a year if not more to get a max level toon. Even got to a point where it was a must to quest with others *Around level 55 or so*

Wow was even more Casual then mmo's that came out around the same time as it "EQ2/COH/SWG/Gw1"

That is why it got such a huge following.

[Grogo]

A lot of the folks who raided hard in Vanilla and TBC are now adults with new interests, jobs and families. They can't or won't dedicate the same amount of time. Wrath on to MOP has brought in new players whose interests differ from those who joined the game in Vanilla/TBC.

I disagree, a lot of the folks who raided hard in Vanilla and TBC are now playing other games and spending the same amount of time doing it. Blizz changed the formula and lost their way. Many do not like being spoon fed.

[Jtbrig7390]

I disagree, a lot of the folks who raided hard in Vanilla and TBC are now playing other games and spending the same amount of time doing it. Blizz changed the formula and lost their way. Many do not like being spoon fed.

It could be both.

A decent amount who played Classic where like 13-15 year olds now add 8 years that would make them 21-23 year olds with jobs gf's/wifes/kids ect.... and those take up a lot of time so if you had to pick I'm sure most would use the GF/wife/kids over a video game...

Edit: If they where older just add 8 years to it the point still stands many have grown up and moved on that is a fact.

[Leonard McCoy]

it was popular because it less grindy and more accessible than anything else around. In fact the history of warcrafts success is a history of progressive decisions that made the game more and more friendlier and more and more accessible right up until they made dungeons hard in Cataclysm. The current incarnation of warcraft (mists) is also a regression from this ideal and will lose subs just like Cataclysm did.

[NightZero88]

No it is because of 3 simple things.

1.Because Wow came out as the most casual MMO if you wanted a grindy MMO then play Everquest1/2 SWG/COH/GW1 ect....
2. Because its warcraft and has blizzards name on it.
3. The cartoon graphic style was appealing to many people.

People always go "Well back in Classic/TBC things where so much harder and the grind was bla bla bla. In Everquest 1 it could take you a year if not more to get a max level toon. Even got to a point where it was a must to quest with others *Around level 55 or so*

Wow was even more Casual then mmo's that came out around the same time as it "EQ2/COH/SWG/Gw1"

That is why it got such a huge following.

GW1 was not grindy at all. You could level to 20 in a day. And if you wanted to do PvP you didn't even have to level. You were instantly 20 and could have access to any gear you wanted by selecting the PvP option. It is was the definition of non-grindy content. It took EFFORT to do well in PvP but it was an extremely casual game.

[khalltusk]

I disagree, a lot of the folks who raided hard in Vanilla and TBC are now playing other games and spending the same amount of time doing it. Blizz changed the formula and lost their way. Many do not like being spoon fed.

Both of you are right and wrong. You can't talk for all of the players like its a fact as many people quit the game for many reasons. I've been here since the start and quit a few times due to time issue etc. I'm currently back on mop very casually. Still enjoy it but no longer have the time to do hardcore raiding. Some people dislike being spoon fed others love it.

I'm currently enjoying LFR as it fits into my lack of playtime. I know some people who detest it. Go figure.

[Marema]

I disagree, a lot of the folks who raided hard in Vanilla and TBC are now playing other games and spending the same amount of time doing it. Blizz changed the formula and lost their way. Many do not like being spoon fed.

Yes because all of those teenagers and twenty somethings have had no increase in responisbility in the last 8 years and can dedicate the exact same amount of time playing WoW now as they did back then.

People grow up and get some responsibility (at least most of us do) and can't spend 20+ hours a week raiding. And why on earth would we want to raid 20+ hours a week? I can now LFR on all of my 90's in a fraction of that time and still have lots of extra time to you know, have a life.

[Jtbrig7390]

GW1 was not grindy at all. You could level to 20 in a day. And if you wanted to do PvP you didn't even have to level. You were instantly 20 and could have access to any gear you wanted by selecting the PvP option. It is was the definition of non-grindy content. It took EFFORT to do well in PvP but it was an extremely casual game.

...then clearly you never played guild wars 1. The grind was not in its level but the things you did at level 20 aka title hunt and dungeon run.
some of those titles can take 6-8months just for 1 like the drinking/sweet title. *Back when it came out now it is easy'er*
The pvp its self was a grind and not casual in its early days.

But go ahead and pick one word out of what i said and nit pick it apart my point still stands and is fact wow came out as the most casual MMO and has been that way since.

[Deleted]

The short version is that it was a very different game, you didn't have to raid, you could quite easily run the 10 / 15 man end dungeons.

Drop rates for certain things were tiny and depending on the group and dungeon you could be with the same group for an hour+

Plus you'd pretty much always be competing for gear because there was always lots of the same classes (probably because not all of them were really viable) it just extended a) what you could do without raiding and b) the amount of time it took to get 'raid ready'