The game is better in alot of ways.
The big difference between then and now is the community and its interests.
In TBC/Vanilla it required alot of effort, time and dedication to get things done. Wether its just fixing a raid group or getting attuned for raids or keys for dungeons, it took time to see the content.
For that reason, only dedicated players spend time on WoW, people with genuine interests in the fantasty RPG world and what it had to offer.
Now the majority of the community consists of casual players, players who don't really care about the lore or the concept, but just gaming, etc.
To please the majority, the content has been more accessible, wich also drives away players dedicated to the concept of what it was before.
In many ways the game has improved, no doubt about it, but easy accessability and "just time, no effort" system is really ruining the community.
There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want
remove LFG and make bosses impossible to kill for the majority of the players. Well now. Yeah it will fix the community. the 400k thats left of it.
if you removed lfg now. ppl would quit in large chunks. Only a few left within a year
A game need to evolve and ppl like you that want it to regress back to the iron age. Well. your opinion doesnt matter
What rotation? Half the classes with a dps spec wasn't designed around it - just look at the bonus for their initial sets in mc/bwl. You can't be that idiotic to compare something blizzard didn't think through with something they have now changed quite a few times since then. Oh and elemental is lightning spam for most I see still with the random proc.
You talk about mc like you didn't do it at the time - which I also doubt, or you could mention examples of why its supposedly "not so hard". The fights aren't "harder" than today, but I bet with most of the bosses you wouldn't be able to have a lfr group there if the same went there back then.
"Only Jack can zip up."
The word you want to use is "have" not "of".
You may have alot of stuff in your country, but we got Lolland.
"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon
FC: 3437-3046-3552
Placing words into peoples mouths again. It's exactly what I said except the way people interpret it is the way they want to see it. These people remind me the reason to stay away from WoW. So I have to thank you.
I said that the people that are on my side have quit the game and the game is going into a horrible state with people that don't see the game for what it really was. The community was better but obviously people want to derail the argument into game design because they can't win the battle. Obviously the game has improved since 8 years ago.
But the things that have been added have damaged the game in a negative way that encourages playing solo and bashing other players that they will never see again.
Most of the guilds that raid would fit into your description, my own included. And WoW has a big emphasis on playing with friends, the game is way better played in a group. Blizzard just realised it's stupid economical to force people into that. You should maybe try Rift, but even Trion has to cave to the community at some point.
And to the community feeling: I played with about 15-20 people srlsy in vanilla wow (out of 60 players in raid, and about 100 in guild), we did PvP, sometimes leveling alts together, 5/10/15m dungeons, 20m raids. I knew the people on my server around me as good as I know them today, you know the nice people from different guilds, you know most of the biggest dicks, and most of the rest is backround noice. You know how it is today in MoP? The same, holy shit! (And I changed server and faction in between vanilla and MoP) I still play with my grouop of 15-20 people, the only difference, we now do dailies together too
Maybe the game didn't change the community that much, but the community changed itself. When people say "my guild/raid disbanded because of LFR" than that's true, but only because the players in that raid maybe didn't want to play in a raid and LFR is way more fitting their idea of fun in this game than a 10/25 organized raid. But then it's not true too in the same sense, as a raid that disbanded because of LFR wasn't a good raid to begin with (not on a community level, but on a "why do I raid" per player basis).
And another thing in your post is wrong: In vanilla you didn't need to have friends to see the game, the only difference from then to today isn't that you now don't need friends, the difference is, today they see the game. Back in vanilla they just never have seen it. (Maybe Naxxramas from below) And the people that "were" forced to get into a guild/raid to enjoy the game, jumped ship as soon as it wasn't necessary anymore.
TBC has a few of the worst mishappens in WoW in it, I agree. Lorewise it was a huge retcon/crapfest of all different parts of WoW. Gameplay wise the balance was of the scale (not as much as vanilla but close) and raidwise it was annoying at best. I loved Outland/draenor though, after I survived the initial shock of lorerape.
the positives outweigh the negatives and it also doesnt help your case AT ALL when the majority of your complaints are about how its too easy or "too casual" when that IS EXACTLY WHY WOW GOT POPULAR IN THE FIRST PLACE.
the industry has changed what was considered easy and casual back then is now regaled as hardcore and grindy when in fact it was nothing of the sort when compared to games like everquest. as the meaning of easy and casual changed and things that were once commonplace begin to seem out of place and inconvenient blizzard changed to suit the new environment.
in vanilla wow was the easiest and most casual compared to its main competition everquest. it is the same for wow now in mists and by just looking at the subscription numbers of games like everquest and rift its easy to tell which flavor the majority likes most.
whether you prefer either flavor is an opinion but to say anythings changed in the fundamental way wow works is idiotic when you consider exactly why and how wow got popular in the first place
"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon
FC: 3437-3046-3552
To suggest the community is any thing like what is was in the past is farical.
Now days you can play this game as a single player with no guild/friends and see all the content. Now days you can act like a dick with no come back or server rep to worry about.
No, his wording was pretty smart. Becuase most people that didn't quit and play since vanilla (like you and me) don't agree with him, and the people that played since then and quit, don't really post. (I mean, why would someone post about a game he left behind, that's just stupid. I don't go to Q3 and HLmods/CS communities and post about times long gone, I left it behind long ago)
They are not giving content for everyone, they are bottlenecking people into the daily system. They are giving almost no content for those that like to run dungeons.
And its not about HAVING to do everything, its about Blizzard over rewarding a single system to sheep everyone into it, those of us that realize that are upset.
And since doing dailies is a lto cheaper and easier than dungeons, Blizzard says they can do more content, which is a lie.
They are giving us less content and telling people its more.
There is no community. Nobody cares about each other. People barely remember your name. At least when people had focused on one character people heard rumors about that Kangodo guy and they heard he killed C'thun or he ninja'd Onyxia's Lair in his guild run.
They at least acknowledged ones existence. The game didn't force anyone to act any way. It was because people knew they would have a bad reputation on the server so they didn't act like a fake twat arse or ninja someone's gear. It was very rare that someone would do such things. Now it's a standard.
The game is stopping the social behavior not people. The game encourages anti social behavior.
key word is YOU "CAN" not you have to. anyone acting like a dick in this game is doing so because, you guessed it, they are a dick.
just because someone wanting to raid back in the day had to PRETEND not to be a dick or get blacklisted didnt mean they werent a dick the lfg and lfr didnt suddenly turn people into dicks with a magic dick machine they were just dicks being dicks O-O
"I was a normal baby for 30 seconds, then ninjas stole my mamma" - Deadpool
"so what do we do?" "well jack, you stand there and say 'gee rocket raccoon I'm so glad you brought that Unfeasibly large cannon with you..' and i go like this BRAKKA BRAKKA BRAKKA" - Rocket Raccoon
FC: 3437-3046-3552
The game was better when....
The playerbase wasnt a pack of whiny crybabies, whos only purpose is to complain about how bad the game is.
Why are you saying my arguments are about it being easy? What are you talking about? It did change in the fundamental way it is a COD replica after all. It's all bad in terms of raid progression and actually working to achieve a common goal. People want things now. It's just like COD you are as casual as you can possibly get but you don't do anything to reek the rewards.
What ever happened to actually feeling like an mmorpg rather than a game that you pick up play casually like farm vill on facebook?
Again, read my post. Yes, if you do the list MoP is going to win, because they are doing cheap, easy to do and dull stuff like dailies. All the dailies in MoP are as hard to do as one dungeon.
Scenarios? They are nothing more than group quests.
Pet battle? They didnt even had to think about it, just copy what pokemon had (and i am not talking down to pet battles, i actually like them).
But you see, they gave us less dungeons than any other expansion in return.
So they are not giving us more for everyone, they are giving more for the sheeps that like being told to do dailies and scenarios and less for the dungeon crawlers that have been playing wow and doing dungeons since vanilla.
---------- Post added 2012-12-30 at 03:50 PM ----------
Ah, yes, there is no community now... and TBC had a community?
You mean the community that stole raiders from other guilds just because they were too LAZY to re attune and re gear new recruits?
That community? Yeah, keep it, i prefer Wrath/Cata and even MoP one than the community of robbers that TBC had.
Last edited by Crashdummy; 2012-12-30 at 06:51 PM.
What are you talking about. When I saw someone with Atiesh or double Warglaives I still remember their name today. They acted the way they were suppose to act. They acted themselves. They didn't act with a fake personality to boost their self esteem.
I was giving an example of a tight knit community not about knowing people on your realm. BTW what's wrong with knowing people on your realm? Isn't that what made the game great?
It was free for all back then, so now you know what I'm talking about. You might as well switch to you and to me around since if someone has read what you wrote from the beginning you would be a hypocrite.