Vanilla wás hard. Anyone saying that it wasn't, did not play in Vanilla or had massive experience in other mmo's before.
WoW is my first mmo and almost my first pc game. Warcraft III was my first. I was a veteran on Atari/NES/SNES/Playstation 1 and 2 before that period.
I am now 34 years old.
Why do I feel that Vanilla was hard?
- it was new to many people (the mmo genre which included raids)
- the massive grind to be prepared to actually raid (BiS blue items/food/potions/flasks/elixirs/scrolls/tubers/enchants/Resistgear)
- the lack of decent skills in your spellbook
This last one here is very important. People who either played Vanilla forget this easily it seems. And people who did not play Vanilla assume that the skills and talents they have now are the same or about the same as they have now. Which could not be further from the truth.
And then we have skills that almost no one ever used. Personally speaking, I tought myself to learn how to Blessing of Protection (it was called a Blessing indeed not Hand) or Blessing of Salvation or even Blessing of Sacrifice until Karazhan. Sure I popped it here and there but I did not really see way to properly cast it at the right time. There were hardly afaik any addons that told me who had agro. There were agro addons (meters) but they weren't 100%. Also people who overagroed, were looked badly upon. Atleast this was so in my first guild I joined. This meant that people made damn sure they never overagroed. After Vanilla I made my own and wanted people to overagro so I could pop Blessing of Protection/Salvation/Sacrifice a lot more = more dps on the boss/trash and/or better tanks
- not sure this formula would have worked in Vanilla though.
to continue my list
- idiotic short Blessing of Wisdom/Might/Kings timers (5 min - and you had to cast it per person in the raid = 40x, which took about 2 minutes = 3 minutes of play time and then redo the 40x again)
- idiotic long cooldowns on save mechanics like Lay on Hands or Divine Intervention (1 hour cooldown) which meant you never used them because "what if X happens next?"
- mobs in dungeons/raids were set so that once you killed a pack, you could not really move forward a lot without pulling yet another pack, especially in 5 mans
This made Vanilla harder a lot.
It was also harder to make a group then we do now. People on these boards yell left and right that it was horrid. I never had any issues making a group whatsoever. Probably because I was in a very decent guild. Which had a reputation for success in dungeons/raids. Which meant people wanted to join because they knew it would be succesful. And how did they know it would be successful? Because they saw people with extraordinary gear in Iron Forge. Or they had a friend who went in before with that guild. Word of Mouth was very powerful back then. So I guess you had a hard time only if you were in an asshole guild (those existed too) or you did not join a guild or keep track on what guild was successful on your server. You probably did not take the effort to grind for a key for UBRS did you? A key usually meant instant invite for such dungeons. I know it was hard to get that key (especially without any knowledge base), but those are ways to get yourself in the spotlight to get an easy invite.
I loved making groups. And due to the long adventure in those dungeons you easily made friends, unless you were an asshole.
On my server you had your:
- proper guilds
- your asshole guilds
- your immature guilds
- elite guilds (I did not say elitist)
- social guilds who liked having a laugh and did not care if you came to the raid with all your gear red.
Bottom line is that there were groups basically for everyone. And you sorta had a stigma if you wore guildtag X. If you had X other people knew what sort of person you probably are, and could avoid or befriend you more efficiently.
Atleast this is how it went down according to my EXPERIENCE. My experience could differ from yours but that does not make it less true.
To come back on how hard it was. Mechanic wise it was not hard, at all. But it was hard vs the spellbook we had - vs the gear/stats we got. People do not realise that there were no 500.000 hp tanks running around. There were tanks who had 4.000/12.000 and could get ONESHOTTED by a boss if they weren't careful of the stars aligned and got a crushing blow or a massive crit. Tanks were not as invincible as they are now. In Vanilla it wás hard to hold agro. It was not for nothing that people could start dpsing the moment there were 2/4 sunder armors on the boss. It was not for nothing that sometimes the tank would yell on TS/Vent to stop dps.
And people who have played Vanilla did not play Naxx 40. If you do not wish to understand or accept that it was hard, you can atleast agree that Naxx 40 was hard as fuck. It was so hard that even people in tier 6 in TBC would have serious issues getting it cleared. Sure Naxx 40 was the raid almost no one saw. But I saw it and I was actually affraid to go inthere. I knew it would be very very hard and based on a lot of random stuff/luck if you will and perfect timing of skills.
Anyway this was my 2 cents. I am not saying that we should go back to Vanilla. It would be insane to do so. If we ever went back to Vanilla or had a Vanilla like server. There had to be major changes to the way things were. Like those blessings and cooldowns and gear.