Am I the only one who hates our feelings of Nostalgia?

[FattGuy]

I got to be honest. Every time I level a new character, each time I solo a raid that I did back in the past, or whenever I listen to the music of the past WoW, I seriously get a nostalgia overload. To the point where it actually starts to hurt my head. It actually legitimately annoys me that I feel this. I hate being stuck in the past, trying to recapture certain feelings that are just impossible to replicate, no matter how I try. I don't know what chemicals occur in my head but I wonder if I am the only one. I ask this on this forum specifically because I know some people here never shut up about wanting this game back to its Vanilla/TBC/Wrath/Cata/ " " days.

How do you guys handle your emotions of nostalgia? Are you annoyed of it like myself or embrace it?

[Independent voter]

Nostalgia doesn't bother me that way. I kind of like it. Sometimes it reminds me of people I used to play with who are long gone, I guess that's kind of a bummer, but mostly I remember the good things.

[wych]

Not really, just don't let your nostalgia control you.


I just think back and think to myself "ah they were great times" and move on with my day

[TheWindWalker]

I have serious trouble replaying games I've played before. Particularly the vertible mountain of JRPGs from the 95-2005 range. I recently picked up Super Scribblenauts, deleted all the profiles, and started fresh. I knew all the puzzles.

The human brain is annoying like that. I have severe memory problems but I know how to solve a puzzle or optimize a playthrough I've done before.

[Darsithis]

I do it on purpose to feel those times again. I am leveling a second mage, a night elf, so I can enjoy the days once more. Sad part is I can't do it exactly as I did then since Cataclysm completely changed the night elf experience.

[Shmazard]

Ironforge music in my case is super nostalgic, from spending so much time there during vanilla, also pretty much any Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms zone really....

[Pachycrocuta]

I actually like the nostalgia, and most things are still as good as I remember (though there are things that are terrible, but those are few). I purposely go back to games and do another playthrough. Unfortunately, like Darsithis said, with WoW that is practically impossible at least until you reach level 58 and head through the Dark Portal.

Nostalgia is a strong marketing tool. Many companies realize this, which is why they bring back old things to make them new (or even just rerelease the old things). Blizzard destroyed that marketing tool when they removed the old 1-60. You cannot truly experience that nostalgia from 5+ years previous because you cannot replay it. I think it hurt the game when they did that. I know it made leveling alts atrocious for me, and I absolutely hate doing it. Almost tempting to try out a private server just to be able to relive that nostalgia.

I don't experience the headaches like you, OP. Unless I really start the focus on not being able to experience the old.

[Doctor]

"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice -- there are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia. When you compute the length of time between The Event and The Nostalgia for The Event, the span seems to be about a year less in each cycle. Eventually within the next quarter of a century, the nostalgia cycles will be so close together that people will not be able to take a step without being nostalgic for the one they just took. At that point, everything stops. Death by Nostalgia." --Frank Zappa, 1989

[Pizzakid2093]

the biggest shame is what Cata did to the old world. I can never go chill in a lot of my favorite places ever again

[Sledfang]

I got to be honest. Every time I level a new character, each time I solo a raid that I did back in the past, or whenever I listen to the music of the past WoW, I seriously get a nostalgia overload. To the point where it actually starts to hurt my head. It actually legitimately annoys me that I feel this. I hate being stuck in the past, trying to recapture certain feelings that are just impossible to replicate, no matter how I try. I don't know what chemicals occur in my head but I wonder if I am the only one. I ask this on this forum specifically because I know some people here never shut up about wanting this game back to its Vanilla/TBC/Wrath/Cata/ " " days.

How do you guys handle your emotions of nostalgia? Are you annoyed of it like myself or embrace it?

Hating nostalgia doesnt make any sense.

Define Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

If something about the past affects your current experience in a negative way, its no longer purely nostalgia.

[Wazooty]

the biggest shame is what Cata did to the old world. I can never go chill in a lot of my favorite places ever again

Pretty much this. While it pretty much had to change since it served no major purpose besides leveling to the "real" content, and we weren't "living" in it any longer, as it were.

That said, I wish they let us choose which version of the old world we used.

[TheWindWalker]

If something about the past affects your current experience in a negative way, its no longer nostalgia.

Emotions are a bit more complicated than that. Ask someone who desperately loved someone who, in turn, broke up with them how they feel when they instinctively remember a good time with that person.

[Jokerfiend]

I got to be honest. Every time I level a new character, each time I solo a raid that I did back in the past, or whenever I listen to the music of the past WoW, I seriously get a nostalgia overload. To the point where it actually starts to hurt my head. It actually legitimately annoys me that I feel this. I hate being stuck in the past, trying to recapture certain feelings that are just impossible to replicate, no matter how I try. I don't know what chemicals occur in my head but I wonder if I am the only one. I ask this on this forum specifically because I know some people here never shut up about wanting this game back to its Vanilla/TBC/Wrath/Cata/ " " days.

How do you guys handle your emotions of nostalgia? Are you annoyed of it like myself or embrace it?

I just posted something similar last night. I'm completely annoyed.

This is why certain drugs are so dangerous. Imagine having that feeling every waking day. Every time you go into a grocery store. Pass by a liquor store. Smell a cigarette being lit. Pain medicine on the counter. Every time you log in....

That feeling of trying to recapture some experience is haunting. It's downright deadly for some, and damning for others. Or even worse, not even HAVING nostalgia and being constantly addicted to something you can't stop. Trapped.

I can tell you one thing though, and it's evident. WoW WAS such an awesome game, that it honestly became and made addicting. Sure it happens to some, even now but, the shear epicness of the game attests to it nostalgic masses.

I have come to the conclusion; that if the game wasn't that awesome back in 04. Then I wouldn't feel this way now. Very few things get that "feeling" from me anymore. Because once that well is tapped it ruins you in a way. The innocence of budding addiction and it's terrible aftermath. I hate it every day.

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Ironforge music in my case is super nostalgic, from spending so much time there during vanilla, also pretty much any Kalimdor/Eastern Kingdoms zone really....

Right in the feels about IF music.

[Seezer]

I got to be honest. Every time I level a new character, each time I solo a raid that I did back in the past, or whenever I listen to the music of the past WoW, I seriously get a nostalgia overload. To the point where it actually starts to hurt my head. It actually legitimately annoys me that I feel this. I hate being stuck in the past, trying to recapture certain feelings that are just impossible to replicate, no matter how I try. I don't know what chemicals occur in my head but I wonder if I am the only one. I ask this on this forum specifically because I know some people here never shut up about wanting this game back to its Vanilla/TBC/Wrath/Cata/ " " days.

How do you guys handle your emotions of nostalgia? Are you annoyed of it like myself or embrace it?

When it hits me is anytime I talk to an undead guard or something like that.

"What do you require?

"What do you ask of Death?"

"Speak quickly"

My undead lock was my first toon and I spent alot of time in Tirisfal Glades noobin it up. So anytime I hear that it takes me right back. I like it though.

[RickJamesLich]

No need to be mad thinking about the times you had a ton of fun with the game lol. I think for a lot of people the BC and vanilla days were times that they never raided and couldn't get into PUGs and they are amazed when they find out about people that were actually able to do it like.... "wha? you got into groups and didn't have to hit the queue button?"

[Jokerfiend]

No need to be mad thinking about the times you had a ton of fun with the game lol. I think for a lot of people the BC and vanilla days were times that they never raided and couldn't get into PUGs and they are amazed when they find out about people that were actually able to do it like.... "wha? you got into groups and didn't have to hit the queue button?"

What funny to me, is that back then. I had NO problems getting groups for anything. Now, I can't make friends and guildies that stick. No one seems to want to do ANYTHING but reroll alts and progression raid then log off.

[Stormspark]

I had my monk flying all around Northrend last week to get up mats (finally) for Jeeves. I got serious nostalgia overload when I was flying through Howling Fjord (that was the first zone I ever did in Northrend on my main). Lots of memories! It's not a bad thing definitely. It doesn't hit me all the time, just in certain places. HF definitely does that to me. BT and Dragonblight don't at all. Grizzly Hills does a little. Outland...well the only Outland zones that have given me any sort of nostalgia are Blade's Edge and Nagrand. No more nostalgia from classic zones since they were redone in Cata.

Oh, and I get some nostalgia from Vashj'ir too. I loved that zone. I'm sure Jade Forest and Kun-Lai will give me nostalgia in the years to come too.

[wych]

I do it on purpose to feel those times again. I am leveling a second mage, a night elf, so I can enjoy the days once more. Sad part is I can't do it exactly as I did then since Cataclysm completely changed the night elf experience.

My night elf leveling experience consisted of corpse running my way across Wetlands to Ironforge before going to Westfall from Stormwind after taking the tram.

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What funny to me, is that back then. I had NO problems getting groups for anything. Now, I can't make friends and guildies that stick. No one seems to want to do ANYTHING but reroll alts and progression raid then log off.

Yeah I think the online gaming community has REALLY changed in the last 6-8 years. People don't want to play with others as much now, they want to log on, do things as quick as possible and then log off with minimum effort.


I couldn't imagine the community that used to exist ever existing in a game again.

[Apexis]

When I do old stuff or level a character, I just remember what they meant to me at those times and the people that I got to enjoy them with. I do not ever look at them as periods or places I want to return to now or in the future. The game as it is today has made a lot of refinement over the last 10 years. Some of them were needed or necessary to make the game better or at bit more tolerable to play on the massive scale it is. Some on the other hand has adverse effect on both the game and the community as a whole. One example; they killed the guild structure they had when they put in the whole guild leveling system. Many of the perks were nice, but the came with a cost and now they are gone. In the dust is left crap as per usual it will take long time to get some order back into the structure.

I handle emotions of nostalgia, by leaving them where they were and not hoping for them to come back, because you can never relive what has already in the past, because it is in the past. I keep myself rooted in the here and now and make new friend and new nostalgia with those people to remember in future parts of the game.

Being in beta for the first time in this game has given me a sense that Blizzard has done everything to capture the best part of this game and add a modern twist with an updated tech to go with it. For the first time in a very long time, the world feels alive and breathing. The content and the zones are both engaging and dynamic at the same time. The only other time in this game I felt the same way was Lich King and this surpass that by leaps and bound in my opinion. The sense of accomplishment and the rewarding nature of the content make for a very compelling series of events to come.

I barely made a dent in the content, simply because I do not want to see and do it all in beta, I want to at least leave some surprises for launch. For what I have done, which has been plenty over the last couple weeks. I am completely sold on this game going forward. From what I have been reading since last year Blizzcon is nothing close to what I have experienced playing in beta.

I was pro flying up to the very day I got into beta, now I do not even miss it. That is how engaging the content feels to me. I would say made in a couple patches or when they get close to the next expansion they could bring it back. I simply find it more fun to try to get to the various treasures on the map, by trying to figure out away to get to them. As some on that plays a lot of alts, I was concern the game was going to be a drag in the regard, I don't see it being that way. This was the only reason I was hell bent on flying in the first place. I simply was looking at having to play the game through the prism of playing alts and the impact of travel would be on being able to play them efficiently. Sure, I would like to fly at cap, but I can see the points many have been making over the course of this process about not flying as well.

Nostalgia is good, but it has its place. In the past where it belongs.

[Marema]

I only get nostalgic about real life stuff. Not video games. Vanilla and all that was fun at the time, but that time is over and I'm over it.