The WOW Nostalgia myth and Casual Player junk

[Gaidax]

They had the most content. You have to be kidding.

Such as?

Bland areas filled with "bring 20 rat asses" quests that awarded you with tiny portion of experience? Or maybe dungeons located in the middle of nowhere that consisted of nothing but auto-attacking mobs and bosses with 1 or 2 abilities? Or maybe PvP which was literally a carrot on a stick grindfest with only couple of farmed battlegrounds?

What kind of amazing content did they have which was actually a real content and not a thinly veiled daily grind of the same shit in hopes of eventually getting something out of it?

Heck, if you would compare WoD to Vanilla, then it would almost be a joke how empty vanilla really was. You had literally huge areas empty with absolutely nothing interesting in them.

All it had was grind and time sinks in everything you did, so you had this feeling of doing something "meaningful", even if it was just sitting and grinding your ass off in Winterspring for gold or spamming trade for half an hour in hopes of assembling group for a dungeon and then having to get there and sit in it for another hour in hopes nobody bails. PvP was just as bad with things like some AV games lasting for literally days of tug of war and Raids which were propped up but utterly ridiculous corpse runs in most of the cases.

So yeah you could sit in WoW for hours... and in reality those were hours wasted on meaningless shit.

[solarfallz]

As someone who has an active WoD account, but instead opts to play a certain popular private vanilla server, despite it having over twice the latency for me (as well as a slew of non-blizzard bugs), I can say with certainty that it is not nostalgia.

The game experienced NON-STOP growth in in the first 2 iterations of the game. It wasn't until Wrath that the game had its very first overall loss of subs. Almost everyone that I knew on my (launch day) server stopped playing in Wrath. Anyone who put a lot of time into the game will probably recognize Wrath (to a lesser degree, the final patch of BC) as the major turning point in the WoW design philosophy in many ways. I could elaborate on these changes for pages and pages if someone wanted me to.

I think it's safe to say that while many people do enjoy the new design, the old was also well-loved, perhaps by even more players, which is why we find, as I mentioned before, Wrath was the end of playerbase growth. It stopped in Wrath and never started again. Part of this is attributable to the fact that the game simply got old, but it is undeniable that many players DID in fact enjoy the old design more than the modern design, and I am one of them.

[Televators]

WoW was never a grindfest. The leveling on this game was fast as hell from day one--at least if you played MMOs other than WoW.

[solarfallz]

Like what?

Like a plethora dungeons that were long and dangerous.
Like 6 raids in vanilla alone, not even counting BRS or Ony or the many world bosses.
Like enemies all over the world that were actually dangerous and dropped valuable items for crafting.
Like quests that encouraged exploration, occasionally even with VERY unique rewards (like skull of impending doom), rather than being linear and story-driven.
Like FUN.

[Deleted]

Like what?

Zones, quests, dungeons, raids? Wrath of the Lich King wins the most zones and quests, but everything else, TBC and Vanilla.

- - - Updated - - -

Such as?

Bland areas filled with "bring 20 rat asses" quests that awarded you with tiny portion of experience? Or maybe dungeons located in the middle of nowhere that consisted of nothing but auto-attacking mobs and bosses with 1 or 2 abilities? Or maybe PvP which was literally a carrot on a stick grindfest with only couple of farmed battlegrounds?

What kind of amazing content did they have which was actually a real content and not a thinly veiled daily grind of the same shit in hopes of eventually getting something out of it?

Heck, if you would compare WoD to Vanilla, then it would almost be a joke how empty vanilla really was. You had literally huge areas empty with absolutely nothing interesting in them.

All it had was grind and time sinks in everything you did, so you had this feeling of doing something "meaningful", even if it was just sitting and grinding your ass off in Winterspring for gold or spamming trade for half an hour in hopes of assembling group for a dungeon and then having to get there and sit in it for another hour in hopes nobody bails. PvP was just as bad with things like some AV games lasting for literally days of tug of war and Raids which were propped up but utterly ridiculous corpse runs in most of the cases.

So yeah you could sit in WoW for hours... and in reality those were hours wasted on meaningless shit.

What?

I mean... what?

[Gaidax]

Is that your answer? You clearly have no idea... Did you even play in Vanilla?

[Gadzooks]

Like what?

How can you even ask this? Do you think TBC and vanilla were just empty cubes with raid portals? Vanilla had a massive amount of content, to level people from 1-60, plus all the professions and reps and dungeons. TBC built on that, adding a new profession, expanding the existing ones, added two new classes and leveling zones, content to level to 70, and organized PvP, flying, dailies in Ogril'a and Netherwing, and had a massive amount of attunements to level - plus Karazhan, the first puggable raids.

Seriously, are you denying that they had content, just to try and win a useless argument?

[philefluxx]

I really feel whats hurt the game and numbers is more about the degradation of social aspects, which I believe were also unintentional but a result of attempting to open up content to more players.

What I miss about Vanilla and BC the most was server communities and guilds. Wrath brought LFD which altered the social aspect but still kept the larger group content personal. You could argue that LFR ruined that part, but it I think it still left 75% of the social aspect intact. It wasn't until flex raiding x server using the new "poster board" LFG system that really killed it in my opinion. I am not sure when that all happened as I missed pretty much all of MoP. But I can say I felt its results in WoD when coming back and building a new guild where after 2 months we could not find any new members. I believe this is due to the fact that guilds were no longer needed, not even required at this point, but just plain not needed to get into successful raids and see the content at any time. Add in Garrisons keeping players in their own instance and any social aspect that was left disappeared. Mythic difficulty seemed to be the answer for keeping guilds relevant, but at the same time not everyone is interested in Mythic difficulty, so I think that was a shortsighted answer that did not work as intended.

I believe a lot of you have very valid points as to why things are where they are, but I believe the glue that keeps this all together, the MMO in MMORPG, is really about keeping social aspects in the game relevant and a focal point to success.

I came back this month, I'm thinking about unsubbing already. I don't have any RL friends who want to play right now and I cant seem to really meet any new friends. I am seeing content, I am accomplishing goals, but I have no one to share the experience with.

[clevin]

Flame away.

Ok... You so lack self-awareness that you say it would be a mistake to go back to a time when

I had never experienced an online world so vast, so rich, so full of lore and history.

That alone means you should be ignored.

[Nurvus]

The casual player people hate so much in forums does NOT exist.

A casual player is nothing more nothing less than a player that can't or isn't willing to commit to schedules and or specific activities, and just want to have fun.

The idea that "casuals" want handouts and are against any sort of challenge is obnoxious, self-centered, pure stupidity.

If the game is WELL designed, every kind of player will go nuts with enjoyment, even if it includes lots of focus on end game.

Players that have difficulty accessing end game will complain if the non-end game sucks.
In Vanilla and TBC no one complained like this because there was lots to do, and new players spent months of fun leveling their characters.

Blizzard has been speeding up leveling without speeding up content availability.

[Pull My Finger]

They had the most content. You have to be kidding.

Ah yes, it's Slavoj Zizek with his radical poststructuralism again, turning everything upside down and talking crazy stuff.

[Deleted]

Is that your answer? You clearly have no idea... Did you even play in Vanilla?

Yes that is my answer. My keyboard doesn't allow me to type any more, because it wants to protect my heart and my brain.

No, I didn't play during Vanilla, as I've said earlier. Nonetheless, I know the zones, quests, dungeons and raids, because when I started in TBC, lo and behold, those zones, quests, dungeons and raids were still in there.

What you wrote is just dribble. It's so retarded I don't even know where to start.

Zones weren't empty in any way. Kill 10 [random mob] quests exist still today, and even back then there were different types of quests. Kill quests, fetch quests, escort quests etc. Yes, even back then, you had quests where you took an item, went somewhere, and then used it on things. One quest back then you had to escort a dude to Ashenvale and blow a horn to wake him up whenever he fell asleep. Quests haven't changed that radically, we still do the same things today that we did back then. Kill quests, fetch quests, escort quests. Click on things and kill things. The only thing I think Vanilla didn't have were fly over and drop bomb quests, those were added in TBC and quests where you were taking over another person, like Illidan vs. Arthas in Icecrown.

Some dungeon bosses and raid bosses didn't have a lot of abilities, however even Molten Core had some bosses with interesting mechanics, that I bet you, the average WoW player today would miserably fail at. Just look at the 10th anniversary Molten Core. And that wasn't even close to the experience it was back then, yet players failed miserably. In addition to that, we had things like threat that we needed to pay attention to, and CC that needed to be applied. Faceroll LFR can't hold a candle to that.

In essence there existed the same kind of content back then as there is now. Some things became more complex, no doubt about that. Some things were also trivialized horribly.

However none of that even matters, because we weren't talking about whether it was better or harder. We were talking about quantity. And there was simply more content back then. And if you think that's not true, look at this.



And this doesn't even include Vanilla, because Vanilla has so much content, no expansion could ever compete.

Dungeons, zones, raids and quests. Vanilla, TBC and Wrath simply had the most. Fact.

[Caliph]

No matter what any of you say it was/is the special snow flake raiders who caused much of this crap. Always whining about things so blizzard made everyone into this utopian "all equal" non sense. the fact is the game was fine for casuals but the raiders always demanded more and more and castigated anyone who didn't adhere to their "worth". Even in TBC there were loads of people making fun of others because they didn't finish the "attunements" quick enough. The elitists' self worth brought us to this crap.

Blizzard should've just kept to the 2 year window and added tiers. They destroyed the levelling world where many casuals or loners lived so everyone can get to the raiding game despite the raiding game being outside many players reach (real life, desire, skill, time). so they kept on nerfing the world to make things easy so everyone can see such and such non sense raid. Tying everything from story, to loot, to prestige to such a stupid thing is what brings us to where we are now. There was no reason to destroy everything outside raids except to make everybody feel as "important" as a worthless elitist raider.

I've raided everything up to heroic Arthas and then heroic from there. outside the raids there's nothing left to do and the raids are the same shit over and over. Not interested anymore.

[Nurvus]

No matter what any of you say it was/is the special snow flake raiders who caused much of this crap. Always whining about things so blizzard made everyone into this utopian "all equal" non sense. the fact is the game was fine for casuals but the raiders always demanded more and more and castigated anyone who didn't adhere to their "worth". Even in TBC there were loads of people making fun of others because they didn't finish the "attunements" quick enough. The elitists' self worth brought us to this crap.

Blizzard should've just kept to the 2 year window and added tiers. They destroyed the levelling world where many casuals or loners lived so everyone can get to the raiding game despite the raiding game being outside many players reach (real life, desire, skill, time). so they kept on nerfing the world to make things easy so everyone can see such and such non sense raid. Tying everything from story, to loot, to prestige to such a stupid thing is what brings us to where we are now. There was no reason to destroy everything outside raids except to make everybody feel as "important" as a worthless elitist raider.

I've raided everything up to heroic Arthas and then heroic from there. outside the raids there's nothing left to do and the raids are the same shit over and over. Not interested anymore.

I actually agree with most of this.

[zOObie]

I played Vanilla WoW and raided all the way up until the end of Wrath.

I started playing on a private vanilla server.

It's the best MMO experience I've had in almost 11 years.

EDIT: It's also good to note that I've been playing for months on there. And the so-called "nostalgia trip" hasn't worn off yet.

- - - Updated - - -

Most people who play WoW now were probably in kindergarten and pre-school when I was raiding MC/Onyxia.

Those people have grown up in an era of ultra-casualization of gaming in general, seeing as gaming has gotten "maintstream" as a whole.

[Deleted]

I played Vanilla WoW and raided all the way up until the end of Wrath.

I started playing on a private vanilla server.

It's the best MMO experience I've had in almost 11 years.

EDIT: It's also good to note that I've been playing for months on there. And the so-called "nostalgia trip" hasn't worn off yet.

- - - Updated - - -

Most people who play WoW now were probably in kindergarten and pre-school when I was raiding MC/Onyxia.

Those people have grown up in an era of ultra-casualization of gaming in general, seeing as gaming has gotten "maintstream" as a whole.

I'm having the same experience with the Vanilla server I'm on.

[zOObie]

Vanilla WoW actually felt like a real adventure while leveling up with thousands of like-minded individuals across a giant world. A dangerous place where actually talking to other players was required for some quests.

World PvP happened. Servers developed their own communities and people formed rivalries. PvP was personal.

Guilds had rivalries for a thing called "server firsts".

You actually had to work for things. Getting level 60 was an achievement on it's own. Epics were actually epic.

Working for anything in WoW doesn't seem what the main audience of WoW wants. Stats, skills, and rotations have finally been simplified to reduce any iota of thought involved. Maybe the expansion after Legion will remove all stats altogether and gear will just have "+X Character Power" on it to further reduce any thought involved.

It was great. I'm really looking forward for Blackwing Lair's release on the private server.

[RickJamesLich]

Umm... those same casuals paid the bills back in WoW lol. As for it being fun or not, it depends on if you like MMO's. If you like a social experience, a challenge, and some form of immersion, you'll like vanilla, if you like just solo'ing stuff, getting to beat the game easy, etc. then you'll probably like retail. I started on day one too, literally. It was fun and yes there was grinding, guess what, there still is lol. Only now you grind out of boredom for cosmetic stuff because there's no real items that can advance your character that you grind for outside of raiding.

- - - Updated - - -

Like what?

Um.... BRD pretty much had more depth then all of the WoD 5 mans combined lol.

[HeedmySpeed]

LFR was designed for people who couldn't sacrifice set in stone hours a week from their life to play WoW and raid. So that means they could say "hey kids and wife I gotta raid mon-wed 7pm-10/11pm". They wanted to see the content that was created. If you think about it they have a good point. Raiding isn't some gift given only to the best. My god I guarantee you have people in your raid group that are worse than some peopel in LFR. Guarantee it. Some people just can't find the time to raid so that is why it was designed.

What part of that means that LFR needed to pose little to no challenge? And before LFR, there was "pugging" which didn't demand "set in stone hours."
There was no reason it couldn't have been a group finder for Normal modes if THAT is the reason you're going with.
Unless... the real reason is just to simply lower the bar for everyone who just can't or won't L2P.
Let's just be honest, ok?

Now when you do this and see the content it also brings up the fact of loot. How can you kill a boss and not get loot? So they added loot that wasn't on par with regular raiding but wasn't terribly far behind so that you COULD start raiding with a guild if you chose to do that later on down the road when your life opened up a bit more time for you.

Then what are Heroic dungeons for if not to gear you to prepare for raids?
"How can you kill a boss and not get loot?"
Why does that loot have to be tier gear? Why does it have to be better than Heroic gear if you're less accountable?

This game needs a way to keep players playing and unfortunately, you can't make content fast enough on a "casual" schedule if they MUST/NEED/WANT to complete something in half hour time frames. No one likes monotonous grinds, no one likes bland boring tasks.

Effort in = reward out. That's the key of longevity.

[Bapestar]

Do you actually understand the original reason for Blizzard putting LFR into the game? It doesn't seem like you do at all man. It's ok i'll try to help.

LFR was designed for people who couldn't sacrifice set in stone hours a week from their life to play WoW and raid. So that means they could say "hey kids and wife I gotta raid mon-wed 7pm-10/11pm". They wanted to see the content that was created. If you think about it they have a good point. Raiding isn't some gift given only to the best. My god I guarantee you have people in your raid group that are worse than some peopel in LFR. Guarantee it. Some people just can't find the time to raid so that is why it was designed.

Now when you do this and see the content it also brings up the fact of loot. How can you kill a boss and not get loot? So they added loot that wasn't on par with regular raiding but wasn't terribly far behind so that you COULD start raiding with a guild if you chose to do that later on down the road when your life opened up a bit more time for you.

Please stop lying lol. You don't have to have a set raid schedule or have no life in order to raid and play wow. I guarantee that everyone in my guild is better than you LFR Heroes. With the Premade LFG tool, that is no longer a valid excuse. You have so much more flexibility to choose when and how long you raid with PGF. If all you care about is clearing normal mode, that is totally doable within a short time.