What made classic wow better than current?

[Demithio]

The only difference with today is that leveling was more of a part of the game in vanilla, since it was so slow. Which would't fly today, almost nobody wants to go through this chore on more characters for even more levels than back then.

Leveling and adventure were major parts of the game during Vanilla, and this continued through TBC and into Wotlk in some part. Currently leveling is almost an afterthought, more of a nuisance than anything to be done quickly as possible by design and in practice. There is a major fundamental difference between then and now in the way the game is approached. Back then the game was an adventure to be enjoyed and savored, now its purely about efficiency and number crunching. Two different mindsets and two different expectations, and in reality, two very different games as well.

[Evaddon]

Nothings wrong with WoW now, its really the playerbase and the players opinions and likes changing over time or the lack of accepting change. The community is nothing like it used to be in every aspect people don't talk to each other (So they blame Blizzard) People burn through content (so they blame Blizzard), people argue for change then get the change they ask for only to complain about it (They blame Blizzard for listening to the community) then when blizzard doesn't listen to the community, they again blame Blizzard.

To me there's a huge whole in the community filled with a lack of understanding, and reasoning that forces Blizzard to make choices left and right not all of them good, not all of them bad. In an ever changing environment this will ALWAYS happen. Especially with a community as entitled as ours seems to be, especially in an MMO, and the lack of understanding of why change is necessary is a huge problem for the community that they (The community) doesn't seem to grasp

[Demithio]

Nothings wrong with WoW now, its really the playerbase and the players opinions and likes changing over time or the lack of accepting change. The community is nothing like it used to be in every aspect people don't talk to each other (So they blame Blizzard) People burn through content (so they blame Blizzard), people argue for change then get the change they ask for only to complain about it (They blame Blizzard for listening to the community) then when blizzard doesn't listen to the community, they again blame Blizzard.

To me there's a huge whole in the community filled with a lack of understanding, and reasoning that forces blizzard to make choices left and right not all of them good, not all of them bad. In an ever changing environment this will ALWAYS happen. Especially with a community as entitled as ours seems to be, especially in an MMO, and the lack of understanding of why change is necessary is a huge problem for the community that they don't seem to grasp

People burn through content because they can burn through content. That's a product of design, and I will agree, also to an extent by the type of people that play WoW these days. As far as change is concerned , yes change is necessary to some degree, but not to such an extent that it changes the game fundamentally. I do not think the community plays as large a role as some people think regarding content development decisions. Whats happened to WoW's content and game play design over the last several years is largely a product of corporate development mindset, reducing time and cost of development, in which a certain percentage of the player base decided to be happy with. People adapted to WoW / TBC era, which is how it usually works, developer X creates a compelling and epic game which might be considered time consuming and challenging, but the player base adapts to the mechanics according to the developer's design decisions. However, this only occurs if the game is compelling to start with, and I think that's a huge part of current WoW's issue, its not nearly as compelling as it once was.

[Morssoe]

Nothings wrong with WoW now, its really the playerbase and the players opinions and likes changing over time or the lack of accepting change.

Players used to like wow, right? Something changed in game and they don't like it anymore.

It has to be players fault, you think?

[Deleted]

Vanilla wasn't about raids? What kind of PvE activity was there at max level then?

What does it matter when, according to Blizzard, the majority of players never even hit max level? The great strength of vanilla was that the game didn't just start at max level. For me vanilla PvE was 5-mans, and there was more than enough of content for me. I'm not saying vanilla was perfect, but the basic design suited a casual like me a lot better than the current WoW (which doesn't interest me at all).

[Lollis]

Also the gear differences werent that big.. for example in PvP, a fresh level 60 still had a chance against a fully T2 geared raider.

No, they really didn't unless the T2 player was trash. Certain classes could hold their own a little better, rogues for example, but there was still a giant gap between a fresh 60 and fully geared one.

[Demithio]

What does it matter when, according to Blizzard, the majority of players never even hit max level? The great strength of vanilla was that the game didn't just start at max level. For me vanilla PvE was 5-mans, and there was more than enough of content for me. I'm not saying vanilla was perfect, but the basic design suited a casual like me a lot better than the current WoW (which doesn't interest me at all).

I would say that I'm, at best, considered casual these days. I don't even play because I do not feel compelled by the game to do so. I have to agree, I would much rather have more involved, adventure-like game, than one that I almost instantly "win" at. I have much less time to play game in general these days, but I would rather have a quality experience even if I cant get all the "shinnies" due to my casualness and time constraints. And yes, Vanilla 5-mans were epic, and they really made the game. They were adventures for certain.

[zezel81]

This thread is what makes WoW worse. Too many opinions that contradict each other.

[Bigcountry11782]

Cancer post.

[Deleted]

No, they really didn't unless the T2 player was trash. Certain classes could hold their own a little better, rogues for example, but there was still a giant gap between a fresh 60 and fully geared one.

Well there are tons of videos about a naked Rogue with the beginner level 1 dagger stunlocking and killing fully geared people or mages kiting 4 players. So sure, you couldn't kill equally skilled players that outgeared you, but it was pretty easy to kill bad players even 1 vs 3 or more.

[Deleted]

If you only used sunder armor as a protection warrior you were beyond shit. Sunder armor is 4th on your priority of abilities with Shield Block, Revenge and Shield Slam being ahead of Sunder Armor.

https://youtu.be/RDP3T3j2vOc

Min 8:50 "a bad tank was someone that used his abilitys" sorry mate but Preach have a bit more of credibility

[Jastall]

What does it matter when, according to Blizzard, the majority of players never even hit max level? The great strength of vanilla was that the game didn't just start at max level. For me vanilla PvE was 5-mans, and there was more than enough of content for me. I'm not saying vanilla was perfect, but the basic design suited a casual like me a lot better than the current WoW (which doesn't interest me at all).

And how long can you sustain that? Leveling as a core gameplay principle maybe works in vanilla when you have two continents and 60 level's worth of questing to do. Expansions will have less content by necessity, so how do you keep the longevity of leveling with 10 levels and one small continent? The only way is to just make leveling painfully slow and padded, which is not a solution at all.

Plus, speaking for myself, I'd much rather raid. Questing in WoW sucks and has always sucked. 90% of it is a variation of finding twenty bear asses for random NPCs. If I want to quest, there's a boatload of quality single-player RPGs that have much more interesting stories and quests, like The Witcher, Pillars of Eternity and Dragon Age, which have gameplay also suited for single-player gaming as well. The strength of WoW is on group play, so I don't begrudge Blizzard for focusing on that. We saw what happened with an MMO that poured resources on questing and leveling at the expense of endgame: it was named SWTOR and it tanked hard.

[Eleccybubb]

https://youtu.be/RDP3T3j2vOc

Min 8:50 "a bad tank was someone that used his abilitys" sorry mate but Preach have a bit more of credibility

Yeah no he doesn't. But sure let's not use Shield Block, Revenge or Shield Slam as a Prot Warrior.

You can talent it to extend Shield Block by 2 seconds and allowing a guaranteed Revenge basically?

There was a talent for increasing Shield Walls duration?

Shield Slam also helped you keep threat as well as have a chance to remove 1 magic effect from a target.

But of course some random Youtuber must be right? Oh wait. I'd advise you look at the Prot Warrior talents for Vanilla.

Warriors didn't just spam Sunder Armor at all. And that whole "a bad tank was someone who used his abilities" is a load of old rubbish. Bet you are going to tell me no Warrior used Last Stand either?

[Eleccybubb]

http://bit.ly/2t7mIft

Or you can read what people who actually do their research says. The fact that Preach says that speaks volumes about what kind of a player he was in vanilla.

I listed some reasons why those spells you mentioned were used. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any but I did check the talent trees for Prot Warrior and Vanilla spells before posting it.

Why you would just mindlessly spam Sunder Armor is beyond me. I mean yeah of course it builds stacks and is pretty good thread but what Shield Slam and Block can do is insane. You would be a fool to not fully utilize Prot Warrior imo. Especially in Vanilla.

[inkberry]

It was new.

That's it.

That's the only accurate reason. Gameplay and design wise Classic was just worse.

[Eleccybubb]

Correct, pop shield block to proc revenge. your highest threat builder until you get gear and shield slam becomes your highest priority.

Shield Slam not only has decent threat but that Magic removal effect is OP as well.

[DingDongKing]

- Immersion: When you are the horde general on expansion, and the sole leader of your class order hall, together with other million players, it does break the immersion
-- Story: This is not an element of its own, but related to immersion. Some things about story, as I've pointed out above, just kills the RPG feel. I am fine with collecting shit with my character, so long as I am not a uber-high General of the Alliance or whatever. Moving on, the story post-WotLK is too thematic and focuses on a single thing.
-- Your position in the story: The inconsistencies regarding our role in the story is also a giant immersion killer. Like the shit collection quest example I gave.
- Class fantasy: Every class can do everything, in more or less the similar way. The attempt to make class fantasy more appealing in legion failed quite miserably, in terms of class mechanics. I can say this safely for rogues. Back in the old days, having different stealth values, like druids vs rogue, actually meant something and differentiated the dynamic a bit more. Homogenization is a game killer.
- Item/Character progression: We are spoiled with items. Getting an item hardly ever feels rewarding.

Immersion - That's always been an issue. It's just magnified now. Everyone got to kill Ragnaros before? Everyone got to plant Onyxia's head in Orgrimmar?

Story - There was barely any real continual story in the original World of Warcraft. It was instead a bunch of hubs that you had to scour for some form of narrative. Sure, your character's importance was lesser before, but that still doesn't mean that it made sense for 'adventurers' to go kill an Elemental Lord or Troll King whilst the Alliance and Horde's heroes just chilled in their cities as static NPCs.

Class Fantasy - I'd say Class Fantasy is at it's strongest now. Do you want to go back to when Locks were Healthstone dispensers, Warriors were raid cooldown providers and Fire Mages were useless because an entire Raid's bosses were fire resistant? No thanks. I'm not a massive fan of homogenization either, though the argument that things were somewhat better in Vanilla is naive.

[wombinator04]

There's a certain TBC private server releasing very soon that is generating a ton of hype, but I am not really excited. I only want vanilla private servers, maybe a WotLK or MoP one, but vanilla is what I desire the most.

Anyone else feel this way? I admit I'm not that big of a TBC fan, but I still have nostalgia about it, yet that isn't enough for me to care.

[Demithio]

There's a certain TBC private server releasing very soon that is generating a ton of hype, but I am not really excited. I only want vanilla private servers, maybe a WotLK or MoP one, but vanilla is what I desire the most.

Anyone else feel this way? I admit I'm not that big of a TBC fan, but I still have nostalgia about it, yet that isn't enough for me to care.

Probably due to the 'been there, done that' factor. I wouldn't mind doing TBC raiding again. Its too bad Blizzard didnt retain vanilla/ tbc game play with new content.

[deniter]

Probably due to the 'been there, done that' factor. I wouldn't mind doing TBC raiding again. Its too bad Blizzard didnt retain vanilla/ tbc game play with new content.

I'd sub in a heartbeat if someone made a progressive server (official or unofficial) with all existing expansions done in vanilla/TBC style. Not gonna happen, i know, but one can always play with a thought..