LF People who raided in Vanilla

[Roxyfoxy]

Small side note: Ultimate hate to whichever dev designed Loatheb 40 man. Standing around for 55 second picking your nose and then casting 1 heal is not what I consider riveting raid content.

Me and my friend played in the same guild, and we used to move his PC over to my place, he was a healer and i was a dps. i were mashing my buttons like there was no tomorrow, he sat on his gameboy playing pokemon, pressing his greater heal button once every minute then casually smiting the boss while he waited, think he had his eyes on his screen for like 1/6th of the fight.

[Miedo]

I raided MC/BWL on a computer so bad I couldn't zone into Org because it would crash. I was about 24 when we started, I'd just gotten out of the army and my friend was like 'try this game'. The people I raided with were about my age or older (I was in an over 18 guild only), though I did know a few people who played with their children. Anywhere from 10-13 years old.

I wouldn't say it was 'harder' but it was definitely less developed, like there was mmo-champion and wowhead (and thottbot, but I don't think anyone uses that anymore)and... elitestjerks. And then a few more sites as the game 'grew'. If I was able to play and raid on a computer with 256 Mbs of memory, it was definitely not 'harder'. The harder part was finding 40 people (and realistically, more like 20) who were 'good' players and then another 30 who were fill ins- and coordinating them.

[demosthen3s]

I was 14 when I started playing WoW in the Summer of 2005. I played a night elf hunter to 46 (the nostalgia of Night Elf zones and being curious about the huge world), then rerolled an undead warlock shortly after.

I started raiding in MC as a 14 year old and was (believe it or not) the warlock class lead for my raiding guild. My computer was utter shite and barely stayed alive for the Rag encounter. I stared at the molten ceiling.

I was raid leading AQ 20 and ZG, and steadily moving from MC/Onyxia to BWL and AQ40. I must have raided 6 days a week.

One of my most memorable experiences was sitting in front of Orgrimmar in Felheart gear, wishing I had full T2 like some of the other warlocks on our server.

Raiding guilds took themselves seriously back then, and would spend time designing fancy websites and displaying their first kills. It was exciting to check the websites throughout vanilla to see what other guilds just killed. Guild competition and overall atmosphere of raiding back then was more epic in scale, but certainly flawed in poor design and terrible itemization for PvE content. Organizing 40 people was a fucking pain.

In BC I raided even more and ended up in the best guild on the server by the end. At 16, I progressed from Kara to Illidan twice. I watched a guild burn in front of Kael'thas, then rerolled a holy pally and helped a guild progress from Mag'theridon all the way to Illidan before joining the best guild for Sunwell content.

In Wrath I was ~19 and raided hardcore for Ulduar, but I knew that the end was near for me and TOC was really quite bad, so I quit.

I'm 23 now. I didn't play at all for the second half of Cataclysm nor Mists. I can't say I miss the good ol' times, but I can say that there are many memories that will never go away because I loved the community, the challenge and the inevitable reward for hours of effort.

[Erous]

Raiding guilds took themselves seriously back then, and would spend time designing fancy websites and displaying their first kills. It was exciting to check the websites throughout vanilla to see what other guilds just killed. Guild competition and overall atmosphere of raiding back then was more epic in scale, but certainly flawed in poor design and terrible itemization for PvE content. Organizing 40 people was a fucking pain.

Agree. When I would app to guilds or look for a guild, one of my requirements was (probably still is) a dedicated website that is used because it stood for their dedication to how seriously they took progression. For raid spots, I've interviewed with GMs and class leads for over 2 hours sometimes to try and sell myself as a value add for their group

[Deleted]

Raided from the first time MC opened was 24y at the time.. And people who say you could do MC with 15m were doing it after the countless nerfs when most of us were doing BWL.. The funny thing is that MC was tuned so high at first that the second boss wasnt doable even if you were geared fully, tanks just got smashed.. after the first nerf wave most progression raids downed it.. Yeah if you joined a fully geared group when most nerfs took place MC was easy but at progression without all the progression information you get nowadays it was challenging at least.. /focustarget at majordomo for sheeping targets was always fun (yeah I was a fb fb fb fb fb mage ) or buffbot on my paladin..

We were one of the first who downed razorgore as Alliance back then.. stupid shaman/pally rivalry.. We did it with kiting the adds around with hunters and traps.. horde had it much easier back then..

[Equoowe]

Raiding guilds took themselves seriously back then, and would spend time designing fancy websites and displaying their first kills. It was exciting to check the websites throughout vanilla to see what other guilds just killed. Guild competition and overall atmosphere of raiding back then was more epic in scale

Are you trying to say its not like this now? because it is, there is more competition now then there was in Vanilla and the game allows for more of it.

All this does is prove that comparing them goes into subjective territories. One thing I will agree with you about is that the overall talent pool of players has certainly progressed and evolved. That in no way means the skill-cap is higher or more difficult now though. That's where it becomes entirely subjective.

If you compare what is needed to do to play the game now at a high skill level with Vanilla and don't see the skill-cap is higher then you are blind.

so much BS on this thread, people really have no idea what they are talking about and seem to just make up shit.

[Deleted]

I would have been 16 when I started raiding in vanilla, on a terrible 56k line and in a reasonably hardcore guild (cleared most of Naxx40 pre-tbc), early on (BWL) I would have awful connectivity problems and instant DCs, I remember the worst one was during our first Nef kill I literally couldn't stay online for longer than 10 seconds, racked up like 40 mid fight disconnects on that one kill alone and it kind of ruined the whole thing for me.

Sadly when you're a kid trying to convince your parents to switch ISP so you can kill monsters on the computer is not an easy task ^^.

Oh yea and there was generally not much thought into put into raid comps, you took the players who could attend often and had their heads screwed on the right way which led to some interesting raids with like 12+ rogues, also due to having so many people we all had class channels that resulted in some intense trash talking of the other classes behind their backs, or maybe that was just us rogues =P.

[Moobid]

Are you trying to say its not like this now? because it is, there is more competition now then there was in Vanilla and the game allows for more of it.



If you compare what is needed to do to play the game now at a high skill level with Vanilla and don't see the skill-cap is higher then you are blind.

so much BS on this thread, people really have no idea what they are talking about and seem to just make up shit.

By this logic, we can assume WoW requires the same skill level as engineering.

Both WoW in Vanilla and WoW today weren't/aren't terribly difficult. If people pay attention and click/press the right buttons, you're going to win. There aren't really any twitch mechanics in PvE content that put player x above player y.

Give me 24 players that pay attention and know their rotations/abilities through and through and we'll clear heroic content pretty easily. Having raided with plenty of different types of people, the only time you're going to fail is when people can't be bothered to understand the basics of an encounter and/or their class; or randomly go afk, because their significant other is yelling at them.

Also, he was saying a lot more guilds built websites from the ground up back in the day. Today, most people just hop over to enjin.com or one of the other pre-built templates and bam, they have a website. That isn't anyone's fault though and it isn't a bad thing; it is simply a fact that the MMO world has evolved and has a better community behind it. There are more games to support sites like enjin, etc and customers willing to pay for it.

[Lilija]

Both WoW in Vanilla and WoW today weren't/aren't terribly difficult. If people pay attention and click/press the right buttons, you're going to win. There aren't really any twitch mechanics in PvE content that put player x above player y.

Noone says WoW is or was rocket science. However, the huge difference in difficulty of gameplay is really obvious. As a healer in Vanilla I had to press 1 button once in a while. Nowadays, healers have to more often than not spam their heals but do it with a knowledge so they keep a group alive yet not go oom in a moment (with gear the mana part gets bit easier). Also, healers HAVE TO coordinate CDs.

As a dps even in TBC my top dps rotation was spamming 1 button. Nowadays, I have to follow several timers, understand various synergies in order to push max dps from my spec. Ofc, once again with gear it gets slightly easier but still nowhere near the level of pre WotLK class design.

Encounters also have far more mechanics that will wipe the raid if you aren't carefull as an individual.

Give me 24 players that pay attention and know their rotations/abilities through and through and we'll clear heroic content pretty easily.

For most of Vanilla, more than half of your 40man raid for most fights could as well be afk and you will still kill the boss if at least 15 knew what to do. You could clear a lot of Vanilla content with very poor skilled players that played stupid specs, haven't bought skill from the trainer (I've done AQ40 with a guy like that ! ), had no idea what they are doing. Now, on heroic level you require proper specs, gear, awareness, rotation, etc. from everyone in the group.

Having raided with plenty of different types of people, the only time you're going to fail is when people can't be bothered to understand the basics of an encounter and/or their class; or randomly go afk, because their significant other is yelling at them.

The thing with Vanilla is that you could well enough have "bad" players in the raid and clear most content with no problem what so ever. That is the difficulty difference people are talking about.

Also, he was saying a lot more guilds built websites from the ground up back in the day. Today, most people just hop over to enjin.com or one of the other pre-built templates and bam, they have a website. That isn't anyone's fault though and it isn't a bad thing; it is simply a fact that the MMO world has evolved and has a better community behind it. There are more games to support sites like enjin, etc and customers willing to pay for it.

Serious guilds are as serious as they were in the "good ol'days". There were crap guilds with templete websides back the and so are now. When it comes to raiding guilds not much has changed really. You still need one in order to clear the challenging content. That guild still needs to be organized well.

Also, you don't really need a fancy website in order to be a succesfull guild in WoW... and you never needed one really. How serious a guild is should be evaluated on how they are doing in game, not what kind of website they have o.O Also, some guilds can have fancy sites and still be bad in game :P

[Fivexxx]

I started with WoW on the last weekend of the open Beta and after that on day 1 in Europe with Vanilla WoW. I must have been approx. 15/16 at that time, but I don't remeber exactly. After a while friends of mine also started to get into WoW and soon we found our first real guild. Back in that day, a guild was more personal, you knew most of the members, did more things together, it was more social than today.
I was part of the progress in MC, BWL, AQ20/40, ZG and even Naxx. Even though we didn't complete more than the spider wing in naxx. Shit was hard as hell. Raiding in general was not more difficult, it was just more time consuming. Meeting up in Kargath for MC, getting Healthstones for everyone, did preparations before (hunters had to buy ammo, pala had to check with other pals for buffs, hearthstone set in kargath, resi gear etc), find 40 people to raid with, explain tactics, set 8 targets at Garr without any addons (just by clicking target of raidleaders target -> "Woops, lost my target").

I think that many people still have better memories of these evenings as it was in reality, because its part nostalgic, part memory.

The only thing what was clearly better than today it that the attitude of the people was better than today. If you wipe nowadays in SoO two times, half of the group is leaving, insulting people. In the past, people understood that it was their task to try and to learn the bosses. not the task of the raid to carry you through the raid.
On the other hand, many mechanics were much easier or simple. I mean, get out of the fire or dispel bad spell was most of the time quite a challenge for most of the people. What I'm trying to say is, that all these encounters have evolved over the years to suit the players who played this game for so long.

[Buu]

As the title says, I am interested in hearing people's stories who raided in Vanilla. Throughout the years I've met numerous people ingame who've told me they played and raided in vanilla. Which is fine, but I am baffled when they tell me their age: as young as 17. This means they'd have been 7 when Molten Core was current content.

This mean that as 90% of the people who say they raided in BC, they actually played in a pirate server set on that expansion for some time. I believe only a tenth of people that claim it, are ACTUAL veterans that still around.Most of the raiders of such time left WoW and hence boards LONG AGO.

Most of the people that talk about playing in BC, TODAY, are in fact landlubbers, matey. YARRRRRR

[Equoowe]

40 man raids were hardcore, on most fights if 1 person died you would just auto wipe to not waste time cuz you wur not likely to beat the encounter without everyone.

It was really nothing like that, losing one person in a 40man raid if it wasn't a tank was not a big deal at all, I don't understand why people make posts like this that is clearly BS to anybody that played the game back then.

[Deleted]

Started raiding in Open EU Beta with a Paladin, created a Paladin on the first day of live realms and been playing that Holypaladin ever since

I was 19 when i started playing, 29 now and damn i feel old ^^ Nonetheless met some aweful people in the game and enjoyed almost every minute.

Compared to nowadays raiding was pretty awful back in the day, but the nostalgia and the atmosphere make up for it.

I created a little Video comprised of my Screenshots a year ago, so for those who want to take a trip down nostalgia lane:

[Sting]

It was really nothing like that, losing one person in a 40man raid if it wasn't a tank was not a big deal at all, I don't understand why people make posts like this that is clearly BS to anybody that played the game back then.

Maybe in MC, BWL, or even AQ40 early on, but Naxxramas was pretty hardcore on the dps, healing and tanking requirements. There's a reason the term "patchwerk fights" still floats around, and it sure as shit didn't originate from the 10/25 version.

I was about 15-16 when I did vanilla (11/15 naxx rest cleared), and I've been raiding ever since. I played a hunter for vanilla and TBC, switched to prot warrior at the end of TBC to give a perspective on my experiences.

I'd say the game has definitely changed. There were a lot of niche things that you had to take care of in the old 40 man raids, like stacking shadow protection pots and bandages on Loatheb, aspect of the pack being important to race your melee dps across the room on twin emperors or to have your tank stay ahead of anub's locust swarm, soaking huhuran's poison with nature resist gear, kiting dragons on razorgore, draining mana from mobs with viper sting so they couldn't cast their spells, priests having to mind control on razuvious, the likes. I'm probably missing a lot of stuff, but hey it's been a while.

Most of those niches are gone today, mostly for the better since it allows you more flexibility. Classes overall are more streamlined, which means you can't just simply stack shamans for their group buffs like you did in TBC. Because of these quality of life changes, players and raid leaders alike have had an easier time getting organised, which allowed for more complex boss fights.

It's just the natural progression of things.

[Mekkle]

I was 12, raided from MC to half of AQ40, stopped because of loot drama and went back at the start of tbc. At least in my personal opinion raiding different hasn't changed too much.

All i see is that raiding went from Hard to access but few boss mechanics to easy access but bosses do a lot more.

[Equoowe]

Maybe in MC, BWL, or even AQ40 early on, but Naxxramas was pretty hardcore on the dps, healing and tanking requirements. There's a reason the term "patchwerk fights" still floats around, and it sure as shit didn't originate from the 10/25 version.

Not having people die has always helped but it was far from losing one person would be the end of the fight, even in Naxx.

[RickJamesLich]

My thoughts on vanilla raiding, I thought it was much more interesting because you had to put in effort to see certain parts of the story, even though if you really wanted to know what happened, you could easily just read it up. Raiding was a real challenge, when you saw something that had a skull where it's level should be at, it was meant to be something that was really hard to kill, instead of being just something that gives you loot so you want to keep playing the game. 40 people was a lot but you'd have a ton of fun, hell back in MC people were making up songs and shit about the place, it seemed like a much better social atmosphere. I think the whole thing was that people *wanted* a challenge back then, as opposed to now where it's the complete opposite, people are more interested in just getting the loot and possibly getting transmog drops.

[Rucati]

I must have been like 14 or 15 I guess? I'm 22 now, started playing when I was like 13 or 14, and raided during the middle/end of vanilla. But the raids weren't hard in the same sense they are now. Now raids are hard because mechanics keep getting thrown into the fights, instead of one tough mechanic there are ten mechanics to think about. Before raids were hard because getting 40 people together was a challenge, getting the right number of tanks was a challenge, getting everyone geared was a challenge, but the actual raids weren't any more difficult than they are now. People as a whole though were worse than they are now, but after a decade of experience anyone would improve a lot I'd imagine.

As for how old the other raiders were, it varied, there were a lot of 25+ people in my raid group, and then a few others that were my age. I'd probably say we had like 5 or 6 people 14-16, 10 people from 16-22, 10 people from 22-29 and then the rest were over 30. Just a rough guess. Out of all of them I only stay in touch with two of the people at this point.

[Thelxi]

The hardest part was getting enough people. It involved a lot of standing in one spot for 5 minutes. Very few people actually had to do something other than stand in one spot doing damage and occasionally healing.

[Deleted]

I was 15 back then. Skipped school to farm mats for consumables. The stuff you could stack was just silly. Flask + Elixirs + Food + the Stamina consumable which name I forgot, even more.

Back then World of Warcraft was some proper next-gen game. You got addicted and kept yourself busy because everything you wanted to do took so damn long.

Also, lets be honest, not everyone had enough time to put into the game. So if you did have the time you could get gear that others could only dream of. Which was the best part about the game (for me).