Why Vanilla WoW?

[Azarak]

Of all the expansions to compare to <insert current expansion to complain about here>, why is vanilla WoW the one many people argue are the best? I can kind of relate to WotLK/BC even though there is still vastly much more to do now than back then, but vanilla onestly was a sad attempt of a game compared to Legion. Maybe it was cool back in its time, but when I look back, I see a game that:

-Has ridiculously imbalanced classes/specs, and by far worse than now to the point that hybrids couldn't DPS, plate wearers were only useful as tanks, and DPS classes only had one viable spec.
-There was 3 less classes (DH, DK, monk) with the first 2 being widely popular.
-Horde didn't have paladins, alliance didn't have shamans.
-Only 8 races, and let's face it, without blood elves, we'd lose half the current horde population.
-Terrible graphics and character models compared to now, with horrible facial animations.
-Ridiculously long and grindy dungeons/raids with next to no mechanics and way too much trash.
-The only reputations were very time-consuming and boring mob grinds, or item turn-ins with items from mob-grinding.
-No flying, which apparently is a ridiculously massive problem for many players.
-On that note, no mounts until level 40, like ffs, fuck leveling with that, I don't know how i did it as a warlock...
-Clunky, long, and unintuitive quests that sent you across the globe (again without mounts, hello shaman class quests) and forced you to often use Thotbot to figure out what to do.
-No quest voice over besides the very most important characters, no cutscenes (which are amazing), and no interesting quests, literally only killing, gathering, and escourts.
-No max level content besides raiding/dungeons, and PvP. (Wait isn't the problem now that there isn't enough to do? Weird...)
-Having to walk all the way to altarac/hillsbrad to queue for AV, or arathi for AB, etc.
-PvP incredibly unbalanced, enh shamans one shotting people with windfury procs, warlocks being ridiculous, etc.
-Waiting around in the main cities for an hour trying to get a group for the specific dungeon you want.
-Without a good guild, you could just forget about doing raids and thus not having any reason to do dungeons.

I mean I could go on all day and the only benefits I see are from nostalgia goggles and can never be fixed outside of a completely new game:

-The game is new, so everything is interesting and unknown.
-People first playnig the game were much younger, so things are of course going to be more "magical" to younger kids. I myself was like 12-13 at first.

Honestly that's all I can even think of, after staring at my screen for 5minutes. Outside of nostalgia, vanilla is just objectively the worse "expansion" (yea, it's not an expansion, w/e). I'm legitimately curious to hear what anyone has to say that was nice about vanilla as opposed to now. Oh, and try not to say things that blizzard has tried reintroducing recently and it tanked horribly because nobody liked it.

[Halobob87]

U know? Nostalgia. Pretty much just this.

And probably becouse some people miss the old vanilla more rpg-like old style gameplay, even if it would be broken, unbalanced and bordeline unplayable for moder's day standards.

[bloodmoth13]

Of all the expansions to compare to <insert current expansion to complain about here>, why is vanilla WoW the one many people argue are the best? I can kind of relate to WotLK/BC even though there is still vastly much more to do now than back then, but vanilla onestly was a sad attempt of a game compared to Legion. Maybe it was cool back in its time, but when I look back, I see a game that:

-Has ridiculously imbalanced classes/specs, and by far worse than now to the point that hybrids couldn't DPS, plate wearers were only useful as tanks, and DPS classes only had one viable spec.
-There was 3 less classes (DH, DK, monk) with the first 2 being widely popular.
-Horde didn't have paladins, alliance didn't have shamans.
-Only 8 races, and let's face it, without blood elves, we'd lose half the current horde population.
-Terrible graphics and character models compared to now, with horrible facial animations.
-Ridiculously long and grindy dungeons/raids with next to no mechanics and way too much trash.
-The only reputations were very time-consuming and boring mob grinds, or item turn-ins with items from mob-grinding.
-No flying, which apparently is a ridiculously massive problem for many players.
-On that note, no mounts until level 40, like ffs, fuck leveling with that, I don't know how i did it as a warlock...
-Clunky, long, and unintuitive quests that sent you across the globe (again without mounts, hello shaman class quests) and forced you to often use Thotbot to figure out what to do.
-No quest voice over besides the very most important characters, no cutscenes (which are amazing), and no interesting quests, literally only killing, gathering, and escourts.
-No max level content besides raiding/dungeons, and PvP. (Wait isn't the problem now that there isn't enough to do? Weird...)
-Having to walk all the way to altarac/hillsbrad to queue for AV, or arathi for AB, etc.
-PvP incredibly unbalanced, enh shamans one shotting people with windfury procs, warlocks being ridiculous, etc.
-Waiting around in the main cities for an hour trying to get a group for the specific dungeon you want.
-Without a good guild, you could just forget about doing raids and thus not having any reason to do dungeons.

I mean I could go on all day and the only benefits I see are from nostalgia goggles and can never be fixed outside of a completely new game:

-The game is new, so everything is interesting and unknown.
-People first playnig the game were much younger, so things are of course going to be more "magical" to younger kids. I myself was like 12-13 at first.

Honestly that's all I can even think of, after staring at my screen for 5minutes. Outside of nostalgia, vanilla is just objectively the worse "expansion" (yea, it's not an expansion, w/e). I'm legitimately curious to hear what anyone has to say that was nice about vanilla as opposed to now. Oh, and try not to say things that blizzard has tried reintroducing recently and it tanked horribly because nobody liked it.

I think the crappiness of it made some things better, prestige was much higher because 90% of the playerbase couldnt even attempt the bosses that gave gear for players, time investment meant a stronger emotional attachment to things and everything taking longer made things somehow feel epic.

That and vanilla was better than any alternative at the time.

It wasnt a better game, if you were a mage im sure you felt good doing 3x the dps of the next guy, or if you wanted to tank as a warrior im sure you felt good that you were one of the only players on the server that could tank so everyone wanted you, but honestly, it doesnt hold up to today.

[Sanguinerd]

From the top of my head(and compared to how the game is now);

- it felt like an actual world
- server communities
- feeling actually rewarded by various things
- class immersion/identity(whatever you wanna call it)
- PvP was more fun, yes imbalanced classes were fun and beating them just as much
- the list goes on

[Radaney]

Much higher level of server community and a higher sense of accomplishment when doing something is the only things I can think of was better in Vanilla.

[Azarak]

I can get people looking back at how it was fun then, but what of the thousands arguing for vanilla servers now? That just sounds awful.

[Cæli]

You know, a video game is more than just its game mechanics. Why do you think some feel good when they walk in a forest, in a rainy countryside place ? There's something that gets created between what the eyes see, what the brain perceives, and in that matter in video games the whole thing which includes the place, the music, the general feel, creates pleasure.
On top of that game system can also add, but it's not the only thing. Nostalgia of course adds but it tends to make people unable to explain why they like it.

Some loved wotlk for the epic/icy feel, others loved mop, others BC for the weirdness/space/warcraft-y feel, vanilla had a general strange/mystery feel with old gods and stuff. The music nicely depict that, listen to tanaris or silithus music, that's weird. Stranglethorn and Zul'Gurub were absolutely colorful and immersive, just to take an example. Azeroth is well done, and azeroth's game is "vanilla" since this is where 100% of the game took place. Some people liked or prefered that just like some like other expansions.

By the way graphics back then were similar to now. Anyone who say they were terrible is lying or have memory problems. The only real improvement is character model, outside that, when I look at my old screenshots from 2006, there's no difference. And this is important.

[Azarak]

Much higher level of server community and a higher sense of accomplishment when doing something is the only things I can think of was better in Vanilla.

LFG definitely did get rid of server community, I agree.

[nomey]

All people mean when they say vanilla was better is that they enjoyed it more, or recall enjoying it more. You're right that the reasons they enjoyed it more can be any of a number of things, including reasons not strictly tied to gameplay such as youth, the state of their lives etc.

That said, you cannot judge a prior experience by current expectations. You're effectively asking how people in <insert historic time here> could possibly live their lives without cars and phones and the internet. For example: people didn't have mounts until 40, but having mounts before 40 was also not a thing anyone compared their current experience to. It's the knowing that there is better to be had that makes an experience unenjoyable sometimes, not the experience itself.

With that in mind, how can you objectively compare vanilla to legion at all? Given that the only benchmark is enjoyment and knowing that enjoyment is heavily reliant upon things like expectations.

One could argue that, since there were not that many expectations, vanilla did an infinitely better job of meeting and surpassing them. Legion has a lot more to do, a lot more quality of life, but we also ask for a lot more from it. Does it succeed in its attempt to give us what we want and more?

[schwarzkopf]

From the top of my head(and compared to how the game is now);
- it felt like an actual world
- server communities
- feeling actually rewarded by various things
- class immersion/identity(whatever you wanna call it)
- PvP was more fun, yes imbalanced classes were fun and beating them just as much
- the list goes on

1. Still feels like an actual world .... 0
2. Server communities were just as bad back then, just in a different way. Elitists ran the show ... 0
3. Feeling rewarded by things, I got an awesome reward last night in Legion ... 0
4. Class identity was definitely better in Vanilla, also the ability to have way more combinations of spec ... 1
5. PvP was indeed more fun, so much fun that even I did it ... 1
6. The list doesn't go on, cause if it did - it would have gone on ... 0

Your score : 2/6

Why I want vanilla servers - so i can spend half an hour going and revisiting my favourite town (Auberdine) in an undamaged state. That's it - won't be back

[Azarak]

All people mean when they say vanilla was better is that they enjoyed it more, or recall enjoying it more. You're right that the reasons they enjoyed it more can be any of a number of things, including reasons not strictly tied to gameplay such as youth, the state of their lives etc.

That said, you cannot judge a prior experience by current expectations. You're effectively asking how people in <insert historic time here> could possibly live their lives without cars and phones and the internet. For example: people didn't have mounts until 40, but having mounts before 40 was also not a thing anyone compared their current experience to. It's the knowing that there is better to be had that makes an experience unenjoyable sometimes, not the experience itself.

With that in mind, how can you objectively compare vanilla to legion at all? Given that the only benchmark is enjoyment and knowing that enjoyment is heavily reliant upon things like expectations.

One could argue that, since there were not that many expectations, vanilla did an infinitely better job of meeting and surpassing them. Legion has a lot more to do, a lot more quality of life, but we also ask for a lot more from it. Does it succeed in its attempt to give us what we want and more?

All true except people legitimately want vanilla right now.

- - - Updated - - -

People enjoy it, that is all, no discussion or basement nerd psychoanalysis is needed.

But WoW is special and so are its players, so queue 500 pages of "your wrong because I said so" and other such bile, one comment in and were already there.

We'll you're awfully negative and unnecessary, you can go somewhere else if this so far civil discussion offends you.

[Donald Hellscream]

I was 13 when I started playing the game so for me it was the best thing ever. That said now at the age of 24 I don't wanna touch it with a 10 foot pole, the lack of any meaning full story development alone is enough to make me not want to do it again, I guess I have been spoiled by phasing, cutscenes,voice acting and cinematics but fuck me if I can ever recall anything that even remotely made me feel I was anything but a random errand boy for random people I never really gave a fuck about. Sure the long world spanning quest chains were cool but the rewards for doing them were absolute horseshit, you'd imagine after spending hours trotting the world to pick up some meaningless item and fighting enemies way above your level despite the quest being at your level that you'd get a proper reward, but no you'd likely get something that was way worse than what you already had.

[Sanguinerd]

blabla

Nice how you ranked that for me, however..

1. To me and pleeenty others it doesn't.
2. No they wern't all bad.
3. Good for you. It didn't feel like that for me anymore.
4. -
5. -
6. It does but I cba spoonfeeding someone when the forum is literally filled with reasons.

Your score? who actually gives a shit..

[nomey]

All true except people legitimately want vanilla right now.

People want the feeling they had when they played vanilla right now. Some believe it's possible to recreate it by re-experiencing the same gameplay. I'm not sure whether they are correct or not. I think it says more about the state of legion than the state of vanilla though. : D

[Relapses]

We'll you're awfully negative and unnecessary, you can go somewhere else if this so far civil discussion offends you.

This "discussion" you're asking for is redundant since it's already been extensively and repeatedly expounded upon in the classic server megathread.

[RaZz0r]

Mostly just nostalgia out side of that vanilla wow was garbage compared to what wow is now.
I do have good and bad memories from vanilla like hearing 40 people cheer on vent as you finally killed a progress boss was great.

But swimming out to the middle of the ocean in azshara to put out the runes in MC to summon rag sucked.
Even worse only like 4 people out of the 40 brought the dam thing so you had to wait for people to go back and get more quintessence.
As almost no one where revered to get the re usable item and don't even get me started on trying to find rexxar in desolace.
Ugh it took me over an hr with my slow 60% speed mount as i was super poor and could not afford my epic mount until way later.

but yeah no way i would go back to vanilla today.

[Socialhealer]

I can get people looking back at how it was fun then, but what of the thousands arguing for vanilla servers now? That just sounds awful.

agreed, if you could actually travel back in time and play it as it was, without knowing the game, and everyone else to same, discovering everything for the first time, thats amazing, that's the experience i'd want, but playing a priv server now? why it's old it's been done everything has been discovered killed achieved etc, there's nothing new.

[Schattenlied]

-Has ridiculously imbalanced classes/specs, and by far worse than now to the point that hybrids couldn't DPS, plate wearers were only useful as tanks

I'll give you this one, the classes were very imbalanced, but Warriors could and did DPS, and Paladins wore plate, and healed so... yeah. Also, Enhancement shaman did in fact get raid slots, it was common to stick an Enh shaman in each melee group (because totems didnt go to the whole raid back then, just the group) for Windfury and Strength of Earth totems... Their personal DPS was not awful either, maybe 70% of a Rogue, but then they gave 4 Rogues/Warriors Windfury, which more than made up for their lower DPS.

and DPS classes only had one viable spec.

That's just not true.

-There was 3 less classes (DH, DK, monk) with the first 2 being widely popular.

Fine with that, I with those 3 classes had never been added to the game... Blizzard has way more than they can handle on their plate as far as class balance goes right now, if there were 3 less, the remaining would get more attention and bet better balanced, and I think that would be better for the health of the game.

-Horde didn't have paladins, alliance didn't have shamans.

I never saw a problem with that to be honest.

-Only 8 races, and let's face it, without blood elves, we'd lose half the current horde population.

Considering Horde population was perfectly fine back in vanilla, I'm gonna say lies.

Even on the really popular private servers, the factions are generally pretty well balanced... Nost was like 49% Alliance 51% Horde...

-Terrible graphics and character models compared to now, with horrible facial animations.

Irrelevant to most people, gameplay>graphics... I don't even notice the difference when I'm playing.

-Ridiculously long and grindy dungeons/raids with next to no mechanics and way too much trash.

They definitely had mechanics, just less... The only reason bosses have so many mechanics per boss now is because they are designed under the assumption that everyone has DBM or some equivalent, if they didn't, they would all be laughably easy... Boss mods didn't even exist for a lot of vanilla.

-The only reputations were very time-consuming and boring mob grinds, or item turn-ins with items from mob-grinding.

And right now they are useless, so, what does it matter? Back then rep rewards weren't trivial.

-No flying, which apparently is a ridiculously massive problem for many players.

And a boon to many others, no flying is one of the reason I like vanilla.

-On that note, no mounts until level 40, like ffs, fuck leveling with that, I don't know how i did it as a warlock...

Never seemed like a big issue to me, leveled a paladin and shaman on Nost and never had a problem with not having a mount till 40, but admittedly, the shaman was easier, since they get Ghost Wolf at 20.

-Clunky, long, and unintuitive quests that sent you across the globe (again without mounts, hello shaman class quests) and forced you to often use Thotbot to figure out what to do.

Another thing I never had issue with, the only reason it's any different now is because the map marks every objective for you, QuestHelper and Questie were mods that basically do exactly what the game now does for quests on the map.

-No quest voice over besides the very most important characters, no cutscenes (which are amazing), and no interesting quests, literally only killing, gathering, and escourts.

Define "interesting" quests? Nearly every quest in legion is kill this gather that, theres a couple gimmicky ones like the "use a wisp to grow trees!" and the "use flares to mark targets for granny", which are basically reskinned gather and killquests.

-No max level content besides raiding/dungeons, and PvP. (Wait isn't the problem now that there isn't enough to do? Weird...)

So... you mean the exact same thing we have now, then...

Back in vanilla every raid stayed relevant the whole way through... even when people were in Naxx, MQ raids for gear were still happening... item power differences weren't as extreme back then... Right now when a new tier releases the previous tier becomes irrelevant, even to casual guilds.

-Having to walk all the way to altarac/hillsbrad to queue for AV, or arathi for AB, etc.

Not even remotely true, Battlemaster NPCs were added to main cities not that long after the BGs themselves were.

-PvP incredibly unbalanced, enh shamans one shotting people with windfury procs, warlocks being ridiculous, etc.

Because PvP is soooooooooooooooooo balanced right now, uh-hu.

It was still fun... Every single class had their own little op thing.

-Without a good guild, you could just forget about doing raids and thus not having any reason to do dungeons.

If you are doing raids for the sake of doing raids, why not do dungeons for the sake of doing dungeons?

Also, on Nost, people pugged BWL weekly, it wasn't difficult to get in... No guild necessary.

I mean I could go on all day and the only benefits I see are from nostalgia goggles

If it were just nostalgia goggles, the popular private servers wouldn't be able to maintain the populations they do... The only reason the vast majority of private servers are basically dead is because they don't have properly functioning BGs and quest/raid/dungeon scripting... Nost and some WotLK private server (honestly forgot it's name but has around 11k active users at any given time of day) had that stuff nailed down, and thats why they are/were popular.

agreed, if you could actually travel back in time and play it as it was, without knowing the game, and everyone else to same, discovering everything for the first time, thats amazing, that's the experience i'd want, but playing a priv server now? why it's old it's been done everything has been discovered killed achieved etc, there's nothing new.

And yet so many still play on them and enjoy it, not everyone shares the same opinion.

- it felt like an actual world
- server communities
- feeling actually rewarded by various things
- class immersion/identity(whatever you wanna call it)
- PvP was more fun, yes imbalanced classes were fun and beating them just as much

Agree with all of this.

[schwarzkopf]

1. To me and pleeenty others it doesn't.

There is more world by far than there was in Vanilla - so factually, your opinion is irrelevant.

Your score, very / wrong.

[monkmastaeq]

Much higher level of server community and a higher sense of accomplishment when doing something is the only things I can think of was better in Vanilla.

that's really the thread right there. Talked shit constantly in chat in vanilla, no one wanted anything to do with you