What if you "vanillaized" retail WoW

[MMKing]

I don't think going back to a wow experience where people willingly socialize with other people is possible. The absence of all these quality of life changes that automatically form groups and teleport people to instances is not the main issue here. Pretty much every single feature in the game would have to be altered or removed in some way.

[FreaknRhinos]

Let me start by saying I am not one of these anti-classic WoW people, I am looking forward to it and can't wait to see how they implement it.

That being said, I wonder what kind of interest there would be in WoW retail servers that were "vanillaized"? By "vanillaized" I mean the following were removed:

1) No merged realms

2) No cross realm

3) No LFR

4) No LFG

5) No realm hopping

6) No cross-realm BG's

Basically, you are forced to interact with people on your server. The people you see at the AH or in the middle of Winterfel, are on your server. If you get a bad reputation for cheating, scamming, or just being a dick, that reputation haunts you on your server. The same with good a good reputation. If you camp some low level dude, he can remember your name and hunt you down once he gets geared, or he can get guildiees to help haunt you down and you dont phase away to another realm just because you crossed a zone barrier. Etc. Etc.

Part of me wonders if these changes wouldnt give me 80% of what I want from Classic WoW? Maybe this sort of server with current retail content, should be an option in addition to Classic WoW?

Exactly, I believe people want a Modern Day Vanillaized Wow.

This is a chance for Blizzard to Brother's Grimm the story of WoW. Make it more nitty gritty. We have the Lore that would support it, in game, for Retail.

It's called AU-Azeroth. The one connected to AU Draenor.

I truly believe it would be healthier, for the franchise and the company, to release game focused around the design choices of Vanilla. Rather than Vanilla itself. People that are purists, don't want to admit there is a shelf life to Vanilla WoW. At some point, progression stales and becomes impossible.

The reddit thread that had the Blizzard monitored poll, had something like 60% would like to see a TBC server with roll overs from Vanilla That's progression.

So you want progression but don't want change? That's illogical, extremely short sighted and trite.

[Dekkers]

It would immediately become a better game.

[Deleted]

They sorta tried when Cata came out, in the first few weeks, heroics were rather difficult, reminding one of the days of TBC. The community complained and it was all nerfed.


You can go forward and add "QoL" but you cant go backwards. This is because those people who loved heroics in TBC left WoW long ago, and all that is remaining is a community that wants it aoe spammy and simple. Thus there was no outroar to keep the heroics in Cata difficult.


That is the problem with QoL in general it spoils the userbase and the game descends into this passive game that barely requires your attention.



If a appropriate level random boar killed a player in 2018 in WoW Live, that person would have a mental breakdown. It is absolutely inconceivable to them

[babyback]

I don’t think people remember that there were dead realms during vanilla and TBC that forced Blizzard into the whole cross realm and merging. What it was called back then was a “free realm transfer” from an over pop realm to an empty one.

[Deleted]

They sorta tried when Cata came out, in the first few weeks, heroics were rather difficult, reminding one of the days of TBC. The community complained and it was all nerfed.


You can go forward and add "QoL" but you cant go backwards. This is because those people who loved heroics in TBC left WoW long ago, and all that is remaining is a community that wants it aoe spammy and simple. Thus there was no outroar to keep the heroics in Cata difficult.


That is the problem with QoL in general it spoils the userbase and the game descends into this passive game that barely requires your attention.



If a appropriate level random boar killed a player in 2018 in WoW Live, that person would have a mental breakdown. It is absolutely inconceivable to them

True, it's too late to go back. Classic servers is the true answer.
The QoL changes already shaped the community we have today. There is no going back

But hey, Classic servers am i right? It's awesome.

[Hablion]

Let me start by saying I am not one of these anti-classic WoW people, I am looking forward to it and can't wait to see how they implement it.

That being said, I wonder what kind of interest there would be in WoW retail servers that were "vanillaized"? By "vanillaized" I mean the following were removed:

1) No merged realms

2) No cross realm

3) No LFR

4) No LFG

5) No realm hopping

6) No cross-realm BG's

Basically, you are forced to interact with people on your server. The people you see at the AH or in the middle of Winterfel, are on your server. If you get a bad reputation for cheating, scamming, or just being a dick, that reputation haunts you on your server. The same with good a good reputation. If you camp some low level dude, he can remember your name and hunt you down once he gets geared, or he can get guildiees to help haunt you down and you dont phase away to another realm just because you crossed a zone barrier. Etc. Etc.

Part of me wonders if these changes wouldnt give me 80% of what I want from Classic WoW? Maybe this sort of server with current retail content, should be an option in addition to Classic WoW?

and let us not forget:
#7 Reduce EXP Gains by 95% at all levels while we are at it

I mean might as well right? Right?

[Queen of Hamsters]

That's no fun
I like to casualy throw a shot at Blizzard's retail edition of WoW But i can see by your signature that you don't like that.

I would say retail WoW is made to have constant gratification like a iphone game while Vanilla is more a slow tedious pace where each improvement is much more meaningful.

But i think it depends at what level you play. If you are hardcore and all that matters to you is progression in raids then i would say retail is better with Mythic raids and Mythic Dungeons.
The casuals in Vanilla will have a big hard time coming up with money and having epics. I don't even think is possible for a casual to have a single epic.

Depends on how one looks at it.

What is considered worthy of getting jazzed up and excited about, has shifted. In Classic, the "instant gratification" comes all the time from simple things like having 20 gold, buying the first slow mount. It's slow, but seeing as how everything seemingly "matters" so much, it's constant.

On Live, people don't jizz their pants lightly. And of course casuals have epix on Classic, happened back then and happens now. I can say 100% that I've never had any "instant gratification" in this game since I was new and thought having 1 gold was the biggest thing ever.

[Aggrophobic]

I'm pretty sure all of those things other than cross server battlegroups for battlegrounds were added in wrath tbh.

with LFR being obviously added for dragon soul at the end of cata

Sure, mostly Wrath then.
Now, I would be fine with things such as LFR gone but a lot of people would not. It would not be an overall improvement for the game.

[LaserChild9]

That being said, I wonder what kind of interest there would be in WoW retail servers that were "vanillaized"? By "vanillaized" I mean the following were removed:

1) No merged realms

2) No cross realm

3) No LFR

4) No LFG

5) No realm hopping

6) No cross-realm BG's

Most of the population would quit within a year if not faster. The fact is that the majority of the population want these features and they don't care about vanilla. Don't get me wrong, Classic is being made because there is a big demand for it but its not enough to take over from the retail game.

[Flarelaine]

Let me start by saying I am not one of these anti-classic WoW people, I am looking forward to it and can't wait to see how they implement it.

That being said, I wonder what kind of interest there would be in WoW retail servers that were "vanillaized"? By "vanillaized" I mean the following were removed:

1) No merged realms

2) No cross realm

3) No LFR

4) No LFG

5) No realm hopping

6) No cross-realm BG's

Basically, you are forced to interact with people on your server. The people you see at the AH or in the middle of Winterfel, are on your server. If you get a bad reputation for cheating, scamming, or just being a dick, that reputation haunts you on your server. The same with good a good reputation. If you camp some low level dude, he can remember your name and hunt you down once he gets geared, or he can get guildiees to help haunt you down and you dont phase away to another realm just because you crossed a zone barrier. Etc. Etc.

Part of me wonders if these changes wouldnt give me 80% of what I want from Classic WoW? Maybe this sort of server with current retail content, should be an option in addition to Classic WoW?

You would have to cut paid name/faction change for that.

[Deleted]

If vanilla becomes immensely popular perhaps we would see an improvement to retail. They believed the "playerbase" changed after WOTLK and became clear in MOP after Ghostcrawler talked more about their 'new path'

[Queen of Hamsters]

If vanilla becomes immensely popular perhaps we would see an improvement to retail. They believed the "playerbase" changed after WOTLK and became clear in MOP after Ghostcrawler talked more about their 'new path'

After WOTLK?

I recall WOTLK being called "World of Casualcraft", and even TBC had "welfare epics"...
I get the feeling that the golden line of "when the game stopped catering to MY awesome kind!"-mentality keeps moving forward every 2 years or so...

[Riistov]

imho retail wow should keep moving forward as it is and not backwards, some may not like it some will.

And when classic is out we can always play that if we are not satisfied by retail anymore.

Totally agree with this. Its a huge win/win for Blizzard and the players alike.

Personally, I am super excited for both Classic and BfA!

[Deleted]

After WOTLK?

I recall WOTLK being called "World of Casualcraft", and even TBC had "welfare epics"...
I get the feeling that the golden line of "when the game stopped catering to MY awesome kind!"-mentality keeps moving forward every 2 years or so...

yes WOTLK was the beginning of LFD tool, and as for the epics. There were a couple for crafting in the beginning, and dungeons had blues, Naxx had the epics, it was later on they added epics to dungeons. I do remember spending alot of time jumping around dalaran though, but still, the daileys were not THAT bad and Winterspring was cool.

[Kazgrel]

Let me start by saying I am not one of these anti-classic WoW people, I am looking forward to it and can't wait to see how they implement it.

That being said, I wonder what kind of interest there would be in WoW retail servers that were "vanillaized"? By "vanillaized" I mean the following were removed:

1) No merged realms

2) No cross realm

3) No LFR

4) No LFG

5) No realm hopping

6) No cross-realm BG's

Basically, you are forced to interact with people on your server. The people you see at the AH or in the middle of Winterfel, are on your server. If you get a bad reputation for cheating, scamming, or just being a dick, that reputation haunts you on your server. The same with good a good reputation. If you camp some low level dude, he can remember your name and hunt you down once he gets geared, or he can get guildiees to help haunt you down and you dont phase away to another realm just because you crossed a zone barrier. Etc. Etc.

Part of me wonders if these changes wouldnt give me 80% of what I want from Classic WoW? Maybe this sort of server with current retail content, should be an option in addition to Classic WoW?

It would result in a congregation of players onto a select number of servers, generally ones that have always been high-ish pop for most of the game's lifespan, in order to be able to find people to group with. Others, rather than pay up for a server transfer, may opt to just quit playing instead. Most of the medium and low pop servers would effectively be ghost towns. Legit server merges would likely become a necessity, or perhaps free transfers off the high pop servers, perhaps with some other incentives to go along (a similar measure was taken by Square Enix prior to Final Fantasy 14's Stormblood expansion).

In short, I don't see the "vanillazation" of current WoW panning out well at all. Not because I wouldn't want such a thing to succeed; I've lamented CRZ and realm hopping ever since it was added to the game, since early on it basically removed all the benefits of being on a lower pop server. That said, I miss how my old server was in it's heyday (Ysera US, during WotLK) when it bordered on high pop status and had no worse than a 60/40 A:H ratio (I'd say it was closer to 55/45). So much fun every time WG started up.

[Akka]

After WOTLK?

I recall WOTLK being called "World of Casualcraft", and even TBC had "welfare epics"...
I get the feeling that the golden line of "when the game stopped catering to MY awesome kind!"-mentality keeps moving forward every 2 years or so...

Actually, what he says just means the same thing.
If the "playerbase shifted after WotLK", it means that WotLK changed the game enough to alter the playerbase. Which is pretty much exactly what happened.

[Lumicide]

1) No merged realms - Dead servers will became even more dead

2) No cross realm - same as first

3) No LFR - I'm not using it

4) No LFG - If you mean random HC dungeon, last one I did was like a half year ago

5) No realm hopping - That would be a good change

6) No cross-realm BG's - same as 1

1/2/6. Then merge the low pop servers, and start enforcing faction balance. You don't need to retain the destroyed state of realm-communities to bolster the population on small realms. This isn't rocket science. (actual merge, e.g., akama + mug'thol = mug'thol. Not allowing players from Akama to share the server with Mug'thol)

There is a real reason to do this, as opposed to the horrible system of cross realm. x-realm creates an artificial increase in population, that's really just random people who are, therefor, essentially anonymous.

"In contrast to numerous studies of community structure, we find that the best communities are relatively small with sizes only up to about 100 nodes. We also find that above a size of about 100, the "quality" of communities gets worse and worse and communities more and more "blend into" the graph. Eventually, even the existence of communities (at least when viewed as sets with stronger internal than external connectivity) is rather questionable. This seems to agree with Dunbar who predicted that 150 is the upper limit on the size of the human community." -http://cs.stanford.edu/people/jure/pubs/ncp-www08.pdf

There needs to be content pruning too. So as to get rid of all the empty, instantly worthless(after leveling), zones; and the irrelevant story content they present. (not for vanilla, as it has essentially no extraneous content)

[Mormolyce]

These are terrible suggestions that would never ever happen.

I almost want them to implement it for a week just to see the shitstorm it would cause.

[Archon14]

"WOW IS DEAD" would become valid threads.