The misconception of vanilla being bugged

[Wilian]

The discussion regarding the new vanilla WoW servers that has been raging lately has recently brought forth an important argument that rears its head time and time again whenever someone mentions their desire to re-experience the game. That idea, of course, is that vanilla WoW was incredibly bugged.

This notion of vanilla being 'full of bugs' has always felt rather strange to me because all in all, vanilla WoW was not at all that buggy. This may come as a shocker to many, but let me elaborate on my opinion. (Or don’t, and go on and tell me about the rose-tinted nostalgia glasses)

Of course there were shitloads of issues with the game during its first few post-launch months, but not all of those bugs, many were issues that had to do with the popularity of the game that caused instability with the server cluster and as such further issues. I don't want to downplay those issues. They were expecting around 200 000 people, they got millions. Of course shit was bound to hit the fan.

However, that doesn't make the game bugged.

This is where I feel misunderstandings begin. This misunderstanding stems from mislabelling things that do not work as intended, or simply well, as bugs, especially with years of hindsight to go with. Design choices that appeared contradicting? Clearly bugs. Misbalancing gear? Of course it's a bug. Hell, there's been so many people claiming that gear was bugged just because it was poorly balanced it's not even funny.

What seems to have happened over time is that people have started to attribute the bug status to what was design decisions at the time. For example, someone might look at some design choices like class talents (say, Survival Hunter and mix of melee talents) and consider, with modern perspective that the spec is bugged, rather than what it was, conflict between intent of design and execution.

Same is true for gear - people tend to mislabel ”poorly balanced” with ”bugged”. "All gear had spirit, that's so bugged" is one of the often seen arguments. It's merely a misconception, Spirit mechanically worked fine, though its purpose changed from Alpha to release and the team never reworked the stats due to workload.

Vanilla Wow did have its bugs of course, but so does every game and by comparison it’s technically very competent - especially post 1.5. Comparing early vanilla WoW experience to launch of just about any post-WoW MMO is likely to net an equal, or even greater amount of bugs despite the modern dev teams having Blizzard’s example of dos and don’ts in plain sight.

The entire 'vanilla was bugged' is more of a self-perpetuating meme that became reality because people keep saying so rather than it being so, based largely on misconceptions.
When WoW came out, one of its key points of praise was just how smooth, polished and functional it was compared to any other MMO on the market. You can pick almost any review from that time and you can bet your ass 'bugged' wasn't brought up as a common complaint.

So when you next time speak of vanilla, please don't say how 'bugged' it was, but 'how it doesn't fit your view of design or doesn't suit your modern sensibilities.'.

[MoanaLisa]

Determining what was a bug and a design decision is a critical thing going forward on this. Depending on what patch Blizzard starts with as a launch point, it makes sense to fix unintended bugs that shipped with the game. The design decisions, good or bad, need to be left in place.

[Wilian]

Determining what was a bug and a design decision is a critical thing going forward on this. Depending on what patch Blizzard starts with as a launch point, it makes sense to fix unintended bugs that shipped with the game. The design decisions, good or bad, need to be left in place.

Bugs are easy to determine, not working as intended code-wise.

[Mellomania]

Never seen any of the examples you stated being called bugs though.

[Xenryusho]

Thaddius used to throw you into the slime with the tank toss if the server was laggy. My theory was that it always threw you to the other tanks position; and it saved one tanks position after it had already thrown the tank whos position it saved, so one would already be over the slime when the other got thrown.

[Heladys]

Vanilla was heavily bugged. Clients crashed, servers hung and lag-stormed constantly, mail would just stop working for an hour, dozens of spells simply didn't do what they were supposed to or interacted poorly with different types of situations, etc.

Obviously balancing/design shit wasn't bugs, but come on - it was buggier than a roach motel.

[Wilian]

Vanilla was heavily bugged. Clients crashed, servers hung and lag-stormed constantly, mail would just stop working for an hour, dozens of spells simply didn't do what they were supposed to or interacted poorly with different types of situations, etc.

Obviously balancing/design shit wasn't bugs, but come on - it was buggier than a roach motel.

Typically related to patch day/week, not overall game.

[Kuntantee]

Bugs are easy to determine, not working as intended code-wise.

Bugs certainly are not easy to determine. Some bugs never show themselves in regular conditions.

[Wilian]

Thaddius used to throw you into the slime with the tank toss if the server was laggy. My theory was that it always threw you to the other tanks position; and it saved one tanks position after it had already thrown the tank whos position it saved, so one would already be over the slime when the other got thrown.

Clearly I am talking of overall game, not the some handful of guilds that went up to Naxx.

[hulkgor]

Vanilla was heavily bugged. Clients crashed, servers hung and lag-stormed constantly, mail would just stop working for an hour, dozens of spells simply didn't do what they were supposed to or interacted poorly with different types of situations, etc.

Obviously balancing/design shit wasn't bugs, but come on - it was buggier than a roach motel.

You are a very clear example of what the OP just stated.

Lag-stormed? BUG, nothing to do with servers not being able to manage the never even imagined influx of players! BUG. Maybe not buddy, maybe not.

[Heladys]

Typically related to patch day/week, not overall game.

Bullshit. Absolutely related to the overall game.

Boss tagging and loot eligibility bugs plagued the game at least until Naxx. Enjoy losing your chance at loot for the week because your hunter or warlock's pet got credited with the first hit. Warrior charge and mage blink sending you falling through the world forever. Dying in a weird spot and your ghost dying of fatigue trying to get to your corpse. Your ghost dying of falling damage trying to get to your corpse. Buying something off the auction house and not being allowed to loot it from your mail. Mounting up while in bear form.

There are dozens and dozens of examples of things outright not working, across almost the entire scope of the game.

Getting it to work as well as it did so that we loved it despite all that absolutely was an accomplishment, but don't gild the lily. Shit was bugtastic.

[huth]

Bugs certainly are not easy to determine. Some bugs never show themselves in regular conditions.

You're talking about different things. It's not hard for Blizzard to tell what is a bug and what isn't, but that doesn't mean that it is easy to tell why it is happening or where.

[Wilian]

Bullshit. Absolutely related to the overall game.

Boss tagging and loot eligibility bugs plagued the game at least until Naxx. Enjoy losing your chance at loot for the week because your hunter or warlock's pet got credited with the first hit. Warrior charge and mage blink sending you falling through the world forever. Dying in a weird spot and your ghost dying of fatigue trying to get to your corpse. Your ghost dying of falling damage trying to get to your corpse. Buying something off the auction house and not being allowed to loot it from your mail. Mounting up while in bear form.

There are dozens and dozens of examples of things outright not working, across almost the entire scope of the game.

Getting it to work as well as it did so that we loved it despite all that absolutely was an accomplishment, but don't gild the lily. Shit was bugtastic.

Seems like you speak of private server issues than what were actual issues in the game.

[Aggrophobic]

Determining what was a bug and a design decision is a critical thing going forward on this. Depending on what patch Blizzard starts with as a launch point, it makes sense to fix unintended bugs that shipped with the game. The design decisions, good or bad, need to be left in place.

Ehm, what? No, I'm quite sure they know the difference between a bug and a design choice.

[Super Kami Dende]

Throughout Vanilla I had many Quest bugs, I fell through the ground more times than my could count on Hands and feet, sometimes Textures were all fucked up,times when I would use a potion and it would be consumed but give no buff.

None of these were design choices. I experienced more crashes in Vanilla than I have with my fully modded Skyrim.

[BEYR]

Seems like you speak of private server issues than what were actual issues in the game.

No, those were things that happened in game. And "it was more popular than expected" doesn't make a bug not a bug. It's not an insult. The sheer madness involved in cobbling together a working game of that magnitude given the technology of the time is awe inspiring. Let alone one that was enjoyable and loved enough to survive 13 years when most games are DoA in a month. Embrace the barely controlled chaos that was Vanilla. And realize that the bugs that show up when they finally implement it were most likely there in the original game.

[Crissi]

Seems like you speak of private server issues than what were actual issues in the game.

Those existed in Vanilla as well. I distinctly remember experiencing a few of those (bear mount ups, ghosts dying, pet tagging issues).

Not to mention tram bugging out and teleporting me outside the tram.

[evogsr]

I'd like someone to name a MMO, let alone any multiplayer game that wasn't bugged at any point, didn't have any imbalances, or didn't have a single person who perceived something was "broken" (as if it had nothing to do with them being a knuckledragger).

- - - Updated - - -

Vanilla was heavily bugged. Clients crashed, servers hung and lag-stormed constantly, mail would just stop working for an hour, dozens of spells simply didn't do what they were supposed to or interacted poorly with different types of situations, etc.

Obviously balancing/design shit wasn't bugs, but come on - it was buggier than a roach motel.

You're also describing BDO.

[Deleted]

Its fanboy selected memory. At the time any Blizzard game or expansion is a shinning beacon of quality and perfection. Once an expansion is in the past it cant be as good as the game now as that would imply Blizzard is not constantly improving. So they call it buggy and unbalanced etc etc even though at the time they would never had said that.

It roughly takes 2 expansions before they start to point out any faults.

[Siglius]

Its fanboy selected memory. At the time any Blizzard game or expansion is a shinning beacon of quality and perfection. Once an expansion is in the past it cant be as good as the game now as that would imply Blizzard is not constantly improving. So they call it buggy and unbalanced etc etc even though at the time they would never had said that.

It roughly takes 2 expansions before they start to point out any faults.

Pretty sure it's the opposite, people always shit on the current expansion and then speak fondly of it when it's a couple of years behind and nostalgia sets in. I dont know what kinda drugs you're on, but man it must be some good shit.

OT: Classic was, for the vast majority a buggy piece of shit that obviously got improved on as it evolved. Why do you think all Pservers insists on using the latests damn patch, even on progressive realms? It was around 1.9~ish it started to be somewhat normalized.