The REAL reason we want Vanilla (in my opinion!)

[Deleted]

I was just thinking - all (well... a lot!) of the opinions on how Vanilla was a worse in the gaming aspect are...actually true.

I think what we all miss is not THE Vanilla. It's the vanilla experience - and it has nothing to do with rose tinted glasses.

We can all agree that we are living in different times than those 13 years ago. A lot of things got...organized(!). Back then - the game was like a background to our imagination. A lot of the rules were tough, a lot meant simply grinding but we still enjoyed it. I remember people just having fun walking around the zones - with no real reason just to PVP or mine or whatever.

A lot changed with the introduction of achievements - and that is applicable to whole gaming industry. Suddenly we started competing with each other. Now I know it happened in the past but not on such a big scale. Now everybody has a goal, and the game became...well just a set with things to "check".

That is why I think Classic is important. If it succeeds (I hope so) it may change the industry. It may show the developers that there are still people who want to just play the game, who are not into it just TO SEE AND DO IT ALL, but who just want to play it.

What do you think?

[Nefastus]

The reason is that vanilla was a better game, at least more fun. Could be TBC or Wrath even, its from there on that things went downhill.

[Specialka]

The reason is that vanilla was a better game, at least more fun. Could be TBC or Wrath even, its from there on that things went downhill.

Define better game, because, all I can remember from Vanilla are bad class balance, horrible gearing, simplistic bosses and so on...

[Zenfoldor]

I think I would want Vanilla more if I hadn't played it so thoroughly during it's original release. I have a photographic memory, so for me it's like this was yesterday. I was so bored of farming Eastern Plaguelands by the time TBC came out, I was in awe of the new expansion. I can't play Vanilla perpetually, it will get old after a time as a MMO needs new content eventually.

[Saffa]

The main reason it was so good is you were 13 years younger. Playing the same game now will not make you a young carefree kid.

[ablock87]

Define better game, because, all I can remember from Vanilla are bad class balance, horrible gearing, simplistic bosses and so on...

In terms of an MMORPG, it was better because:

• Leveling felt like an acomplishment that took time to achieve; the game didn't "start" at max level.
• The world felt alive and adventurous; going into Stonetalon Mountains for the first time, a contested zone, was exciting for me.
• Loot was not handed out like candy. An epic felt epic. Even the dungeon sets had a certain awe to them.
• Reward for effort. Today, there really is no incentive to play more than at a casual level other than maybe a mythic-specific mount, but vanilla had real acomplishments, like Rank 14, race to ring the AQ gong, hard-to-attain legendaries, etc.
• A sense of community and server pride. No amalgamation of servers, no LFD/LFR. People actually engaged with each other.
• Unique classes. Every class had their place, their strengths and weaknesses. It wasn't badly balanced, it was good class design. A paladin offered great heals and the best buffs in the game at the cost of DPS. Rogues were good DPS at the cost of utility.

Just to name a few. You can agree or disagree with the points, but an argument can definitely be made for the strength of vanilla wow.

[Notshauna]

Define better game, because, all I can remember from Vanilla are bad class balance, horrible gearing, simplistic bosses and so on...

It really depends on how you define the game. WoW's instances are vastly superior and as is the class balance but, the experience of playing it isn't. So much of vanilla's harshness has been sanded off now, and with it any real stakes and believability. WoW now teleports you to where you need to go and throws you into situations where you'll never die. When you completed one quest hub there was no bread crumb leading you to the next one, so you had to go and explore, sometimes wandering into areas where you have no business being and getting in tough fights. There were no auto group finders so you had to go out there and make your own.

All of these things were inconvenient and as such they were removed, but inconvenience sometimes leads to special moments that simply aren't there anymore. In otherwords WoW right now is sanitary, you experience a nice smooth path from 1-110 without really any challenges, but with that change they smoothed out the interesting parts of the path.

[Hotsforyou]

The real reason i want Vanilla is because every decision after LFD has been horrible. They have ruined the game for me outside of raiding. Raiding is the only saving grace and yet i get ripped on all the time by guildies for not wanting to live my life in M+ to get all the titan forged gear.

The reason is that vanilla was a better game, at least more fun. Could be TBC or Wrath even, its from there on that things went downhill.

As long as they left out LFD from Wrath. NEVER introduce it into any legacy servers of any type.

[Nefastus]

Define better game, because, all I can remember from Vanilla are bad class balance, horrible gearing, simplistic bosses and so on...

Was writiting some stuff but Ablock87 explained pretty well.

[Armourboy]

For me it's really kind of a feeling that WoW has gained everything but lost it's soul. It is probably a better game today, I mean I still play Legion, but that doesn't mean it is a better MMORPG.

Best explanation I can think of is that WoW today is a good MMO, but not as good of an MMORPG. It's really a style difference tbh, the messed up classes and lack of QoL features point back to a more old school design that some of us grew up on and miss ( I was playing MMO's before Wow).

[Swalload]

The reason is that vanilla was a better game, at least more fun. Could be TBC or Wrath even, its from there on that things went downhill.

It was factually not a better game. It was more enjoyable being 13 years younger with less responsibilities and discovering a new giant world with so much new stuff to do. Now we do the same things and more, these things have not changed, so they are not less or more fun, but WE have changed.

[Sorcath]

It was factually not a better game. It was more enjoyable being 13 years younger with less responsibilities and discovering a new giant world with so much new stuff to do. Now we do the same things and more, these things have not changed, so they are not less or more fun, but WE have changed.

Youre confusing opinions with facts again.

[Swalload]

In terms of an MMORPG, it was better because:

• Leveling felt like an acomplishment that took time to achieve; the game didn't "start" at max level.
  A good MMO doesn't need slow and tedious lvling to be engaging and interesting.
• The world felt alive and adventurous; going into Stonetalon Mountains for the first time, a contested zone, was exciting for me.
  That's your perception at the time, a new player can feel this very same feeling today. It has absolutely nothing to do with the game and you will never feel this again in Classic.
• Loot was not handed out like candy. An epic felt epic. Even the dungeon sets had a certain awe to them.
  Sure, but itemization was beyond shit, with the wrong stats on many armor types and sets that forced people into a spec, and so on.
• Reward for effort. Today, there really is no incentive to play more than at a casual level other than maybe a mythic-specific mount, but vanilla had real acomplishments, like Rank 14, race to ring the AQ gong, hard-to-attain legendaries, etc.
  Yes that's because the target audience is basically 10 years older than it was when they released the game. You are supposed to have evolved as well and not be looking for a game to play 15 hours a day at this point in your life.
• A sense of community and server pride. No amalgamation of servers, no LFD/LFR. People actually engaged with each other.
  How is spamming chat in a city to make a group "engaging with people"?
• Unique classes. Every class had their place, their strengths and weaknesses. It wasn't badly balanced, it was good class design. A paladin offered great heals and the best buffs in the game at the cost of DPS. Rogues were good DPS at the cost of utility.
  Nothing in the history of gaming was more unbalanced than vanilla. Paladins were not allowed to be a dps class, pretty much every class had only 1 viable spec. The few classes that had all the strength clearly took a shit on other classes that had almost all the weaknesses. Nothing made sense. Out of the 3 classes with a tanking spec only one was designed well enough to be used in raids. Most rotations had around 75% less buttons than we do today. Rogues were good dps but not at the cost of utility at all, sap, blind, kick and stuns were all extremely useful, utility doesn't mean "buffing others".

Just to name a few. You can agree or disagree with the points, but an argument can definitely be made for the strength of vanilla wow.

I added some facts to your list of opinions.

- - - Updated - - -

Youre confusing opinions with facts again.

No, you think it's an opinion because it challenges yours and it feels easier for you to ignore what I say by claiming it's an opinion instead of realizing it's a fact which means you've been wrong.

[Armourboy]

It was factually not a better game. It was more enjoyable being 13 years younger with less responsibilities and discovering a new giant world with so much new stuff to do. Now we do the same things and more, these things have not changed, so they are not less or more fun, but WE have changed.

You have changed maybe, some of us already had those responsibilities 13 years ago.

[Swalload]

You have changed maybe, some of us already had those responsibilities 13 years ago.

Well yeah, we don't all live the same life but the average player age at that time was younger than it is today. In general WoW players have less time to invest in the game than they did back then.

[Shaderas]

Unique classes. Every class had their place, their strengths and weaknesses. It wasn't badly balanced, it was good class design. A paladin offered great heals and the best buffs in the game at the cost of DPS. Rogues were good DPS at the cost of utility.

You must not be talking about PVP, as PVP wasn't well balanced.

Also, while every class had it's place, not every spec had its place. Certain classes were required to play a certain spec if they wanted to raid.

[Armourboy]

I added some facts to your list of opinions.

- - - Updated - - -



No, you think it's an opinion because it challenges yours and it feels easier for you to ignore what I say by claiming it's an opinion instead of realizing it's a fact which means you've been wrong.

If you believe Vanilla WoW was the most unbalanced in the history of gaming then SWG would like to have a word with you.

[Sorcath]

No, you think it's an opinion because it challenges yours and it feels easier for you to ignore what I say by claiming it's an opinion instead of realizing it's a fact which means you've been wrong.

The only thing 'challanged' here is your weak grasp on reality. Much like th toxic nature of politics, just because your preference doesnt allign with mine does not validate your OPINION on how fun the game was percieved. Facts are undeniably proven. Youve proven nothing but how youve lauded insults in replacement of evidence. Any evidence. Any evidence besides 'i didnt like it so therefor thats evidence enough.'

Go figure though, a clearer borometer on how well vanilla servers are recieved would be to check out the active player sub on private servers instead of some kid speculating well hate it because your generation brings nothing to the table excpet stirring the pot. Ya know, a place where if they get shut down people flock to find a replacement to start the 1-60 grind all over

[Armourboy]

Well yeah, we don't all live the same life but the average player age at that time was younger than it is today. In general WoW players have less time to invest in the game than they did back then.

Unless you can provide numbers that prove the average age was younger then I'm going to assume that is mostly from your own personal experience and not actual fact. Everything I've ever seen from Blizzard showed a game population that always averaged in the upper 20's to early 30's.

My own personal experience from Vanilla was that the game was pretty well spread out over the age groups. I had a guild I played with that mostly younger, but even most of them were in their early 20's, and then I had my guild who mostly were in their late 20's but also had a large group in their early 30's raising kids then. Heck I even played with a handful of people that were in their early 50's and they played as much as I did.

Now the hard core raiding community may have been a bit on the younger side comparatively, but as far as Vanilla as a whole, every number I've ever seen was anything but a bunch of 16-23 year olds playing. Vanilla WoW as a whole was pretty spread out.

[Swalload]

The only thing 'challanged' here is your weak grasp on reality. Much like th toxic nature of politics, just because your preference doesnt allign with mine does not validate your OPINION on how fun the game was percieved. Facts are undeniably proven. Youve proven nothing but how youve lauded insults in replacement of evidence. Any evidence. Any evidence besides 'i didnt like it so therefor thats evidence enough.'

Go figure though, a clearer borometer on how well vanilla servers are recieved would be to check out the active player sub on private servers instead of some kid speculating well hate it because your generation brings nothing to the table excpet stirring the pot. Ya know, a place where if they get shut down people flock to find a replacement to start the 1-60 grind all over

The original comment was this:

The reason is that vanilla was a better game

It was not about the "fun" that you mention. Those are 2 very different things. Something can be well made, the best thing ever created and bring you no fun. On the other hand, there are people who get off by having people shit in their mouth.

The quality of a game(or anything else in the world) can be judged in an unbiased way regardless of how fun or how boring it is to the player. It's all a matter of disconnecting yourself from your tastes, opinions and belief in order to see things for what they truly are.