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

[Zyky]

Well you can believe what you want, but saying "no you didn't" isn't a great leg to stand on for an argument.

If you don't have proof, you didn't do it. That's pretty much the bottom line when it comes to the internet.

[Kyanion]

Vanilla was pretty much nothing but Raiding or prepping for Raids. Lol Also, the only raid size that drop Epics in Vanilla were 40mans. If Blizz makes that the standard again, good luck in getting that to work in todays day and age.

lolwut? AQ20 says hi, ZG says hi. Also don't forget people were doing PvP for epics as well. I think there was a couple of epics you could get in UBRS/LBRS, scholo/strat and so on. Not nearly as many in those dungeons of course but I do think there was a few. Hell, I spent more time in Vanilla in epics than I did out of them, once I did MC and a mix of PvP I was drowning in purples.

[Xirrohon]

lolwut? AQ20 says hi, ZG says hi. Also don't forget people were doing PvP for epics as well. I think there was a couple of epics you could get in UBRS/LBRS, scholo/strat and so on. Not nearly as many in those dungeons of course but I do think there was a few. Hell, I spent more time in Vanilla in epics than I did out of them, once I did MC and a mix of PvP I was drowning in purples.

Lol. No you didnt and if you did, then you werent very good because like I said. Most blues were better than Epics.

[Kyanion]

Lol. No you didnt and if you did, then you werent very good because like I said. Most blues were better than Epics.

I never said I didn't use blues when the situation called for it. What I am saying is that epics were raining from the sky as I played. Considering I was playing a rogue at the start and you could murder people with starter weapons I don't think it mattered that much. The fact is I got plenty of epic gear early and often from raiding, pvp and even smaller dungeons.

When I switched to my moonkin around 1.8 or whatever patch it was it was even easier to gear because content had been out for so long, though I mostly used blues on this character as they added in dungeon gear to places like strat/scholo/dire maul that was better statted for what I was doing.

I notice you didn't say anything about Aq20/ZG epics though, why is that? You decided to try and turn it to a personal attack because you know you were wrong and got called on it. As I said it wasn't hard to get epics if you were invested in doing the content for it. Most people in Vanilla did not raid so of course people that weren't doing the content weren't getting epics unless they were getting them late Vanilla from PvP of course.

[Armourboy]

ZG and AQ20 dropped epics, also what became the 5 mans dropped them as well. Eventually you could get them from the Tier .5 as well. Obviously they weren't all good but they could be seen from dungeons even prior to hitting 60.

[ablock87]

If you don't have proof, you didn't do it. That's pretty much the bottom line when it comes to the internet.

Not sure what I have to gain by lying, but okay.

[Nomads]

Vanilla is a much better game. If you doubt that, but up a character on a private server level to level 10. Level 10 is your first big achievment in most senses.

You'll see the RPG aspect of the game shine. You read quest text to find out where to go, your class trainers are introduced in unique ways, you get special quests specific to your class. Different classes have clear strengths and weaknesses from start. You are limited it what weapons you know how to weild, and you have up your skills with them when you switch.

You actually die in the 1-10 starting zone. Sometimes a lot. You have to group up with others if you want to complete the quests. Each zone has an overarching story you get invested in. Some quests send you all over the world to complete, and you actually have to run to those locations.

Retail WoW is a dumbed down MOBA more than a MMORPG. This is why Vanilla is better.

[Kyanion]

Vanilla is a much better game.

Retail WoW is a dumbed down MOBA more than a MMORPG. This is why Vanilla is better.

In your opinion it is better. I don't see it that way and I played from Day 1 in Vanilla. Vanilla was wonderful for its time. Vanilla would pose no challenge to me after doing nearly everything the first time around and knowing far more than I did back then.

You can call retail a MOBA all you want, does not change that it is a MMORPG the same as it was 13 years ago. I don't get the need to bash retail but whatever floats your boat.

[Akka]

It's pretty odd though. Classic doesn't seem to be able to stand on its own legs to its crowd, seeing as how they must always make claims about how "bad" current WoW is (usually with factually incorrect points as well) in order to lift it up.

You mean, unlike all the guys who come here and spend their time ranting about how Vanilla was shit and WoW has "progressed" since then ?
Or are you (very) selectively blind ?

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Still seems the same way to me, have you leveled lately at all? I've been doing a new character, he's level 76 now and I've had him use no BoA gear. I've been going through each zone (some I wasn't able to do, outleveled it or the fact there's multiple options to choose from) and everything has been going quite fine so far. Nothing has changed since then

100 % bullshit, and honestly that's so obvious I don't even feel the need to point the ridiculousness of the "nothing has changed" joke.

[Kyanion]

You'll see the RPG aspect of the game shine. You read quest text to find out where to go, your class trainers are introduced in unique ways, you get special quests specific to your class. Different classes have clear strengths and weaknesses from start. You are limited it what weapons you know how to weild, and you have up your skills with them when you switch.

You actually die in the 1-10 starting zone. Sometimes a lot. You have to group up with others if you want to complete the quests. Each zone has an overarching story you get invested in. Some quests send you all over the world to complete, and you actually have to run to those locations.

Maybe you ran into troubles your first time playing and died often, but I know that was not my experience of the game. I came from a much much harder MMO in EverQuest and so killing things in WoW was fairly simple and I don't even remember when I first died in WoW but it wasn't during 1-10.

You think people that played Vanilla that go back to the game are going to get the same type of challenge they did when it was first new? I don't think they will, but I'm sure some of them will enjoy it, more power to them. I just don't get the pointless bashing of retail to try and prop Vanilla up to something else. If Vanilla was so great let it stand on its own merits without knocking the current game to accomplish that.

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You mean, unlike all the guys who come here and spend their time ranting about how Vanilla was shit and WoW has "progressed" since then ?
Or are you (very) selectively blind ?

What about the person I just quoted, Nomads, who rants about retail being a shit MOBA and how amazing Vanilla was. Are you selectively blind as well?

[Blamblam41]

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.

Bullet point number one is just a matter of subjective opinion. Leveling might be easier, but that also comes with a game that revolves around maximizing alt time.

Bullet point two is absolutely bullshit, the world is alive in Legion now more than any other point in WoW history. Vanilla was very much dead outside of large quest hubs and major cities during the latter part of Vanilla unless you rocked an extremely extremely high population server.

Bullet point three is also absolutely bullshit. There are relevant rewards for players that want to put for the relevant effort, but there are also modes of playing the game that allow for players that don't want that kind of end game gameplay to still enjoy the game. I will never understand why purists think limitations on other players=good gameplay. Just stop.

Bullet point number four, if anything, died with faction transfers, server transfers and name changes. While none of those things were technically in Vanilla, nothing stopped a toxic player from just remaking a character and grinding back to cap or just being toxic on an alt. It's an entirely moot point, not to mention false in the sense that there is still very much a community in retail WoW, if you were assed enough to actually look.

And finally, bullet point number five. Whew, where do I even start? Between copy pasted melee animations, copy pasted spell animations, class mechanics that didn't work as described, class mechanics bugged beyond shit and mechanics that just didn't function with some bosses, Vanilla was the farthest thing from 'unique' classes. If anything, they were unique in how simultaneously underwhelming and low-effort they felt like, especially with some classes literally relying on lower rank spells to be at all relevant in fucking solo content (rank 1 frostbolts lmfao.)

Seriously, Vanilla was -not a good game- by any metric of standard. Its 'limitations' as some put it are really just not that interesting nor do they promote any sort of rewarding gameplay and fundamentally that is what gaming is about.

- - - Updated - - -

Vanilla is a much better game. If you doubt that, but up a character on a private server level to level 10. Level 10 is your first big achievment in most senses.

You'll see the RPG aspect of the game shine. You read quest text to find out where to go, your class trainers are introduced in unique ways, you get special quests specific to your class. Different classes have clear strengths and weaknesses from start. You are limited it what weapons you know how to weild, and you have up your skills with them when you switch.

You actually die in the 1-10 starting zone. Sometimes a lot. You have to group up with others if you want to complete the quests. Each zone has an overarching story you get invested in. Some quests send you all over the world to complete, and you actually have to run to those locations.

Retail WoW is a dumbed down MOBA more than a MMORPG. This is why Vanilla is better.

I read quest text all the time. I actually never understood this, when did it become commonplace for people to just skip quest text?

Oh right, because they've done it a hundred million times and it's not interesting and doing it again won't make it anymore interesting. ./rollseyes

I don't need you 12 year olds who never ever touched the game to tell me how it played, atleast I have fucking Corporal to prove it.

[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?

"it's nothing to do with nostalgia, it's just entirely to do with nostalgia"

[Nomads]

Bullet point number one is just a matter of subjective opinion. Leveling might be easier, but that also comes with a game that revolves around maximizing alt time.

Bullet point two is absolutely bullshit, the world is alive in Legion now more than any other point in WoW history. Vanilla was very much dead outside of large quest hubs and major cities during the latter part of Vanilla unless you rocked an extremely extremely high population server.

Bullet point three is also absolutely bullshit. There are relevant rewards for players that want to put for the relevant effort, but there are also modes of playing the game that allow for players that don't want that kind of end game gameplay to still enjoy the game. I will never understand why purists think limitations on other players=good gameplay. Just stop.

Bullet point number four, if anything, died with faction transfers, server transfers and name changes. While none of those things were technically in Vanilla, nothing stopped a toxic player from just remaking a character and grinding back to cap or just being toxic on an alt. It's an entirely moot point, not to mention false in the sense that there is still very much a community in retail WoW, if you were assed enough to actually look.

And finally, bullet point number five. Whew, where do I even start? Between copy pasted melee animations, copy pasted spell animations, class mechanics that didn't work as described, class mechanics bugged beyond shit and mechanics that just didn't function with some bosses, Vanilla was the farthest thing from 'unique' classes. If anything, they were unique in how simultaneously underwhelming and low-effort they felt like, especially with some classes literally relying on lower rank spells to be at all relevant in fucking solo content (rank 1 frostbolts lmfao.)

Seriously, Vanilla was -not a good game- by any metric of standard. Its 'limitations' as some put it are really just not that interesting nor do they promote any sort of rewarding gameplay and fundamentally that is what gaming is about.

- - - Updated - - -



I read quest text all the time. I actually never understood this, when did it become commonplace for people to just skip quest text?

Oh right, because they've done it a hundred million times and it's not interesting and doing it again won't make it anymore interesting. ./rollseyes

I don't need you 12 year olds who never ever touched the game to tell me how it played, atleast I have fucking Corporal to prove it.

I'm a 32 year old who cleared Naxx 40 up to 4 Horsemen while it was current.

See the idiocy of your post now? With one sentence I was able in invalidate everything you just said, merely because you decided to get mad and try to make it personal. Learn from your stupidity.

[Kyanion]

I'm a 32 year old who cleared Naxx 40 up to 4 Horsemen while it was current.

See the idiocy of your post now? With one sentence I was able in invalidate everything you just said, merely because you decided to get mad and try to make it personal. Learn from your stupidity.

Yet many of the points he made except for the personal attack were fairly good points. Of course because a personal attack is made you'll deflect and claim you invalidate everything they said...well you didn't.

[Nomads]

Yet many of the points he made except for the personal attack were fairly good points. Of course because a personal attack is made you'll deflect and claim you invalidate everything they said...well you didn't.

This is literally the point I was making. What's wrong with the average retail fan these days?

[Mirishka]

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.

The game doesn't 'start' at max level now. The boost we're given is for people who want to catch up with their friends, or quickly level an alt - and even that only takes you to 100. Max level is 110. Ergo, not max level. And it was players complaining about having to do all that old outdated content to catch up to their friends (or even the current content) that resulted in a boost in the first place.

I think the old world felt empty compared to zones in the new expansions. There were huge stretches of nothing but badly modeled trees and the occasional, oddly placed mob... like encountering a bear, and 20 feet away, a giant spider. Neither of them acknowledging the other.

Call it freak RNG, or call it a lie... but in vanilla I ran MC and literally got the entire BoP chunk of the Might set in one go (already had belt/bracers) and my Wrath legs from Rag. Were epics more rare back then? Sure. But it was still possible to have moments of 'LOOT PINATACRAFT'.

There's plenty of difficult, rewarding content in the game now... more so than there was in classic. Mage challenge towers, mythic raids, rated PvP, high-end mythic+ dungeons, etc. Just because you don't do that content or want to do it, does not mean it isn't there.

I agree fully on the server/community part, but the game had its fill of scumbags and assholes no differently than it does now.

If by unique classes you mean 'lolbalance' then sure, lets go with that. Warriors being the only tanks, priests being the only real healers, and only a few classes being capable of real dps. Hunters were so unwanted that they literally added a mechanic that only they could deal with (Tranq shot). Ask anyone that mains a paladin that heals, tanks or serves as a dps in today's content if they'd like to go back to 'keep up buffs plz and do the priest's light work k thx'.

I'm all for giving Classic WoW to the people who want it, but be realistic.

[Kyanion]

This is literally the point I was making. What's wrong with the average retail fan these days?

Just because a person makes a personal attack it does not invalidate everything they say in a debate/argument. Yes it is really weak of the person to do it but don't just ignore the meat of the sandwich because of a bad condiment.

Also, the 'average retail fan' does not devolve into personal attacks. People are people, BOTH sides of these debate make personal attacks and cause problems. Stop acting like one side is pristine here.

[Deleted]

Ask anyone that mains a paladin that heals, tanks or serves as a dps in today's content if they'd like to go back to 'keep up buffs plz and do the priest's light work k thx'.

Shaman reporting for OOC rez duty sir!

[Pull My Finger]

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?

Your train of thought - or your conclusions, rather, are confusing.

You are of course absolutely right in your realization that it wasn't the game itself, but the experience that made the impact back then. Those are personal memories of a special point of time that are shared by many people.

But where you go wrong is expecting WoW Classic to bring back the past. Why and how could it? It's illogical for two reasons:

a) Players can't erase their knowledge of the last 14 years. You may act the part and even play Blizzards reenactment of the 2004 game. But it's impossible to recapture the innocence of the original experience. It's not the pre-social media, Y2K era any more, you're not a 15 year old kid any more. You'll just not approach it the same way, not feel the same fascination any more, and will bring a whole set of information and expectations with you.

b) Vanilla proponents tend to act as if someone else, who is not them, changed and then the whole game became this whole different thing. But the truth is that things just naturally develop. There is no logical reason to expect that Classic players would now suddenly act differently than they did the last time. There's still gonna be goals and competition and shit to "check".

In fact, I guarantee you that it's gonna be worse than retail WoW. That particular part of the community was always like that - from day one. WoW Classic will be their private little playground where they can still tell themselves they're hot shit, as opposed to retail WoW, where nobody gives a damn since everyone has tons of stuff they can do.

[Nomads]

The game doesn't 'start' at max level now. The boost we're given is for people who want to catch up with their friends, or quickly level an alt - and even that only takes you to 100. Max level is 110. Ergo, not max level. And it was players complaining about having to do all that old outdated content to catch up to their friends (or even the current content) that resulted in a boost in the first place.

I think the old world felt empty compared to zones in the new expansions. There were huge stretches of nothing but badly modeled trees and the occasional, oddly placed mob... like encountering a bear, and 20 feet away, a giant spider. Neither of them acknowledging the other.

Call it freak RNG, or call it a lie... but in vanilla I ran MC and literally got the entire BoP chunk of the Might set in one go (already had belt/bracers) and my Wrath legs from Rag. Were epics more rare back then? Sure. But it was still possible to have moments of 'LOOT PINATACRAFT'.

There's plenty of difficult, rewarding content in the game now... more so than there was in classic. Mage challenge towers, mythic raids, rated PvP, high-end mythic+ dungeons, etc. Just because you don't do that content or want to do it, does not mean it isn't there.

I agree fully on the server/community part, but the game had its fill of scumbags and assholes no differently than it does now.

If by unique classes you mean 'lolbalance' then sure, lets go with that. Warriors being the only tanks, priests being the only real healers, and only a few classes being capable of real dps. Hunters were so unwanted that they literally added a mechanic that only they could deal with (Tranq shot). Ask anyone that mains a paladin that heals, tanks or serves as a dps in today's content if they'd like to go back to 'keep up buffs plz and do the priest's light work k thx'.

I'm all for giving Classic WoW to the people who want it, but be realistic.

The only line I can agree with is your last one. Let's be realistic.

Here are the facts. We can say you're wrong based on our current experiences on Private Servers. You, on the other hand, only have your fragmented memories of Vanilla to go off of. So how about you take a fucking seat, and quit spouting out shit you only half-way remember correctly?