Do players know Leveling was a Big part of Vanilla?

[Beerbill Society]

The slow paced leveling worked out pretty well, because you always had a reason to keep going but without pressure to get at Max.

Like you want to get lvl 10 for the first talent, then you may get a piece of gear (some green shit but it is so rare that you just want to put that one really bad) that requires lvl 12, so the next profession level required lvl 15, and 18 you get a nice spell.

But while on this, there is no rush, you will always have dungeons to do while leveling, even if it takes a while to get there, quests make you wander around a lot, especially all fetch and delivery quests.

Those times were good, you took the time to appreciate small things. Vanilla was not a race game, you didn't get points for going faster, you got 'points' for going slow doing exploration, finding hidden things (eastern eggs) or quests as reward enough.

[lonely zergling]

Blizzard themselfs said that classic isnt made only for veterans that want to enjoy it again. They also want people who never got the chance to play it to expierence it on real vanilla gameplay blizzard servers and not these fake realms with unrealistic spawns and way too high drop rates of greens / bags while leveling .

Most of the tourists will quit again but thats fine. Some will stick to classic. People have different paces, some will go hardcore to reach the "endgame" others will treat it like an actual RPG and do character progress more naturally. Both playstyles will be seen. There will be some hardcore guilds who rush for the top (usually the pserver tainted people) and there will be many more normal guilds and casual guilds for the majority of players in classic.

I'm pretty hyped for classic. Cant wait to finally play it again after all these years. Leveling is great in vanilla, I love the journey. FOR THE ALLIANCE!

[Soikona]

You grouped up to get the job done, there was none of this gogogogogogo I must be level 60 two hours ago mentality back then.

Yea there was.... just because you were oblivious to it, doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.

[Adamas102]

Why though? A good chunk keep talking about why they don't have the time they once did and aren't planning to raid. I just don't think that many will be in a huge hurry outside of the handful of people just looking to push content.

I mean that most people will probably gravitate more towards efficiency rather than “the experience”, whether they have time constraints or not.

[Aggrophobic]

Leveling was not really that fun in vanilla and it still is not. Endgame is what WoW was about, even back then.
But yes, most people will most likely leave long befor they reach max level.

[chiddie]

Yea there was.... just because you were oblivious to it, doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.

Indeed it existed. Ultra slow leveling also prevented lots of people in rerolling alts, I played something like 30 hours per week until TBC but every time I thought to reroll the only thought of redoing the 1-60 pain prevented me to do so.

[Armourboy]

I mean that most people will probably gravitate more towards efficiency rather than “the experience”, whether they have time constraints or not.

I'm sure people aren't going to read every ounce of quest text and spend hours oohing and ahhing over it, I just don't think most people are going to be worried about guides and pathing out the quickest way possible. They will do some quests they want to do, do the 5 mans they want to do, and whatever professions they want to. I just don't think your average player is going to be that serious, especially when they already know it's going so far and they don't need to worry about getting stuff done before an expansion hits.

[Teri]

Maybe, but I was an early vanilla player, and I was always told I shouldn't bother with quests in vanilla. It goes against gamer instinct to not want the most exp per hour.

Maybe if a person just wanted max level asap, I can see that.

But the first time, when the game was new for me at least, I really enjoyed doing all the quests and group content pre-60, and actually reading the quest text as well.

Guilds and social contacts were a huge part of the game so there almost always were people in a certain level range around at the start.

There was no real rush for raiding or pvp in the first month, at least not on my RP server/guild.

Of course there was a more hardcore raiding and pvp scene later and I leveled much faster with my alts.

[anon5123]

I realized one day that I was not into what people call "the slow eating experience" provided by many posh restaurants. I kinda like eating when hungry and getting over and done with it so I can go back to doing my stuff.

This is when I realized I couldn't go back to classic. I did it once, I am nostalgic about it but was it good? Was it better than the almost instant gratification of modern wow?

I think that is something that each one must answer for themselves. If you want to relive the fantasy or if you want to see what was the big deal first hand go for it. I think the main problem of classic is the complete absence of surprise elements and the very slow pace after a while. We all know what happens and how it all culminates.

My problem with retail is more than just "instant gratification".

It's also:

-Gear is super simplified and straight-forward, you don't need to think, just equip highest ilvl gear and you're good
-Outdoor solo content is piss easy
-4 raid difficulties
-No socialization or communication required for anything outside of heroic+ raids
-So many things are cross-server with players you will never see again, thus fueling more anti-social tendencies
-Classes are super pruned of abilities
-Classes are homogenized so that nobody can be special or unique
-Game holds your hand at every turn, always tells you exactly where to go and what to do all the time
-Questing is ridiculously streamlined to the point of being on-rails
-Game showers you in epics all the time, getting gear does not feel rewarding and you cannot feel the impact that gear makes, outside of weapons/trinkets
-Gear professions have become semi-useless because all they really do is craft random-stat gear which can be replaced by titanforged dungeon/raid drops
-Boring facebook garrison minigame that you're almost forced to do
-etc. etc. There's so many other things outside of the general speed of the game.

If you think the only difference between Vanilla and Retail is "vanilla is slow", you're either willfully ignorant or trolling, or both.

Going back to your example of "slow eating at posh restaurants", the difference there is that you are eating slowly but also having a good time socializing with the other people you are dining with.

Like...retail WoW is a fast food restaurant where you just go in, get your food immediately, eat it and then leave without talking to anyone else. Vanilla WoW is a posh restaurant where you sit down with others and socialize while eating a more finely-crafted meal.

Some people just want to "eat when hungry" and thus go for cheap fast food without talking to anyone. Others like the social experience of being in a restaurant with family/friends and choose to do that instead.

[Big Thanks]

-Gear is super simplified and straight-forward, you don't need to think, just equip highest ilvl gear and you're good

Another fan of Vanilla itemization? We are rare people
I loved how "random" it was. Kept it exciting.

Im sure even blue posters from blizzard have said "Vanilla itemization was the worst"
I think they said it recently actually.

Let me see if i can find it...

[Teri]

Leveling was not really that fun in vanilla and it still is not. Endgame is what WoW was about, even back then.
But yes, most people will most likely leave long befor they reach max level.

It was fun the first time around in 2004, when everyone else was also new and people actually wanted to do those pre-60 questlines/elite/dungeons, and read quests for story/directions instead of websites/videos.

Classic simply will not be new, so a lot of content will be skipped if it isn't "efficient" enough.

[letssee]

Actually if we compare current warrior to classic warrior the spell difference is only around 33:22.

And that’s because many spells got changed to specc only. And spells which had no real purpos or were never used got removed. Retail is not really pruned compared to classic

maybe in classic but i was talking overall, pruning didnt start untill cataclysm and comparing wotlk to bfa, its like night and day

[ellieg]

The first time thru on each side is great. I'd also reccomend getting 1 crafting profession. It might not be the best at 60 but it makes you feel closer to your character when you are making them gear and items.

It's also fun getting weird drops with awful itemization and deciding based on how your playing, if it's an upgrade or not.

Best part of levelling for me is thinking a few steps ahead. As in knowing you hit 16 but deciding to wait til 18 to hit up the trainers. Skipping learning certain spells to save money. Knowing which dungeon is coming up next so you should already be working on gathering all the quests / prequests. Remembering to clear inventory, repair, stock up on food water arrows whatever before you head back out. All those little things are what I like.

[Big Thanks]

@anon5123

First off, thanks for putting this thread together. Even if phrases like "Worst Itemization in WoW's History" are a bit hyperbolic (seriously, I can't be the only one who remembers farming level 30 dungeons for AQ40 resistance gear)

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/...page=2#post-24

As you can see, we are the minorty who find Vanilla itemization just awesome.
Even blue posters say so -__- which is really infuriating
This guy was replying to a thread saying BFA had the worst itemization ever...and he said "no, classic was worse"

[Orbusg]

and given that most if not all of the people who pick up Classic will be veteran WoW players

This is a huge assumption.
There definitely will be old players, but I never played back then on official vanilla and am looking forward to it.
You know there's loads and loads of disgruntled retail players, both who still play and have quit, and given what a dumpster fire bfa is I expect a good amount of them to try classic - and stay.

[chiddie]

This is a huge assumption.
There definitely will be old players, but I never played back then on official vanilla and am looking forward to it.
You know there's loads and loads of disgruntled retail players, both who still play and have quit, and given what a dumpster fire bfa is I expect a good amount of them to try classic - and stay.

Don’t think so.

The only people that will stay are people that were teens with tons of time to spend 14 years ago and are now still students with tons of time to spend or young single workers... with a lot of time to spend.

The amount of time you had to stay in game also to accomplish simple tasks was so huge in Vanilla that people used to the actual WoW won’t simply stand it.

[In Ogres We Trust]

Leveling was not really that fun in vanilla and it still is not. Endgame is what WoW was about, even back then.
But yes, most people will most likely leave long befor they reach max level.

To be frank, I think people should stop viewing leveling as leveling (a/k/a a chore); instead, they should view it as questing, i.e. exploring and experiencing the lore, the zones, and the game.

[Beet]

Oh yeah I suspect we will see many many people give up leveling even before level 10. I remember how brutal those low levels were for hunter and rogue for example. Rogue with daggers and hunter without a pet. And then the deadzone oh boy.

I really really am stoked though. I still remember the best spots for grinding and I even remember which areas I did at which levels. It’s weird, I can remember vanilla like the back of my hand and everything about it. But for TBC and WotLK it’s more of a blur even though they’re more recent.

[Itori]

It took me like 3 months to finally hit 60 on my healadin, was rough but memorable. You meet a lot of interesting people along the way manually looking for groups and talking while waiting for that tank or dps to fill

[Ihavewaffles]

You will never have that vanilla wow feeling ever again. At least in my opinion I believe it is impossible since that feeling is largely due to being ignorant to MMO's. No matter what MMO I play now I'll be able to draw on the years of experience I have to understand the concepts and solve the problems of the game.

Probably true...i played only rts n such before, wow was my first mmo. mind was blown to go from warcraft 3 to wow