WoW from a Vanilla player's perspective.

[theK1ll577]

From what I remember Medivh-US opened the gates first, but hey, I could be wrong.

I knew someone would say that eventually, here have this:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Server:Mannoroth_US

Mannoroth was the first Player Vs Player(PVP) server in the world to open the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj, second server overall, losing to Medivh. Though Medivh emerged victorious, some Mannoroth players still claim they were the first "legitimate" server to complete the event, as Medivh's PvE mechanics prevented cross-faction interference and made organization between Horde and Alliance a natural course of action. By contrast, Mannoroth's war effort was hindered throughout the event by fierce competition between Horde and Alliance Scepter quest raids. Fighting in Silithus ignited a war between the factions, causing constant server crashes due to zone overpopulation and ending in a battle at the Scarab Gong.

[plantation]

I remember getting yelled at for trying to tank a dungeon as a fury warrior in vanilla. I had no comprehension of how the game worked and figured out that people joined your group a lot quicker if you had a tank. Anyways, being like 12 years old, I was very bad and got a ton of shit for being bad. The "epic" community never told me what I was doing wrong, just that I was a noob and should quit the game. I remember asking where to buy a shield in trade chat and being told "the shield shop!"

The community is the exact same as it was back then. I think it's funny when people kid themselves into thinking otherwise.

[Coldpro]

What server are you?

How far did you raid in Vanilla?

I don't know about you but on Tich in vanilla the community was WAY better.

At leased back in vanilla people who were idiots were black listed on the server because you couldn't just name change or xfer when u wanted.

As for raiding, I don't care what you say raiding in vanilla was a lot harder. BWL,AQ40 and Naxx esp Naxx were not a joke. Normal and hard mode were not separated like they are now. You went to raid and it was ALL hard mode. Only a hand full of guild in Vanilla ever got passed AQ40 and even less to actually get through Naxx.

The game has not been dumbed down? Did you even play vanilla? Sorry but i could not go to a vendor and get free tier loot for just running 5 mans. I could not run LFR and AFK for free loot. I could not AFK bgs without being black listed by the entire server.

I'm starting to think you're lying and never actually played Vanilla at all.

Did you play vanilla at all? On my server the community is BETTER now than back then (Barrens chat, FTW). Raiding was a hell of a lot simpler back then, people just didn't GET the mechanics. They were VERY simple fights with 1 or 2 gimmicks with the exception of end bosses. Most of the time the content was hard because half your raid was offline and you were carrying them. Ill give you naxx, most of naxx was hard, especially fights that required coordination like 4 Horsemen or Kel'Thuzzad. But Vanilla as a hole was NOT hard. The game has evolved quite a bit now and the raid content has gotten harder.

Time to take the rose colored glasses off and realize the content was hard because 90% of the WoW community had no skill.

[Cwimge]

Game gets better, fuckheads get louder

[Grrwaherr]

CHANGE IS GOOD. LET THE GAME EVOLVE.

If you do not like the game anymore, do not play it. It is that simple. Try something else.

I remember searching for Mankriks wife for hours for the first time.

[Aquamonkey]

How can you say it's not dumbed down when they removed spell ranks; simplified all healers to have standard, flash, and greater; are going to restrict spells to certain specs; and the new talent trees only have 3 choices per tier?

[Destruktion]

Overall the game is better, but there are some aspects that are worse: the removal of aggro and DPS management in boss fights, long dungeons a la BRD... that's all I can think of.

[PenguinChan]

How can you say it's not dumbed down when they removed spell ranks; simplified all healers to have standard, flash, and greater; are going to restrict spells to certain specs; and the new talent trees only have 3 choices per tier?

Spell Ranks meant nothing to anyone except a healer, and to a very lesser extent Protection Paladins. Maybe spell-casters before dungeon gear. Regardless, it did dumb down healing but it also made it more accessible from a starting PoV. Proficient healers that mastered the 5SR pretty much were gods amongst men for PvE, never running out of mana and understood fight mechanics. Talent trees were good, and fun while leveling. Not as much at max level, but creating your own builds and wonky hybrids were quite fun (However ineffective they were). You really didn't have much choice in the talent trees anyways, a lot of specs ended up with a BUNCH of free talent points (Until later expansions), or very few if none left over. This could have been fixed and switched some-how, but the new talent trees aren't just dumbed down; they are simpler to understand.

You no longer go 31/9/10, but instead go for each tier tree on your own choice. Sure, it could be better (And I'm sure it will be as the developers think of something), but dumbed down doesn't mean bad. It's just average at the moment, and you no longer go to the forums or a website to look at the optimal build, and branch out from there.

[Peso]

Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria don't deserve to have "World of Warcraft" in their titles. The reason being is that it was a different game back when it wasn't so mainstream. Regardless of how much the dependant consumer disheartedly disagrees with the stance Activision Blizzard took on the amazing franchise they continue to come back because they still have faith in the company that brought them into the genre.

[Hakto]

I knew someone would say that eventually, here have this:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Server:Mannoroth_US

First is first - second is second.

[sk68]

Does it really make you that mad? Go troll elsewhere.

Who said I'm mad? You got reading comprehension problems as well? Your atrocious lack of ability to communicate in written form shows you are an uneducated, illiterate retard.

Even the part-time job in McDonald's serving hamburgers requires better communication skills than what you have. Good luck on a prosperous future--because by the looks of it, it won't be happening.

Notice how I used 'than' in the previous sentence?

[matters]

What server are you?

How far did you raid in Vanilla?

I don't know about you but on Tich in vanilla the community was WAY better.

At leased back in vanilla people who were idiots were black listed on the server because you couldn't just name change or xfer when u wanted.

As for raiding, I don't care what you say raiding in vanilla was a lot harder. BWL,AQ40 and Naxx esp Naxx were not a joke. Normal and hard mode were not separated like they are now. You went to raid and it was ALL hard mode. Only a hand full of guild in Vanilla ever got passed AQ40 and even less to actually get through Naxx.

The game has not been dumbed down? Did you even play vanilla? Sorry but i could not go to a vendor and get free tier loot for just running 5 mans. I could not run LFR and AFK for free loot. I could not AFK bgs without being black listed by the entire server.

I'm starting to think you're lying and never actually played Vanilla at all.

Oh right, back in Vanilla when the game mechanics were totally perfect and unbroken. That vanilla right? Sorry to say it but any company that wants their mmo to remain at the top almost 8 years from its original launch are bound to change a few things. I really feel bad for people who have a pair of rose tinted glasses permanently attached to their heads and can only remember the warm feelings that are brought about by thinking of memories from years ago, THINGS CHANGE GET OVER IT.

[Vanisari]

How can you say it's not dumbed down when they removed spell ranks; simplified all healers to have standard, flash, and greater; are going to restrict spells to certain specs; and the new talent trees only have 3 choices per tier?

How has any of those made the game "easier"?

Spell ranks: Simply train more, no challenge at all.
Cata healing model: As apposed to simply spamming one heal all the time like it used to be?
Spell restriction: If anything, this would make the game harder, not easier.
New talents: As apposed to going to MMO Champ or EJ to get the cookie cutter spec? Still, that adds zero challenge to the game.

[Tziva]

Not everything has gotten better since vanilla -- community is a big point in favour of the classic game -- but overwhelmingly the game has had improvement upon improvement since it's beginning.

[Vanisari]

Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria don't deserve to have "World of Warcraft" in their titles. The reason being is that it was a different game back when it wasn't so mainstream. Regardless of how much the dependant consumer disheartedly disagrees with the stance Activision Blizzard took on the amazing franchise they continue to come back because they still have faith in the company that brought them into the genre.

WoW had more subs during TBC and WotLK, how is it more mainstream now?

[Lockrocker75]

OMG! Grow up. If you guys feel like playing Vanilla or BC because it was "harder", go out and find or get your own server to strictly run Vanilla/BC content and shut your mouths. If the new stuff doesn't interest you anymore, save everyone the time and your energy and keep it to yourself. Go play what you want to play, and let the people who enjoy the new stuff play what they want to play. Blizzard isn't forcing you to pay to play a game.

[DarthMonk79]

i agree with some and disagree on other things. i started playing around 7 years ago(about 4-6 months before bc). I would have to say the game was harder in questing took longer and there were a lot more group quests. Now you just have BoA gear and run through everything. You actually had to explore the zones on foot until 40 and would only get FP's when u found them. Now they are handed to you the moment you grab the quest to talk to someone in that zone and you get mounts quicker. Trade chat has always had pricks in it but there were fewer back then, it was actually used more for trade, lfg and general questions back then compared to the craziness that is trade chat now. Dungeons required crowd control a lot more back then.

[Demiknight]

US-Mannoroth - First server to open AQ gates so I know what I'm talking about, I'm not from some crap backwater server full of carebears.

First server? Cata has made your memory feeble.

First 5 U.S. Completed Realms

Medivh (Gate opened on: 22/Jan/2006)
Mannoroth (Gate opened on: 27/Jan/2006)
Zul'jin (Gate opened on: 31/Jan/2006)
Hyjal (Gate opened on: 02/Feb/2006)
Icecrown (Gate opened on: 07/Feb/2006)

http://www.wowwiki.com/Gates_of_Ahn%27Qiraj

[KryptoX]

How do you think the cross server battleground and dungeon queues and paid name change and server transfers have impacted on the community then, OP? Are you really trying to tell me that player interaction didn't change at all after these features were introduced to the game?

Now, I like these features for making my gaming more efficient, so to speak. The server communities have definitely become worse though. Today I personally have zero interaction with anyone not in my guild. Back in vanilla I spoke to many players, who I played with in battlegrounds or ran dungeons with. Dragonmaw and later Frostmane (EU) had some very nice people playing

[Peso]

WoW had more subs during TBC and WotLK, how is it more mainstream now?

It's simple. The company sold out. We lost 1.1 million because the game simply is either too old (shouldn't even matter since it's still #1 by a great margin) or it's disliked by the people that have grown to love the game.

Activision Blizzard, Inc., formerly Activision, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) is the American holding company for Activision and Blizzard Entertainment. The company is majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA and was created through the merger of Activision and Vivendi Games, announced on December 2, 2007, in a deal worth USD$18.8 billion. The deal closed July 9, 2008. The company believed that the merging of the two companies would create "the world's largest and most subtle pure-play video game publisher". It is said that it is the only publisher that has "leading market positions across all categories" of the video game industry. Activision Blizzard is the world's second-largest gaming company by revenue after Nintendo.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision_Blizzard

Why is it we have "perks" in World of Warcraft suddenly after the merge? Idea from COD put into Cataclysm? How about the new talent trees? Coincidence? I think otherwise.