A Couple Things I Miss About Early WoW...

[Weep]

I was sitting here thinking about how WoW has changed. Sometimes for the better, (I personally love LFR and LFD), and sometimes for the worse. And now, a couple things I really really miss about older expansions or even vanilla...

1) Threat: Remember when DPS used to have to watch their threat levels? We'd get blasted for targeting the wrong mob and pulling it off the tank. Boss fights included mechanics, but there was also the very real threat of lets say a fire mage getting a string of lucky crits and blowing past the tank on the threat meters. Now we just go full speed ahead from second 1 of the fights.

2) CC: Which brings me to my next thing I miss. Each pull would be a ballet of CC and locking down certain mobs so the group wouldn't be swarmed on the pull. Chars with cc would have to maintain it while still fulfilling their roll and when it went well it was beautiful; when it went bad it went really bad. There's a little, (very little), bit of this in certain parts of SoO and I really wish it would make it's way back in. Maybe not to the extent of every pull being a must have CC but to make it a little more strategic on some packs of mobs instead of just clumping the whole mass together and AOEing the hell out of them.

I can't be the only one missing these things. Is there something else you guys miss from earlier WoW?

[Trassk]

What do I miss about early wow? How about a game that felt like despite having flaws here and there, it had the feel that the devs really cared about there product... years before selling out to soul sucking corporate investors.

[Toiran]

What do I miss about early wow? How about a game that felt like despite having flaws here and there, it had the feel that the devs really cared about there product... years before selling out to soul sucking corporate investors.

You single-handedly depress the entirety of MMO-Champion.

I do miss CC actually being needed in raids and dungeons, try doing the TK trash on progress without mages, in fact even other abilities, remember how you needed a Rogue to distract the bosses in Hyjal so every one could be ready?

At least they are bringing some form of class mechanics with Mythic, supposedly.

Threat oh yes, I remember NEVER dps'ing before three sunders, you always waited, everyone waited, now in MoP it's 17 people pot and blow every single cooldown as the tank is moving to the boss without fear.

Edit: On the subject of CC, there is, or was, an unwritten role of what CC/Kill order marks were, I bet that people that started in Cata wouldn't know it, I'm trying to remember...

Skull - Obvious
Cross - Second target/Offtank
Moon - Sheep
Square - Trap
Star - Sap
Circle - Shackle Undead (When you actually could)

Etc

[Darsithis]

The problem with threat is that while it can be fun for the tank (some tanks enjoyed managing it; I did), it's not fun for the dps that have to constantly hold back and ignore procs or throttle themselves to avoid overtaking the tank.

I do miss CC myself. I found the early Cata heroics to be just as fast when targets were properly CC'd by a competent group.

[pinmanguy]

I really miss the friendships you used to make finding groups for things. These days most of my friends aren't playing anymore and you don't really meet anyone unless your doing guild raids. Back in the day I had friends lists full of people who I met while forming groups and just talking crap with, or people who I ran some dungeons with who thought i was a good tank/dps and so kept inviting me to things and we'd become friends, same goes for if I met someone who was good at what they did I'd invite them in the future. Now with the lfr/lfd, which is a good time saving feature, you don't really get to meet people like you used to. It's a bit silly but I think I actually enjoyed having to put groups together and wait in a main city as it forced people to entertain themselves and get to know each other. Built the community, now all my capital cities are deserted and trade chat doesn't really have any conversations going. No down time to just relax and talk.

I also think the world feels a bit less epic and too one story driven now. I don't know if it's just me but back in vanilla and even bc a bit it felt like the raids and zones had more variety as to what was going on in them. Now it seems each zone focuses primarily on the main xpac story, in mists every zone has to do with sha and the war, every raid has to do with sha and the war. I miss being able to go do raids that had their own stand a lone story and it made the world feel more epic that there was more going on at the same time and I had more choice in what story lines I wanted to pursue.

The world also feels like it lacks that adventure now, wrath had it a bit but since then I haven't really found cata and mists (dread wastes is ok) zones to be really interesting and make me feel like i want to adventure and can do my own things.

PVP is also a disappointment for me now that you need specialised stats and most people are just farming it rather than playing for fun and working in groups.

Lastly for me I miss when epics meant something, I'm in no way an elite player and the only xpac I really raided seriously in more than pugs was TBC, but back in the day in Vanilla it was an exciting feeling seeing people decked out in instantly recognisable gear and knowing that that gear is out there and that person has worked their ass off for it. Even if I was never going to get to that point it made the game feel more epic and exclusive when I did get what I could get. Even running dungeons for tier 0.5 felt cool getting a proper set of gear even if it's blue. I don't like the fact that I level a character now and within an hour I can be full epic'd out, why not make these sets blue sets and leave the purples to be identifiable gear that's harder to get? Now I see someone in a full high tier set and it's only from LFR, having unobtainable to the average player sets makes the game more exciting

[Ostrich]

I don't miss threat, it was annoying. I guess it would be nice to have threat back as long as it wasn't nearly as touchy as it was in Vanilla and TBC, but it's not something I'll ever want back

I definitely miss CC, I loved playing a mage in Vanilla and TBC because people always needed to have a mage to poly in dungeons and TK. Now, most classes have some form of CC, not just rogues/mages/hunters and occasionally priests/warlocks, so I don't see why we can't get more dungeons and raids that require it because more classes can provide that role

I kind of miss needing to group up for quests when leveling. I made a couple really good friends in Vanilla because I needed to group up with people to quest in places like Arathi Highlands (for Stromgarde, those ogres were brutal) and Westfall (walk into Moonbrook and get 5 Defias Pillagers throwing fireballs at you) But at the same time, I feel like now I would be annoyed at having to group up with strangers just to complete a stupid quest so I'm also kind of glad we can solo things easily now

I miss attunements and keys and long class quests with unique rewards (Benediction/Anathema, warlock and pally mounts). I know why they aren't in the game anymore and I don't think they'll return but I'd like them to. If they do return they should be account-wide though

[Blufossa]

You single-handedly depress the entirety of MMO-Champion.

I do miss CC actually being needed in raids and dungeons, try doing the TK trash on progress without mages, in fact even other abilities, remember how you needed a Rogue to distract the bosses in Hyjal so every one could be ready?

At least they are bringing some form of class mechanics with Mythic, supposedly.

Threat oh yes, I remember NEVER dps'ing before three sunders, you always waited, everyone waited, now in MoP it's 17 people pot and blow every single cooldown as the tank is moving to the boss without fear.

Edit: On the subject of CC, there is, or was, an unwritten role of what CC/Kill order marks were, I bet that people that started in Cata wouldn't know it, I'm trying to remember...

Skull - Obvious
Cross - Second target/Offtank
Moon - Sheep
Square - Trap
Star - Sap
Circle - Shackle Undead (When you actually could)

Etc

The bold statement is completely true.

And yes, I miss CC. I also miss running around everywhere and the few limited FPs we actually had.

Rep farming groups and dungeon groups actually got me talking to people (a few of them I still hang out with).

[Zoronx Moonclaw]

What do I miss about early wow? How about a game that felt like despite having flaws here and there, it had the feel that the devs really cared about there product... years before selling out to soul sucking corporate investors.

A thousand times yes to this.

Threat oh yes, I remember NEVER dps'ing before three sunders, you always waited, everyone waited, now in MoP it's 17 people pot and blow every single cooldown as the tank is moving to the boss without fear.

Edit: On the subject of CC, there is, or was, an unwritten role of what CC/Kill order marks were, I bet that people that started in Cata wouldn't know it, I'm trying to remember...

Skull - Obvious
Cross - Second target/Offtank
Moon - Sheep
Square - Trap
Star - Sap
Circle - Shackle Undead (When you actually could)

Etc

Also very much missed this. Unwritten rules that existed in the community, and obviously you wait for three sunders.

[pinmanguy]

how about pulls that were more than just tank charging in, remember when hunters would run ahead and make a tricky pull?

[Deleted]

I miss the Community the most when there was no LFR or LFG you got to know the people you where running with and actually made friends other than the people in your guild, People was not so nasty as they knew they would get a bad name... Don't get me wrong LFG and LFR was a nice idea for casuals but it destroyed the community.

[Deleted]

The problem with threat is that while it can be fun for the tank (some tanks enjoyed managing it; I did), it's not fun for the dps that have to constantly hold back and ignore procs or throttle themselves to avoid overtaking the tank.

I do miss CC myself. I found the early Cata heroics to be just as fast when targets were properly CC'd by a competent group.

I'm the opposite, I wish there was more to DPS than just damage, I'd love threat-managment to come back. CC however felt like a total waste of time.

[TheWindWalker]

Honestly, I'd rather threat be something a tank can't lose to a non-tank after they've taunted at least once. (Like, the most recent taunt sticks to the target as a debuff constantly generating a fixate for the next five to ten minutes.) Hell, I'd like for bears to simply have an ever-present AOE threat "aura" called "Is that a bear?!"

At this point we've left behind the "the tank is now driving the boss, be careful not to touch the steering wheel" model and more towards "the tank is now soloing the boss. healers, keep him from failing. dps, speed up the kill." I'm very happy with that.

[High Marshal Sigismund]

The problem with threat is that while it can be fun for the tank (some tanks enjoyed managing it; I did), it's not fun for the dps that have to constantly hold back and ignore procs or throttle themselves to avoid overtaking the tank.

I do miss CC myself. I found the early Cata heroics to be just as fast when targets were properly CC'd by a competent group.

I agree with this. I remember one particular instance on Void Reaver where I had to hold back quite a lot, and so did other members of my raid, so the tank could keep threat. It's not really fun.

[bayushisan]

I miss the Community the most when there was no LFR or LFG you got to know the people you where running with and actually made friends other than the people in your guild, People was not so nasty as they knew they would get a bad name... Don't get me wrong LFG and LFR was a nice idea for casuals but it destroyed the community.

Unless you were a new player trying to get a group together to do a dungeon at the right level and no one would come to join. That sure was fun, spending an hour or two in chat trying to get that group to form to actually meet people only to never actually meet people because by that time nobody wanted to help the new guys or they were playing alts and had their guildies helping them. Boy I sure do miss those days of sitting by the summoning stone by myself just....waiting and spamming LFG for such and such instance. And then on the off chance a group DID form it falls apart half way in, if you're lucky, and then it's back to square one and boy that was fun wasn't it.

[orville078]

Missing CC and threat...interesting, sounds like you miss challenge

[Raiju]

The problem with threat is that while it can be fun for the tank (some tanks enjoyed managing it; I did), it's not fun for the dps that have to constantly hold back and ignore procs or throttle themselves to avoid overtaking the tank.

Why isn't it? It's a challenge maxing out dps while not overaggroing. Stay between 100-110% aggro, making use of threat drops, etc.

[Bercey]

I play a mage since 2007 and I miss CC.. I miss raid leader telling me ''ok we are CC pulling, mage get ready''.. Now I sheep the mob, and the others next to it are like '' Hey loook classic Mike, turning into a sheep again haha..'' they are not effected by it..

Crowd Control used to be a very very important aspect of not only raiding but dungeons as well.. Remember Magisters terrace? You could not go further without CC'ing..Now as you guys say above.. Tank just gather them all and we aoe them..

[Wilian]

The problem with threat is that while it can be fun for the tank (some tanks enjoyed managing it; I did), it's not fun for the dps that have to constantly hold back and ignore procs or throttle themselves to avoid overtaking the tank.

Speak for yourself, I do find playing around threat as DPS quite the interesting mechanic.

It's one of the rare things when players can't go all "me me me me" when it comes to gameplay itself and has to go "we we we we" instead.

[Deleted]

You guys had to manage threat after the first 5 seconds ?

Damn ur tanks must have been pretty bad at getting threat.

[-Ethos-]

CC is always neccessary at the start of expansions, then non-exsistant near the end, it cycles around each expac.