If World of Warcraft had never changed...

[Sandrox]

I doubt it. I actually enjoy it each expansion when they revamp the talents/classes. Keeps things fresh and new.

[Deleted]

Without all the changes WoW would have probably been dead by now. Things like LFG and LFR keep it alive

It reached its pinnacle before these were introduced. They were ok introductions but blizz got it wrong for me: there should always be a raiding tier that is only available to the best players, or the lesser players that push themselves more when they could. Same with top weps and armo availability. Once you are able to get the same weapon as the top raiders on your realm in LFR albeit with lesser stats, the game dies.

Many people don't understand what the game was about (when it was truly great) in this thread. All the things you had to do as listed:

- Hunters can only use a backpack (16 slots), 3 bags, and a quiver or ammo pouch, and have to buy ammo
- Pets have to be fed
- Reagents are a real thing
- You can run out of ammo
- There are no flying mounts
- You get your ground mounts at lvl 40 and 60
- Rogues have to make poisons again
- Locks have to farm shards
- Pallies and Locks have to quest to get their class mount at 40 and 60
- Druids now have to go through long chain quests for animal forms which now come at later levels
- No Paladins on Horde
- No Shaman on Alliance
- No Dual Spec

..were labours of love and part of your daily activity. These made you feel like you were your character in a world of war. It's that simple. Once you start dumbing this down, then you get into the situation we have now. So many alts, for the game is too easy and so little care about your character. It's a shame.

I see them pointing in right direction with WOD. Let's see how far they go. Make or break for most older players. Most of which have long gone, but can they bring them back? Up to you Blizz.

[Duridi]

See, you continue to describe a game that isnt an MMORPG. this is what confuses me. you have fun in a 20 min dungeon that can be soloed a patch later?

Who made you the boss of what an MMORPG should be like?

[Firebert]

pure 100% speculation.

LFD pushed the subs back from decline to 12m.

LFR stemmed the bleeding from Firelands, the worst tier of Cataclysm, and stabilised the sub drop for a little while.

All new games pretty much require LFD/LFR to live.

[Duridi]

I dont think you like any challenge at all, I do wonder why.

The answer is simple. He isn't you.

It doesn't have to be more complex than that.

[Itisamuh]

I bet the decline has more to do with dwindling customer acquisition than anything else.

Quite true.

[OzoAndIndi]

- Rogues have to make poisons again

Never got to do that, kinda wish it was still there for flavor reasons. If not that, then I wish there were a few additional Rogue-only Alchemy poison recipes, that would work as well without making it necessary; only if you want those additional ones if you're an Alchemist.

[Drithien]

Definitely something I would like the oppinion of the devs on. Not that anyone who would have liked the very same game for 9 years would agree with them.

"The very same game" hmmmmm. Really WoW was changing during Vanilla already. Hell...the remade an entire zone already during tha time...

"The very same game" is what the original poster is arguing about, against, essentially, reality. It's an asinine notion, a non-existent outcome, even as a realistic hypothesis. The only realm of existence for this scenario is one where, common logic, ceases to exist almost completely.

World of WarCraft upon release was an unfinished, buggy, and at points, even broken, game. The developers were not done with it. By a long shot. It was pushed out to coincide with the franchise's 10nth anniversary, and because for its cost of production, it was about time it made some money, and not just be a huge drain of them. Once it was out, there were all sort of things to take care of, what with a game of its size, and its unstable state being in dire need of maintenance; and since it became an overnight, extreme, success, there was also the immense amount of players to somehow fit in as well: WoW was expected to reach, and somewhat surpass, the successful mmorpgs of the time; to get to something like 300-400k subscribers in a few months, and keep growing to reach perhaps above a million. It surpassed 2 million within weeks.

That meant tow things: a) There was next to no time to finish the game afterwards. Not with all the problems that cropped up, and the millions of people that wanted to play, when a mere hundreds of thousands were expected. So things such as class specializations, remained unfinished; if a paladin can heal at least, or buff, or do something to be brought in a high-performance group, then he can at least do that; the other two specializations can be finished "Later tm."

b)2 million players, and rising, was far more players than all the other mmorpgs of the time, combined. That, except sounding impressive, is also revelatory as to who was playing the game: the vast majority were not mmorpg players; as it turns out, a lot of them hadn't even played much of any game to begin with. So, who the fuck cared about raiding, organized PvP, or any form of high-performance activity in the game in the first place? "Almost nobody" is who. The tiny minority of high-performance players may have taken to forums, official or not, to wax lyrical about "imbalance," "useless abilities/talents," "rogues being op," "shadow priests being extra-op," or whatever the subject of the day was to be. But most players? They didn't even know there were forums.

How can people just ignore such things and just go on to talk about the period is beyond me. Ignoring these means that you are ignoring the point: almost nobody gave a damn about raiding, balance, gear-itelization, etc, back then. It was not the grind that deterred most players from raiding. It was the fact they were not even at the level cap after months of playing. And that wasn't a negative thing to them, because: they didn't even know about raiding much, or didn't care. Playing out in the world was what they liked about the game. Not running through dungeons.

And this is why classic was the success that is has been: it tried to be an open-world role-playing game; not a dungeon-crawler. While some players enjoy the latter type of game, most don't. It's the reason why open-world games are so successful, when done right. "A vast, coherent world; filled with mysteries and the potential for adventure" It's a far better selling point than "A game of dungeon-running, and loot-gathering, while tweaking attributes, and counting actions-per-second." Perhaps the high-performance players, or the lazy-performance, can't appreciate "having to travel across the world for some stupid class quest," but this is exactly the kind of thing open-world games, role-playing games especially, have going for them: their world, and the excuses to adventure in it. And that is what people like about them. That's why WoW sold crazily like that. And how can people miss that? A few thousand people raiding, in a game of millions, and it's raiding you focus on? You may focus on raiding because that is what you like personally, but if you want to see what the game was about you have to see what the majority found in it. And since almost nobody raided, it certainly was not raiding. And since most of everyone was out and about, questing and exploring, how about giving that a good look?

And on this subject: more people may know about forums nowadays, but still the people actually using them are a minority; not even a substantial one. MMO-Champion has, what, 37k posters? Not even trying to exclude ex-players, out of 7 million people, that is not even 1%. Realizing this, and actually getting some perspective about the game would do people good in my opinion.

And raiding, even nowadays. doesn't fare much better. Normal and Heroic-mode raiders hardly break 10%, if that. And the LfR numbers are quite skewed, because that is the content with the highest rewards before Flex/Normal/Heroic, and the only high-level content that gets so much attention and depth.Questing? Exploration? They are next to non-existent. In an open-world role-playing game. A role-playing game without fresh questing content; where the activity, from primary in most games of the genre, is not even secondary here; and dungeon-crawling, a secondary activity in most rpgs, is the first, and almost only, high-profile, main activity here. With this attempt to shove everyone, regardless of personal preferences, into raiding, and instanced content in general; one can hardly even say how much of the participation in LfR is willing, and how much it's out of lack of other viable options.

And in this game, where things have been turned upside down, where normal logic doesn't even apply, yeah, only something as "exotic" as the original post could ever sparkle a conversation, and not cause a series of almost literal "!?" above people's heads.

PS. The logical question would be: If World of WarCraft kept its direction as an open-world role-playing game, first and foremost, and a dungeon-crawler/battleground-grinder secondarily, would it still be as good a game as it used to be?" Not for some forum-dwellers, but for the people that made it the success it has been: the average player that doesn't even visit forums, much less write in them.

In that question two things to take notice of: a) All mmorpgs that tried to copy WoW, didn't try to copy classic. They tried to copy the expansions.And that may as well be how they failed. The number one complaint amongst people trying said games was that there was not much content. Classic, for the average player, not the endgame-focused one, hardly run out of content during its more than two years period of existence; actually at Crusade's launch most players didn't have even one character at the level cap.

b) In the real world, and not the original poster's multiply flawed one, the direction of the game would be the same, but technical and design changes would occur. Obviously. Also new content would be added. Obviously number 2, but it seems that the op's silliness is infectious. The graphics would get better. The sound too. The stability of the servers would increase. The servers would get replaced by better hardware themselves. Specializations would become viable. Stupid grinds would be removed or turned to sensible. Stupid talent choices as well. Bugs would be worked out. Quests would get more story elements. And so on. It's not a matter of classic doing a time-travel to the present, but a matter of the game progressing towards its open-world role-playing direction, not the instanced-heavy one

Would a game that offered in each and every expansion over 30 zones of exploration and questing content, multiple campaigns, avoided homogenization at almost all costs, was not guiding players by the hand, or showering them in loot/rewards to stroke their ego, didn't have brain-dead itemization, attempted to add flavour in all things, allowed people to experiment with the shaping of their character's talents through extensive trees like in proper rpgs and invited experimentation not prohibit it, taught players to slow down and enjoy the experience instead of rushing to collect points, was designed for the average player not chopped up for the demands of the few high-performance ones and their obsessions with balance and percentiles, prompted them to group up with a few extremely difficult tasks, was not centralized so players were all over the world not swarming the same few zones, demanded attention, adaptation, and learning from the player, and rewarded them with a grand experience, not gear/mounts/pets/whatever your choice of carrot is; work?

I think it would.

[Deleted]

If Warcraft was to revert to how it was pre Wotlk, I would happily renew my subscription but after 9yrs and seeing the state this game is in now, I honestly don't feel like there's much point any more.

Epics no longer feel epic, dungeons just aren't challenging any more and to be brutally honest raids/boss encounters just feel boring and repetitive, there isn't even any challenge in raids.

I know some will read my answer and just say "hey do heroic mode if you want challenging" but I have and even that was boring as hell... Multiple difficulties does not make for a good raiding experience, having decent mechanics and actually having to be a better player to surpass those mechanics is what makes a top raid. Yes more should have access to end game raiding but not at the expense of actually having to get better at what you have to do as a whole to progress through an encounter.

That's just my opinion though so don't start going hell for leather foaming...

The game would of survived but the player base would have been as compact as it was before Ulduar came along and probably not as toxic on my realm as it got once the flood gates opened for casuals to start getting ahead in the game. Not saying every realm got that way but mine certainly did Which inevitably lead to the realm beginning to die, making recruitment all but non existent which by the time cata ended lead our guild as well as many others to move realms to find life once more so we could get back to raiding. Unfortunately like myself, most of my guildies were too bored by the time MoP rolled around and too peeved with changes we don't agree on so most of us have just stopped playing or gone casual.

But anyway, personally won't be renewing except for occasional visits to catch up with friends, won't be buying next expack either so I'll say now to those that do, Good Luck and may the odds forever be in your favor

[Deleted]

Hunters can only use a backpack (16 slots), 3 bags, and a quiver or ammo pouch, and have to buy ammo
- Pets have to be fed
- Reagents are a real thing
- You can run out of ammo
- There are no flying mounts
- You get your ground mounts at lvl 40 and 60
- Rogues have to make poisons again
- Locks have to farm shards
- Pallies and Locks have to quest to get their class mount at 40 and 60
- Druids now have to go through long chain quests for animal forms which now come at later levels
- No Paladins on Horde
- No Shaman on Alliance
- No Dual Spec
- No Transmog
- No Reforge (even if it is now going away)

All these things were awesome and they putted the R in the RPG. Oh, and having no LF tools

[Polarthief]

I dunno, doesn't really matter for most of my classes. Druid would be a bit annoying now.

"A bit"? Try exceedingly annoying.

Enjoy only having one decent role and all the restrictions that Druid had prior.


I probably wouldn't play again, but I'm not playing now, so I'm not sure what to say.

[Blithe]

The only things I agreed with back then were class quests, mounts at 40 and 60 and no flying.

My least favourite thing in World of Warcraft was when Burning Crusade added flying. It *severely* reduced the size of the 'World' of Warcraft.

I'll also go and say that Orgrimmar/Stormwind becoming the capitals is really annoying, I want a reason to go EVERYWHERE in Azeroth, and all the cities should have equal features and NPC's so that you don't just sit in Orgrimmar all day. Maybe a daily quest that sends you out into a random place around Azeroth? Who knows!

[Polarthief]

Maybe a daily quest that sends you out into a random place around Azeroth? Who knows!

Oh that sounds wonderful, except the part where I feel obligated to do it every day. If MoP taught us one thing, other than Blizzard's disregard for what Mages care about *coughL90talents*, it's that DAILIES ARE BAD BAD BAD.

Pandaria did one thing fairly decently and that was all the random treasure/heirloom weapons you could find just purely out of exploration, but it needs to be expanded upon even further.

[Zuben]

I doubt it. Had WoW never evolved then I'd have found the competition more intriguing than I did and switched to them instead. Classic WoW would be grossly outdated by today's standards.

[Armourboy]

Would I still play it, sure. Does that mean that I think many of the changes over the years weren't good or needed? Absolutely not.

I'm also not crazy enough to think that the game would have ever been anything near what it turned out to be sub wise. Lets face it, the cleaner the game got the more people that played it.

[Deleted]

How about individual raid buffs on a 40 man raid. Literally having to spam the buff 40 times then wiping, doing it again.
Hunters didn't only have to buy ammo, they had different DPS on certain types of ammo, some of which required annoying rep grinds etc to get.

People need to stop pretending they played WoW when it first came out to look cool or boost their epeen and accept the game has had amazing positive changes over the years. The game will NEVER feel like it did on release, this isn't due to the changes in the game, it's due to the game not being new anymore.

Deal with it.

[The Flavour Cat]

Maybe. It's always a great game to play, but it works at its best when combining aspects that worked and were added in different expansions and patches.

[Deleted]

If they had never changed, yes I probably would still play it, if they were to suddenly revoke all those changes they had made, no I would probably not.

[Shaani]

Maybe a daily quest that sends you out into a random place around Azeroth? Who knows!

That's actually a nice idea.

I'd even go a step further and maybe make something like a “World Quest”. I've seen something like that in, I think it was Perfect World. I know, not a permium MMO, but their “World Quest” was one of my favourite things to do while trying out that MMO.
If I remember correctly, you picked up that quest in the main city, and the quest-giver asked you to deliver a book. So you traveled there and picked up that book. The person that gave you said book asked you then to deliver another book to another person (who was in a different zone), and that person would then ask you to do yet another errand (which would be in yet another zone). That went on and on for usually 20+ steps. It was leading you through almost all of the world. If you had a fast flying mount it would take you maybe an hour to solve, if you only got a ground mount well, it could easily take you up to 3-4 hours. I totally loved that World-Quest daily and I have always wished for World of Warcraft to have something like that as well.

Oh that sounds wonderful, except the part where I feel obligated to do it every day. If MoP taught us one thing, other than Blizzard's disregard for what Mages care about *coughL90talents*, it's that DAILIES ARE BAD BAD BAD.

I do not believe that this is true.
There was this debate in the official forums last year where some people complained about the many dailies and that apparently no one liked them.
A Blizz-official then stated that this wasn't true and that they apparently had valid data which shows that there are actually many people who do, in fact, enjoy questing and doing daily-quests.

Those people do, indeed, exist.
Actually, I am one of those; exploring, traveling and doing dailies is my most favourite thing to do in World of Warcraft.

You may think those people aren't around, but that only seems like that, because most of them never bother to post in the forums.

I agree with you on one point though:
People should NOT feel obligated to do the dailies.

Blizzard should design them (and the rewards) in a way that the hard-core-instance-runners / anti-daily-individuals don't feel as if they have to do the dailies.
One way to do that could be to offer NO high-end gear in the reputation vendors. That way the hard-core individuals wouldn't feel as if they needed to run dailies.
Instead offer transmog sets, or even better, mounts instead. This way the ones who focus strongly on numbers and gear can just ignore the dailies if they please.
This way they can say no longer that they must do the dailies in order to progress.