Please explain to me why the game felt more "alive" for me when there was <500k SUBS

[Deleted]

For the same reason that your parents look back at the "whatevers" as the best time.

The difference being is that we can play ''whatevers'' expansion on private servers while we can't time travel in life.

[Axaron]

Because the game was less than a month old so everyone wanted to be online 24/7?

This cannot be emphasized enough.

[MoanaLisa]

The world/game in general felt thriving and huge to me...even coming from another MMORPG..

It's the difference between a smaller community where you can be connected to a lot of people in that community and a very large city where the same number of personal connections is completely lost against the overall size of the population. Small town versus big city.

Also new versus old. At the time just about everyone was new, more or less. If you wanted to find out anything you pretty much wanted to reach out to the in-game community for an immediate answer. Now everyone is an expert, or thinks they are anyway. So less reaching out. And when they do it's not to the game it's too...here...or Wowhead or some other site. Just a different time and place really.

[ComputerNerd]

The game was new, people weren't bored with it.
They actually talked to each other.

The worst of the game is the community.
The game itself has improved hugely, but the community has gone downhill.
Something is only new once, you are only inexperienced once.
People who have years of experience think the game should be catering only to them, and get upset that it does not.

[Deleted]

Nostalgia... 'Nuff said

[Army Dreamer]

Please explain to me why

You was 9 years younger.

[Celarent]

The world/game in general felt thriving and huge to me...even coming from another MMORPG..

I'd say this feeling lasted from 2004-2007

Because it was new. In 2004, hardly a million people had ever played an MMO. There were fewer alternatives, particularly no social media as exists today.

[Revan Bane]

It's the lack of group content that is making you feel the world used to be more alive.

There is nothing sufficiently enticing, important or challenging enough outside in the world that would make us want to put in the effort, that would actually require us gathering a group of people and that would be rewarding enough to provide motivation to complete. We don't need several raid groups to kill outdoor bosses, we don't even need one, you can just do it solo along with the rest of the people soloing, all having an illusion they are playing an mmo. There is nothing requiring server effort any more either, no massive world events, no small world events, just fast queues and minimum interaction.

Mostly what we have now is solo content with other people, which is an entirely different thing. Playing solo in a grey, anonymous crowd, lacking soul and excitement.

I have made myself sad now.

[Throne]

There were fewer servers, so the number of players on your server wasn't too dissimilar to how it is now

at launch there were about 70 or so, there have been about 150 added
http://www.wowwiki.com/Timeline_of_t...n_of_US_realms

in terms of subscriptions per server, its 5 to 1. Thats just US servers, if you factor in all subs were originally US ones (http://inanage.com/2011/05/18/ot-by-the-numbers/), the ratio is about 2 to 1.

Factor in newness, interest its not too surprising the game felt that way back then

[Lazuli]

Group finder and flying mounts, pretty obvious.

[ComputerNerd]

I think its mostly nostalgia and the 'new' factor of WoW that made it feel more lively.

For a lot of people, WoW was their first MMO. I know it was mine. It was amazing running around, getting gear, seeing other people doing the same thing. It had a larger impact on me than it does now. Its expected to see other people.

Now, also back then you had to travel to instances which made things appear to be more interactive. I honestly wouldn't prefer it that way anymore especially with the size of the game.

Ontop of all of this, you also had a real server community. You had to actually interact with everyone, be nice, respectable, etc. If you were an asshole or a troll, it would become increasingly harder to find groups. Now you can transfer servers, do group finders, use OQ/OpenRaid which makes it so no matter how much your server ends up hating you- you have other options. There is no server community, at least not like it used to be. Just like another forum member posted, its become an MMOLobby. A server just hosts players and no longer really acts as a home.

Server communities declined to such a state that some realms were practically dead from people paying money to leave them, or simply starting another character.
Players killed the community, not blizzard.
There are more tools than ever to communicate with players, but less willingness than there has ever been to actually interact properly with people outside of a small cherry-picked group.
The tools are blizzards attempts to combat problems that players made.
Some realms thrive, some die.
Mechanically they are the same, the only difference being the players on them.
Players make or break realm community.

The problem IS the players only, nothing else.

It's the lack of group content that is making you feel the world used to be more alive.

There is nothing sufficiently enticing, important or challenging enough outside in the world that would make us want to put in the effort, that would actually require us gathering a group of people and that would be rewarding enough to provide motivation to complete. We don't need several raid groups to kill outdoor bosses, we don't even need one, you can just do it solo along with the rest of the people soloing, all having an illusion they are playing an mmo. There is nothing requiring server effort any more either, no massive world events, no small world events, just fast queues and minimum interaction.

Mostly what we have now is solo content with other people, which is an entirely different thing. Playing solo in a grey, anonymous crowd, lacking soul and excitement.

I have made myself sad now.

Putting stuff out in the world that needs groups only works when there is the active population in that zone.
Elite/group quests were only realistic during an initial levelling rush that comes with a new expansion, and were near impossible to get groups for from about mid-way through one or later.

[Gheld]

Because back during Vanilla the game happened in between the points of interest because for all but the most "hardcore" of players the game was levelling and mining and crafting. Later in TBC the majority of the player base had a max level character and suddenly the game "just began" when you reached the level cap.

So everybody is in a battleground or a dungeon or a raid, or mining. The world itself is just fluff that stands between you and "the game".

It has nothing to do with flying.
It has nothing to do with PVP
It has nothing to do with dungeon finder.

The emphasis of the development of the game has just changed. Everybody wants to be max level and do max level stuff; and most of the max level stuff is off to the side or behind instance portals.

TLDR Blame "End game".

[Xires]

Simple. First, you had to walk everywhere, second the landmass was smaller, third there were far less servers to play on, so the ones that were around were packed for quite a while, and lastly, people had to congregate to do anything, since we lacked the social/queue systems the game now has.

landmass was not smaller. Vanilla came with 2 large continents and flying from 1 end of a continent to the other on a FP took over 10 minutes.

[Canderous1]

cross server bgs first, then queuing for instances.

thats what i think.

[Deleted]

OP, there are multiple reasons:
1. The game was new, everyone was learning it and leveling. Everyone was present in Classic zones. Due to the nature of Classic zones, people had to revisit them multiple times. Also, because of the increase in subs, there were always many new players in the older zones.
2. It took longer to level, like far longer, so people had to stay in the leveling zones more, and other then that they had to farm many times stuff in them.
3. No LFD/LFR meaning that you had to talk and form groups, wait at the instance entrances, walk there, summon people etc.
4. Group quests forced interaction with others, you had to socialize to finish your quests.
5. As more players appeared, new servers were opened, and people started new characters there, so those servers felt brand new and full of people.

Not let's look at current situation to compare:
1. Game is older now, the subs don't increase much so not many new players are seen. Since once you finish a zone you have little reason to revisit it, people don't revisit it, so the world is empty.
2. Leveling is a piece of cake, you outlevel the second zone you're in by 5 levels even and you can even pay for max level boost.
3. LFD/LFR means you don't have to talk to others to form groups, you just queue and wait in your faction's capital. 0 interaction.
4. No group quests means that interaction between players is hitting a new low. You have no reason to socialize, other players are more an annoyance then a great addition so you avoid them.
5. As players left, server populations fell. Blizzard did not merge them and their cross-realm idea was not fully implemented, so many servers are dead, even in main capitals.
Bonus: The lack of additions to make the leveling experience more interesting means people will never return there, making the zones from previous expansions dead.

[PosPosPos]

landmass was not smaller. Vanilla came with 2 large continents and flying from 1 end of a continent to the other on a FP took over 10 minutes.

It is smaller, you just fly slower. There's a big difference there.

[Mormolyce]

Because it was new.

/thread

- - - Updated - - -

It is smaller, you just fly slower. There's a big difference there.

Also several zones were practically empty.

[Balazzar]

New game was new.

Seriously how many level 1s today have never played WoW before? Its just the same captive audience. Hell, Blizz's latest content model is built on capturing the sub-clear-unsub method of play.

That and the community. WoW's community to non-WoW people is that of Chernobyl or that river in Ohio that started on fire in the 1960s. People think the community is shit and thus not worth participating in.

[PuppetShowJustice]

We spoke to each other back then.

[Littleraven]

Because the game was less than a month old so everyone wanted to be online 24/7?

pretty much this. trying to compare how you feel about a game when its brand new to when its pushing 10 years old is stupid imo. of course it felt more "alive" back then. every new thing you saw was just that. new. now everything is just routine. most people have been to just about every nook and cranny of the game world through various means.