Reminders of what vanilla was like

[Deleted]

Did not go through all of that but from what I read it is a mostly true and excessive collection of information from back then.

You just seem to exaggerate on a few things like the time needed on leveling, on killing stuff while doing so, and so on (example: yes mage needed loads of mana, but you "only" drank all 3-5 mobs, not after every mob - you DID consider drinking before engaging a mob that potentially added 2-3 more mobs though).

The most "complex" mechanic (in terms of stats) that not directly reflected in the stats you could see was the chance to get a crushing blow as a tank (=prot-warrior) - which you most importantly had to gear against for serious raiding - non-warriors could partially achieve this if they had really REALLY good gear, especially from naxx40.

Overall though, what was imo the most limiting factor on raiding back then, was the immense amount of consumables (and time farming those or the gold for them) needed as well as the mostly non-existent knowledge on game mechanics and influence of stats on your character (caused by poorly statted gear especially on set pieces). I still remember proudly completing my dungeon set on my warlock. A few weeks later I realized how crappy that set was. My next max level character had a mixture of high level greens and low level rares/epics to easily maximize damage output.

I still wonder whether or not they want to revise the vanilla servers in terms of balance (at least stat-wise on gear drops) and material consumption for raiding.

[khalltusk]

You want me to fraps that bullshit to you? You enter that dungeon. All the naga is lined up. Your tank goes in first all pulls everything till the boss. Avoiding? All i see is pull more. It is not exaggerating. It is the fact. If you say that maw of madness or whatever that naga dungeon is called, people dont mount up and pull the mobs you are clearly lying. This is my experience with all this crossserver shit. I also made my demon hunter a tank and this is what I do in any dungeon. I pull at least 2 or 3 packs and we aoe them down. And my gear score is 871 If i remember correctly.

You see I cant give you the dungeons name or the item level of my char properly.
That much irrelevant they are to the fact that you run left and right pull and aoe down.

You are right in one thing tho. Yes you would want to avoid the the second pack closest to the entrance pack in the room of general drakkisath in blackrock.

10 years ago and I still remember the horror of pulling 2 packs there towards the narrow bridge. 10 years on and the mobs, the dungeon, the gear all irrelevant.

Actually the more gear you get the more you can pull.

In almost every run in eye of azhara (the name of that dungeon minus any miss spelling) it is as you describe. You mount up run in pull the trash packs up to the boss and aoe it down.

The game has always been better gear more you can pull to an extent. Still remember our friday night UBRS runs when we were doing progress on AQ40. We were way over geared and would rofl stomp that place. Still a great dungeon though that and BRD.

[Nomads]

In almost every run in eye of azhara (the name of that dungeon minus any miss spelling) it is as you describe. You mount up run in pull the trash packs up to the boss and aoe it down.

The game has always been better gear more you can pull to an extent. Still remember our friday night UBRS runs when we were doing progress on AQ40. We were way over geared and would rofl stomp that place. Still a great dungeon though that and BRD.

BRD is basically one of the best dungeons ever designed. Ive always wondered why so many people seem to hate it. Probably just because its so long... but seriously, get 5 friends and do a full BRD clear sometime... it's epic. You fight all through the Dark Iron's capitol. Do a jailbreak, rain their vault, crash a bar, and finally kill their Emperor. It's what 5 man raiding should be.

[khalltusk]

BRD is basically one of the best dungeons ever designed. Ive always wondered why so many people seem to hate it. Probably just because its so long... but seriously, get 5 friends and do a full BRD clear sometime... it's epic. You fight all through the Dark Iron's capitol. Do a jailbreak, rain their vault, crash a bar, and finally kill their Emperor. It's what 5 man raiding should be.

When I first went there I got lost. There was no map just the minimap which when you look at it, it is confusing as fuck. That and the amount of clears that blizzard saw was quite low. So I guess they made dungeons smaller as big dungeons just didnt see enough people clearing it fully.

Still I enjoyed the fuck out of it when I learned more about it and explored it. But not everyone did =[

[GennGreymane]

I know exactly what it was like

It was a video game I enjoyed. If it was not a video game worth enjoying, it wouldnt have grown as much as it did.

[Demithio]

Totally looking forward to getting pissed at all the Paladin Horde gear and Shaman Alliance gear. 2 pieces of loot from bosses to gear up 40 players? The best!

I played back in Vanilla and while some parts were definitely better than live, you're kidding yourself if you think it's just a flat out better game. Be as salty as you want, there are pros and cons to both Live and Vanilla. Truth is, Vanilla is horribly player-unfriendly with all its QoL problems and making a simple dungeon on average take about an hour just to form the group and get everyone there if it's far away, then another 2 hours to run it. This is fine for people who have the time (early-year college students and younger) but simply doesn't work for adults with jobs and families to take care of (which I would imagine is the majority of the WoW pop right now, and almost definitely the entire pop of the original Vanilla players).

I'd love to go back to Classic raids, especially the ones I've missed, but I don't know if I can with all the horrible QoL issues. I did my time with Vanilla and while it was fun, I really don't think I can go back, at least not without some coaxing (unlocking removed mogs to my live account maybe?).

You make some points for sure. Both live and classic have their pros and cons. Unfortunately though, live seems to have way too many cons or there would really be no need for classic servers. I'm not convinced that having 100% classic wow servers is the solution either, sadly though, if they hadn't of turned live into a very different game this wouldn't be an issue. Blasting everything back for a retread of 2004 isn't going to cut it.

[voidillusion]

Totally looking forward to getting pissed at all the Paladin Horde gear and Shaman Alliance gear. 2 pieces of loot from bosses to gear up 40 players? The best!

I played back in Vanilla and while some parts were definitely better than live, you're kidding yourself if you think it's just a flat out better game. Be as salty as you want, there are pros and cons to both Live and Vanilla. Truth is, Vanilla is horribly player-unfriendly with all its QoL problems and making a simple dungeon on average take about an hour just to form the group and get everyone there if it's far away, then another 2 hours to run it. This is fine for people who have the time (early-year college students and younger) but simply doesn't work for adults with jobs and families to take care of (which I would imagine is the majority of the WoW pop right now, and almost definitely the entire pop of the original Vanilla players).

I'd love to go back to Classic raids, especially the ones I've missed, but I don't know if I can with all the horrible QoL issues. I did my time with Vanilla and while it was fun, I really don't think I can go back, at least not without some coaxing (unlocking removed mogs to my live account maybe?).

In servers with healthy populations that issue isn't really felt, at least forming the group, dungeons will take long yes, thankfully it was how they were designed.

[garicasha]

One other big issue with classic is that the patch they decide to release it on, if not 1.12, is going to have classes that have/haven't had their balance fix yet. Pretty much every patch overhauled one class, which I believe generally raised DPS (except for a few outliers of things that were broken OP).

[ovine]

Totally looking forward to getting pissed at all the Paladin Horde gear and Shaman Alliance gear. 2 pieces of loot from bosses to gear up 40 players? The best!

The Shammy / Pally loot thing only happened on the TBC pre-patch, it didn't happen throughout all of vanilla.

[Daevelian]

Hmmm, reminder of vanilla?

BRM being where rogues go to make linkin park videos.

Fear spam

Being feared through the floor was more common than not.

Asshole developers deliberately pigeon holing certain classes into certain roles because of their hatred of them from other games. (LOOKIN AT YOU TIGOLE YOU JACKHOLE)

Ping of 400-600 being common place for Australians.

That amazing feeling when your paladin finally finishes their shockadin set and BECOME AS GODS.

Yeah, i think that's pretty much my vanilla experience.

[Deleted]

I still think many people will simply have a character on classic on the side, while still maintaining their main in BfA.

That's how I will play it too, just to enjoy the old quests and zones once more. Nothing too serious.

[Blackmist]

Remember when a Legendary neck dropped by mistake and only one person in the world got it?

[Vineri]

Ping of 400-600 being common place for Australians.

For 2004-2007, that is quite reasonable considering you chose to play a game on the other side of the globe, on the other hemisphere to boot.

Maybe Aussies should make their own localized games so there are less jaded players. Don't like the ping, play an Aussie game, not a US game.

(as if Blizzard even has control over your internet connection .. puh-lease)

[Avellon]

Most things listed are effin awesome. Not for 3-second attention span players thou.

[Daevelian]

For 2004-2007, that is quite reasonable considering you chose to play a game on the other side of the globe, on the other hemisphere to boot.

Maybe Aussies should make their own localized games so there are less jaded players. Don't like the ping, play an Aussie game, not a US game.

(as if Blizzard even has control over your internet connection .. puh-lease)

Oh right, i also forgot to mention the self centred americans and their passive aggressive mocking of our ping.

Thanks for that reminder!

[Vineri]

Oh right, i also forgot to mention the self centred americans and their passive aggressive mocking of our ping.

Thanks for that reminder!

God bless Aussies for reminding the world how every other country hates them because their own internet is stinky :P

(and it's everyone elses fault too damnit)

[endersblade]

Compared to modern WoW, Classic is fucking horrible. There are SO MANY THINGS mentioned in the past 30 pages at this point that blatantly point out what's wrong with Vanilla. I'm a supporter of the Classic servers, but I really think a lot of people are going to have a wake-up call once they launch.

[Orby]

General Changes:

There was (were) no:
--Flight (besides flight paths, which dismounted you at each stop until 1.10)

Oh thank god, if there's no thing I would castrate from current WoW it's flying. Flying should never be a thing in an MMO and it was something I was against since they introduced it, and I stand by it to this day

[garicasha]

Flying did change the game quite a bit but that doesn't mean it's all bad.

BTW there was a massive amount of time spent on aerial combat I think for Cata. You can see the remnants in some of the Firelands quests. Ultimately it was scrapped though because it was just too wonky.

[Demithio]

Oh thank god, if there's no thing I would castrate from current WoW it's flying. Flying should never be a thing in an MMO and it was something I was against since they introduced it, and I stand by it to this day

Flying was cool and fun in outlands, but that's were it should have stopped.

- - - Updated - - -

Compared to modern WoW, Classic is fucking horrible. There are SO MANY THINGS mentioned in the past 30 pages at this point that blatantly point out what's wrong with Vanilla. I'm a supporter of the Classic servers, but I really think a lot of people are going to have a wake-up call once they launch.

I don't think classic is meant for the current crop of WoW players. IMO its a scheme by Blizzard to bring back old time veteran players they lost due to the past several years of watering down. I couldn't imagine the current group of fast action, instant gratification, players enjoying it much.