Why do people act like Classic WOW was torture?

[Heladys]

It was casual nice stoll on a beach on a fine summers day compared to its peers at the time. Which is why it won everyone over.

Yes absolutely. It was ez-mode compared to the hellishness of EQ and others. And still absolutely a grind. Because that's the only way people knew how to make MMOs back then.

[Thimagryn]

It had millions of players and retained a growing audience. Many enjoyed the game as their first MMO experience. Why are there so many threads that are acting as if they are warnings? Its a goddamn game, not a trip to the woods.

Because MMO gaming was different in 2004 and no one had any concept of what a proper MMO would play like. There's no such thing as reliving a first experience for something you've played many iterations of over and over again.

No matter how hard you try, playing Super Mario Bros. again will never provide you the same experience as you had when you first play it. You can enjoy the game in many other ways, but you wouldn't have the same feeling of exploration for a game that you know like the back of your hand. You can play it for the enjoyment of other reasons, like being able to speedrun or attempting blind runs etc, but playing it for the sake of exploration will only last as long as your memory serves. It's not going to last for the same time you devoted to the game exploring everything thoroughly and learning how to play the game 'right'. What took you 6 months of leveling to explore the world will take you far less time now. You already know how to play, all you're doing is going through the motions of relearning, and that is no substitute for a new or fresh experience. In a way, playing the game at the same pace as the original without the satisfaction of exploration could be considered 'torture'. I think it's a fair warning for those who are expecting the same satisfaction the original game held at the pace it played at.

I would say leveling in Diablo 2 is also torture if not for early runewords that help boost your run speed and mana replenish. Hell, I probably wouldn't even play D2 if I had to go back to pre-LoD patches. The game wasn't optimal until the end game, and that's generally how WoW was designed too. Depending on how the content is rolled out, it could be a very bait-and-switch situation if people are jumping in expecting 1.12 balance and getting 1.0.

[Soon-TM]

It isn't about "reliving the first time experience" of course that's impossible, duh. It's about revisiting it after quite some time; like a book you read many years ago which really impressed you. Of course you know how the story ends, that's not why you are rereading the damn book! You can't have the text altered, no matter how good or bad is the book for you. If you change the text (the gameplay in this case) it is no longer the book you wanted to reread, no matter how fancy is the new cover and print.

[Unholyground]

The main issue with Vanilla is you had to play it every day 2-4 hours to get anything done.

[GennGreymane]

Because MMO gaming was different in 2004 and no one had any concept of what a proper MMO would play like. There's no such thing as reliving a first experience for something you've played many iterations of over and over again.

No matter how hard you try, playing Super Mario Bros. again will never provide you the same experience as you had when you first play it. You can enjoy the game in many other ways, but you wouldn't have the same feeling of exploration for a game that you know like the back of your hand. You can play it for the enjoyment of other reasons, like being able to speedrun or attempting blind runs etc, but playing it for the sake of exploration will only last as long as your memory serves. It's not going to last for the same time you devoted to the game exploring everything thoroughly and learning how to play the game 'right'. What took you 6 months of leveling to explore the world will take you far less time now. You already know how to play, all you're doing is going through the motions of relearning, and that is no substitute for a new or fresh experience. In a way, playing the game at the same pace as the original without the satisfaction of exploration could be considered 'torture'. I think it's a fair warning for those who are expecting the same satisfaction the original game held at the pace it played at.

I would say leveling in Diablo 2 is also torture if not for early runewords that help boost your run speed and mana replenish. Hell, I probably wouldn't even play D2 if I had to go back to pre-LoD patches. The game wasn't optimal until the end game, and that's generally how WoW was designed too. Depending on how the content is rolled out, it could be a very bait-and-switch situation if people are jumping in expecting 1.12 balance and getting 1.0.

I played old school runescape after not playing for like 9 years. It was great. I did some l did some old quests I liked, got to over 110 again, and overall had fun. If anything it was better due to the community just being absolute meme trash even subbed to some youtubers I am still subbed to despite stopping a year ago and I enjoy their content.

[Deleted]

It isn't about "reliving the first time experience" of course that's impossible, duh. It's about revisiting it after quite some time; like a book you read many years ago which really impressed you. Of course you know how the story ends, that's not why you are rereading the damn book! You can't have the text altered, no matter how good or bad is the book for you. If you change the text (the gameplay in this case) it is no longer the book you wanted to reread, no matter how fancy is the new cover and print.

That comparison makes no sense, to be honest. If Classic WoW was a book, then half the pages are bleached, some are stuck together, some entire sections are torn off or crumpled and only 3-4 of the characters get any mention, even though they are all supposed to be relevant.

Classic WoW isn't some favour Blizzard is doing to the Private Server crowd. If they release 1.12 unchanged then a majority of their player-base will balk at half the classes and specs being functionally useless. And that's before even considering end-game viability. There is so much crap in the game that no sensible person would miss, but purists want it anyway because "NO CHANGES!!1 REEEEEE!!!".

[Thimagryn]

I played old school runescape after not playing for like 9 years. It was great. I did some l did some old quests I liked, got to over 110 again, and overall had fun. If anything it was better due to the community just being absolute meme trash even subbed to some youtubers I am still subbed to despite stopping a year ago and I enjoy their content.

Which is great if you go into it with no real expectations. I'm enjoying D2 the same way too and watching a bunch of speedrunners and youtubers using 'fun' builds.

[Soon-TM]

That comparison makes no sense, to be honest. If Classic WoW was a book, then half the pages are bleached, some are stuck together, some entire sections are torn off or crumpled and only 3-4 of the characters get any mention, even though they are all supposed to be relevant.

Classic WoW isn't some favour Blizzard is doing to the Private Server crowd. If they release 1.12 unchanged then a majority of their player-base will balk at half the classes and specs being functionally useless. And that's before even considering end-game viability. There is so much crap in the game that no sensible person would miss, but purists want it anyway because "NO CHANGES!!1 REEEEEE!!!".

It is your crumpled and breached pages which make no sense. Blizzard has the whole !@#&ing code, i.e. nothing is missing or otherwise unavailable. And ofc Blizz isn't doing this out of charity, but to earn money. And I'm sure af I won't be giving them anything if they start tampering with the game proper. But there is hope: SC remastered has no balance changes at all, hopefully the same will happen with Classic. Long story short: a "balanced" Classic will please neither the old "purist" crowd nor the new retail one, which will consider it grindy, outdated and tedious no matter how "balanced" it comes to be.

[StraTosSpeAr]

That comparison makes no sense, to be honest. If Classic WoW was a book, then half the pages are bleached, some are stuck together, some entire sections are torn off or crumpled and only 3-4 of the characters get any mention, even though they are all supposed to be relevant.

Classic WoW isn't some favour Blizzard is doing to the Private Server crowd. If they release 1.12 unchanged then a majority of their player-base will balk at half the classes and specs being functionally useless. And that's before even considering end-game viability. There is so much crap in the game that no sensible person would miss, but purists want it anyway because "NO CHANGES!!1 REEEEEE!!!".

There have been countless people that have pointed it out over and over again.

Retail WoW is not intrinsically better than Vanilla WoW.

You have this lazy, arrogant attitude that all of the changes that were made were objectively better. Things like Battle.net integration, linked flights, improved mailing system, and AH in all cities? Sure. Group finder, flight, trivializing everything to a Diablo-esque action game instead of a true RPG? Not so much.

It's baffling how incredibly ignorant people like you are. Those that are fans of Vanilla want the game that WoW was. They want the grind, they want the commitment, they want the class differences, etc. etc. etc.

If you don't want that, then go away. Stay with Retail.

[Clone]

Dude you don't make any sense.
1. Never ever again use word realism when you are talking about video games - especially fantasy one.
2. Immersion has nothing to do with realism. Immersion is subjective and totally opinion depended, it's just about how you immerse in your character. Calling something subjective as fact makes you look kinda stupid. You can be selective - black and white doesn't exist. Small things like hunter ammo makes your character more interesting in rpg context - some people find it fun when they craft their own ammo etc. Personally I don't play video games for the "immersion" and when I played vanilla hunter I didn't give a shit about ammo; it's not that hard to just buy them always when you are in a city.
3. You forgot it's a video game. Sure if you could carry less items it would make more sense but in video games you have to balance around having fun and that's not as easy as you think. I think I like it more now when you have more inventory slots available for things, but you can definitely play around having way less slots in vanilla. Probably not much less.

I actually have a question for you. I have been following a bit and it's obvious that some people like you are having some crusade against classic wow. Why is that? What did the vanilla players do to you? No need to attack me btw, I'm "retail player" or whatever the word was, I just don't care if they find playing vanilla fun. They are totally right about that legion is not anymore the rpg wow used to be, it's more of a multiplayer lobby where I log one of my 14(? not even sure anymore) characters and queue into something - usually arenas, though I'm raiding currently antorus too. Or maybe I grind some world quests with WQGF.

The question you should ask yourself is, what kind of game you actually want to play? In vanilla you are kinda committed in one character that you keep developing so having classic rpg elements makes more sense. I don't see any reason why there are no room for both types of games. Sure I will play a bit classic wow but mostly I'm gonna play bfa simply because classic doesn't have arenas and I find raiding in vanilla extremely boring - though I can see why many people enjoy it too, it can be kinda relaxing sometimes compared to current content.

There is no way to ignore realism when discussion the ammo mechanic. Everything that people have against the current ammo mechanic is about how unrealistic shooting ammo out of thin air is. They many not actually use the word realism in their argument, but the logic is there.

An immersive experience requires a degree of realism, no matter how fantasy the setting is. Otherwise there would be no need to code in fall damage, burn damage when standing in fire, breath meter, etc.

While an immersive experience may vary depending on individual, there are still a major degree of objectivity that people are ignoring so they can hide behind subjectivity to avoid being called out on flawed logic. I mean, if Sargeras stabbed Azeroth with a dildo in the cutscene, you can still argue that it's acceptable because of personal tastes in story telling and subjectivity, but anybody would know it's not immersive.

I don't have anything against vanilla, I played it since day one and had no real problems with it. I have no real problem with people that prefer vanilla either as long as they aren't justifying it with flawed logic.

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This is actually one of those situations where you're so obviously and utterly wrong, that none of us have the desire to prove anything to you. We and every one else who bothers to read your drivel just have a good laugh.

I'll help you out a little... Our side is saying: that we find having to carry a limited amount of ammo feels more immersive than having magical bullets appear out of thin air. You are saying: OMG YOUR FEELING IS WRONG BECAUSE ITS NOT REALISTIC TO CARRY SO MUCH AMMO OR ALL THE OTHER THINGS IN YOUR BAGS!!! You seem to fail to realize the immersive does not mean realistic. And you also fail to realize that you are holding an OPINION, not a fact.

And for the record no one said private servers have millions of players. Tens of thousands? Yes. LH has 10k online at peak hours alone.

So while you're in school learning to distinguish fact from opinion, please look in to some reading comprehension too.

I am calling out flawed logic. It's not something that's hard to understand. If you have a problem with bullets appearing out of thin air but not 1000+ worth of ammo in a bag, then your logic is flawed.

Immersion and realism correlate a lot more than you realize. The whole having to carry ammo argument hinges on realism, otherwise the complaint wouldn't be magical bullets appearing out of thin air. You can bitch and moan about how immersive does not mean realistic, but your grievance against the current ammo system says a lot about how realism plays into immersion.

Laugh all you want man, it shows more of your ignorance than your intellect.

[Deleted]

There is no way to ignore realism when discussion the ammo mechanic. Everything that people have against the current ammo mechanic is about how unrealistic shooting ammo out of thin air is. They many not actually use the word realism in their argument, but the logic is there.

An immersive experience requires a degree of realism, no matter how fantasy the setting is. Otherwise there would be no need to code in fall damage, burn damage when standing in fire, breath meter, etc.

I don't have anything against vanilla, I played it since day one and had no real problems with it. I have no real problem with people that prefer vanilla either as long as they aren't justifying it with flawed logic.

Your logic is so flawed I'm kinda worried for you

1. If people claim it makes more sense that you carry ammo that you shoot as a hunter it doesn't mean it's realistic. Magic bows shooting magic arrows crafted from thorium bars has nothing to do with realism. Logic != realism.

2. No damage in this game is realistic - you don't have healthbar irl. Fall damage is really unrealistic, you can jump from 10 meters and nothing happens to you if you just use a bandage after landing. They don't add things like fall damage because they think it's realistic, they add it because they think it adds something to the game. Do you swim a lot in lava irl?

3. It's highly unlikely that you played vanilla or you just don't remember anything from it. Tbh I too had some false memories before I tried nostalrius.

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My concern comes more as a warning as many current players complain about current rep grinds. Which is a joke compared to some of the things required back in Classic wow. I want the most vanilla wow possible, without a lot of extras and quality of life that people have become use to as current standard.

Vanilla WOW wasn't balanced and it never claimed to even try. The developers back then had more of attitude of "Get Good", rather then nerfing fights till a certain percent of players could clear it. The upside was the grinds were worth it, and if you were a top tier raider it not only showed skill, but dedication to get the gear out of those raids. I called it back when people were demanding classic wow that people would want class changes and nerf before it was ever live. That has already happened.

I have couple questions. If legion is so much superior in every aspect, why do you even want to play classic? Would you be happy if they just changed legions name to classic wow and released it? It's really hard to understand what do you even want from classic.

Maybe you could explain this for us: let's assume that blizzard copies legion to new branch. Now what changes would you make to the game so it becomes classic?

[Clone]

Your logic is so flawed I'm kinda worried for you

1. If people claim it makes more sense that you carry ammo that you shoot as a hunter it doesn't mean it's realistic. Magic bows shooting magic arrows crafted from thorium bars has nothing to do with realism. Logic != realism.

2. No damage in this game is realistic - you don't have healthbar irl. Fall damage is really unrealistic, you can jump from 10 meters and nothing happens to you if you just use a bandage after landing. They don't add things like fall damage because they think it's realistic, they add it because they think it adds something to the game. Do you swim a lot in lava irl?

3. It's highly unlikely that you played vanilla or you just don't remember anything from it. Tbh I too had some false memories before I tried nostalrius.

1. The argument that having to carry ammo = more immersive is heavily dependent on realism. Every claim to why it's more immersive has to do with realism.

2. Of course, a game has limitations and can only approximate what is real. These approximations of realism adds to immersion, the two concepts go hand in hand. The fact a game can't perfectly imitate real life doesn't invalidate it.

3. You don't have to believe me if you don't want. I find it a common accusation against people that criticize vanilla.

[Deleted]

1. The argument that having to carry ammo = more immersive is heavily dependent on realism. Every claim to why it's more immersive has to do with realism.

2. Of course, a game has limitations and can only approximate what is real. These approximations of realism adds to immersion, the two concepts go hand in hand. The fact a game can't perfectly imitate real life doesn't invalidate it.

3. You don't have to believe me if you don't want. I find it a common accusation against people that criticize vanilla.

1. Can you please already explain me why? You make statement like: "more immersive is heavily dependent on realism", but you never back it up with anything.

2. Now, do you see now why your logic is flawed? Designers are just human and they can't come up with unlimited ideas. They get ideas from real life but they don't implement them because they think it makes game more realistic. They implement it because it adds to the depth of the game.

3. Sorry, thought you were the other guy who was making some silly claims and I thought you were still referring to those. My bad, misunderstood your wording.

[Deleted]

It's not that one is superior, it's that it doesn't require as much time. I don't play a lot of games if they require a big time sink, unless i'm really into it. I do plan on playing Classic wow, but I don't see myself doing end game raiding in it. I certainly won't be going for High Warlord again. It comes down to priorities for me.

I will play Classic wow for the nostalgia and because my friends will be playing it. I'll probably do some PVP, and dungeons. That is unless classic is soo good and so many friends are playing that I do put that kind of time back into the game. At this point I don't see that happening.

So you will play exactly like me? Why can't we let them enjoy the game as it was and we can still play it out of nostalgia. There is no way I have time to play rank 10+ and raids are really shitty in vanilla, but if they enjoy it who cares. Making it to level 60 and getting dungeon gear, maybe running some ZG later is enough for me. If people have time to grind more, good for them. If I'd get to make the changes, man would there be many, but I understand that it would change the game. I'd rather ask changes for BfA than for classic, because it's not released yet. I think it's kinda selfish to ask changes for legacy release, that would most likely ruin the experience for the target audience.

[Clone]

1. Can you please already explain me why? You make statement like: "more immersive is heavily dependent on realism", but you never back it up with anything.

2. Now, do you see now why your logic is flawed? Designers are just human and they can't come up with unlimited ideas. They get ideas from real life but they don't implement them because they think it makes game more realistic. They implement it because it adds to the depth of the game.

3. Sorry, thought you were the other guy who was making some silly claims and I thought you were still referring to those. My bad, misunderstood your wording.

1. Think of it this way. If immersion wasn't dependent on realism, we could all be fighting each other using giant dildos and it would be just as immersive. People also wouldn't have a problem with bullets that appear out of thin air.

2. There is nothing flawed in thinking implementation of fall/burn damage adds to immersion by mimicking realism. In fact, it should be the first conclusion.

[Deleted]

1. Think of it this way. If immersion wasn't dependent on realism, we could all be fighting each other using giant dildos and it would be just as immersive. People also wouldn't have a problem with bullets that appear out of thin air.

2. There is nothing flawed in thinking implementation of fall/burn damage adds to immersion by mimicking realism. In fact, it should be the first conclusion.

1. I mean mage duels are really realistic, though you are right, they don't include dildos... Damn I hate it when my mate starts spamming polymorphs irl when I'm just trying to buy food.

2. This is classic logical fallacy. You are assuming that things are in game because same things happen in irl and therefore it's realistic. You should understand the flaw by just THINKING what happens when you fall from 10 meters in real life and compare it to what happens when you fall 10 meters in WoW. You should try sub rogue too! PLEASE don't jump out of your window in real life. There is NOTHING realistic in damage - it just doesn't work like that in real life. They are just ideas that devs have got from real life. e.g "jumping from 10th floor is kinda bad for your health" -> "we could make it in this game if you fall from high place you will take damage".

[Nomads]

There is no way to ignore realism when discussion the ammo mechanic. Everything that people have against the current ammo mechanic is about how unrealistic shooting ammo out of thin air is. They many not actually use the word realism in their argument, but the logic is there.

An immersive experience requires a degree of realism, no matter how fantasy the setting is. Otherwise there would be no need to code in fall damage, burn damage when standing in fire, breath meter, etc.

While an immersive experience may vary depending on individual, there are still a major degree of objectivity that people are ignoring so they can hide behind subjectivity to avoid being called out on flawed logic. I mean, if Sargeras stabbed Azeroth with a dildo in the cutscene, you can still argue that it's acceptable because of personal tastes in story telling and subjectivity, but anybody would know it's not immersive.

I don't have anything against vanilla, I played it since day one and had no real problems with it. I have no real problem with people that prefer vanilla either as long as they aren't justifying it with flawed logic.

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I am calling out flawed logic. It's not something that's hard to understand. If you have a problem with bullets appearing out of thin air but not 1000+ worth of ammo in a bag, then your logic is flawed.

Immersion and realism correlate a lot more than you realize. The whole having to carry ammo argument hinges on realism, otherwise the complaint wouldn't be magical bullets appearing out of thin air. You can bitch and moan about how immersive does not mean realistic, but your grievance against the current ammo system says a lot about how realism plays into immersion.

Laugh all you want man, it shows more of your ignorance than your intellect.

There is nothing flawed here except your understanding of the argument the other side is making. That's why we're laughing at you. You keep making the same asinine points over and over again without realizing they just prove your ignorance.

[Thimagryn]

1. Think of it this way. If immersion wasn't dependent on realism, we could all be fighting each other using giant dildos and it would be just as immersive. People also wouldn't have a problem with bullets that appear out of thin air.

2. There is nothing flawed in thinking implementation of fall/burn damage adds to immersion by mimicking realism. In fact, it should be the first conclusion.

It isn't realism that causes immersion though, since a game like minecraft can also be very immersive. The gameplay is extremely abstract. All you need for immersion is gameplay compelling enough to absorb the players attention. Fire causing burn damage is game logic and an abstraction. You could still be immersed in a game that has freezing fire or puddles that make a surface bouncy. Just look at portal 2's physics breaking gameplay and how it still manages to be immersive.

[Tommi]

Because there was no instant gratification.

You what? WoW was known as the "casual instant everything MMO." Everquest players laughed at how easy WoW players had it. Going from Everquest to WoW where everything was sooo much easier to get and everything was far easier to do.....

[Cwimge]

it grew and retained players by being new and infinity more casual then its competition- games that demanded a Japanese level of time invested and work ethic to achieve anything. It grew by being wow and people not knowing better.