Do you think it is possible to go back to the old community?

[Kokolums]

Yes very easily. But not if blizzard wants to cling to antisocial systems.

[MoanaLisa]

Is it possible to have anything like the original wow community again given both the playerbase...

You could have stopped right there.

No, it's not possible.

[mysticx]

I think its a bunch of BS when people say "the market changed".
What? Were we monkeys in 2004?
Or better, were we intelectuals in 2004 and now we are monkeys?

The lack of good MMORPG's doesnt equate to this idea that "the market changed".
It equates to the lack of skill of developers and their incompetence at making games.
And other factors like that is extremely expensive to make a MMO this days. Is an investment of millions of dollars.

In 2004 (Keep in mind, that was 14 years ago), people were more patient, since then we have had the advance of mobile gaming (cellphones, not Gameboys), and getting to the action in any game has become faster and faster.

14 years is a very long time, people who played WoW back then don’t have the time anymore to play as much as they did back then, and the (few) people who start playing now generally don’t have the patience to play that much, if a game isn’t quick and easy to get into, they leave, deny it all you want, but the market and gamers have changed, it would have been stranger if they hadn’t in all that time...

[digichi]

Retail will just continue to evolve with the times, it would be very hard to dull down without massive backlash.

Classic is gonna have a magic touch to it, of course certain aspects are going to be hard to replicate (ala the type of jokes made in trade chat).. but the people that want to be playing will be playing, everyone who has a problem with the culture of it will filter out.

[MoanaLisa]

I think its a bunch of BS when people say "the market changed".
What? Were we monkeys in 2004?
Or better, were we intelectuals in 2004 and now we are monkeys?

People weren't playing games on their phones in 2004. Or on tablets. People were OK with paying a monthly subscription then. Free-to-play wasn't really a viable business model yet.

Of course the market has changed. It has nothing whatsoever to do with monkeys or intellect. It has everything to do with changing tastes and interests and a much wider variety of choices than we had then. That's the very definition of a market changing.

[Orisai]

Nope, the proverbial cat is already out of the bag. Look, for example, at that MASSIVE QQ thread about the nerf to tanks' aggro, which will have minimal impact. Focus on the tank's target? Throttle your damage a little in order to benefit the group by not pulling aggro when you *vastly* overgear the tank? Nah, who cares, lemme aoe all of dem packz cuz gaems abuot paddin' dem meterz. Adding challenging outdoor content (aside from gimmicks like the Mage Tower), so that people are better off by helping each other? OMG BLIZZ UR STRETCHIN CONTENT WID ARTIFFISIAL DIFFECULTUH. Making classes actually different, so that each has strong and weak points, and tuning the game accordingly? Not only Blizz cba, but also ZOMG BLIZ MUH CLASS DOSNT TOP DEEPZ METER GAEM SUX WTF.

That ship sailed long ago (back in WotLK, to be more precise), and sadly, there is no going back.

Thanks God Blizzard changed the game in a way every class and spec became useful on it's purpose. Back in vanilla and BC, Retribution paladins were completely useless, and the performance of any other tank than warriors was subpar, to cite some examples.

[Calfredd]

Yes very easily. But not if blizzard wants to cling to antisocial systems.

You keep pushing this nonsense but it's the other way around; Blizzard adds the features because of people becoming "anti-social".

[Deleted]

I think its a bunch of BS when people say "the market changed".
What? Were we monkeys in 2004?
Or better, were we intelectuals in 2004 and now we are monkeys?

The lack of good MMORPG's doesnt equate to this idea that "the market changed".
It equates to the lack of skill of developers and their incompetence at making games.
And other factors like that is extremely expensive to make a MMO this days. Is an investment of millions of dollars.

Well, back in a day we knew fuck all aboud the game, it was much better to talk to people, be social and get helped.
Now I know so much about the game, MMO in general that I can youst go and find whatever I need on my own. The only thing I will group for until max level is elite quests. I will most certainly have a guild for dungeons, but lol at idea that I will care about some random players ever again as I have my own business to deal with.

[Deleted]

Debated where to post this and even now I'm not sure it wouldn't fit better on the classic forums but it does effect both games so figured I would toss it here.

Is it possible to have anything like the original wow community again given both the playerbase and Activisionblizzards changes to the game?

The moderation of the game constantly seems to be increasing the last tos update wrote out that blizzard is now even going to ban people for external actions such as Twitter,streaming,and Facebook.

The game now seems more built around queues then getting to know people and cross realm utterly destroyed any sense of community.

Do you think that things can ever be stepped back or is trying to turn the tide akin to closing the barn doors after the horses have bolted?

i feel you bro, xrealms killed community and quality of people. Back in classic all kind of bad players would get blacklisted by top known players in server and never get invited for any event.

i think vanilla will just stay as a good old time memories.

[xcitng]

It won't be the same because if you make everything inconvenient like it was in vanilla, people will simply go play other games that more suit them/the amount of time they have to play, unlike 2004 when WoW was far above any game of the genre.

[Deleted]

Yes theoretically possible, but not as long Blizzard promotes unsocial and anonymous behaviour. As soon as people have to rely on other people to finish the content/their goals they will behave a lot better. Lets be honest here: the current guaranteed success systems or actually punishing social behaviour because it takes time. Its much faster to just queue up, dont say a word and leave if it doesnt work the first try.
X-realm is also a huge factor.
I honestly cant understand people that blame aging gamers, changing culture for this. When the game itself changed to reward or tolerate bad behaviour.
Also all the vanilla/tbc privatservers prove that such a community is still possible. You behave like an a**? Good luck finding a group, clearing content and getting loot. If you cant do everything by yourself and people are more than replacable npc's community becomes more important.
(ofc there are a few bad apples everywhere, we dont need to discuss that)

You keep pushing this nonsense but it's the other way around; Blizzard adds the features because of people becoming "anti-social".

I doubt its that easy. It's more like a vicious circle. I just can tell you from my experience when lfg was added in late wotlk. Within weeks you stopped knowing your server, stopped getting to know new people from your server. Additionally the baviour in the lfg groups got worse in weeks, if not days. As soon as people noticed they can just leave and requeue and get 4 other npcs to get their loot it became a total shitfest.
Dont tell me people became anti-social and blizz only reacted. The community would never have changed that fast.
I get you like these features, thats ok. But dont lie to yourself and deny their negative impact on behaviour and community.

[Deleted]

No, there's no way back, over the years WoW changed the whole idea of MMORPGs, everything is more casual now, and that's not necessarily a bad thing TBH, people have changed, gaming has changed, there isn't really a market for Vanilla-WoW style MMOs anymore (Note the absence of a really successful hardcore MMORPG).

Old-fashioned MMOs have gone the way of the realtime strategy game or the point-and-click adventure game, a genre of which the time has come and gone, people want to log in and get to the cool stuff quickly (Look at the ongoing complaints about levelling), and log off again when it suits them, look at online games that are popular now, they all follow the same scheme: log in, queue up, play, and then log off again, people don't really want to bother with community anymore...

the game was always more casual...

[klaps_05]

The changes made to WoW are based on who the customers are - given how much the game has changed that should tell you enough about the playerbase. The old community doesnt exist because it was built by the people who were playing at that moment at a certain age. The time has changed and the people have been replaced with new younger customers which have different perspective on things.

[Alkizon]

Theoretically, this is possible, especially if considers that people still, like millennia ago, are primarily affected by instincts, mechanisms of learning and psychological influence didn't really changed in any way, Game theory is still relevant. It follows from this that method of change will require re-creation of certain conditions. But don't forget that age is important factor, formed character is important factor, individual characteristics such as temperament are important factor. Some people won't like this naturally and will leave (this has already happened before, throughout the whole game's life), some will agree to change considering that this is only for own and society benefit, but...

Fundamental factor in this particular case will be precisely "someone's" interest to do this - motivation, material/other justification of its result. But what is the reason to do this, if current audience is much more concerned with external side of issue (superficial thinking), which seems much easier to satisfy - "bread and circuses". The whole situation is something familar, isn't it? Current audience is simply more profitable. Yes, they get tired faster and some of them "are douches", but there are lot of them already, they like current stuff and ready to pay without thinking.

Conclusion: This is possible, but it will require interest of both sides of experiment in its success.

It's funny. With looking at the whole message - theory looks like something similar to utopian teachings. And utopia usually means spherical cows under its objects, but nevertheless history asserts that a single person under certain conditions is capable of this ...and what is true for one person is, in most cases, just as true for many, because of similarity of regulatory mechanisms. In the end, this how children are taught social skills, and so adults adapt in new collective (but this needs exactly "already exists new team").

ps. from EU (friend's) about some kind of similar stuff

But in fact it's long, it's difficult and in the end it's expensive. Moreover, a significant part of current subscribers <url> consists of people of a different type <url>, almost certainly they will resist recovery process, likely more than those, who left, resisted process of destruction. Because then it was done out of reasonable considerations, and now would be due to strong degradation and addiction = more furiously, rudely and stupidly - fanatically.. For recovery they would have to start right from beginning of LK (classes, items, talents, secondary characteristics, professions, social organization, dungeon design and priorities of battle system (threat, control, synergy - Korean slasher or fighting game not needed) (this both even earlier), zones), if this won't done, then no any new addon will change anything

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I started playing in the vanilla beta on the US servers and bought the game the week it came out in Europe. Raided 6 nights a week back in Vanilla all the way up to being an old casual raider now.

I changed. Its my choice not to be the guy I was 15 years ago. I have 0 interest in making new friends in the game. 0 interest teaching noobs how to play and 0 interest talking to random strangers.
I play the game a lot different then I did 15 years ago.
I play and talk to my friends/guild now instead of the whole server.

Its the community that changed. Not the game. You still have the choice on if you want to be social or not.

this is partly wrong and the answer still here.

[Cyanu]

as much as it's possible to go back to watch the Empire strikes back for the first time again

[Deleted]

I started playing in the vanilla beta on the US servers and bought the game the week it came out in Europe. Raided 6 nights a week back in Vanilla all the way up to being an old casual raider now.

I changed. Its my choice not to be the guy I was 15 years ago. I have 0 interest in making new friends in the game. 0 interest teaching noobs how to play and 0 interest talking to random strangers.
I play the game a lot different then I did 15 years ago.
I play and talk to my friends/guild now instead of the whole server.

Its the community that changed. Not the game. You still have the choice on if you want to be social or not.

[Bathory]

I don't think so. You'll never recapture the genuine excitement of a Day 1 world to explore.

[grexly75]

No it's not but not because anything Blizzard does. It's because kids (of all ages) these days are douches.

This^ by 1000% the community as it was is long gone.. And yes some of the young people of today are entitled brats..

[Nutri]

Is it possible for a grumpy old man surrounded by grumpy people go back to being a friendly and joyful individual he was during his younger years?
Probably... But most likely not.

The internet was different in 2005 and with that the people using it where different. The only place you'd find a community in the likes of the old community is going to some small obscure private server where like minded people commute, and are there for the same reason.

Also, as discussed to death already, cross realms, lfr, lfd, battlegroups etc did not do well for the sake of the community. all these additions made the environment very antisocial. You had server rep back in the days, especially on the smaller servers. Be a dick, become an outcast. People would recognize the good and the bad players. There was something tied to your character. That's long gone as you can be a gigantic dick but people crossrealms and in lfr/d would never know so those people can still participate in every activity while flipping the bird and waving genitals at everybody all day long.

[Accendor]

Debated where to post this and even now I'm not sure it wouldn't fit better on the classic forums but it does effect both games so figured I would toss it here.

Is it possible to have anything like the original wow community again given both the playerbase and Activisionblizzards changes to the game?

The moderation of the game constantly seems to be increasing the last tos update wrote out that blizzard is now even going to ban people for external actions such as Twitter,streaming,and Facebook.

The game now seems more built around queues then getting to know people and cross realm utterly destroyed any sense of community.

Do you think that things can ever be stepped back or is trying to turn the tide akin to closing the barn doors after the horses have bolted?

I think if you would radically go back with many design philosophies it could be possible. Most of the current playerbase would stop to play and that alone could kill the game of course, but if it somehow manages to make the right advertisements to reach the correct people in time, it surely could work.