Vanilla age question

[fooliuscaesar13]

I was almost 30 when I first started back in 2006. I loved it back then, I love the not-exactly-legal servers, and I can't wait to see what Blizzard does with Classic. I will not be in any hurry to get to 60, I couldn't care less if I get into a raiding guild or not (though I probably will be in one with old friends that are coming back just for Classic), and I can't wait for more news on progress of this project (which probably won't be until Blizzcon).

It will also be nice to play that version of the game knowing what I do now, and I won't be so bad this time that I'll be wearing white/grey items at level 40

[Healasouhait]

Just because you're in your thirties, doesn't mean you have no time for yourself. I was 17 when the game launched in 2005. I am 30 now and still have time to play. Having a job and a wife doesn't mean you don't have solo time. Besides, rushing to 60 is not mandatory for everyone. Enjoying the slow pace of the game, the quests, the actual building of your character, meeting people for a 2 hours dungeon, these are my motos.

[Hagank]

I was 20 y/o when I started right after the launch in 2004. Questing felt way more meaningfull. I remember crossing the continents over and over to grab all the quests for Zul farrak. There was no questgiver by the door waiting to give me everything chewed up. I totally hate quest design as it is right now. First the quest goals had sparkles all around them; then they added yellow dots on the mini map; but ppl thought it wasnt enough, so they draw the whole zone where you could find the quest objectives on the mini map; on top of that they put a white glowish thing in every quest objective that you need to interact and latest addition is a ghost in every boss you kill, just so the newbs wont feel confused when they dont see the quest named they got to kill. I hope I will still enjoy Classic because I do know I will quit BFA like in a couple weeks after launch as I did last 2-3 expansions.

[Ferrostar]

I played WoW back in the days on high end raiding level. This time I will not rush, I am going to enjoy the journey. Vanilla had a lot more value in early and mid game than current version of WoW has.

[Erous]

My son was born the year wow released and I moved cross country the following year. My wife and I were obsessed with wow. There seemed like there was so much to do, but I think the reality of it was that at 60, yes there were raid days but most of it was used as a social tool.

Our guild buddies and us would chat on teamspeak and pvp, dungeon farm, raid, etc every day for at least 6 hours a day. Weekends were worse, playing maybe 12+ hours a day. It was almost like playing with family.

It was obviously terrible for our health, we're fit now, but spending all that time was rough on the body. At 37 now, I'm looking forward to kicking back into this again but not remotely as dedicated as we were then.

[Zafire]

When WoW came out I was 16, but I didn't play it for the first time until August 2006, which was when I was nearly 19. This was still 4ish months before TBC came out. I only played for about a month, and not even obsessively. Nope, my first MMO was Final Fantasy XI (Started in December 2004)...I DID no life that for 1.5 years. I'm talking playing 16-30 hours at a time and never leaving the bedroom except to eat and poop.

I can still play MMO's now and have time to exercise everyday, go to work, and spend time with the GF. I probably spend about 32-40 hours a week gaming. The only reason that number is so high is because I game all day on Sunday. I do "life stuff" on Saturday. It's just about finding the balance. I'm sure I'd have even less time with kids, but I truly doubt I would have to quit gaming all together even if I did.

There is a pretty big difference for when I could no-life something versus working and maintaining a gratifying lifestyle. I honestly feel even as much as I play now is far outside the casual range.

[Citano]

Was 18 when I got WoW in May 2005. The year after I was in military/civilian service so that allowed me to play even more. Managed rank14 just in time because of easy schedule working as an assistant at a grade school under civilian service. Good old times. I know there were players younger than me at that time but I also remember some who were in their late 20's too whom have passed the golden age of 40 today.

I'm 31 now and fulltime job and other responsibilities. Absolutely no way I could ever do another PvP grind again aside a more long trip to maybe rank11 or so but even that ain't something that interests me. Be able to play in a good vanilla guild and fight for world bosses in massive battles alliance vs horde are the things I really love the most and looking forward to that in Classic. Good thing raiding in Vanilla per week can be set to 1-2 days depending on skill level of guild.

[Deleted]

I was 38 when I started playing wow in 2005.
ive quit a few times, depending on the xpac & came back again.
I didn't go very much on legion, so never really played & only came back the last couple of months to get exalted with AR & armies of light, so I could be a void elf for my priest.
I wont ever be as mad raiding as I have been in the past, even if I enjoy the new xpac.
nope, im purely casual nowadays & just log in when I feel like it.
I have done everything I wanted playing wow & on the whole I have enjoyed it.
starting a new guild & clearing ToT in less than 6 weeks, killed garrosh to get the mount, my benediction staff, an alliance 1st in ICC (I didn't die on LK lol) & getting the beloved title, that's pretty much where the story ends & for me.
at 51, casual is the way to go.

[Arawrabearialis]

If you're old enough to have played vanilla wow then you know the insanely large time sync that the game actually was.

My question is that how are you excited to play that game at our age? how do you have the time to do all the things needed to play the game at a raiding level being in your late twenties early thirties??

How do you think the generations of gamers who have had LFD, LFR, welfare heroic epics and regular content nurfs are gonna handle having to wand bosses and not be able to play certain specs viably???

I have zero interest in playing vanilla again, but even if I did I don't have the time.


(Just looking for discussion here im not bashing vanilla these are just questions ive been pondering.)

I hear this argument a lot and I always have the same response. MMORPG's were designed to be a timesink, where you got out of it what you put into it. The reason we get bored with the game so quickly today, is that the content is designed to be consumed quickly so players don't feel like they need to spend excessive amounts of time in game. This is a poor design idea though. A MMORPG should be designed in such a way as to make you feel like you WANT to log in and play. That is what I miss from vanilla and my first MMORPG, Asheron's Call. That being said, I'm in my late 30's and have neither the time nor the desire to commit 8+ hours a day to a video game. I would much rather have that nagging feeling that I should log in and do x activity than feel like I won't notice a difference by not logging in for a week though.

Another difference from vanilla though, is I didn't have multiple max level alts that I actively played and there were no world quests to grind. Once you hit 60 and got geared up for raiding, there really was very little to do outside of a couple hours of consumable farming a week, if that.

[Schattenlied]

I was 14 when I got it in January 2005, and yes, I do still enjoy vanilla and play it actively on private servers.

[HavokHeart]

Yeah I guess that's true but I feel like vanilla was geared towards people who wanted to play hardcore.

The extreme requirements required for obtaining the top tier status kept people wanting. That was the nature of it's success. There were aspirations.

[TJ]

I'd assume that people have more time in their 30s and over than they do from 18-25, this is of course all dependent on your personal situation, but if you go to college and go out all the time in your 20s then you're not going to have a lot of free time, same as having a young child in your 30s.

I started WoW when I was 15 and was able to balance schoolwork/friends/games quite well and spent pretty much all of my spare time at home playing WoW, although I was dependant on my mate who was unpredictable with his sleep patterns. Obviously being a noob you invest more time into the game because you don't know exactly what you're doing, but really, back then I did have the time to spend on it. When Cata hit, I was just finishing school and was unemployed afterwards so basically just lived in WoW since all my friends moved away and I pretty much had nothing.

Stereotypical life now, work/gf/gym/social stuff, but I could still fit it in easily if I wanted to. I'm hindered by work and being on a call rota but could still manage to play for a few hours every day. Do I want to? Nope. As hard as it is to accept, that time is over in my life now and I can't play a game for 10 hours a day anymore, I just can't. I don't mean timewise, either, I just feel like a day's wasted if I'm sat there for so long on my chair on the computer.

I'm still looking forward to Classic, however, and will play for as long as I want (maybe there will be the odd 5+ hour sessions when I've got nothing better to do), but mainly casually and doing whatever I find fun. I loved raiding, raiding was WoW for me, but I won't commit to having to be online at a certain time and day anymore, it's just not happening. It won't be the same, but I'll play it and see how I get on. I suspect I'll be one of them people that will stop playing after a few months, but if I get a few months of fun then it's worth it to me Not to mention my mate is going to play it again and he hasn't played for 5 or so years, just playing with people and leveling for fun will be awesome to me.

[gingerlemon]

I'm 34, and I've been playing on and off since the start.

Given that I have over 10+ years of experience in the game since vanilla, I'd imagine it to be less of a time sink than before.

For raiding, people know the bosses, the tactics, which classes to bring and how to play them. It's hard to remember that far back, but really not many people knew wtf they were doing back then.

Things like thotbot were still in their infancy, and you couldn't just youtube the boss tactics (least of all because youtube didnt exist yet)

Nowadays all this information is everywhere for everyone.

It will certainly be a time sink that is for sure, but honestly that is part of the charm; the more time and effort you put into something the more rewarding the payoff is.

[Deleted]

Im 31 next mounth and i still have time to play games, its just how my life is orgainze, my 2nd half dont mind me taking 2weeks off work just to play vanilla when its realsed, she might even join me. After that i will probably raid 2-3times a week in casual guild and do some world pvp.

[Vofka]

There is enough neckbeards and mom's basement dwellers around the world to sustain a healthy vanilla population
On a serious note it isn't that time consuming. With job and part-time study i was able to get in a raiding guild and maintain my character when i was playing on a private server. And classic is basically frozen in time so there is no actual hurry.

[Deleted]

There is enough neckbeards and mom's basement dwellers around the world to sustain a healthy vanilla population
On a serious note it isn't that time consuming. With job and part-time study i was able to get in a raiding guild and maintain my character when i was playing on a private server. And classic is basically frozen in time so there is no actual hurry.

I'm sure the same "neckbeards" and "mom's basement dwellers" who are hopelessly addicted to retail wow will also find time to play classic wow. The point is that classic wow will bring those people back who aren't playing retail anymore for subjective reasons. Major win win for blizzard.

[allu112]

Started playing WoW just before TBC came out so basically i completely missed Vanilla. WIsh i had more time to focus it on release..

[Sil]

Was 19, nearly 20 when it was released on EU realms. I'm 33 now. As much as the idea excites me, I wouldn't have the time, at all.

[Deleted]

I'm 30 now and played vanilla back then excessively (Rank 12 PvP, raided Naxx..), still hyped for Classic.

Classic will be what u make ouf of it. Hardcore raiding with max consumeables every raid? Rank11+ PvP Grind? Okay, this will take a lot of time probably more then u can manage with a full time job even if u want to still do it while not beeing a teenager anymore. Realistically speaking this will be done by a extreme minority and it isn't needed to have fun in Classic.

It's completely possible to raid on a good level and clear all the raids while working and having a somewhat normal life. People do exaggerate what is required to raid in Classic, no u don't need to be fully buffed every raid/fight to do normal progress at all - back then even in Naxx Guilds most people weren't, hell a lot of players didn't even know about all the consumeables. Private Servers did set some extreme hardcore pace to all this consumeable stuff and now people think there is no way arround it. In a matter of fact, the consumeable part is the only thing which really can grind ur time. Apart from this there is actually no required daily or weekly stuff outside of ur actual raid time in Classic.

[LionSinMaikeru]

I'm in my mid-20s and I have just as much free time as I always did.

When I was younger I was homeschooled and was able to stay up all night playing WoW and wake up in the afternoon to do school work, hang out with friends for a few, and then get back to WoW. One thing I liked about WoW back then is that you paved your own way and made your own story. There was really nothing you HAD to do but rather a million things you could do. You could level the same class multiple times but get a completely different experience depending on your race / spec. The same isn't true today.


In my current life I work from home and my fiance also plays WoW so we play together.

I think it's only Blizzard and their white knights who believe that people left the game in droves because "they had better things in life to do" as another poster said, a lot of people I know who were older still have the freetime but they moved on because the game has gotten so much different than the one we all fell in love with.

I only stay now because of nostalgia, pet battles, and the ability to pay for my game-time via farming. Else I wouldn't keep playing.