Classic WoW will be a lesson in nostaligia vs reality

[MardestyGSOG]

For the millionth time, tens of thousands of players have been playing vanilla for years on low quality unreliable private servers because they prefer vanilla, you can’t make this argument, it holds no water whatsoever. Nostalgia isn’t a thing for people currently playing vanilla, there’s no rose tinted glasses they’re looking back with because they’re literally playing it today and have been for years. This isn’t people just remembering what was and thinking it was better, it’s a case of people literally knowing what it is as they’re currently experiencing it and they just want an official blizzard made version that they can depend on being a quality and fully functional experience

[Ghoste]

I used to believe stuff like this until I decided to play WOTLK again on a private server and found out it was oh so much better than the newer expansions.

I'm certain that I will enjoy classic as well...

[clownpenisfart]

I used to believe stuff like this until I decided to play WOTLK again on a private server and found out it was oh so much better than the newer expansions.

I'm certain that I will enjoy classic as well...

the game have had up and downs, classic was only good compared to what preceded it (aka astonishingly terrible mmorpgs, the most successful of which reached only 400k subs)

I mean if they'd re-release 2.4 burning crusade I'd play it for the awesome world pvp (in quel'danas and also for the hilariously disruptable daily quests in blade's edge and hfp)

but vanilla? it wasn't any good yet by any modern standard.

[Noxina]

However, the hundreds of thousands of people who play on Classic pservers kinda contradict you.

Some people like how Classic is, while some people like how BfA is. They are two entirely different games, and personally I can't freaking wait for Classic to come so I can play an actual MMO, instead of the Solo player MMO BfA is.



In the end, this whole wall of text you just produced is nothing but your opinion, which have zero weight. Don't like it, don't play it.

Just out of curiosity; what did you hope to achieve by writing your opinion on Classic?

[clownpenisfart]

However, the hundreds of thousands of people who play on Classic pservers kinda contradict you.

Ooh, a whole hundred of thousand. That's probably as many as people who ever played anarchy online.

Some people like how Classic is, while some people like how BfA is. They are two entirely different games,

They are not that different. They are also both bad.

Just out of curiosity; what did you hope to achieve by writing your opinion on Classic?

What do you hope to achieve by writing yours?

[Noxina]

Ooh, a whole hundred of thousand. That's probably as many as people who ever played anarchy online.



They are not that different. They are also both bad.



What do you hope to achieve by writing yours?

- HundredS, more than enough to keep classic live and going.

- They are different, if you'd played them both you'd see. Sure the core is the same, but that's about it.

- And what do you hope by writing yours? Except looking like a poor attempt at a troll, that is.

[Daffan]

I've been playing WoW since Christmas '04. I was there for every major in-game event in WoW history. Mentioning this isn't an attempt to flex as much as its about countering halfwits who claim that experience > logical arguments. (Experience isn't more valid than logic, BTW.) So to preempt that bullshit, know that I've probably had more experience with WoW at every stage in the past than any given critic.

BfA may not have done everything perfectly, but the WoW you can log into today is LIGHT YEARS ahead of Classic in just about every single aspect you can possibly image. The people who "remember" how great Classic WoW was are in reality remembering their experiences (not the gameplay itself) and how much they enjoyed WoW back in the day. In an effort to recapture the joy of the old days, they think all that must be done is to recreate the game they enjoyed. But they're not understanding that it wasn't about the quality of the game, rather it was about the sense of wonder and excitment for something new (and great! for its time) and their own ability to enjoy things back then vs now.

If all the years of improvements and the cumulative content could be magically added to Classic WoW - and we in our teenage years could have had access to the whole of WoW as it is now, instead of what it was back then - our enjoyment and memories of the game would almost certainly be even deeper, stronger, and more varied. And we'd never go back to some half-baked, pre-learning experience WoW classic. It would be taking away a myriad of features that make WoW a great game, and once nostalgia is removed from the picture, it doesn't make sense.

Its a WoW stripped of most - if not all - of what makes today's WoW so good. It's a barebones WoW that is deeply flawed, but was **so good for its time** that it barely mattered. WoW grew up along with us; that doesn't mean you can recapture the halcion days of the past by removing all the progression WoW has made, any more than you can recapture the joy and memories of your teenage years by trying to re-enroll in high school & droppin your current job in favor of part time McDonalds and moving out of your house to live with your parents again.

Some people have to experience the disappointment for themselves before they can accept the reality of the situation.
That, or because they prefer the vastly simplified systems and hardcore-rewarding emphasis of Classic WoW.
WoW Classic had virtually no endgame, it was just that everything took far, far longer to complete.
I for one can't wait to see the bitching and moaning on the forums pertaining to how Classic WoW "isn't really classic" i.e. has been changed in some way.
Nah, what changed the game was your memories. Full stop.

Lemme guess you like welfare epics

[pacotaco]

But that's the thing, subs have been plummeting because current WoW is anything but good.

Also, anecdotal evidence, "REE IT'S ONLY NOSTALGIA, IT HAS NO REDEEMING FEATURES AT ALL" etc etc.
Think I've seen this exact post about 400 times, and I think the same amount of people as last time actually care about it. Which is zero.

Subs have been plummeting because the amount was astronomically crazy. Just to have a reference, a successful MMO around that time counted subs on the 100k. It wasn't just after WoW millions that anything less was seen as a failure, and now that trend passed it's normalizing.
Most of the players ony played because it was trendy and/or their friends played, as it happened with MOBAs, and it's happening with Battle-Royales.

[clownpenisfart]

- HundredS, more than enough to keep classic live and going.

Hundred of thousands is the ballpark of everquest. You know, the piece of crap game that before wow held the mmorpg subscription record, but with just a fraction of the subs that wow classic garnered. A game so bad that it made classic look awesome.

- They are different, if you'd played them both you'd see. Sure the core is the same, but that's about it.

I did play both. The design philosophy is also the same: (trying to) brute force you into keeping to play the game by making any progress frustratingly slow, as well as forcing you to pve. They just use slightly different tools to achieve this.

- And what do you hope by writing yours? Except looking like a poor attempt at a troll, that is.

So only positive opinions of classic are allowed on the forums? Are you insecure about your faith in classic?

[KyleEverett]

I played Vanilla. I never hit level cap cause frankly, levelling took forever. Not as long as EQ mind you, but still a considerable amount of time. And time has NEVER equaled difficulty.

[Trend]

Hundred of thousands is the ballpark of everquest. You know, the piece of crap game that before wow held the mmorpg subscription record, but with just a fraction of the subs that wow classic garnered. A game so bad that it made classic look awesome.

Just FYI, in general parlance "classic" is WoW Classic that is in beta now and "vanilla" is used to refer to the original iteration of WoW. You may confuse people if you use "classic" to refer to the 2004-2006 version of the game.

[Greyvax]

As a fellow player since beta, i agree its mostly nostalgia. I likely will not be playing since i've already done so during its time, and recall the amount of grinding involved and the countless hours invested with little payback.

That said, the EverQuest progression servers (start at vanilla, and every few months release a new expansion) have been a huge hit, and have been consistently relaunched since 2006, so i expect the same to be the case for the wowski.

[Altariaz]

I've been playing WoW since Christmas '04. I was there for every major in-game event in WoW history.

Somehow, I very much doubt this claim.

[BananaHandsB]

I remember playing Super Mario in my aunt and uncle's basement during family events. It was a highlight of my youth as my parents refused to allow a video game system into the house until I was much older, and video games were something I usually just got to watch my friends play, not have to myself. I've gone back and played super mario as an adult. It's still a great game, but did I enjoy it the way I did then? Absolutely not. I replayed it once, and didn't even come close to finishing it. I quickly got bored. Memory is an odd thing because we think of it as objective, when it is really seeded deeply by our subjective reality at the time. Nostalgia is a powerful cognitive bias.

[Maudib]

nothing posed any danger in the world in vanilla either. it was easy to avoid bad pulls, you just had to be slow and methodical. there was no danger, just the game punishing you whenever you tried to beat the tedium by making things go faster

but then again mmo players have always confused tedium for difficulty, and the ability to withstand tedium for skill

Ha ha ha. Vanilla leveling presents many, many dangers that lead to death... and a very long, cuss filled corpse run. Consequences man.

You would have those that would take it OVERLY safe and only pull the ones and twos. Then you had the ones that always pressed the limits of their skill and would pull 3. You would actually USE CC... sheep, fear, mind control, freezing trap, etc.

And modern WoW? Well since leveling lasts 10-12 hours these days.. there isn't time for "tedium". But neither is if fun, challenging or rewarding. It will take 2 weeks for most people playing a LOT to get to max level. A month or two for the average person. To those people leveling is fun... part of the game, and an opportunity to play with other folks.... you know... friends.

But fo you, you have BfA. Keep pushing those Mythic+ keystones doing the same dungeon over and over again... because.. well.. that's no tedious at all.

Keep grinding island expeditions for azerite power... grains of non-tedious sand for your sexy necklace.

Keep doing the same WQs over and over and over again because tedious they are not.

Keep doing all the leveling over and over again for a reskinned nightelf or dwarf... because THAT s certainly not tedious.

Man, why oh why didn't I get BfA it sounds so NOT tedious! And we certainly wouldn't want to confuse tedious with hard.

[Dzinx]

lol there should be no discussion whatsoever. Twitch beta streams already provided more funny and interesting content in a week than bfa did in a year. Naysayers are turning to classic fans and there are literally private servers with more ONLINE players than some of the retail servers have lvl 120 chars on. Open your eyes, wow is an mmoRPG and that's what vanilla was and is to this day unlike the current wow which is more like a session game (queue here and there and done for the day). If you don't like it - don't play it, but please, stop whining about something you don't or can't understand.

[Zappidoo]

You have a point. My brother and his best friend are like that, to a degree. Especially his friend. Playing old games just because they're old and nostolgic never made sense to me, but it doesn't have to... people like what they like.

This thread isn't an attempt to critisize people for what they like or prefer. It was written with a certain type of person in mind: the kind that bash modern WoW by using Classic as an example of everything they think went wrong with WoW.

Weird I thought it was a thread about the kind of people that bash Classic WoW by using Retail as an example of everything they think went right with WoW.

[toffmcsoft]

lol this was a /rant for no reason.
Someone is obviously not happy that Classic is going to be a huge success.

Yes, the skill cap is much lower for classic and the game design isn't anywhere near up to snuff as retail.... but guess what... Classic was an amazing experience and the ability to "press reset" and relive that experience all over again is going to be fantastic.

Going to get 1-2 years of enjoyment out of classic and then we move on.
Sounds like 1-2 years of having fun, not playing the lottery system of retail and get to make friends and play on a REALM again.

[Noxina]

Hundred of thousands is the ballpark of everquest. You know, the piece of crap game that before wow held the mmorpg subscription record, but with just a fraction of the subs that wow classic garnered. A game so bad that it made classic look awesome.


I did play both. The design philosophy is also the same: (trying to) brute force you into keeping to play the game by making any progress frustratingly slow, as well as forcing you to pve. They just use slightly different tools to achieve this.


So only positive opinions of classic are allowed on the forums? Are you insecure about your faith in classic?

- Which is more than enough to keep it alive and thriving, which is all that is needed.

- Well, then every game is essentially the same - they have an objective to keep you playing.

- No, but what I've read so far from your posts in this thread, you just seem to want to stirr up the piss bucket, which I, in my humble opinion of course, see as trolling. And a poor attempt at it.

[crakerjack]

They're not chasing past experiences, they're chasing new ones. It's sad in today's WoW when you can do group content for hours upon hours and not socialize w/ the people you're playing with or to never see them again. While we have more access to vast amounts of people than we ever did in vanilla, the world feels smaller. Everytime I logged on back in the day, I'd see people jumping around and doing what they needed to be doing. That hasn't changed, but what has changed are the names and faces. Back in the day, I could recognize a lot of names/faces just running around capital cities. People knew of others and you weren't just another random face in the crowd. Everytime I login to retail, I see lots of people jumping around and doing what they need to do, but I don't know them or even recognize their guild.

The overall interactions between players has only gone downhill as the years have gone on. Sure I come across more people than I ever would playing vanilla, but it's about the quality of the encounter, not the quantity. Sure the overall quality of the game has increased, but all these ease of access things such as LFR, LFD, Xrealm, sharding etc, has made too many sacrifices. I remember leveling with people in STV and then running into them in the hinterlands the following week. I remember doing SM and then 10 levels later, running into those same people in another dungeon. The interactions I had with players back then was incomparable to current players.

I've joined countless m+ where no one says anything and after the dungeon is over, they leave instantly. It's not their fault, it's the games fault. Why should a player care about establishing connections with another player they'll likely never see again? There's no reason for it. It's the same reason why some people will become vile/toxic, they believe they'll never see you again so they'll let you know what's on their mind.

Sure vanilla doesn't have all the bells and whistles retail has, but that doesn't mean it's worse. Retail made great sacrifices in order to implement these ease of access features. If someone plays solo and doesn't care for group activity, I'm sure they love retail. It's a recluses dream game, they're technically playing with others but for all they know, it could just be a group of NPC's. Vanilla made you interact with others whether it was doing a dungeon or requiring help with an elite quest. You had to seek out help and you remembered peoples names/faces. The interactions were more powerful because people remembered what you did and said throughout your journey.

Outside of guilds or communities, the interactions have dwindled to nothing. In LFG, you're nothing more than an ilvl or a raider.io score.