I understand WHY people love TBC, but....

[Vargrik]

I started playing in BC and used to wPvP (mass battles between Honor Hold and Thrallmar specially) constantly. I dislike flying in the game not because I think it killed wPvP (it happened because of another reason that I cannot pinpoint), but because it makes the world feel a lot smaller.

[alturic]

It was though. It didn't matter that some Specs were useless for raiding since every class had at LEAST 1 spec that was viable for Raiding. WoW has always been a PvE game first and foremost, with raiding being the centre stage article.

It's kinda mind-boggling how people somehow think it was ever any different.

[cparle87]

The lion's share of specs weren't even viable for PvP either. So what's your point here? Spec design was overall garbage in Vanilla, that doesn't magically lead to any conclusions about PvP's place in design. And the thing about that place is that there is no period in WoW's history than Vanilla that made it more obvious that PvP has been an afterthought. There wasn't even any dedicated PvP content for months after the release.

I, and the person I was quoting, were not talking about pvp. Here is the person I quoted that I was talking to.
"Wait, seriously? You think Vanilla and TBC were anything but framed around raiding? WoW has always been a raiding game design front and center."

I argued that I found his argument ludicrous because most specs were completely dead fish in the form of content he claimed the game was centered around.

[clevin]

No, because people were still discovering the game. We're talking about a game from over 12 years ago where gaming was not as mainstream as it now amongst casual gamers, even now it still takes over a year for super popular games to plateau in popularity (Fortnite Season 3)

Nah. Or rather, yes, but people can't make the "OMG FLYING KILLS THE GAME" when it gained 4m million people from the end of Vanilla to early Wrath. Keep in mind that by Wrath, the game was out for 4 years. WoW maintained a population of over 8m through Mists, years after Wrath. If flying was such a turnoff, its continued presence in the game should have driven people away.

But it didn't, and the effective elimination of flight has not brought them back as far as we can tell.

What this says, to me at least, is that flight is a very nice perk that some people irrationally dislike but that doesn't seem to have a significant effect on subs. If an expansion was hailed as awesome and incredibly fun but didn't have flight, people would mostly still play it. IF it's not that good and doesn't have flight, that lack of flight won't retain people.

[Mirishka]

Say no to tbc servers, classic+ is way to go

BC/Wrath > vanilla fanfic servers with cherry-picked retail features, sorry.

[ADA203]

It would be more interesting to see an approach similiar like they did with Runescape. Continue Classic without new expansions, instead they'd do major patches that they have been doing with AQ and Naxx where they release a huge raid with a world event attached to it. They could open up unfinished and closed zones like Hyjal and Emerald Dream as new zones and/or raid. The raids would stick to the Classic formula of being more about organisation and preperations rather than an overbundance of boss mechanics.

Its an interesting concept bt also risky, and knowing Blizzard they would do the safe approach which is releasing TBC.

Probably best way to do it if Blizzard chooses to go past Naxx for Classic servers.

[Varvara Spiros Gelashvili]

Couldn't agree more. Flying destroyed World PVP and removed a ton of player interaction.

Nice burner account man to avoid that ban.

[Deferionus]

TBC is a VERY good PVE game and sucks at everything else. If raiding was the primary thing you did in WoW you usually loved it. Everything I say past here doesn't matter to you, because TBC might be the best raid/pve game ever made for a "raiding is all that matters" player. If PVE wasn't your primary focus, you can easily view it as highly overrated and point out that it started many of the systems and things that would eventually destroy WoW as we knew it.

Flying destroyed world pvp. Instantly. Nothing more to say about that.

Arena gear/arena led to the changes that destroyed Alterac Valley. ALL players gravitated towards the honor per minute idea to get the resilience gear they needed to start arena, instead of just having fun. Take the mentally ill repeat rank 14 grinders and give that mindset to ALL the players and that is what BG's became. Keep in mind that AV was cleverly designed to get pve players into pvp and that is ceased to exist as intended in TBC and the playerbase became very split with pvp and pve players. This got worse every expansion and now players who used to all be one big, awesome community are split into little groups.

Professions mean very little in pvp because world pvp is dead. Why bother. Rocketboots could be used if I remember right in arena, but could backfire. Hand enchants I think could be used to, but it really didn't matter. I hated arena and tried to block out every time I would get myself or someone else the 1850 weapon. The rest was a waste of time. I also usually played double dps because running around a pole for a long time was awful.

Arena becomes the barometer for everything, due to a dumb rating that autistic kids and streamers who helped ruin WoW, can brag about as they run around a pole with a healer in most comps (other than spriest, rogue, mage). Very few comps are viable and the pvp is awful and the makers of the original WoW said arena was a mistake.
engadget.com/2009/11/13/blizzard-arenas-were-a-mistake/[/url]

The better arena got, the more classes all became the same, which breaks and ruins larger forms of pvp and the "fun factor" and uniqueness of classes. The original designers knew this would happen. Fast forward and we now have unkillable healers when crosshealing happens in a BG or a 1 v 1 happens due to every class having to all have the same CC and chains. PvP outside of 3 v 3 is now GARBAGE. Healers HAVE to be OP in all other scenarios, just so a failed esport can continue.

Segregation of the playerbase happens for the first time with Arena and Heroics. This was not that big a problem in TBC because you only had heroic dungeons and one difficulty of raids. Now we have LFR, normal, heroic, mythic, mythic plus. It's just stupid.

Dailies start as a big thing in TBC. This is what happens when you break world pvp and segregate the playerbase to cater to the "eltiist jerks" (who now run WoW btw). You need dumbed down repeatable, zombie like content for the "casuals" or really nice people who weren't that great mechanically, who actually have very little to do in modern WoW. They eventually get bored/quit and all you are left with in the modern game is LFR/daily zombies who listen to streamers they are so bored and the 1 percent that no one could stand to be around in vanilla.

In vanilla these mechanically deficient players could be "carried" but no one said carried because people weren't all aholes and they could contribute big time to a guild through professions, farming, running 5 mans and gearing up offtanks and dps. They could also pvp with you, world pvp, have consumables that gave them an edge etc. Modern WoW literally separates you from people you grew up playing this game with and rewards you for abandoning them with progression. Vanilla never did that.

People claim vanilla was not casual friendly. That's complete BS. It had the most to do for casual players of any expansion. Everything took time, but you always had something to do.

TLDR. TBC introduced too many catch up systems, flying killed world pvp, arena killed classes being unique and broke all other forums of pvp except 3 v 3, segregation of pve content got out of control eventually and further led to class homogenization, it was the first implemenation of a group finder (no one used it), dailies replaced organic pvp and farming content, old world is now useless.

Everything you are trying to push is why I want TBC. Arena is superior to the BG system of classic. I haven't ever seen anyone actually try to claim otherwise. I would suggest the mentally ill person would be the one opposed to a skill based system vs one that is solely time played based. I did world pvp in vanilla, now classic, TBC, Wrath, Cataclysm, etc. World PvP was fine in BC. I had many fights over primal farms in Nagrand and at Halaa.

Heroic mode was fine for 5 mans. I really enjoyed that during TBC.

Oh, I actually prefer engineering not being used for PvP. Bravo for it not mattering.

As for dailies they felt extremely optional in BC. I only ever did them on Isles once 2.4 came out, and that was because I could world PvP while doing them.

I was a PvP focused player for many years and TBC was extremely fun for me. A lot of my PvP friends came back for classic and they too are looking forward to BC servers. Classic is not good as BC was. BC was classic refined and improved without the addition of negative features such as LFR and dungeon finder or cross server crap that started in Wrath.

[Kralljin]

Kinda strange how it turned soley into a flying debate but whatever.

At a certain point, the devs need to simply cut their losses on certain features and realize that they're here to stay.
Flying is one of those things.
After TBC, Wotlk, Cata and MoP, suddenly taking away a feature that is pretty fundamental in how people travel the world won't sit well with the audience.

Whether it overall leads to a superior experience or not is another debate but trying to turn back the clock is a mistep.
The same line of thinking made Blizzard rework Survival as a Melee spec, sure SV was once intended as Melee spec (a.k.a. WoW Beta) but then was reworked be more focused on surviving until you can get out of melee range again.

Turning it after ~12 years into a melee spec isn't something that a lot of people enjoy, it's not that this design in itself is faulty (i think Hunters having a Melee spec is totally legit) but that realization came simply 12 years too late.


Here's is my opinion on how to make the world interesting and incentive World PvP without touching flying:
Put stuff into the world that people actually want to fight over.

Not PvP objectives, not kills for a quest, something like reagents to craft stuff, that stuff was actually still fought over in TBC, regardless of flying mount, because mounting up meant that you essentially gave up the farmspot to another person.

But i guess that's not what people want, rather have systems such as Professions simply continue to be a dead in the water system that simply get dragged along with each expansion despite that Blizzard has no clue what to do with them since Cata.

Arena is superior to the BG system of classic.

I sort of agree with the OP on this one.
In order to keep Arena balanced, Blizzard had to homogenize the classes by a lot to make everything viable.
In Classic, each class was simply viable by the nature of having some unique tools that were crucial to counter another class.

Not saying the Pre 2.0 Honor system was good, but Arena did have a negative impact on Class design in my opinion.

[Relapses]

Say no to tbc servers, classic+ is way to go

Thanks for bumping a two-month old thread to let everybody know that not only is your opinion still meaningless, BlizzCon has since proven that Classic+ is the furthest thing from the minds of the current dev team.

You can hate TBC all you want but if Legacy were to continue, it's quite literally the only option. Deal with it.

[last1214]

I wont play classic plus. If they decide to do that and dont push TBC, i might just quit wow. TBC is a logical easy to do expac that will satisfy the majority, and youd be an idiot not to take the easy route, over taking the risky difficult route that has huge potential to backfire and be tereible.

If they want to make an entirely new MMO, then YES! They should 100% do that and not put themselves in a confined box they would be in if they pursued classic plus over doing something new entirely.

[rips]

Flying destroyed world pvp. Instantly. Nothing more to say about that.


Oh yeah World PVP in classic is so amazing and fun that 99,9% of Alliance Players on Flamelash left the Server

[Mayia]

TBC is a VERY good PVE game and sucks at everything else. If raiding was the primary thing you did in WoW you usually loved it. Everything I say past here doesn't matter to you, because TBC might be the best raid/pve game ever made for a "raiding is all that matters" player. If PVE wasn't your primary focus, you can easily view it as highly overrated and point out that it started many of the systems and things that would eventually destroy WoW as we knew it.

Flying destroyed world pvp. Instantly. Nothing more to say about that.

Arena gear/arena led to the changes that destroyed Alterac Valley. ALL players gravitated towards the honor per minute idea to get the resilience gear they needed to start arena, instead of just having fun. Take the mentally ill repeat rank 14 grinders and give that mindset to ALL the players and that is what BG's became. Keep in mind that AV was cleverly designed to get pve players into pvp and that is ceased to exist as intended in TBC and the playerbase became very split with pvp and pve players. This got worse every expansion and now players who used to all be one big, awesome community are split into little groups.

Professions mean very little in pvp because world pvp is dead. Why bother. Rocketboots could be used if I remember right in arena, but could backfire. Hand enchants I think could be used to, but it really didn't matter. I hated arena and tried to block out every time I would get myself or someone else the 1850 weapon. The rest was a waste of time. I also usually played double dps because running around a pole for a long time was awful.

Arena becomes the barometer for everything, due to a dumb rating that autistic kids and streamers who helped ruin WoW, can brag about as they run around a pole with a healer in most comps (other than spriest, rogue, mage). Very few comps are viable and the pvp is awful and the makers of the original WoW said arena was a mistake.
engadget.com/2009/11/13/blizzard-arenas-were-a-mistake/[/url]

The better arena got, the more classes all became the same, which breaks and ruins larger forms of pvp and the "fun factor" and uniqueness of classes. The original designers knew this would happen. Fast forward and we now have unkillable healers when crosshealing happens in a BG or a 1 v 1 happens due to every class having to all have the same CC and chains. PvP outside of 3 v 3 is now GARBAGE. Healers HAVE to be OP in all other scenarios, just so a failed esport can continue.

Segregation of the playerbase happens for the first time with Arena and Heroics. This was not that big a problem in TBC because you only had heroic dungeons and one difficulty of raids. Now we have LFR, normal, heroic, mythic, mythic plus. It's just stupid.

Dailies start as a big thing in TBC. This is what happens when you break world pvp and segregate the playerbase to cater to the "eltiist jerks" (who now run WoW btw). You need dumbed down repeatable, zombie like content for the "casuals" or really nice people who weren't that great mechanically, who actually have very little to do in modern WoW. They eventually get bored/quit and all you are left with in the modern game is LFR/daily zombies who listen to streamers they are so bored and the 1 percent that no one could stand to be around in vanilla.

In vanilla these mechanically deficient players could be "carried" but no one said carried because people weren't all aholes and they could contribute big time to a guild through professions, farming, running 5 mans and gearing up offtanks and dps. They could also pvp with you, world pvp, have consumables that gave them an edge etc. Modern WoW literally separates you from people you grew up playing this game with and rewards you for abandoning them with progression. Vanilla never did that.

People claim vanilla was not casual friendly. That's complete BS. It had the most to do for casual players of any expansion. Everything took time, but you always had something to do.

TLDR. TBC introduced too many catch up systems, flying killed world pvp, arena killed classes being unique and broke all other forums of pvp except 3 v 3, segregation of pve content got out of control eventually and further led to class homogenization, it was the first implemenation of a group finder (no one used it), dailies replaced organic pvp and farming content, old world is now useless.

I disagree i was there, battles still happened in the old world too, you'd be called in to help somebody leveling as a town had been taken over and you'd spend a couple of hours duking it out over ashenvale.
in outland you *could* avoid combat but it was a skill, getting kills on slow mounted people trying to flee was a good tactic, and it is the same as now when you run down the people who just resed.

Most of the things that happened in TBC were refinements which made the game better.. besides the leveling they couldn't do much about an extra bunch of zones breaking the leveling somewhat.


Personally i'd like a choice, optional TBC servers that are new and copies of our classic characters, meanwhile the wow team works on Classic plus in the background, and can delay it with a wrath release if needed.. but i think by that time classic plus will have something to show, a new look on old zones which should work just like TBC, new servers open up dead servers get deleted and people forcefully moved (sad but has to happen)

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Classic is good because players are only playing with people from their own realm, apart from BGs. Thus means you get to know people, you get friends outside your guild, you get rival guilds, you get "kill on sight" enemy faction players.
In short: Classic (vanilla) is good because the realms drive community interaction, which the game thrives on.

If you look at Classic (vanilla) from a technical POV then it’s pretty bad. Questing is patchy, classes are for the most part unfinished and 2/3 specs aren’t even viable to play if you wish to be competative (yes I know hybrids have their place- I main one...) Raids snd dungeons are insanely boring, loot itemization makes the "bad specs" even worse because they are tailored for the strong specs.

TBC solves a lot of these issues, not perfect- but still a lot better than Classic (vanilla). As long as realms refrain from sharding, layering and criss realm bullshit then TBC is very welcome.

[Jotaux]

Considering the lion's share of specs weren't even viable for raiding the idea that you think it was is ludicrous.

You seriously think they were more viable for pvp?

[Whoopax]

If tbc is so good (it isnt) how come every single private server in past 5 years failed to hold healthy endgame population after 2 months of release?

People try it and realize that tbc is bad and nothing but nostalgia ( and dont say scripting cuz in fact tbc scripting is superior to vanilla servers) while vanilla is popular and people cant stop playing it.

[Psygon]

Flying was fine in TBC.

Outland was massive, so it was great there. There was no Old World flying until Cata.

On my PVP realm, it was fine until Cataclysm.

[Florena]

Do people that like classic trust modern day blizzard to add to classic while still keeping true to the feel of classic? It's one thing to get an old game running and restore it, quite another to add to that game a decade and a half after the fact. IMO BC servers would be the better route to go, more cost effective and less risk of backlash than classic +. And it would mean splitting content development resources between two versions of the game. (The classic team is not developing content, just getting the old game up and running, two very different skillsets.)

[Akasha64]

Who the hell plays WoW for the PvP anyway? It was always about the PvE. The PvP bits of the game were just a bonus, not its primary feature.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

If tbc is so good (it isnt) how come every single private server in past 5 years failed to hold healthy endgame population after 2 months of release?

People try it and realize that tbc is bad and nothing but nostalgia ( and dont say scripting cuz in fact tbc scripting is superior to vanilla servers) while vanilla is popular and people cant stop playing it.

Because private servers, no matter how good they are... they’re still shit. Even Nostalrius had GMs that abused their powers, but a bigger reason why private servers never reach massive monthly players is that they’re private servers with no protection for your characters.