What happened to all of the Vanilla purists?

[kamuimac]

Vanilla is like a graveyard now. This after years and years of people either playing illegally on private servers (because it was so much more fun than retail) and/or demanding that Vanilla be re-released. I for sure thought they would play Vanilla forever. I guess 2 years was enough to satisfy the decade-long controversy.

they stopped playing 2 years ago - most of them never even hit level 30 most likely due to how boring vanilla was.

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Can't they just release a new server everyone once in a while? Also...if 90% of the player population is moving on to BC anyway, isn't it pretty close to a "reset" anyway?

why would they do that when existing servers are already dead ?

want to level up fresh ? just level up fresh - nothing is stopping you.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I’d say a great majority of them noped the F out shortly after release due to realizing that multiple private servers had more “blizzlike” experiences than the fucking official blizzard server LMAO. Putting this game on the Legion client caused so many small but highly noticeable differences from vanilla that, to me personally and I’m sure many others, it just didn’t feel like vanilla WoW. It honestly gave me the same vibes as those cheap “custom” servers.

Pretty much this.

But it wasn't "more blizzlike" it was "I didn't want authentic I wanted a more buggy and artificially harder experience to match my memories of how it felt to be 15 years old."

[Kumorii]

those people never wanted to play an eternal vanila,those people have a serious boner for constant resets,they either restart on new private servers or in the case of smarter devs play on servers with an constant reseting realm+a token permanent one

its the same reason why diablo 3 still is popular,seasons

Kinda ironic considering a common complaint about retail is that it's "seasonal".

[Davidor]

It's a shame to see it happen, but I feel that with a evident end point which would never progress, it was bound to happen one day.

[Azerate]

The harsh reality is that the popularity of private servers is caused by the fact that they are....free to play. The reason why people mostly play Vanilla private servers is because this is the version of the game most worked on by the private server pirates and most playable on those servers. It gives you free taste of the game.

If there were 100% working, stable pservers of Shadowlands, most people would be playing that instead. Vanilla is just a worse version of the current game. Nothing more, nothing less.

Kinda ironic considering a common complaint about retail is that it's "seasonal".

It may be a "common complaint" amongst the vocal forum minority. Most people I know in casual guilds oni my server like the seasonal nature of raids because you can progress the tier for a couple of weeks and then start afresh in the next one without having to waste time farming dead content.

[Mendzia]

What a silly question OP. You really do not know the answer?...
It is like asking during 1st week of Shadowlands why there are no more groups doing BFA raids...
Most of the people moved to TBC (personally i know only 1 person from my guild who wanted to stay in Vanilla).
The rest will probably start again from scratch on some private servers due lack of people remained...
... and remember that you had to pay if you want to play both TBC and Vanilla.

[Yadryonych]

Pretty much this.

But it wasn't "more blizzlike" it was "I didn't want authentic I wanted a more buggy and artificially harder experience to match my memories of how it felt to be 15 years old."

I actually wanted a complete remaster with modern graphics and maybe some coveinience GUI updates that wont affect the gameplay. The way how blizzard deliberately recreated every flaw was a spit on everyone's face, except the hardcore vanilloids waited such spit with their tongue out

[Akka]

exept in the case of private servers tbc has been among the least popular of the pre cata ones,some people rly dislike flying or the feel of outlands,they like azeroth etc,no the issue is that the classic andys ADORE resets/fresh,so if vanila isnt getting a reset,then tbc is the next best thing for them

TBC has been the least popular because there is no good TBC server, but certainly not because TBC-era is disliked (it's actually the most popular among veteran).
Though you're right about the reset cycles, that's what keep people coming back.

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The harsh reality is that the popularity of private servers is caused by the fact that they are....free to play.

Claiming this shit after two years of massive success by Classic is seriously comical.

[Kralljin]

I played Classic nearly everyday for almost two years, i think am allowed to play TBC without it instantly becoming an indirect admission that Classic actually sucked.

I find it hilarious that some people only accept that a certain game is only good when there are thousands of players play it everyday for years, despite no new content being released - in a game where character progression is crucial no less.

[Ishayu]

Vanilla purists don't want a server stuck on the last patch. Vanilla has 4 design pillars: Sense of world, sense of community, great combat, and a constant stream of content.

Era realms are not vanilla.

[Craaazyyy]

exept in the case of private servers tbc has been among the least popular of the pre cata ones,some people rly dislike flying or the feel of outlands,they like azeroth etc,no the issue is that the classic andys ADORE resets/fresh,so if vanila isnt getting a reset,then tbc is the next best thing for them

it was because all the TBC servers were a bugged mess

[kamuimac]

Kinda ironic considering a common complaint about retail is that it's "seasonal".

you do realise majority of people in retail do not do m+ or more then hc raids. so its not seasonal reset for them - only normal new tier coming out.

i can give you example of myself - as soon as i cleared raid on hc i stopped raiding - then as soon as i did KSM i stopped doing m+

normal people dont burn themselves out on farming uselss next tier gear only have clear "goals to achieve" while playing game.

[kranur]

Vanilla is like a graveyard now. This after years and years of people either playing illegally on private servers (because it was so much more fun than retail) and/or demanding that Vanilla be re-released. I for sure thought they would play Vanilla forever. I guess 2 years was enough to satisfy the decade-long controversy.

You actually thought people will just raid naxx for 2 more years when TBC releases? Obviusly the majority moved on to the new thing. Willing to bet that even if they do fresh classic servers together with classic TBC, they will still be nearly dead.

Private servers didn't last either. By the time they reached the final patch, the majority of people were already gone to another new server in the hopes that it will be better and actually last. And this just kept repeating.

[Nalam the Venom]

It's mainly because they like the point where everyone is on the same footing. There's a ton of classic fans that just like that new mmo smell as I like to call it. Honestly an accidental discovery from when private servers kept getting shut down

I don’t like the gear resets on retail each season, So i definitivly would not enjoy this.. as it takes away even your leveling or the zulian tiger if that ever dropped.

[Stanelis1]

People just spent 6 months running Naxx and the other vanilla raids and Blizzard asks for 15 $ to play on both tbc and classic era realms with the same character, which effectively destroyed classic era guilds.

With the imminent tbc release it ll take time before classic era realms get populated again but it will definitely happen what is nice is that the option to play vanilla is here and not going away. Plus the fact classic era realms aren t crowded atm is great currently for materials farming.

[Shaetha]

you do realise majority of people in retail do not do m+ or more then hc raids. so its not seasonal reset for them - only normal new tier coming out.

The new raid is the seasonal reset of raiding. Just because it isn't officially called that doesn't change what it is.

[erifwodahs]

Never played on a private server, so forgive the question - what happens at that point on a private server? Custom events or raids, etc?

OT:
The BC hype wave has a lot to do with classic being a ghost town I'm sure. The question is if the servers recover.

It was quite dead before the BC too. Literally had to change realms to do any dungeons as my "medium", even endgame was pretty much dead outside of guilds.

[Kumorii]

you do realise majority of people in retail do not do m+ or more then hc raids. so its not seasonal reset for them - only normal new tier coming out.

i can give you example of myself - as soon as i cleared raid on hc i stopped raiding - then as soon as i did KSM i stopped doing m+

normal people dont burn themselves out on farming uselss next tier gear only have clear "goals to achieve" while playing game.

Absolutely. Not sure what did had to do with me having a laugh at people saying they play classic because retail has seasons, while still wanting fresh servers added so they can play just like seasons.

[Beuargh]

you have your answer in your own post. what happened to vanilla purists? they moved on, they are not there anymore.... I guess they were not that much purists to begin with or most of them were just liars who wanted to try vanilla for a few weeks with no change, so they jumped in the bandwagon as "purists" themselves when they didn't really cared that much.

[Kralljin]

The new raid is the seasonal reset of raiding. Just because it isn't officially called that doesn't change what it is.

The difference is that pieces from the previous raid are still relevant and not completely invalidated.
People still have an incentive to visit the previous raid and the catchup (if it even exists) doesn't just allow you to completely ignore previous tiers.

This is the big difference, when people say "seasonal" they (or at least myself) mean that the game is set up in a way that you can effectively ignore anything from the previous tier, which is not the case in Classic or TBC, there are still pieces from Heroics / T4 very relevant in T5.