When will World of Warcraft become World of Warcraft again? the spark is long lost.

[Vintersol]

You... do remember what happened when they upped the difficulty of content for Cataclysm, right? People went ballistic and demanded change. The 5mans weren't anywhere near as challenging as some of the TBC heroics and yet the majority of players demanded for them to be nerfed. So they were. Yet still you claim that there was no logical reason for them to be dumbed down?

No, the main cause is the dungeonfinder. This caused that a huge amount of reasonable content must be dumbed down, because the majority of players is unable to bring a minimal amount of teamplay to the table. Therefore you can say: Thanks blizzard for conditioning people an entire addon long that teamplay is a myth and not needed (thanks to wrath of the leech kid).

[Palmz]

When i said "this crowd" i meant the people who are asking for Vanilla-like gameplay back. Yes it's a minority but still is a valid opinion.

I personally preferred the gameplay back then, but i was also alone in my appartment with nothing better to do than play all day/night. I couldn't even possibly imagine going back to those days with a house, wife and 3 kids. But some people still have the drive to play in a system like that, which is why they keep jumping from MMO to MMO (I have a lot of personal friends who do this) looking for the next big challenge.

I don't think it's an opinion who should be dismissed easily, but I don't think it should solely drive the development either.

That will never return. The "challenge" of vanilla WoW was an experiment and build-up to a more complete game that was introduced as BC. The community was more free to direct the future of the game in vanilla. Fortunately most of us were in our teens back then with nothing better to do. Now that most of us are 25+ and the game has it's identity, the days of vanilla WoW are long gone and it will never return in this game or the next. There's no reason for it because this genre has been discovered.

[Dequanacus]

you can take your rose-tinted glasses and go somewhere else, i ain't got no glasses and i never will.
i ejoyed the game more back then than i do now. cuz everyone were friends, everyone were kind...
not even my irl friends can help me ingame right now because they're just like all the other players
"must... get... gear.... NOW!!!!"
"i don't have time i'm cooking food" - is actually in Siege of Orgrimmar raid
"sry i'm busy" - is doing arena

people just WANT WANT WANT WANT and no one ever HELPS or have a decent conversation, cuz if you're talking to someone then you're actually disturbing them cuz they need to get more goldz, welfare epix or whatever...

Make new friends? It isn't as hard as you're making it out to be.

Elitist players existed back in vanilla WoW and so did trolls, it obviously wasn't as big an issue back then but it was still there (and in several of the mmos that came before WoW).

All you have to do is avoid that player base which is as simple as finding a decent guild.

[Palmz]

No, the main cause if the dungeonfinder. This caused that a huge amount of reasonable content must be dumbed down, because the majority of players is unable to bring a minimal amount of teamplay to the table. Therefore you can say: Thanks blizzard for conditioning people an entire addon long that teamplay is a myth and not needed (thanks to wrath of the leech kid).

Dungeonfinder can't be blamed. Nothing can really be blamed. Blizzard wants a stepping stone system. My guess is for people to feel progressed and to see where their progressing would be. This is a progressing based game after all. Starting with quests and working your way up to Heroic mode raids is the natural progression of the PVE game. With the introduction with each expansion 5 man's have always been harder than LFR ( since it's introduction ) and sometimes on par with normal mode raids for the first few weeks, which seems unnatural. Although great for some of us, it's not the natural progression the game intends.

[fragk]

That will never return. The "challenge" of vanilla WoW was an experiment and build-up to a more complete game that was introduced as BC. The community was more free to direct the future of the game in vanilla. Fortunately most of us were in our teens back then with nothing better to do. Now that most of us are 25+ and the game has it's identity, the days of vanilla WoW are long gone and it will never return in this game or the next. There's no reason for it because this genre has been discovered.

It's kind of hard to know which is which here.

Does WoW feel easier because its more known? Or is it because it's flat out easier?
Hard to say.

Also, I still miss attunements. Vanilla and BC's attunements were the best tools to know your future co-raiders.

[Barkloud]

Hello Guys, so yeah... i'm an old-school player.

i've been playing World of Warcraft since launch, and i must say... the game is pretty much getting ruined for me... what about you? don't you think so?
probably not, because you don't know better since most of you weren't there when it all began, when the game was epic.
here, i'll mention a few things that has changed during the years... which has also made me think that the game is currently digging it's own grave.

1. The game is a MMO... they've removed the RPG entirely IMO.
so it's no longer a MMOrpg imo.

i could login right now with my newly dinged 90 shaman... and get full "best" pvp gear in 1 day...
(yeah i'm serious... since i have a cap for about 18000k conquest points)

and wtf about this "oh you've never been to this dungeon? well then you can't join.... link achievement or you will never be able to tag along..."

*** what happaned to attunaments? i actually liked attunaments!! ***

"Hey guys we have outdoor pvp.... but if you try to attack someone they can sap/stun/cc you and fly away"

"but oh wait... no one is ever outside of the city anyway!"

"you want epics? sure just /claim epics... they're free, go ahead take them!"
ep·ic [ep-ik]: heroic; majestic; impressively great: the epic events of the war."
does it look like Epic is still... epic to you?

"you want mounts? sure go to this place and farm for 1 day and you'll be exalted!"

"a day is too much? oh sorry, get this tabard, only 45 silver and you can get it in half a day instead!"

"the game is not unbalanced... that is why frost mages have never been nerfed but everyone else has."

"oh you're queueing as a dps? just hold on a minute... or 15... no wait u must wait 30 minutes sorry!"
*** please allow more classes to be able to tank ***

"oh your friend died... don't worry you can resurrect him in combat... oh no you died... don't worry he can combat ress you as well... unless you're in heroic."

"damn a sword dropped and i really want it... i didn't get it... whatever i'll get the mace, the axe or the 1h weapons from all the other bosses with almost the exact same stats... cuz i'll transmog anyway."

"you wanna work hard to achieve? ... ... wait... ... sorry then this is not the game for you, we've optimized this game for 12 years and under... so that they can progress every day... and get free epics"


i still remember when i played in vanilla... i played my warrior for over 1 year and i had like 2 epics at first... the unstoppable force and the immovable object. AND THOSE WERE PVP REWARDS WTF
***You had to be exalted with Alterac Valley***

then i hit ranked up in PvP which took me a couple of months... i eventually got the shoulders from being exalted with Arathi Basin which was nice... and rest of my gear was rank 1-9 blues... until i had played for another few months and actually ranked up to rank 11 i believe it was? to get boots and gloves? i almost felt mighty... as if i had accomplished some greatness in the game... people were happy about me ranking up... i was starting to get a littlebit famous... if it wasn't for that guy Ztar from a particular guild who climbed in ranks like ridiculously fast because he actually achieved a LEGENDARY WEAPON (Ragnaros Hand) and he was the only one on the server, so he started smashing the pvp big-time.... well, i can't say he didn't deserve it... he totally did... he was a true legend on the Darksorrow Realm... but he was no match for the Alliance Human Female Warrior... Anise... She was rank 14, a real grand marshal... every horde feared her... even in the local defence chat "/3" people would say RUN!!! ANISE IS COMING TO TYRS HAND and seriously we all abandoned the place because we knew we'd get humiliated by her skills...

however, moving on;

i remember when it was actually HARD to get items... i remember when i was HAPPY when i got a new item?
nowdays you can defeat the game in less than 2 months... do all dungeons get all the best gear with extra rolls... cuz rolling once per boss each week wasn't enough... like WTF?!?!?!?! GAME IT'S TOO EASY... AND I DON'T LIKE EASY GAMES i miss the old times... where you had to run to your place with 60% mount cuz there was no way in hell you could farm 800g for 100% mount... and the only way to get a faster mount was to get that friggin carrot on a damn stick... xD

"LET'S DO AV... AND SUMMON BOSS!" - 2008 player be like: boss? what boss? is there a boss in AV? u mean Vandaar or something? balinda? can't summon, they're already there!

"I remember when i could play AV for 10 hours, go to bed and come back... and enter THE SAME DAMN AV!" 2008 players be like - wat? how? everyone protected base or what? omg noobs! i usually win/loose av in 15 min

*** FIX THIS OMG I MISS IT... ***

"i remember in vanilla... you could not waste your hearthstone if you knew you had to go back to Orgrimmar TWICE... cuz there was a 60 min cooldown... so you'd use the flight path!"

"i remember in Vanilla... you could go just select any of those; Silithus, Eastern Plague, Winterspring, Burning Steppes, Blackrock Mountain... if you wanted some PvP... cuz people were actually doing quests... and couldn't escape with flying mount... and if you wanted to be really evil, you could also go to Stv/Stonetalon/Feralas and kill low levels, even Ashenvale you'd see allys 24/7...

the best part? the most evil part? let's take it from the beginning...

in vanilla... at level 20 you could do Wailing Caverns or the old version of Deadmines...
if you were horde, you'd stand in Crossroads and /1 LF3M HEALER TANK AND DPS FOR WC!!! /w me
if you were a ally, you'd stand in Westfall and do the same... AFTER YOU HAD FOUND 5 MEMBERS FOR A TEAM... it was finally time to summon them with the MEETING STONE... and ATLEAST 2 players had to go there to summon...

if you wanted to be evil... you could just go to WC or DM summoner stones and await a 5 man party... go in there and slay them... you wouldn't even one shot them... there was no such thing as one shotting people back then. maybe a lvl 1-20 ok... but not above that. you'd crit MAXIMUM of 2k. but that was with special abilities and trinkets and shit. anyways... fun way to gank people... if you were really evil that is. *** i'm not evil, promise! ***

wanna hear more? oh yeah... i remember in vanilla... if someone had half gear with epics he was cool... if someone had epic mount he was cool... if someone had found the ZULIAN TIGER HE WAS SUPER COOL...

but if someone Obtained the Amani War bear, "k bro who cares"
if someone gets full epic in a week "k bro who cares"
nothing is special nowadays and Blizzard made sure that everything was easy to obtain. even Raven Lord was once very very very rare, and could only be obtained if you were a Druid
*** well, you could give it away to team members ***

another one; engineering was fun, you could make bombs and use them...
first aid was necessary for most people cuz it actually healed you about 50% your hp.
HEALING POTS, don't forget that... it was also like 50% your hp...

hunters had to buy arrows and could use melee in close combat... now they just scatter > trap you to get away and where's the fun in that? i miss razor blade and wingclip wtf

P.S. if you were good in vanilla... you were famous. not cuz you streamed, not cuz you were some other internet celebrity. but for the fact that there was no such thing as cross realm PVP or PVE.

people would be like "omg Anise on alliance side is rank 14. ****ing GRAND MARSHAL. RESPECT. DON'T MESS WITH HER."

now when i find friends which is very rare, they're on another realm and 1 week later they're forgotten.

i remember when i could walk past orgrimmar auction house and see 20 players that was my friends...

now it's more like: Ankrut? he must be new... Blrgu... he must also be new... who is this and who is that?

no respect, no nothing. :3 i'm very sad because World of Warcraft used to be such a nice place and i had tons of friends

* i could keep on writing here for hours about things that is ruined, but unfortunately i don't have more time.
please comment what you think about this...

1. Should it really be this easy to farm gear?
2. Wouldn't you like Attunaments instead of achievement linking?
3. Would you mind, if epics were only obtainable from raids, with a lower chance? say 2 items per boss drops, instead of like 6-8 or whatever it is?
4. How can you be happy about getting a item, if you know that within the next 24 hours you might replace it?
5. Why would there be so many zones with so many quests... if you don't even have time to do more than 5 quests each zone because you level up too fast?
6. i watched a Youtube Video of a blue geared level 90 going to Draenor for the first time... and 2 hitted mobs... and got BLUE GEAR FROM QUESTS!?!?!? will Draenor really be that easy!?!? is there no challenge in questing?!?!

please tell me what you think, and please criticize and change my mind, i really want to be interested in playing Warlords of Draenor... but i'm having a hard time right now...

and i do not blame Blizzard for any of this, they've just been listening to their "fans"
i love blizzard and i always will... i hope that some day there will be Vanilla or TBC realms... inside the Original World of Warcraft Client.

i remember at level 30... i got a quest to swim far out the sea to a little island... to get my amazing warrior axe that i always kept just because it was cool...

i had to make quests to get different stances...

bear form, cat form... getting a new form in every 10th level...

getting air, fire, earth, water totems... one by one...

being able to tame pets, feed them...

even dropped tomes that made mages able to make different food, or a cool polymorph...

idk... i miss so many things that a thread here isn't enough to describe it all... i miss the old time when World of Warcraft was better than hanging with my friends at the schoolyard playing, or just staying late at a friends house or whatever...

World of Warcraft had my friends, sitting by a bonefire talking about anything, dueling in durotar, being kind, buying fadeleaf to a rogue after a duel... making them super happy.... idk... it feels like they've removed the "role playing" out of the game...

people think i like hard things, or things that take long time... but they're actually misunderstanding my whole thread...

i miss the role playing, the feelings you would get from achieving a new weapon... new shoulders... the feeling that said "Finally, i got a new item... i deserve it"
it's just like IRL... if anything was given free/easily, how can you be happy? think about that... i'd rather work long and hard for a new item than getting one very easy with the mind set on getting another one tomorrow anyway? i couldn't be happy that way...

vanishing powder
poison
blinding powder
arrows / bullets using a quiver and even 1h weapons if you were to get into close combat...
portal runes
getting fiery weapon was expensive so you got beastslaying just because you wanted the glow...
warlocks went farming soul shards
leveling so slow that you would actually go through a whole zone and enjoy every single quest and keep up with the story... finding caves, swimming the water because you had to do quests there, farming cloth because first aid was actually convenient...
fishing/farming to make food, if you weren't a mage...
making shield block damage enchants
make bow/gun enchants...
farming light feather for slow fall...
not because it was necessary... but because it was fun to have, characters was more fun back then imo... because there was so much more to do except farm dungeons or battlegrounds and gold :/

when Professions could actually make good weapons/armors that people would actually use... just just belt and legs...

saving DKP... for that ONE ITEM YOU WANTED.
instead of someone rolling more than you on a rare item... every time... 5 times in row...

farming the resistance gear... fire for MC / BWL, nature for AQ... frost for certain boss in NAXX...

you had a JOB... and it wasn't to farm gold for your repair bills or food/pots...

you would do so much more than just that... to be ready for a raid...

there's so much to say... because i really miss the role playing part of World of Warcraft...

and about Alterac Valley... i miss farming scraps and bloods to send troops... summon bosses... it was way funnier that way... i do not like the rushing that we're doing right now it's not fun actually... the whole concept of the Battleground is not working the way it should... i actually liked Alterac Valley and i really really really hope that Ashran will give me that old feeling of endless battles that will just go on and on and on and we're picking up reinforcements and blah blah...
(i like the guildwars eternal battleground cuz of this... just wish World of Warcraft could do something like this!
Alterac Valley once was like this)

whatever it'll never be the same...

***** i will add more to this thread later, i must continue working right now... i'm sorry *****

P.S. this is just my point of view, i do not care whether you think that i'm retarded or not, but the game HAS CHANGED and i know a lot of people who have quit the game because of all the changes...

why do you think that Vanilla / TBC private servers are so popular? there's hundreds of thousands of players playing Vanilla / TBC private server... because they want to play the old school World of Warcraft, but Blizzard isn't making their own realms with Vanilla/TBC... and i would never do such a thing as to play a fake-client game... i'm just wishing for retail WoW to become something better... a game as which i dont have to feel "i don't have anything to do" no more...

However, i still enjoy the game... i'm just making this thread simply because; i think that World of Warcraft has lost the spark in a few edges here and there, the game isn't actually RUINED... but for ME... PERSONALLY... it has been digging its own grave... i'm not talking for all of you.... i'm making this thread from MY POINT OF VIEW... MINE ONLY. PERIOD.















Sincerely, Everztar / Nizque / Piizh / Chojuro, Implodanter of the Realms Darksorrow and Stormscale.i could login right now with my newly dinged 90 shaman... and get full "best" pvp gear in 1 day...
(yeah i'm serious... since i have a cap for about 18000k conquest points)

and wtf about this "oh you've never been to this dungeon? well then you can't join.... link achievement or you will never be able to tag along..."

*** what happaned to attunaments? i actually liked attunaments!! ***

"Hey guys we have outdoor pvp.... but if you try to attack someone they can sap/stun/cc you and fly away"

"but oh wait... no one is ever outside of the city anyway!"

"you want epics? sure just /claim epics... they're free, go ahead take them!"
ep·ic [ep-ik]: heroic; majestic; impressively great: the epic events of the war."
does it look like Epic is still... epic to you?

"you want mounts? sure go to this place and farm for 1 day and you'll be exalted!"

"a day is too much? oh sorry, get this tabard, only 45 silver and you can get it in half a day instead!"

"the game is not unbalanced... that is why frost mages have never been nerfed but everyone else has."

"oh you're queueing as a dps? just hold on a minute... or 15... no wait u must wait 30 minutes sorry!"
*** please allow more classes to be able to tank ***

"oh your friend died... don't worry you can resurrect him in combat... oh no you died... don't worry he can combat ress you as well... unless you're in heroic."

"damn a sword dropped and i really want it... i didn't get it... whatever i'll get the mace, the axe or the 1h weapons from all the other bosses with almost the exact same stats... cuz i'll transmog anyway."

"you wanna work hard to achieve? ... ... wait... ... sorry then this is not the game for you, we've optimized this game for 12 years and under... so that they can progress every day... and get free epics"


i still remember when i played in vanilla... i played my warrior for over 1 year and i had like 2 epics at first... the unstoppable force and the immovable object. AND THOSE WERE PVP REWARDS WTF
***You had to be exalted with Alterac Valley***

then i hit ranked up in PvP which took me a couple of months... i eventually got the shoulders from being exalted with Arathi Basin which was nice... and rest of my gear was rank 1-9 blues... until i had played for another few months and actually ranked up to rank 11 i believe it was? to get boots and gloves? i almost felt mighty... as if i had accomplished some greatness in the game... people were happy about me ranking up... i was starting to get a littlebit famous... if it wasn't for that guy Ztar from a particular guild who climbed in ranks like ridiculously fast because he actually achieved a LEGENDARY WEAPON (Ragnaros Hand) and he was the only one on the server, so he started smashing the pvp big-time.... well, i can't say he didn't deserve it... he totally did... he was a true legend on the Darksorrow Realm... but he was no match for the Alliance Human Female Warrior... Anise... She was rank 14, a real grand marshal... every horde feared her... even in the local defence chat "/3" people would say RUN!!! ANISE IS COMING TO TYRS HAND and seriously we all abandoned the place because we knew we'd get humiliated by her skills...

however, moving on;

i remember when it was actually HARD to get items... i remember when i was HAPPY when i got a new item?
nowdays you can defeat the game in less than 2 months... do all dungeons get all the best gear with extra rolls... cuz rolling once per boss each week wasn't enough... like WTF?!?!?!?! GAME IT'S TOO EASY... AND I DON'T LIKE EASY GAMES i miss the old times... where you had to run to your place with 60% mount cuz there was no way in hell you could farm 800g for 100% mount... and the only way to get a faster mount was to get that friggin carrot on a damn stick... xD

"LET'S DO AV... AND SUMMON BOSS!" - 2008 player be like: boss? what boss? is there a boss in AV? u mean Vandaar or something? balinda? can't summon, they're already there!

"I remember when i could play AV for 10 hours, go to bed and come back... and enter THE SAME DAMN AV!" 2008 players be like - wat? how? everyone protected base or what? omg noobs! i usually win/loose av in 15 min

*** FIX THIS OMG I MISS IT... ***

"i remember in vanilla... you could not waste your hearthstone if you knew you had to go back to Orgrimmar TWICE... cuz there was a 60 min cooldown... so you'd use the flight path!"

"i remember in Vanilla... you could go just select any of those; Silithus, Eastern Plague, Winterspring, Burning Steppes, Blackrock Mountain... if you wanted some PvP... cuz people were actually doing quests... and couldn't escape with flying mount... and if you wanted to be really evil, you could also go to Stv/Stonetalon/Feralas and kill low levels, even Ashenvale you'd see allys 24/7...

the best part? the most evil part? let's take it from the beginning...

in vanilla... at level 20 you could do Wailing Caverns or the old version of Deadmines...
if you were horde, you'd stand in Crossroads and /1 LF3M HEALER TANK AND DPS FOR WC!!! /w me
if you were a ally, you'd stand in Westfall and do the same... AFTER YOU HAD FOUND 5 MEMBERS FOR A TEAM... it was finally time to summon them with the MEETING STONE... and ATLEAST 2 players had to go there to summon...

if you wanted to be evil... you could just go to WC or DM summoner stones and await a 5 man party... go in there and slay them... you wouldn't even one shot them... there was no such thing as one shotting people back then. maybe a lvl 1-20 ok... but not above that. you'd crit MAXIMUM of 2k. but that was with special abilities and trinkets and shit. anyways... fun way to gank people... if you were really evil that is. *** i'm not evil, promise! ***

wanna hear more? oh yeah... i remember in vanilla... if someone had half gear with epics he was cool... if someone had epic mount he was cool... if someone had found the ZULIAN TIGER HE WAS SUPER COOL...

but if someone Obtained the Amani War bear, "k bro who cares"
if someone gets full epic in a week "k bro who cares"
nothing is special nowadays and Blizzard made sure that everything was easy to obtain. even Raven Lord was once very very very rare, and could only be obtained if you were a Druid
*** well, you could give it away to team members ***

another one; engineering was fun, you could make bombs and use them...
first aid was necessary for most people cuz it actually healed you about 50% your hp.
HEALING POTS, don't forget that... it was also like 50% your hp...

hunters had to buy arrows and could use melee in close combat... now they just scatter > trap you to get away and where's the fun in that? i miss razor blade and wingclip wtf

P.S. if you were good in vanilla... you were famous. not cuz you streamed, not cuz you were some other internet celebrity. but for the fact that there was no such thing as cross realm PVP or PVE.

people would be like "omg Anise on alliance side is rank 14. ****ing GRAND MARSHAL. RESPECT. DON'T MESS WITH HER."

now when i find friends which is very rare, they're on another realm and 1 week later they're forgotten.

i remember when i could walk past orgrimmar auction house and see 20 players that was my friends...

now it's more like: Ankrut? he must be new... Blrgu... he must also be new... who is this and who is that?

no respect, no nothing. :3 i'm very sad because World of Warcraft used to be such a nice place and i had tons of friends

* i could keep on writing here for hours about things that is ruined, but unfortunately i don't have more time.
please comment what you think about this...

1. Should it really be this easy to farm gear?
2. Wouldn't you like Attunaments instead of achievement linking?
3. Would you mind, if epics were only obtainable from raids, with a lower chance? say 2 items per boss drops, instead of like 6-8 or whatever it is?
4. How can you be happy about getting a item, if you know that within the next 24 hours you might replace it?
5. Why would there be so many zones with so many quests... if you don't even have time to do more than 5 quests each zone because you level up too fast?
6. i watched a Youtube Video of a blue geared level 90 going to Draenor for the first time... and 2 hitted mobs... and got BLUE GEAR FROM QUESTS!?!?!? will Draenor really be that easy!?!? is there no challenge in questing?!?!

please tell me what you think, and please criticize and change my mind, i really want to be interested in playing Warlords of Draenor... but i'm having a hard time right now...

and i do not blame Blizzard for any of this, they've just been listening to their "fans"
i love blizzard and i always will... i hope that some day there will be Vanilla or TBC realms... inside the Original World of Warcraft Client.

i remember at level 30... i got a quest to swim far out the sea to a little island... to get my amazing warrior axe that i always kept just because it was cool...

i had to make quests to get different stances...

bear form, cat form... getting a new form in every 10th level...

getting air, fire, earth, water totems... one by one...

being able to tame pets, feed them...

even dropped tomes that made mages able to make different food, or a cool polymorph...

idk... i miss so many things that a thread here isn't enough to describe it all... i miss the old time when World of Warcraft was better than hanging with my friends at the schoolyard playing, or just staying late at a friends house or whatever...

World of Warcraft had my friends, sitting by a bonefire talking about anything, dueling in durotar, being kind, buying fadeleaf to a rogue after a duel... making them super happy.... idk... it feels like they've removed the "role playing" out of the game...

people think i like hard things, or things that take long time... but they're actually misunderstanding my whole thread...

i miss the role playing, the feelings you would get from achieving a new weapon... new shoulders... the feeling that said "Finally, i got a new item... i deserve it"
it's just like IRL... if anything was given free/easily, how can you be happy? think about that... i'd rather work long and hard for a new item than getting one very easy with the mind set on getting another one tomorrow anyway? i couldn't be happy that way...

vanishing powder
poison
blinding powder
arrows / bullets using a quiver and even 1h weapons if you were to get into close combat...
portal runes
getting fiery weapon was expensive so you got beastslaying just because you wanted the glow...
warlocks went farming soul shards
leveling so slow that you would actually go through a whole zone and enjoy every single quest and keep up with the story... finding caves, swimming the water because you had to do quests there, farming cloth because first aid was actually convenient...
fishing/farming to make food, if you weren't a mage...
making shield block damage enchants
make bow/gun enchants...
farming light feather for slow fall...
not because it was necessary... but because it was fun to have, characters was more fun back then imo... because there was so much more to do except farm dungeons or battlegrounds and gold :/

when Professions could actually make good weapons/armors that people would actually use... just just belt and legs...

saving DKP... for that ONE ITEM YOU WANTED.
instead of someone rolling more than you on a rare item... every time... 5 times in row...

farming the resistance gear... fire for MC / BWL, nature for AQ... frost for certain boss in NAXX...

you had a JOB... and it wasn't to farm gold for your repair bills or food/pots...

you would do so much more than just that... to be ready for a raid...

there's so much to say... because i really miss the role playing part of World of Warcraft...

and about Alterac Valley... i miss farming scraps and bloods to send troops... summon bosses... it was way funnier that way... i do not like the rushing that we're doing right now it's not fun actually... the whole concept of the Battleground is not working the way it should... i actually liked Alterac Valley and i really really really hope that Ashran will give me that old feeling of endless battles that will just go on and on and on and we're picking up reinforcements and blah blah...
(i like the guildwars eternal battleground cuz of this... just wish World of Warcraft could do something like this!
Alterac Valley once was like this)

whatever it'll never be the same...

***** i will add more to this thread later, i must continue working right now... i'm sorry *****

P.S. this is just my point of view, i do not care whether you think that i'm retarded or not, but the game HAS CHANGED and i know a lot of people who have quit the game because of all the changes...

why do you think that Vanilla / TBC private servers are so popular? there's hundreds of thousands of players playing Vanilla / TBC private server... because they want to play the old school World of Warcraft, but Blizzard isn't making their own realms with Vanilla/TBC... and i would never do such a thing as to play a fake-client game... i'm just wishing for retail WoW to become something better... a game as which i dont have to feel "i don't have anything to do" no more...

However, i still enjoy the game... i'm just making this thread simply because; i think that World of Warcraft has lost the spark in a few edges here and there, the game isn't actually RUINED... but for ME... PERSONALLY... it has been digging its own grave... i'm not talking for all of you.... i'm making this thread from MY POINT OF VIEW... MINE ONLY. PERIOD. i could login right now with my newly dinged 90 shaman... and get full "best" pvp gear in 1 day...
(yeah i'm serious... since i have a cap for about 18000k conquest points)

and wtf about this "oh you've never been to this dungeon? well then you can't join.... link achievement or you will never be able to tag along..."

*** what happaned to attunaments? i actually liked attunaments!! ***

"Hey guys we have outdoor pvp.... but if you try to attack someone they can sap/stun/cc you and fly away"

"but oh wait... no one is ever outside of the city anyway!"

"you want epics? sure just /claim epics... they're free, go ahead take them!"
ep·ic [ep-ik]: heroic; majestic; impressively great: the epic events of the war."
does it look like Epic is still... epic to you?

"you want mounts? sure go to this place and farm for 1 day and you'll be exalted!"

"a day is too much? oh sorry, get this tabard, only 45 silver and you can get it in half a day instead!"

"the game is not unbalanced... that is why frost mages have never been nerfed but everyone else has."

"oh you're queueing as a dps? just hold on a minute... or 15... no wait u must wait 30 minutes sorry!"
*** please allow more classes to be able to tank ***

"oh your friend died... don't worry you can resurrect him in combat... oh no you died... don't worry he can combat ress you as well... unless you're in heroic."

"damn a sword dropped and i really want it... i didn't get it... whatever i'll get the mace, the axe or the 1h weapons from all the other bosses with almost the exact same stats... cuz i'll transmog anyway."

"you wanna work hard to achieve? ... ... wait... ... sorry then this is not the game for you, we've optimized this game for 12 years and under... so that they can progress every day... and get free epics"


i still remember when i played in vanilla... i played my warrior for over 1 year and i had like 2 epics at first... the unstoppable force and the immovable object. AND THOSE WERE PVP REWARDS WTF
***You had to be exalted with Alterac Valley***

then i hit ranked up in PvP which took me a couple of months... i eventually got the shoulders from being exalted with Arathi Basin which was nice... and rest of my gear was rank 1-9 blues... until i had played for another few months and actually ranked up to rank 11 i believe it was? to get boots and gloves? i almost felt mighty... as if i had accomplished some greatness in the game... people were happy about me ranking up... i was starting to get a littlebit famous... if it wasn't for that guy Ztar from a particular guild who climbed in ranks like ridiculously fast because he actually achieved a LEGENDARY WEAPON (Ragnaros Hand) and he was the only one on the server, so he started smashing the pvp big-time.... well, i can't say he didn't deserve it... he totally did... he was a true legend on the Darksorrow Realm... but he was no match for the Alliance Human Female Warrior... Anise... She was rank 14, a real grand marshal... every horde feared her... even in the local defence chat "/3" people would say RUN!!! ANISE IS COMING TO TYRS HAND and seriously we all abandoned the place because we knew we'd get humiliated by her skills...

however, moving on;

i remember when it was actually HARD to get items... i remember when i was HAPPY when i got a new item?
nowdays you can defeat the game in less than 2 months... do all dungeons get all the best gear with extra rolls... cuz rolling once per boss each week wasn't enough... like WTF?!?!?!?! GAME IT'S TOO EASY... AND I DON'T LIKE EASY GAMES i miss the old times... where you had to run to your place with 60% mount cuz there was no way in hell you could farm 800g for 100% mount... and the only way to get a faster mount was to get that friggin carrot on a damn stick... xD

"LET'S DO AV... AND SUMMON BOSS!" - 2008 player be like: boss? what boss? is there a boss in AV? u mean Vandaar or something? balinda? can't summon, they're already there!

"I remember when i could play AV for 10 hours, go to bed and come back... and enter THE SAME DAMN AV!" 2008 players be like - wat? how? everyone protected base or what? omg noobs! i usually win/loose av in 15 min

*** FIX THIS OMG I MISS IT... ***

"i remember in vanilla... you could not waste your hearthstone if you knew you had to go back to Orgrimmar TWICE... cuz there was a 60 min cooldown... so you'd use the flight path!"

"i remember in Vanilla... you could go just select any of those; Silithus, Eastern Plague, Winterspring, Burning Steppes, Blackrock Mountain... if you wanted some PvP... cuz people were actually doing quests... and couldn't escape with flying mount... and if you wanted to be really evil, you could also go to Stv/Stonetalon/Feralas and kill low levels, even Ashenvale you'd see allys 24/7...

the best part? the most evil part? let's take it from the beginning...

in vanilla... at level 20 you could do Wailing Caverns or the old version of Deadmines...
if you were horde, you'd stand in Crossroads and /1 LF3M HEALER TANK AND DPS FOR WC!!! /w me
if you were a ally, you'd stand in Westfall and do the same... AFTER YOU HAD FOUND 5 MEMBERS FOR A TEAM... it was finally time to summon them with the MEETING STONE... and ATLEAST 2 players had to go there to summon...

if you wanted to be evil... you could just go to WC or DM summoner stones and await a 5 man party... go in there and slay them... you wouldn't even one shot them... there was no such thing as one shotting people back then. maybe a lvl 1-20 ok... but not above that. you'd crit MAXIMUM of 2k. but that was with special abilities and trinkets and shit. anyways... fun way to gank people... if you were really evil that is. *** i'm not evil, promise! ***

wanna hear more? oh yeah... i remember in vanilla... if someone had half gear with epics he was cool... if someone had epic mount he was cool... if someone had found the ZULIAN TIGER HE WAS SUPER COOL...

but if someone Obtained the Amani War bear, "k bro who cares"
if someone gets full epic in a week "k bro who cares"
nothing is special nowadays and Blizzard made sure that everything was easy to obtain. even Raven Lord was once very very very rare, and could only be obtained if you were a Druid
*** well, you could give it away to team members ***

another one; engineering was fun, you could make bombs and use them...
first aid was necessary for most people cuz it actually healed you about 50% your hp.
HEALING POTS, don't forget that... it was also like 50% your hp...

hunters had to buy arrows and could use melee in close combat... now they just scatter > trap you to get away and where's the fun in that? i miss razor blade and wingclip wtf

P.S. if you were good in vanilla... you were famous. not cuz you streamed, not cuz you were some other internet celebrity. but for the fact that there was no such thing as cross realm PVP or PVE.

people would be like "omg Anise on alliance side is rank 14. ****ing GRAND MARSHAL. RESPECT. DON'T MESS WITH HER."

now when i find friends which is very rare, they're on another realm and 1 week later they're forgotten.

i remember when i could walk past orgrimmar auction house and see 20 players that was my friends...

now it's more like: Ankrut? he must be new... Blrgu... he must also be new... who is this and who is that?

no respect, no nothing. :3 i'm very sad because World of Warcraft used to be such a nice place and i had tons of friends

* i could keep on writing here for hours about things that is ruined, but unfortunately i don't have more time.
please comment what you think about this...

1. Should it really be this easy to farm gear?
2. Wouldn't you like Attunaments instead of achievement linking?
3. Would you mind, if epics were only obtainable from raids, with a lower chance? say 2 items per boss drops, instead of like 6-8 or whatever it is?
4. How can you be happy about getting a item, if you know that within the next 24 hours you might replace it?
5. Why would there be so many zones with so many quests... if you don't even have time to do more than 5 quests each zone because you level up too fast?
6. i watched a Youtube Video of a blue geared level 90 going to Draenor for the first time... and 2 hitted mobs... and got BLUE GEAR FROM QUESTS!?!?!? will Draenor really be that easy!?!? is there no challenge in questing?!?!

please tell me what you think, and please criticize and change my mind, i really want to be interested in playing Warlords of Draenor... but i'm having a hard time right now...

and i do not blame Blizzard for any of this, they've just been listening to their "fans"
i love blizzard and i always will... i hope that some day there will be Vanilla or TBC realms... inside the Original World of Warcraft Client.

i remember at level 30... i got a quest to swim far out the sea to a little island... to get my amazing warrior axe that i always kept just because it was cool...

i had to make quests to get different stances...

bear form, cat form... getting a new form in every 10th level...

getting air, fire, earth, water totems... one by one...

being able to tame pets, feed them...

even dropped tomes that made mages able to make different food, or a cool polymorph...

idk... i miss so many things that a thread here isn't enough to describe it all... i miss the old time when World of Warcraft was better than hanging with my friends at the schoolyard playing, or just staying late at a friends house or whatever...

World of Warcraft had my friends, sitting by a bonefire talking about anything, dueling in durotar, being kind, buying fadeleaf to a rogue after a duel... making them super happy.... idk... it feels like they've removed the "role playing" out of the game...

people think i like hard things, or things that take long time... but they're actually misunderstanding my whole thread...

i miss the role playing, the feelings you would get from achieving a new weapon... new shoulders... the feeling that said "Finally, i got a new item... i deserve it"
it's just like IRL... if anything was given free/easily, how can you be happy? think about that... i'd rather work long and hard for a new item than getting one very easy with the mind set on getting another one tomorrow anyway? i couldn't be happy that way...

vanishing powder
poison
blinding powder
arrows / bullets using a quiver and even 1h weapons if you were to get into close combat...
portal runes
getting fiery weapon was expensive so you got beastslaying just because you wanted the glow...
warlocks went farming soul shards
leveling so slow that you would actually go through a whole zone and enjoy every single quest and keep up with the story... finding caves, swimming the water because you had to do quests there, farming cloth because first aid was actually convenient...
fishing/farming to make food, if you weren't a mage...
making shield block damage enchants
make bow/gun enchants...
farming light feather for slow fall...
not because it was necessary... but because it was fun to have, characters was more fun back then imo... because there was so much more to do except farm dungeons or battlegrounds and gold :/

when Professions could actually make good weapons/armors that people would actually use... just just belt and legs...

saving DKP... for that ONE ITEM YOU WANTED.
instead of someone rolling more than you on a rare item... every time... 5 times in row...

farming the resistance gear... fire for MC / BWL, nature for AQ... frost for certain boss in NAXX...

you had a JOB... and it wasn't to farm gold for your repair bills or food/pots...

you would do so much more than just that... to be ready for a raid...

there's so much to say... because i really miss the role playing part of World of Warcraft...

and about Alterac Valley... i miss farming scraps and bloods to send troops... summon bosses... it was way funnier that way... i do not like the rushing that we're doing right now it's not fun actually... the whole concept of the Battleground is not working the way it should... i actually liked Alterac Valley and i really really really hope that Ashran will give me that old feeling of endless battles that will just go on and on and on and we're picking up reinforcements and blah blah...
(i like the guildwars eternal battleground cuz of this... just wish World of Warcraft could do something like this!
Alterac Valley once was like this)

whatever it'll never be the same...

***** i will add more to this thread later, i must continue working right now... i'm sorry *****

P.S. this is just my point of view, i do not care whether you think that i'm retarded or not, but the game HAS CHANGED and i know a lot of people who have quit the game because of all the changes...

why do you think that Vanilla / TBC private servers are so popular? there's hundreds of thousands of players playing Vanilla / TBC private server... because they want to play the old school World of Warcraft, but Blizzard isn't making their own realms with Vanilla/TBC... and i would never do such a thing as to play a fake-client game... i'm just wishing for retail WoW to become something better... a game as which i dont have to feel "i don't have anything to do" no more...

However, i still enjoy the game... i'm just making this thread simply because; i think that World of Warcraft has lost the spark in a few edges here and there, the game isn't actually RUINED... but for ME... PERSONALLY... it has been digging its own grave... i'm not talking for all of you.... i'm making this thread from MY POINT OF VIEW... MINE ONLY. PERIOD.

Have you tried fishing?

[Palmz]

It's kind of hard to know which is which here.

Does WoW feel easier because its more known? Or is it because it's flat out easier?
Hard to say.

Also, I still miss attunements. Vanilla and BC's attunements were the best tools to know your future co-raiders.

It's honestly hard to gauge the difficulty over the years. I've done quite a bit over the years. 100k HKs, Marshall ( rank 13 ), every raid cleared in vanilla. Glad in seasons 1-5 in BC, multiple top 20 finishes and a couple top 3 US finishes in 25 mans.

You were more reliant on people in vanilla making the group content seem harder, but as you found the right people who were equally determined as you, it made the game much easier in vanilla. Most of the time, my BG team in vanilla was playing against the same horde team over and over and over again. The grinds were real and very repetitive. And when our raid finally found 40 great players, we were clearing raids and locking down world bosses much quicker and progression was getting easier. Vanilla was all about getting used to the genre and letting people catch up which made things more difficult to progress. BC was a blank slate of sorts for every vanilla veteran and so Blizzard started to introduce a more competitive atmosphere with raids and arena's. Cata and then on has mostly just been a game adding new features, but more or less has still kept the same, personal progression system. Players are getting better and bosses are more complex nowadays though. But do they make the game more difficult? It's hard to say! Heroic ToT was probably the best and most difficult raid to date for me though.

[Baconeggcheese]

Have you tried fishing?

Lmfao, you really just quoted that entire post to post 1 sentence xD ah man that was good.

I'm glad to see they're going to babystep dungeon difficulty back in by using proving grounds to attune people into heroic dungeons. Hopefully it pans out as they're trying to sell it.

[Kazgrel]

Probably mentioned already (cba to go through that wall of text) is how information has become more accessible. From nothing at all, to written guides on encounters and classes to full blown multi pov videos, there's a lot of resources to learn from.

Also, so many of us are veterans of the genre, so while fights become more and more complex, we pick up and learn faster due to previous experiences. One concern I have is with that pool of players drying up and new people coming in (specifically people new to wow/MMOs), how will the remaining vets welcome them?

As for the "spark", my opinion is it died along with the Lich King.

[Vintersol]

Dungeonfinder can't be blamed. Nothing can really be blamed. Blizzard wants a stepping stone system. My guess is for people to feel progressed and to see where their progressing would be. This is a progressing based game after all. Starting with quests and working your way up to Heroic mode raids is the natural progression of the PVE game. With the introduction with each expansion 5 man's have always been harder than LFR ( since it's introduction ) and sometimes on par with normal mode raids for the first few weeks, which seems unnatural. Although great for some of us, it's not the natural progression the game intends.

It can be blamed. And i will do it.

5 man content was sacrificed for the fast loot. Nothing else. People are conditioned to earn shiny things without much effort. So cataclysm 5 mans at start were a problem (they weren't really hard, but for people who play like monkeys it was). Combined with the "i don't care about you" mentality provided by crossrealm options, it doesn't left any room for challenges. There is no real stepping stone in 5 mans anymore. You don't have to use your tools because it's low tuned as fuck. I would love to see 5 mans you are visiting with a full group are significant harder than visiting via df. That would fix some issues. Like LFR vs normal raid.

[Deleted]

It can be blamed. And i will do it.

5 man content was sacrificed for the fast loot. Nothing else.

Meh.

Finding pug groups was really painful and annoying. Once they started putting servers in battlegroups and got the xrealm tech in place, Dungeonfinder made perfect sense instead of just sitting in the cities spamming /trade for hours for a silly run.

But at the same time they really should have done something to improve the far more superior "group finder" option - guilds. But they pretty much ignored guilds - and in process wrecked the whole social play part, leaving us with only LFD/LFR systems - and they *must be* very easy due to the fact that you're playing together with complete strangers and don't have sufficient means to communicate.

With the intro of HC Scenarios and Flex raids they've tried to go back to that old guild mentality and it has gotten a bit better. Remains to be seen what happens in WoD, reading some beta impressions it seems phasing is heavily in use (which in turn discourages people to do stuff together, which in turn means there's no incentive to join guilds, which in turn means they'll be flooding LFD/LFR).

[Deviant]

No, the main cause is the dungeonfinder. This caused that a huge amount of reasonable content must be dumbed down, because the majority of players is unable to bring a minimal amount of teamplay to the table. Therefore you can say: Thanks blizzard for conditioning people an entire addon long that teamplay is a myth and not needed (thanks to wrath of the leech kid).

Then make heroic dungeons pug only... that isn't hard and instead of blaming bads. Blizzard should have done that.

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So much reverse nostalgia here...

Umm whenever I go on a vanilla/bc private server. I get bored after a like 8 hours and never return. Bc pvp was so rng it wasn't even fun.

[Deleted]

Probably mentioned already (cba to go through that wall of text) is how information has become more accessible. From nothing at all, to written guides on encounters and classes to full blown multi pov videos, there's a lot of resources to learn from.

Also, so many of us are veterans of the genre, so while fights become more and more complex, we pick up and learn faster due to previous experiences. One concern I have is with that pool of players drying up and new people coming in (specifically people new to wow/MMOs), how will the remaining vets welcome them?

As for the "spark", my opinion is it died along with the Lich King.

Indeed I wonder...

[Kelimbror]

Judging from your posting style (admittedly couldn't even make it past the first few paragraphs) I imagine your view of 'epic' is tedious grinds, arbitrary gating, and inaccessible content. While I can't say WoW has made every change for the better, I can say all of those changes were. To be blunt, I agree with the spark being lost, but I disagree entirely with your reasoning and think almost all of your ideas would make the game worse and also not restore the nostalgia you seem to seek.

[Karrosene]

Ya i dont want to go back to the days where to get rep i had to farm a dungeon and kills mops for 5-15 rep a piece. I dont want to have to get exalted with the Argent Dawn for shadow resist gear to even have a chance in raids. I dont want bosses to have a maximum of 6 debuffs on him at anytime. I dont want to go back where i runout of mana in fight and am stuck pressing my wand ability to do damage. i do not want to cast Arcane Intellicet on 25+ people manually. I do not want to spend 100 gold on arrows a stack for a fight. I do not want to have to have my bags full of soul shards. I do not want to have to make food and drink for people manually and trade 1 by 1. I do not want to grind the last 10 levels because there no more quests. I do not want only 1% of the player base to experience a raid. I dont want trash to take a 15min strategy to kill. I dont want 6/40 players to get gear that week. Nostalgia good intell you actually play it again. I loved Elders scrolls 3 in till i went back to play it couple months ago. So different so bad compared to what they got now.

[Bentusi]

When i said "this crowd" i meant the people who are asking for Vanilla-like gameplay back. Yes it's a minority but still is a valid opinion.

I personally preferred the gameplay back then, but i was also alone in my appartment with nothing better to do than play all day/night. I couldn't even possibly imagine going back to those days with a house, wife and 3 kids. But some people still have the drive to play in a system like that, which is why they keep jumping from MMO to MMO (I have a lot of personal friends who do this) looking for the next big challenge.

I don't think it's an opinion who should be dismissed easily, but I don't think it should solely drive the development either.

This hardly seems valid. Of course the people still playing WoW are doing it because they get something out of it. But WoW is down 5 million subs since the peak after Wrath launch (which is when I personally think it took a nosedive by making everything "casual friendly"). Most of these five million people don`t bother posting on forums for a game they`ve abandoned, and even if they would you`re not allowed to post on Blizzard`s forums without an active account. Even this forum consists largely of people still playing the game.
I`m gonna take it for granted that all of those five million people quit the game because they didn`t like it anymore, for whatever reason. You can add to that all the people who quit before this, but who were replaced by new players, which brings the number even higher. I don`t know how much, but personally I`ve known dozens of veteran players who quit in TBC and never returned, so presumably it`s substantial.
If all those people joined in on this debate right here it`d look very different, let me assure you. Mostly these debates are echo chambers for active players, who imagine they are the majority exclusively because nobody else is engages them in debate.

[Dormie]

This was what everyone kept telling before I quit WoW. I was certain the game had actually turned from wonderful to crap during Wrath and that this gradually started to dawn on the less perceptive during Cataclysm, and that the game finally entered the crap zone entirely with MoP. But no, people told me, it`s just you having "rose tinted glasses on" and "you`re actually remembering things that were never real. Your nostalgia is making it good see".
So in an effort to not quit cold turkey I tried playing on a private Vanilla server, sort of like an experiment, to see if they were right. But they were not. Vanilla, with all its bugs, is infinitely better than WoW has been at any point after TBC, and it`s just a fact. And this is why:
The world feels epic because you actually have to level, which is hard and takes forever (In fact it takes five times as long to level to 60 in Vanilla than it does to level to 90 now. Does that make sense to anyone?), class roles to incentivize teamwork (You mean no self-healing mages, balance druids topping the dps meters and healers auto killing dps or kiting them forever in PVP???? Yes, that`s right.) talk to people (Pooey, how icky. They might talk back!), cooperate with people to get anything of use done whatsoever (Oh man, does that mean I can`t roll six alts and have all professions leveled in two weeks, so I can do everything myself? I`m afraid so.), build a server reputation so people will trust you, both to perform and behave (Nah, it`s much more fun to spam the chats with obnoxious nonsense and ninja loot in the LFR!), learn to play your class properly without a billion addons and without being able to play gray-action-button-whackamole and top the "meters" (/"casual" players in exodus. I can hear them stampeding.) move around on foot for 40 levels (What, no free butterfly mount for logging in with a Ronald McDonald wig on, on Thursday the seventh while yodeling!? Afraid not.), no "achievement"-heroin spam to hook the unemployable, no level 90 handouts to recruit lazy people, no free epics; hell, getting blues felt good, no LFR, no heroic dungeons; dungeons were hard period; and no swarms of entitled noobs running around as if they belong in an MMORPG. Which brings me to the biggest reason why WoW indeed has gone from being magnificent to being the gaming equivalent of syphilis: it is no longer an MMORPG. At best it is an MMO. But really it has been "streamlined" so much that the game now actually does basically everything for the player. So I would argue it`s not even much of a game anymore. And you could really lose at least one "M" as well, since the game doesn`t really stimulate you to interact with other players anymore. Which makes WoW the best MO (Massive Online....nothing) on the market when it gets down to it... It has turned into something more like a graphical chatline with random, slightly irrelevant stuff going on in the background, free gear which is meaningless and loads of other players you never need to bother with at all. It`s WoW for autistic people is what it is.

I`m glad I quit and glad I tried a private Vanilla server, just to remind myself that I have been right about this ever since before Wrath launched. In six weeks on ED I talked to and interacted with more people in a meaningful way than I did during the entire Wrath expansion, and retail got even worse after that. And I had fun! Genuine fun, which I haven`t had in retail WoW since the end of TBC. Hell, I even got to take part in the server tenth kill of Nefarian, which I missed in Vanilla due to being bad! Nothing like it in MoP, I can tell you that much. Not being bad, obviously there`s a lot of that going on in MoP, but epic boss fights you can`t do on mong-mode with the rest of the helmet wearers. Just getting to Nefarian would be beyond most retail players.

PS: To be fair I did enjoy RBGs in Cataclysm, as the only exception to what I said about not having any fun after TBC. So great fun until Wrath, then bored while that lasted, then fun playing RBGs for a while in Cataclysm and then bored/disgusted and quit after that. Now, the record has been duly set straight. Although, what sort of person pays a monthly fee just to do RGBs anyway? Not me for one!

I like how everyone casually ignored this post. Most people saying rise tinted glasses don't know what they're talking about. The game has changed from a game with depth and integrity to this streamlined console like arcade game we have now.

I did the same thing with a BC private server to see how nostalgia it was. The game was 10x better. People underestimate how much the removal of the leveling experience changed the game. When it actually takes time to level it does at least 2 things: revitalizes the world since there are people in all zones(and in them for longer than in hour), and it makes individual toons more meaningful. Alts didn't used to be something you just casually rolled, your main was your MAIN. Now every toon feels like a carbon copy of the guy next to you.
- - - Updated - - -

Ya i dont want to go back to the days where to get rep i had to farm a dungeon and kills mops for 5-15 rep a piece. I dont want to have to get exalted with the Argent Dawn for shadow resist gear to even have a chance in raids. I dont want bosses to have a maximum of 6 debuffs on him at anytime. I dont want to go back where i runout of mana in fight and am stuck pressing my wand ability to do damage. i do not want to cast Arcane Intellicet on 25+ people manually. I do not want to spend 100 gold on arrows a stack for a fight. I do not want to have to have my bags full of soul shards. I do not want to have to make food and drink for people manually and trade 1 by 1. I do not want to grind the last 10 levels because there no more quests. I do not want only 1% of the player base to experience a raid. I dont want trash to take a 15min strategy to kill. I dont want 6/40 players to get gear that week. Nostalgia good intell you actually play it again. I loved Elders scrolls 3 in till i went back to play it couple months ago. So different so bad compared to what they got now.

All if this has nothing to do with anything. Little things like these can be changed without changing the whole game philosophy. You're logic: going back to Vanilla style means having to buff each person one by one. NO. Quit talking in absolutes.

[Dequanacus]

I like how everyone casually ignored this post. Most people saying rise tinted glasses don't know what they're talking about. The game has changed from a game with depth and integrity to this streamlined console like arcade game we have now.

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All if this has nothing to do with anything. Little things like these can be changed without changing the whole game philosophy. You're logic: going back to Vanilla style means having to buff each person one by one. NO. Quit talking in absolutes.

I guess I don't count against everyone since I had replied to that post hours ago.

Still not sure why people continue to blow Vanilla raids out of proportion. They certainly weren't harder compared to what we have now. I'm also curious if people are aware that Vanilla WoW was considered "casual" and a "gateway MMO" compared to the MMOs that were out back then.

[Baconeggcheese]

I like how everyone casually ignored this post. Most people saying rise tinted glasses don't know what they're talking about. The game has changed from a game with depth and integrity to this streamlined console like arcade game we have now.

I haven't really participated much at all in this thread but I'll give you a subtle hint why that post was ignored.

ITS HUGE AND NOT CONCISE. How many people do you think read the OP? I know I sure as hell didn't.

I do agree with a decent chunk of his points, not all of it but most of it. I've played since vanilla, and I don't think the game is as bad now as people make it out to be. There are certain elements of the game I feel they dropped the ball on, and others that are head and shoulders better than they used to be.

It's strange how despite also being a vanilla player I don't share the same affection for vanilla, its different with different problems but not necessarily better or worse. I wonder why I don't feel the same way.

[Bentusi]

I like how everyone casually ignored this post. Most people saying rise tinted glasses don't know what they're talking about. The game has changed from a game with depth and integrity to this streamlined console like arcade game we have now.

I did the same thing with a BC private server to see how nostalgia it was. The game was 10x better. People underestimate how much the removal of the leveling experience changed the game. When it actually takes time to level it does at least 2 things: revitalizes the world since there are people in all zones(and in them for longer than in hour), and it makes individual toons more meaningful. Alts didn't used to be something you just casually rolled, your main was your MAIN. Now every toon feels like a carbon copy of the guy next to you.

And this is the short version of what my feelings are on this subject. I met hundreds and hundreds of great players on ED, all equally fed up with waiting for Blizzard to stop wrecking their game to coddle lazy, incompetent people. In fact, if there`s anything wrong with private servers at all it is that the level of the players using them is too high, so things which would be very hard indeed on a more randomly populated server, like they all were in retail, can become almost easy. This of course is precisely the opposite of what the problem was when playing retail.

I guess I don't count against everyone since I had replied to that post hours ago.

Still not sure why people continue to blow Vanilla raids out of proportion. They certainly weren't harder compared to what we have now. I'm also curious if people are aware that Vanilla WoW was considered "casual" and a "gateway MMO" compared to the MMOs that were out back then.

This is true and yet it was much more challenging than it is now. So a gateway MMORPG, instead of ramping up the challenge as players become good, does the reverse. Does that make any sense to you?
As for the raids it`s not as simple as you make out here. Sure, mechanically fights are more complex now. But with the lack of addons and general combat feedback in Vanilla, many of the fights are seriously hard. Of course sometimes the challenge is bosses oneshotting the MT or something, which they got rid of in BC already, excepting enrage situations. But healing Chromaggus and Nefarian was more challenging to me than healing anything in Wrath and basically anything in BC except perhaps M`uru and Vashj before you outgeared the fight. It sounds to me as if you`re taking Molten Core and pretending all Vanilla raiding was that basic or something. But it certainly was not.
And the stats prove this too right. Something like 2% of the player base even set foot in Naxxramas, so how can it be easy? This percentage doubled many times in TBC, except for SWP, and endlessly in Wrath and beyond. Clearly then raiding is easier after Vanilla by any reasonable measurements. Or are you gonna claim achievement contrivances, where you`re one of ten guilds to kill a boss while blindfolded and listening to Mongolian nose flute quartets?

And my main beef is not raiding anyway, but that everything else has been trivialized and made irrelevant. I mean, you can make a list of all the game elements of WoW imaginable and they will all have been nerfed at some point. Usually many times.