The "Those were the best days..." people

[Deleted]

Hello,

Before I address my main concern let me WARN you: It's a rather long read. You have been warned.

Now just a small background, since it will be relevant for the topic:

Before WoW I played a few MMOs like Helbreath, Dark Ages, Ultima Online, Tesa, Ragnarok, Lineage, etc.
I've been playing WoW since 2005 (friend's account, as I got my own in early 2006).
I stopped a few times for like a month or two and once for about 5 months.
I've also played more recent MMOs like Guild Wars (1), Lord of the Rings Online, Age of Conan, etc.

And through all this I've always liked to be up-to-date on all the games I played, mainly through official and fan forums, and I've seen it all from the "OMG THIS MMO IS DA BEST EVAR AND IS GONNA KILL WOW" folks, who just end up disappointed, to the "If you do X I will unsub!!11!" crowd and many other trends, but there's a new one that really, really pisses me off: The "good times" club.

Seriously, people going "omg WoW peaked in TBC and WoTLK!" are so full of it I just feel like punching a pixie. Were you actually around when those two expansions were ongoing?

Are you saying Pandaren are bad and hated by players and that's gonna break WoW? The "good times" of TBC were RIFE with QQ in the forums over the Blood Elves, plus quite a few PvP film-makers (Hordes) unsubbing due to that and only that.

After one month of TBC people were already crying "FAIL" and saying how awesome Vanilla was and how Blizz should introduce classic servers. Now add the pissed off raiders due to the drop off 40-man content to 10~25 only. Now add those outraged over Alliance shamans and Horde paladins. Now those who completely hated heroic dungeons and having 300 keys.

Plus all the tears that the arenas generated and how much of a failed system it has been labelled since day one because X class was overpowered at any given season. Apparently the devs decide to play a new class every 2~3 seasons, thus making it overpowered. Darn.

And World PvP? What a joke. World PvP died way before TBC hit. If you were actually around in Vanilla you will remember Blizzard's futile attempts at bringing it back with the 'PvP objective' stuff in Silithus and WPL that still did not work, and ever since world PvP hasn't been much more than the casual ganking in daily/farm areas. And don't even get me started on the 'world PvP objectives' they introduced in TBC.

Enter "WOTLK". People were calling it every possible bad name and now TBC was starting to have been a good expansion after all. "Everything is too easy", "DKs are overpowered, FU BLIZZ OMG", "omg heroics are for babies", "LOL only ulduar is cool every other raid sux imma play Aion LOL!".

LFD was introduced. Do I need to go through how much QQ that generated? How much QQ is STILL generates up to this day?
Now separate 10/25 locks are like SO SUPA AWESOME GUSY, but if you recall, there was a bunch of folks crying over it since it made it impossible to have proper raiding in the least populated servers or for the more casual of raiders, due to feeling obligated to raid multiple places in two different raid sizes.

And now you come here and tell me how awesome TBC and WotLK were? Oh, please, do tell me how your first day in Outland/Northrend was and how amazing it felt and how much you loved the area and the npcs, and the quests, and the sky and the gear fairy. Give me a break. Cataclysm has many flaws, but by the time MoP is over or the new xpac is in, people will already be including Cata in the "good times" of WoW. You just wait and see.

TL;DR - Close the tab and go do something else, I said it was a long read.

[Confirm Deny]

Prepare for irony
You know, OP, just for relevance (and I'll edit later) I also want to say I hate the "You know, OP, I agree" people who seem to post first in 90% of the time in whine threads.

This is, at the bare minimum, an above average objective list of a few features per expansion which have been characterized by and have characterized group play over the years.
Albeit, there are a few subjective sarcastic-type remarks.

Man, I remember the Eastern Plagueland towers, but I forget what the purpose of walking all the way back with dust on you actually even did in Silithus. Good point bringin that type of stuff up.

Oh, right. I should actually throw in my opinion... I believe that there is a self-defeating argument when Blizzard tries to compromise between revising old features with new additions (speed runs group runs) while trying to throw out even just the ideas for entirely new features. I'm of the opinion that a well-thought out revision is something to be appreciated. With Cataclysm, I think that it has become more clear that revision and "content" are sometimes entirely separate, and confusing, entities for lots of people.

[checking facts]

too short to deserve a long thread warning

anyway, 90% of people will always remember the time when they joined the game as the best and any time of changes (expansions and times like LFD and LFR introducing patches) as bad and "killing their game".

(statistics made up )

[Deleted]

I'm glad you shared your own opinion. Maybe you should try to not get mad at other people's opinions, who favor those certain xpacs ?

[Deleted]

I'm glad you shared your own opinion. Maybe you should try to not get mad at other people's opinions, who favor those certain xpacs ?

So I shouldn't give my opinion on their opinions so their opinions won't get opinionated on?

Just kiddin'.

I just dislike that kind of irrational nostalgia and I had to 'vent' it out a bit. The point is not to offend anyone (except the pixies I threatened to punch). I therefore apologize for my racially insensitive comments towards pixies. Let's move on.

[Fumu]

As someone who joined up at the same time OP, I definitely see where you're coming from. I remember reading pages and pages of Spriests are overepowered in PvP! Locks are overpowered in PvP! And "Alliance Shamans/Horde Paladins will ruin the game!" I remember the griping about welfare epics from back before the resilience split and PvErs were gaining their raid entry level purps from Battlegrounds. And lorewise BC generated an absolute shitstorm with the Draenei's involvement being laughed off and people pointing at the Swamp of Sorrows mobs and saying, "Those are our goat people?!"

Time heals all wounds, including a gamer's butthurt over changes they didn't like.

[Deleted]

Man, I remember the Eastern Plagueland towers, but I forget what the purpose of walking all the way back with dust on you actually even did in Silithus. Good point bringin that type of stuff up.

I don't recall exactly but I remember you had like a "goal" number of dust to gather that gave you a buff or something? I also remember the dust carriers got marked on the map for everyone in the area, plus couldn't use movement increasing stuff or were snared. It was a fine idea on theory but it was a total failure in practice. ;(

[cFortyfive]

I just dislike that kind of irrational nostalgia and I had to 'vent' it out a bit. The point is not to offend anyone (except the pixies I threatened to punch). I therefore apologize for my racially insensitive comments towards pixies. Let's move on.

Irrational maybe from your point of view. But you see a lot of people have different opinions.

[Promark]

Man, I remember the Eastern Plagueland towers, but I forget what the purpose of walking all the way back with dust on you actually even did in Silithus. Good point bringin that type of stuff up

It was an early predecessor to world pvp objectives, like in Hellfire and Zangarmarsh. The idea was that the first side to get 200 dust to their goal area got a zone-wide buff for 25%+ Cenarion Circle rep. It flagged you if you were carrying it and you couldn't mount or you would drop it. It also gave you a 5% damage buff and some rep with CC.

[Lemons]

You're kinda arguing against yourself here...I mean at first you say "but there's a new one (trend) that really, really pisses me off: The "good times" club." Then you go on to give numerous examples about how these people existed in TBC and Wrath as well. So what's new about em? Nothing. Only thing new is that you've finally decided to rage about it for some reason.

Don't really get the point of your rant. I think anyone with half a brain has realized that there will be people looking back on Cata with rose-colored glasses before long even though the general consensus of the community atm was that it was pretty terrible compared to previous expacs.

[Chrno]

got to love LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG posts like this (it really wasn't that long)

Anyway, you can think of me all you want but i dare say it for i believe i have the right to have my own opinion.
I preferred the game back in the old days with all of it's flaws compared to the game we have now.

have a good day sir

[chrisisvacant]

As someone who joined up at the same time OP, I definitely see where you're coming from. I remember reading pages and pages of Spriests are overepowered in PvP! Locks are overpowered in PvP! And "Alliance Shamans/Horde Paladins will ruin the game!" I remember the griping about welfare epics from back before the resilience split and PvErs were gaining their raid entry level purps from Battlegrounds. And lorewise BC generated an absolute shitstorm with the Draenei's involvement being laughed off and people pointing at the Swamp of Sorrows mobs and saying, "Those are our goat people?!"

Time heals all wounds, including a gamer's butthurt over changes they didn't like.

You mean the ones that were added in after BC? Oh.

[Deleted]

Some people just can't deal with change. Then they complain about it - usually irrationally.

[Youarefired]

I am pretty sure people will still dislike Cata.

Actually, they may dislike the entire game once Diablo 3 comes out. YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

[microtonal]

Irrational maybe from your point of view.

Nostalgia is axiomatically irrational from any point of view, even from that of the person expressing it. By definition, it's a yearning for a romanticized and at least partly fictionalized past, not a strictly historical argument based on the objective consideration of absolutely factual information.

A lack of self-awareness and/or honesty on the part of the speaker cannot be used as evidence that nostalgia isn't irrational.

[Dragore]

Don't really get the point of your rant. I think anyone with half a brain has realized that there will be people looking back on Cata with rose-colored glasses before long even though the general consensus of the community atm was that it was pretty terrible compared to previous expacs.

The point of his rant was to point out that "the good ole' days", were actually not good as people like to claim that they were. Sure i can say that the community was not like it was back in the day pre LFD/server/faction change. Doesn't mean it was better or worse just different the game is evolving with time. THis game is coming up to its 10year mark. Ten years a whole decade, like society games must change. Its like looking back to our youthful days, "Remember the days when we used to..." same basic concept. We as human take a good thing from the past and try to replicate those same feelings.

I loved the "good ole' days" of experiencing new things in vanilla because it was completely new i never played a game like it before so it was exciting, everything was exciting. BUt as time moved on come to realize that shit actually sucked. Geting groups doing 5mans that lasted so long, grinding and grinding and grinding. 1 spec for each class. 40 man raids *gun to head*, never again.

The experience of reconnecting ourself with those "good ole' day" feeling are what people want but never going to get again.

[Deleted]

You're kinda arguing against yourself here...I mean at first you say "but there's a new one (trend) that really, really pisses me off: The "good times" club." Then you go on to give numerous examples about how these people existed in TBC and Wrath as well. So what's new about em? Nothing. Only thing new is that you've finally decided to rage about it for some reason.

Don't really get the point of your rant. I think anyone with half a brain has realized that there will be people looking back on Cata with rose-colored glasses before long even though the general consensus of the community atm was that it was pretty terrible compared to previous expacs.

Exactly. The point is people try to make previous xpacs the best thing ever and say they were the pinnacle of raiding/pvp or whatever, and I just find it comical since I remember being there and seeing all the hate. I'm not here to offend or insult anybody or accuse anyone of anything, I'm just pointing out how funny it all seems when you have so many hate posts/videos so vivid in your head about an era so many paint as being epic and awesome with no flaws.

Cataclysm might have it's flaws but I don't think anyone can be honest and say Molten Core isn't a borefest when compared to say, Firelands.

[Firecrest]

This really could have gone into any of the other 50 threads we have on this topic. There's nothing new here. You make the same mistakes regarding this topic as pretty much everyone else with your opinion.

1) You think that "people" means "the same people".

If there’s anything to be learned from the internet, it’s that people rarely change their minds about things they don’t like. This means that the "people" who did not like BC during BC are not "the same people" who say they like it now. You are throwing all “complainers” into one group and treating them as one whole when this just is not the case.

2) You think the things you didn’t like about previous expansions are things no one liked.

It always amuses me when people go on about the laundry list of things they didn't like about BC because most of their hate reasons are my like reasons. For those of us who were skilled, dedicated and coordinated, BC was amazing. For the less skilled and/or more casual crowd, I can understand how it would be tough. But here's the thing... Blizzard is catering to you now. They're giving you all sorts of love and those of us who've been left behind pine for the days when we were the focus of attention. It's not "rose colored glasses". It's the reality of the shift from one demographic to another. And it's okay to be upset when you’re the demographic getting left behind.

Related to this point is your assumption that no one liked BC during BC. This couldn't be more wrong. I loved leveling in Outlands. I loved the forced cooperation required to progress through the gating system. I loved the fact that it actually meant something to be able to say that you've seen all the content. I loved Kara and BT - both still top my list of best raids ever. I loved the fact that when MgT came out, everyone said it couldn't be healed by a Pally and I did it anyway. I loved Isle world PvP (which you somehow managed to leave out of your BC world PvP assessment).

3) You rail against “everyone always saying that the current expansion is worse than the last” without considering what that actually means.

That assumption is just wrong. You can prove this to yourself by just thinking about what it would really mean if it were true. It would mean that the common consensus is that WoW has been in a downward spiral pretty much since launch. This is your argument? That the community as a whole hates the game more and more with each passing day? Good luck defending that one.

Here's the reality. There have been good and bad things for every person for every expansion. Mechanics and polish as a whole have improved. There have also been failings a plenty from day one to today.

That said, the demographic has progressively shifted to the more casual crowd. If you're part of that crowd, then you are happy with the changes and each expansion is better than the last. If you're not part of at crowd, then it's perfectly natural to look back and wish for the "good times".

[checking facts]

Cataclysm might have it's flaws but I don't think anyone can be honest and say Molten Core isn't a borefest when compared to say, Firelands.

I agree that the game is better now than before, but you have to understand that the true thrill of molten core wasn't the mechanics, but the coordinated work of 40 people, each with their own functions (pallies do 5 min blessings, warriors tank, priests heal, druids inervate the priest, et cetera). the 3 roles division (just tank, healer and dps) and the reduced raid size killed that.

I think things are better now, but some people may miss that playstyle. different people find different things fun.

[Deleted]

Don't really get the point of your rant.

I got a feeling it could be shortened as "Blizzard is my god and religion, stop criticizing it".

In some cases the complains are justified. Although some details might have been improved, most people are going to remember Cata as the worst expansion for a long time.