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What was Vanilla WoW like? I am curious to know...
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Post by
296147
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Post by
Rilgon
Even when I killed the LK I barely felt like I achieved it. I felt excited and happy, but it didn't feel rewarding. I was like "sweet I got the Lich King! ...Now what?"
At what percent did you down him at? Did you bother doing hard modes?
Post by
589666
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Post by
Cheatham
In classic WoW it was assumed that everyone got on the "endgame path" at the same starting point, more or less. You would do the 5 mans for blue gear. You might craft an epic, knowing gold was dear, perhaps just to have your first purple. Your only 10 man was UBRS. You'd start raiding Molten Core knowing that the only stat you're likely to get asked about is fire resistance on Ragnaros. The largest gesture towards gearing people faster who joined later were ZG and AQ20. But you still had to raid for those purples. And you would do tier 1 so you could do teir 2 so you could do tier 3. Thus every raid (and even the dungeons for their gear) were "open for business" the entire time.
In TBC you saw a blend of techniques. The analogies to ZG and AQ20 are Karazhan and ZA. Heroic dungeons offered better gear with better itemization compared to t4 raids (than class dungeons did relative to raids), thus losing some of the "epic" to raid-obtained epics. Then there were the "epic vendors" in the center of Shattrath, which allowed you to turn in tokens from running the daily heroic and doing the entry level raid. It still wasn't possible to get fully kitted from token gear and step straight into the latest tier, so you still saw several tiers all being raided as "current content." As someone stated, every guild would relish their first Ragnaros kill, or their first TK/SSC clear, even if it were a year after release.
Now the tier-before-last is made almost completely irrelevant to obtaining gear, as its items are most efficiently obtained by grinding the LFD tool to buy tokens and filling in a few other pieces with easily crafted items (given the easy flow of gold) or 264 items from frost badges. These are the "welfare epics" as first described in a late patch of classic by a blue post, in reference to the honor point system for PvP gear, taken to its eventual conclusion. People who join late do not jump on to WotLK, they jump onto 3.0 or 3.1 or 3.2 or 3.3, and largely miss the experience offered from the first patches. There are no "Naxx and Ulduar guilds" or "ToC guilds," there are only four kinds: ICC10, ICC10 HM, ICC25, ICC25 HM, or some blend of these.
In case you hadn't realized, that is all the same raid. Not only is it impossible to experience classic or TBC, it is impossible to experience the previous patch unless you were there at the time. This leads to a feeling of "content starvation," as the newly-arrived first get bullied for having not grinded gear properly through LFD, and then they get to really* play in one raid even though there were three other tiers in the same expansion already.
* ie, you can put a group together for Naxx or Ulduar or ToC, but it better be an achievement run or a ToC25 for some augments to sets for farming ICC.
Interestingly, nobody has focused on the PvP differences. In classic it was very much "PvE to PvP" as there was no resilience and the amount of damage you could do with raid gear was enormous relative to health of players. During TBC you saw the idea of "PvP to PvE" a lot more, since they offered a way to get gear with stats of the previous tier with less effort than raiding requires. Now there are only weapons and some niche gear that you would do "PvE to PvP" with. Resilience was the biggest change as it made PvP armor basically mandatory as desired gear in BG or arena.
But this entire post talks about gear rewards. In classic WoW, my mage picked up a quest from a fallen hero along the roadside in Blasted Lands, one which led me through half a dozen zones learning a story and eventually confronting a demon on a hill in Blasted Lands. I remember the fun I had attempting and failing that demon with a few other people - he kept knocking us off the hill - and then getting some of them to do the quest line for themselves so they can try and down him again. After a couple more wipes we got him down, at ridiculous effort as viewed just as a way to obtain a 16 slot bag. We did it because it had the element of "awesome!" ... not every moment of which has 10 achievement points attached to it. My mage also happened to collect a shadow resistance set just because of how much hell it felt like dueling warlocks, to see if it made a difference. Just for fun some of my guild and I, when they found out about this, had me "mage tank" the first boss of Mana-Tombs, Pandemonius, who does shadow damage.
These are the little stunts that make the game memorable when all is done... and will be overlooked by "rewards = fun" mentality. People can always pursue the game they like solo, but the grouping experience of the multiplayer game has changed. The absence of world bosses and the fact that every WotLK quest can be done solo goes even further to make social PvE feel less like adventuring in a shared world. It's all about LFD grinds and runs in only the latest instanced raid.
Post by
Cambo
I really approve of this thread.
I started WoW towards the end of Vanilla. I only had a hunter, and I really enjoyed questing and exploring and grinding mobs. I recall stuff happening in Orgrimmar about some kind of war effort, and a few weeks later my guild members invited me down to Silithus. I met a bunch of them in Tanaris and we rode to Silithus. I think the majority of the players on the server were in Silithus, because I saw hundreds of players riding mounts in packs, and these huge egyptian-like monsters fighting us.
I just watched in pure awe, at the opening of the gates of AQ. I was only around level 40, but it was so freakin epic.
Post by
qwertydood
I started right before BC hit as well.
IMO, the reason that Wrath was so much less satisfying was that you were practically GIVEN gear. You could easily complete nearly all the heroic dungeons with one wipe or less right when you hit 80 if everyone knew the fights, and to be honest I actually liked raiding Naxx at the beginning. Ulduar was fun too, and just as exciting and challenging as BC.
Once the Argent Tournament hit, it all went downhill. All of a sudden, people were running around in full epics just from farming one REGULAR dungeon and doing the heroic version of the same dungeon every day. The raid itself was hardly exciting (fighting bosses consecutively in the same room = boring. talk about lazy design). Then, ICC came, and with it 3 heroics that dropped Ulduar-level epics and you could get any other 232 (iirc, haven't played in a while) gear you needed just from doing regular heroics. Not to mention ICC being one of the most bland and boring raids (behind ToC) ever. It wouldn't have been as bad if there weren't 3 dungeons with the exact same "feel" to them implemented at the same time.
TL:DR - Once Argent Tourney hit, epics were given out like candy to anyone and everyone, which made getting new gear feel like a chore rather than something to look forward to. That, and the raid design went from epic as hell (Ulduar) to boring as hell (ToC) to "been there, done that" (ICC).
From what it seems, though, all these problems are being alleviated in Cataclysm, or at least before the first major patch hits.
Post by
abulurd
I started right before BC hit as well.
IMO, the reason that Wrath was so much less satisfying was that you were practically GIVEN gear. You could easily complete nearly all the heroic dungeons with one wipe or less right when you hit 80 if everyone knew the fights, and to be honest I actually liked raiding Naxx at the beginning. Ulduar was fun too, and just as exciting and challenging as BC.
Once the Argent Tournament hit, it all went downhill. All of a sudden, people were running around in full epics just from farming one REGULAR dungeon and doing the heroic version of the same dungeon every day. The raid itself was hardly exciting (fighting bosses consecutively in the same room = boring. talk about lazy design). Then, ICC came, and with it 3 heroics that dropped Ulduar-level epics and you could get any other 232 (iirc, haven't played in a while) gear you needed just from doing regular heroics. Not to mention ICC being one of the most bland and boring raids (behind ToC) ever. It wouldn't have been as bad if there weren't 3 dungeons with the exact same "feel" to them implemented at the same time.
TL:DR - Once Argent Tourney hit, epics were given out like candy to anyone and everyone, which made getting new gear feel like a chore rather than something to look forward to. That, and the raid design went from epic as hell (Ulduar) to boring as hell (ToC) to "been there, done that" (ICC).
From what it seems, though, all these problems are being alleviated in Cataclysm, or at least before the first major patch hits.
Hmmmm.
In 3.0 you ran heroics to get geared to start the latest raid.
In 3.3.5 you run heroics to get geared to start the latest raid.
This is different how?
Post by
Pwntiff
Hmmmm.
In 3.0 you ran heroics to get geared to start the latest raid.
In 3.3.5 you run heroics to get geared to start the latest raid.
This is different how?
It's different from the TBC model, which is what I believe he's comparing to.
To pull my response out of the Cataclysm "Will Raid Progression Return?" thread:
I could live with this:
lvl85 quests -> Normals -> Heroics -> T(x-1) -> T(x)
where
x
is the current tier.
Post by
620626
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Post by
296147
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Post by
abulurd
Even when I killed the LK I
barely felt like I achieved it. I felt excited and happy, but it didn't feel rewarding
. I was like "sweet I got the Lich King! ...Now what?"
At what percent did you down him at? Did you bother doing hard modes?
I did do a few hardmodes but I killed the LK quite recently. Since there's even no incentive to turn off the buff why should we?
Turn the buff off if you want a feeling of reward.
Post by
571303
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Post by
Monday
I think achievements and gear handed out on a silver plate ruined all this. Back in vanilla you didn't get an achievement for every little efford you put into the game, so you weren't used to getting rewarded for everything. So people helped, joined lower-tier raids or raid quests(darrowshire anyone?) just to have fun.
Meh. Achievements added a way for people who didn't want to raid/PvP get rewarded for their efforts in playing to have fun, not to be the best.
Besides, most lower tiered raids have an achievement, thus having people go to it not only for fun, but for other stuff (like a title.)
I don't see how achievements are bad.
Post by
571303
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Post by
lonewarrior
Trust me, people say it was fun and they should put it back. THEY ARE LIEING. It was HORRIBLE.
Yet..you continued to play vanilla WoW through 60 levels that you thought was horrible. What a joke statement. Another "breast feed me" player that this game has catered to.
Vanilla was and will always be different for the fact that it was 60 levels of leveling.
Vanilla was where you learned your class and grew as a player the first time you leveled a toon.
BC and WotLK are just are just what they were called, expansions..to keep you playing.
In those expansions you showed what you learned and what kind of player you grew into.
Post by
455621
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Post by
567203
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Post by
78077
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Post by
yojambamon
The part with the searching for healers on the /who list persisted in TBC too-and was very funny :P.
Post by
455621
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