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What was Vanilla WoW like? I am curious to know...
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Post by
Xsound
Raiding was hard. But not that hard as people describe it. The thing is, you could seperate people from skilled/non-skilled which made it so much more fun. You can basically get into any guild now with the gear and your rotation down.
Back then we (classmasters and officers in my guild) made reviews of people after raid and conversed with them, we evaluated them. Each classmaster had to know everyone of their respective class in the raid, and look at their performance. If people simply weren't good enough we'd give them 1 raid to improve, bring them through some dungeons, tell them their pros/cons about their playstyle and make them better/more skilled. It was really a teamwork, with no bad feelings towards eachother. We all appriciated eachothers effort.
THIS is why Vanilla was better.
Post by
2259
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Post by
oddraisin
The thing I miss the most is the feeling that my class was special, and that there were real accomplishments. I've played my dwarf priest since about 1 month after the game opened (I took months and years off occasionally), through classic (raiding 40 man NAXX and AQ), BC, and LK.
In classic priests had different abilities depending on their race (in fact, races in general got a lot more discussion than now). I remember thinking UD priests were over powered with their fancy extra DoT, but in the end dwarf priests did pretty well with their fear ward and NE priests had their AOE heals (I think). Anyway, it was a good time to be a priest, with several choices making you feel different from the sea of other characters.
My most epic moment (still to this day) was solo'ing the epic priest chain for
Benediction/Anathema
. I mortgaged my soul for the components, ran MC to get the jewel, and to this day I still have it in my bank :). It was the only _healing_ quest I've seen in the game so far (which is a shame, because by max level, people seem to have dps'ing down, but there are no quests to teach tanking or good healing).
Having played since the beginning, I will say that the sense of awe has disappeared from the game (except my first time in ICC, which was pretty cool). Instant dungeons and people being way overgeared has led to much less tolerance for even on wipe on 5-person heroics.
But I still like the game. Dual spec and Outfitter saved it for me (as a healer, all dungeons look exactly the same: green bars that all scream to be replenished). It is really nice to switch roles for a change of pace.
tl;dr Vanilla had a better atmosphere, LK is a better game experience.
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146856
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334295
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160546
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Post by
Strafer
I remember when I got 1 gold..i thought for myself...&*!@, im rich.
When i got my first mount now that was EPIC, people whispering how cool i was riding on that thing.
Post by
282759
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146856
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Post by
Nipah
All I can remember is:
Grinding broken electrolanterns in STV to fund my Hunter's mount (before they nerfed their sell value).
Triple Windfury crits = lol enjoy your stay in the graveyard.
I had a Twig of the World Tree and green quest gear, and I could PvP with the best of them on my old server.
Post by
267315
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Post by
Thror
Like a warm apple pie.
Post by
Trezla
Oh man reading this made me feel insanely nostalgic.
I remember the pain of not having enough gold to buy a mount at 40 and having to walk for about an hour to get to a new quest area. then i caved and bought gold online when i hit lvl 56 wich was pretty much the same price as 90k today and i got 500g.
Man i loved exploring new stuff and i absolutely loved experimenting with talent trees. i was dissapointed in WotLK when they kinda forced you to play a role instead of a hybrid. And i am devastated in MoP how little imagination you need to build your talents.(Blizz is kinda saying: Pick whatever we dont give a sh*t... PANDAS!)
all in all the game was very hard back in Vanilla and its probably never going to happen but i wish for vanilla servers ^^
The new WoW just is not adventurous and fun as it used to be. OFC it has its many strong points but it feels like something is amiss. everything comes kinda easy and requires little effort. the game has become more "noob friendly".
All in all for me Vanilla was a much more enjoyable experience than what it is today.
Post by
banokawow
It was grinding hell and then grind some more. All of the things that you have in game now take them away and you have vanilla.
Post by
Velawynn
This.
When I look back at Vanilla wow, I laugh at the terrible game mechanics, but I also long for the simplicity.
Vanilla wow was an adventure. The game wasn't about the ending, it was about the adventure to get to the end. Right now, all everyone cares about is hitting level 85 as soon as possible and gearing up as soon as possible. In Vanilla, it wasn't a race to become 'the best', it was an adventure to figure out the game. The game has become this frenzy to complete everything there is and move on to the newest content.
In Vanilla I felt a sense of accomplishment that I no longer find in the game. When I bought my first mount at level 52, I was proud of myself. I would spend hours in AV, stocking up on supplies, trying to topple the other team, and when we finally achieve victory I felt that I had earned it. The game was more focused on you as an individual player, where you had to jump through hoops to get what you wanted. Now, it is all handed to you on a silver platter.
I hope with Pandaria, Blizzard brings back the sense of 'epicness' to the game.
Post by
Adamsm
Sorry, but I still see Vanilla as the 'worst' part of the WoW evolution, since back then, a lot of things were just a massive pain in the ass and rather then make the game 'epic' or 'fun' actually just cut people out and left them high and dry.
Off the top of my head: All of the available classes had 3 specs...and due to the way things were set up, only one Tree per class was viable, and the other two were useless.
The endless attunments; sure the quest chains were 'epic'...but good luck finding people to do them if you weren't in a high end guild. Also, Onyxia's chain on both sides sucked massive ass, and the Alliance was only a little bit better because of the fight in the Throne Room at the Keep.
Quests: I admit, Vanilla quests routinely pissed me the hell off. The number one hated quest to me: The Essence of Erankius; quest started in the Sunken Temple, sent you off to speak to the Green Dragon in the Swamp of Sorrow, and then you went off to Winterspring to hand it in to a random NPC who didn't send you on farther; that quest has never been updated. Also, in the original Eastern Plaguelands; the two raid quests, which again, if you didn't have a good guild, you had no chance in hell of completely on Alliance side, since most people wouldn't pug up for that.
Raids: Really, not much is needed to be said here. The raids of Vanilla fall into the same category as the current set, except unlike in Wrath and Cata, there was no skipping; you were forced(yes it was forced) to progress through each tier of content, and even then, only about 5% actually got to see the original lvl60 40-Man Naxx.
The Grind: Dear god, the grind. Think about the absolute worst grind you can in Cata, then amplify it by 10 thousand, and you'll see the 'fun' of Vanilla where you had to grind till your eyes bled trying to get that one material to make one item that would be an upgrade(Chromatic Dragon scales, I'm looking at you). And of course, that includes the Raid grinds of the time.
Dungeons: Sure people are spoiled by the LFD tool...but considering that back in the day, if you were in Ironforge and you wanted to get a group for Mara for some strange reason, you'd be in the city for who knows long(again if you didn't have a good guild) and then once you have the group, it was a trek off to Desolace, where if you were lucky, the entire group survived said trek and didn't fall to pieces. Horde side will probably remember Orgrimmar to Sunken Temple. And of course, that's leaving out the 3 hour Gnomer runs(I suffered through one of those), or the endless BRD, BRS or if you were truly unlucky, the horror of Stratholme.
Players: That, I can't comment on. I recall seeing just as many ass hats back then as there are now.
PVP: Sure Vanilla was about the pvp...but at the same time, even on PVE servers, good luck trying to quests in the Barrens or Hillsbrad, since both factions enjoyed utterly decimating cities for hours at a time. And I leveled on a PVP server, and was lucky that I wasn't ganked often, but I did have one idiot who decided to corpse camp my hunter for nearly an entire day; after he killed me again for the 3rd time, I went off and got on an alt, and checked back sporadically over the course of the day, and he was always there, sitting by my corpse, waiting for me to rez.
Travel: It sucked. I level a warrior, and going from 1-40, without any travel modifiers, sucked. I was semi-lucky in that I was 'good' at grinding for gold, so once I hit 40 I was mounted, but it still wasn't all that much fun.
Over all; I was lucky enough that I had some good friends that played the game so that was the main thing keeping me playing. If the game had stayed as it was in Vanilla, I probably still wouldn't be playing.
But as another note: I actually wish that Blizzard would release Vanilla servers, just so that the rose coloured glasses of nostalgia can finally be shattered once and for all about the opening years of World of Warcraft.
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422399
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