World of Warcraft®

I personally don't get it. The game as it was that far back was worse than it is now. The classes were overly simple, mostly centering around one ability where the skill just doesn't exist. Class roles were also centralized to the point where you were either that spec or you didn't raid period. The only "hard" part of vanilla WoW was creating 40 man raid groups that could support going through raids that took 4+ hours.

I also don't understand the hatred against Cataclysm, people keep whining about how getting epics aren't hard anymore. Well ya they shouldn't be hard to get, at least the lower quality epics, people who play casually should have a chance at decent gear and if you want a challenge there is always heroic mode which alot of the people I see whining have never done or it is too hard for them and even then need the two nerfs on DS TEN NORMAL to actually kill Deathwing :]

anyway here's my opinion on expansions

Wrath>Cataclysm>BC>Vanilla

There was a lot more role playing in Classic than now. Our server didn't heave nearly as many non-role players. Because there weren't a million different things the game encouraged us to accomplish, people were much more relaxed about just spending an evening enjoying some role playing. I turned down many raid invites in Classic because it would have interrupted my RP. I still do this now, but back then it was far more common.

Oh yeah, no arenas, no resilience, more world pvp, no flying mounts, less crowded server...I can come up with plenty of things that I preferred about the game in Classic to now.

Nostalgia

I have to agree fully. The game as it is right now is infinitely better than vanilla.

If the game returned to what it was like in vanilla I think I will quit.

I played In vanilla I loved it It was more of the people who made it Fun for me not the mechanics

Someone would report Avarence's post /facepalm. That's so pathetic.

On topic. It's more of a preference. I personally thought Cata was starting off strong with T11 and the 5mans, but then I was severely disappointed from there on out. Wrath was fun. While it may have been overly easy in some portions it was a very fun experience with an amazing story. That's mostly what I think Cata lacks is a compelling story. Deathwing seemed like a great story to begin with, but it turned out not to be.

I have remade Death Knights over and over just to do the Northrend quest chains over and over because I enjoyed the stories involved and surrounding the area. However as an aspiring writer that would probably be my bias.

The ultimate deciding factor here is it's all a matter of opinion.

It's the nostalgia thing, but there are a lot of things I enjoyed about Vanilla. The challenge was one of them; there is absolutely no difficulty in raids, dungeons or heroics anymore. Everything is a Gearcheck or a Tank and Spank. I can close my eyes and turn off game sounds and come out with some epics.

PvP is a messed up joke, an almalgamation of balance that is iffy at best. Still, it gives people some fairness, so not all bad.

But most of all, I miss the quests and chance to wander. There was so much more integration and work back in Vanilla, and my class felt like a unique class. The quests, the skills, the differentiated roles: I -felt- unique. Now, I do not.

That and the gold. Gold was hell to get, but so worth it.

I agree that those who pine for vanilla probably do so because of nostalgia. There was not quite as much vitriol in the atmosphere as there is now, it was possible for people on a server to actually work together, and getting 40 people for a raid didn't take an act of God.

I admit that - as a mid-vanilla joiner myself - there are bits I miss about it...like the points I mentioned above. But there are plenty of things that have gone the way of the dodo which I'm glad for. Like having your dungeons and BGs restricted only to your server, having what you do in a raid judged by your class, things of that nature.

I miss the time when no one gave me free epics even though I didn't know how important hit rating was.

Like Feral, it was mostly the story that did it in for me. I felt a lot of WoW was dumbed down and made shallow. I no longer felt like I was part of a huge world where possibilities were endless, but instead like I was on a Disney guided tour. A good Disney guided tour, don't get me wrong...but it wasn't what I was looking for in a game experience.

But there were other things, too. Like the dungeons. While having a set trail makes it certain you'll kill those two bosses needed for your quest and that your fellow PuGers don't get lost, it also makes it feel like a less unique experience. Every BRD run in Vanilla was different (like the time the mage pulled by blinking in, frost nova-ing, then running back out before he went splat. Soooooo bad, but soooooo hilarious), and it was a source of pride to know places like it and Wailing Caverns inside out, when it was such a confusing maze. My sense of direction was speeshul!

And then the Windsor escorts...egads the Windsor escorts. That was one of the encounters/quests that made me want to cry, but I was so very thrilled when I finally completed it. Sometimes, hard and lengthy is FUN. If not at the moment, then definitely as a good story to tell your friends later. It is an MMO after all!

What was awesome about vanillia:

1) WoW wasn't 7 years old

2) People who played vanilla weren't 7 years older.

A lot of the good memories and good attributes of games we played in the past is actually due to the fact that we were younger. Try to dig up any of the old awesome games that used to occupy you for months and months for many hours a day, and realize how crappy they seem now. The game certainly has not changed; it's you who's changed.

Imagine how awesome vanilla would've been if its mechanics were exactly like Cata.

No one that actually played vanilla says its amazing...just kids that hear fairy tales of the grass being greener on the previous side. The fact is, even in Cataclysm which hasn't been the greatest expansion, WoW is still infinitely more refined and fluid than vanilla.

Feral, someone likely reported Avarence's post because it was confrontational and rude. If someone hadn't already, I'd have done so myself when I saw it.

The folks who think Vanilla was amazing are from one of two camps most of the time:

1. The people who loved a mindless, slow grind to the top where only a small percentage of players got to experience the game's visually stunning, meaningful content, allowing them to gain a modicum of pride in themselves for simply having more time to invest in the game than other players. These were usually converts from EverQuest and similar previous MMOs.

2. The people who look at the whole thing through nostalgia's crimson lenses.

To be perfectly honest, I can't think of anything in terms of the game itself that hasn't since been massively improved on. Yes, the community was tighter, because it had no other option. World PvP happened because folks wanted to fight, and had nothing else to do if they weren't raiding.

The decrease in RP is regrettable, and on that point Imperon and I heartily agree. Walk-up RP was much easier to come by on Cenarion Circle back in 2004-2005. It largely stayed that way until Wrath of the Lich King. I still mark that as the point when a shift at Cenarion Circle occurred. We, prior to that point, were a "preferred realm", which meant if a player new to the game selected "Pacific Time" and "RP Realm" when they launched the game, they were directed to CC. Most of the time they didn't even have to select "RP Realm". As a result, we had log-in queues. We had a massive spike of them at Wrath's release (not surprising), it calmed down a bit, then Christmas happened, and they shot through the roof again. At that point, Blizzard was offering free transfers to a new west-coast RP realm, Wyrmrest Accord, and a lot of people migrated there (myself included; I returned just prior to Cataclysm's release).

There are a sizable number of people who simply never returned. They're still on Wyrmrest Accord. That realm is now, save for the "preferred realm" status, exactly what Cenarion Circle used to be, with the unfortunate addition of very insular RP. They lack the centralization tools we have on Cenarion Circle (the OOC channels, the Hearthstone channels), which means you've got a lot of "points of light" happening there: RP groups/guilds who don't interact with each other a whole lot unless a couple people from multiple sides decide to give it a try.

Walk-up RP is easy to come by there. Stories, however, tend to be very convoluted and lengthy, and hard to break into. I made multiple attempts to get in, didn't succeed very well, and ultimately only got in once I posted on an alt (so as not to damage chances on my main) about how difficult it was to break into RP at all. A few of the more prominent people there got woken up by that, realized they were more insular than they intended to be, and endeavored to do better. By and large, they did.

At any rate, Cenarion Circle's focus has changed. We aren't insular, but we're more event-oriented than one-on-one RP. That's cool. We're also a tight-knit community, which I enjoy. If I ever decided to stop recruiting for the Ebon Sanction, I know of at least three or four guilds who would be happy to take me in (after insisting I sign waivers indemnifying them against damages as a result of actions taken to discourage pants theft, of course...). That isn't something that has as much of an impact on other realms.

Vanilla had its benefits, but most of those benefits were a result of being new, not of being superior by design. The game has done nothing but improve from a pure design/mechanics standpoint, as far as I'm concerned.

I started playing WoW back in January of 2005. I'm not a big nostalgia fan, I don't do things just for the sake of "that's how it's always been". For me, there were things about vanilla that I liked and things that I didn't.

From a game mechanics perspective, things are greatly improved over what they used to be. I don't have to spend an hour hunting down the right level of enemies to collect soul shards from anymore. Yes, there was a little class flavor from it, carrying around a bag of souls, but overall it was a pain in the butt. Or carrying a bag of food for my hunter's pet, or having to find a stable if I want to switch hunter pets, or only being limited to 5 pets and if I needed/wanted something new, I'd have to abandon one of my old friends. Hell, being forced to buy a bag full of ammo on my hunter before raid (ammo which could only be found on one vendor in the middle of nowhere) irritated me to no end.

At the same time, a lot of the individual experience of the game is gone. As an avid alt-creator, I've played just about every class/race combination there is, and back in vanilla it made a lot more difference than it does now. Class quests are an example. Now, everyone gets a weapon quest at 20 and a helmet quest at 50, and the quests are almost identical across the board. Before, each of the classes had it's own unique set of quests that helped explore the lore behind your class, showing you just what it meant to be a warlock or a shaman in WoW.

I could go on and on, but like I said, there are things that I miss from vanilla and things I don't miss.

Feral, someone likely reported Avarence's post because it was confrontational and rude. If someone hadn't already, I'd have done so myself when I saw it.

Add to the fact that she asked for opinions by posting, then attacked him for giving his opinion, I would have reported it as well. She asked, he told, she attacked him for no reason.

What I miss is more along the lines of what we saw in BC- skill to play a character.

I miss class quests. I miss knowing what it meant to be a Druid, and the lore behind each of the forms. (So glad I saved those into a RP back story a while back).

I miss the fact that no matter what, you had to work for your epics. They were truly epic, and you were proud to get them. I still have my T2 pants. Now they are expected and feel like its yet one more hurdle to get over to be able to raid or even to do some of the newer content that is released after the beginning of the xpac.

On the subject of gear; I miss the fact that you had to actually give a damn and work your !@# off to get ready to raid. LFR is a good tool, but to me, its just one more way that Blizz has dumbed down the game too much.

I miss the old way of questing. It gets damn old having to do the same quest lines over and over again for each alt.

I miss having things to do other than level alts. I didn't even have an alt until the Gates were opening. I rolled a skinner to help with the guild's collection, and after that, she sat until after BC was underway.

I miss the old AV. Is it better? Eh, its shorter. But what's the point now except to get HP? They left all the old quests in and so on and forth, but no real reason to play AV except to zerg rush and try to kill the boss before the Horde does.

I miss the feeling that I had when I first saw Rag. That awe that us 40 puny people were going to beat up a freaking firelord.

But most of all, what I miss is the wonder of this game. I miss the friends that I made over the years that have left. I miss knowing who most of the major players are and knowing what's going on around town just by asking. Now, I don't know hardly anyone who hangs out in SW.

Classes being different from one another. (Bloodlust, anyone?)(And yes, I'm alliance and still call it bloodlust.)

I miss instances that were challanging. Not just gear wise, but mentally. I have the unfortunate gift to be able to remember bosses and such, but I still get lost in BRD. Hell, I get lost in most caves. But the Ony questline was the most fun I have had in years.

I miss story arcs that made sense.

I miss the challenge. There is no challenge to this game anymore. It's all about gear and knowing how to dance the dance for each boss. Notable exception: ping pong boss. Gold is easy to get, rep is easy to get, all it takes is time. Heroic modes help with this, but I think I preferred the way Ulduar put hard modes into the game. Firefighter still makes me shudder.

I miss having a reason to log in for something other than mindless dailies or to raid.

What I don't miss: The 40 man raids, the 25 man raids (think BT), the AH only being in one place (god I hated IF), the pidgin-holing classes to specific roles. I don't miss having to try to figure out how to distribute loot to 40 different people, having to pick and choose who deserves it more than the other. (dividing loot between 40 people when the boss drops 2 things sucks) I don't miss having to have X reagent (candles, arrows, ect) for each class, but I do miss the individuality that each class used to have. I don't miss Vanilla. I just miss the things that made WoW fun to me.

I miss the fact that no matter what, you had to work for your epics. They were truly epic, and you were proud to get them. I still have my T2 pants. Now they are expected and feel like its yet one more hurdle to get over to be able to raid or even to do some of the newer content that is released after the beginning of the xpac.

The problem was that gear was much more of a reflection of time investment + raid leader organizational skills. Gear was also artificially gated. Instead of 1 piece of loot for every 5 raiders (which is the system now), you had 1 piece of loot for every 20 raiders (system back then). Of course it felt like more 'work'; when in fact it was just the same amount of work for much less pay.

On the subject of gear; I miss the fact that you had to actually give a damn and work your !@# off to get ready to raid. LFR is a good tool, but to me, its just one more way that Blizz has dumbed down the game too much.

You still need to do that if you want to do competitive raiding.

I miss the old way of questing. It gets damn old having to do the same quest lines over and over again for each alt.

I miss having things to do other than level alts. I didn't even have an alt until the Gates were opening. I rolled a skinner to help with the guild's collection, and after that, she sat until after BC was underway.

I am really perplexed by this. How was the 'old' way of questing superior? The only complaint I see is that you are tired of doing the same things over and over again if you had to level alts. But the same problem existed if you wanted to level more alts; the only difference is you weren't an altaholic in vanilla. I am not sure if that has anything to do with how quests were designed. Quests in vanilla were infinitely worse.

I miss the old AV. Is it better? Eh, its shorter. But what's the point now except to get HP? They left all the old quests in and so on and forth, but no real reason to play AV except to zerg rush and try to kill the boss before the Horde does.

Old AV was absolutely epic. It went from my favorite BG to my most hated BG because of the changes they made to it.

I miss the feeling that I had when I first saw Rag. That awe that us 40 puny people were going to beat up a freaking firelord.

Again... that has to do with WoW not being a new game any more. To be fair, Rag's entrance is still likely one of the most epic boss entrances of all time.

But most of all, what I miss is the wonder of this game. I miss the friends that I made over the years that have left. I miss knowing who most of the major players are and knowing what's going on around town just by asking. Now, I don't know hardly anyone who hangs out in SW.

This is largely independent of the game version.

Classes being different from one another. (Bloodlust, anyone?)(And yes, I'm alliance and still call it bloodlust.)

Shamans did not get blood lust until BC.

I miss the challenge. There is no challenge to this game anymore. It's all about gear and knowing how to dance the dance for each boss. Notable exception: ping pong boss. Gold is easy to get, rep is easy to get, all it takes is time. Heroic modes help with this, but I think I preferred the way Ulduar put hard modes into the game. Firefighter still makes me shudder.

I... don't see how any fight in the history of WoW cannot be summarized as "about gear and knowing to dance the dance for the boss". If it cannot be summarized as such, it's because there's some random RNG thing that kicks your !@# randomly and out of your control. Those bosses are not good.

Every boss is about learning a strat, executing the strat while doing sufficiently good DPS/heals, then hope that the RNG god smiles upon you. There are no exceptions to this rule.

The only difference between a good fight and a bad one is whether the 'dance' is actually exciting. Some are, some (i.e. all of DS) aren't.

I miss having a reason to log in for something other than mindless dailies or to raid.

This is perplexing too since this game has more stuff to do now than ever. In vanilla there was: wait 2 hours to get group for dungeon, then do dungeon for 2 hours. Then run around the same small zone for 3 hours farming 3 nodes' worth of materials against 50 other people and 60 other bots.

The biggest difference was that each minute of playing time in vanilla is worth, on average, much less than now. For example to complete a dungeon in vanilla usually took 3 hours unless you have a set group of friends that are experienced. Otherwise it's 45+ minutes to form group, 20 minutes to get to instance, then 90 minutes to clear. Now a dungeon takes 15 minutes, 25 if you're not a tank or healer. I don't see why anyone would want to spend more time doing the same thing.

I think that overall the game is more enjoyable to more people nowadays, but there are some changes I feel less enthused about on a personal level.

I find that having more to do has, ironically, translated into more grind (and therefore, less play) time for me. I remember needing to keep myself supplied with consumables and gold in Vanilla, which I'm glad to see has mostly fallen to the wayside, though it was a group effort and and not a regular (as in every day, or even week) activity for me back then (e.g. I could stockpile or buy potions and materials, and I often donated materials back to the raid; now my time is filled with endless dungeon runs, dailies-of-the-month, rep, and so on and so forth). This isn't about me either; this is about being as supportive as possible in a cooperative scenario. It's nice that Blizzard has rejigged their content and reward design to make it more accessible, but that's really just translated into more work for me. Overall a win I guess, but every silver lining also hides a cloud.

I also dislike LfR as it's largely demotivated me to continually raid. I'm one of those people who wants to see the content, who views seeing the content as its own reward. I'm sure someone will tell me to "just avoid LfR then" -- my answer to that is contained in the preceding paragraph. I also found it a huge letdown to kill Deathwing for my first time in a group of people who were [performing acts on] one another, cussing, insulting each other... it just wasn't fun at all. I have good memories of many bosses from my years of raiding, but Deathwing isn't one of them.

I also miss fighting the same Horde over and over in the battlegrounds and eventually befriending them. I don't miss the 20-120 minute queues. It's more casual-friendly this way but I do miss the camaraderie.

Feral, someone likely reported Avarence's post because it was confrontational and rude. If someone hadn't already, I'd have done so myself when I saw it.

Add to the fact that she asked for opinions by posting, then attacked him for giving his opinion, I would have reported it as well. She asked, he told, she attacked him for no reason.

Imperon is one of those rp elitists who continually express their belief that the server should be cleansed of people who don't rp. I just don't want him and others preaching in a thread that has nothing to do with it.

P.S. Elgunaz pretty much took the words from my mouth, very well said