How did the Vanilla WoW Honor system work, and how was it effective at keeping a competition?

MMOExposed

How did the Vanilla WoW Honor system work, and how was it effective at keeping a competition?

 

fill me in

doodphace

If you are referring to PVP rankings, the only thing the Vanilla system was effective at, was causing real life player health issues. The only way to be competative on the leaderboards was to literally play every single hour of every day. Any time you spent away from the game meant someone else was surpassing you. Skill wasn't even a factor, total bullsh*t.  I have a friend who would do coke and play the same AV instance for 3 days straight. He ended up developing muscular atrophy because he spent so much time playing trying to stay competative in the rankings.

Hope this answered your question.

rodingo

I was going to try to recite from memory but decided this would be better and easier.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Honor_system_%28pre-2.0%29

 

I also liked that system a lot, but only because back then I actually had the time to sit there and play/PVP for 5-8 hours a day.  Now I'm lucky if I have an hour a day to play.  Plus pre-mades really started to skew that system more than needed.

Kaladin

Vanilla WoW was not good for competitive PvP.  WoW's success had a lot to do with a small level of competition.  It did some things very well in Vanilla compared to the competition, but competitive PvP was not a good selling point.  It really became a competitive thing in BC.

Thebeasttt

Most people didn't take the vanilla honor system seriously because Grand marshal was unattainable by anyone that didn't share there account and take 8 hour shifts on grinding honor. Luckily the game was fun regardless in those days.

Forgrimm

The vanilla WoW honor system was one of the worst grinds in gaming history. The amount of honor required for each new rank was exponentially higher than the previous rank. And your honor decayed if you played less during the current week than you did the previous week. To make matters worse, the amount of honor that you gained wasn't fixed. It was graded on a curve, which was based on the amount of honor that other players on your server were gaining. If a person on your server was playing insane hours every day and gaining a lot of honor, your honor gains would be affected by that.

In order to gain the highest rank, most people had to either play an unhealthy amount, im talking as many as 8 hours a day during early ranks, and as much as 12 - 16 hours a day at higher ranks. Or they would have multiple people playing the account, so they could play in shifts. The grind was so bad and unhealthy that people who did reach the top rank would usually buy the gear and weapons and then take a break from the game because they were so burnt out. They would typically only hold the top rank for a week or so before losing it due to the decay that occurred once they cut back on their playtime.

Because of the curve based honor grading system, people would often make deals with each other, where players would agree to limit their pvp hours while 1 person on the server played like crazy long enough to make top rank. Once that person made top rank and bought their gear, they would stop pvp'ing and everyone would let another person on the server go for top rank. However, people weren't always so nice about it. On my server, we had this insane guy who was retired irl and would play constantly. As far as we knew, he was the longest running Grand Marshall in the game's history, holding the rank for months upon months.

cribett

The system itself was poor , whoever played the most pretty much always came out on top however what made it so fun was every aspect of PvP was Horde V Alliance on the same server , so the community was vibrant, rivalries were made and duked out over an evening on Tarren Mill and week long AV's .

The most fun iv ever had on an MMO was back then good times good friends.

karbonista

Originally posted by Thebeasttt
Most people didn't take the vanilla honor system seriously because Grand marshal was unattainable by anyone that didn't share there account and take 8 hour shifts on grinding honor. Luckily the game was fun regardless in those days.

 

I agree.  I'll take "Tarren Mill 24/7" free-for-all zergfest over any instanced/battlegrounds style system.  I care not a bit for magic internet points.  I just liked the constant battle.

BG ruined WOW for me.  I quit about two weeks after it came out and haven't been back except for one 14-day trial a few years ago.  I found no magic remaining in the World of Warcraft.