Vanilla was better for the simple reason that people did things because they wanted too, not because it was a part of a quest, or a daily grind, or something a long those lines. I'll never forget the back and forth battles at TM that would last for days. It wasn't a part of some battleground for rewards, or some other alternative objective. It was simply for the fun of it. Vanilla WOW had all of that and more.
WOW was a proper MMORPG in vanilla. There was no instant travel, flying mounts, easymode raids/instances etc and the world felt huge. You NEEDED player interaction at every stage and you needed to think, as an MMO should be.
It has completely lost everything that made it became so popular to start with, which is why it's now dying.
I played wow for 7 years straight 30+ hours a week and never ran out of things to do.
Since LK I haven't played anything for more than 2 months. Not wow expansions, not any number of games that either are or aren't wow clones ... nothing.
nothing you do in any game since TBC means anything anymore. When you raided and raided for an eye and then farmed and farmed for another eye and then practiced and practiced for AOE priest craziness and then finally got your epic, it meant something. It didn't matter whether it meant something to anyone else, it meant something to you (or at least me in this case). Go back to the generation before and it was all like that only harder still. It all meant something which is to say it was easy for those of us that really enjoy community and group play to derive meaning from it.
leveling to 80 and buying top end gear with a universal currency you have been storing up by doing easy mode zerg and solo content for a couple of weeks means nothing to me.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Originally posted by WhiteLantern If OG WoW was vanilla, BC was vanilla with chocolate syrup and sprinkles.......
^ This, BC will be the most fond MMO experience ever to me. And wish I was still in my old BC guild.
That one was a pretty big mixed bag for me. (not to rebuke your opinion, I'm just quoting you as I found BC to be my turning point and your comment was a good jumping point for me, nothing wrong with your opinion ).
I am admittedly a lore-whore, and I am the kinda person that felt Blizzard shot a large chunk of their own lore and the premise of the series itself in the foot with their choices.
However, it did also introduce elements I enjoyed and I did actually experience an increased amount of RP for a while.
But then enough people started going about doing whatever, RP drama, arguments, and moodiness happened more often, and consequently the proverbial shit hit the fan.
Rather honestly I never found WoW's gameplay to be all that riveting. During development it had some more novel aspects to it, like any class could train up the use of any equipment and weapons, and training them up was actually somewhat consequential to your competence with the weapon. It was actually a more malleable game.
Apparently the early testers largely found this confusing or exploitative, so it got paired back to their beta and release sets, and things just kinda rolled from there.
I could ignore the combat elements being sub-par in my mind because i liked the game world and lore, and using it as a virtual social hub to RP was pretty great.
It might not be consequential to players that just want the combat, but for those that want the interactive and social elements at the front, lore and the narrative of the game we are playing is very important. The moment it breaks, the community breaks too. That very visibly began to happen with Burning Crusade. Even with as many people playing as there was, it introduced an element of inconsistency and confusion that caused conflict between RPers.
The subsequent releases didn't help much. Lich King expansion felt like Blizzard blowing their load early, and the end of it all was depressing for Arthas to lose to a sword that looked like a child's toy.
Then they brought in the big old dragon, which confused the issues with the lore even more as that means we were killing another of the last few dragons.
And so one with the updates and the stuff until people just throw their hands up in futility.
Contrary to some people's opinion MMO's don't have to be combat focused, and when WoW came out it's core elements may still have been combat, but it had a richer world and potential driving it, with the vague threats from it's history looming overhead. As time progressed those threats went kaput, were changed, or were simply lost.
That was probably the biggest distinction for me and why I stopped playing.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
This is so true. I remember some people that happened to do ninja loots and such would automatically be known throughout the whole server. Eventually most of them sold their accounts because they could no longer get into the decent guilds.
I couldn't believe the last time I subscribed to it after taking a couple of years break how much the game had changed. Besides the name/sex/class changes you can go to any server you want. Almost any dungeon I did there was someone who rolled on everything even though it wasn't useful for them. People in the group don't seem to care, they just want to get it over and done with.
Needless to say I still have a hard time believing what has become of that game, it was one of my favorites once upon a time.
Originally posted by Issiea People in the group don't seem to care, they just want to get it over and done with.
that pretty much says it all. i rarely had that experience in vanilla/tbc. every mmo I play now feels this way.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Originally posted by Shari Isn't vanilla a flavoring/extract?
in as much as chocolate is poop, yes.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
For me it was better because it wasn't linear. I remember going to different zones just because I wanted to see them. A level 14 hunter going from Darnassus to Iron Forge was a big deal since you had to take a ship to the Marsh place and then run through really mean Crocodiles. And then if that was not enough it was those pesky Troggs or whatever they were called.
Heck, I remember going to some keep in Arathi highlands so I could get new First Aid recipes. Or the hunter quest that would let you get a pet. Did you know that now you get a pet automatically at level 1 instead of doing that awesome hunter chain quest? Yeah............ deal breaker.
Your post brings so many good memories *wipes a tear* , I did all those thing too
I think it was just a product of it's time. First time an MMO had come in such a package everyone has found memories of it... it was also a lot of people's first MMO and we all know you can never beat your first experience. Then there's just good ol' getting burned out on the game. Most vanilla veterans played it for years, they are bound to be fed up of anything the game has to offer now no matter what it is.
If an MMO came out now that was exactly like vanilla WoW.. everyone, well not everyone.. but most, would probably hate it.
In all honesty.. everything that was on offer in vanilla is still in WoW (except skill trees).. it's the players that are different now. I don't mean the game has changed because of the people.. I mean they way we all play MMOs has changed since then. World PvP, for example, is still completely possible and it always has been.. the difference is that people aren't organizing to do it anymore like they used to.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Originally posted by Nurf3duk What I miss from Vanilla WoW(and all current mmo's) is the fact your reputation mattered there was no name change, cross server dungeon grouping or server transfers...If you were an ass then people would know about it fairly soon and you would find it harder to get help/groups etc. In dungeons nowdays people just que the only time they speak to each other is to insult someone, they don't even greet each other, it's do it asap because I have better things to do!!!! (Mostly sitting afk in Stormwind)
This. If somebody ninja'd something, the entire Realm would have heard about it by lunch time and added them to their ignore list. You had realm celebrity, famous as well as infamous, leaders, hated gankers, etc.
Now it's just nothing. Just another anonymous, irrelevant character running around on screen.
I think a lot of what made Vanilla so great for people, me included, was that it was all new and we really did not have websites galore telling us how a battle was done nor did we have youtube to guide us through every challenge step by step.
We were forced (in a good way) to make groups to overcome bosses and even areas. I can remember getting whooped many a time as a solo player and relying on my friends to come adventure with me so we could have a good chance of moving forward. We also did not have mods to pop up all the info we needed to defeat and make everything simplified.
It just required more skill as a group and it felt like an achievement when things were completed.
Sadly now you are almost required to know and have well studied a fight before even starting it the first time. Also solo from 1-90 is so fast and meaningless it really sucks a lot of the fun out of it.
I had most of my fun getting my toons to top level.
Originally posted by Shari Isn't vanilla a flavoring/extract?
in as much as chocolate is poop, yes.
Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (V. planifolia). The word vanilla, derived from the diminutive of the Spanish word vaina (vaina itself meaning sheath or pod), simply translates as little pod.[1]Pre-ColumbianMesoamerican peoples cultivated the vine of the vanilla orchid, called tlilxochitl by the Aztecs, and Spanish conquistador <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernán_Cortés" title="Hern
Originally posted by Shari Isn't vanilla a flavoring/extract?
in as much as chocolate is poop, yes.
Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (V. planifolia). The word vanilla, derived from the diminutive of the Spanish word vaina (vaina itself meaning sheath or pod), simply translates as little pod.[1]Pre-ColumbianMesoamerican peoples cultivated the vine of the vanilla orchid, called tlilxochitl by the Aztecs, and Spanish conquistador <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernán_Cortés" title="Hern
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
A lot of the game in vanilla needed a LOT of work. Talents, skills, CC.
But some of the biggest things that were great, from my perspective...
Server pride.
Learning to know your opposing faction and their better groups/players.
OPEN WORLD PVP and not 90s who sit in low level zones and one shot people.
Before being able to port right into instances, there would be TONS of Raid vs Raid battles. Even small 5man vs 5man. Some of the most fun I've had was right outside AQ with our 40man raid against some of the best raiders on our server.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the whole cross server stuff, especially for instances/BGs. But it really did sort of kill a lot of the "Oh, it's these guys from that guild! I hate them!"
Originally posted by ShariIsn't vanilla a flavoring/extract?
in as much as chocolate is poop, yes.
Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (V. planifolia). The word vanilla, derived from the diminutive of the Spanish word vaina (vaina itself meaning sheath or pod), simply translates as little pod.[1]Pre-ColumbianMesoamerican peoples cultivated the vine of the vanilla orchid, called tlilxochitl by the Aztecs, and Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés is credited with introducing both vanilla and chocolate to Europe in the 1520s.[2] Initial attempts to cultivate vanilla outside Mexico and Central America proved futile because of the symbiotic relationship between the vanilla orchid and its natural pollinator, the local species of Melipona bee. Pollination is required to set the fruit from which the flavoring is derived. In 1837, Belgian botanist Charles François Antoine Morren discovered this fact and pioneered a method of artificially pollinating the plant. The method proved financially unworkable and was not deployed commercially.[3] In 1841, Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old slave who lived on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, discovered the plant could be hand-pollinated. Hand-pollination allowed global cultivation of the plant.[4] Three major cultivars of vanilla currently are grown globally, all of which derive from a species originally found in Mesoamerica, including parts of modern-day Mexico.[5] The various subspecies are Vanilla planifolia (syn. V. fragrans), grown on Madagascar, Réunion, and other tropical areas along the Indian Ocean; V. tahitensis, grown in the South Pacific; and V. pompona, found in the West Indies, and Central and South America.[6] The majority of the world's vanilla is the V. planifolia variety, more commonly known as Bourbon vanilla (after the former name of Réunion, Île Bourbon) or Madagascar vanilla, which is produced in Madagascar and neighboring islands in the southwestern Indian Ocean, and in Indonesia.[7][8]Leptotes bicolor is used in the same way in South America. Vanilla is the second most expensive spice after saffron,[9][10] because growing the vanilla seed pods is labor-intensive.[10] Despite the expense, vanilla is highly valued for its flavor, which author Frederic Rosengarten, Jr. described in The Book of Spices as "pure, spicy, and delicate" and its complex floral aroma depicted as a "peculiar bouquet".[11] As a result, vanilla is widely used in both commercial and domestic baking, perfume manufacture and aromatherapy
What on earth is happening?
seriously .. superglue + palm + face .. its the only remaining recourse around here.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
A lot of the game in vanilla needed a LOT of work. Talents, skills, CC.
But some of the biggest things that were great, from my perspective...
Server pride.
Learning to know your opposing faction and their better groups/players.
OPEN WORLD PVP and not 90s who sit in low level zones and one shot people.
Before being able to port right into instances, there would be TONS of Raid vs Raid battles. Even small 5man vs 5man. Some of the most fun I've had was right outside AQ with our 40man raid against some of the best raiders on our server.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the whole cross server stuff, especially for instances/BGs. But it really did sort of kill a lot of the "Oh, it's these guys from that guild! I hate them!"
Agreed. The things Swanea wrote up there were what defined the Vanilla WoW experience to me.
Yes, the expansions brought in some undeniable polish and extra features (some of which were good, some even sorely needed), but they wore away the open world experience that really made the game.
Dungeon running, questing, farming, gathering, all that stuff was good... But the glue that held all those together, that turned all this into a coherent world were the open world encounters. You damage that, you damage the coherency and all that's left are game spheres that do not feel organically connected to each other.
Mind, though, this is coming from a PVP server player. The element of surprise that ruleset provided was something I could never do without. And the expansions chipped away at it and chipped away at it, slowly but surely killing it.
Originally posted by Shari Isn't vanilla a flavoring/extract?
in as much as chocolate is poop, yes.
Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (V. planifolia). The word vanilla, derived from the diminutive of the Spanish word vaina (vaina itself meaning sheath or pod), simply translates as little pod.[1]Pre-ColumbianMesoamerican peoples cultivated the vine of the vanilla orchid, called tlilxochitl by the Aztecs, and Spanish conquistador <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernán_Cortés" title="Hern
Personally I think Burning Crusade was the best version of the game. It was the right balance between vanilla and a few new ideas. WotLK started taking the game down hill, over simplifying things to appeal to the casual gamer while beginning to irritate the existing player base. The talent trees in MoP are so simple they're almost insulting. Ah, if only we could go back to Karazhan!
It wasn't perfect, by far but as others have mentioned. The knowledge of the really bad and good players (mainly in the social department not skills), the PvP in certain zones (TM vs SS comes to mind). And some of the fun stuff trying to get ready for Onyxia (long ass quest chain just to get the key to access her). Or access to MC and BWL.
Also the cheaper mounts for lock/pally but took forever to get via two more long chain quests.
And Naxx, the whole servers having to work in order to unlock it was really something as it became a real sense of pride seeing where your server was on how close it was to completion.
However, with the evolution of mmos and their playerbase I can see how a game similar to vanilla WoW might not be as popular as how we remember our experience there. Sadly...
Also...the special classes each faction had that other didn't, Shammy for horde and pally for ally. Alot of feuding going on between those two.
Comments
Vanilla was better for the simple reason that people did things because they wanted too, not because it was a part of a quest, or a daily grind, or something a long those lines. I'll never forget the back and forth battles at TM that would last for days. It wasn't a part of some battleground for rewards, or some other alternative objective. It was simply for the fun of it. Vanilla WOW had all of that and more.
WOW was a proper MMORPG in vanilla. There was no instant travel, flying mounts, easymode raids/instances etc and the world felt huge. You NEEDED player interaction at every stage and you needed to think, as an MMO should be.
It has completely lost everything that made it became so popular to start with, which is why it's now dying.
reasons? who needs reasons?
I played wow for 7 years straight 30+ hours a week and never ran out of things to do.
Since LK I haven't played anything for more than 2 months. Not wow expansions, not any number of games that either are or aren't wow clones ... nothing.
nothing you do in any game since TBC means anything anymore. When you raided and raided for an eye and then farmed and farmed for another eye and then practiced and practiced for AOE priest craziness and then finally got your epic, it meant something. It didn't matter whether it meant something to anyone else, it meant something to you (or at least me in this case). Go back to the generation before and it was all like that only harder still. It all meant something which is to say it was easy for those of us that really enjoy community and group play to derive meaning from it.
leveling to 80 and buying top end gear with a universal currency you have been storing up by doing easy mode zerg and solo content for a couple of weeks means nothing to me.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
That one was a pretty big mixed bag for me. (not to rebuke your opinion, I'm just quoting you as I found BC to be my turning point and your comment was a good jumping point for me, nothing wrong with your opinion
).
I am admittedly a lore-whore, and I am the kinda person that felt Blizzard shot a large chunk of their own lore and the premise of the series itself in the foot with their choices.
However, it did also introduce elements I enjoyed and I did actually experience an increased amount of RP for a while.
But then enough people started going about doing whatever, RP drama, arguments, and moodiness happened more often, and consequently the proverbial shit hit the fan.
Rather honestly I never found WoW's gameplay to be all that riveting. During development it had some more novel aspects to it, like any class could train up the use of any equipment and weapons, and training them up was actually somewhat consequential to your competence with the weapon. It was actually a more malleable game.
Apparently the early testers largely found this confusing or exploitative, so it got paired back to their beta and release sets, and things just kinda rolled from there.
I could ignore the combat elements being sub-par in my mind because i liked the game world and lore, and using it as a virtual social hub to RP was pretty great.
It might not be consequential to players that just want the combat, but for those that want the interactive and social elements at the front, lore and the narrative of the game we are playing is very important. The moment it breaks, the community breaks too. That very visibly began to happen with Burning Crusade. Even with as many people playing as there was, it introduced an element of inconsistency and confusion that caused conflict between RPers.
The subsequent releases didn't help much. Lich King expansion felt like Blizzard blowing their load early, and the end of it all was depressing for Arthas to lose to a sword that looked like a child's toy.
Then they brought in the big old dragon, which confused the issues with the lore even more as that means we were killing another of the last few dragons.
And so one with the updates and the stuff until people just throw their hands up in futility.
Contrary to some people's opinion MMO's don't have to be combat focused, and when WoW came out it's core elements may still have been combat, but it had a richer world and potential driving it, with the vague threats from it's history looming overhead. As time progressed those threats went kaput, were changed, or were simply lost.
That was probably the biggest distinction for me and why I stopped playing.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
This is so true. I remember some people that happened to do ninja loots and such would automatically be known throughout the whole server. Eventually most of them sold their accounts because they could no longer get into the decent guilds.
I couldn't believe the last time I subscribed to it after taking a couple of years break how much the game had changed. Besides the name/sex/class changes you can go to any server you want. Almost any dungeon I did there was someone who rolled on everything even though it wasn't useful for them. People in the group don't seem to care, they just want to get it over and done with.
Needless to say I still have a hard time believing what has become of that game, it was one of my favorites once upon a time.
that pretty much says it all. i rarely had that experience in vanilla/tbc. every mmo I play now feels this way.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I Left after Lich King. In my opinion it went downhill from there and the slope is getting steeper still.
I Miss good ole Vanilla.
Your post brings so many good memories *wipes a tear* , I did all those thing too
I think it was just a product of it's time. First time an MMO had come in such a package everyone has found memories of it... it was also a lot of people's first MMO and we all know you can never beat your first experience. Then there's just good ol' getting burned out on the game. Most vanilla veterans played it for years, they are bound to be fed up of anything the game has to offer now no matter what it is.
If an MMO came out now that was exactly like vanilla WoW.. everyone, well not everyone.. but most, would probably hate it.
In all honesty.. everything that was on offer in vanilla is still in WoW (except skill trees).. it's the players that are different now. I don't mean the game has changed because of the people.. I mean they way we all play MMOs has changed since then. World PvP, for example, is still completely possible and it always has been.. the difference is that people aren't organizing to do it anymore like they used to.
This. If somebody ninja'd something, the entire Realm would have heard about it by lunch time and added them to their ignore list. You had realm celebrity, famous as well as infamous, leaders, hated gankers, etc.
Now it's just nothing. Just another anonymous, irrelevant character running around on screen.
http://lyrics.iztok.org/verse/Lynyrd_Skynyrd/Simple_Man/80615
what?
I think a lot of what made Vanilla so great for people, me included, was that it was all new and we really did not have websites galore telling us how a battle was done nor did we have youtube to guide us through every challenge step by step.
We were forced (in a good way) to make groups to overcome bosses and even areas. I can remember getting whooped many a time as a solo player and relying on my friends to come adventure with me so we could have a good chance of moving forward. We also did not have mods to pop up all the info we needed to defeat and make everything simplified.
It just required more skill as a group and it felt like an achievement when things were completed.
Sadly now you are almost required to know and have well studied a fight before even starting it the first time. Also solo from 1-90 is so fast and meaningless it really sucks a lot of the fun out of it.
I had most of my fun getting my toons to top level.
Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (V. planifolia). The word vanilla, derived from the diminutive of the Spanish word vaina (vaina itself meaning sheath or pod), simply translates as little pod.[1] Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican peoples cultivated the vine of the vanilla orchid, called tlilxochitl by the Aztecs, and Spanish conquistador <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernán_Cortés" title="Hern
A lot of the game in vanilla needed a LOT of work. Talents, skills, CC.
But some of the biggest things that were great, from my perspective...
Server pride.
Learning to know your opposing faction and their better groups/players.
OPEN WORLD PVP and not 90s who sit in low level zones and one shot people.
Before being able to port right into instances, there would be TONS of Raid vs Raid battles. Even small 5man vs 5man. Some of the most fun I've had was right outside AQ with our 40man raid against some of the best raiders on our server.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the whole cross server stuff, especially for instances/BGs. But it really did sort of kill a lot of the "Oh, it's these guys from that guild! I hate them!"
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Agreed. The things Swanea wrote up there were what defined the Vanilla WoW experience to me.
Yes, the expansions brought in some undeniable polish and extra features (some of which were good, some even sorely needed), but they wore away the open world experience that really made the game.
Dungeon running, questing, farming, gathering, all that stuff was good... But the glue that held all those together, that turned all this into a coherent world were the open world encounters. You damage that, you damage the coherency and all that's left are game spheres that do not feel organically connected to each other.
Mind, though, this is coming from a PVP server player. The element of surprise that ruleset provided was something I could never do without. And the expansions chipped away at it and chipped away at it, slowly but surely killing it.
I also agree, vanilla was better.
It wasn't perfect, by far but as others have mentioned. The knowledge of the really bad and good players (mainly in the social department not skills), the PvP in certain zones (TM vs SS comes to mind). And some of the fun stuff trying to get ready for Onyxia (long ass quest chain just to get the key to access her). Or access to MC and BWL.
Also the cheaper mounts for lock/pally but took forever to get via two more long chain quests.
And Naxx, the whole servers having to work in order to unlock it was really something as it became a real sense of pride seeing where your server was on how close it was to completion.
However, with the evolution of mmos and their playerbase I can see how a game similar to vanilla WoW might not be as popular as how we remember our experience there. Sadly...
Also...the special classes each faction had that other didn't, Shammy for horde and pally for ally. Alot of feuding going on between those two.