ShakyWater
Vice Admiral
I'm not seeing where to download this. Is it not on the elysium website?
Vanilla WoW nostalgia
- Thread starter Frisbeerocker
- Start date
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- world of warcraft
True that. They made a very accessible and enjoyable game! I tried EQ at a friends, lasted about 10 minutes before I got killed and my friend kicked me out for being an idiot, I think. Anyways, it wasn't something that grabbed me the first moment I saw it. WoW was instant love, because it was so accesible, and because I played warcraft and diablo a lot, it was familiar. If you played diablo 1 and 2, most of the stuff like talent tree, inventory and such would be familiar. If you played warcraft, ofc the art, like buildings and characters would suck you in. These small things helped a lot. Also the graphics were kinda nice for that time (although I didn't like it, took some time to get used to the drawn style).
Then after WotLK, the "make it accessible" part got out of hand.
edit: @makute Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out!
I think everyone misses something different from WoW.
For me what ruined the experience is the total "optimisation" and "streamlining" of gameplay, to make it even more accessible. Nothing matters along the way, only the endgame, which let's be honest, is kinda lame and flat by now, unless you are in a world first guild and do nothing else with your life.
- now you only get loot that is useful to you, your alt, or as an AH sale, thus no RP or lore items really. There were a ton of greys with fun little texts and I loved reading them all. It was good world building. Now it's more "streamlined" which in my case translates to "flat and boring"
- you can't mix talents and make a unique but otherwise useless build. I could mix and match tank, healer, and dps skills on my pala, and it made me kinda useless in pure dps, but I could fill any role for a few seconds, and was a unique and fun experience. I was doing it wrong ofc, but still, it was my paladin, not the mandatory cookie-cutter build you must have now.
- you had to use ALL of your skills and spells to be effective, and you had a lot more. You had like 10+ skills/spells that filled the screen, and they were all situationaly useful. You could experiment with them, and a lot times, had to do something to differently to the "basic" spell rotation. Now, if you do it right, you just run up to a mob and keep hitting 1-2-3 to a rhythm. You can't do any variations on it, because your spells and skill are "streamlined" into so few. I miss these complications, although it would slow down the gameplay significantly, and I doubt I would have the patience for it in the long run.
- ppl knew so much less about the games inner workings. There were no item power levels or whatever it's called now, so you didn't have to worry about getting smacktalked by a fucking 12yearold, and getting thrown out from a group for not having all legelndary item lvl 600000+ gear. Same goes for talents/builds. You can do 1 for every class as determind by some asshat on some forum, otherwise you are "stupid and go get cancer". This whole streamlining they did turned the community way more toxic in the long run. I miss being stupid and exploring the games mechanics and getting to my skills and spells.
- you now do not need to interact with another player ever! In the old days you had to, even if you only wanted to take on some simple quests, even while leveling. A single Elite mob would paint the walls of it's cave with your brain, unless you were 4-5 levels higher, and even then it was a challenge for most. Go back to town, holler at a player, ask if he is on the same quest, group up, kill the elite, talk about how awesome you both were, do some more quests in the zone, then part ways. I miss that, although I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't want to interact with most of the players WoW has today. Saving someones life while he gets pummeled by 16mobs 5 levels higher than him will go unnoticed, or get you some negative remark, like "why you steal my kills fgt". In the olden days, it would get you a thank you emote at least...
- exploration is gone. Totally. I miss the times when I had the chance to walk around and discover which zone was appropriate for my level and which wasn't yet. Now you are directed down a funnel with flightpoints unlocking with quests and leveling. This will change to even worse with the new xpack
- because all mobs will adjust their levels to yours! Who the hell thought this was a good idea?? Yeah you can go wherever you want, but why would you?? The quests won't change, they will still lead you on a route throughout leveling, so whats to point? The only thing they achieved with this is that you can never ever feel like you are progressing. This was kinda okay in Legion with the very short leveling and questing, but throughout the whole game? I think this is huge mistake. There is so little feeling of progress with the exploration and skill/talent training gone. Now no matter what you do, how much you grind, how much better items you get, you will always feel the same throughout the whole game. That is just the worst idea they had yet.
- this reminds me, why we had to lose all the RolePlaying from MMO-RPG? The talent trees, and the skill training and buying? I loved the training/buying of skills and spells! It gave my character a story arc of growing up from nothing to a hero! Why take that away? Gaining a level meant a LOT more then just being one level closer to the endgame. The excitment upon gaining a level was huge! What new talents unlocked? What new skills and spells unlocked? Get back to the closest class traininer and check it out! Oh wait, Xroads does have a leatherworking trainer so I can check my crafting trainer as well! Awesome, I made Progress! I accomplished something!
Now you just start with a character that knows everything and does everything perfectly the moment you start playing... You grind through the quests absent mindlessly and every 10-20 levels get to put a point into some talent according to IcyVeins or whatever the standard site is these days, otherwise you are fucked. Again, where is the progression and thus feeling of accomplishment in that?
Did I mind having to level unarmed skill, or when I switched to a one handed axe to mallet? No, Apart from the last 2-3 skill points you could get most weapon skills up in 5 minutes grinding. Which back then, meant about 4-5 kills at max. Today, that would mean 20-30 kills with so low time to kills.
- just like with any game I played recently that has a competition scene, PVP and PVE along with it, got totally destroyed with the talent/skill streamlining and balancing after Arena became a quasi e-sport. Blizz kept pushing "balance" updates, and the only possible way to balance such diverse classes, they had to de-diversify them. Today, EVERY CLASS PLAYS THE EXACT SAME WAY outside of pvp. This is not just an opinion, this is a fact. You push 3 buttons in a predetermined rotation. That's it. It doesn't matter if you are a hunter, a warlock, or a warrior. It's always the same.
They had to do this because they wanted to turn the Arena tournaments into an Esport. It failed, as HotS and Overwatch took it's place, but in the meantime, effected everything in WoW. Competitive PVP flattened all the classes to the same deserted field of nothingness. Your abilities and specs have different names, different colored effects, but do the exact same thing.
1. Do opener from distance.
2. do medium damage at midrange/melee range
3. do filler damage spell to make 1 or 2 instant and crit.
4. repeat
That is the FULL depth of combat in PVE at the moment.
Because this can be easily balanced with the 1-2 other spells that are used in PVP. Since 1-2 expansions ago, you actually get different spells and abilities when in PVP, so the past "unbalanced" complexity of pve could come back without "unbalancing pvp for the pro gamers" (/spit @ 'pro gamers'), but I doubt anyone cares or wants that.
Esports have ruined starcraft to a degree, and now is in the works with Overwatch as well. I already stopped playing Overwatch a while back because e-sports brought with it it's awful toxicity and "balancing" until every hero is exactly the same. Looking at the latest Mercy nerf, Roadhogs gun nerfed to 100% useless, buffing Dva and Symmetra to such levels that it's now almost impossible to win against them, just because "pro players didn't pick them enough". And the list keeps growing.
It was a lot of fun, and now it's a generic online shooter with mediocre gunplay, cartoon graphics and more toxic players then CS:GO or CoD, and that's saying something.
Now I'm angry at blizzard again for their sole focus on "professional pvp", so I'll stop.
May you find more fun in their games then I do now.
:beers:
- you can't mix talents and make a unique but otherwise useless build. I could mix and match tank, healer, and dps skills on my pala, and it made me kinda useless in pure dps, but I could fill any role for a few seconds, and was a unique and fun experience. I was doing it wrong ofc, but still, it was my paladin, not the mandatory cookie-cutter build you must have now.
- you had to use ALL of your skills and spells to be effective, and you had a lot more. You had like 10+ skills/spells that filled the screen, and they were all situationaly useful. You could experiment with them, and a lot times, had to do something to differently to the "basic" spell rotation. Now, if you do it right, you just run up to a mob and keep hitting 1-2-3 to a rhythm. You can't do any variations on it, because your spells and skill are "streamlined" into so few. I miss these complications, although it would slow down the gameplay significantly, and I doubt I would have the patience for it in the long run.
- ppl knew so much less about the games inner workings. There were no item power levels or whatever it's called now, so you didn't have to worry about getting smacktalked by a fucking 12yearold, and getting thrown out from a group for not having all legelndary item lvl 600000+ gear. Same goes for talents/builds. You can do 1 for every class as determind by some asshat on some forum, otherwise you are "stupid and go get cancer". This whole streamlining they did turned the community way more toxic in the long run. I miss being stupid and exploring the games mechanics and getting to my skills and spells.
- you now do not need to interact with another player ever! In the old days you had to, even if you only wanted to take on some simple quests, even while leveling. A single Elite mob would paint the walls of it's cave with your brain, unless you were 4-5 levels higher, and even then it was a challenge for most. Go back to town, holler at a player, ask if he is on the same quest, group up, kill the elite, talk about how awesome you both were, do some more quests in the zone, then part ways. I miss that, although I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't want to interact with most of the players WoW has today. Saving someones life while he gets pummeled by 16mobs 5 levels higher than him will go unnoticed, or get you some negative remark, like "why you steal my kills fgt". In the olden days, it would get you a thank you emote at least...
- exploration is gone. Totally. I miss the times when I had the chance to walk around and discover which zone was appropriate for my level and which wasn't yet. Now you are directed down a funnel with flightpoints unlocking with quests and leveling. This will change to even worse with the new xpack
- because all mobs will adjust their levels to yours! Who the hell thought this was a good idea?? Yeah you can go wherever you want, but why would you?? The quests won't change, they will still lead you on a route throughout leveling, so whats to point? The only thing they achieved with this is that you can never ever feel like you are progressing. This was kinda okay in Legion with the very short leveling and questing, but throughout the whole game? I think this is huge mistake. There is so little feeling of progress with the exploration and skill/talent training gone. Now no matter what you do, how much you grind, how much better items you get, you will always feel the same throughout the whole game. That is just the worst idea they had yet.
- this reminds me, why we had to lose all the RolePlaying from MMO-RPG? The talent trees, and the skill training and buying? I loved the training/buying of skills and spells! It gave my character a story arc of growing up from nothing to a hero! Why take that away? Gaining a level meant a LOT more then just being one level closer to the endgame. The excitment upon gaining a level was huge! What new talents unlocked? What new skills and spells unlocked? Get back to the closest class traininer and check it out! Oh wait, Xroads does have a leatherworking trainer so I can check my crafting trainer as well! Awesome, I made Progress! I accomplished something!
Now you just start with a character that knows everything and does everything perfectly the moment you start playing... You grind through the quests absent mindlessly and every 10-20 levels get to put a point into some talent according to IcyVeins or whatever the standard site is these days, otherwise you are fucked. Again, where is the progression and thus feeling of accomplishment in that?
Did I mind having to level unarmed skill, or when I switched to a one handed axe to mallet? No, Apart from the last 2-3 skill points you could get most weapon skills up in 5 minutes grinding. Which back then, meant about 4-5 kills at max. Today, that would mean 20-30 kills with so low time to kills.
- just like with any game I played recently that has a competition scene, PVP and PVE along with it, got totally destroyed with the talent/skill streamlining and balancing after Arena became a quasi e-sport. Blizz kept pushing "balance" updates, and the only possible way to balance such diverse classes, they had to de-diversify them. Today, EVERY CLASS PLAYS THE EXACT SAME WAY outside of pvp. This is not just an opinion, this is a fact. You push 3 buttons in a predetermined rotation. That's it. It doesn't matter if you are a hunter, a warlock, or a warrior. It's always the same.
They had to do this because they wanted to turn the Arena tournaments into an Esport. It failed, as HotS and Overwatch took it's place, but in the meantime, effected everything in WoW. Competitive PVP flattened all the classes to the same deserted field of nothingness. Your abilities and specs have different names, different colored effects, but do the exact same thing.
1. Do opener from distance.
2. do medium damage at midrange/melee range
3. do filler damage spell to make 1 or 2 instant and crit.
4. repeat
That is the FULL depth of combat in PVE at the moment.
Because this can be easily balanced with the 1-2 other spells that are used in PVP. Since 1-2 expansions ago, you actually get different spells and abilities when in PVP, so the past "unbalanced" complexity of pve could come back without "unbalancing pvp for the pro gamers" (/spit @ 'pro gamers'), but I doubt anyone cares or wants that.
Esports have ruined starcraft to a degree, and now is in the works with Overwatch as well. I already stopped playing Overwatch a while back because e-sports brought with it it's awful toxicity and "balancing" until every hero is exactly the same. Looking at the latest Mercy nerf, Roadhogs gun nerfed to 100% useless, buffing Dva and Symmetra to such levels that it's now almost impossible to win against them, just because "pro players didn't pick them enough". And the list keeps growing.
It was a lot of fun, and now it's a generic online shooter with mediocre gunplay, cartoon graphics and more toxic players then CS:GO or CoD, and that's saying something.
Now I'm angry at blizzard again for their sole focus on "professional pvp", so I'll stop.
May you find more fun in their games then I do now.
:beers:
The game got faster and more streamlined, and I think it made it worse for me. Could I go back and put in another 2 years into a slow vanilla experience? Hell no, I got a life now! But I could enjoy it for a few weeks, probably.
I don't doubt that Blizz did what it had to, to keep today's hyperactive 2 seconds attention span kiddies to play and more importantly, to pay.
It's just not the game I fell in love with.
makute
Space Marshal
I agree with every point in your long list. Heck, I remember being congratulated for hitting a level while doing Gnomeragan with a PUG. Those guys were total strangers to me, but people were amiable and nice most of the time: "Ding!! Congrats! :D"
I would join in, but you are clean, well washed alliance.
Fuck that, For The Horde!
*plays Belf so really shouldn't be talking
Fuck that, For The Horde!
*plays Belf so really shouldn't be talking
Not knocking nostalga, but I think that if you played recently...say, Draenor or Legion, heck even WotLK or Cata, and then went back to Vanilla, it would be a shock.
Yes, I agree you can dumb things down quite a bit, and yes, I do believe they have to an extent, but they have also done things to improve the game.
Ohh, 15 people in your guild want to raid? Sorry, 10 or 25 person raids only, either half sit, or you find 5-10 more people who can show up 2-3x a week, every week for 6 months. (yes, I know it started with 40 person)
Flex raiding allowed more people to participate, and let guilds that could not make 25 teams or even 2- 10 person raids play.
LFR - not ideal, and certainly not conductive to meeting people and getting them into your guild, but in an established game with few people hopping guilds except to escape either bad leadership or a declining guild population, the original reason for non-lfr did not exist anymore. Funny though, the LFG tool for mythic dungeons, etc, is performing the same function these days as the /shout Tank and 3 DPS LF Healer for Scarlet Monastery over, and over, and over again. It also allowed them to maintain servers instead of condensing them as population left.
Finally, with the open interface and add-ons, most people will just develop/use the add-ons that you despise. For example, iLevel wasn't something blizzard really came up with as something to display. It was an add-on that allowed people to see it. The iLevel was still there in vanilla and once people remember, they will go back and redo the addon that came out in Wrath and make it work for Vanilla.
I've done quite a few "vanilla"/progression servers from EQ/EQII. While I have not done WoW as a progression server or a vanilla server, I would say that most of the stuff people really say they like about vanilla, will be overshadowed by all the problems that came with it as well. Things like actually having to READ the quest text because it's writing it out in front of you very slowly. Only once it was done, could you press accept. The instant text popping up? That was an add-on originally.
So, remember, much of the stuff that's there now to "make it easier and not as fun" was an add-on someone made...and they used it so much, that blizzard decided it was good to add to the game. It changed because the majority of people wanted it. They WANTED to see what your ilevel was so that they would know if you were equipped enough for a raid. People WANTED to pick up the pace on accepting quests, and so on.
Good luck, but I think after just a few months, the majority of people who try it will be gone.
Yes, I agree you can dumb things down quite a bit, and yes, I do believe they have to an extent, but they have also done things to improve the game.
Ohh, 15 people in your guild want to raid? Sorry, 10 or 25 person raids only, either half sit, or you find 5-10 more people who can show up 2-3x a week, every week for 6 months. (yes, I know it started with 40 person)
Flex raiding allowed more people to participate, and let guilds that could not make 25 teams or even 2- 10 person raids play.
LFR - not ideal, and certainly not conductive to meeting people and getting them into your guild, but in an established game with few people hopping guilds except to escape either bad leadership or a declining guild population, the original reason for non-lfr did not exist anymore. Funny though, the LFG tool for mythic dungeons, etc, is performing the same function these days as the /shout Tank and 3 DPS LF Healer for Scarlet Monastery over, and over, and over again. It also allowed them to maintain servers instead of condensing them as population left.
Finally, with the open interface and add-ons, most people will just develop/use the add-ons that you despise. For example, iLevel wasn't something blizzard really came up with as something to display. It was an add-on that allowed people to see it. The iLevel was still there in vanilla and once people remember, they will go back and redo the addon that came out in Wrath and make it work for Vanilla.
I've done quite a few "vanilla"/progression servers from EQ/EQII. While I have not done WoW as a progression server or a vanilla server, I would say that most of the stuff people really say they like about vanilla, will be overshadowed by all the problems that came with it as well. Things like actually having to READ the quest text because it's writing it out in front of you very slowly. Only once it was done, could you press accept. The instant text popping up? That was an add-on originally.
So, remember, much of the stuff that's there now to "make it easier and not as fun" was an add-on someone made...and they used it so much, that blizzard decided it was good to add to the game. It changed because the majority of people wanted it. They WANTED to see what your ilevel was so that they would know if you were equipped enough for a raid. People WANTED to pick up the pace on accepting quests, and so on.
Good luck, but I think after just a few months, the majority of people who try it will be gone.
Very very VERY sad, but true.
I totally get why ppl were bored with the same content, and wanted to level alts faster. I get why you would want to see someones ilevel before you take em on a HC25Nax run. I get why you were bored of insane over 2 minutes of transit times between flightpoints. Ofcourse. It all makes sense.
I've only been on a few raids before LFR came along, so I never really cared about the "inconveniences" of preparing for one, and all those this ilevel nonsense...
I don't think they did a bad job with all the changes overall. It was kinda fun playing through all the expansions. I just miss it when it was a game about leveling up while exploring a story filled world, instead of a speedrun grindfest to max level and for overleveled loot, so you can get a fucking achievement for some raidboss kill before your next door neighbour does....
It changed the game, but it also changed it's players, and for the worse, mostly.
Hey, what's wrong with being a Blood Elf? My mains have been BE Prot / Holy Pallies.
ShakyWater
Vice Admiral
It's amazing. I wasted my day playing, and I'm only level 6 and broke.
AttackGoose
Space Marshal
Just started playing on here, to get practice for when the Blizz versions come out. AttackGoose is my toons name.
CrudeSasquatch
Space Marshal
CrudeSasquatch
Space Marshal
How many times did you cut and paste this? Haha
CrudeSasquatch
Space Marshal
EpilepticCricket
Space Marshal
I am going to thoroughly enjoy when the official server goes live and thousands of people come to the realization that most of vanilla wow was a huge pain in the ass compared to today.
Yeah, my wife plans on doing the same thing. She's played a Paladin since launch, and is not wanting to play it due to the way things worked initially.
Bunch of people who play alliance will be very upset when they realize they won't have hero/time warp available to them.
Bunch of people who play alliance will be very upset when they realize they won't have hero/time warp available to them.
CrudeSasquatch
Space Marshal
Remember when we just assumed our Warlock friend would portal us to the dungeon entrance?
It was the easiest way to find a group as dd xD
Ahh almost always a warlock in group
makute
Space Marshal
BlizzCon Virtual Ticket holders will get to play a World of Warcraft: Classic demo:
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzcon-virtual-ticket-holders-will-get-to-play-a-world-of-warcraft-classic-demo/?utm_content=buffer2ca4c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer-pcgamertw
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzcon-virtual-ticket-holders-will-get-to-play-a-world-of-warcraft-classic-demo/?utm_content=buffer2ca4c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer-pcgamertw