WoW Pre BC

I totally agree 100%. I quit 2 months into Burning Crusades. Vanilla WoW was and still is the best.

Oh sorry, I'm very new to the forum and sorry if i should of posted it somewhere else.blizzgeek

Nope, this is a good place to have this.

No doubt 1-60 WOW was the best but TBC was pretty good to me. It was WOTLK that messed it all up.

If you say so.. I thought WoW's end game for the original was garbage.. And the PVP was probably some of the most imbalanced out there.. Not to mention classes were completely imbalanced pve, or numerous features like auto finding groups were absent.. I will say I liked BC's oen much more then Wrath's.. But the original? Hell no.

Welcome to the forums man.

As for your concerns, well, I enjoyed vanilla WoW (still do, currently leveling a shaman and a warlock, both in their 30s) but the expansions were also great. I agree they completely changed a lot of the fundamentals, but frankly I would take a noob-friendly MMO with a huge community and a lot of depth over a hardcore MMO with a lot of depth and a small community.

"Noob" is too harsh imo, anyway...I would call WoW the "Everyman's MMO"

I really enjoyed the old honor system it made extremely competitive during the week with the top 10-15 people going for GM or HW.blizzgeek

[QUOTE="blizzgeek"]I really enjoyed the old honor system it made extremely competitive during the week with the top 10-15 people going for GM or HW.nethernova

pretty much this.

Not criticising you TC, but frankly the changes they made to casualize WoW were for the best.

Prior to WoW and its expansions, MMO players were stereotyped poorly and for good reasons. WoW sort of opened the genre to the world.

Vanilla WoW...really wasnt all that great.

The old honor system was absolutely terrible for healers. I hated it so much. Healers were necessary but got the short end of the stick. Nothing, NOTHING was worse than placing a weak Heal-Over-Time spell only to get bombarded by 8 enemy NPC's because no one bohers to hold aggro. After a while i just didnt bother to heal anyone other than myself, guild mates, and my brother...meanwhile i kept getting nasty /whispers of "why dont you healz me!?!?!"

The GM/HW was a grind directly proportional to the time invested. Sorry, thats a fail game mechanic if i ever saw one. You know what else is a mechanics that rewards you proportional to the time invested? An hourly job. Thats exactly what it was and felt like; another job. Thats fun? Are you serious?

Oh sorry, I'm very new to the forum and sorry if i should of posted it somewhere else.blizzgeek

I started playing about 6 months after launch and have played on and off for 5 years. I have to say for the most part I agree with the OP. BC raid progression and leveling seems to have been poorly designed - opening raid was way to difficult and the rewards were terrible. It took them months to sort that out. They also severely nerfed or changed a lot of class mechanics that were much loved in the original (Mage shatter combos anyone?). Arena IMO was the worst thing to happen post-vanilla as it forced Blizz to try and balance classes around small group PvP, which screwed PvE and battleground balance half the time. That's not even mentioning the colossall amount of whining that accompanies all things arena and the fact it pits the PvE crowd against the PvP crowd.

WofLK was better, the leveling was smother, more interesting quests, raid progression was MUCH more accessible, but again focusing on arenas really detracted from most people's PvP experience. Again they changed class mechanics and balance that people liked.

As for Cataclysm, the changes they are making seems to be somewhat of an admission that the screwed some things up. BG's will be the focus for PvP again, throwing out filler talents and giving people spec abilities early on, streamlining skill progression, etc... It just seems lazy to me though that they are just revamping a lot of old content, especially in the raid area. I'll probably give it a shot, but I doubt it will hold my attention for more than a month or two.

Well last I played was somewhere when Icecrown Citadel got released, I like the expansions. However WotLK was sort of disappointing (Lack of Nerubian and Vyrkul raid and then the badge system) I liked TBC, I might try Cataclysm whenever it comes out.

My best experiences of WoW are from vanilla, but vanilla is far from what WoW is today. WoW has fixed every problem there was in vanilla (And added some new ones) but the new WoW is better. I've been playing since launch with 1-5 month breaks in between, mostly casual so I have played through every expansion and near every major content patch. If anything BC messed up WoW, and WOTLK fixed it IMO, dunno why people think WOTLK ruined anything, BC implemented all the crap elements of WoW today, and WOTLK implemented all of the great elements of WoW today.Im_single

I miss the difficulty of the game. When you got something you earned it. Now blizz gives a lot of gear away with little or no effort.

No doubt 1-60 WOW was the best but TBC was pretty good to me. It was WOTLK that messed it all up.

mattuk69

I don't think they ruined the game, I think the massive influx of casuals and total destruction of any sort of community are what ruined a game. You may think grinding ZG for months just so you could gear up enough to stay alive in MC was fun, or having to farm AQ40 over and over again just to survive in naxx was fun, but I don't.

There were no summon stones, for a while there were no cross-server BG's, you had to go to battlemasters, PVP gear required one hell of a grind, no dungeon finder, no emblems, you would run out of quests and would have to grind entire levels, and it would take at least an hour to get everyone to any instance.

Despite all those issues, what made the game fun was the community and the sense of accomplishment. When you saw a person wearing an epic, it meant something. It was so thrilling to see anyone with a corrupted ashbringer or even ashkandi. The epic class quest lines were incredible, and you would have to be lucky if you were in a guild that could raid or could at least gear people up to D2. Those are the things I miss about WoW.

I don't think they ruined the game, I think the massive influx of casuals and total destruction of any sort of community are what ruined a game. You may think grinding ZG for months just so you could gear up enough to stay alive in MC was fun, or having to farm AQ40 over and over again just to survive in naxx was fun, but I don't.

There were no summon stones, for a while there were no cross-server BG's, you had to go to battlemasters, PVP gear required one hell of a grind, no dungeon finder, no emblems, you would run out of quests and would have to grind entire levels, and it would take at least an hour to get everyone to any instance.

Despite all those issues, what made the game fun was the community and the sense of accomplishment. When you saw a person wearing an epic, it meant something. It was so thrilling to see anyone with a corrupted ashbringer or even ashkandi. The epic class quest lines were incredible, and you would have to be lucky if you were in a guild that could raid or could at least gear people up to D2. Those are the things I miss about WoW.

shakmaster13

MC came out after ZG. You didn't need ZG gear AT ALL to do MC. The hunter class quest was the most fun i've ever had (without social aspect) in WoW. Rest I pretty much agree with but you can't knock WoW for not having cross server stuff because that's difficult to implement imo and it sort of takes away from building a friends list.

I miss the difficulty of the game. When you got something you earned it. Now blizz gives a lot of gear away with little or no effort.

Sacif

i dont

I refuse to spend 100+ hours for "epic" shoulders.

Hell, it takes about 10-20 hours to get enough emblems of triumph for gear, and even that is too long.

I don't know, I can see your point but there was a lot of bad stuff to Vanilla.

The game was extremely imbalanced back then and for longer periods of time. As well, you have to consider the 'newness' factor. Everyone loved Vanilla on their first play through, if they didn't they probably wouldn't have even tested the expansions.

But as time moved on, there were glaring flaws with Vanilla. Not being able to spec any tree for raids is not okay. And difficulty wasn't as much an issue as time involvement was. I wouldn't say Vanilla was challenging, but rather much more time demanding.

But the expansions had faults as well. BC still had some balance issues and Wrath had a really weak raid progression.

In the end though, Cataclysm seems to strike the best balance. It doesn't demand excess time but rather skill and thought, from the dungeons I've seen.

The early Cataclysm dungeons seem to require more thought than many, if not all, Wrath heroics.

[QUOTE="shakmaster13"]

I don't think they ruined the game, I think the massive influx of casuals and total destruction of any sort of community are what ruined a game. You may think grinding ZG for months just so you could gear up enough to stay alive in MC was fun, or having to farm AQ40 over and over again just to survive in naxx was fun, but I don't.

There were no summon stones, for a while there were no cross-server BG's, you had to go to battlemasters, PVP gear required one hell of a grind, no dungeon finder, no emblems, you would run out of quests and would have to grind entire levels, and it would take at least an hour to get everyone to any instance.

Despite all those issues, what made the game fun was the community and the sense of accomplishment. When you saw a person wearing an epic, it meant something. It was so thrilling to see anyone with a corrupted ashbringer or even ashkandi. The epic class quest lines were incredible, and you would have to be lucky if you were in a guild that could raid or could at least gear people up to D2. Those are the things I miss about WoW.

Morello964

MC came out after ZG. You didn't need ZG gear AT ALL to do MC. The hunter class quest was the most fun i've ever had (without social aspect) in WoW. Rest I pretty much agree with but you can't knock WoW for not having cross server stuff because that's difficult to implement imo and it sort of takes away from building a friends list.

I never played in Vanilla, but WoTLK made the game easier and atleast now everyone can raid and not just 15% of the community.

Yes i too loved WoW pre BC. I like alot of the gameplay change though, UI and such i mean. I wish they would make servers just vanilla wow...is this even possible?

I used to love the 10 man strat and scholo runs lol.

I quited playing WoW after 3 months of release of TBC i had full tier 2 rogue dam i miss those days and IMO reseliance runed WoW.

I don't know, I can see your point but there was a lot of bad stuff to Vanilla.

The game was extremely imbalanced back then and for longer periods of time. As well, you have to consider the 'newness' factor. Everyone loved Vanilla on their first play through, if they didn't they probably wouldn't have even tested the expansions.

But as time moved on, there were glaring flaws with Vanilla. Not being able to spec any tree for raids is not okay. And difficulty wasn't as much an issue as time involvement was. I wouldn't say Vanilla was challenging, but rather much more time demanding.

But the expansions had faults as well. BC still had some balance issues and Wrath had a really weak raid progression.

In the end though, Cataclysm seems to strike the best balance. It doesn't demand excess time but rather skill and thought, from the dungeons I've seen.

The early Cataclysm dungeons seem to require more thought than many, if not all, Wrath heroics.

solidsnake2050

Here's why the expansions made the game better:

• No more struggling to get enough people in your guild for raids
• No more mindless grinding for PvP titles. Now they take skill
• Flying mounts
• Arena PvP adding a new competitive level to the game and putting ex-rank 14 players to shame
• The best PvP sets take skill to aquire rather than mindless grinding
• PvP gear is available to everyone
• Resillience
• Badge gear available for people who don't want to spend hours per day raiding. Although raiding still produces better gear
• Ability to find dungeon groups much easier
• World PvP zone which will be the main daily quest hub for either the Horde or the Alliance

These are the things that spring to mind. In Cataclysm you might have to be at the instance in order to find a group, which keeps the ease of finding groups but brings back the feel of adventuring.

PvP ranks are back for rated battlegrounds. So you're bound to see guild matches more often and people building PvP teams.

I miss the difficulty of the game. When you got something you earned it. Now blizz gives a lot of gear away with little or no effort.

Sacif

Most games get harder as you progress. WoW, aside (maybe) from dungeons, gets easier. They're doing it wrong.

I should be careful what I wish for though. It seems that they are going to "fix" the situation be making all of the early levels easier. :P :(

Oh well, it's not like I intended to go back to the game again anyway.

I don't necesarily think WoW has gotten any easier, it is easier to gear up but that is because there are gear options available now that werent before (Badges, heroics, etc.) that's not to say that the top tier raiding game isn't difficult, in fact it is just as, if not more difficult than previous WoW ever was, not to mention top tier arena is highly competetive. WoW is more accessible now than it ever was, which is IMO a great thing, because not everyone has time to gear up and do the high end raid content, for those people who play more casually there is casual focused content that gives appropriate ilvl gear for the time invested, and for the people who want to invest more time and skill there is that content available too. Vanilla WoW had content only for hardcore players, the casual content did not exist in Vanilla. Whereas WoW today has the hardcore content for hardcore players and it has the casual content for casual players.Im_single

WotLK, I could get quite a few "adds" and be able to take them out and barely even try. Low level content, I'd often have to use every tool at my disposal to deal with those situations. I'm talking about plain old soloing. Why does THAT get easier?

[QUOTE="blizzgeek"]I really enjoyed the old honor system it made extremely competitive during the week with the top 10-15 people going for GM or HW.nethernova

[QUOTE="Im_single"]I don't necesarily think WoW has gotten any easier, it is easier to gear up but that is because there are gear options available now that werent before (Badges, heroics, etc.) that's not to say that the top tier raiding game isn't difficult, in fact it is just as, if not more difficult than previous WoW ever was, not to mention top tier arena is highly competetive. WoW is more accessible now than it ever was, which is IMO a great thing, because not everyone has time to gear up and do the high end raid content, for those people who play more casually there is casual focused content that gives appropriate ilvl gear for the time invested, and for the people who want to invest more time and skill there is that content available too. Vanilla WoW had content only for hardcore players, the casual content did not exist in Vanilla. Whereas WoW today has the hardcore content for hardcore players and it has the casual content for casual players.StopThePresses

WotLK, I could get quite a few "adds" and be able to take them out and barely even try. Low level content, I'd often have to use every tool at my disposal to deal with those situations. I'm talking about plain old soloing. Why does THAT get easier?

[QUOTE="StopThePresses"]

[QUOTE="Im_single"]I don't necesarily think WoW has gotten any easier, it is easier to gear up but that is because there are gear options available now that werent before (Badges, heroics, etc.) that's not to say that the top tier raiding game isn't difficult, in fact it is just as, if not more difficult than previous WoW ever was, not to mention top tier arena is highly competetive. WoW is more accessible now than it ever was, which is IMO a great thing, because not everyone has time to gear up and do the high end raid content, for those people who play more casually there is casual focused content that gives appropriate ilvl gear for the time invested, and for the people who want to invest more time and skill there is that content available too. Vanilla WoW had content only for hardcore players, the casual content did not exist in Vanilla. Whereas WoW today has the hardcore content for hardcore players and it has the casual content for casual players.-Unreal-

WotLK, I could get quite a few "adds" and be able to take them out and barely even try. Low level content, I'd often have to use every tool at my disposal to deal with those situations. I'm talking about plain old soloing. Why does THAT get easier?

[QUOTE="nethernova"][QUOTE="blizzgeek"]I really enjoyed the old honor system it made extremely competitive during the week with the top 10-15 people going for GM or HW.Birdy09

Do you mean like:

• Grand Crusader
• Gladiator
• Insane
• Celestial Defender
• Conqueror of Naxxramas
• Magic Seeker
• Obsidian Slayer
• Shadowmourne
• Tho'ridal
• Gladiator's Frostwyrms and Netherdrakes
• Amani Bears
• Mimiron's Head
• Ashes of A'lar
• Herald of the Titans
• Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher

Yeah they have those.

[QUOTE="-Unreal-"][QUOTE="StopThePresses"] Regular content is easier. In the early zones, mobs are more likely to catch you off guard and gang up on you and such, and then on top of that, the gear you get from doing quests is not as good relative to the enemies

.

WotLK, I could get quite a few "adds" and be able to take them out and barely even try. Low level content, I'd often have to use every tool at my disposal to deal with those situations. I'm talking about plain old soloing. Why does THAT get easier?

StopThePresses

[QUOTE="Birdy09"][QUOTE="nethernova"] How anyone could have enjoyed that is beyond me. Only people with absolutely no social life could reach something because you had to be online 24/7.-Unreal-

Do you mean like:

• Grand Crusader
• Gladiator
• Insane
• Celestial Defender
• Conqueror of Naxxramas
• Magic Seeker
• Obsidian Slayer
• Shadowmourne
• Tho'ridal
• Gladiator's Frostwyrms and Netherdrakes
• Amani Bears
• Mimiron's Head
• Ashes of A'lar
• Herald of the Titans
• Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher

Yeah they have those.

[QUOTE="-Unreal-"]

[QUOTE="Birdy09"] MMO should have heights that only a few players would reach....Birdy09

Do you mean like:

• Grand Crusader
• Gladiator
• Insane
• Celestial Defender
• Conqueror of Naxxramas
• Magic Seeker
• Obsidian Slayer
• Shadowmourne
• Tho'ridal
• Gladiator's Frostwyrms and Netherdrakes
• Amani Bears
• Mimiron's Head
• Ashes of A'lar
• Herald of the Titans
• Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher

Yeah they have those.

[QUOTE="Birdy09"][QUOTE="-Unreal-"]

Do you mean like:

• Grand Crusader
• Gladiator
• Insane
• Celestial Defender
• Conqueror of Naxxramas
• Magic Seeker
• Obsidian Slayer
• Shadowmourne
• Tho'ridal
• Gladiator's Frostwyrms and Netherdrakes
• Amani Bears
• Mimiron's Head
• Ashes of A'lar
• Herald of the Titans
• Icebound Frostbrood Vanquisher

Yeah they have those.

-Unreal-

[QUOTE="-Unreal-"]

[QUOTE="Birdy09"] Whoa Titles and Vanity Mounts/pets :roll:Birdy09

[QUOTE="StopThePresses"][QUOTE="-Unreal-"] Because you as a character have by that point, travelled accross most of the world and Outland, killed many many enemies, become more and more skilled at using various weapons (weapon skills) and have aquired more and more powerful equipment. It's only natural to have the player feel stronger as they progress through the game.-Unreal-

[QUOTE="shakmaster13"]

I don't think they ruined the game, I think the massive influx of casuals and total destruction of any sort of community are what ruined a game. You may think grinding ZG for months just so you could gear up enough to stay alive in MC was fun, or having to farm AQ40 over and over again just to survive in naxx was fun, but I don't.

There were no summon stones, for a while there were no cross-server BG's, you had to go to battlemasters, PVP gear required one hell of a grind, no dungeon finder, no emblems, you would run out of quests and would have to grind entire levels, and it would take at least an hour to get everyone to any instance.

Despite all those issues, what made the game fun was the community and the sense of accomplishment. When you saw a person wearing an epic, it meant something. It was so thrilling to see anyone with a corrupted ashbringer or even ashkandi. The epic class quest lines were incredible, and you would have to be lucky if you were in a guild that could raid or could at least gear people up to D2. Those are the things I miss about WoW.

Morello964

MC came out after ZG. You didn't need ZG gear AT ALL to do MC. The hunter class quest was the most fun i've ever had (without social aspect) in WoW. Rest I pretty much agree with but you can't knock WoW for not having cross server stuff because that's difficult to implement imo and it sort of takes away from building a friends list.

This is incorrect. Mc was first introduced and then ZG. It was blizz's first steps in making the game easier for the masses to get into their end game content. The bosses and pulls were much easier than the trash in MC and the bosses had considerably less HP.

ZG was introduced in Patch 1.7 LINK

MC was introduced at the bginning of WoW LINK ("It was one of two forty (40) player raid dungeons available upon release of World of Warcraft,")

Pre-tbc WoW was pretty much a mess in terms of balance, the amount of bugs and variety. It's only redeeming quality was for the people who had the time to spend raiding the highest content.

[QUOTE="-Unreal-"]

[QUOTE="StopThePresses"] It's only natural to make the game more boring then.StopThePresses

Pre-tbc WoW was pretty much a mess in terms of balance, the amount of bugs and variety. It's only redeeming quality was for the people who had the time to spend raiding the highest content.

cyborg100000

Yeah 40 man raids with a good guild was a ton of fun. I would rather have 25 man though but still a lot of good memories (minus Onyxia's Lair and thaddius wipes in 40 Naxx :P ).

[QUOTE="Morello964"]

[QUOTE="shakmaster13"]

I don't think they ruined the game, I think the massive influx of casuals and total destruction of any sort of community are what ruined a game. You may think grinding ZG for months just so you could gear up enough to stay alive in MC was fun, or having to farm AQ40 over and over again just to survive in naxx was fun, but I don't.

There were no summon stones, for a while there were no cross-server BG's, you had to go to battlemasters, PVP gear required one hell of a grind, no dungeon finder, no emblems, you would run out of quests and would have to grind entire levels, and it would take at least an hour to get everyone to any instance.

Despite all those issues, what made the game fun was the community and the sense of accomplishment. When you saw a person wearing an epic, it meant something. It was so thrilling to see anyone with a corrupted ashbringer or even ashkandi. The epic class quest lines were incredible, and you would have to be lucky if you were in a guild that could raid or could at least gear people up to D2. Those are the things I miss about WoW.

Sacif

MC came out after ZG. You didn't need ZG gear AT ALL to do MC. The hunter class quest was the most fun i've ever had (without social aspect) in WoW. Rest I pretty much agree with but you can't knock WoW for not having cross server stuff because that's difficult to implement imo and it sort of takes away from building a friends list.

This is incorrect. Mc was first introduced and then ZG. It was blizz's first steps in making the game easier for the masses to get into their end game content. The bosses and pulls were much easier than the trash in MC and the bosses had considerably less HP.

ZG was introduced in Patch 1.7 LINK

MC was introduced at the bginning of WoW LINK ("It was one of two forty (40) player raid dungeons available upon release of World of Warcraft,")

It was more battlegrounds and raiding that killed the game really. I played the game at release and it was chaotic, pvp going everywhere. ganking/skirmish etc. It was good fun. And the game played as it should. After Battlegrounds, the outside environment just turned into grinding, no mroe skirmishes or pvp. All the PVPers sat in queues waiting for battlegrounds. And doing the same arena over and over, day after day. And the PVE players did not even bother playing until they had a raid going. Which was about three times a week. Then they log on, do the raid, roll for gear or spend points for their gear. then log off.

That's when the game got boring. Instead of making the game about social/pvp/fun. So for example they should of added housing, proper clans, guild halls. For players to overtake each others guild halls. Keeps and Proper trade skills. More small dungeons with 5-10 player limit. And kept the PVP outside in pvp zones.

Instead Blizzard took the easy route. They made big empty spaces and chucked strong mobs in there with good drops and called it "raiding". And they made three small maps and called this pvp. And the only way to get gear was to do these raids and arena maps over and over repeatedly. They destroyed most of the fun in their own game.