I played WoW like an addict from 2005-2008, for the first two years in particular I just couldn't get enough of it, raided five to six times a week etc and had lots of fun doing so. My best memories of online gaming come from that period.
What interests me most is seeing how the game will be received today, what the general sentiment will be towards something that is so different to the current game. How will people deal with the demands of it and so on.
Same here Zetta. The community especially was completely different back then to the now toxic cesspool you experience whenever you try to log on (tho my experience is a bit out of date as I stopped playing 2 or 3 years ago...it was absolutely aweful then).
I always remember those times fondly but I am not fooling myself as in "awww, those days were the best, wish I could play that again..." because face it....things were a lot harder too. And I dont mean as in challenging but so many quality-of-life-improvements Blizzard implemented over the years were real improvements making the game better to me.
I really dont see the point in 10 minute poison durations with charges which require crafting beforehand meaning you have to reapply poisons during fights and run out of stock at the worst possible moment. Or the hunters arrow stockpiling in various qualities needing specific bags to store...that really was a chore more then fun. Or the pet management where you needed to keep your pet happy all the time.....brrrrr. I was watching all the changes with worry back then wondering how much each class would "lose" in the process but really just loved most of them for the most part.
Leveling a caster in the early days...atrocious. Warriors especially were bad but priests didnt have it any better really. Of course the system back then encouraged teamwork a lot more where even regular quest mobs were challenging threatening to kill you without a plan or preperation. Elite NPCs were mini-bosses. Like Hogger which was an open world raid-boss really. Great times
I dont really mind many of the changes over the expansions. Its just that Blizzard absolutely overdid it at some point cutting down the games challenge level to ridiculous degrees where a lobotomized monkey could play and level up. I hated that development. IMO there has been a "golden time" in between where things were just perfect. And vanilla wasnt it.
Already I follow the beta forums and read things like "hey Blizz, you need to fix these bugs" remarks with laughter because those perceived "bugs" and "glitches" were the actual mechanics back then. Yeah, not so fun huh? So I wonder how niche this will be in the end. A lot of people never got the chance to experience vanilla and read through all the stories about a world long gone. The thing is that vanilla WoW isnt only responsible for the great times we had back then. It was the people we played with and seriously.....the tone of the community or the treatment among each other has degenrated a LOT over the years....I dont think things will suddenly snap back to how it was back in 2005. The no-life-people and elitists we have today will have a strong presense in WoW vanilla for sure. Powering through the content and level grind, then setting up elite raid groups depending on gearscore again as much as they do now.
Things back then were better....but its a time long lost and I dont think we ll ever get it back.
Or let me rephrase....I m sure people will play it. I just wonder how many that will be and if that group of people keep playing will be sufficiant for Blizzard to keep that service up because if I learned one thing from playing WoW private servers is that maintanance was absolutely massive and even the "best private servers" were lacking a lot of polish and content over the original. One or two packed servers estimating 80.000 players wont cut the effort I think.
Also I changed over the years. Back in Everquest I had absolutely no problems linking up with total strangers. Sending tells left and right, making connections, making friendships and creating a reputation for myself. This has changed. I value alone-time where I m not pressured into performance in a team going as fast as possible. In addition I m sure as hell wont find understanding and empathic people anymore walking me through the basics. You know how grouping looks like in WoW 2019? That will be the template for people once WoW vanilla servers become available.
I ll make sure to sniff into it once it comes out. Subscripe for a couple of months to refresh my memory but I know already I wont stick around. And if the majority of people will do this after realizing that not everything was oh so great back then I wonder if Blizz will keep providing the service over an extended period of time.
forums.elderscrollsonline.com
