The answer I have in mind is unlisted... But maybe. I enjoyed my time in the days of old, but I think it was more social than gameplay, even luck of the draw in some cases (Did xyz player get into xyz guild and actually get the chance).
So I guess I would likely try it, but probably not for much more than a month just out of curiosity.
I played in a private server a couple of years ago, it was based in vanilla and 99% bug free - i think the only thing that was sorta broken was Warriors charging sometimes through the floor, but nothing else. Every single thing was working, up until Drums of War patch (AQ was still in development tho), and the staff didn't accepted donations in any form, not even to help the server. That means, no help for anyone except to solve tickets, and it was good. I had a lot of fun... for a while. Leveled two characters to 60, one of them a Paladin (yes, it was soulcrushing), completed the Charger quest, collected the dungeon set and upgraded a couple of parts. I didn't raided mostly because i lacked the time for it, but most of the population was in MC every week. These servers are awesome, but i guarantee that you get tired very fast. Not only because you're stuck in time and feels like groundhog day, but also because MMOs are all about progression, and if you know that there's a line that will stop you and never change, trust me - you're gonna get tired pretty fast. Specially if it's something that you have already done in the past.
I'm not even gonna mention how hard is to retake old habits like forming a group in chat, grinding like a bot for crappy resistance items, or corpse walking (a true nightmare). It's not until you have to suffer them again that you know how terrible those things were, and i wouldn't have them in my games again. Also mixing the mechanics of today with yesterday's is a recipe for terribleness - something that you can understand when you play the timeless dungeons in the special weekends, which are laughable compared to what they were in their first days.
Having said that, what i really would love is a server that starts from scratch and follows the progression of the game exactly as it happened - patches coming with the same changes and bugs in the same original intervals. THAT would be awesome, at least to me, because it will be almost the same experience, no weird stuff around with teleportation everywhere and Facebook games. I would pay double suscription just to play that. I'm not kidding.
That's the curse of convenience. People can't imagine life without quality of life things even in real life. People are on the cell phones, laptops, Internet trying to camp. Hell go to the mall with friends or family and try to go without cellphones. They weren't bad features you're just spoiled.
You can't really have a time locked progression server... mainly because you've already done it before. I mean, some raiders have done this content so many times that they can do it blind-folded with both hands tied behind their backs... while asleep... in a room without a computer. What sort of progression race is there when you already know every aspect of the fight and every trick to it? The top guilds in the world best their original world firsts by a landslide? Proving what exactly?
Scrap the whole progression server idea and stick with the basics... time released content paced exactly as it was released originally... note that some content only became available as it was unlocked by the players (i.e. attunement related content - Naxxramas for example) or the server population (i.e. opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj - required the acquisition of resources).
no mount until 40 ......and then farm gold for hours until being able to buy a 60% mount :pleased:
no LFD , arrows , and mats to rez , Rogue vanish / poison materials ..... wow has changed a lot
I thought only Druids required mats to res. I still remember the rage when someone would forget their regents and then the raid wiped cause half of the Druids couldn't res haha.
Druids had Rebirth which required a reagent... only resurrection that could be used in combat. Paladins would bubble a healer if a wipe was inevitable. Shaman would Ankh after the wipe. Priests were the go-to resurrection squad post-wipe, followed by Paladins/Shaman. Druids didn't resurrect anyone due to the reagent requirement.
Don't forget all the pots and special gear you had to have. Nature resist, arcane resist, fire resist, healing, mana, yadda yadda yadda... you spent more time preparing for raids than actually doing them. My bags were full of reagents, pots, and specialized gear... and bag space was really at a premium back then! All this for a chance at bidding on a piece of tier gear that may not even drop for weeks at a time!
Would have a blast right up to the point they remove the talent tree and segregate skills between specs. Making the game easy and killing the spark that made this game fun. That would be the day I walk away again.
Even a total revamp to raw vanilla would not draw me away from P99 and other games. Never was a huge fan of even vanilla, although at the time I didn't recognize the regressive aspects. These days I've few gaming hours available and vanilla wow doesn't really come close to worth any.
I like where WoW is right now and where it seems to be going with Legion.
With that said, i would try classic servers only if they keep the modern graphics, new character models, and some other quality of life changes that clearly improve the game.
The progression race holds absolutely no interest for me.
I would vastly prefer a mechanism where legacy/expansion servers are kept at the same state in perpetuity but players can migrate to a future expansion server (but not back) when they choose.
IOW, there's a vanilla server, and you can level to 60 and play vanilla endgame for fifteen years if you want, or you choose to migrate that character to a TBC or later server and continue on. That way, each player, group of friends, or guild, can make their own choices about when they're ready to move on without adversely affecting the play of players who would rather remain.
* Yes, but no time-locked progression. Have the server locked to a specific build.
I don't want time-locked progression. If you do time-locked progression, eventually you get right back to where the game is now. Give me a server locked to the last build prior to the TBC launch event. Then, have additional, separate servers for further versions with free one-way transfers. Then, once a player has exhausted the vanilla content, they can transfer to the TBC content, and then to the WotLK. No additional servers beyond that, however - if you go past that point, you may as well just play retail.
I think its best for the game if Legion lets everyone start at level 100.... and then converts all the old pre legion content to level 110 creating events in the old world, and giving people reasons to play there...and enjoy the old quests, dungeons raids and whatever is there to discover...
timelocked servers is a bad idea...as well as progression servers.... but making old content attractive to play again is a great idea...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
While I like the idea of playing through the content in a time-lock mode, re-living the progression of class mechanics would make me tear my hair out.
For example - My favorite character is the Bear Druid
In Vanilla the were laughable, very poor itemization, crushable, druids were expected to heal end game.
In TBC itemization got better but they were still crushable, they made good off-tanks but were problematic main tanks
In WotLK Bears were arguably some of the best tanks, crushable was removed, gearing was easy, they made excellent main or off-tanks
Early Cata screwed up bear AoE tanking which was later fixed, then after that they decided threat shouldn't really be a thing. bear armor and stam were brought more in line with the other tanks
In MOP bears didn't see a huge amount of change.
I didn't play WoD at all so I can't comment.
For me TBC/WotLK was the best time to be a bear, having to play though vanilla would suck and knowing the eventually Cata was going to come and rain on my fun would just ruin the experience.
Now if I could play Vanilla though WoD as a WotLK bear that'd be a blast, but it would require extensive modifications to all of the game outside of WotLK, something which no one is going to do.
This is not a good poll. Where is the option for I like WoW currently just the way it is?
Why do you need that option. The game is dying and Legion in it's current state will not be more than a facebook game. The reason why people want Classic servers is because WOW is unacceptable for many people.
Comments
So I guess I would likely try it, but probably not for much more than a month just out of curiosity.
RIP, WoW.
But if that's the case, the game's setting doesn't matter anyway. You're there for the interactive fiction.
They weren't bad features you're just spoiled.
Scrap the whole progression server idea and stick with the basics... time released content paced exactly as it was released originally... note that some content only became available as it was unlocked by the players (i.e. attunement related content - Naxxramas for example) or the server population (i.e. opening of the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj - required the acquisition of resources).
Druids had Rebirth which required a reagent... only resurrection that could be used in combat. Paladins would bubble a healer if a wipe was inevitable. Shaman would Ankh after the wipe. Priests were the go-to resurrection squad post-wipe, followed by Paladins/Shaman. Druids didn't resurrect anyone due to the reagent requirement.
Don't forget all the pots and special gear you had to have. Nature resist, arcane resist, fire resist, healing, mana, yadda yadda yadda... you spent more time preparing for raids than actually doing them. My bags were full of reagents, pots, and specialized gear... and bag space was really at a premium back then! All this for a chance at bidding on a piece of tier gear that may not even drop for weeks at a time!
With that said, i would try classic servers only if they keep the modern graphics, new character models, and some other quality of life changes that clearly improve the game.
I would vastly prefer a mechanism where legacy/expansion servers are kept at the same state in perpetuity but players can migrate to a future expansion server (but not back) when they choose.
IOW, there's a vanilla server, and you can level to 60 and play vanilla endgame for fifteen years if you want, or you choose to migrate that character to a TBC or later server and continue on. That way, each player, group of friends, or guild, can make their own choices about when they're ready to move on without adversely affecting the play of players who would rather remain.
Classic needs to be pure classic or else it spoils the experience.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
But seriously you can make you own poll - I would be interested in it.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
* Yes, but no time-locked progression. Have the server locked to a specific build.
I don't want time-locked progression. If you do time-locked progression, eventually you get right back to where the game is now. Give me a server locked to the last build prior to the TBC launch event. Then, have additional, separate servers for further versions with free one-way transfers. Then, once a player has exhausted the vanilla content, they can transfer to the TBC content, and then to the WotLK. No additional servers beyond that, however - if you go past that point, you may as well just play retail.
I think its best for the game if Legion lets everyone start at level 100....
and then converts all the old pre legion content to level 110
creating events in the old world, and giving people reasons to play there...and enjoy the old quests, dungeons raids and whatever is there to discover...
timelocked servers is a bad idea...as well as progression servers.... but making old content attractive to play again is a great idea...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
For example - My favorite character is the Bear Druid
In Vanilla the were laughable, very poor itemization, crushable, druids were expected to heal end game.
In TBC itemization got better but they were still crushable, they made good off-tanks but were problematic main tanks
In WotLK Bears were arguably some of the best tanks, crushable was removed, gearing was easy, they made excellent main or off-tanks
Early Cata screwed up bear AoE tanking which was later fixed, then after that they decided threat shouldn't really be a thing. bear armor and stam were brought more in line with the other tanks
In MOP bears didn't see a huge amount of change.
I didn't play WoD at all so I can't comment.
For me TBC/WotLK was the best time to be a bear, having to play though vanilla would suck and knowing the eventually Cata was going to come and rain on my fun would just ruin the experience.
Now if I could play Vanilla though WoD as a WotLK bear that'd be a blast, but it would require extensive modifications to all of the game outside of WotLK, something which no one is going to do.
VG