Collecting (transmog, battlepets, achievements) doesn't add depth - it add something for little children to do. Dungeon Modes don't add depth - they add different easymode choices for kids that were unable to handle a standard difficulty for all players. Vanilla WoW had a much higher difficulty and systems that support it. Talent Trees offered real, actual build choices for people. Not an easy mode pick one of three and we'll do all the thinking for you. One character that was the same until you used one of 51 points to customize him or her. It went way beyond 31/20 or 30/21. There were crazy builds out there like 12/21/18. The Attribute system did something and helped support weird builds. There were duel wielding dagger warriors that healed as they quickly hit. Getting one weapon with a specific speed could completely make a break a build. CCing to bandage was a valid tactic and big help. Systems, supporting systems, supporting real, adult complexity and the need to think and actually tree hard. To beat the systems. I could go on all day about how the focus was completely different back then. And it only got better with new expansions. BC added geming and the Arena. WotLK added what's it called? The spell system thing that used to be awesome back then.
All future expansions after WotLK specifically, purposefully, and openly removed complexity. The devs were open about this, and why they did it. They wanted a bigger audience - and that audience was younger people that did not want complexity. They wanted easy, thought free fun and absolutely no complexity or system that would force them to think. To have everything distilled down to any easily understood gear level number and every spec of every class functioning the same and putting out the same numbers undermining the reasons to have races, classes, specs, and professions.
LOL Talent Tree offered real build choices.....LOL....yeah gimped and optimal...your choices.
Collecting (transmog, battlepets, achievements) doesn't add depth - it add something for little children to do. Dungeon Modes don't add depth - they add different easymode choices for kids that were unable to handle a standard difficulty for all players. Vanilla WoW had a much higher difficulty and systems that support it. Talent Trees offered real, actual build choices for people. Not an easy mode pick one of three and we'll do all the thinking for you. One character that was the same until you used one of 51 points to customize him or her. It went way beyond 31/20 or 30/21. There were crazy builds out there like 12/21/18. The Attribute system did something and helped support weird builds. There were duel wielding dagger warriors that healed as they quickly hit. Getting one weapon with a specific speed could completely make a break a build. CCing to bandage was a valid tactic and big help. Systems, supporting systems, supporting real, adult complexity and the need to think and actually tree hard. To beat the systems. I could go on all day about how the focus was completely different back then. And it only got better with new expansions. BC added geming and the Arena. WotLK added what's it called? The spell system thing that used to be awesome back then.
All future expansions after WotLK specifically, purposefully, and openly removed complexity. The devs were open about this, and why they did it. They wanted a bigger audience - and that audience was younger people that did not want complexity. They wanted easy, thought free fun and absolutely no complexity or system that would force them to think. To have everything distilled down to any easily understood gear level number and every spec of every class functioning the same and putting out the same numbers undermining the reasons to have races, classes, specs, and professions.
You're joking right? Please tell me you're joking? You think vanilla WoW had difficulty? There's only 2 raids in WoW that were actually difficult. Naxx and AQ40 C'thun. And lemme let you in on a secret, it was due to tuning to be IMPOSSIBLE to beat them so as to extend content. Not because the mechanics were so hard to do correctly.
Talent trees? Now i know you're a joke. You have more choice talent wise NOW in current WoW than you had in vanilla. Where do you think "cookie cutter builds" came from? It came from vanilla WoW. Get outta here man...
I don't think you understand what 'depth' is in this context.
We talk about interdependence of many features in the game, which in retail is near nonexistence. You have lots of options and alternatives, yes, but you doesn't really need any of them to take you to the finishing line. Pre-Cataclysm WoW was like a jigsaw puzzle - you needed to dabble a bit in everywhere to get what you wanted.
I don't think you understand what 'depth' is in this context.
We talk about interdependence of many features in the game, which in retail is near nonexistence. You have lots of options and alternatives, yes, but you doesn't really need any of them to take you to the finishing line. Pre-Cataclysm WoW was like a jigsaw puzzle - you needed to dabble a bit in everywhere to get what you wanted.
What interdependence of systems/features existed in vanilla wow that doesn't exist today? As i pointed out, crafting was basically worthless back then and many people only picked up gathering professions to sell to the morons who actually took up the crafting ones.
If you want to say crafting was needed in vanilla to get what you wanted, it's EVEN MORE needed now than it ever was in vanilla. You can't expect to do well in raiding without gems from jewelcrafting, flasks and elixirs from alchemy, food buffs from cooking, scopes from engineering, blacksmiths being able to drop an anvil mid-raid so you don't have to waste time having people hearth to repair.
So we got crafting squared away as being more in depth in current WoW than vanilla. What other systems are you talking about that was more in depth in vanilla WoW than current? It wasn't the talent tree. So what other system?
Is it me or does it seem like the people against the classic server are fanatical zealots? Its like the thought of people liking something that isn't the child-focused tripe that is their current dogma is heresy and they must hate it and fight against it and spread the righteous truth of kid-game dogma.
To the sycophants of the cult of modern child gaming, built on the foundation a game is only good if tons of kids can easily understand the game and watch other people play the game online, please explain optimal. Optimal for what? There is no duel specs. The cost for re-specing cost more than most people could afford after a certain price tier and no waiting for reset. Your spec had to be "optimal" for soloing, open world pvp, BGs, dueling, dungeons with crappy pick-up groups, raiding, and everything else.
Thinking that different specs weren't viable is ridiculous, as people would copy some weird stuff with different levels of success and failure in different situations. People like me would come up with weird shit that worked extremely well and then never share that information and no one would be able to know the how or what because there was no armory people could look up. If you didn't tell other people were left to guessing.
And saying there were only "gimped" and "optimal" means you were not around then, and you were part of the cult and mindset that set WoW down the kid path of sucking really bad to attract dimwits and children.
How about you guys stick to modern WoW and being "optimal," and let the people that want complexity and build choices and real rpg systems made for adults alone. You guys control the current market with Minecraft to WoW to Clicker Hero. Just leave us alone with your nonsense that made current WoW your game. Stick to what you like and we'll stick to what we like.
Is it me or does it seem like the people against the classic server are fanatical zealots? Its like the thought of people liking something that isn't the child-focused tripe that is their current dogma is heresy and they must hate it and fight against it and spread the righteous truth of kid-game dogma.
To the sycophants of the cult of modern child gaming, built on the foundation a game is only good if tons of kids can easily understand the game and watch other people play the game online, please explain optimal. Optimal for what? There is no duel specs. The cost for re-specing cost more than most people could afford after a certain price tier and no waiting for reset. Your spec had to be "optimal" for soloing, open world pvp, BGs, dueling, dungeons with crappy pick-up groups, raiding, and everything else.
Thinking that different specs weren't viable is ridiculous, as people would copy some weird stuff with different levels of success and failure in different situations. People like me would come up with weird shit that worked extremely well and then never share that information and no one would be able to know the how or what because there was no armory people could look up. If you didn't tell other people were left to guessing.
And saying there were only "gimped" and "optimal" means you were not around then, and you were part of the cult and mindset that set WoW down the kid path of sucking really bad to attract dimwits and children.
How about you guys stick to modern WoW and being "optimal," and let the people that want complexity and build choices and real rpg systems made for adults alone. You guys control the current market with Minecraft to WoW to Clicker Hero. Just leave us alone with your nonsense that made current WoW your game. Stick to what you like and we'll stick to what we like.
All i get from this is you kept debate the points we bring up so you resort to ad hominem attacks and want a safe space where only good things are allowed to be said about your idol.
Is it me or does it seem like the people against the classic server are fanatical zealots? Its like the thought of people liking something that isn't the child-focused tripe that is their current dogma is heresy and they must hate it and fight against it and spread the righteous truth of kid-game dogma.
To the sycophants of the cult of modern child gaming, built on the foundation a game is only good if tons of kids can easily understand the game and watch other people play the game online, please explain optimal. Optimal for what? There is no duel specs. The cost for re-specing cost more than most people could afford after a certain price tier and no waiting for reset. Your spec had to be "optimal" for soloing, open world pvp, BGs, dueling, dungeons with crappy pick-up groups, raiding, and everything else.
Thinking that different specs weren't viable is ridiculous, as people would copy some weird stuff with different levels of success and failure in different situations. People like me would come up with weird shit that worked extremely well and then never share that information and no one would be able to know the how or what because there was no armory people could look up. If you didn't tell other people were left to guessing.
And saying there were only "gimped" and "optimal" means you were not around then, and you were part of the cult and mindset that set WoW down the kid path of sucking really bad to attract dimwits and children.
How about you guys stick to modern WoW and being "optimal," and let the people that want complexity and build choices and real rpg systems made for adults alone. You guys control the current market with Minecraft to WoW to Clicker Hero. Just leave us alone with your nonsense that made current WoW your game. Stick to what you like and we'll stick to what we like.
All i get from this is you kept debate the points we bring up so you resort to ad hominem attacks and want a safe space where only good things are allowed to be said about your idol.
All I see from the fanatics is non sequitur arguments. The logic does not follow. You mix complexity with amount of things to do as in your crafting argument. That logic does not follow. You harp on about cookie cutter builds when there were more viable, functional, build options in a much more complex system that allowed for much more complex builds, based on complex functions, attributes not being streamlines into nothing, and 51 talents points that all where extremely important and impact build and build functionality. To follow your logic of removing "cookie cutter" builds and optimal builds to their logical concussion would be the removal of classes and just have three roles of tank, healer, and dps.
But why stop there? If removing builds is good, why not remove classes? Why not remove roles? Everyone can be exactly the same. The argument at is core is against the rpg in mmorpgs. Is against diversity, thought, and complex systems.
So, why have the choice of stacking spirit to increase mana regen over intelligence for damage? Why stack agility for dodge and crit over strength for damage? Make all attributes do different things for different classes, thus removing the reason and core function of their inclusion?
I always tried to completely understand a system, so I could exploit it. In simple terms could I give up a minimal amount of dps for a much more significant amount of survivability? How valuable is talent X that is good but very situational over talent Y which was overall poor but a constant?
Complexity leads to choices. Real choices with real trade offs. Which is supported by actual attributes that do the same thing for everyone. Which is supported by a single build that is hard to change and is never optimal in all the situations players find themselves.
Did crafting have a different focus in Vanilla than the streamlined, search for equality, low impact version it is now? Yes. The crafted fire resistance sets in vanilla prove that. The fact I had to grind for days to complete the crafting master quest, or whatever it was called, proves it. The fact that crafting was disparate, and that races were disparate, and that buffs from classes were disparate, and that attributes where disparate, and that I have 51 points to apply in a three very disparate trees, and I could make a real tons of real decisions that greatly or minimally impacted functionality that I had to try to maximize or focus over ALL activity I would engage in.
My logic follows. Your logic does not. I am arguing for more rpg. You are arguing to remove rpg from mmorpgs. You seem to dislike real complexity. I love it. You want everything stripped, removed, equalized, and streamlined to the lowest common denominator. I want systems to be increasing complex, and systems so intertwined that dimwits and children will never be able to understand the system and will leave the game in fury and go back to watching other people play Minecraft.
For me, this aspect of the appeal of World of Warcraft Classic isn't about vanilla having more variety (mis-labelled in recent posts as "depth"), because it didn't have that. But the variety of the current game basically amounts to a list of chores you have to do; boxes you have to check. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the current game for what it is (some of the chores can be fun), but I very much dislike all the timegated crap and the mission tables and emissary shite. All these things that offer rewards that are too good to pass up, so a player like myself feels compelled to do them before I can just go off and adventure my own way. I want to play the game, I don't want the game to play me, but that's how modern WoW feels to me a lot of the time; like I'm trapped in a daily workout before I get to really play. In Vanilla WoW a player had more freedom to forge their own adventure without feeling like they were missing out because they skipped some daily treadmill. Unless you were a hardcore raider, you didn't have any boxes to check. You just headed off to do whatever the hell you wanted and that was one of the things that made it great.
I can agree with pretty much all your post until one line that kinda didn't make much sense to me. You said In Vanilla WoW, a player had more freedom to do whatever they wanted without feeling like they were missing out because they skipped some daily task the game had for them and that unless you were a hardcore raider, you didn't have any boxes to check.
The reason that kinda makes me go wtf a little is, ....you make it sound like you have to check those boxes in current WoW, even if you aren't a hardcore raider when that just isn't the case. It's the exact same scenario you built up for vanilla WoW. You can forge your own adventure and not feel like you're missing out because you skipped some daily task....unless you're a hardcore raider in which you definitely need to.
A casual player doesn't have need to make sure they get all the WQs done for the reps they want. A casual player doesn't need to make sure they did their daily heroic dungeon for the day. A casual player doesn't need to make sure they did their mythic +15 for the week. A casual player doesn't even need to make sure their class hall missions are constantly rolling.
Whatever they want to make of the game, they are free to do so. I had casual friends that literally only played WoW to collect battle pets and train them all to lvl 25. I had other casual friends that made it their goal to go collect all the mounts possible. Do you think they were worried about doing daily heroic dungeons or mythic +15 for the weekly chest? Hell no. They played the game doing what they enjoyed. Just like people did back in Vanilla WoW.
For me, this aspect of the appeal of World of Warcraft Classic isn't about vanilla having more variety (mis-labelled in recent posts as "depth"), because it didn't have that. But the variety of the current game basically amounts to a list of chores you have to do; boxes you have to check. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the current game for what it is (some of the chores can be fun), but I very much dislike all the timegated crap and the mission tables and emissary shite. All these things that offer rewards that are too good to pass up, so a player like myself feels compelled to do them before I can just go off and adventure my own way. I want to play the game, I don't want the game to play me, but that's how modern WoW feels to me a lot of the time; like I'm trapped in a daily workout before I get to really play. In Vanilla WoW a player had more freedom to forge their own adventure without feeling like they were missing out because they skipped some daily treadmill. Unless you were a hardcore raider, you didn't have any boxes to check. You just headed off to do whatever the hell you wanted and that was one of the things that made it great.
I can agree with pretty much all your post until one line that kinda didn't make much sense to me. You said In Vanilla WoW, a player had more freedom to do whatever they wanted without feeling like they were missing out because they skipped some daily task the game had for them and that unless you were a hardcore raider, you didn't have any boxes to check.
The reason that kinda makes me go wtf a little is, ....you make it sound like you have to check those boxes in current WoW, even if you aren't a hardcore raider when that just isn't the case. It's the exact same scenario you built up for vanilla WoW. You can forge your own adventure and not feel like you're missing out because you skipped some daily task....unless you're a hardcore raider in which you definitely need to.
A casual player doesn't have need to make sure they get all the WQs done for the reps they want. A casual player doesn't need to make sure they did their daily heroic dungeon for the day. A casual player doesn't need to make sure they did their mythic +15 for the week. A casual player doesn't even need to make sure their class hall missions are constantly rolling.
Whatever they want to make of the game, they are free to do so. I had casual friends that literally only played WoW to collect battle pets and train them all to lvl 25. I had other casual friends that made it their goal to go collect all the mounts possible. Do you think they were worried about doing daily heroic dungeons or mythic +15 for the weekly chest? Hell no. They played the game doing what they enjoyed. Just like people did back in Vanilla WoW.
For those who play the game for progression, you will need to check every box to get a head or get left behind. It doesn't matter how hard you romanticize the idea of simply playing wow just because X. X can mean many things. If you choose to collect pets, that is a choice but the game as I know it will steer my friends and their friends to check those boxes. The choice has already been made for us no matter how hard you try to fight it.
I don't think you understand what 'depth' is in this context.
We talk about interdependence of many features in the game, which in retail is near nonexistence. You have lots of options and alternatives, yes, but you doesn't really need any of them to take you to the finishing line. Pre-Cataclysm WoW was like a jigsaw puzzle - you needed to dabble a bit in everywhere to get what you wanted.
What interdependence of systems/features existed in vanilla wow that doesn't exist today? As i pointed out, crafting was basically worthless back then and many people only picked up gathering professions to sell to the morons who actually took up the crafting ones.
If you want to say crafting was needed in vanilla to get what you wanted, it's EVEN MORE needed now than it ever was in vanilla. You can't expect to do well in raiding without gems from jewelcrafting, flasks and elixirs from alchemy, food buffs from cooking, scopes from engineering, blacksmiths being able to drop an anvil mid-raid so you don't have to waste time having people hearth to repair.
So we got crafting squared away as being more in depth in current WoW than vanilla. What other systems are you talking about that was more in depth in vanilla WoW than current? It wasn't the talent tree. So what other system?
Vanilla was famous of multiple buffs and effects you had to farm mats for, even so that Blizzard had to nerf it and reduce the number of buffs a player could have. The best ammo for hunters was crafted by engineers, Dark Iron set was made by blacksmiths for tanks to tank MC, not to mention weapon enchants or Bloodvine mage set crafted by tailors.
But i wasn't even talking about crafting. In a very basic level these games are totally different. In vanilla mobs were tough and they hit hard, so you wanted to gear up constantly to level up faster. To do that, you needed gear, which came almost exclusively from dungeons and dungeon quests, which you had to find and unlock by doing pre-quests in outside world. You also had to gear up for these dungeons in order to upgrade your gear. Weak tanks and useless dps were often kicked and replaced, so you had to take care of your performance.
Now, in Legion you level up by doing a series of quests, which give you all the gear you need to steamroll the mobs, OR you can spam dungeon finder and take the dungeon quests at the beginning of the instance. No need to go outside world to find or unlock anything, just grab them and follow your tank who kills everything before you can even loot the corpses, OR you can spend your time in BG's and level up by doing PvP if boring quests and easy dungeons doesn't fit to your play style, etc.
There's lot more features and mechanics in Legion WoW, no one is denying that, but the interdependence is missing. You can choose one feature and ignore the rest if you want to. I guess that's my biggest problem with current retail.
For me, this aspect of the appeal of World of Warcraft Classic isn't about vanilla having more variety (mis-labelled in recent posts as "depth"), because it didn't have that. But the variety of the current game basically amounts to a list of chores you have to do; boxes you have to check. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the current game for what it is (some of the chores can be fun), but I very much dislike all the timegated crap and the mission tables and emissary shite. All these things that offer rewards that are too good to pass up, so a player like myself feels compelled to do them before I can just go off and adventure my own way. I want to play the game, I don't want the game to play me, but that's how modern WoW feels to me a lot of the time; like I'm trapped in a daily workout before I get to really play. In Vanilla WoW a player had more freedom to forge their own adventure without feeling like they were missing out because they skipped some daily treadmill. Unless you were a hardcore raider, you didn't have any boxes to check. You just headed off to do whatever the hell you wanted and that was one of the things that made it great.
I can agree with pretty much all your post until one line that kinda didn't make much sense to me. You said In Vanilla WoW, a player had more freedom to do whatever they wanted without feeling like they were missing out because they skipped some daily task the game had for them and that unless you were a hardcore raider, you didn't have any boxes to check.
The reason that kinda makes me go wtf a little is, ....you make it sound like you have to check those boxes in current WoW, even if you aren't a hardcore raider when that just isn't the case. It's the exact same scenario you built up for vanilla WoW. You can forge your own adventure and not feel like you're missing out because you skipped some daily task....unless you're a hardcore raider in which you definitely need to.
A casual player doesn't have need to make sure they get all the WQs done for the reps they want. A casual player doesn't need to make sure they did their daily heroic dungeon for the day. A casual player doesn't need to make sure they did their mythic +15 for the week. A casual player doesn't even need to make sure their class hall missions are constantly rolling.
Whatever they want to make of the game, they are free to do so. I had casual friends that literally only played WoW to collect battle pets and train them all to lvl 25. I had other casual friends that made it their goal to go collect all the mounts possible. Do you think they were worried about doing daily heroic dungeons or mythic +15 for the weekly chest? Hell no. They played the game doing what they enjoyed. Just like people did back in Vanilla WoW.
For those who play the game for progression, you will need to check every box to get a head or get left behind. It doesn't matter how hard you romanticize the idea of simply playing wow just because X. X can mean many things. If you choose to collect pets, that is a choice but the game as I know it will steer my friends and their friends to check those boxes. The choice has already been made for us no matter how hard you try to fight it.
This was the case, no matter if we're talking vanilla WoW or current WoW so i don't see why it's right to admonish current WoW for it but act like it wasn't an issue back during vanilla WoW.
It's the life of a progression raider. There will always be boxes you have to tick, period. So how is that a downside of current WoW?
I don't think you understand what 'depth' is in this context.
We talk about interdependence of many features in the game, which in retail is near nonexistence. You have lots of options and alternatives, yes, but you doesn't really need any of them to take you to the finishing line. Pre-Cataclysm WoW was like a jigsaw puzzle - you needed to dabble a bit in everywhere to get what you wanted.
What interdependence of systems/features existed in vanilla wow that doesn't exist today? As i pointed out, crafting was basically worthless back then and many people only picked up gathering professions to sell to the morons who actually took up the crafting ones.
If you want to say crafting was needed in vanilla to get what you wanted, it's EVEN MORE needed now than it ever was in vanilla. You can't expect to do well in raiding without gems from jewelcrafting, flasks and elixirs from alchemy, food buffs from cooking, scopes from engineering, blacksmiths being able to drop an anvil mid-raid so you don't have to waste time having people hearth to repair.
So we got crafting squared away as being more in depth in current WoW than vanilla. What other systems are you talking about that was more in depth in vanilla WoW than current? It wasn't the talent tree. So what other system?
Vanilla was famous of multiple buffs and effects you had to farm mats for, even so that Blizzard had to nerf it and reduce the number of buffs a player could have. The best ammo for hunters was crafted by engineers, Dark Iron set was made by blacksmiths for tanks to tank MC, not to mention weapon enchants or Bloodvine mage set crafted by tailors.
But i wasn't even talking about crafting. In a very basic level these games are totally different. In vanilla mobs were tough and they hit hard, so you wanted to gear up constantly to level up faster. To do that, you needed gear, which came almost exclusively from dungeons and dungeon quests, which you had to find and unlock by doing pre-quests in outside world. You also had to gear up for these dungeons in order to upgrade your gear. Weak tanks and useless dps were often kicked and replaced, so you had to take care of your performance.
Now, in Legion you level up by doing a series of quests, which give you all the gear you need to steamroll the mobs, OR you can spam dungeon finder and take the dungeon quests at the beginning of the instance. No need to go outside world to find or unlock anything, just grab them and follow your tank who kills everything before you can even loot the corpses, OR you can spend your time in BG's and level up by doing PvP if boring quests and easy dungeons doesn't fit to your play style, etc.
There's lot more features and mechanics in Legion WoW, no one is denying that, but the interdependence is missing. You can choose one feature and ignore the rest if you want to. I guess that's my biggest problem with current retail.
The buffs you're talking about. Oh, you mean the buffs you could go to an npc and buy mats from to use? Oooh yea, so much farming(as if there arent things that require farming in current wow), so much wow.
Okay, i forgot engineers could also make ammo for hunters and their ammo bags from LW...ooooh, so complex, so much wow. You actually have a point with bloodvine being better than a lot of raid drops but it was only a 3 set though and wanted mainly due to the spell hit, i forgot about this because i didn't raid as a caster so it was never a requirement for me.
As far as dungeons go, you're overstating them quite a bit. You didn't need to be fully geared out to do dungeons, you got enough gear from outworld quests to successfully do dungeons so long as you had a non shitty group. Nothing about this is different from how current wow is. You can't expect a group of fresh 110s to do mythic dungeons for instance. You needed to gear up from dungeons/dungeon quests in order to upgrade your gear.
Weak tanks/dps are also often kicked and replaced(though much more efficiently than back in vanilla WoW) all the time. Not seeing any differences in this point of yours.
In Legion, you do level up by questing(or dungeons) just like you did in vanilla WoW...no difference check. You do get all the gear you needed to progress from quests/dungeons just like in vanilla WoW...no difference check. You do actually have things to find and unlock unlike what you said. The first difference i've found here is that yes, dungeon difficulty has been rearranged. I don't see it as a bad thing(as they still have harder difficulties like mythic+) because being in 1 dungeon for 2-3 hours was awful game design. But i'll chalk that up to a difference of opinion for the two of us.
You can still spend your time in BGs and level up doing pvp if you wanted to, so again no difference from vanilla WoW.
So of everything you mentioned, there was 1 truly legitimate difference and that was dungeon difficulty, and that's only when looking at normal dungeon to normal dungeon difficulty and you ignoring the existence of mythic dungeons and mythic+ dungeons. Everything else you brought up, pretty much no difference from WoW. There are must haves from crafting like the few you named in vanilla WoW that i gave you credit for, but again that doesn't give vanilla WoW more depth than current WoW because current WoW's crafting is still used way more than vanilla WoW was.
The whole buff thing. Seriously that was just a joke right? Symbol of Kings, potion vials, etcetc could pretty much almost all be bought from vendors. What grinding for mats were you talking about as if it doesn't exist in current WoW? Were you talking doing herbing to get some mats for poisons...when you could have just bought the mats from a shady dealer, same with carying stacks of vanishing powder? Even if you couldn't buy those mats from a vendor...you seem to believe current WoW it isn't necessary to farm mats for stuff? I mean...the whole idea was to show how vanilla WoW had MORE depth(which is what your claim was) than current WoW.
I love Vanilla WoW, but I love it for what it actually was, not what I think I remember it being.
No, there was no diversity with builds. If you think there was then you clearly never raided, or you were bad at your role.
Some guilds let dumb people get away with dumb things in the early days because they didn't know any better. Later on having having a kitty, boomkin, or shadow priest for the buffs was good at times.
Most classes did have some variation on individual talents within their build, but every class had a specific role in raiding and a spec that was the best for it. Vanilla was cookie cutter as hell.
As far as crafting goes, it was super important. Having proper enchants made a lot of difference. Flasks for progression, elixers and potions. Health and Mana pots actually mattered in Vanilla. Repair bots, scopes, thorium arrows/shells, dark iron FR gear and NR gear from CC rep (once it was released). Elementium bars and the sulfuron hammer for the legendaries.
Your insane if you think that crafting now is any more important than crafting then. That's not to even mention the difficulty of crafting then versus now. No shared nodes, having to travel to Scholo/BWL to craft Elixers or to BRD to smelt dark iron.
Your argument there was no diversity in builds is incorrect and makes assumptions that were only made after multi-specs. You assume that people that raided only raided, or that people going 31 points in all went the same exact 31 and 20, when that was patently not true. Or that equipping certain sets did not affect functionality.
If your argument is that the best exclusively raiding focused guilds valued raiding exclusively and no doubt would encourage all dps to give up (in general terms) 40% survivability for 3% more dps, then sure. I know in BC my guild wanted me to change my build that I made specifically for our current raid, which had little time on target for melee dps. They wanted me to be cookie cutter which at the time promoted sustainable dps, rather than our raid with bosses that did not allow me to sustain dps. Lazy people have lazy answers. Its easier to tell everyone to do x or else, instead of accepting proof that contradicts the wisdom of x. My total damage went way up on all bosses but a couple, where it went down but not dramatically or in any way that would justify giving up my major increases on all the other bosses.
The same with pvp. I was able to perform above my ability level in the arena specifically because of people's cookie cutter mentality. What worked for the best players doesn't work for the baddies. When people expected you to zig, because the best players zig, and even though you don't have the skill nor knowledge of the best players everyone still tries to zig, that is when smart people zag.
I could give a ton more examples, like when mana regen was a major issue with druids in BC and I fixed that issue, by creating a spec that never ran out of mana but my individual heals numbers went down (a lot) as my total healing skyrocketed and I didn't peter out early after a couple people made a couple mistakes. Which was needed at the time badly, but went against all cookie cutter. Or that the cookie cutter warrior tank build did not include the talent that required two points for a 4% increase in magic damage immunity in favor of two points in increase crit (I think? It was a dps talent justified by increase threat generation). I skipped some points that totaled less than 1% physical damage mitigation for then same dps talent while picking up the magic dam mit two point talent, and got a ton of shit for it. No one accepted their same exact argument for skipping the magic damage mitigation talents that blocked way more magic damage. Sure magic damage wasn't as prevalent from trash mobs and more bosses did high physical spikes than magic spikes, but just because cookie cutter wisdom stated less than 1% physical damage was absolutely necessary and 4% magic immunity wasn't doesn't mean that is inarguable fact and the successful performance of my build proved that. Did that change the cookie cutter build? No, most of the WoW community were oblivious to most of the theory crafting discussions.
People wanted cookie cutter because it reduced variables and thinking. It helped highlight who were the baddies. It helped the baddies be less bad. It helped normalize outcomes. It helped in a lot of ways. It also hurt in a lot of ways.
Answer this - did you put in a significant effort in trying out and testing new builds? Or understanding the systems that made cookie cutter builds popular? If not, how can you say there were no build diversity? I spent significant amount of time theory crafting and coming up with weird builds and belonged to various communities that did the same and they would tell you the same I am. Just because the people not interested in it didn't see it, doesn't mean it wasn't right in front of their face.
For me, this aspect of the appeal of World of Warcraft Classic isn't about vanilla having more variety (mis-labelled in recent posts as "depth"), because it didn't have that. But the variety of the current game basically amounts to a list of chores you have to do; boxes you have to check. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy the current game for what it is (some of the chores can be fun), but I very much dislike all the timegated crap and the mission tables and emissary shite. All these things that offer rewards that are too good to pass up, so a player like myself feels compelled to do them before I can just go off and adventure my own way. I want to play the game, I don't want the game to play me, but that's how modern WoW feels to me a lot of the time; like I'm trapped in a daily workout before I get to really play. In Vanilla WoW a player had more freedom to forge their own adventure without feeling like they were missing out because they skipped some daily treadmill. Unless you were a hardcore raider, you didn't have any boxes to check. You just headed off to do whatever the hell you wanted and that was one of the things that made it great.
I can agree with pretty much all your post until one line that kinda didn't make much sense to me. You said In Vanilla WoW, a player had more freedom to do whatever they wanted without feeling like they were missing out because they skipped some daily task the game had for them and that unless you were a hardcore raider, you didn't have any boxes to check.
The reason that kinda makes me go wtf a little is, ....you make it sound like you have to check those boxes in current WoW, even if you aren't a hardcore raider when that just isn't the case. It's the exact same scenario you built up for vanilla WoW. You can forge your own adventure and not feel like you're missing out because you skipped some daily task....unless you're a hardcore raider in which you definitely need to.
A casual player doesn't have need to make sure they get all the WQs done for the reps they want. A casual player doesn't need to make sure they did their daily heroic dungeon for the day. A casual player doesn't need to make sure they did their mythic +15 for the week. A casual player doesn't even need to make sure their class hall missions are constantly rolling.
Whatever they want to make of the game, they are free to do so. I had casual friends that literally only played WoW to collect battle pets and train them all to lvl 25. I had other casual friends that made it their goal to go collect all the mounts possible. Do you think they were worried about doing daily heroic dungeons or mythic +15 for the weekly chest? Hell no. They played the game doing what they enjoyed. Just like people did back in Vanilla WoW.
For those who play the game for progression, you will need to check every box to get a head or get left behind. It doesn't matter how hard you romanticize the idea of simply playing wow just because X. X can mean many things. If you choose to collect pets, that is a choice but the game as I know it will steer my friends and their friends to check those boxes. The choice has already been made for us no matter how hard you try to fight it.
This was the case, no matter if we're talking vanilla WoW or current WoW so i don't see why it's right to admonish current WoW for it but act like it wasn't an issue back during vanilla WoW.
It's the life of a progression raider. There will always be boxes you have to tick, period. So how is that a downside of current WoW?
As I tried to explain, in vanilla WoW the most effecient way to gain resources wasn't to play Mission Table and run Emissary World quests. Neither of those two activities are improvements to the game and the fact that they offer such lucrative rewards actually makes them detriments.
Variety can be good as long as it's truly optional, but you can't make the most efficient way in the game to make gold the Mission Table and then still call the Mission Table "optional" with a straight face. Pet Battles are optional, Mission Tables are only optional if you don't care about making gold ... so ... yeah.
Look, we can both agree that blizzard went to far with the daily grind and that it sucks to feel like you have to do certain content if you wanna stay ahead of the curve. I get that, truly which is why i said agreed with pretty much your entire post.
But at the end of the day, you(and this is a general you, not you specifically) need to own up to your own decisions as a gamer. Just because there's a more efficient path to take doesn't mean you have to take it. It's our decision as gamers that we do that. That isn't the fault of Blizzard. That doesn't make the game any less or worse. It's a choice that we made.
You keep saying as if it isn't truly optional but it is. Let's say you're playing God of War. There's this weapon that's super OP. If you wanted to play the game as efficiently as possible, you HAVE to use that weapon. But the weapon's attack animation is Kratos flinging turd into the face of his enemies. It breaks your immersion with the game and makes it unfun because it 1 shots everything.
You as a gamer have the choice of fling turd to play as efficiently as possible, or you can play with the badass fiery chains that fling from your forearms and still play pretty effectively. I apologize for the fanciful exaggerated example of mine but i hope you get my point. The variety is truly optional, just because it isn't the most efficient way doesn't mean it isn't optional.
And honestly, WQs quickly become worthless very early on anyway. The gear quickly becomes useless cause its capped ilvl, the money you get from it doesn't compare to transmog farming, the only thing left is rep and mounts to collect. Much of the same goes for the class hall missions minus the raid ones for gear that's scaled to the content you've been clearing. So, you got me on the class hall missions, but you can do it on your phone and it takes like 3 minutes so i don't really see that as too big of an issue personally.
In terms of making gold, you're wasting your time doing WQs and class hall missions only take 2-3 minutes on your phone while you're on the toilet. If you wanna make gold, you'd be farming battle pets or transmog. That's the most efficient way to make gold bar none. The only thing that comes close to that is the first month or two of an expansion and consumables for raiders are through the roof and you can make millions if you farm enough.
You being one of those who desperately tried to make weird builds work doesn't make anything I said incorrect. Yes, there was some variation in which talents people could choose for the best specs, I said that earlier. That doesn't mean there was any real meaningful difference. A Holy Paladin with improved Might and Improved Wisdom is as much a Holy Paladin as one who doesn't have those in favor of other things they deem more important.
There was no one spec that was used for everything. Raiders who wanted to PvP didn't gimp themselves in either by having some hybrid spec, they payed the gold to switch. It was expensive, but that was the cost of doing things the right way.
Same for farming. Frost AoE farming spec was different from raiding spec. If you were going out farming and needed more survivability you switched your spec, you didn't stay AoE spec in raids and gimp yourself.
People went cookie cutter for exactly the reasons you stated. It's what worked the best, not for some but for all who knew what the hell they were actually doing. The only people it hurt were those who wanted to be the special little snowflakes.
That, again, is patently untrue. I didn't desperately true and find weird builds. I successfully found them. Its inarguable. And you couldn't just respec - I don't remember the exact amount but the capped respec cost was way more than the slowest blue weapons sold for on the AH, which is where most people that could afford max cap respecs constantly got their money. I was making tons of real money selling gold. Tons. Gold didn't get less valuable until daily quests were included some time after BC. Also, not just weapons were needed for changes in specs. You needed the gear that supported that specific build. This is back when things were done by percentage points, and attributes were not class specific.
My whole time in Vanilla WoW was theory crafting with tons of others - huge and multiple communities of others directly responsible for huge swaths of the non-content patch notes.
But I noticed you did not answer the question I asked above so I'll ask it again.
"Answer this - did you put in a significant effort in trying out and testing new builds? Or understanding the systems that made cookie cutter builds popular? If not, how can you say there were no build diversity?"
What you are saying is exactly like someone saying there was no raiding in Vanilla wow because they didn't raid. Its a nonsensical argument. Where do you think your popular builds for various activities came from? An imaginary community that never was? Or the extremely large community that loved figuring systems out and trying to find exploits and tinkering and finding more ways to eek out a few points here and there and all the formulas, etc?
It's true you didn't have to grind every single piece of gear to do dungeons, but outworld quests weren't just enough. Melee classes who didn't run dungeons or didn't buy gear on AH could gimp themselves so that they were unable to kill even normal mobs of their own level. Ranged classes had much easier time.
Apart from quests dungeons gave very little exp per run, so it wasn't efficient way to level up. It also took so long that usually one or two runs were enough and you wanted to have a break, and even if you didn't your group most likely broke up and you had to find a new one, so spamming dungeon runs the way they do in retail wasn't really possible. And because of all this players didn't run dungeons unless they had a quest or two for it, or there was a certain piece of gear they wanted to acquire.
You didn't get exp from BG's in vanilla.
The buff thing. It was kind of a joke, but in other way than what you meant. Most serious raiding guilds spent hours and hours between raid days only for farming mats for consumables or gold to buy them on AH. In addition they took several other buffs from couple of dungeons and world objects to maximize damage output and tanking and healing power. I found a list of all buffs for each class and guilds really used most of them at once (until first wipe).
The above was only one example of depth there used to be in this game, but i can't say it ever was deep enough. PvP for example was never really connected to other game features. You could had some gear and a mount but that's about it. It has always been like a separate mini-game inside an MMORPG, pretty much like pet battles are in current game. Unfortunately Blizzard didn't dig it deeper but shoveled sand on it and made it more shallow on every iteration of the game. At some point hunter pets had talent trees of their own and they were different depending on beast's race. How cool was that?
But i can understand the reasons they developed the game as they did. There's heck of a lot of work if you develop every feature and system in every expansion. The bottom line is that i prefer the game when it was in its deepest form and can't wait WoW: Classic. The depth comes at the cost of volume, unfortunately, but it's a price i'm willing to pay.
This ought to twitterpate your weekend, folks! </div>
I'm going to agree with Frodo here. The article assumes that it will not be a progression server. The wow devs on the other hand say that patch 1.12 will be the foundation in the sense that it will use that version of classes spells and talents and battlegrounds. They only talk about including FEATURES. It says nothing about how CONTENT will be released.
**********************from the official site.
The first—and among the most important—decision we had to make was which version of the game to focus on. As many of you have noted, the classic period was two years long and full of changes. Core features like Battlegrounds were introduced in patches after WoW’s original launch, and class design similarly changed over time. After careful consideration, we decided on Patch 1.12: Drums of War as our foundation, because it represents the most complete version of the classic experience.
At first I was excited about this, but I'm not sure I see the point now. There are already Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot classic servers. And Dark Ages of Camelot already shows a clear decline in many ways from Everquest. I think the thrill of World of Warcraft thirteen years ago (20 years old) was that finally I was emancipated as I thought from the reliance on other players in Everquest and even Shadowbane. Nevertheless World of Warcraft is what it is...I'm sure if I looked around I could find some F2P game from the late 2000s that wasn't much different from it. There's no disputing that MMORPGs showed a persistent trend of change in a certain direction from year to year. Well good luck to those who hope to call this game their home. In the meantime I recommend you try Project 1999, and maybe later Uthgard DAoC.
I just read most of the comments on Blizzard's site with the above news. Its crazy how well some people remember exact small details of specific patches. I completely forgot about the honor system and its tiers and that was huge. And people remember specific changes to classes. Or seemed to. I hope they just reread patch notes or I need to take the memory supplements they do.
Will the crowd who play older WoW versions on private servers pay to play Classic? Maybe. Will they have to buy a full game again and on top of that, subscription?
WOW classic is and will continue to be super cheap.
My only question is can I sub just to classic and not for the current version too.
The classic servers are going to be a joke. Getting people together to do 40 man raids is going to be next to impossible. There is no decent crafting so what are people going to do once they hit 60? As much as I dislike the way Wow has progressed, it has come far since the launch and going back to the beginning just sounds really dumb to me.
I'm going to guess that they can put a LOT more people on each server than they did when vanilla launched. In the likelihood that they have multiple servers, certain ones will be more focused towards progression.
The classic servers are going to be a joke. Getting people together to do 40 man raids is going to be next to impossible. There is no decent crafting so what are people going to do once they hit 60? As much as I dislike the way Wow has progressed, it has come far since the launch and going back to the beginning just sounds really dumb to me.
I'm going to guess that they can put a LOT more people on each server than they did when vanilla launched. In the likelihood that they have multiple servers, certain ones will be more focused towards progression.
I hope not. The last thing I want is bigger fights for nodes, quest drops, etc.
The classic servers are going to be a joke. Getting people together to do 40 man raids is going to be next to impossible. There is no decent crafting so what are people going to do once they hit 60? As much as I dislike the way Wow has progressed, it has come far since the launch and going back to the beginning just sounds really dumb to me.
I'm going to guess that they can put a LOT more people on each server than they did when vanilla launched. In the likelihood that they have multiple servers, certain ones will be more focused towards progression.
I'm curious, have you raided recently? In WoW or any other game? Like true blue end game raiding?
I ask because i wonder if you know how hard it is to get 20 like minded raiders to commit to even just 2 days a week 3 hours a day. Multiplying that by 2 just....compounds that difficulty. There's no shortage of players in current WoW, and yet it is still extremely difficult to get even just 20 likeminded players together to raid together on a set schedule.
The classic servers are going to be a joke. Getting people together to do 40 man raids is going to be next to impossible. There is no decent crafting so what are people going to do once they hit 60? As much as I dislike the way Wow has progressed, it has come far since the launch and going back to the beginning just sounds really dumb to me.
I'm going to guess that they can put a LOT more people on each server than they did when vanilla launched. In the likelihood that they have multiple servers, certain ones will be more focused towards progression.
I'm curious, have you raided recently? In WoW or any other game? Like true blue end game raiding?
I ask because i wonder if you know how hard it is to get 20 like minded raiders to commit to even just 2 days a week 3 hours a day. Multiplying that by 2 just....compounds that difficulty. There's no shortage of players in current WoW, and yet it is still extremely difficult to get even just 20 likeminded players together to raid together on a set schedule.
That's typical this time of the year though, content is on farm, summer is here, current expansion is getting long in the tooth, commitment to raids always gets iffy at this stage.
There certainly has been a drift away from large raid groups so it will be interesting to see how 40 man raids fare in classic, I don't think it'll be that much of a problem because people are joining to do things like BWL, AQ40 and Naxx but time will tell.
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I don't think you understand what 'depth' is in this context.
We talk about interdependence of many features in the game, which in retail is near nonexistence. You have lots of options and alternatives, yes, but you doesn't really need any of them to take you to the finishing line. Pre-Cataclysm WoW was like a jigsaw puzzle - you needed to dabble a bit in everywhere to get what you wanted.
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To the sycophants of the cult of modern child gaming, built on the foundation a game is only good if tons of kids can easily understand the game and watch other people play the game online, please explain optimal. Optimal for what? There is no duel specs. The cost for re-specing cost more than most people could afford after a certain price tier and no waiting for reset. Your spec had to be "optimal" for soloing, open world pvp, BGs, dueling, dungeons with crappy pick-up groups, raiding, and everything else.
Thinking that different specs weren't viable is ridiculous, as people would copy some weird stuff with different levels of success and failure in different situations. People like me would come up with weird shit that worked extremely well and then never share that information and no one would be able to know the how or what because there was no armory people could look up. If you didn't tell other people were left to guessing.
And saying there were only "gimped" and "optimal" means you were not around then, and you were part of the cult and mindset that set WoW down the kid path of sucking really bad to attract dimwits and children.
How about you guys stick to modern WoW and being "optimal," and let the people that want complexity and build choices and real rpg systems made for adults alone. You guys control the current market with Minecraft to WoW to Clicker Hero. Just leave us alone with your nonsense that made current WoW your game. Stick to what you like and we'll stick to what we like.
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But why stop there? If removing builds is good, why not remove classes? Why not remove roles? Everyone can be exactly the same. The argument at is core is against the rpg in mmorpgs. Is against diversity, thought, and complex systems.
So, why have the choice of stacking spirit to increase mana regen over intelligence for damage? Why stack agility for dodge and crit over strength for damage? Make all attributes do different things for different classes, thus removing the reason and core function of their inclusion?
I always tried to completely understand a system, so I could exploit it. In simple terms could I give up a minimal amount of dps for a much more significant amount of survivability? How valuable is talent X that is good but very situational over talent Y which was overall poor but a constant?
Complexity leads to choices. Real choices with real trade offs. Which is supported by actual attributes that do the same thing for everyone. Which is supported by a single build that is hard to change and is never optimal in all the situations players find themselves.
Did crafting have a different focus in Vanilla than the streamlined, search for equality, low impact version it is now? Yes. The crafted fire resistance sets in vanilla prove that. The fact I had to grind for days to complete the crafting master quest, or whatever it was called, proves it. The fact that crafting was disparate, and that races were disparate, and that buffs from classes were disparate, and that attributes where disparate, and that I have 51 points to apply in a three very disparate trees, and I could make a real tons of real decisions that greatly or minimally impacted functionality that I had to try to maximize or focus over ALL activity I would engage in.
My logic follows. Your logic does not. I am arguing for more rpg. You are arguing to remove rpg from mmorpgs. You seem to dislike real complexity. I love it. You want everything stripped, removed, equalized, and streamlined to the lowest common denominator. I want systems to be increasing complex, and systems so intertwined that dimwits and children will never be able to understand the system and will leave the game in fury and go back to watching other people play Minecraft.
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But i wasn't even talking about crafting. In a very basic level these games are totally different. In vanilla mobs were tough and they hit hard, so you wanted to gear up constantly to level up faster. To do that, you needed gear, which came almost exclusively from dungeons and dungeon quests, which you had to find and unlock by doing pre-quests in outside world. You also had to gear up for these dungeons in order to upgrade your gear. Weak tanks and useless dps were often kicked and replaced, so you had to take care of your performance.
Now, in Legion you level up by doing a series of quests, which give you all the gear you need to steamroll the mobs, OR you can spam dungeon finder and take the dungeon quests at the beginning of the instance. No need to go outside world to find or unlock anything, just grab them and follow your tank who kills everything before you can even loot the corpses, OR you can spend your time in BG's and level up by doing PvP if boring quests and easy dungeons doesn't fit to your play style, etc.
There's lot more features and mechanics in Legion WoW, no one is denying that, but the interdependence is missing. You can choose one feature and ignore the rest if you want to. I guess that's my biggest problem with current retail.
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If your argument is that the best exclusively raiding focused guilds valued raiding exclusively and no doubt would encourage all dps to give up (in general terms) 40% survivability for 3% more dps, then sure. I know in BC my guild wanted me to change my build that I made specifically for our current raid, which had little time on target for melee dps. They wanted me to be cookie cutter which at the time promoted sustainable dps, rather than our raid with bosses that did not allow me to sustain dps. Lazy people have lazy answers. Its easier to tell everyone to do x or else, instead of accepting proof that contradicts the wisdom of x. My total damage went way up on all bosses but a couple, where it went down but not dramatically or in any way that would justify giving up my major increases on all the other bosses.
The same with pvp. I was able to perform above my ability level in the arena specifically because of people's cookie cutter mentality. What worked for the best players doesn't work for the baddies. When people expected you to zig, because the best players zig, and even though you don't have the skill nor knowledge of the best players everyone still tries to zig, that is when smart people zag.
I could give a ton more examples, like when mana regen was a major issue with druids in BC and I fixed that issue, by creating a spec that never ran out of mana but my individual heals numbers went down (a lot) as my total healing skyrocketed and I didn't peter out early after a couple people made a couple mistakes. Which was needed at the time badly, but went against all cookie cutter. Or that the cookie cutter warrior tank build did not include the talent that required two points for a 4% increase in magic damage immunity in favor of two points in increase crit (I think? It was a dps talent justified by increase threat generation). I skipped some points that totaled less than 1% physical damage mitigation for then same dps talent while picking up the magic dam mit two point talent, and got a ton of shit for it. No one accepted their same exact argument for skipping the magic damage mitigation talents that blocked way more magic damage. Sure magic damage wasn't as prevalent from trash mobs and more bosses did high physical spikes than magic spikes, but just because cookie cutter wisdom stated less than 1% physical damage was absolutely necessary and 4% magic immunity wasn't doesn't mean that is inarguable fact and the successful performance of my build proved that. Did that change the cookie cutter build? No, most of the WoW community were oblivious to most of the theory crafting discussions.
People wanted cookie cutter because it reduced variables and thinking. It helped highlight who were the baddies. It helped the baddies be less bad. It helped normalize outcomes. It helped in a lot of ways. It also hurt in a lot of ways.
Answer this - did you put in a significant effort in trying out and testing new builds? Or understanding the systems that made cookie cutter builds popular? If not, how can you say there were no build diversity? I spent significant amount of time theory crafting and coming up with weird builds and belonged to various communities that did the same and they would tell you the same I am. Just because the people not interested in it didn't see it, doesn't mean it wasn't right in front of their face.
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My whole time in Vanilla WoW was theory crafting with tons of others - huge and multiple communities of others directly responsible for huge swaths of the non-content patch notes.
But I noticed you did not answer the question I asked above so I'll ask it again.
What you are saying is exactly like someone saying there was no raiding in Vanilla wow because they didn't raid. Its a nonsensical argument. Where do you think your popular builds for various activities came from? An imaginary community that never was? Or the extremely large community that loved figuring systems out and trying to find exploits and tinkering and finding more ways to eek out a few points here and there and all the formulas, etc?
Apart from quests dungeons gave very little exp per run, so it wasn't efficient way to level up. It also took so long that usually one or two runs were enough and you wanted to have a break, and even if you didn't your group most likely broke up and you had to find a new one, so spamming dungeon runs the way they do in retail wasn't really possible. And because of all this players didn't run dungeons unless they had a quest or two for it, or there was a certain piece of gear they wanted to acquire.
You didn't get exp from BG's in vanilla.
The buff thing. It was kind of a joke, but in other way than what you meant. Most serious raiding guilds spent hours and hours between raid days only for farming mats for consumables or gold to buy them on AH. In addition they took several other buffs from couple of dungeons and world objects to maximize damage output and tanking and healing power. I found a list of all buffs for each class and guilds really used most of them at once (until first wipe).
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MsDWgYDIcPE_5nX6pRbea-hW9JQjYikfCDWk16l5V-8/pubhtml
The above was only one example of depth there used to be in this game, but i can't say it ever was deep enough. PvP for example was never really connected to other game features. You could had some gear and a mount but that's about it. It has always been like a separate mini-game inside an MMORPG, pretty much like pet battles are in current game. Unfortunately Blizzard didn't dig it deeper but shoveled sand on it and made it more shallow on every iteration of the game. At some point hunter pets had talent trees of their own and they were different depending on beast's race. How cool was that?
But i can understand the reasons they developed the game as they did. There's heck of a lot of work if you develop every feature and system in every expansion. The bottom line is that i prefer the game when it was in its deepest form and can't wait WoW: Classic. The depth comes at the cost of volume, unfortunately, but it's a price i'm willing to pay.
I'm going to agree with Frodo here. The article assumes that it will not be a progression server. The wow devs on the other hand say that patch 1.12 will be the foundation in the sense that it will use that version of classes spells and talents and battlegrounds. They only talk about including FEATURES. It says nothing about how CONTENT will be released.
**********************from the official site.
The first—and among the most important—decision we had to make was which version of the game to focus on. As many of you have noted, the classic period was two years long and full of changes. Core features like Battlegrounds were introduced in patches after WoW’s original launch, and class design similarly changed over time. After careful consideration, we decided on Patch 1.12: Drums of War as our foundation, because it represents the most complete version of the classic experience.
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There certainly has been a drift away from large raid groups so it will be interesting to see how 40 man raids fare in classic, I don't think it'll be that much of a problem because people are joining to do things like BWL, AQ40 and Naxx but time will tell.