WoW Classic has proved to me that the problem is with the developers....

Veiled_light

Everyone says "Just Nostalgia", but I've had more fun with WoW Classic, than I've had with an MMO since.... including WoW. I've barely played an MMO since 2005/6, I quit WoW because they killed world PVP with all the changes. However nothing has come out since that has been any good, they all seemed to clone WoW, but miss what made the game good... which is the world. Everyone seems to treat the world as a nuisance for some reason? 

For me the genre has been dead for almost 15 years And it is the fault of the developers, not me growing up, or looking back at Nostalgia... just they have failed to make good MMOs. 

agentsi1511

People like what they like. The developers are doing more now, than they did in Classic. Retail, is overall, a WAY better quality game for what you get compared to Classic. But hell, I still play EQ on private servers because I like games that require forced group play. Not just gather 5-100 mobs and just AoE down. Classic isn't, nor was it ever a hard game. People like it, purely for nostalgia. Nothing more. It is too rigid. Raid fights last 10 seconds... like. It is a shitty shitty game, but it takes you back to a time where that was the only thing around. 

The devs are doing great work. If you were smart enough to do better than them, they would hire you, but I bet you aren't working for them now are you?

Albatroes

agentsi1511 said:

People like what they like. The developers are doing more now, than they did in Classic. Retail, is overall, a WAY better quality game for what you get compared to Classic. But hell, I still play EQ on private servers because I like games that require forced group play. Not just gather 5-100 mobs and just AoE down. Classic isn't, nor was it ever a hard game. People like it, purely for nostalgia. Nothing more. It is too rigid. Raid fights last 10 seconds... like. It is a shitty shitty game, but it takes you back to a time where that was the only thing around. 

The devs are doing great work. If you were smart enough to do better than them, they would hire you, but I bet you aren't working for them now are you?

Good to know "less is more" means nothing to some people, right...?

MightyUnclean

agentsi1511 said:

People like what they like. The developers are doing more now, than they did in Classic. Retail, is overall, a WAY better quality game for what you get compared to Classic. But hell, I still play EQ on private servers because I like games that require forced group play. Not just gather 5-100 mobs and just AoE down. Classic isn't, nor was it ever a hard game. People like it, purely for nostalgia. Nothing more. It is too rigid. Raid fights last 10 seconds... like. It is a shitty shitty game, but it takes you back to a time where that was the only thing around. 

The devs are doing great work. If you were smart enough to do better than them, they would hire you, but I bet you aren't working for them now are you?

Raid fights last 10 seconds?  Are you sure you raided the original Molten Core?

Kyleran

MightyUnclean said:

agentsi1511 said:

People like what they like. The developers are doing more now, than they did in Classic. Retail, is overall, a WAY better quality game for what you get compared to Classic. But hell, I still play EQ on private servers because I like games that require forced group play. Not just gather 5-100 mobs and just AoE down. Classic isn't, nor was it ever a hard game. People like it, purely for nostalgia. Nothing more. It is too rigid. Raid fights last 10 seconds... like. It is a shitty shitty game, but it takes you back to a time where that was the only thing around. 

The devs are doing great work. If you were smart enough to do better than them, they would hire you, but I bet you aren't working for them now are you?

Raid fights last 10 seconds?  Are you sure you raided the original Molten Core?

Oh yeah, 4 or 5 hour clears back in the day, tons of trash mobs everywhere before getting to Rag.... and he definitely took more than 10 sec even after we got the dungeon down to farm status.

agentsi1511

MightyUnclean said:

agentsi1511 said:

People like what they like. The developers are doing more now, than they did in Classic. Retail, is overall, a WAY better quality game for what you get compared to Classic. But hell, I still play EQ on private servers because I like games that require forced group play. Not just gather 5-100 mobs and just AoE down. Classic isn't, nor was it ever a hard game. People like it, purely for nostalgia. Nothing more. It is too rigid. Raid fights last 10 seconds... like. It is a shitty shitty game, but it takes you back to a time where that was the only thing around. 

The devs are doing great work. If you were smart enough to do better than them, they would hire you, but I bet you aren't working for them now are you?

Raid fights last 10 seconds?  Are you sure you raided the original Molten Core?

https://classic.warcraftlogs.com/reports/94yP2W8RFx6wBqK3#type=damage-done&fight=17

Fights are lasting 10-30 seconds on average. And yes, I raided during vanilla, and no we never cleared this fast even after we were clearing twin emps in AQ40.

Point is, this is what people consider hard, or challenging gameplay. 

Less is more in some areas. But when less is literally less game, less mechanics, less features, that is not better.

Groqstrong

I had the exact opposite experience.  QoL was sorely missed in Classic by me. 

Dibdabs

Tried Classic, it was...ok, I suppose.  It just seemed bland.  Too much "saw that 10 years ago" and, not wanting to see it all over again, I left.  I won't ever return to Classic.  I only returned to WoW a few weeks ago after the aforementioned 10-year break from playing and Retail just has far more to explore, a lot more interesting things to do and so many QoL features.  I don't care about PvP in WoW and never have and BGs bore the ass off me, so whether they were "better" in the old days or not I have no idea and nor will I ever find out.

Aesir01

There are people who like the old games, there's nothing wrong with that, but for those who enjoy content, more mechanics, less an empty grinding sandbox, well there are far better games or iterations of wow than classic. I have played and had a sub since the launch of it, I remember when my brother dad and I played it, all played horde, I was a enhancement shammy back when there was no dual wield *shivers* 

essentially nothing anyone could say would make me go back to that game. Not when there are far more fulfilling and better made games. At the time, WoW was great, FAR superior to EQ2 and EQ. I remember it and it was connected to some of my favorite games, Warcraft 3?! You couldn't convince me not to play it. But if you were to say... give me wow classic vs Wow 10 years later id laugh and say you smoked too much crack. If you want to play less, that's up to you, enjoy classic, some people wanted to play it because they never had the opportunity. I did. and I'm good, alot of other people are ok with it. And i'm a firm believer after a year or so, unless they start slowly rolling out the old expansions which is to me, just seems like a huge money grubbing thing, but again to each their own... wow classic will die, because eventually people will be done with the content, other games will come out, new expansions of current games. 

I don't think there's a wrong answer when people say whats a good game, whats a bad game. Its truly subjective. But it applies to those who are the fans of classic as well, just because you enjoyed classic, doesn't mean its universally a good game by today's standards. In fact by today's standards its a woefully lacking mmo with dated graphics, bugs, glitches and problems. But some want to experience or reminisce on the old days. And there is nothing wrong with that. 

gago889

Classic is dying and some stupid people still trying hang to the glory past

rounner

If you compared an old classic car like a James Bond Aston Martin to a modern cheap hatchback, you'd have to say the Aston Martin is better. I'd rather commute in the new car because of basic comfort and handling though.

A better comparison though would be an industry being used to launder money. Hundreds of millions of dollars can be thrown at MMO's that disappears into the ether. Car manufacturers don't spend 90% of budget on cocaine and hookers and ideas men.

kitarad

I am enjoying myself but I have 7-9 characters I am slowly levelling up. I do think however that the reason vanilla lasted beyond one year is because on the private servers there is no subscription. In the end most folk will leave because there is a subscription. They will not want to do that game's end raid weekly and log in for that while paying a full sub. A few have said as much in my guild.

I personally will play perhaps until I get all my 9 characters yeah I added two more      to level 60 and because I despise raiding I will quit too. The BGS might keep me for a bit but in the end I will also get tired of the game. I can see it already now but the fact that I have so many characters ,the repetition is getting to me. I have never liked grinding gold for consumables  and I will not engage in that soul crunching activity.

delete5230

kitarad said:

I am enjoying myself but I have 7-9 characters I am slowly levelling up. I do think however that the reason vanilla lasted beyond one year is because on the private servers there is no subscription. In the end most folk will leave because there is a subscription. They will not want to do that game's end raid weekly and log in for that while paying a full sub. A few have said as much in my guild.

I personally will play perhaps until I get all my 9 characters yeah I added two more      to level 60 and because I despise raiding I will quit too. The BGS might keep me for a bit but in the end I will also get tired of the game. I can see it already now but the fact that I have so many characters ,the repetition is getting to me. I have never liked grinding gold for consumables  and I will not engage in that soul crunching activity.

You described the future situation well,
Classic style is what the people want, BUT IT'S AN OLD GAME..... As good as the game is, it's "been their done that".

What is needed is a new real mmorpg if people are to stay.



Nostalgia is not the case for temporary.... Been their done that IS WHY its temporary. 

Kyleran

Dibdabs said:

Tried Classic, it was...ok, I suppose.  It just seemed bland.  Too much "saw that 10 years ago" and, not wanting to see it all over again, I left.  I won't ever return to Classic.  I only returned to WoW a few weeks ago after the aforementioned 10-year break from playing and Retail just has far more to explore, a lot more interesting things to do and so many QoL features.  I don't care about PvP in WoW and never have and BGs bore the ass off me, so whether they were "better" in the old days or not I have no idea and nor will I ever find out.

My friends wife has a story similar to yours. She returned to WOW retail earlier after a long hiatus and really enjoyed all of the QOL features it has.

When Classic released she had no interest in trying it though many of her guildmates did.

Since launch she reports most of her guild has returned to retail though many are splitting their time between the two versions.

Seems they play retail to raid with the guild, and solo on classic during their slack times.

She was sad to see one of their best tanks choose to shift his raiding entirely over to classic but such is life for those who seriously raid in Classic, "my life for you"

Kyleran

kitarad said:

I am enjoying myself but I have 7-9 characters I am slowly levelling up. I do think however that the reason vanilla lasted beyond one year is because on the private servers there is no subscription. In the end most folk will leave because there is a subscription. They will not want to do that game's end raid weekly and log in for that while paying a full sub. A few have said as much in my guild.

I personally will play perhaps until I get all my 9 characters yeah I added two more      to level 60 and because I despise raiding I will quit too. The BGS might keep me for a bit but in the end I will also get tired of the game. I can see it already now but the fact that I have so many characters ,the repetition is getting to me. I have never liked grinding gold for consumables  and I will not engage in that soul crunching activity.

Oof, leveling 9 characters to 60 under Classic's slower progression system sounds like a soul crushing endeavour.

Your play style is totally opposite of mine, while I did have many alts I always level one and only one character fully to cap, then start it all again.

To keep it more interesting I often switched servers, realms, races or from PVP to PVE and back again.

I don't believe I ever had more than two level capped characters on any one server, yet I did have 8 or so in total during my time in Vanilla.

I also was a raider, reach Rag on my first go around in the spring of 2005. In my second try (new character & server of course) in the summer of 2006 (took a six month hiatus in between) we had just reached Twin Emps when BC launched which resulted in my raiding guild falling apart as everyone adapted to the smaller raid formats.

I walked away from WOW for many years, returning only once to level a tank in Cata which really sucked tanking in DF Pugs and I never have raided since 2006.

In later games such as LOTRO I tried leveling several characters at the same time but quickly discovered running basically the same quest content three times within a short time of each other (i.e. the Hobbit pie runs) or grinding the same faction for them was extremely boring and I quit after about a month or so post launch.

Vagabondo

Well, if they released a WOTLK server, i would go back.

mbrodie

Veiled_light said:

Everyone says "Just Nostalgia", but I've had more fun with WoW Classic, than I've had with an MMO since.... including WoW. I've barely played an MMO since 2005/6, I quit WoW because they killed world PVP with all the changes. However nothing has come out since that has been any good, they all seemed to clone WoW, but miss what made the game good... which is the world. Everyone seems to treat the world as a nuisance for some reason? 

For me the genre has been dead for almost 15 years And it is the fault of the developers, not me growing up, or looking back at Nostalgia... just they have failed to make good MMOs. 

This is super opinionated.

Just because you feel this way doesn't mean the devs have failed... the millions of people who play BFA, ESO, FFXIV, GW2 etc... who all thoroughly enjoy their game and experience in no way feel the devs have failed.

I think it's super tired to claim Vanilla as some holy grail of gaming, was it fun at the time sure, was it the most accessible mmorpg that came out in that time yeah definitely, but it wasn't as is not perfect just like any other game.

everything you probably like about it others may hate and that doesn't make them less of or a worse gamer than you, it's ok to think that a talent tree with the illusion of customization is pointless when you can have most of the tedious choices baked into baseline with only meaningful encounter based choices left.

it's ok to not want to mindlessly have to quest the whole zones over and over just to get to the end and find out you're out of quests but you're not at level cap.

it's ok to not want to have to sit in trade chat spamming looking for a group.

Convenience is not a bad thing unless you make it a bad thing for example, i have plenty of meaningful encounters with people in BFA in dungeon / battleground finder groups who i have never spoken to before. Is everyone a social butterfly of course not, but it's honestly not hard to get people to chat and have fun if you actually try....

/rantover

Kyleran

Veiled_light said:

Everyone says "Just Nostalgia", but I've had more fun with WoW Classic, than I've had with an MMO since.... including WoW. I've barely played an MMO since 2005/6, I quit WoW because they killed world PVP with all the changes. However nothing has come out since that has been any good, they all seemed to clone WoW, but miss what made the game good... which is the world. Everyone seems to treat the world as a nuisance for some reason? 

For me the genre has been dead for almost 15 years And it is the fault of the developers, not me growing up, or looking back at Nostalgia... just they have failed to make good MMOs. 

While I agree all of my favorite MMORPGs were first released in 2004 or before,  it's not really fair to call ESO, Guldwars 2, ArcheAge, BDO and some other more recent titles WOW clones and each are good games in their own rights, just not ones with designs I enjoy.

Just because we don't like them doesn't mean they are bad games, though I too often fall into the trap of such thinking which I'm working on to overcome these days.

May you one day find a new MMORPG which you will enjoy,  I hope the same for myself as well.

But for now, I'm finding other types of games to keep me busy such as FO76 which apparently by supporting is enabling me to single handedly bring down the entire MMO genre, (or so I've been regular told) which is totally awesome.

Who knew being "evil" could be such fun?

kitarad

Kyleran said:

kitarad said:

I am enjoying myself but I have 7-9 characters I am slowly levelling up. I do think however that the reason vanilla lasted beyond one year is because on the private servers there is no subscription. In the end most folk will leave because there is a subscription. They will not want to do that game's end raid weekly and log in for that while paying a full sub. A few have said as much in my guild.

I personally will play perhaps until I get all my 9 characters yeah I added two more      to level 60 and because I despise raiding I will quit too. The BGS might keep me for a bit but in the end I will also get tired of the game. I can see it already now but the fact that I have so many characters ,the repetition is getting to me. I have never liked grinding gold for consumables  and I will not engage in that soul crunching activity.

Oof, leveling 9 characters to 60 under Classic's slower progression system sounds like a soul crushing endeavour.

Your play style is totally opposite of mine, while I did have many alts I always level one and only one character fully to cap, then start it all again.

To keep it more interesting I often switched servers, realms, races or from PVP to PVE and back again.

I don't believe I ever had more than two level capped characters on any one server, yet I did have 8 or so in total during my time in Vanilla.

I also was a raider, reach Rag on my first go around in the spring of 2005. In my second try (new character & server of course) in the summer of 2006 (took a six month hiatus in between) we had just reached Twin Emps when BC launched which resulted in my raiding guild falling apart as everyone adapted to the smaller raid formats.

I walked away from WOW for many years, returning only once to level a tank in Cata which really sucked tanking in DF Pugs and I never have raided since 2006.

In later games such as LOTRO I tried leveling several characters at the same time but quickly discovered running basically the same quest content three times within a short time of each other (i.e. the Hobbit pie runs) or grinding the same faction for them was extremely boring and I quit after about a month or so post launch.

I'm not levelling in the same places and I have both Alliance and Horde characters. I play through Barrens on two and Silverpine on the others.  I go through Ashenvale on 2 and Westfall on another so I'm not repeating that much at all. Plus I'm constantly exploring , fishing, looking for things to cook, generally reading every quest , watching the stray dialogue and checking the terrain or area for odds and ends the game has for humour. However there is unavoidable repetition.

Did you know the witch doctor in Stonetalon has a cauldron of pickled sludge and his little quest to use nature against the elves has an interesting twist. I observe everything and progress very slowly. There's a water elemental that keeps attacking the small fire near it... quite hilarious.

I spent 2 days levelling a new pet because I wanted a different type of pet and wanted that particular colour. I spent hours collecting the ingredients to a leather working recipe just to make the item and then decide what I had had better stats so I passed it to my new alt.

The game has truly lots of charm. Can't find that in newer games except in Wildstar. The developers there put so many scifi homages in it.

Kyleran

kitarad said:

Kyleran said:

kitarad said:

I am enjoying myself but I have 7-9 characters I am slowly levelling up. I do think however that the reason vanilla lasted beyond one year is because on the private servers there is no subscription. In the end most folk will leave because there is a subscription. They will not want to do that game's end raid weekly and log in for that while paying a full sub. A few have said as much in my guild.

I personally will play perhaps until I get all my 9 characters yeah I added two more      to level 60 and because I despise raiding I will quit too. The BGS might keep me for a bit but in the end I will also get tired of the game. I can see it already now but the fact that I have so many characters ,the repetition is getting to me. I have never liked grinding gold for consumables  and I will not engage in that soul crunching activity.

Oof, leveling 9 characters to 60 under Classic's slower progression system sounds like a soul crushing endeavour.

Your play style is totally opposite of mine, while I did have many alts I always level one and only one character fully to cap, then start it all again.

To keep it more interesting I often switched servers, realms, races or from PVP to PVE and back again.

I don't believe I ever had more than two level capped characters on any one server, yet I did have 8 or so in total during my time in Vanilla.

I also was a raider, reach Rag on my first go around in the spring of 2005. In my second try (new character & server of course) in the summer of 2006 (took a six month hiatus in between) we had just reached Twin Emps when BC launched which resulted in my raiding guild falling apart as everyone adapted to the smaller raid formats.

I walked away from WOW for many years, returning only once to level a tank in Cata which really sucked tanking in DF Pugs and I never have raided since 2006.

In later games such as LOTRO I tried leveling several characters at the same time but quickly discovered running basically the same quest content three times within a short time of each other (i.e. the Hobbit pie runs) or grinding the same faction for them was extremely boring and I quit after about a month or so post launch.

I'm not levelling in the same places and I have both Alliance and Horde characters. I play through Barrens on two and Silverpine on the others.  I go through Ashenvale on 2 and Westfall on another so I'm not repeating that much at all. Plus I'm constantly exploring , fishing, looking for things to cook, generally reading every quest , watching the stray dialogue and checking the terrain or area for odds and ends the game has for humour. However there is unavoidable repetition.

Did you know the witch doctor in Stonetalon has a cauldron of pickled sludge and his little quest to use nature against the elves has an interesting twist. I observe everything and progress very slowly. There's a water elemental that keeps attacking the small fire near it... quite hilarious.

I spent 2 days levelling a new pet because I wanted a different type of pet and wanted that particular colour. I spent hours collecting the ingredients to a leather working recipe just to make the item and then decide what I had had better stats so I passed it to my new alt.

The game has truly lots of charm. Can't find that in newer games except in Wildstar. The developers there put so many scifi homages in it.

Are you playing retail, classic or both?

I don't recall pet leveling being a thing in Vanilla WOW.

kitarad

Classic only. Yes, you have to level the pet. If your're 33 and your pet is level 9 you have to level it up killing mobs that give you experience not your pet so the mobs have to be at least green and not grey to you. Hell of a thing.

I try to farm things myself and avoid buying ingredients from the AH so it takes time to progress.

Amathe

One key thing about original WoW.

There was no need to rush to end game because there were tons of fun things to do before you got there.

Nowadays most of the fun content is only accessible at max level. 

Kajidourden

Partially, sure.  Overall?  No, it was the playerbase screaming for more and more convenience until we got what we have now.  An MMO is dependent upon player numbers, you do what the players want and what has been shown to be successful lest you risk hemorrhaging money.  

AlBQuirky

Dibdabs said:

Tried Classic, it was...ok, I suppose.  It just seemed bland.  Too much "saw that 10 years ago" and, not wanting to see it all over again, I left.  I won't ever return to Classic.  I only returned to WoW a few weeks ago after the aforementioned 10-year break from playing and Retail just has far more to explore, a lot more interesting things to do and so many QoL features.  I don't care about PvP in WoW and never have and BGs bore the ass off me, so whether they were "better" in the old days or not I have no idea and nor will I ever find out.

QoL. Does that include Hunters starting with their pets? Druids that automatically get their forms at the specific levels? All appropriate spells known at the appropriate level? Most skills automatically maxing out as soon as you level up?

Or are there things like UI improvements, other gameplay easements, and such?

blamo2000

Veiled_light said:

Everyone says "Just Nostalgia", but I've had more fun with WoW Classic, than I've had with an MMO since.... including WoW. I've barely played an MMO since 2005/6, I quit WoW because they killed world PVP with all the changes. However nothing has come out since that has been any good, they all seemed to clone WoW, but miss what made the game good... which is the world. Everyone seems to treat the world as a nuisance for some reason? 

For me the genre has been dead for almost 15 years And it is the fault of the developers, not me growing up, or looking back at Nostalgia... just they have failed to make good MMOs. 

Different people focus on and enjoy different things.  I agree with everything you said besides your main point. The world does absolutely nothing for me.  Lore does nothing for me.  They are necessary elements of a good game, and some people really, really enjoy those aspects - but it just doesn't get me to enjoy a game any more or less if they are done very well or not.

For me - I like rpg systems.  Wow had a good one that got better with BC and WotLK.  It added complexity with JC and glyphs.  And cataclysm destroyed most of it, and continued to destroy it further and further with each new expansion.  

I really, really enjoyed my time with Classic.  I am extremely tempted to go back every second of every day, but their Hong Kong buffoonery and kowtowing to the CCP is unacceptable to me, so I can't.  If they don't do anything egregious between now and releasing BC I will definitely go back.  

Theocritus

WoW is good because they hired the best people and paid them top dollar....Not many companies can compete with what Blizzard has, and when you factor in marketing they blow everyone out of the water as far as MMOs go.