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It isn't just nostalgia.
Consuetudo
Member UncommonPosts: 191
I played many games when I was younger. Crash Bandicoot, Megamen, the Monkey Island series, etc. While some of these games were fun, I'd not care to play them now naturally. Perhaps if you show me a video of one of these games it will provoke a nostalgic feeling, but nothing really compelling enough to make me want to play it.
I could say the same about several other games. But I cannot say the same for something like WoW.
Right now, I am listening to some of the soundtracks from vanilla WoW on YouTube. These are masterful songs of ambiance: contemplative, epic, timeless, so amazingly appropriate to the zone that you were in. But no, a soundtrack is not enough. I am not reminded of great days listening to these great songs, I am reminded of actually being in the world itself, and the experiences I had.
The soundtracks remind of the vastness of what the world felt like. And this does not need to do necessarily with the actual virtual size of Azeroth itself. I'm sure that the combined regions of a game like SWTOR are pretty large as well, for example, but what I'm referring to is something beyond size. What made the Warcraft world feel vast to me was something involving a great many factors, all of which succeeded in making the world feel alive.
Firstly, it was the naivete of the players. There were so many players, so many varieties, doing so many things. They were constantly around you too. While doing a quest, there could be some dangerous high level lurking in the shadows, another player that could perhaps become a friend, etc. In quite a way, roleplaying wasn't really a choice, it was something that was simply brought to you. The best game makes you feel that you are your character actually in this world. And that is certainly how I felt, and I didn't have a choice about it.
There was a quaintness about the environment, the zones, the quests, etc. You could tell that the developers of the game took time with every little niche, every single quest. Everything had some clever little addition that made it all the more immersive. It wasn't about the quests. It wasn't even about goals. It wasn't about story either. What's the "story" of vanilla WoW? Killing Van Cleef in the deadmines? There's no story. It's not about a narrative. It's about the World itself. The quests were largely ways of showing the world to you.
It's like the game was a frontier where no-one was there to hold your hand. It was the wild west, and you had to make of it what you would. We didn't play to get somewhere, we just played. We were in this world.
I remember starting out and, having already played Warcraft II and III, always having this feeling that the world I'm in is such a vast & huge place, with so much more for me to explore. That's what was compelling to me--that was my "goal." I knew there was so much more, and I was excited to see it. The quests were merely a vehicle to take me there. I never cared much about them. They didn't tell a grand story. They really just involved killing boars or gathering plants. But what mattered was the journey. Long quest chains that took you all over the world and about which you wondered if anyone else had ever even done this quest since it's so long and complicated.
You can point me to x and y MMO, and the reason I won't treasure it so much is because it doesn't have the quaint & youthful feeling of an ambitious young company passionate about every small part of their world. It's not because of "nostalgia." I certainly feel nostalgia for WoW, but it's not the nostalgia itself that makes the thing so compelling. You only pretend to believe that because it's convenient, because it justifies a mindset that allows you to act in a certain way. You want to make yourself believe that it's just nostalgia and you seemingly force yourself to try to appreciate other games as much.
Like a great work of art, WoW was a masterpiece. I would read Lord of the Rings over and over again not because of nostalgia, but because it is great. I would play Rome Total War over and over again not because of nostalgia, but because it is great. I would play vanilla WoW over and over again not because of nostalgia, but because it is great.
I could say the same about several other games. But I cannot say the same for something like WoW.
Right now, I am listening to some of the soundtracks from vanilla WoW on YouTube. These are masterful songs of ambiance: contemplative, epic, timeless, so amazingly appropriate to the zone that you were in. But no, a soundtrack is not enough. I am not reminded of great days listening to these great songs, I am reminded of actually being in the world itself, and the experiences I had.
The soundtracks remind of the vastness of what the world felt like. And this does not need to do necessarily with the actual virtual size of Azeroth itself. I'm sure that the combined regions of a game like SWTOR are pretty large as well, for example, but what I'm referring to is something beyond size. What made the Warcraft world feel vast to me was something involving a great many factors, all of which succeeded in making the world feel alive.
Firstly, it was the naivete of the players. There were so many players, so many varieties, doing so many things. They were constantly around you too. While doing a quest, there could be some dangerous high level lurking in the shadows, another player that could perhaps become a friend, etc. In quite a way, roleplaying wasn't really a choice, it was something that was simply brought to you. The best game makes you feel that you are your character actually in this world. And that is certainly how I felt, and I didn't have a choice about it.
There was a quaintness about the environment, the zones, the quests, etc. You could tell that the developers of the game took time with every little niche, every single quest. Everything had some clever little addition that made it all the more immersive. It wasn't about the quests. It wasn't even about goals. It wasn't about story either. What's the "story" of vanilla WoW? Killing Van Cleef in the deadmines? There's no story. It's not about a narrative. It's about the World itself. The quests were largely ways of showing the world to you.
It's like the game was a frontier where no-one was there to hold your hand. It was the wild west, and you had to make of it what you would. We didn't play to get somewhere, we just played. We were in this world.
I remember starting out and, having already played Warcraft II and III, always having this feeling that the world I'm in is such a vast & huge place, with so much more for me to explore. That's what was compelling to me--that was my "goal." I knew there was so much more, and I was excited to see it. The quests were merely a vehicle to take me there. I never cared much about them. They didn't tell a grand story. They really just involved killing boars or gathering plants. But what mattered was the journey. Long quest chains that took you all over the world and about which you wondered if anyone else had ever even done this quest since it's so long and complicated.
You can point me to x and y MMO, and the reason I won't treasure it so much is because it doesn't have the quaint & youthful feeling of an ambitious young company passionate about every small part of their world. It's not because of "nostalgia." I certainly feel nostalgia for WoW, but it's not the nostalgia itself that makes the thing so compelling. You only pretend to believe that because it's convenient, because it justifies a mindset that allows you to act in a certain way. You want to make yourself believe that it's just nostalgia and you seemingly force yourself to try to appreciate other games as much.
Like a great work of art, WoW was a masterpiece. I would read Lord of the Rings over and over again not because of nostalgia, but because it is great. I would play Rome Total War over and over again not because of nostalgia, but because it is great. I would play vanilla WoW over and over again not because of nostalgia, but because it is great.
Comments
WoW Vanilla was great.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
Things like marveling over soundtracks- I feel the same way about listening to ffxi tracks. Yes, they were great, and the WoW soundtracks were pretty good, but mostly it's because ffxi was my first MMO.
It's like your first girlfriend- she may have been pretty cool but she probably wasn't as amazing as you remember.
You had goals to work on day by day, even if you logged on for just an hour or so per day, you'd still have that big sense of progression as you try and move forward and level up. You make friends, you group up to overcome those nasty bits of quests that force you to explore caves riddled with grouped up mobs, you had to organize and set up a dungeon party by yourself or with your guildmates. It wasn't a lobby game where you sit in your main city Orgrimmar or Stormwind and play hearthstone while you wait for a Raid Finder queue.
Back when there was a WoW community within the game. Trust me, you'd know the best people on both factions and who their best players were and you might even talk to them eventually. You'd meet them in the open world too! When Ashenvale was real.
There is no objective "Vanilla WoW was better!" so... ya all these fond memories of your enjoyment as a starry eyed adventurer in a new land... that is nostalgia. I happen to agree with you "Vanilla WoW was better!" but that doesn't make it empirical fact nor change the fact that our fondness for it was based on our emotional response to the game in a past time frame that we are now looking back on and longing for... stop me when we come to the point that this isn't all nostalgia.
Ah but those goblin rocket boots...when they worked of course.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Just turned level 21 Priest, I have 10 gold......I love vanilla WoW !
I read the quest text. I treasure in-game lore. But lore is different than a story. WCIII is a grand story. SWTOR tries to be a grand story with your class quests. But WoW was just the typical "every single player is the hero that saved the world," which necessarily ends up meaning that no-one is actually a hero that saved the world.
Misinterpreting me to this degree for the simple purpose of attacking me is wasted effort.
I don't even play on vanilla WoW servers, nor do I care for them. It is the same in that I feel a sense of unease listening to these "New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal" bands: after all, they are not progressing. They are revivalist. They are by nature second-rate copyists. A vanilla WoW server does not capture the time and the place, as any essential art does. I do not want to repeat anything--rather, I want to experience the new thing that is good.
Perhaps you pigeonhole me. Perhaps you deliberately misunderstand what I write. I do not want to play vanilla WoW, I am merely recalling why it was great. The argument of most contrarians who want us all to accept the current state of things say "it actually wasn't great, and you are wrong: nostalgia blinds you." On the contrary: I can certainly feel nostalgia, and to deny it would be bedlam. But nostalgia does not blind me into thinking something which was not great is. I am having nostalgia for the thing that is great. I am not misconceiving the lackluster thing as being great because of nostalgia.
What a silly comment about lore. I directly acknowledge the clever things that the young developers placed into every small thing. I've played several characters in vanilla WoW and very much know the lore of even the most useless quest, or at least I did a decade ago.
WoW less so. The music - sure but the music isn't the game. I find some of EQ1's tracks evocative for example. The grouping, the interactions, facing danger for the first time - with no guides to how to run e.g. MC that cannot be recaptured. Same deal with EQ, DAoC etc. It can be fun to go back and experience but it is a different self that does so and the reasons why you left soon resurface.
Logged on this morning around 7 am and found my friend online so we skyped on voice chat.
We finished all the quest on the beach of Zoram Strand near Ashenvale forest. Soon I'll be level 25 and can do one of my favorite Dungeons Shadowfang Keep, I'm a pure healer so getting a group is no problem, add that I use the social panel and hand select my team.......Good times....Good times !
I miss vanilla AV (the great version not how it got changed just before tbc).
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!