Contrarian bait to drive engagement for shilling

1. The gameplay emerges from the community. You got to talk with people and when you know the right people, you get shit done together.
2. The world feels immense and immersive. You have to actually travel, things take time, there are no loading screens.
3. Loot always feels powerful.
4. The class fantasy is at its peak, every class has some 'peaks' and weird niche things they can do.
5. There is perfect balance of downtime from questing and doing side activities. The professions compliment the overall gameplay loop so good it was never done again, and fun thing is that you dont actually *NEED* to do any of the professions, they just sit into the leveling experience.
6. Most people dont care of balance or 'optimizations' when the game is superbly fun.

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>>738376610
feels finished until the very very end
plays very well actually
i dont care what the optimal composition is when I can just play whatever
World buffs do suck, zanzas are fine

The zones are all soulful, the classes are all unique and have their own way of interacting with each other, the game is designed to push people towards meaningful socialisation, tbc sucks

Further reading:
https://youtu.be/Falm0H7VEiQ
https://youtu.be/ioQWkWj5_ss
https://youtu.be/Ud9h8UpcC4E

>>738376610
nostalgia and leveling

>>738376610
>the optimal raid composition has 25/40 members being fury warriors.
The game has a design issue in that the group content while leveling up requires 1/5 people play a tank-capable character, but at endgame, you often only need like 1 or 2 tanks per 40 people. So the game has to be balanced in such a way that players will play a tank class while leveling and then definitely have something else to do in groups at endgame (other than tanking). People complain about fury meta but don't stop to think that having a billion warriors leveling on the server ensures you're never waiting very long for a dungeon tank.

>>738376610
>the optimal raid composition
the appeal of vanilla had nothing to do with "optimal raid composition" but because of modern resources and media everything is instantly solved and people obsessed with minmax'ing progression have reduced the game to a raiding dps competition, in a game with combat and raid content which is not designed for that

>>738376610
The raids are ready as fuck, you don't need world buffs. And raids aren't the whole game

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Part of the answer is that World of Warcraft (the "trilogy" certainly, but in some ways even the latest expansions qualify) is actually one of the finest-crafted games of all time. Whether you are looking at big-ticket items like responsive (you get instantaneous, clear and satisfying response to your input synchronised over multiple channels, see pic related) or the general atmosphere (when there are e.g. threads of people's favourite desert zones, jungle zones, snow zones, etc, WoW is consistently the most common answer), or more specific details like how it strikes exactly the right balance in terms of scale (it evokes a great sense of scale, monumental architecture feels monumental, etc, but at the same time it's actually very compact and the world densely populated), down to relative trivialities (like how the tooltips are formatted). Basically every component part of it is good.As to why vanilla specifically, I think there's a few components:

>>738376610
>Why do people like this version of WoW so much?
really amazing world, the content is better paced than retail, but nobody plays classic for the combat.

>>738378031
1) They kinda don't. Open source emulation for WotLK is and was more advanced than vanilla (WotLK private servers have better vanilla content than vanilla servers do, as well as better core mechanics like movement prediction, etc), but on the other hand there's less to get right in vanilla so overall vanilla was the most "playable" expansion (it doesn't really matter if Southsea Cannoneer just runs into melee instead of shooting, it does matter if The Drakkensryd quest involving heavy RP and vehicles and relatively complex mob behaviours etc, is fucked and locks you out of an endgame faction). Yet, prior to the "Nostalrius phenomenon" vanilla was vastly less popular than Wrath (and still is, and was during the height of vanilla craze), and no more popular than TBC (which like vanilla doesn't have advanced open source emulation, but unlike vanilla is difficult to get right). Clearly, the popularity of vanilla isn't a natural state of things: it's a viral phenomenon. Why exactly do people like about Flappy Bird so much?
2) "Most people" are in it for the leveling experience and Blizzard never offered TBC/WotLK FRESH, and even among private servers it's generally true that, while TBC/WotLK are better for experiencing vanilla content, these servers tend to have higher than 1x experience rates so leveling-enthusiasts just naturally gravitate towards vanilla. And among people who raid, most aren't really into it for raiding either: they are in it for the excuse of logging in with 9-39 peers, and on that count the worst dad guilds facerolling Naxx is a feature and not a bug.
3) Related to above, Azeroth leveling experience actually is the best part of the game, so it's not that surprising a lot of people are in it for the globetrotting adventures on Azeroth.

>>738376610
> Why would anyone find this fun?
No one does, but it’s old and shit so contrarian nostalgia fags will praise it to no end.

>>738376610
I just like the world and especially the leveling.

>>738378092
4) Relating to the viral thing, "most people" got into vanilla not because they were inherently disposed towards it (had they been, they could have joined any number of dozens of vanilla private servers, many better than Nostalrius, but didn't) but because it went viral, and consequently they just hold a lot of unexamined beliefs about it. Like, say, the leveling thing when vanilla content is strictly better with pre-2.3 TBC mechanics and overall better with TBC/WotLK ones ("but WotLK makes it eas--" don't give me that, people obviously don't play the game for the supposed difficulty, but for the atmosphere and globetrotting adventures and moment-to-moment gameplay, and anyhow retribution paladin fucking up mobs is now a power fantasy, compared to whatever you might have gotten out of playing ret with 1.12 mechanics). Or the incentives to socialize (in terms of structure vanilla is as much an endgame-focused vertical progression game as any other version - less so, actually, on account of lacking parallel progression paths like pet battles, and punishes group play whereas far more powerful class synergies in TBC or daily quests as a method of farming, with objectives shared by the party, reward it)

>>738376610
>optimal
>optimal
>optimal
You wouldn't get the appeal, mindbroken zoomer/gamerdad faggot.

>>738376610
they don't have a high enough IQ or good enough taste to feel nostalgia for something like FFXI or EQ instead.

>Classic+ voting website
YES, we want more Arthas.
YES, we want more Illidan Stormrage
YES, we want blood elves
YES, we want horde pallies ally shamans
YES, we overwhelmingly want hardmode dungeons
YES, we want the jewelcrafting profession
>Oh okay, so you want everything burning crusade offered, how about playing dress up-
NOOO, transmog ruins the spirit of the game i should be able to see exactly what you're wearing it's not classic style i wanna know the gear level of the person I'm engaging in pvp combat with (every youtubers opinion) also no flying because the world feels less alive no dungeon finder journeying to the entrance is part of the experience add wow token people are going to buy gold anyway allow GDKP add the season of discovery scarlet raid it's already been made why not

absolute fags i swear. the only good idea they have is Active Game Masters banning bots

>>738376610
Idk but I like watching wow women get fucked by dogs and worgen

>>738378181
for classic plus they should make what they did in turtle and remove world buffs for raids but consumes last trough dead inside instances and you can have both palla and shamn buffs, world buffs are fun until you need to get them every fucking week for a year straight, then you dont want to see them ever again, plus losing them means your raid night is over

>>738377737
>levelling warriors
>tanking
kek, they all list themselves as dps

>>738376787
Disregard all that.
Create warrior, buy gold, pay for boost, pay for loot.

>>738376610
>Why do people like this version of WoW so much?
classic wow has achieved 'activity' status, like playing basketball

its part of the cultural lexicon and everyone understands it and knows it

the same cannot be said of individual expansions with their own stupid shit, tbc excluded, which almost everyone played

>>738376610
The game is good, it's the players who are not the same as they once were. The only way to capture the old Vanilla magic is to take away people's knowledge of the game and the world, which implies a brand new game. We all know that's never going to happen. Everything else (retail, later SoD phases, subsequent Classic runs in general) is doomed to fail because people these days are much more obsessed with "winning" immediately and then dipping out.

>>738376610
This version was still an RPG.
/thread

>>738378181
they had arthas in tbc?

>>738378693
>no player agency
>no world reactivity
>strictly linear quest chains
>strictly vertical progression
No.

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>>738378031
>Tab target MMO players arguing over which archaic tab target MMO "combat" system designed for 28k modems in 1990 feels the most "responsive"
>The combat is just UI bars

>>738376610
the game itself is just like it always was, but sweats ruined it by optimizing every small bit of fun out of it.
they always say how easy classic actually is and then demand you work towards BiS gear, get all the buffs before the raid each time and change your talents to what they want them to look like. the 25/40 fury warrior composition is just the cherry on the top. it doesnt make any sense.
just let the people play the damn game without turning it into a checklist. the raids will be successful either way

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palakeks being relegated to dress wearing healsluts and seeing them piss and moan about it since 2004 is worth the price of admission alone

>>738378984
>that paladin who begs in call to be able to tank the whelps in onyxia
embarrassing

>>738376794
Excellent youtube links, ty for posting

Crazy how the company and philosophy was back then vs now, it's almost unrecognizable

>>738378784
It's more plus being a continuation of additions they already made with the expacs

>>738377737
Warrior arms leveling is fully capable of tanking, though it does require skill and basic knowledge of instances, which is more than can be asked of the average player. Dual spec in vanilla also alleviates this issue.

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>>738378984

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>>738379271
kek
some more pinky goodness

>>738378625
>The only way to capture the old Vanilla magic is to take away people's knowledge of the game and the world
I disagree on two counts. First, it's not really even about the specific knowledge but metaskills like "how to do theorycrafting": if all WoW-specific knowledge was wiped out, people would still clear all available raiding content within 10 days max of the launch (compared to 5 or so), and elite players would simply intuit ways of playing closer to optimal play than the best retail vanilla era theorycrafting could come up with, and something approaching proofs of optimality would likely come within those 10 days.

Second, the game being "solved" isn't a major issue. Far more relevant is that playing "well" is fun. For example, I don't think it takes away from the experience at all that I know how to route efficiently: whatever is lost in novelty of discovery is gained from experiencing mastery (handing in a dozen quests at once just tickles the lizard brain in the right ways) and avoiding the drudgery of falling into trap options, while the moment-to-moment gameplay, breathing in the amazing atmosphere, etc, are unaffected, while doing big questlines feel like an adventure, not because they are new, but because it does in fact take you to a globetrotting adventure from Stormwind to Duskwood to Stormwind to Wetlands to Dustwallow Marsh, etc. Being solved is bad insofar as the game actually has perverse anti-fun incentives. These, I think, also include stuff like triviality of raiding content meaning that guilds cannot meaningfully compete based on who does the content first, so the competition becomes who clears it the fastest (while custom-tuned private servers and neo-WoW retail have parsers, last time I checked, this tends not to include actual top guilds), and this creates the "necessity" of using world buffs, etc.

>>738378873
Trvth nvke

>>738379073
Not watching that slop but anything about their vanilla raid philosophy is undermined by the fact that vanilla raids fucking suck and raids dont get decent until Ulduar

>>738379645
Whole "only real endame is raiding" game formula sucks.
WoW need more openworld content.

>>738379780
Nope all open world content is slop for pigs

>>738379865
>i dont want MMO in my MMO
you're brown

>>738379903
I dont want zerg slop I want real gameplay
Only browns want trivial goyslop content

>>738376794
I haven't played WoW since 2013 but i think vanilla was a masterpiece and so ahead of its time

>>738376794
Starting zone ranking (1-10)
>NE > Forsaken > Dorf/Gnome > Tauren > Human > Orc/Troll
HOWEVER 10-20 ranking
>The Barrens >>>>>>>>> all

>>738379986
You want loot mannequins.

>>738379996
forsaken is so fucking good, every time i roll a new character there i'm always hit with a wave of nostalgia unlike any other starting classes. running out of the crypt to see this giant world filled with spiders, werewolves, etc. and doing fun missions like killing humans super early was great.

>>738380215
for me it's nightelves, the teldrassil OST and exploring the beautiful forest until you realize the whole thing is the top of a tree
my first char fell down and i couldn't find my way back lol

>>738380163
Bosses outside of vanilla actually fight back
Unlike all open world dogshit

>>738376610
Because the pacing is perfect. It's tedious in a good way, you have to eat/drink after a fight, manually find an instance group, and walk to the instance. It feels like a journey traveling to Scarlet Monastery as Alliance.

In Vanilla you feel like a normal soldier, one of many. In retail you're the savior of the world, a marvel superhero. The best part of vanilla is how community driven it is, and how you need to team up with others to do quests. The world feels alive and social.

Durotar > Elwynn >Tirisfal > Mulgore > Dun Morogh > Teldrassil
Darkshore = Silverpine Forest > Westfall = Barrens > Loch Modan

>>738380072
This reads like 'easiest' to 'hardest' races starting zone, since Orc area was notoriously bullshit and two races started there.
Barrens is so fucking good tho.
>>738380296
I absolutely love Durotar. It feels like there's some gears moving behind the quests, like some other story is right there. Why the Alliance forces are there? Burning Legion, what's their deal? Kolkar and Quillboars etc. The music is also of course great, but the enemies are brutal as hell.

>>738380310
>tedious in a good way
No such thing. Thats why everyone pays for boosts and spams SM, because its painfully slow dogshit designed to milk subs
>you need to team up with others to do quests
Very few, the majority of which you can just skip

>>738380304
>bosses
nigga play real games for real men like L2 or EvE

>>738380405
>Thats why everyone pays for boosts and spams SM, because its painfully slow dogshit designed to milk subs
Only people who do that are parsetrannies.

I dont get why people keep using the same refuted arguments about the quality and joy of questing in classic. It has been consistent since the start of classic wow and even on private servers that everyone was boosting to rush to endgame to start doing dungeons and move on to raids. People that play WoW DO NOT actually enjoy playing the game. They just want to get better gear than other players to feel good about their higher parse compared to others. Time and time again during the private server craze with "fresh" vanilla, players would get to about BWL, realize they didnt get ahead of the curve, and then would leave the server to try it again on a different one. The old guard that made it to 60 first and did the raids would eventually lose raiders and loser new recruits and would migrate to follow the crowd as well.

>>738376610
the game itself wasn't good, it was just the best vehicle out there to bring together fellow nerds in an internet before advertisers and browns invaded

>>738380378
delusional

>>738380405
I have no idea why you type like you have a chip on your shoulder. You dont *have to* do anything, and these kind of generalizations dont prove anything.
>>738380538
Again, what a superficial and tone-deaf assumption. Why do you generalize? You're wrong every time.
Does it somehow ruin the game for you how other people play it? I dont care about the parse tryhards, im there just to have an adventure.

>>738380703
Parse poopsockers are vocal minority, so all ther minmaxing shit became the norm for all players.
At some point even casual dadguilds started to require full wbuffs for MC.

>>738380775
Again, generalization - and stupid one too. Why does this matter to you? I dont get it.
"People play a certain way" - what is your argument here? Is this ruining your game? How is it the games fault? Complete nonsense.

>>738380703
>what a superficial and tone-deaf assumption
nice buzzwords queer but theyre meaningless
>I dont care about the parse tryhards, im there just to have an adventure.
This is a great way of saying you gray parse. And WoW has no adventure, the world is sterile and its not an RPG>>738378873

>>738380865
>you're only allowed to play warrior or priest
>"Is this ruining your game?"
yes

>>738380865
hes right. the purist non tryhard group follows the lead of the poopsockers and good players. when did you see a raid of 25 ret paladins dpsing in naxx? when did you see someone doing an actual off meta spec in dungeon or raid? you are the delusional one if you think a dps player is taking talents that dont increase dmg or that groups are rejecting non dwarf priests from their raids because of fear ward.

>>738380964
So you're the same person you hate ruining the game?
>>738381057
Literally never met anyone say this and i've played the game on-off for a decade on Vanilla.

>>738376610
Nostalgia coupled with the best overall world.
SoD proved that if you update and experiment with class design while leaving the world mostly the same, you end up with a product that surpasses anything that came before, or since.

>>738380538
I played Vanilla and Classic. The majority plays the game normally, the world is full of people questing and grouping up. Do boosters and min maxers exist? Absolutely. Is everyone doing it? No.

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>>738381118
>retail-

>>738380378
As someone that played both factions and preffered Horde you couldn't be more deluded.

>>738381081
>groups are rejecting non dwarf priests from their raids because of fear ward
I've encountered this shit when tried to find group for fucking deadmines.

>>738381138
i have obvious blizzjeet astroturf post fatigue
it's all fucking bots and boost sellers, shut the fuck up

>>738381081
Again with the hyperboles, how does that prove anything?
>when did you see someone doing an actual off meta spec in dungeon or raid?
Literally me every raid, no one gave a shit.

Anyway, completely pointless to continue since you bitch about the game while you're the same sort of player who you accuse of ruining it.
Vanilla is easy, the raids are easy, you can play what the fuck you want. I've personally tanked every dungeon in the game with a Shaman, off tanked raids too.
Good luck.

>>738381095
two seperate people you retarded shitskin

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>>738376610
For me it's the race fantasy. No other game lets me immerse myself into Dwarven stuff like WoW does.

>>738381228
this is a good thing. you still have time to course correct before you've sunk to much time on your bricked priest.

>>738381249
>you can play what the fuck you want
even assa rogue or boomkin?

>>738381249
>nobody gives a shit
except logs show this isnt true

>>738376610
do you mean the current "world of warcraft classic "? it's a shit game it's too solved

>>738381249
>you can play what the fuck you want.
As long as you accept you won't find raid or even dungeon groups depending on what you play. You most certainly playing with your buddies you've known for ages who were willing to carry you doesn't invalidate that. If anything it just proves it.

>>738381375
I agree, it was great fun for the first time, and even some of the early pservers had a low enough percentage of actual solved-game-minmaxers to the point it was fun still. But this is gone now
The best thing they could do would be to completely reinvent an alternate reality classic where all the design principles are 1:1 the same, but literally everything else is different so nobody knows shit yet. Unfortunately modern blizzard obviously isn't going to do that.

This is going to get me flak but I hope that with the advent of AI, it will eventually be good enough to the point where people who just "get it" can remake alternate versions of vanilla WoW like this.

>>738381330
Why not? We had them every raid.
>>738381363
Why would you give a flying fuck about what some other people have done? I dont fucking get it.
>>738381418
Again, literally never met anyone who rejects a build over another. Only in Hardcore people are more doubtful.

>>738376610
no, the game was always shit, but blizz cultists really will pay full price + tip for 20 year old reheated slop

>>738381468
As as simulation of og wow, sure.
If they can make the ai bots be shit at the game and also be kind of naïve as they're learning I'd love to see it.

>>738381487
>We had them every raid.
Can we see logs?
ofc we can't

>>738381559
Im not sure are there logs and even if i'd bother to find some from like 3-5 years back, we both know you dont give a shit and it would not make you admit anything.

>>738381557
I meant more that AI could actually just "remix" wow, like you can tell it make up gilneas in a level editor and it fills the place with clutters, assets, geometry etc which is the most time consuming part of making custom WoW content. Then you add the human soul on top by populating it with quests, enemies, etc.

AI bots is also interesting for sure though, and there's projects working on this already in fact. They're limited for now though and only really good if you just want to solo grind and occasionally see another "player"

>>738376610
It's a fun chill casual game, very immersive and everything you do and get seems to matter. Other expansions feel hollow in comparison.
>But muh classicfags buying gold, boosting, and optimizing everything making it a second job
Yes, these subhumans ruined classic, private servers seems more chill and a better option for vanilla.

>>738380538
>everyone was boosting to rush to endgame
No they weren't. You say this because you're only looking at the other people already in the endgame. Season of discovery didn't even have an endgame and the regular levelling and questing areas were packed, if everyone was boosting I'd have been able to get a fucking pickpocket quest done

>>738381675
because you are lying about your 40 paladin raid clearing naxxramas in greens. lmao.

>>738381375
>it's a shit game it's too solved
all games are solved you dumbass

>>738381786
>very immersive and everything you do and get seems to matter.
blatantly not true
99% of items in classic are useless dogshit

>>738381728
Classic players all following the same meta is just so anti- what vanilla wow used to be. And look it makes sense because vanilla was really only a period of 3 years where nobody knew anything and the journey was the charm of it. But if you log into Classic it's nothing like that everything is so solved there are no questions, information has no value they already crunched the numbers for everything.
Remixing the game could also fix that it's not a bad idea.

>>738381375
I wouldn't call it shit, but yeah it's too solved now
I've been playing private servers since 2011 and I don't see the point of playing Classic again unless they do something special with it with one of the seasons. Took a couple rounds of Classic servers for me to get to this point, and maybe in a few more years I'd give it another go.

>>738379271
this was obviously made by a seething undead rogue player who got reck bombed over and over in wpvp while limply attempting their stunlock rotation to no avail

>>738381804
>No they weren't
Yes they were. The LFG channel was literally unusable for sub-55s.

>>738376610
Because it only gets worse

>>738381913
>anti-vanilla
Not really, it just happened in a vastly shortened timeframe compared to vanilla. Rather than gradually understanding and realizing that certain classes and specs simply aren't worth dogshit over a timespan of almost 2 years, it was common knowledge for most people when Classic launched, and for those who didn't have that knowledge it became so after about a month or two. Everything you've seen in Classic versions of the game other than GDKPs happened in the original run as well, just slower.

>>738381145
?

>>738376610
Vanilla WoW was the first MMO experience of like 10 million boomers, that's all it is. If it was actually well designed like this delusional boomer claims >>738378031 then there would be people under the age of 30 playing it. But there are none. WoW has survived for decades purely off of boomers who desperately want to be 10 years old again. There's nothing exceptional about it from a game design standpoint, in fact it's always been a shit game even compared to other MMOs of its time such as the original Guild Wars.

>>738381908
>99% of items in classic are useless dogshit
100% of items in retail are useless dogshit, they might as well not even exist

>>738382345
>There's nothing exceptional about it from a game design standpoint
Except the art style, the music and the technical challenge of creating an immense seamless game world with no loading screens, something Blizzard can't even do today

>>738382043
2004-2007 wow wasn't about the optimizing the numbers you went into molten core with 40 people and it wasn't until the game got solved on private servers and classic where people figured out you can do it with just 20 optimized characters i feel like that's a pretty good proof of what im arguing

>>738382392

post your parse.

>>738382440
>art style
Blizzard's giant shoulderpad art style is hideous
>music
Forgettable if you're not blinded by nostalgia, again something like GW1 has a much better soundtrack
>seamless open world
I will give you that. Only part of WoW that is genuinely impressive for the time

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I pity everyone who missed out on 2019 classic. The /vg/ guild was the most fun I've had in a long time

>>738383027
I pity everyone who missed 2004-2008 wow.

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>>738377737

Leveling a warrior in classic is such a bitch it’s unreal. You are playing the game on insane difficulty until level 60. After that it’s chill mode being top DPS if you’re competent. I was fortunate and played in an endgame raiding guild that didn’t use class optimization and just took 5 of each class and whatever else was left over. I was 100% a Huntard that was carried all the way to Naxx.

>>738383228
>Bunching TBC in with vanilla
Lol disgusting

>play rogue
>not meta enough for poopsockers
>metafaggot for non-poopsockers

Idk but ff14 is fun

>>738383327
>bunching the 1.0 version with the 0.5 version of the game
Well yes?

>>738376610
Nobody likes it, blizzard pays streamers to make it look popular then retarded zoomers play because their favorite streamers play.

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remember to use your night elf responsibly

>>738376610
Game was in the best state during Cata-MoP-WoD but since WoW players are drooling noobs they hated these expansions.

>>738383573
>Worst expansions listed
Larper detected

>>738380072
Barrens is the worst zone in the game with the worst quests in the game.

>>738383573

>he didn’t play WoW on release day

Lmao’ing @ your life

>>738383573
ive never even played these

>>738383731
being too hard for you doesnt make them bad

>>738383513
I still have WoW on my PC just for Moonguard/Goldshire. I do not care that they're all men.

>>738382043
>Everything you've seen in Classic versions of the game other than GDKPs happened in the original run as well, just slower
No it didn't. Fury tanks in leather gear didn't happen until pservers. Every melee dps being a warrior, world buff stacking, raidlogging. None of those were a thing until pservers.

what led to the mass exodus of incels out of WoW?

>>738384049
You must have played on a dead server then I guess. Nothing wrong with that, but the trends that the original poster complained about in Classic all already appeared in the original run of the game. Shunning people based on class and spec being the first and foremost of them.

>>738384049
there was never anything to do besides raidlog
vanilla is just a shallow game

>>738384157
>Shunning people based on class and spec being the first and foremost of them.
It started in late TBC at most.
I remember raiding SSC with several rogues, which is unimaginable today.

>>738376610
WoW was best 20 years ago. It was fresh, there was not a ton of documentation.
The world felt HUGE because mounts were at level 40 and expensive.

>>738384157
>Shunning people based on class and spec
And guess which class and spec was one of the most shunned?
Fury warrior. Back in 2005-2006
it was considered almost as bad as retribution or moonkin.

>>738384556
true unironically
go read the old discussions about brut blade. everyone is saying warriors shouldnt get prio for it and most warriors wont want it anyways because they usually use 2hands lol

>>738376787
>The class fantasy is at its peak, every class has some 'peaks' and weird niche things they can do.
This, I wish, more RPG's would do properly in general, not just in terms of mmo-related things.
In many games the majority of class-identity comes soley from what they can do in combat, and even then the difference between let's say a mage and a ranger sometimes boils down to "shoot arrow" vs "shoot arrow but it glows funny".

>>738384308
this is actually pretty wild and in agreement with what >>738385056 and >>738384556 are saying. In TBC a lot of people just assumed the same class meta was carried over from original. A lot of people ran rogues for dps and refused shaman dps because of the stigma. Part of the reason for warriors being "bad" was that almost everyone in original WoW tried to wear all plate armor because they were able to wear plate even though the gear was not optimized for dps. In modern TBC that is ongoing I am actually surprised to see any rogues wearing tier gear or raid gear at all. If you look at the meta game and optimal team build there is literally 0 reason to ever bring a rogue in any group ever throughout the entirety of TBC. The have no AoE outside of blade flurry but is still worse cleave dps than a fury warrior. They provide no buffs except expose armor which a warrior can also do. And lastly, they are not even good at single target dps on raid bosses because warlocks, hunters, mages, and even enhance shamans blow them the fuck out.

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literally every single person that LIKES this version of game so much is the same person that does not even play it past lvl 20 at most, on top of that they are literal faggots, community is so full of faggots nowdays that it is borderline insane, if you have not played this game on private servers long time ago or well when it launched i suppose you played world of lgbtqfaggotshit all they do is whine and moan and absolutely HATE when someone is actually having fun in game, they will do anything and everything just to stop everyone else from having FUN, in no way or shape did any of the mechanics implemented ruin the game as these fucking faggots want you to believe, no, nobody forces you to use rdf it is just for people that have life and do not want to be a part of your shitty cuck cult guild, i hate faggots so fucking much that i hope ultra aids will spawn tomorrow

buy an ad maye

>>738385315
>does not even play it past lvl 20 at most
Me every time i try to play horde in vanilla. Can't stand Barrens.

>>738378181
Mages have portals and locks summon, what do the other classes do outside of combat? Jack shit that's what.

>>738385309
yeah nobody knew what was going on and the game was still alive(class reworks, gear reworks, patches)

>>738386174
meant for >>738385220

>>738386174
rogues have pickpocket and stealth (for exploration and fantasy). Druids have stealth and aquatic form to explore water places. Hunters have the pet minigame of learning new abilities by taming different pets.

Hi blizzard developers - your mega server wet dreams are genuinely terrible - Kill yourselves

>>738386174
>what do the other classes do outside of combat?
Rogues can pick locks and have stealth for easier traversal, druids have animal forms, paladins get free mounts, hunters get pets and tracking.
Warriors and shamans kinda get fuckall, I guess.

>>738386174
Rogues should be able to pickpocket players for up to 1g scaling with target level. Only works on players that aren't targetting the rogue and turns the rogue attackable by the target for a couple seconds if it succeeds. Imagine the kino this would cause. Markets and transit spots would be full of rogues trying to pickpocket white people just like when you go to italy and the train station is full of gypsies

>>738376610
progression feels rewarding and it has good atmosphere
game becomes very boring after you reach the mid 20s though, only tolerable if you're a giga grinder or have friends to run dungeons/quest with

>>738386486
>free mounts
One free mount. Epic mounts for both warlock and paladin are way more time consuming and almost as expensive.

>>738386486
>Rogues can pick locks and have stealth for easier traversal
Both things are situational at best, useless at worst.

>>738386376
>>738386486
None of that is on the same level as portals and summoning in terms of utility, and stealth is 99% a combat skill.

>>738386576
People only feel this way because they're mindfucked and feel like nothing they do matters until they hit max level, and you don't know where to go to level because you're a nub, so you get bored and quit.

>>738379271
dafaq? there's been 2 PvP tournament in classic and they were Horde exclusive because Undead's racial is just too OP(Undead Warlock won both times)

>>738386795
>don't know where to go to level
At lvl 40-50 your choices are: dogshit questing in tanaris, dogshit questing in feralas, dogshit questing in hinterlands and 5 quests total in badlands/blasted lands
Searing Gorge is fine but it's only enough quests to get you through 2 levels.

>>738386739
>>738386740
>useless
>utility
Yes, and? Not everything needs to be there to optimize your dps and xp/hour.

>>738386984
If you're not 4 levels higher than every zone you're in, you're doing it wrong. I was 64 almost 65 by the time I went to Outland. There are a shit ton of quests and most people don't do them because they're stupid.

>>738386984
tanaris quests are good very little travel but you burn through them pretty fast

>>738387094
We are talking about vanilla. TBC is at 1.25 exp rate and WoTLK is at 1.5 exp rates.

>>738387094
That's fucking retarded because the first greens you get in outland are better than BRD/BRS epics

>>738387212
Bro, it's the same regardless of what expansion you're playing in. There are shit ton of quests in classic, I have done it more than a dozen times by this point. It's ez as fuck.
>>738387229
Buy them from the AH for 3g a piece. wtf is wrong with you?

>>738387064
Portals and summons aren't there to maximize your dps, yet they're really useful because traveling in the game is slow as fuck without them. The other classes should have their own tedious thing which they can make less tedious, not just for themselves but others too.

>>738378538
This is the retail tourist mentality, not the actual classic fan gameplay.

>>738378178
But most classiciggers love playing the "optimal" classes like warrior and mage

>>738386956
Yeah but rogue is pretty much the only class paladin wins against because they get reck charges from all the small crits

>>738387372
warrior might be the metafag class but it is also the most fun class in the game to play

>>738381118
>SoD proved that if you update and experiment with class design while leaving the world mostly the same
"update and experiment" aka copypaste a bunch of tbc/wotlk/retail abilities and call it a day
"leaving the world mostly the same" aka implementing instanced questing areas that kill the open world because they grant far more exp than anything else

SoD was fun but it was so far from vanilla design that calling it "classic" feels wrong

>>738376610
Blizzard was named in the Snowden leak, they’ve had literal former cia directors working for them. The reason it was big is because it’s an industry plant game, it’s a literal psyop.

The funniest thing about vanilla WoW balance is that dps shamans and druids are kind of cucked because they decided to make rogue poisons nature damage, so now the nature damage type is shared between shaman/druid lightning spells and rogue poisons. Then they decided to give every enemy that seems resistant to poison huge nature resist, which is almost all endgame because raids are elemental themed, black dragon themed, poison snake themed, poison bug themed, poison zombie themed.
They then also decided to make curse of the elements NOT affect nature damage because poison shouldn't benefit from an "elements" buff, but an "elemental shaman" casting lighting spells apparently shouldn't either.

This is honestly what cucks ele shaman and balance druid the hardest in vanilla. They have mana issues too but you can counter these with sweaty consumable farming and having a high dps raid comp.

>>738387372
That checks out because most classicniggers are mindbroken zoomers or gamerdad faggots who copy twitch streamers and youtube guides
Back before those demographics played on vanilla pservers, nobody gave a fuck about optimal except for a select few faggot retail escapees.

>>738387614
okay /pol/

>>738387692
>on vanilla pservers, nobody gave a fuck about optimal
lol
outing yourself as a retail tourist

>>738387423
They win against Warriors too.

>>738387736
they win against bad warriors*

>>738387624
And pray tell, how do you get a high dps raid comp? Oh right, by not taking either of those classes.

>>738387728
You never played on pservers pre-classic. Nobody gave a shit about parses. People later on used raidlogs mostly to keep an eye on loot an attendance and parse comparing between raids wasn't a thing.
Minmaxers existed but they often didn't give a ufck about what the youtube meta is

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>>738387285
No one sells those early greens it's all vendor trash and that first batch of "kill 20 orcs" quests ends with Tier 1 level green weapons

>>738387854
Absolute cucked bullshit. Don't tell me what I did and didn't do, nigger.

>>738387776
No, they straight up win against warriors. Paladin easily outsustains warrior and grinds him down. In fact, your claim that paladin wins against rogue is only true for mediocre rogues. The one class that Paladin consistently shits on regardless of skill bracket is warrior.

>>738387624
Ele shamans make up for it by blowing people up in two seconds in pvp and deal huge damage on some bosses if the fights are short. Balance druids can't deal damage no matter how many mana potions they drink, and all they can do in pvp is rot and run away.

>>738387895
>I'm frothing for no reason
Ok you do you

>>738388043
You're the one making shit up and acting like I'm not speaking from experience, kiddo.

>>738387779
You seem kind of retarded, it's a matter of fight time. It's just that shaman and druid dps drops off hard after a specific time when all their mana consumes run out. Their dps is alright up to that point and on the few fights they dont get cucked it can be higher than other classes
If they run oom they are worthless sacks of shit though.

Like your post makes 0 sense because a shaman participating in a short fight makes the ifght even shorter, not the other way around

>>738376610
>retail wow
>entire story is karenslop made for balding 40 year old women and 3 year olds
>anything before max level doesn't matter and devs treat it as such
>very little of the game requires any sort of interaction outside of the most challenging content
shadowlands was where they completely lost the literal plot, bfa wasn't good but at least it wasn't karenslop. legion was good but mythic+ was an abortion and should have remained a one-expansion gimmick or had its own separate itemization system that didn't cannibalize raiding. i don't think the leveling experience is fixable, it's been broken for way too long. but i do think it has a niche if you remove all the layers of failure that have piled up over the years; the core gameplay is still mostly salvageable.

>classic wow
>story is just warcraft 3 scrolled down, made for males of any age
>the endgame isn't the only point of the game that matters and doing things at lower levels actually feels rewarding
>socialization is reinforced at all levels usually through enabling harder content that leads to better rewards
and yes some of this doesn't apply if you've played classic nonstop for 20 years and you hyper-optimize everything about it, but the remaining 99% of people will have this experience. it's a full feature experience from start to finish and is wildly different from the game today. why do people like it? because it fills a different niche and blizzard hasn't ruined it.

>>738385309
> a lot of people just assumed the same class meta was carried over
Which, for the record, is a testament to how disastrous the theorycrafting used to be. Yes, people did try to do what they thought was good. But basically this amounted to them doing what "seemed to work" (which could be so wrong as to be entirely backwards), with very poor methodology for measuring how well the things worked, and narrow search space for what to try. On the background there of course is a gradually accumulating theorycrafting know-how, but I attribute the dramatically raised difficulty level presented by SWP to a qualitative change of guilds having to adapt and start using setups that Actually Worked (as opposed to those that "felt right"). Not that this happened immediately: even as late as ICC patch in WotLK, Kungen, the leader of the world #2 guild, insisted on running an obviously unviable (if you look at the talent trees and ability tooltips and add up the damage reduction numbers, a first-grader could tell you it's lesser than paladin) warrior tank.

I don't think running rogue is completely bonkers, though, depending on the context. Obviously you don't want more than one melee group (maybe a mixed hunter-melee group with totem-twisting shaman), and enhancement, arms and Horde ret raid DPS contributions (personal DPS+buff impact) is bigger than personal DPS of the rogue, and that leaves open 2 slots max, essentially interchangeable for rogue or fury. But you want reliable interrupts (enhancement isn't because they don't itemize spell hit), the one rogue gets relatively more geared as enhancement and warriors would sometimes (but not always) strength-itemized equipment, there are some places (like Reliquary of Souls) in which e.g. evasion-tanking would matter, combat rogue cooldowns matter for burst-phases (supposing you have a lust for each damage group) which in many fights matters more than the overall DPS, rogues are more survivable, etc.

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>>738387094
>I was 64 almost 65 by the time I went to Outland.

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they're in
classic+ announcement is imminent

>>738385309
>>738388294
I'm not really in the know about TBC Classic meta, but after a quick search, it does look like some of the first kills had a rogue (others, like Illidan and Magtheridon, admittedly didn't). Clearly the maximum tryhards found it worthwhile, and it worked! And TBC Classic is in a place in which the firsts are essentially speedrun farm raids. These sort of factors matter more in more "organic" setting of custom-tuned private servers in which 1) content doesn't necessarily get cleared week 1 (and a resets worth of gear others can't put into equally good use for example starts counting a bit); 2) there's some chance of curve balls instead of content being an entirely known quality from PTR, and the knowledge that Blizzard was going for blizzlike post-nerf rather than speculative pre-pre-nerf or custom, and rogue class features might start mattering there; 3) being more tuned, with mechanics potentially presenting a kill threat, the outcome of burst phases not being a foregone conclusion, etc, the start favouring rogue class features over alternatives. In other words, in a more reasonable "authentic" version of TBC, there's more incentive to run a rogue than in Classic, in which the top guilds were running rogues anyway.

Speedrun meta is one thing, it often results in perverse setups. What matters is progression raiding, and here rogues are in a slightly better spot. Still underrepresented, but not unviable. You kinda want 1, maybe even 2 (and in a raid of 25 with 9 classes, not all classes can have 3 each even in the best of times).

>>738388369
lol, what is this sperging nonsense? Do you have an argument, or are you just gonna post stupid memes?

>>738388442
you're a retarded retard, retard.

>>738388547
>no argument
How embarrassing.

>>738387094
actually for outland it's better to go there asap, get the early easy gear rewards that are crazy good, then bail back to the old world and quest on steroids for a while

>>738389083
Or just buy stuff from the AH, because a few extra points on your gear really doesn't matter when the green gear is already better than classic raid content.

>>738389229
that's fine too but i usually prefer to save money and get it for free, most of the early quests aren't a pain and you can just not do the ones that are

The 1-60 experience is amazing, from the development of different plotlines with the defias, darkiron dwarves, black dragonflight etc to eventually entering some of the later instances that have a good chunk of lore about Azeroth's ancient history like Uldaman, Mauradon etc. It feels like an epic journey more than any other game I've played.

>>738389320
Not worth the struggle or the loss of exp, imo. Everything in Outland will stay green to 70, afaik. I bought gear at 40 to replace my mail for plate, and 58 to replace with Outland gear. Works fine, plenty of money, nothing to cry about.

>>738389320
>>738389553
also the main point of contention is whether or not you play on a PvP server, because Outland is a cesspool of griefing. That's the struggle that isn't worth the effort.

>>738376794
What's wrong with TBC? I feel like it mostly maintains the sovl of vanilla

>playing as ret pally
>everyone asks me to tank
>get mad when I don't pull massive groups so I don't die
>everyone would rather wipe 5 times and leave then just pace themselves

Parsefag asscancer infects every flavor of this game

>>738376610
>raid
That's your problem there. The best part of vanilla is comfy leveling. The moment you start getting sweaty with raid compositions and world buffs the magic dies.

>>738388085
So you don't want a tier 1 item at level 58 for killing 10 orcs? You'd rather wait to get some trash AH level 62 green? Please don't give any more advice ITT

>>738389915
god you are such a fucking baby who is absolutely cucked by the metagame. Fucking applesauce brain autist.
>oh noes, i cant survive unless i have the absolute best gear i can attain, woe is me
lol fucking faggot. git gud and stop being carried by gear you useless cunt.

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>>738385056
>brut blade. everyone is saying warriors shouldnt get prio
Classic was the first time I've played WoW outside of the closed beta. People still held this consensus in P1. I was glad for it because it went to a rogue (me) when it dropped. I also got fed the first guild Viskag that dropped which, coincidentally, helped kill the guild I was in. :^)

>>738389915
>>738389989
you can also buy outland greens at 58, idiot. jesus christ.

>>738376610
Classic is way better paced and more condusive to actually interacting with people. Retail is essentially Genshin Impact until max level where it becomes complete AIDS of people flaming eachother for bricking keys etc

>>738390058
>SM Lib carries 3G

lmao for what purpose?

>>738390496
That screenshot was taken before Blizzard implemented all of the dungeon limitations where you could run as many instances as you wanted with no time limit or penalties.
No shoes niggers doing nose tribe things as is custom.

>>738385056
I played on a pvp server so almost no one was even playing fury warrior until one dude who didn't have enough time to keep up with pvp grinds switched his build to fury when along with everyone else we were stuck on an unkillable C'thun for months. All of the other warriors were arms. He was given a couple big one handers and would do top dps until he pulled aggro and died in most fights, unless he just stopped attacking and everyone with threat dump class mechanics caught up.

>>738391224
funnily enough all pvp warriors were fury back in MC patch. Not to discount what you're saying or something just pointing out vanilla had quite the breadth of balance throughout the patches.
It's kind of fucked that classic projects just do the last patch. I'd love authentic patch progression throughout the old dogshit trees, just for fun and novelty. Itemization is another thing, actual MC patch had some horrid items to the point tanks wore "of the bear" greens back then. When playing 1.12 classic with 1.12 itemization we're all playing WoW Turbo Mode, it's not that people back then were so much worse than us now.

just wait until they announce classic+ and it has flying from day one, retail disney models, and mount stores. all the streamers are hinting about plus but ofc none of them probably had the balls to criticize whatever bullshit blizzard added to the game

>>738392778
Classic players are just retail players, it is known. And retail players just want retail-, not classic+

>>738393574
its going to be complete garbage. I cant wait until the comparison videos between turtle and blizzards classic+ comes out and blizzards is barebones, but the fanboys and streamers will eat the slop up anyways and call blizzard the goat as they shit in their faces with rmt and botting and all the shit blizzard wont ban or remove from the game

>>738393574
Factually incorrect.

>>738382345
idk my entire zoomer clique of gamer bros went apeshit over classic when it came out.

>>738392778
lol no

>>738394348
already on that copium. me and turtle bros will be laughing at you blizzard cucks when they add nothing new to the game and all the new stuff they add is just copied over from retail. also they will eventually add flying because of the same arguments wow streamers make "having to run is a time wasting mechanic, please blizzard let us teleport or fly to the dungeon/raid", because anything that takes more than 10 minutes is devastating for the streamers. dont get me started on the pvp exclusive ones. these losers PAY people to level their characters to max because all they want to do is pvp

>>738389664
oh yeah true, didn't think of that since i always do pve servers

>>738389507
>The 1-60 experience is amazing
>collect 20 bear asses
>now do it 700 more times
>also here's a dogshit escort quest to spice things up

>>738395354
>turtle
lol

>>738376610

SOD was pretty good. Though unfortunately Blizz being Blizz they naturally found ways to fuck it up.

>>738387694
>names another industry plant psyop
Grant Dixton worked for acti blizz homie

>>738393881
Why do people make worthless posts like this? Explain why then, windowlicker

>>738396957
vgh... sovl....

>>738398087
My favourite is the harpy "questchain" in Barrens
Walk for 10 minutes and kill 2 types of harpies
Walk back for 10 minutes
Walk to the same spot and collect 20 feathers from two different types of harpies
Walk back
Walk to the same spot fighting through those harpies you already fought through twice to kill the leader harpy
Walk back
You also have to climb the stupid orc tower every single time

>>738376610
Because it's the best.

>>738391705
No, people were incomprehensibly bad and casual (literally: you obviously can't comprehend it).

If you want so say something positive in their defense, it would be that what's good is context-dependent (similar to how with TBC/Wrath mechanics arcane mage performs well in really short fights, say, but falls off in longer ones), including the context of average skill-landscape, and what people did wasn't necessarily "stupid" in their context (absurdly low personal skill levels). For example, if you can't pull off high-coordination tactics then you have to brute force (like, for example, literally telling melee players to fuck off and shoot their guns at a boss that does some melee thing, as opposed to avoiding the thing or healing through it, which you can afford the mana to do because fights are short because melee actually do damage), if you have lower damage then fights last longer so the raid takes more damage so you need more healers and land in an equilibrium with much less damage, etc, etc. If you put a period player and contemporary one with the same character against target dummy, the modern player wouldn't do 1000% more damage - an actual realistic difference in *raid DPS*. But it could be something like 50% even with literal one button specs (with same character, no character optimization involved) because the modern player would queue the ability to the server, while retail vanilla player might wait for ability to go off before pressing the button again. Add any degree of mechanics like movement and target-switching (lower uptime, interrupted casts, etc, etc) and personal performance tanks further. Further, when character-optimization comes into play. Further, when you start tryharding with consumables, etc. Personal performance difference could be, all told, 200% something?

Durothar? Gotta kill centaurs.
Barrens? Gotta kill centaurs.
Thousand needles? Gotta kill centaurs.
Desolace? Half the zone is nothing but centaurs.

>>738391705
>>738399725
As an illustrative example, I recall my raid leader telling healers to "spam heal" the tank during Prince Malchezaar phase 2, which I didn't understand at the time, but I think I get it now in retrospect: the (other) healers literally didn't press their buttons unless they saw the health bar drop, and because a tank might actually die during reaction time+cast time+latency, the solution was to play in such a stupid way. Nobody nowadays would of course play like that: elite players might deliberately time their casts with the boss swing timer to land or cancel their heals with few hundred millisecond delay, less elite players would cancelcast and unconsciously pick up roughly the correct timing. The same goes for e.g. coordination between healers: nobody nowadays runs strict "you are responsible for group 1" sort of assignments as the ancients might have done, which works in part because of addon-assistance (incoming heals), but even without addons players would have some sort of "feel" (as they might do for e.g. avoiding overhealing incoming chain heal bounces, which isn't shown by addons), because they are overwhelmingly more personal skilled.

You may recall analogous situations (why did the Onyxia raid leader was so obsessed about DoTs?) and try to analyze them from the perspective of players fucking sucking and needing crazy crutches. And for the record, while I at least could start heals pre-emptively (during vanilla/early TBC), did play in a world top 20ish guild during Wrath, played arena with multiglads (mostly in helping their alts to gear up, I never bothered to grind ranks, but clearly I was "good enough" for them to partner with), and generally was by all accounts an elite player in my own right, I can recall my previous play and I fucking sucked too.

>>738376610
you dont need a single fury warrior or world buff to complete all raids in vanilla
metafaggots ruined the game, all multiplayer games actually

>>738399725
>>738399842
>no dude it has nothing to do with their gear having half the stats of ours and their talents being 20% as powerful as 1.12 talents
Really really retarded angle. Straight up delusional

>>738391705
>>738399725
>>738399842
Not that you need to recall, because you can ACTUALLY LOOK period videos. Some outstandingly talented players like, say, Vurtne, might look "unremarkable, but all right", but of course their play too was limited by the context of everyone sucking. He clearly was good with thinking on his feet and would have gitten gud if he hadn't quit (like all players eventually did), but even he would suck in the sense of not knowing what to do against a peer opponent. But that's basically the only outlier I can think of: usually (even in "elite" videos) it's backpeddling, keyboard turning, aforementioned failing to even press buttons, etc, etc. While some tryhards did use consumables before, or guilds might have purchased flask of titans for their tank for Broodlord or something (because their healers sucked and needed a crutch), C'thun was the first boss for which someone came up with the idea of flasking the raid - an incredibly low standard for powergaming. Nobody run full consumables: if you look at period videos, it's not uncommon to see players MISSING CASTABLE BUFFS (like fortitude). For that matter, different patch mechanics aren't an excuse: on average power levels get higher, yes, but YOU CAN THEORYCRAFT THE DIFFERENCE. 1.12 patch is something like 30% more powerful than 1.1.0 one. And let's think beyond the game itself: things like best practices for running a guild were still being figured out: even something like learning how to maintain voice communication discipline is a skill, and being good at it matters surprisingly much, and the sort of tryhard things contemporary players do (like doing split runs) would have been completely alien and unthinkable. I used this example in a previous post, but even as late as Wrath, the GM of world #2 guild insisted playing an unviable class. Even pretty casual guilds nowadays wouldn't do something like that casual.

>>738399725
>>738399842
>>738400024
chatgpt ahh posts

>>738399825

I mean I don't know about you mate but I found plenty of other shit to kill in those zones. And that's not even including Ashenvale, Stonetalon, Dustwallow, Hillsbrad...

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>>738399725
>fellow shaman I ran into in WPL (end game area) didn't have resurrection spell trained because it didn't seem important
this kind of behavior is sovl to me now

>>738400458
>WPL (end game area)
It's 50-55 and you don't need ressurection while leveling.
As a shaman you don't need 80% of your abilities while leveling, it's just a waste of gold.

>grrr wtf is spam healing that's suboptimal!!! the healers must be retarded!

the boss has crushing blows and can attack really quickly soon after that, resulting in going from max hp to 0 depending on how poorly geared the tank is. That is why you need to overheal for the entire fight. Obviously that is different from a normal fight where your healers are conserving mana by not overhealing for no reason. The raid leader was letting the healers know, the only retarded one was you anon..

>>738389743
yes it does

>>738386984
Tanaris has some good quests, and hinterlands is the GOAT for horde.

>>738376610
it's a masterpiece.

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>>738399998
1) You can theorycraft the potential between the patches. As I recall, it comes to something like 30%. Note that some things were also stronger in the earlier patches (like slow weapon beings that much better prior to patch 1.8) and the second-best thing might have been unchanged: if raid gear sucks for example, then you run "of the frozen wrath" greens
2) There's no difference of note between final patch balance now and final patch balance then, and everyone was fucking giga-awful in it, too.
3) You can literally look at retail vanilla videos and see from the actual play displayed "yeah, this guy fucking sucks"

>>738400107
Are you really that delusional or is that the only comeback you've got?

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Vanilla WoW is legitimately one of the greatest games ever made. So much love, care and attention was put into every corner of the game. Classes, talents, questing, zone design/variation, sound design, professions, pvp, dungeons, gear variation, raids...all struck a near-perfect balance. So many other MMOs on launch are usually glaringly lacking in a few areas. Not WoW. It's sad it's over but I'm glad to have been a part of it.

Also Undead Spriest best class cum at me 1v1 m8 I'll put you in the ground on me naan I will

>>738402139
>near-perfect balance
This has to be bait
Also even for the time professions in wow were incredibly lacking.

>>738389743
>tiny world
>no reason to leave shartrat
>fly at super sonic speed if you do leave shatrat for some reason
>post nerf raids that are easier than heroics
>removed boosting
>removed gdkps
>still rmt/bots/thirdies
blizz is completely out of touch i think about resubbing then remember all this and decide not to, its hard to ignore esp in an mmo which is why blizz wants to remove that mmo feel at any cost, by implenting layers and all this other shit so its not obvious the entire playerbase is thirdworlders playing to feed their children in their favela

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>>738402139
In the age of slop I gained a new appreciation for old blizz 3D style.

every vertex hand placed
every texture hand painted
every character hand animated

nothing artificial anywhere

>>738402139
>love care and attention, near perfect balance
>in vanilla class design
Ok retard

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>>738376610
How is affliction warlock in wow classic vanilla? As in the first non expansion wow

>>738403037
Best 1 on 1 pvp class.
Useless in every other type of content.

>>738403110
Rip, it's my fav class. Played it solely in wow classic

>>738402497
there is a time when 10 copper is a lot of money
there is a time when 1 silver is a lot of money
there is a time when 10 silver is a lot of money
there is a time when 50 silver is a lot of money
there is a time when 1 gold makes you feel like the richest man in the world
there is a time where 10 gold seems unattainable
there is a time when you wonder how they ever thought you were going to make 100 gold

botted gold farmers aside, the economy is so perfectly balanced that money matters at every level of the game right into the endgame

the same goes for gear, abilities, enemies. you always have to think about it because it matters at every level, there aren't any levels or zones where you feel overpowered or underpowered.

I particularly enjoy the mobility progression, at first you are slow, then you get a speed boost spell or alternate form that's faster, then you get a stronger version of that spell or form, and then finally you get your first mount, and then there's higher level mounts, epic mounts that are even faster. there's a consistent progression to this for every class.

this is across hundreds of items, abilities, enemies dozens of zones. the game is damn near perfect balanced.

contrast with modern chinkslop mmo's where everything insta-dies for 20 hours, nothing matters, and then there's a massive difficulty cliff at the end for the tryhards.

>>738376610
>muh endgame raiding
Raiding represents not even 5% of the content of the game. you're ignoring 95% of what makes wow incredible and judging it on the skinner's box content made to keep players subbed.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MNFWhCw8dg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MNFWhCw8dg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MNFWhCw8dg

>>738403191
>95% of what makes wow incredible
Collecting bear asses?

>>738403110

Not entirely true. It's pretty solid for leveling.

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>>738403614
Oh yeah leveling was piss easy. Esp when you get your voidwalker and it gets taunt

>>738403724
>Esp when you get your voidwalker
Voidwalker loses aggro if you cast a single shadowbolt

>>738403037
warlock in raids is just a curse and a lot of the time on trash you cant even cast because things are dying so fast casters in general arent very fun in these early versions
warlock in pvp is top and some of the solo farming stuff is interesting though not good

>>738403182
>contrast with modern chinkslop mmo's where everything insta-dies for 20 hours, nothing matters, and then there's a massive difficulty cliff at the end for the tryhards.
Why has this become so common? Do people really like having absolutely zero resistance until the very end of the game? Few things turn me off a game faster than the early game being a complete cakewalk. It's not even just mmos, I swear single player games are like this too.

>>738403724
>>738403802
yea everyone lvls with succ now

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>>738403802
I actually never used shadowbolt. I just dotted everything and iirc wanded them to death. Maybe a shadowbolt here and there i don't remember

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>>738403941
Why level with the succubus? I never understood why people use it over the fel thingie/voidwalker/imp

>>738378538
Exact reason why modern MMOs are garbage and people prefer classic.

>>738404051
But that's also what happens on classic. ONly pservs are free of RMT and boosting

>>738376658
fpbp
Classic servers are dead.
No one doing pre raid bis runs.
Every zone is empty.

>>738376794
Wow its insane how much their design has changed
Theyre all talking about how they carefully designed dungeon encounters so that every class gets a unique chance to shine at some point
Now its just walk forward spam aoe abilities, all classes are the same

>>738404030
It does the most damage without using too much mana
It gives you second useful CC

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>>738404409
I never understood why people use cc on normal mobs
I always thought the succubus was for pvp considering it had sleep
Why would i sleep a mob while fighting another? I'll just get to it or taunt it with my voidwalker when i'm done

>>738404890
ability to tag more mobs = faster leveling. deadly efficient when combined with life tap.
not that hard

>>738404204
>carefully designed dungeon encounters so that every class gets a unique chance to shine at some point
Except half of the specs don't get to shine even in dungeons.

>>738405087
such as?

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>forget to unsummon pet before jumping down a one-way drop
>he runs the long way around and pulls half the dungeon

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>>738389743
For me -
1. Flying mounts devalue the entire world when you just fly 800 metres above everything. This ruins socialization ajd feeling like you are part of the world.
2. Arenas are cool, but suffer from a massive favourite child issue, where they decided that all pvp outside of arena should award garbage, and arenas award insanely strong gear. Not saying I hate arenas, but wouldn't it be nice to reward other forms of pvp, bgs or world with anything? just feels forced esports for a loss of soul
3. The beginning of dailies, and reps tied to dailies.

Lots of minor complaints and growing pains, but thats to be expected. Those 3 ruin some important points of the game for me.

>>738405087
>specs
Retoilets are literally unable to comprehend that wow was originally designed around classes, not specs.

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>>738405051
Had no reason to tag anything considering when i played, people weren't fighting over mobs. If there were another players doing the same quests as me we'd just party up
Also i never understood how people got good use out of life tap. It heals like 1% of what a mob does in damage in one hit

>>738405779
>people weren't fighting over mobs
Have you ever leveled past 20? Do you know contested zones exist?

>>738405693
It was originally designed around skillpoints. First talent trees were introduced halfway through the beta.

Worst zone in vanilla. Go.

>>738405656
also
>giving each faction each other's unique class
>making raids easier by reducing to 25 slots
>butchered lore with draenei redesign and blood elves being horde
only thing i liked was introduction of heroic dungeons. wish they included that for vanilla.

>>738406094

Deadwind

>>738406094
that's a genuinely hard one because i like them all. they all have their own feel and things unique to them. maybe un'goro because there was already 2 other jungle zones before you got there...but i also like the zelda questline there. and then maybe winterspring but that's more me because i don't really like winter zones in video games.

>>738406112
>>738405656
meeting stones kinda killed some of the gameplay

you can tell some of the dungeons are designed around making a pilgrimage into enemy territory just to reach them. with meeting stones you just have some rogue sneak in and summon everyone.

same goes for battlegrounds entrances actually, lot of the zones with bg's in them deliberately have the path from the inns to the entrances cross paths so you'll run into the other faction just trying to get to the BG in the first place.

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>>738405957
Yeah most def. I did everything except for raiding and doing the final dire maul quest to get my 100% mount
I think i played on optional pvp server. Gehennas was its name
Never got in conflict with the opposing factions players for some reason

>>738406094
Azura, zone itself looks great though.

>>738406112
>making raids easier by reducing to 25 slots
>easier
Vanilla has the easiest raids in wow history. By a mile(unless you count LFR).
>butchered lore with draenei redesign and blood elves being horde
They already butchered it with alliance elves and horde undead(all because lead game designer really wanted to copy Dark Age of Camelot faction system)

>>738406468
and lead designer was right, alliance vs horde worked beautifully

>>738406094
Stonetalon.
Pain in the ass to traverse because of the narrow trail. Too many trees obscuring view in the open areas. The area in the east with the smog and goblins cutting down all the trees is fucking cancer with too many densely packed mobs.

>>738398505
sovl

>>738376610
Leveling is like "what if an RPG had other players instead of NPC teammates" and is one of the coolest gaming experiences you can have.

The concept of raids and battlegrounds and big group events like world bosses or large scale world PvP are still awesome and still feel cool.

But you are correct, the meta that has settled around classic and is cancerously bad one of the most intolerable metas in any game ever. Basically only the 2004-2007 experience and random lightning in a bottle pservers like Nostalrius and Twow ever manage to get enough people up for a proper raiding scene and it usually ends up a lot chiller and closer to the old experience of throwing bodies at every level of content simultaneously and only the best of the best ever setting foot in Naxx.

>>738406094
Barrens.

>>738406094

Desolace. Any other answer is wrong

>>738406896
>what if an RPG had other players instead of NPC teammates
Name a single cRPG with quests as bad as WoW
Even icewind dale is less repetetive

>>738406939
I enjoyed that zone the first time, only the first time though.

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It has sovl.

>>738406896
>raids
Everquest
>battlegrounds
Castrated world pvp
>large scale world PvP
Dark age of Camelot
>world bosses
Everquest

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>>738406939
I love Desolace, unironically.
>cool mad max aesthetic.
>you can pick a centaur clan to fight for
>good dungeon with cool lore
>land used to be a night elf forest
If you hate Desolace, you hate kino.

>>738406094
badlands always felt like a big nothing burger to me

Has any other game done world bosses like vanilla? Massive armies fighting each other with the boss acting like a big stage hazard in the middle is unimaginably kino and definitely the highlight of MMO gameplay for me. TnL was extremely fun for this at the start but are there any others?

>>738408375
Yes, WoW world bosses are just Everquest bosses at a smaller scale.

>>738408375
everquest

>>738408618
>>738408641
ok but wow was an everquestclone

>>738406094
besides some of the ones already named I hated Felwood and Swamp of Sorrows.

>>738408806
Felwood is fine on PvE servers

>>738376610
>the optimal raid composition has 25/40 members being fury warriors
false until you get to the end of a server cycle where the game becomes shit anyways.
>world buffs and other mandatory buffs.
world buffs being mandatory is a private server meta. it was not feasible in 99% of cases for an entire raid to get every world buff because back in actual vanilla there were cooldowns on how often a world buff could be destributed and you couldnt go to different "phases" to make sure everyone got theirs. World buffs back in the day were mostly used to try and push raid progression, ie your raid killed everything but ragnaros, and you fought ragnaros a few times and now think your group knows the mechanics enough to make serious attempt, so you go outside as a raid and get a raid buff or two then make the final attempt with boosted stats.

Also its fun because classes have their own identity, and vanilla wow is more about the "world of warcraft" rather than the raid meta (which was a forced meta btw)

>>738376610
we dont, thats why everyone played turtle wow

>>738407469
maraudon is fucking beautiful but desolace is awful. it probably would have been better as a 40s zone so you had your mount

>>738406094
Blasted Lands
The only reason to go there is for the same consumables quest that everyone else goes there for or Kazzak
either way you get griefed a lot

>>738376610
The appeal of Classic WoW is the appeal of those cringy anime shows where the protagonist gets hit by a truck and goes back in time to relive high school but with all his adult knowledge - in 2005 you were a dumb teenager with a shit family PC and dial-up internet and you'd see the cool kids AFKing in Orgrimmar with their full Tier 3 and epic mount and wish that could be you. In 2025, you can be the cool guy with the BIS gear and the raids on farm, and you don't even have to be good at the game to do it, because it turns out the biggest challenges in Vanilla WoW are trivial when you have 200fps, low ping and the meta is solved by years of private server autism.

>>738409093
>World buffs back in the day were mostly used
For nothing. Even the sweatiest guilds didn't use them.

>>738409316
The quest raid buffs were almost never used because it was not feasible to organize that in time for raid night with the rest of the server but serious raid guilds would use the badlands type buffs and maybe save a nef head for the buff for a progression fight just in case no other guild has used it recently.