>this made uncs shit their pantsWas the world of vanilla world of warcraft and it's questing really that great?
>>744581263you won't get it faggot, you had to be there to get it, back then they were barely any youtubers with guides about Z game, so you had to find friends or a guild who will help you, otherwise you will finish quests alone and some you won't be able to finish
it was a big ass (mostly) seamless world
>>744581263The questing was ass but the world was great, seeing all those Warcraft areas and buildings and characters in person was amazing, and the player interactions were the soul of the gameBack then most players on the internet weren't jaded cunts and spoke at least passable english
>>744581506this. time and place.wow was a phenomenon that hasn't really been replicated since and probably never will be
>>744581263Planning your leveling and stacking as many quests in the same area as possible while preparing for dungeons by getting all their quests was a game on its own, all while planning your moves to get the most flightpaths with the least running.
It's still great and holds up even today.
as a kid I didn't get my parents to pay for WoW so I just imagined what it could be. I remember thinking you'd be able to sail from one island to the other lol
>>744581263The questing was immersive, something they already ruined in Burning Crusade (which is why I consider it the worst expansion). Zones were interconnected by quests, sometimes taking you to zones you thought you were done with 20 levels ago. This has basically disappeared now.Whether intentional or not, vanilla also had fairly large stretches of zones that had very little in them, wilderness without any quests involving it, again adding to the feeling of immersion by not having every single square inch of a zone dedicated to treadmill content.The fact that so many quests were low stake "take this note to Stormwind" or "kill this amount of enemies" affairs meant that when you had actually interesting questlines with some intrigue to them, they stood out.
>>744584981To be fair, as much as I did like intertwined zones, there were a lot of issues of time wasting travel just for a single quest that had no purpose being where they were.Tower of althalax (or whatever) was great that it started in dark shore. Then it took you to ashenvale and with the final ashenvale quest being like level 28, but then it made you run back to the northern tip of dark shore for absolutely no reason and kill some guy at the top of the tower for a shitty quest reward. That fucking chain spanned 2 zones and like 15 levels and it gave you literal shit.At least the scarlet monetary quest gave you a nice upgrade, but why did you need to go to desolace?Hubs were a no brainer change because by that time everyone who grew up with WoW didn’t have the time to spend running for 15 minutes for every other quest since they were older and had families/jobs.
>>744581506>you had to be there to get it
The real sad part about old WoW (and other old MMOs) is that it’s impossible to recreate their atmosphere of exploration where nobody really knew what they’re doing and ”competitive” mentality was still a relatively limited thing among the playerbase. It was more social and the pacing of the game experience was more like singple-player RPGs but with other players around.Nowadays, people just see leveling phase as ”necessary evil” and spaz out if you actually have to journey around the world instead of just being teleported everywhere. And there’s no way around this, because the genre has became incestous regarding its game design, you can’t just create RPG but with other players but it *has* to follow established MMO design choices.
>>744581263>Was the world of vanilla world of warcraft and it's questing really that great?Yes, but it had just as much to do with the time period as the actual game. I think classic WoW is still fun but it isn't the same. You can never go home.
>>744581263World of Warcraft quests allowed the thoughtless hordes to engage in MMOs. Prior to this, the biggest MMOs were sandboxes. You had to use your own mind to decide what you wanted to do. There were quests, sure, but they were more of an afterthought, something you'd do with some shit you might've found in your travels.World of Warcraft let those who can't think for themselves just chase the exclamation marks, dictating their actions, telling them where to go and what to do. Suddenly 200-400k subscribers being a very successful mmo was dwarfed by the millions and millions of unthinking masses.
>>744585401>by that time everyone who grew up with WoW didn’t have the time to spend running for 15 minutes for every other quest since they were older and had families/jobsSo they waste their time spamming maze+ for shitty gear upgrades instead
I can't believe it even happened.
>>744581263Obviously, I was like 16 when I played it. It was a mindblowing experience. But my best memories aren’t the quests or raids, it was sneaking into alliance territory on my pvp server just for shits, without any external motivations provided from the game.
I want to experience WoW as vanilla as possible. What's the best way to do that?
>>744581263Most of the world was completely pointless at any given time. You're level 15? You only have a handful of places that are worthwhile going. You're level 40? Same thing. 60? Just the Plaguelands, Burning Steppes, Silithus, one area in Dustwallow Marsh, one area in Feralas, and two in Stranglethorn Vale.
>>744581263>Is that heckin no loading between areas?! Oh my science!
The questing wasn't great nor was the game itself. It's more that it was many people's first experience with an MMO so it was magical to move around a virtual world with other players. It was before all the database sites existed as well so there was an air of mystique to it unlike the datamining stuff of today where people know stuff before it's even released.tl;dr: You had to be there at the specific time and place but you had to have not played Ultima Online or Everquest or even Meridian 59 first.
>>744581263zoom zooms will never know the pure kino of firing up wow in the mid 2000s and shitposting in the irc with the boys. they yearn for "nostalgic" times, but they'll never know nor attain it, and that makes me so, so happy.
>>744586285I guess if you drop yourself in the middle of India blind
>>744585853Can you rub 2 brain cells together and figure out why actual gameplay is more appealing than autorunning for 15 minutes?
>>744586481>other playersThe other players were always my least favourite part of wow
>>744581263It was an amazing experience the first time. You were an irrelevant, no-name adventurer in a fuck-off huge sized world you knew nothing about, with barely any resources out there to help you. I had played some MMO-adjacent shit online before, but nothing of this scale and it was the first time I felt like I had actual people walking around me in a video game instead of something like pixelated spaceships.It was also my first experience with guilds and content like dungeons and elite quests. I was still too young to properly raid, but it was a magical experience to just be part of a virtual world like this. Classic in 2019 was fun as hell, but it was just an entertaining thing to do with some friends for a month or two. It was very different
>>744581263No games today release with this much content. Best they can do today for 250 million is 4 maps and a battle pass.
>>744587461>No games todayFIFY
>>744587050>You were an irrelevant, no-name adventurer in a fuck-off huge sized world you knew nothing about, with barely any resources out there to help you.Sounds awful
>>744581697From the top you can easily see the seams between zones.
It was peak Blizzard. That's why everyone was so excited.
>>744586481>It was before all the database sites existedNo, wowhead and that other site I forgot the name of which was the one I used existed since at least 2005.Now buff me up so I can tank like a pro man.
>>744589320>that other site I forgot the name ofthottbot. Funny name now.
>>744589189we didn't have flying then
play octowow
>>744589615QRD
>>744589985if you have to ask, you don't need to know
>>744582285I also used to do this. I hate leveling with other people. I don't go back to town unless all quests say completed.
>>744587050>world you knew nothing aboutNo it was World of Warcraft, rendering the famous world of hit games Warcraft 1, 2 and 3, the latest being also the most famous.
>>744586368That was unheard of in 2004.
>>744589615I miss Turtle.
>>744589615>>744589985Yeah, come to Octowow. You'll pay, earn tokens, and exchange them for Powerful Items (™) in the In-Game Shop.Come spend your money (and, of course, play).
>>744589320We're MC Raiders! We ain't got no li-hives!
>>744581263It's unironically the closest you can come to the video equivalent of the feeling that comes with reading the Lord of the Rings. The sheer scale of the world and how it is divided up, extremely slow level pacing, group content being non negotiably group content and ever present through the leveling experience to obtain the best rewards via dungeons and group quests, and logistics involved in maintaining a character (armor durability, food, ammo, soul shards, consumables, pet happiness, etc) make it genuinely feel like you're on a massive adventure through a rich and storied fantasy world where you meet people and travel with them
>>744581263Its still kino
>>744581506>mfw when a guildie tells you about the secret chicken quest in westfall
>>744581263I think wikis ruined games like this, learning about a game ideally should be done by word of mouth to make socializing useful, so people are more likely to form bonds and groups. But on top of that, learning about the world a bit at a time just from stories and rumors people tell you is so much more immersive than finding a page that documents every secret quest and how to do it and such. I know you can just choose not to use a wiki but I think the temptation being there is much different than it not, and it still doesn't solve the issue of other people using wikis and then not socializing, even if you choose not to use one
>>744591214Which is why phase 1 of SoD was so amazing, it wasn't even datamined and everyone in game was talking about their discoveries and where new things were at
>>744591214It didn't help that the really, really important parts of WoW lore were in spinoff novels and comics until later expansions. Like when you get reach Sunwell you'd be "wtf who is kalec-who and why does he have an anime why-fu" You'd be looking up a wiki whether you like it or not.
>>744589189vanilla flying was a mistakethey should have had some kind of barrier or deterrent around the cata zones so you couldn't fly through azeroth
>>744586691Why play WoW then?
>>744581263Our attention spans hadn't been zapped by YouTube shorts, tiktok, and fake step sister porn yet so we could sit down at the computer and play for 3 hours without getting bored. It was a different time.
>>744585731it helped too that there was probably quite a bit of teenagers. even if you made a perfect replica today, it would get swarmed by uncs, and then instantly minmaxed. you have to have a bunch of kids that let their imagination run wild and played at a slow pace (because kids don't constantly feel out of time like adults).
>>744589615scam server
How come all "classic+" private servers have so many trans people?
>>744593350Everything has trans people now, it doesn't matter what
>>744581263yeit was incredible
>>744595019>"That's what this game is all about: mighty dudes doing great deeds"What went so wrong?
>>744581263>questingEK, yesKalimdor, maybe by 1.12? I quit after AQ40
>>744581263How come no one's made a 2d zelda game using azeroth map
>>744581263>Was the world of vanilla world of warcraft and it's questing really that great?it was actually a game, as opposed to just filler until endgame to pad retention time that retail has
>>744581263Just having this big ass open world that you're free to tackle in any way you saw fit was amazing, it's still amazing. No game has properly replicated it. And I don't even have nostalgia for it, I started last year.
it was boring grindy dogshit like most MMOs. Can't believe people talk about muh leveling, the quests were all shit go kill collect 20 troll dicks nontent.
sovl
my son the day you were born the very forests of lordaeron whispered the namearthas
>>744590593This sucks but is there any pserver, especially one with custom content, that doesn’t do this?
>>744589615fuck off shenna
>>744586691Can you figure out why tailoring your gameplay to burnt out uncs who are sick of playing the game might be a bad idea?
>>744586285You don't want to do that. You think you do, but you dont.
>>744581263I miss turtle wow
>>744581263I am OWED a Night Elf gf
oh boy, here comes the artificial slop machine
Just the premise of being in an online (fantasy) world with hundreds or even thousands of concurrent players in a single server/realm was amazing.
The passive story-telling and grindy kill quests in vanilla and TBC were infinitely better than all the heavily scripted chosen one player wank that plagues modern wow and basically every other MMO on the market
>>744589615https://youtu.be/z-HYi2z2xBE?si=js2ZtkvZVO3j2lFVNot so fast satan.
>>744608179>>744608287post real night elf pictures
>>744581263I played CoA recently and it's insane how much childhood warps your perception. I always thought vanilla zones were fucking massive but they're pretty compact outside of some outliers like the Barrens.
>>744590593How is this any different than retail?
>>744585849Name 2 sandbox MMOs
>>744585731thisthe main aspect of the game used to be the MMO partpeople just logged on to chat with their friends, this was all before facebook or any other big social media
>>744610469No
>>744581263It was mostly the controls and actually having something to do while waiting for autoattacks
>>744581263Don't listen to the midwits blinded by nostalgia, WoW was always dogshit. I gave it 2 months to impress me during its first year of existence, the same time period that all these faggots are so nostalgic for. It was complete slop, brain rot for millennials. I played out those 2 months and once my sub ended I never touched the game again.
WOW is great, but sometimes I feel like TOR is better. The class stories are just the best for a MMO.
>>744581263it was neat and fun to see other people in the videogame. now everyone just plays a solo player game but for some reason they need to do it on the same server other poeple are connected to despite not wanting to interact with any of them.
>>744581506>getting taken to deadmines for the first time as a horde playerthe journey and the knowledge you were heading to a predominantly alliance-only dungeon felt like i was breaking some kind of rule with a group of friends. good times.
>>744588984Don't worry, in the new expansions you get to be the super special powerful chosen one and surrounded by tranny and homo NPCs, I bet you'll love it.
>>744581263It was awesome. First time I played it was the 2 week free trial back in 2008 over Christmas break in highschool. A friend of mine had played it for a year already and got me to try it. The first thing he did when I started was come meet me on his high level Rogue to take me to what he thought was a better leveling zone so we immediately went all the way across the world, it was a mind blowing cool experience since I knew nothing at all about the game.
>>744589615heard the launcher was malware
>>744581263what happens here?
>>744612654This interaction truly represents what this place has devolved into. Also>based
>>744613502Female Gnomes capture Human males then have their way with them
>>744581263kek TERA really did just copy WoW, except TERA had better animations, gameplay, races, and a much prettier world.
>>744589615there's no rp, so no.
>>744613502brown sweaty belly dancers
>>744613652I'm trans btw
>>744586285Just grab a 3.3.5 pserver install, make a char and three as bots for a party and start playing.Closer to the OG experience than you'll get with anything online today
>>744585401disagree. the little quirks like that in the quest lines are what filled out the corners and made the world feel alive. crossing the ocean in the middle of a quest chain provides a good opportunity to return to a city and train or check the AH for upgrades etc. though i also tend to main a mage, so city teleports ease the travel burden quite a bit
>>744613738This but 2.4.3 instead
>>744581263No. WoW in 2004 was the hypercasual MMO on the market, it's why it attained market dominance. The game was worse in most regards, with the exception of combat, compared to other MMORPGs on the market, it was just much easier than any of the others.
>>744581263It was a novelty to go into the world and see the landmarks after playing warcraft 3. Now that whole map is just a lobby to wait for your queues and the only place people use for leveling is islands that came out for recent expansions.
>>744613912What made it worse compared to other MMOs of the time?
>>744581263What's worse, trusting a Blood Elf or trusting a woman?
>>744609814Had the same experience. I explored 100% of every zone in both kalimdor and eastern kingdoms in two days playing casually, every bit of map uncovered. It's not that big.
>>744615409they're fairly big when you're just on foot for level 1-40
>>744581263It was before social media was at large and aside from chat rooms or forums MMOs were a consistent way of getting to meet new people who would go out of their way to help you and form a sense of community. WoW's map at the time was fucking massive (and still kind of is) and had a low barrier of entry to attract every type of gamer.Sadly the playerbase has degraded overtime because of everyone being glued to social media and every guild basically isolating themselves to Discord unless they're looking to recruit people. You still get people who help out for quests every so often which is nice but the raiding scene for Classic and TBC classic is AIDS with everyone being so self-obsessed with parses. Wbuff meta feels like a chore in vanilla and while parsemonkeying isn't as big deal with the lack of mechanics there a lot of people rolling over to TBC classic blatantly fuck up mechanics or do the most retarded strats imaginable to make their numbers look good. Last guild I was in had a fucking prot pally care about parses when they didn't run sanctity aura and chose all defensive talents and gear.
>>744614489One of their halfassed removals.They removed the most obvious stuff but when you talk to the npc's in Valormok, you learn>the whole expedition simply happened because Belgrom was played by a woman>they followed regardless because he's their superior>Jediga, a female orc in Valormok, notes Belgrom's notorious reputation among women>she landed in Valormok because she rejected his advances
>>744581263Yes. The zone design alone is enough to make it a 10/10 game. I don't think people realize how incredibly well crafted the game is just on a purely geographic level. Add in the soundtrack and it would be an amazing game even if you literally did nothing but walk around while looking at the scenery and listening to the music.If you take the time to just walk around noting where things are and why they're there, how zones were designed to encourage you to want to go one way or another, little quirks of geography set in certain places to draw your attention to something hidden, the way every zone is split into smaller areas such that there's always something interesting to find, I could go on but you can tell it was a passion project by people at the height of their talent. I'll go so far as to say that Vanilla WoW has the best zone/level design of any game, period.>>744585849>Prior to this, the biggest MMOs were sandboxes. You had to use your own mind to decide what you wanted to do.Complete bullshit. Everquest was the biggest pre-WoW mmo and one of WoW's biggest influences and what you did in EQ was find a group of players around your level, stake out a spot with level appropriate mobs, and literally just sit there for hours killing the same enemies over and over as they respawned to grind for experience. That was literally it, that was 90% of the game.
>>744604729The better ones sell cosmetic and convenience items since they do have to fund their servers somehow. I've really enjoyed Ascension in the past as the ultimate WoW experience for people who have played the shit out of the normal game. Ascension, at least back when I played it, has a ton of custom spells and abilities that basically amount to new classes, there are no classes restrictions on what you can learn so you can self healing tank or a warlock rogue or whatever you like.Most importantly though is that (at least when I played it a couple years ago) you can't just learn whatever but are given an option of random spells or abilities to learn every few levels. You can influence this in various ways to make certain abilities more likely but you can't just pick a perfect selection of what you want. If you level to 60, which is sped up a good bit, and don't get the build you were aiming for, you can reset your level and try again.What this ends up looking like is that it takes a lot of luck and effort to get a perfect build and the way you try for one is going through the leveling process, each time being slightly different because you don't know what skills you're going to be offered. So basically you have a huge incentive to repeat the best part of WoW over and over until you get the build you wanted.Endgame has always been the weak point of mmos so having a server model that incentivizes repeating the best part of the game is wonderful, definitely sucked up many months of my life when I first found it.
>>744585918I wish I could still feel wonder and excitement like I felt when I first logged in to Shadowglen.
>>744581263Only trannies who failed life still play this shit
>>744621528trying too hard zoom zoom newfag
>>744613502I'm pretty sure you go there for part of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands world event. You actually had to use a bunch of different tricks to even make it out that far into the ocean without drowning (this was back when mounting would cancel water walking)
>>744617426NTA but I'll check it out, sounds interesting.I always loved leveling, just doing it at my pace and no discord trannies yapping my ears off about parsing.
>>744621528wow existed before trannies
>>744581263nevner played it
