World of Warcraft → Re: [Vanilla] What Was Vanilla WoW Like?

You are right, Epic gear should be reserved for the great players such as yourself, all others should be in blues and go fishing amiright? Epic gems are the new epix as you speak, and the elitist view of WoW (stop giving things away except to me cause I deserve it) is gone, thank goodness. There are ways to increase difficulty without limiting content to everyone, and I believe that Blizzard has done a good job at appeasing several levels of gamers. Besides, rose-tinted glasses are just that.

Blizzard is half doing it wrong.

Really good gear should be really hard to get. Else you're playing tick-tack-toe. Three year olds play that. Content should be difficult, then once the new one is out, the old ones get easier. If you keep nerfing the same active content, what the hell is the point of getting the same reward if it's getting nerfed eventually for almost free.

SWTOR does this differently. Each raid has three difficulties in instances and applies to the entire instance. Derp, Hard, and Nightmare. Same content, same fights, different loot table.

If your skill to fish is even high enough. Oh wait you can fish in any water now. I guess enjoying a challenge is being an elitist? Most the candy purplez now should be blues anyways. They just make the name in purple to make people like you feel like you accomplished something for doing a 10 minute dungeon.

I play the game for fun, not for a sense of accomplishment, I have other avenues for that. Enjoying a challenge isn't elitist, wanting to penalize anyone that isn't doing what you consider difficult enough is. Achievements, higher ilvl gear, mounts ect. are all in place to stroke the epeen of those that need it, unfortunately some believe that isn't enough of a separation and want an even greater disparity between themselves and "lesser" players.

edit: grammar

Or as the optimist in me likes to think:

Blizzard is half doing it right.

lolwut?!?

I believe Blizz has done the complete opposite of what you state. As one that has played WoW from launch where i wasnt in a hardcore raid group and focused on PvP more than PvE (High Warlord anyone??). It use to feel like an accomplishment to get an epic item, or down a raid boss. Now, the only feeling of accomplishment is to down Heroic Bosses with the only difference to gear is ilvl. And your comment of not playing the game for accomplishment is complete garbage. If you didnt care about accomplishment you wouldnt care about content/gear. You would be ok with spending hours upon hours wearing grey items and fishing in ponds (cause there really is nothing to accomplish doing that).
I am tired with people stating that "we pay the same so we should see the same as everyone else" line. I never was one to care about pixels or content (even tho having cooler looking gear than everyone else made the gear itself better). All i cared for was the challenged that each had. EQ did a very good job as their legendary items, were just that, Legendary. Not every mouth breather could obtain the item, and people were ok with that. If someone wanted to devote that much time to obtain pixels, well then great. Thats what they want to do.
I have quit WoW after Firelands due to the advent of LFR (probably would have quit regardless as content is becoming more trivial). Blizzard has eliminated the feel of being on a server, no one cares who is who. Prior to LFD/LFR you could slowly distance yourself from griefers as peoples reputations determined who to not group with. Now, you can get stuck with mages that sit there spamming wand attacks, or healers that think dps is more important than healing the tank or tanks that arent geared for content. Sure i could be an "elitist" and group with a core group for dailies/raids, but those people are too busy busting their heads on Heroic Spine rather than worrying about a heroic dungeon. So im stuck with the "i pay the same to play the same" genre and hate it. Tough for me i know. Good riddance most would say.

Now back on topic, best Vanilla moment was achieving High Warlord (we had a alternating system for the highest pvp'ers so we could share the title). The next best moment was the opening of the AQ Gates. It was literally hell on Azeroth. No one knew what would happen, and the lag was massive. People/Bodies everywhere and general chat looked like barrens chat on steroids. Vanilla was a grind, but once you obtained what you were after, it made the experience almost worth it. Now its the same grind (albeit a lot easier) with no "epic moment" attached.

Edit: So to most i sound elitist, but i use to enjoy a challenge (even if you couldnt devote 5 hours a day). I was never in a top tier guild until the end of BC and Wrath, and even then it was for small moments of time. Typically i stayed with smaller, more friendly guilds that had similar challenge seeking mindsets. Now the only challenge is to devote the time demanded by hardcore guilds, because normal mode isnt a challenge.

Agree with liquoranne here. That sense of accomplishment is gone. The furthest I got in Vanilla was BWL and even though we didnt get into Naxx people went crazy on vent everytime we downed a new boss.

Back on topic. In AQ we used to have a hunter that pulled the wasp pats naked cuz almost everytime he pulled he died lol. Stacking nature resist ftw. Opening of the AQ gates was and always will be the most epic wow event ever. The time it took both factions to gather all the materials to open the gates, people farming for the materials, the whol thing was well put together.... Until it was time to actually open the gates. The lag was terrible but it was the only time ive ever seen so many people in one place at the same time in wow. I think 80-90% of all lvl 60s were present, low level characters were even spirit running there to see the event if they couldnt get summoned. I wish wow would do something similar to that event again!

I actually have spent more hours fishing than I would want to admit. I agree with the cross-realm statement about servers not feeling like servers much any more. Much asshatery can be placed solely on the ambiguity of running in groups with no consequences of actions due to lack of server "rep". The game has changed, I have been playing since Vanilla as well, not since launch, but for a long time. I have done the 20 hour/week raiding in BC, and it has since slowed to the point of being able to play when I can.

Do I expect to get epic items because I should? No, but wasn't the same path taken in vanilla as it is now in Cata? Dungeon up to gear till you can raid. Kill boss, get loot. Difference is time spent working on attunements and how long it takes to get gear before being able to jump in a raid. Keep in mind, this game has been out for over 5 years. Blizz has rehashed so many fight mechanics that they aren't as new as they once were. This game has evolved, instead of giving the top 3% a view of 1/3 the raiding content, all can experience it, this is a good thing. Titles mounts and best gear are still reserved for the best of the best.

I just can't understand those that think others don't deserve anything based on their personal criteria. It is hilarious how other people being able to play to their preference upsets players that have no connection.

OT: AQ gate opening was best event imo.

I am not saying that people dont deserve said content. All i am saying is that now there is still that division, but they left people like myself with nothing to shoot for. I cant make a 3 night a week raid attendance, therefore i cannot raid with a heroic level raid group. I am left with regular raiding (and personally i havent seen many people trying this with the advent of LFR on my server) and LFR, which to me is laughable to say the least. LFR has killed off many of the "casual raiding" guilds on my server. No one advertises this style of guild now that anyone can que in LFR to receive free purples. The simple fact that Deathwing was killed in the first week of LFR shows how simple this level of raiding is. The changes might be good for the "many" but for a lot of people like myself, we are left with no goals that can be attained that require some level of aptitude. If Blizzard wants to keep people from cramming through content at its current rate, maybe attunement (or somthing similar) is something they should revisit. And the biggest difference now than Vanilla/BC with gear progression, is that i can skip an entire tier of raids to step forth into DS. Try skipping SSC/TK before stepping foot into Sunwell, or having dungeon sets before MC. We blow through content now cause its all skippable with the next content release.

So i left for SWTOR, which is no pretty pearl either, but atleast there is a server feel in the game. So one piece of the missing puzzle has been obtained atleast.