WoW

[Vibe]

Damn, didn't think they'd actually do it. All respect to Blizz, finally. Though I doubt I'll have enough time to play vanilla, such a time consuming game if you want to get anywhere.

[Xant]

What does WoW:Classic even mean? Is it some remastered edition of the original?

[Vibe]

Details aren't out yet but in an interview they said they're trying to make WoW Vanilla like it was back when WoW released.

[Xant]

Why is everyone excited about that? How is it a major announcement that they'll re-release something they released 15 years ago?

[Asheram]

Because everyone isn't you. Most likely nostalgia and people seem to enjoy the private vanilla servers why would they not like one from the people that actually made the game in the first place?

[Vibe]

Why is everyone excited about that? How is it a major announcement that they'll re-release something they released 15 years ago?

A lot of people want to play the old version due to it being way less casual. Also a LOT of nostalgia involved.

[Xant]

A lot of people want to play the old version due to it being way less casual.

Just seems like a pretty gay way of announcing it from Blizzard. They made it out to be a huge deal when it's just a re-release of something they've already made. HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT AT THIS YEARS BLIZZCON! WE DO SOMETHING THATS ZERO EFFORT FROM US! HERE ARE LAUNCH TRAILERS LIKE ITS A NEW GAME!

Should've just announced online they're releasing some servers running vanilla WoW.

But I guess this is the age of Skyrim Remastered, and they would've needed an actual cool new project to announce at Blizzcon otherwise.

[Asheram]

From what I am hearing its more than just flipping a switch and saying walla heres your vanilla server, if it was that easy I am sure they would have done it awhile ago to shut down all the illegal vanilla private servers.
http://www.pcgamer.com/this-is-how-blizzard-plans-to-finally-bring-back-vanilla-wow-servers/

[Vibe]

Just seems like a pretty gay way of announcing it from Blizzard. They made it out to be a huge deal when it's just a re-release of something they've already made. HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT AT THIS YEARS BLIZZCON! WE DO SOMETHING THATS ZERO EFFORT FROM US! HERE ARE LAUNCH TRAILERS LIKE ITS A NEW GAME!

Should've just announced online they're releasing some servers running vanilla WoW.

But I guess this is the age of Skyrim Remastered, and they would've needed an actual cool new project to announce at Blizzcon otherwise.

I guess it seems like that to you, but you'd honestly have to follow the whole WoW scene and the vanilla fanboys to really understand the hype. They've been asking Blizzard for a looong time for this and there was pretty much zero signs that they actually plan to do this, to the point they said it's not technically feasible for them.

[Xant]

I guess it seems like that to you, but you'd honestly have to follow the whole WoW scene and the vanilla fanboys to really understand the hype. They've been asking Blizzard for a looong time for this and there was pretty much zero signs that they actually plan to do this, to the point they said it's not technically feasible for them.

How is it more casual, though? More skillbased? Because there are more skills to use?

[Vibe]

How is it more casual, though? More skillbased? Because there are more skills to use?

Vanilla is less casual. It's just more time consuming in general. MMOs aren't really skill based tbh. There's a bit more bloat with skills, but the big differences are that leveling to max in vanilla took quite some time, if you pulled too many mobs at a time you were dead, classes were more specialized with some harder to level. Retail (current version WoW) every class can pretty much do everything and you can pull mobs in masses and not die. For the endgame, vanilla had a clear gear progression path you needed to go through to be able to join higher tier raids, so again took more time if you wanted to raid at top, current WoW every patch there's a soft gear reset. PvP max ranks were only for nolifers or shared accounts. Stuff like this.

[Asheram]

Not my words but well written.

"Great, they are going to make Classic servers, but the question is, how Vanilla will they be?  Put another way, what ruleset version will they launch with, one from Jan 2005, when the Molten core was the only raid, or from Oct 2006 when players were fighting their way towards the 4 horseman.

So much happened between those two dates.  The battlegrounds were added, along with entire zones like Silithus. there was the world event to open the gates to AQ40, and the difficulty of the 4 horseman to this day remains as one of the longest encounters to stand before being beaten. (7 weeks)

In vanilla WOW, shaman only existed on the Horde side, while Paladins were exclusively alliance, one factor which lead to people claiming Alliance had a huge raid advantage because of this.

So many changes during those two years, they really were a form of progression server all by themselves, so again, where should classic servers start, and should there be any progression as was done the first time around?

There will be temptation also to include features from later expansions, perhaps adding in Death Knights, or additional races such as Dark Elves.  Or since most raids were 40 man in Vanilla, (there was AQ20 ) will there be any temptation to add in some of the 25 or 10 man raids from BC or other expansions? Will they add convenience tools such as dungeon or raid finders?

When the DAOC classic server team ran their first iteration, they originally started with a baseline 2002 version, but they started adding in convenience features, realm abilities and even classes from later releases.  They even created their own new content zone with totally new rewards and skills from it.

Eventually they decided these changes diluted the "classic" feel of DAOC, and was causing a number of challenges in trying to upgrade to the SI expansion. (Will Blizz ever want to progress the classic, servers, a question for a different thread I think.)

So they eventually shut down the server for two years, and when they rolled out again, it was version 1.69 in it's purest form, which was great, but even then withing 6 months they started making a "few" changes to make more Battlegrounds available earlier and provide players with more rewards from PVPing.

It will be very interesting to see what decisions Blizzard makes in deciding exactly how true to their roots this version stays, because as others have noted, it will get stale pretty quickly if they launch a single point version and then let it stay stagnant on that single point in time.   In the DAOC classic servers, it started out strong with a packed 4000 person server, by July fewer than 500 were online at any one time during US hours."
Read more at http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/469360/the-easy-decision-to-create-classic-servers-was-just-the-beginning#ERkj71TgdE7giBg2.99

[Vibe]

Yeah, so many questions how they plan to run this. I'd love to see some QoL changes from the current version, but people are going to explode with rage if it isn't pure vanilla.

[Gravoth_iii]

Vanilla is pure, no QoL. It isnt completely balanced, but all classes seem to have their own uses. It's as espected, more like a classic mmo where classes perform very specific roles. As far as individual gameplay goes, its much simpler but a bit rough edged. It's harder in the sense of preparation and group effort, but individually most classes seem rather easy (tanking and healing could be different tho, im not sure). QoL is probably the largest factor of killing the vanilla experience, QoL ruins the adventure feel. I can accept Graphical updates (tho id prefer none) and achievements. Bug fixes could be nice depending on what it would affect, and maybe just maybe som class balance to make some of them slightly more viable. But the best would be no changes, and maybe release it with molten core and then naxx after X amount of time.

The main draws of it is just that it forces a social aspect much more than other mmos these days. As you level you will interract and do things in groups with randoms, if only to survive pvp or to finish areas up quicker or to be able to even beat quests since they can be tough.

I prefer the simple combat and slower pacing much more that current versions. It feels exhausting and not very rewarding to keep track of 10+ skills constantly in fast successions, interesting concepts but i just cant get into them.


Ive not raided in vanilla, ive only leveld to 40 or something on private servers not too long ago, but as others also have, i quit due to the risk of it being wiped since its not really official. I know tons of people going back now to vanilla once its releasing, so theres a large hope for it. At least within our clan we are pretty stoked.

[Vibe]

Vanilla was pretty easy in general, the only hard thing about it is that it's time consuming. Raid boss mechanics have gotten pretty complex in current versions, that wasn't the case back then. That doesn't mean the raids weren't fun though, but they definitely were far more basic and more often than not, simple gear checks. Hardest part was getting 40 geared people to do what you want them to do, but that was back in the day when it wasn't that obvious for people to wiki boss mechanics and shit. We still made it a couple of bosses into Naxx in retail vanilla, which wasn't bad at all - most guilds didn't even reach Naxx or even AQ40 before TBC released.

I'm glad I didn't invest much time into any of the private servers, what a bunch of scum running these. Then again I probably wouldn't have made it to 60 even if I wanted to, leveling is so absolutely boring in vanilla, especially if you've done it 3x+ times before...