# Forum > News > OC News > Articles and Interviews >  Has WoW lost its innocence?

## KuRIoS

I am sitting inside today on a cold day in December 2009. The year is nearly at an end and to be completely honest, so is my “career” in WoW. That being said, I must be fair and admit that my career in World of Warcraft has been over for quite a while. I don’t enjoy raiding anymore, I don’t enjoy PvP, and I don’t really enjoy exploring, dailies or anything really. Oh wait…! I do enjoy something, I enjoy cheating, bugabusing and exploiting the game. However even that is beginning to bore me, the struggle of having to go through selling 15 tabs of various guildbanks full of stuff that I have gained when botting just doesn’t entertain me anymore. Sure I can make easy money in real life by selling my gold, but even that can’t bring a smile on my face when pressing the damn WoW.exe icon. 

 I am trying to think of, why and when, it became a struggle find something in the game that I enjoy rather than sit back and let the hours fly by. Therefore I think I will need to take you through my journey in the universe of World of Warcraft. 
 
Press your way through my thougts by clicking next page. 

[BREAK=Getting Started]
*Introduction*

My introduction to World of Warcraft was through my little brother, I saw him playing a game and I can remember my exact words to him “I will never enjoy that game, it looks shit, the gameplay is rubbish and I will never play it”. Two weeks later I had a level 25 hunter on my brothers account. 

I started off as a Night Elf hunter, two of my friends were playing human mages or something like that and I wanted to level with them, so I left Darnassus to travel towards the place where my friends were. I can to this day still remember the rush of Adrenaline when I had to run past the crocs in wetlands, this is also where I met up with my friend who came to my rescue just as I was about to feed a croc with my own leg. 

I was invited into a Danish guild where I quickly felt the feeling of friendship through a game, a feeling that I had not felt since my days playing CounterStrike. At this time I was level 40 with my hunter and my brother was angry that I was using his account, I prefer to say that he was mad jealous that I was leveling way faster than him even though I only played 25% of the time that he did. 

One of my friends whom I used to play with had to go to jail and therefore gave me his account and his 46 NE hunter. The change wasn’t too big for me, only 6 levels, so I accepted and just played his hunter from that day on. I was the first to hit 60 in the guild and after just a few days I wanted more, the other guy were level 55 or less. This is back when Ragnaros or Onyxia was not even killed on our server. 

[BREAK=Raiding]
_Raiding_

I got into a bigger guild, the biggest on the server, yet we were only 4-5 hunters. I immediately felt that I had found my home and was happy. 4 days later the guild split, I followed a few others into the newly formed guild with other rules and guidelines. We only wanted level 60 players and no stupid teens and we didn’t accept every level 60 out there either. 
We started raiding and damn it was tough and oh god did we wipe. J I remember our first kill at Luci haha it was awesome. We continued to go through the various encounters in MC until we had enough people attuned for Onyxia. After killing most of the content in MC we were stuck at a big dumb boss… RAGNAROS.. We struggled with him for about 2½ weeks, we were dedicated every night in our task to get him down, remember this is when a raid took 40 people + replacements. 

“YAEEAAAAAA RGRGRGRGRGRRARARARYAYRAYRYARYARYARARRWOOOOOOOOOOYEARRRARARRR” 

That is approximately how it sounded on our vent when we finally downed raggy, as server first. The whole server (at least alliance) partied in IF and cheered, this went on for 1½ hours. Incredible feeling, you actually felt as if you had accomplished something big. Like the first time you ride your bike without help from your parents. 

Not much to say about ony or bwl as the feeling was the same for those instances, I will instead tell you about PvP. 
PvP when it was fun - World PvP and the battle was pulsating back and forth between Southshore and Tarren Mill. I had the best of time fighting in world pvp, the new players would admire your leadership and others would be annoyed that you yelled at them for running into the town bringing all the guards. Battles went on for hours and hours. 

[BREAK=Changes]
*Changes*

_PVP_
Then we had the first addition as I really look at it, battlegrounds. Battlegrounds ruined world pvp, yet it was fun, you could join as a team and if you wanted good gear from it then you had to bring an effort into it. 

Alterac Valley battles would last an entire night before a winner was found it was good fun, yet frustrating, to this day I am still sure that the Horde somehow cheated. Nevertheless I still missed the world pvp and sometimes my guild arranged battles to be fought old school. If I remember correctly, to become grand marshall you had to be ranked 1st for 3 weeks in a row, this was an accomplishment that caused you to have a good team and the determination to even risk the shady PUG’s in battlegrounds. 

*RAID INSTANCE*
Then the first addition in raid instances hit, AQ 20 and AQ 40. This addition happened with a server event where we had all pitched in to get the “Gates of Ahn’Qiraj” opened. An awesome event, it was truly epic. We farmed reputation all night long from killing the Guardians that spawned throughout silithus. 
A wicked instance full of tough encounters. We had a fast progress through AQ40, until we hit C’thun. C’thun is to this day still one of the best bosses/encounters that I have fought in WoW. The entire instance was awesome as well just remember the sounds when u were in there “Your friends will abandon you”, “Your hearth will explode” etc. 
Naxx arrived shortly after we had cleared AQ40. We didn’t really have time to go full in on Naxx as the guild had minor problems at that time. 

*Expansion*
Then came the day when The Burning Crusade hit the shelves. We all knew that the developers were giving us a higher levelcap, but everything else should be great. *DAMN JESUS’ GRANDMA IN HELL* I was disappointed I remember not being able to log on until 2 days after the expansion had been released. Went to outlands only to see a guy in full level 61 greens having better gear than I had spent months upon months in front of the screen to receive. Shortly after I was banned in one of the Banwaves, I had long lost the passion for WoW and just couldn’t be bothered anymore. Shit happens I have lost an account, so what?.

However I still wanted to play and I had just won the guy4game contest here on MMOwned so I bought some powerleveling and was soon level 70. 

[BREAK=Conclusion]
*Conclusion*
I do not think that there is any reason to bore you any more with my way through outlands and such. Having thought back of my way through the World of Warcraft I think that my interest in WoW stopped when it wasn’t “pure” anymore. There are a number of factors that I think caused me to lose interest in almost every perspective of the game.

*PVP*
World PvP was ruined and brought into “closed combat areas”. When I thought of Horde vs alliance battles I always thought of it being in the open with vendors, travelers etc getting in the way and killed. It wasn’t as much the Battleground as it was the Arenas that made me angry. 

Even on a PvE server the people that did arena or battlegrounds could easily gain gear that was on par with what you had spent ages on getting in instances. This was an own goal from Blizzard in my eyes, they should have made different systems for PvE and PvP servers. On a server where the focus is on the game itself (PVE) there should be greater rewards for putting down such content. On servers where the focus is on your opponents (PvP) the gear should be better from achieving greatly in Player versus Player action. 

*Instances*
With the first expansion Blizzard said that they wanted more players to see and experience the endgame content. A good thought but not necessarily the way that they added it into the game, this was on expense of the hardcore players that had spent months trying to kill the bosses of Molten Core and Blackwing Lair etc.

I believed, and still do, that the 40 man instances were better than the 10-25 mans today. Sure it could be hard to find 40 players for raids, but if we could do it back then, then it should be possible today as well. 

*Personally*
I don’t think that anything can fix World of Warcraft for me. The developers have chosen the easy way out and are mainly listening to the whiny bunch (13-16). If you want something changed in WoW, whine about it until it gets changed. Nor is it possible to change anything until Blizzard changes the way that the boss encounters are fought and made. 

Today you can read a guide before being able to try the encounter, then go in and win over the boss within a few tries. Take a look at ICC we cleared the first night in there, why? Because we knew every encounter and what was going to happen. 
I don’t know if I actually answered my own questions, but this is my ramblings from a boring cold day in my apartment without any Internet. 

I hope that you are willing to discuss my points and views on it, the facts of my memory may be wrong, but I’m writing this from my own drunken memory.

KuRIoS

----------


## mag1212

WoW is way too easy now

----------


## Innit

Very good and interesting read, I have almost exactly the same Warcraft story, it's nice to hear the disgruntled ramblings of some-one else who actually has any idea what pre-bc was really like, and not from a kids PoV.

----------


## ReidE96

I miss vanilla.... ;-;

----------


## Gash

missing it aswell :S

----------


## Forever

> to become grand marshall you had to be ranked 1st for 3 weeks in a row



Was indeed such a horrible task to get the most honor of anyone on the server for 3 weeks in a row. I attempted it a few times but I never even got close to it. Best I achieved was R11 and that was with account sharing  :Stick Out Tongue: 


I don't play the game anymore either and the main factors for that are that the challenge is almost completely gone. The only challenge you will see now is making sure the other 9 or 24 ppl don't screw up since that will be the reason you wipe 99% of the time. Solo content is way too dumb now and it almost feels like a singleplayer game while leveling up. Group quests are just short for actually using your brain for once..

Have some cool memories of clearing MC and such and then mainly big-name bosses such as onyxia and ragnaros. TBC was way too dull. There was too much content there imo, in the start at least. So even though you may have been good enough you couldn't go as far as you wanted because then the raid had already reset. I must admit though I really enjoyed that lvl 70 10man troll instances of which I forgot the name, but that was probably because we had a group of 10 friends rolling around in S1/S3 wellfare pvp gear at that time.

WotLK was nice in the start but became a huge fail for me quite quickly. Challenge was nowhere to be found and the raid content was just way too little later on.

It's just a new generation playing WoW now, those of 12-16 year old screaming teens that want everything handed to them. You won't find them in the better guilds but the game is shaped more and more to the teens..

----------


## Zoidberg

I remember starting out as a Nelf Hunter too. I haven't played WoW for over a ½ year, but the only reason I don't play, is because I find leveling extremely boring.

----------


## Ket

Nice read, thanks for sharing your experiences. There is always a love hate relationship it seems with MMOs that become a passion for players.

----------


## Trollblod

Agree on almost every part here KuR.

----------


## maigol

+1 on all the story,i loved wow preBC,though i wasn't lvl 60 for that days,but a friend let me play with his account with a lvl 60 druid and i loved raiding so much  :Big Grin: ,and it's a shame that i hadn't done full BWL yet and the old NAXX(we always get owned in the same spot:sapphiron and the low gear of our healers


and now it's hard to get a 40ppl raid,cause everyone is doing arenas or bgs...that's my guild main problem,we are the same 10 doing raids,and rarely we can fill a 25 raid in this days :S

edit:grammar

----------


## Catface

i also miss vanilla  :Frown:  i remember it took me around 2 years to get to 60 even with help from a few of my friends  :Embarrassment:  :tard:, but after reaching level 60 it was awesome. i was so happy to finally be level 60. i also remember that i took the wrong 'facial hair' with my tauren but i was level 10 and thought im not going to do 1-10 again!
oh, and i always spirit ressed, didnt know you could run to your body :3

i miss those days  :Frown:

----------


## [Sadistic]

> i also miss vanilla  i remember it 
> oh, and i always spirit ressed, didnt know you could run to your body :3
> 
> i miss those days


haha same here man!!

----------


## Dale93

I must agree, walking through Wetlands as a level 10-ish was horrible, yet. Somehow, it was almost fun, trying to avoid all the crocs... It was a good read, and I must say, the world was a better place before TBC...

----------


## Chuck12345

Very nice read there Kurios

I started on november 24 2004 (release date of wow) on a tauren hunter.
I quickly switched to another server to play with my best friends (was a human mage) I remember that it took me at least 2 weeks to get to level 17 lmao.. I remember being extremly jealou of that kid at school that was constantle 3-4 levels over me haha. Memories of darkshore and those god damn nagas at that tower... and those stupid "buzz boxes" haha

I share your same opinion. Wow as lost it's flavor.. I'm not too sure what was THAT epic about vanilla. I guess it was the "challenge" that is no where to be found in the game anymore. 

Two days ago, I had to go thru menethil on my new alt. GOD did I get some shivers when I passed near that small city(right near the destroyed bridge liking arathi and dustwallow marsh) hold by the dark iron dwarves.

I then had to go through the "dwarven tunnels" ... I remember me and my friend being escorted by a level 30ish dwarf hunter back then when I was still a lowby haha.. 

====================
It's really sad that I can't get over this game though, been bored with it since mid TBC.

TBH I think flying mounts and blizzard taking the "casual" path is what killed this game. Exploring continents (with flying mounts) isn't the same anymore... Also.. i don't know for you guys ..but I hate seeing every god damn NPCs with the coolest gear around.. I liked it better when they wore the same *shitty looking gear* that we had leveling to 60.

I also dislike all the god damn *outside the game* websites. There's like a guide for ****ing everything... I hate it. Also dislike the fact that pve is now rounded around theory crafting and getting the maximum out of every stats instead of *hardness/tough challenge*. (sup gearscore..). When was the last time you picked up a talent (that isnt on the "max efficienty talent template" because you liked what it gave to you?


To me, it seems this game as gotten way to much polished. I loved exploring and discovering bugs. I think humanity always love small imperfections.

I also think that it we will never ever be able to have this amazing feeling again. Other devs have learned too much about wow.. and so did people. I tried out warhammer and aion.. didn't even enjoy leveling. All I wanted was to level the fastest...

----------


## Glynbeard

Awesome article! I can definitely relate to your story in a couple different places.

----------


## Bugger00

Nice post and I'm completely in agreement with everything, not sure why I log in anymore but I still do. Maybe someday that will change.

Bugger.

----------


## holmedog

I'm sorry, but I have to completely disagree. We all see the past with rose colored glasses, and in this case, you are taking that to mean things were better. Take a look at your own post, read back to how you skipped levels by acquiring an account, how you bought powerleveling services. That's not playing the game as intended, and by that admittance alone, you are saying that even back then things didn't mesh with your idea of what was good.

I think the game is not the same as it was. But I also think that a lot of the ideas we had when this game came out just don't hold up to the standards we have now. It was expected that you had to have 72 people to raid in EQ. If you ever went after the key to VT, you know what kind of a grind was expected to get in the "candy store". We all thought for a long time that this is what defined "hard working" or "deserving" purples.

The simple fact is, it's not. If you want to sit here and tell me you bot, and then on the other hand tell me you wish the game wasn't easy mode, I'm going to call you a hypocrite. Go play another game that caters to hardcore only, because that is not what WoW is anymore. You can even set up your spambot and afk in their battlegrounds, to completely ruin the experience of that game. But, don't come to me whining about how it's not hardcore enough when you yourself do things to get around the "hard" portion of it.

----------


## KuRIoS

would help if you actually read what i posted... 




> I'm sorry, but I have to completely disagree. We all see the past with rose colored glasses, and in this case, you are taking that to mean things were better. Take a look at your own post, read back to how you skipped levels by acquiring an account, how you bought powerleveling services. That's not playing the game as intended, and by that admittance alone, you are saying that even back then things didn't mesh with your idea of what was good.


I didnt skip the levels because of the game not being fun, i loved the game at that time, but the account was give to me as i said  :Smile:  ... I bought powerleveling after being banned because I wasnt enjoying the game anymore and i won a 2000 Dollar gift card to a powerlevel site, why not use it? 




> I think the game is not the same as it was. But I also think that a lot of the ideas we had when this game came out just don't hold up to the standards we have now. It was expected that you had to have 72 people to raid in EQ. If you ever went after the key to VT, you know what kind of a grind was expected to get in the "candy store". We all thought for a long time that this is what defined "hard working" or "deserving" purples.


Never played EQ so i can not comment on that. I just know that I felt pissed when PvP'ers were given bargain epics while we had to work hard for ours. 




> The simple fact is, it's not. If you want to sit here and tell me you bot, and then on the other hand tell me you wish the game wasn't easy mode, I'm going to call you a hypocrite. Go play another game that caters to hardcore only, because that is not what WoW is anymore. You can even set up your spambot and afk in their battlegrounds, to completely ruin the experience of that game. But, don't come to me whining about how it's not hardcore enough when you yourself do things to get around the "hard" portion of it.


I bot now yes, because I do not find the game fun anymore, nor do I think that anything Blizz does can make me enjoy it again, as i said. 
Call me a hypocrite all you like, i dont care  :Smile:  
It's not only Blizzards fault tho, as i said, we as a growing WoW community have a blame to be put on us as well.. every encounter is well described and well explained before its even in the instances of the Live servers. 
This is *to me* one of the biggest reasons why you dont go into a mayhem whenever u down a new boss like we used to do. now its just, "GJ on first kill, move on - everybody read tacs for new boss and know where to stand?" <- that is the major thing of what i dislike.

----------


## JD

I must admit that WoW has changed a lot over the years and that for vanilla players the game may have become boring. Changes aren't made the way they should be and the raids aren't as hard as you would imagine the should be. I think the age level of the game has shifted to a lower age and that forces the developers to create easier instances / raids because well, let's be honest, 12 years old aren't, in general, as good as 20 year olds. Oh well, I'm still playing WoW, not for the competition because, well, there is none for softcore players like me. I like to read the WoW news but you don't see me runnign around with excell trying to figure out what instance to do next so I can get a certain amount of dps. If you DO do that you'll end up in the hardcore raiding guilds which can be fun for certain people but I play WoW because I can talk about it with my friends who play on my server and because it's fun to be playing a game with 5 of my friends. I don't see the game as a challenge but more as a, well, game.

Just my twocents

----------


## stoneharry

A MMO is designed to be played over and over again without getting boring, but eventually everything gets boring. For me, WoW got boring because it was the same gameplay and systems with just more content, eventually it just got so repetative that everything felt like I had already done it, there was no longer an addrenaline rush or the feeling of mystery. This is the reason I got to emulation, I could make my own world and create it how I felt suitable; by this I am not trying to say I am better than blizzard, I am trying to say that WoW needs to change. Having the same PvP and PvE systems, having the same interfaces and such, it just gets boring. New players still find it fun and play for many years, but many of the old players are leaving now. I think this would relate to what you are saying as you say how you used to find it fun, but then you looked to botting/'cheating' for something to keep you interested within this good game.

----------


## Hezpadooka

In my opinion they should make a server and bring it back to Vanilla WoW, but maybe 3.3 updates.

----------


## holmedog

> I bot now yes, because I do not find the game fun anymore, nor do I think that anything Blizz does can make me enjoy it again, as i said.



I'll counter that with saying that I believe you never thought the game was fun, you merely found it addictive. I'm not trying to come off as an ass here, I actually have many times sat and pondered the same things that you are, but you have to keep in mind that humans do not remember bad things in proportion to good things. Good things tend to get a heavier weighting in our memory, and as such, when viewing things like "How it was back in the day" we get what I called "rose colored glasses". It's the same reason we all fall in love with the first games we played, but when we go back they aren't nearly as fun as they were the first time. 

To give an analogy, I loved Final Fantasy 4 when it hit stateside (final fantasy 2 here). It was the absolute best game ever. I go back and play it now on an emulator, and I use the fast forward option because the text is too slow. I use the state save because I don't want to find save points. Simply put, I cheat more, because I don't want to be bothered by the tedium that at one point I actually liked. And, that game hasn't changed in the absolute least (whereas WoW has continually tried to improve on the parts of tedium that we complain about).

So, to the entire point of this article, "Has wow lost it's innocence" I say no. WoW just has 5 year veterans now that are in some cases 10+ year veterans of the genre. The game hasn't lost anything, in fact it has improved on many things that we all hated at the time. The players, on the other hand, have evolved and changed.

----------


## KuRIoS

> I'll counter that with saying that I believe you never thought the game was fun, you merely found it addictive. I'm not trying to come off as an ass here, I actually have many times sat and pondered the same things that you are, but you have to keep in mind that humans do not remember bad things in proportion to good things. Good things tend to get a heavier weighting in our memory, and as such, when viewing things like "How it was back in the day" we get what I called "rose colored glasses". It's the same reason we all fall in love with the first games we played, but when we go back they aren't nearly as fun as they were the first time. 
> 
> To give an analogy, I loved Final Fantasy 4 when it hit stateside (final fantasy 2 here). It was the absolute best game ever. I go back and play it now on an emulator, and I use the fast forward option because the text is too slow. I use the state save because I don't want to find save points. Simply put, I cheat more, because I don't want to be bothered by the tedium that at one point I actually liked. And, that game hasn't changed in the absolute least (whereas WoW has continually tried to improve on the parts of tedium that we complain about).
> 
> So, to the entire point of this article, "Has wow lost it's innocence" I say no. WoW just has 5 year veterans now that are in some cases 10+ year veterans of the genre. The game hasn't lost anything, in fact it has improved on many things that we all hated at the time. The players, on the other hand, have evolved and changed.


I know you are not trying to be an ass, you merely look at it different than what i do and that is good  :Smile:  My point with this article / blog / something was that i wanted a bit of discussion not just the usual asslicking. 

However I must say that I enjoyed WoW and found it INCREDIBLY fun, not because of the addictive in it but because of the whole atmosphere in it. But i do, as you, believe that many only found it fun because of it being addictive.

----------


## holmedog

> not because of the addictive in it but because of the whole atmosphere in it.



You've touched on this point, but I don't think the game itself has lost it's atsmosphere. In fact, I would say it draws me in more than it ever did with the cutscenes, the improved, linear quests, and the whole "really fighting the bad guy" theme in WoTLK. What has changed is the playerbase. We have sites like this that prosper. We have MMO-Champ, Wowhead, wowheroes, stratfu, just hundreds of sites dedicated to min/maxing. And, these aren't just for the cutting edge players anymore (think askchopper for UO for those of you with that much nostalgia). 

I would argue that the game hasn't ruined itself, but that the atmosphere has significantly changed thanks to the increasing ease of spreading information to the players. Imagine if we had the content we have now, but no DBM, recount, questhelper, wowhead, tankspot, AJ, EJ. That's how it was in vanilla.

----------


## [email protected]

Well written, I started playing around patch 1.8 myself, and went to live realms at around 1.9. I was quite a slow leveler and had my first 60 after 3 months or so, wich got epicly banned for AV botting (Hmm I was about 13 back then, kinda struck me). But after a while I made a new acc (I think about 2 weeks :P) And leveled it to 60 again, around 60 TBC came out so I never really got to do all the cool vanilla stuff. Altough I can imagine pretty good what it must've been like.

----------


## ßetray

I agree that after vanilla, it _appeared_ as if wow got easier (especially for leveling and gearing up), BUT you have to keep in mind, the difficulty of the raids (SSC [Boglord trash Bosses], TK [Kael], Hyjal and BT Attunement, Sunwell upon release).

None of those were joke encounters. Many guilds spent weeks on bosses as they did in Vanilla content.

And lets not forget that rotations for classes went up pushing 1-2 buttons to 3-4 buttons.

But I do agree that they nerfed the content at every patch and it all became easier so more people could see it [My guild didn't down KJ until after the patch].

Even so, I can see how you are bored of the game. I played casually in vanilla and more seriously in BC but I've had my moments where I'm bored of raiding and pvp.

Maybe Cataclysm will bring something for you with Blizz bringing back PvP Ranks.

----------


## KuRIoS

> You've touched on this point, but I don't think the game itself has lost it's atsmosphere. In fact, I would say it draws me in more than it ever did with the cutscenes, the improved, linear quests, and the whole "really fighting the bad guy" theme in WoTLK. What has changed is the playerbase. We have sites like this that prosper. We have MMO-Champ, Wowhead, wowheroes, stratfu, just hundreds of sites dedicated to min/maxing. And, these aren't just for the cutting edge players anymore (think askchopper for UO for those of you with that much nostalgia). 
> 
> I would argue that the game hasn't ruined itself, but that the atmosphere has significantly changed thanks to the increasing ease of spreading information to the players. Imagine if we had the content we have now, but no DBM, recount, questhelper, wowhead, tankspot, AJ, EJ. That's how it was in vanilla.


well we have pvp as well now, which i dont like as well, I dont like the whole pvp for gear thing... but thats just me, other than that... Yes if we didnt have those sites, WoW would be fun again maybe, as instances and new encounters would take some effort.

----------


## ToR

I completely agree. I started playing WoW in july 2005 and I still miss the old level 60 days.

Raiding is just pathetic, a good portion of today's raiders would not stand a chance in MC/BWL/AQ40/Old Naxx if there was a "vanilla" wow server, you used to have to do more than just aoe down the trash and move out of the fire on bosses. I can't even think of a single boss where you get 1 shotted/wipe the entire raid if you make a mistake (probably because I quit raiding 6 months ago). Aggro is simply not a problem anymore, EVERY class has a way to drop aggro/get out of the fight if they **** up. I cleared 90% of level 60 content (didn't quite finish naxx) and those were the best few months in my wow "career".

Don't get me started on the PvP system >_> BG's were awesome at level 60, for months on end I played WSG/AB to get Rank 11 on an undead priest and I enjoyed every single day of farming honor.

I've quit wow 2-3 times now, for several months at a time and I keep coming back because I simply cannot find a replacement, I tried aion beta for a bit but could not get into it as it just felt like another wow copy, why bother play something trying to be wow when you can just play wow?

Even though I absolutely hate a lot of the changes blizzard has made my subscription is still active and I still login nearly every day.

----------


## Found

It's not very fun anymore, im sad /cries/

----------


## Confucius

I started WoW a couple months before TBC came out and I was so angry about the level cap because I was leveling as fast as I could to play with my RL level 60 friend. Now leveling is way to easy imo even more so with RaF, you could do 1-60 in a few days now.

----------


## shindaustin

Out of everything ive read on this site this has to be the best.
Maybe i havnt read alot? Maybe i have.

Great topic.
Great Article.


Thanks man  :Smile:

----------


## gezus

I FULLY agree with EVERYTHING in this post KuRIos. I also miss the Epicness of it all. 

Some points I wanted to add:

Remember when you did down a new boss on your server, and got like a bad ass sword ie:Thunderfury? or got the Baron's mout to drop back when it was a 0.001% drop rate? .. and marched around in IF bombarded by people /w you .. "OMFG dood .. where did you get that! .. it's kick ass!!" .. and knowing that MAYBE .. .... and I mean MAYBE someone else would have the luck to get one as well. and NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT buy it with ****ing badges!!!!!

Remember when not only did you have to work your ass off to get Grand Marshall on your server.. you also had to talk to the current Grand Marshall and swing some sort of deal with him to step down and let you go get all the Grand marshall gear.. ? .. because back then .. ..... There could be only 1!? 

Remember when NOTHING in the game was free? .. You had to WORK for EVERYTHING?

Remember when 100g was TONS of money? .. and farming things and AH stuff was exciting and fun because making 100g was insane! .. 

Remember when Instances where well made, and boss fights where fun and creative? .. 

Remember when if you wanted to go on and kill the next big boss, you had to Atune for it? .. or "EARN THE RIGHT" to face it? .. (This also was an integral part of preventing some douchebag mage from wiping you on Nef.) This also made "Gear check" Nul and Void.. if you where attuned.. you obviously had the gear/experience.

Remember when Guilds needed to be strong? .. to band together? .. and work hard towards goals? .. Show your Pride? .. now guilds come and go like a fart in the wind.. pathetic really to know that you can more or less pug your way through shithouse guilds ninja some epics, collect a few badges.. even though you where dead the whole time. and have almost EXACTLY the SAME gear that the 9/24 other guys that worked their asses off had? .. and then just Gquit, and join the next flavor of the week guild? .. 

Remember when Honor used to decay? .. so if you wanted to be a PVP pimp .. you had to work for it? .. 

Remember when different gear, and different mobs .............looked .......... different? .. I mean seriously why is EVERY cape in the game still using the SAME ****ING MODEL!!! .. that lazy and pathetic. 

The list could go on forever. however .. I will stop there because I am about to smash my keyboard through the monitor. I leave you with two things.. one of my most fond memories (aside from the wetlands death run. Oh man was that hart pounding fun back in the day.) and an important question. 

My most fond memory is of an EPIC battle between Southshore, and Tarren Mill. the heat of the battle had lasted already over an hour, and both sides where calling in reinforcements nonstop. We had pushed the horde back to around tower on the road leading to Tarren Mill, and the battle was fierce. When suddenly one of the pro hunters in my guild <Rollin with my gnomies> spotted Narillasanz the rare spawn dragon just up behind Tarren Mill (Approx by the old 40 Warrior weapon quest guy along the river) .. Immediately 2 more hunters ran to his aid. Those 3 guys kited that dragon right into the middle of the battle 2 of them feigned, and 1 died. However .. the Mayhem that ensued way Epic .. I still laugh about that and think it's by far the greatest PVP battle I have ever been a part of. LOL

Now for the question .. 

What are we gonna play now? .. :P

----------


## ~OddBall~

I agree wholely on the Vanilla WoW was awesome front. My only question is, imagine now, if we were still at vanilla WoW, would we really still be enjoying the same old thing or would we have now reached the stage where the majority of the player base is screaming at blizzard because there has been no change in the game for 5 years (or whatever it is.)

I think with every MMO change is impossible to avoid, many players will find the change as absolutely terrible, others will love it, it really is quite subjective.

----------


## Crysto

The game itself isn't fun, it's the people you play with that are.

I'm quite close with our guild, we even have rl meets (up to 4 now), play lots of other games and have a huge active community.

Twelve 3.0 Network Portal If you wanna check it out, PS: With the applications you must perform an MSpaint request or cook some food and take pictures.

----------


## Confidence

I definitely believe that the game has gotten easier, but then again -- the game has changed just as real life has changed. The economic struggles in the real world have affected the amount of time people can afford to play WoW, thus affecting the amount of time it takes to down bosses.

It's not an easy decision, but it's what's best from the economic point of view. :\

----------


## MCdeathMC

lol i got wotlk the day and it came out and my warrior is still not lvl 80 i find the game really lame now i even started playing private servers just to have fun on wow again lol

----------


## Mr. Clean

I think the worst thing now, is Gear. Before it use to be something hard earned and achieving. Now if you have T9 your no big deal. You can get full T9 after a good day of heroics. I mean honestly Heroics now drop Emblem of Triumphs, its so stupid. So much for Heroism and Valor let alone Conquest. 

Not to mention, its all about gear score now, no longer does talent mean anything in raids, if you dont have a certain gear amount no one will take you no matter your dps.

----------


## 7itanium

Love the article KuR.

on that note... can I have your accounts? lol

----------


## Noah313

Good thoughts mate. My new years resolution's:
1) Vegan diet
2) Quit wow.

----------


## The Maffyx

I know exactly what you mean, I loved vanilla WoW, and all there was about it, it was challenging. TBC came out and I was like alright this is something new I can roll with it, seems ok, the end game stuff was still challenging. Now as you've already stated its just easy mode on everything, there's usually only one strategy to everything. I also lost interest after not being able to bot (was using glider until it got shut down). I never sold gold, didn't know much about it. I came to this website when I was botting to see what I could learn about it, and ended up contributing some stuff to the website itself. I didn't try too many exploits and never hacked or anything. I got bored with the game myself which is why I started botting when I did. It gave me a different challenge of not being caught, and making the best paths or money spots or whatever I could do to make money. Sorry about the rambling but that's what I think in reply.

TLDR: Vanilla WoW was good, TBC was alright, WoTLK sucks, botting was fun.

----------


## Cypher

News flash:
WoW is not a 16 year old girl.

----------


## Sounddead

Good post, brings back lots of memories  :Smile: 



> I can to this day still remember the rush of Adrenaline when I had to run past the crocs in wetlands, this is also where I met up with my friend who came to my rescue just as I was about to feed a croc with my own leg.


One of the best first experiences in WoW I've ever had, i miss those days fer real.

----------


## Evilbuffy

I've read your entire article KuRIoS and I must say that I found it interesting. I was actually caught by it, and I admire your writing skills a lot.

And I do agree with you that "pre-tbc, alpha WoW or original WoW" was a lot better then the game it self has become today. I was unfortunatly not lucky enough to get to play during that moment, but a mate of me did. He played a Dwarf Paladin and from the first moment I saw the game I was caught by it. I do not know why, but that is how it is. I can't say he was one of the so called hardcore raiders, but he did some of the raids. I also know how all the "pre-tbc" raids were, and to be honest I would rather want it that way today too, and not like it is in ICC and so on.

But great article overall KuRIoS! :Smile:

----------


## JD

> News flash:
> WoW is not a 16 year old girl.


Oh... So raiding isn't another word for oral sex?

----------


## ReidE96

Remember Ragnaros? DPS-wise, you ONLY took the frost mages. Otherwise, you died. Now, take whatever damn dps you like, as long as you have a tank and a healer you're fine...

----------


## Glynbeard

Movie - Was watching that and I thought it had a lot of the same ideas expressed here.

----------


## Chuck12345

Server community are non existant anymore. Blame it on all the paid transfers/name change/sex etc change

also I liked it better when the game rounded around horde vs alliance

now I log on everyday to see naked blood elves and dwarves dancing around a camp fire in dalaran.. sigh

A good quote that express my feelings better than I can




> The thing I miss most about vanilla was actually the people - not the content. The game, and my old servers in particular, just had a different and more positive feel. Now it's just about picking up your emblems and consulting your gear planner to find out what you should spend them on, and this leads to a feeling of not caring. I'd rather suffer from purple fever than see gearing as a "oh, two weeks of grinding heroics with random retards from other servers and I'm good to go". I also miss the server feeling that was completely ruined by cross-server BGs, faction and server transfers. Rant lol.


 - Murag of warcraftmovies

----------


## Thidan

> WoW is way too easy now


Turn off DBM and Omen  :Wink: 

Nicely written KuR, agreeing on every statement.

Vanilla WoW is the best era of World of Warcraft.
Remove arenas, remove x-realm shit.
Bring back 40-mans, I mean, nearl 12 mil players today, only 4-6 mil back in vanilla.
And you had 1 or 2 AWESOME guilds on your server that you could kill to get into, nowadays it's like ok, join a casual guild, 2 weeks after the top guilds have cleared everything, you're at the same gearscore anyways.

----------


## Shobek

Ha, I like how you started. I was the exact same except for a few things, my friends got me hooked in vanilla I was a gnome rogue, one of the only ones no one liked gnomes. As soon as I hit 40 I remember my brother saying, why would anyone play such a nerdy game. He started playing the next day:P. Well to cut to the chase I was the first gnome rogue on my server to hit 60 and all I did was raid and world pvp. I honestly think they killed the game after that. It became too easy to get to 60 and gear was a joke... I wish I could spend a day 4 years ago to enjoy what it use to be.

----------


## 7itanium

I do tend to agree with the fact that many elements of the game have gotten bad... but IMO raiding hasnt lost as much of its luster as many of the other aspects.

Yes I too miss the days of 40 man raiding... but how can you say that raiding is "easy" unless every single one of you have cleared all current game content. Have you done TOGC tribute runs? is ICC down? are you gonna down arthas when he comes? Ulduar hardmodes down? algalon down?

if you can answer yes to all of that then you have the right to bitch.. but if you are running around still attempting to PvP and havent cleared any raid content then you cant really talk. 

The newer aspect of the games is intended to give us easy content for casual players, and hard content for core raiders (hence hard modes, tribute runs etc).

I miss old WoW too.. dont get me wrong, but the "raiding is easy, pvp is hard" argument is getting old.


I also find it interesting that you people continue to bitch about easy raid content but at the same time you all go out of your ways to find addons that make it even easier....

play the game or dont.. but leave the bitching to the pros

----------


## Rewiinded

I can relate to your story in quite a lot of different places.

It hurts.

----------


## Moaradin

WoW has only gotten Better. I love the idiots who say WoW is too easy when they refuse to use hard modes as the standard. Yogg 25 0 prenerf is THE hardest encounter the game has ever seen.

PVP is way better than it used to be in Vanilla. Sure its not perfect, but at least now we don't have shamans running around WITH 2H weapons 1 shotting people.

Raiding has gotten better too. 40mans were a joke.. they took longer to form than to actually enjoy. Really, all you needed was 25 decent players then you can fill the rest with 15 mouthbreathing idiots. Raiding has gotten more accessible for the Casuals, and have hardmodes for the "Hardcore"

----------


## KuRIoS

Treston, u said the keyword... PRENERF - 
In my eyes it is a failure when u can clear a new raid instance the same night its out.. yet i wont be surprised if they nerf some parts of it

----------


## I Hypnotoad I

Offended by the 13-16.. Make it 11-14 and you win. ^^

Very nice article KuR, reminds me of the good old days when you had to work to get your gear.

----------


## Hellgawd

I absolutely hate the entire game of WoW now. The only thing that keeps me involved is emulating it, and changing all the crap that Blizzard originally had.
I also enjoy the expansions, mainly because of new textures, models, and terrains - that keeps me intrigued. 
Otehr than that - pfft.

----------


## TheDash

I really enjoyed reading this, I never got to experience Classic endgame because I was an altoholic until TBC but the way I've always seen it is: Nobody can ever take what you've achieved away from you. Sure the game is nerfed to hell now, people can easilly outgear you from just a few days of grinding but those people could NEVER achieve what you have achieved.

I remember when Ragnaros first went down on Darkmoon Fair, the guild that did it hosted a party (an RP party, mind you.. Back in the days when people still roleplayed) and man.. I don't think I could ever have that feeling of shared triumph again. It was just such a huge thing, I think I counted around 300 people all hanging out in BWL at once and it was just.. Fantastic.

Sure, I miss those days just like anyone else but nobody can ever take those memories away from you.

----------


## Found

Need more dots.. DONT STAND IN THE CENTER (ony btw)

I miss it sooo much.

----------


## Excesum

A very nice read there.. quite touching, I really miss when I leveled my Orc Warrior in Durotar, I equipped cloth gear with intellect just because it looked cool, and didn't even pass a single thought about what the stats meant. As long as it was cool, it worked for me!

However, I hope Cataclysm will bring some of the Vanilla-feeling back. To travel around in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor will be so nice to experience again, even though it's all in flames. 

Thanks Kurios, for a nice post!

----------


## Griffton

This is indeed a great story, but i feel the need to point out that AQ was released in 1.9 making them one of the last classic raids, shortly followed by Nax in 1.11.

The first true raid to be added to the game was Blackwing Lair in 1.6

Though they did add Lord Kazzak in 1.3... but it was an outdoor raid.

But needless to say my career with WoW has diminished along the same way. You probably speak for the majority of the Vets. Thank you sir.

----------


## KuRIoS

> This is indeed a great story, but i feel the need to point out that AQ was released in 1.9 making them one of the last classic raids, shortly followed by Nax in 1.11.
> 
> The first true raid to be added to the game was Blackwing Lair in 1.6
> 
> Though they did add Lord Kazzak in 1.3... but it was an outdoor raid.
> 
> But needless to say my career with WoW has diminished along the same way. You probably speak for the majority of the Vets. Thank you sir.


Didnt I say that AQ was one of the last classic raids? maybe i forgot
I did forget about BWL being released that is correct  :Big Grin:

----------


## RyeRye

What a good article. I remember starting as like a night elf and taking the boat the the place in the Wetlands, then running from the Wetlands to Ironforge and level there. 
I also remember how levels 1-10 took like a day and a half.
And when I got into the levels 20, I could only do 1 level a day.  :Stick Out Tongue: 

I miss those days.

----------


## Moaradin

> Treston, u said the keyword... PRENERF - 
> In my eyes it is a failure when u can clear a new raid instance the same night its out.. yet i wont be surprised if they nerf some parts of it


Every encounter gets nerfed. It's been done vanilla, bc and WotLK. That said, top guilds have always cleared content fast. I really don't care how fast it's cleared. I'm in a pretty good guild and have done every hard mode. The only thing that matters to me is if it's fun.

So far, I've enjoyed ICC. The normal modes aren't too hard, but they aren't too easy either. They are fun and that's all that matters. Now once we kill arthas in months time in normal mode, then I'll seek the challenge from hard modes.

----------


## [IceCreaM]

WOtlk Destroyed everything :*( <--- BIG QQ TEAR

----------


## KRSjr

i was a nub during the vanilla days but i miss world pvp like no end.. i remember hitting 60 on my mage and just wanting to gank lil bitches to give em the hard time i got.. and the crocs was a good laugh.. nice article man.

----------


## burton992

I couldnt agree more with this post wow is a joke atm, there just no challenge, and leveling is just to easy and theres no fun back in vanilla wow gaining a level made you feel like you have achieved something but now its nothing. And pvp is even worse than pve imo resilence killed pvp. The game is to gear dependant its not about skill anymore its about gear.

----------


## masteryodapt

Honestly, and thinking about it a bit. The two quests i remember the most are "Are You There Yet"i... and The Stairs event on Zull Farrak.. That was thrilling.
Killing onyxia and having the head showed of.. X Roads Raiding. And waiting 'till raid started on MC or BWL with Alliance and Arriving horde guilds and someone started a fight and.. no raid only gank time (Later ON AQ40). Yes that was fun. Now grind X Rep to get Y item. No more PLS DROP CENARIUS or STORMRAGE. And joint eforts to kill Azuregos.... The best tanking sword (Quel Serrar or whatever it was named) a huge quest and kill onixya so you could have it.. That was fun.. Miss it.

----------


## mag1212

> Turn off DBM and Omen


i mean for the fact that u can get lvl 80 in no time and there is no hard raid the only req is gear the game is not about skill its just about playing it as much as possible to be good

----------


## Fault

Havent played wow in a year and a half. I do miss it at times though

----------


## ~Jagris

WoW got boring for me the day I got good at botting. But OB and glider died. So I stopped, then I started MMOTotus, and it died about 2 weeks later. So as long as I am not botting I am good.

----------

