Did you actually play "Vanilla" WoW?

[Heartilly]

I played Vanilla WoW from launch and had a blast with it. I rolled a druid for my first character - what a painful leveling experience that was. :[ But it also felt rewarding, and I wound up staying up some nights waaaay too late playing the game when I had class in the mornings. I second Mendolus when they said it was the most exciting period in their gaming life, and I sunk many hours into the game.
Vanilla was definitely a lot of fun, and I remember sitting around in one of the cities gawking at all the epic ground mounts and just thinking about how much I'd have to save in order to buy my own.
Of course, first I'd have to hit 60, I knew, and that took me about 6 months. Yeah, my friends laughed at me and said I was a slow leveler but I was enjoying myself. Even when I hit 60, I still didn't have my epic ground mount and that was fine, because it gave me something to work toward. I'm having fun in Aion. So far I haven't been hit with the "I must stay up until 6 AM playing!" bug, but I'm enjoying it anyway.

[Vigil]

"lol" wow" "great game" ("hardcore")

[Adrael]

Originally Posted by Innui

All in all, comparing one game directly with another is always doomed, squeege your MMO gamer 3rd eye, see the genre more clearly!

+5 for Bill Hicks reference and +1 for a wonderful post.

[Mendolus]

Originally Posted by Heartilly

I played Vanilla WoW from launch and had a blast with it. I rolled a druid for my first character - what a painful leveling experience that was. :[ But it also felt rewarding, and I wound up staying up some nights waaaay too late playing the game when I had class in the mornings. I second Mendolus when they said it was the most exciting period in their gaming life, and I sunk many hours into the game.
Vanilla was definitely a lot of fun, and I remember sitting around in one of the cities gawking at all the epic ground mounts and just thinking about how much I'd have to save in order to buy my own.
Of course, first I'd have to hit 60, I knew, and that took me about 6 months. Yeah, my friends laughed at me and said I was a slow leveler but I was enjoying myself. Even when I hit 60, I still didn't have my epic ground mount and that was fine, because it gave me something to work toward. I'm having fun in Aion. So far I haven't been hit with the "I must stay up until 6 AM playing!" bug, but I'm enjoying it anyway.

Yep, my first epic mount was the Dreadsteed... it was like passing the regimen to become a Navy Seal, suddenly I was riding around on this mount with spiky bits, flames coming out of its nostrils, and it went SO fast. It took me forever to get it, like two to three weeks of work and this was after I had gotten enough dungeon blues to make my char have any kind of sensible DPS to begin with, and I had to beg for help on a number of occasions esp. for the underground area of Felwood, and don't get me started on the actual summoning ritual. I had to enlist the help of an all purple priest, Topnotch, from a high end guild just because every other healer I brought in there could not keep up with the heals. It was truly a unique time in the game where content was challenging because you walked a fine line between having enough knowledge about the gameplay and knowing the order of possible actions that would occur during any one given encounter (and gear was kind of a mix between being strong enough to sort of last and have endurance or being Tier 1 or better in which case you were well more powerful than your dungeon geared counterparts, unlike today's Warcraft where people wearing purples from heroics are in some sense right on par with raid geared people). This was just as thottbot and other websites like it were getting sophisticated enough that you could look up a majority of encounters and get a complete rundown on them, but well before there were complicated and immensely detailed guides to it all. You had to actually ask around, ask real people, how some of this stuff went down. I remember finding a number of guides on the Dreadsteed quest at the time, and all of them had little subtle differences, that made me have to go out and actually ask someone who had done it to clarify what it meant.

Now you just look it up a week after release, and someone's already blogged or detailed it, and you already know all the answers, you just have to do it yourself. There's no mystery anymore.

[Ekkio]

I loved the original WoW, but if you weren't into raiding, there really wasn't much to do; I was in one of those crazy progression guilds raiding 5 nights/week with people who were just nuts about the game. For us at least it wasn't so much about getting a server first (we didn't many of those anyway) or flaunting gear in cities, the challenge was there and it was a lot of fun; it all fell apart soon after BC came out, but it was good while it lasted.

[Shodaime]

Originally Posted by Mendolus

I played vanilla Warcraft starting in the fall of '05 until around the beginning of '08 when I finally quit playing full time. I gave TBC two different tries at serious play, but both times I burned out after only 4-5 months.

As far as vanilla Warcraft is concerned, there is really no comparison. Vanilla Warcraft was easily the most exciting period in my gaming life, as it was the first time I was really involved in a true MMO and it was such a golden age for the game as a whole.

In vanilla Warcraft, people stood for things, gear meant something and was a sort of status symbol, and there were conflicts over progression and goodhearted competition between the top endgame guilds. ...

Not to quote the whole thing and take up a ton of room.

I also played in beta and launch and up to TBC, went back during WotLK and quit quickly there after.

I recall a lot about vanilla WoW - where you say that people stood for things, maybe on your server, but on Kargath there were 4 big guilds fighting for world progression. If you were not in one you were spit on by them, not invited to groups in PvP fights (tarren mill/south shore, or EPL battles). When epic AV was out, if you were not in those guilds you were not invited into groups... elite attitudes still existed. Then myself and some guild mates took advantage of the rank system. We were respectively rank 12, 13, 13, 14, 14. We got invited to everything then. MC runs, eventually BWL runs when it came out and PvP groups etc. Elitist existed and were just as big of d***s but there were far fewer of them and they had a reason to feel elite.

This game is a lot like Vanilla in leveling. Lots of gaps with no quests, poor content and end game that seems slightly under developed at the moment. But I feel that gear is a bit better and easier to come by "leveling gear". Money is a lot easier to come by and makes things a tad better. And although the first 2-3 weeks of Aion launch were up and down. The over-all stability of the game is much better! I personally recall a lot of crashes at Tarren Mill/South shore where there were less people and less going on than in a fortress battle.

Aion has issues, a fair number - but its a great game. It has a lot of no name legions with epeens, but a PvP based game always brings that element into the equation. If these people are all talk, they will drown out into the nothingness soon enough.

[Gaijin]

Loved vanilla WoW.

[Alumar]

Originally Posted by Nemonia

I played vanilla and the first beta of WoW, personally I like Aion a lot more as it reminds me of EverQuest.

I agree with this

[LunaSong]

Originally Posted by bchurch

This question always comes to mind when I see people complaining about this game. Do people not realize how much this game has in common with wow before it was watered down with all of its expansions?

While WoW had a good amount of quests, many of them werent worth while and still there were many dead zones between questing. Does anyone remember the low to mid 30's? The 50-60 stretch with the lack of content? 1-60 took about 12-14 days played for most people I know.. hell I think I was one of the fastest with around 12 days played out of my friends.

And now coincidentally, it takes roughly that many hours played (~300) to reach the same cap in AION but people like to cry about it. I think a large part of this problem is that we're just so spoiled with WoW's leveling, my latest character reaching 80 with hardly over 4 days played.

Over the course of 3 years that Vanilla spanned we were given what.. 4 raids and ~6 outdoor fights? And has anyone else noticed the pvp system is nearly identical to the mindless grind that was the pvp system back then?

What it comes down to is, do you remember the feeling of reaching 60? It used to be an accomplishment on its own. I remember looking at people and thinking "Man, I wish I could have those epics."

TL;DR -
People love to bash AION by comparing it to WoW, but really they have had so much in common its stupid. EXP from quests increase is on its way. More content is bound to come. Have hope, and stop trying to sway others because you find the game unenjoyable.

Just my thoughts on the game thus far.

As someone else said, this topic doesn't really belong in this forum, but anyways. I think the better question would be did YOU actually play vanilla WoW? I did and from reading your post, it sounds like two totally different experiences. This game and vaniila WoW are so different it's not even funny. No offense to anyone, but WoW was much better back then, at least imo.

I played for a long time before BC came out. Got to level 60 (and I level very slowly, lol), raided about 4 nights a week and did a ton of pvp. I do not remember ever running out of quests. There was so much content in that game even then it's not even funny. You weren't restricted to only one zone for each level range for alliance or horde. There were a number of different ways you could go and have a different leveling experience as someone else said. I don't remember ever having to grind on mobs just to level. Quests were abundant.

You are right about the time it took to hit max level though. It did take a long time, which was actually one of the things I loved about Vanilla WoW. Now, it's just way too easy to get to 80. Ruins it somewhat for me. End game? There was quite alot and I loved it. Our guild didn't get to complete pre BC's end game, but we did get over halfway into BWL. It was fun. Most fun I have had in any mmo to date was vanilla WoW.

Pvp? How can you even compare the two games regarding that? o.O I admit it could be a grind to get your gear and those ranks, but it was an achievement then. I never really saw it a grind though because I was having fun. Not exactly sure what you mean by grind though really. I hated it when they took ranks away. Didn't pvp for a long time after that.

I definately do agree though with the last paragraph of your post. Those were the days. Lol, I miss that. Ah well.

[Heartilly]

Originally Posted by Mendolus

Yep, my first epic mount was the Dreadsteed... it was like passing the regimen to become a Navy Seal, suddenly I was riding around on this mount with spiky bits, flames coming out of its nostrils, and it went SO fast. It took me forever to get it, like two to three weeks of work and this was after I had gotten enough dungeon blues to make my char have any kind of sensible DPS to begin with, and I had to beg for help on a number of occasions esp. for the underground area of Felwood, and don't get me started on the actual summoning ritual. I had to enlist the help of an all purple priest, Topnotch, from a high end guild just because every other healer I brought in there could not keep up with the heals. It was truly a unique time in the game where content was challenging because you walked a fine line between having enough knowledge about the gameplay and knowing the order of possible actions that would occur during any one given encounter (and gear was kind of a mix between being strong enough to sort of last and have endurance or being Tier 1 or better in which case you were well more powerful than your dungeon geared counterparts, unlike today's Warcraft where people wearing purples from heroics are in some sense right on par with raid geared people). This was just as thottbot and other websites like it were getting sophisticated enough that you could look up a majority of encounters and get a complete rundown on them, but well before there were complicated and immensely detailed guides to it all. You had to actually ask around, ask real people, how some of this stuff went down. I remember finding a number of guides on the Dreadsteed quest at the time, and all of them had little subtle differences, that made me have to go out and actually ask someone who had done it to clarify what it meant.

Now you just look it up a week after release, and someone's already blogged or detailed it, and you already know all the answers, you just have to do it yourself. There's no mystery anymore.

My second character was a warlock and I did the same quest line and had the same gold sink for the dreadsteed. It was definitely worth getting though because you had that sense of satisfaction when you completed everything, and this was at the start of Burning Crusade where no one was even doing Dire Maul anymore and all the loot from the dungeon was useless. VERY difficult to get a group. But now in WoW I understand you can just train at a normal trainer to get the dreadsteed? :\

Anyway, I do appreciate working for things and really miffed when I found out they put the dreadsteed in as a regular, trainable skill.

[Searinox]

It was new and exciting, and reaching 60 was an amazing feeling! I'm sure 50 in Aion will be something like that, however.. I dont have much time to play Aion as I spent in WoW.. 16 months after EU release my rogue hit 300 days /played.. enough said that resultet in 20k euros dept & dropped out of uni (though that would've happend anyway cus i selected totally uninteresting subjects hehe). I guess that if I were 18-20 again I could "spare" the time, even though I probably shouldnt have earlier. But can't say it wasn't great fun :-) Maybe just not the brightest time of my life.

I see similarities in many mmo's, most good ideas are good for a reason so why not have that in mind when making a fresh game with even more of these, good ideas..

Problem with Blizzard though, business as usual. I sincerely hope that NCSoft doesnt fall into the same ways of thinking, even though they probably do want to earn money (doh). When playing WoW Vanilla in a hardcore raiding guild, and being on the top PvP teams when not raiding, and farming the rest of the day (and doing absolutely nothing else besides having a party once a while I admit), I felt worthy of having superior gear to 97% of the rest of the server.

However in later expansions casuals who are online 2 hours aday tops have pretty equal gear to a person playing 15 hours aday.. to me atleast it doesnt sound fair. Obviously companies want to make the casuals happy, afterall they are the majority.

As for me, now in Aion.. I have no time to play as much as I did earlier in other MMOs, I probably cant even get on the top 1-3 raiding & pvp Legions on my server Kalil, nor will I have the best gear out there, however if I had I wouldnt feel that I deserved it. I want to earn my gear and achievements, there is nothing like a serverfirst feeling - but achieving a personal goal is great as well! I want to learn to know my class, and my friends and opponents classes. To work my way through the levels, dungeons and world zones.. I want to know to learn Aion! Cus till now its absolutely amazing!

Aion is truly something fresh to me personally, and I'm enjoying every few hours I can spare after work and in between other IRL stuff. I admit that I from time to time, scarily often, rather wanna game than watch a movie with the girls I'm living with, go out to meet friends, or go to work etc. I probably will play abit more than till now once I fix my computer, but I hope I can keep the addictiveness down abit

[Hwin]

Started playing WoW in October 2005, plenty to do, see and explore. I believe I had more fun there than in Aion due to the questing and crafting system that the game builds in. Myself Im waiting out my time to switch back to a human and then Ill take another look at WoW and what it offers me after 4 years in game. For now Aion is a good filler till then.

[Lordhelmos]

I started wow after BC was just released. The most fun I had on a MMO was guildwars, I had way more fun on guildwars than wow... wait guildwars isn't even an MMO. It's a Co-op RPG.

Back in the day though, PSO was king.

[Ranznig]

I played from beta and can honestly say vanilla was the best i was one of the sneaky mofo's. The pvp all be it like a yo yo balanced unbalanced it worked beautifully. raiding in wow was alright untill you hit the big ones where it took forever but still loved it. Going to Molton core and smacking raggy in the face was great. The one thing that wow have done wrong is that they didnt make it important to go to the older raids after the expansions. Turned round the other week and asked if anyone wanted to go to molton core and people were like whats that...... also beginning grounds were like graveyards no one there. thats why i like aion i acctually see people running around in every area that ive been too.

[Capicola]

Vanilla Wow was awesome. I remember being the first mage on the server to have both +spell power trinkets and being able to one shot people.

Grinding rank in PVP was probably the best gaming experience I've had. Stopped at Commander cause all I wanted was the mounts.

I Log in a few years later and see everyone running around on a mount that took me months to get /sigh.



I would be in the high 40's right now in Aion but I spend my first week designing and tweaking my character. I leveled 3 characters to 10 and had to remodel or re-tune the voice.

I spend about 20% of my ingame time inspecting the character models of other players.