Many people say this this, even though it’s not really an argument. It’s an observation, an accurate one, i remember some items aswell but don’t know most of the items my character has equipped right now. So what exactly do you think this fact says about the game? That loot from vanilla was somehow “better”?
Anyway, i was reminded of this today after a friend asked me to go with him shopping for a computer for his kid. While looking at various setups he kept asking me questions and i realized that i didn’t know many things about my computer. Couldn’t remember which video card i have, wasn’t even sure if i still had 8 GB of RAM or 16.
HOWEVER i still remember almost everything about my first computer i got over 20 years ago. It was an Intel Celeron, 300 Mhz, 32 Mb of RAM and a Seagate HDD of 3.2 GB. I’m not sure about the gpu, probably some onboard crap, but i remember my first upgrade was a Voodoo card of 4 MB which blew my mind.
So what does this mean? that computers were better back then?
Good points.
I also remember a metric ton of gear from classic, but I suspect that is because classic contained a lot of “firsts” and “first memories”. I think that could be reasons why many of us simply remember those “first” items more fondly.
Similarly, on the topic of useless knowledge, I have an almost expert-level of knowledge of actors/actresses from movies from the 80’s to the early 2000’s. I still watch movies, but the same information is simply not retained anymore.
The only link I’ve found so far is the introduction of the smart phone. Ever since I got my first one around 2010 or so, I subconsciously know that every bit of random facts I could possibly want to know about is just a few taps away - wherever I may be.
I remember a lot more silly, random facts from pre smart-phone than post smart-phone. A scaringly amount more.
That you were a sh!tter like the rest of us in Vanilla.
Jokes aside.
Gear was more permanent then thats for sure. So in some way it felt better because one patch wouldnt render anything before it as useless. As is the case with 95% of gear today.
I will truly remember the dancing trinket from Blood Council. Because its sh*t and I never want a “heeeey u need to move around within next 4 seconds and not cast anything while collecting haste buff” ever again. I get the concept, Blizzard tried being creative, A for effort. Never make it again.
DC/DV was a boring trinket. It gave you your highest stat (agility or strength) and had a flat attack power when equipped. Boring, but still remembered (at least by me as a favorite) by people because you could equip one normal version and one heroic. Not only that, the heroic version was considered BIS until STS heroic for non-armpen stacking classes. Powerful and dull, remembered.
Nowadays, people no longer memorize gear names. But they know where to go for what item.
For example, I know De other side gives me the best trinket. My best weapon comes from final boss of the raid. My best leg piece comes from mists of tirina, etc.
But i don’t know the name of any of them. It doesn’t mean classic was gold and current expansion is trash. It just means a fresh game, back in the day was more memorable when it came to names than 16 years of gears from 50 different sources each expansion.
I remember my first computer! Windows 95 which had a whopping 24mb of ram, a massive 1gb hdd, I think it was a pentium processor. I remember when we upgraded it and put an optical drive in and I could play games off of a cd-rom, which was absolutely mind blowing for a kid
We upgraded a few years after to an abomination of a laptop, which is still chugging along to this day, I keep it around and boot it up once in a while to see if the old fossil has given out yet or not.
Anyways, on topic, I’m not sure. I started playing in cataclysm and I distinctly remember all of the loot I was chasing and the upgrades I got (Kiril, fury of beasts off of deathwing being the biggest one!) so I honestly do think it has to do with nostalgia and meaningful memories.
I can’t remember diddly squat from any other expansion though in terms of item names,
Hey,
I think what you are looking for has to do with the abundance of choice and personal attachment. Both things you described have these traits in common. In both scenarios I think both things were scarce and one of the first of their kind- like pioneers of their kind. There was not much like those and better ones were hard to come by, so those things remained of significant importance.
But now there is way more choice - smaller gaps between the upgrades. Even similar items with different tweaks. Like the sprouting seeds from the tree it became much more accessible and in process such things did lose a value abit. It doesn’t mean one or the other is objectively and ultimately better imo. It has its pros and cons.
As of today its much faster phase of living and consuming and when the speed of acquiring rewards or options slowed down - there is a evident outrage to it. But then again thats just a matter of time until it subsides.
My first CPU Intel Duron 1.6 GHz, 1GB of RAM, 40GB of Caviar HDD, Radeon 9200SE real monster all these years ago hahaha, i was tweaking Call of Duty 1 to get that stable 125 fps
I don’t know my PC specs either. I have a friend who’s good at assembling builds, so I gave him a couple of parameters (lots of ram; SSD; a GPU good enough to run WoW at max, and drive two 4k monitors [wow doesn’t need to be at max @ 4k, but my work stuff does]; plenty of USB ports), he got the parts, built it, I use it. I don’t need to care what’s inside. It fits my requirements, that is all I need to know. I glanced over the part list before approving them, made sure that they all work fine with Linux, but promptly forgot the exact parts right after that - because I don’t need to know, and I don’t care.
It’s the same with gear in WoW: I get an item, if it’s an upgrade, I equip it, and transmog it. I suppose people remember item names from Vanilla, because there was no transmog, you could recognise an item - you rarely do now, when most gear has various tints, and there aren’t that many unique models either (and those can be mogged too, anyway).
I see, so you don’t know your PC specs because you don’t care about your PC parts. So that is why people don’t recognise loot anymore. Because they don’t care, it feels meaningless and unrewarding.
It means it was fresh, new, and it lasted 2 years, 1 month and 24 days, which is the longest after BFA.
Why don’t we remember items from BFA, then ? Because BFA is the last expansion, there has been tons and tons of items before BFA came out. So… Any new item dropping is just yet another item.
Some items, however, are genuinely unique.
For example:
artifact weapons from legion
heart of azeroth from bfa
legendaries from legion
Some genuinely unique items from vanilla (feral druid point of view):
The computer that I did have the longest time was a HP pavilion 780n, pentium 4 1.8Ghz, 512mb ram, 80gb HDD, Nvidia MX 400. My intro pc for WoW 2004/05!
Before that was it pentium 3 and compaq desktop 4000 with win 95
Intel Duron 1.6 GHz, 1GB of RAM, 40GB of Caviar HDD, Radeon 9200SE