Would actually like to mention that this is a really good topic, kudos bro.
For me, there are quite a few good ones that come to mind. I wont mention the social aspect because i feel thats a given. Obviously, nostalgia helps, re Vanilla WoW.
What i would say though is my personal highlight (if i had to pick one out of the many) would be when Blizzard released phase 2. That, at the very beginning was literally classic! I think how they intended it to be (first few days). I still have a screengrab of 100ās of Horde and 100ās of Alliance facing off at Hillsbrad Foothills. I was still like lvl 56 ish then but wow that was epic!
Word got through to us at SW/IF that the Horde were massing there. We met them, and what a crazy fight that was. 100ās if not 1000ās of players pvping in one zone.
That was so cool! Imo what i remember from Vanilla, it really did bring back some memories
It was my first Onyxia run.
I join a PuG as an offtank while freshly hitting 60 just a few days earlier, wearing that bucket helm from Tanaris quest reward.
The fight goes well, phase 3 hits and she starts running around and killing random people.
At some point i manage to pull her attention and position her properly at the back.
I manage to dodge all her fears by swapping to berserek stance in time, but at some point she hits me really hard in rapid succession and my health drops to 1%.
Luckily the healers managed to save me and we ended up with a kill.
Nothing for warrior dropped but the very encounter kept me satisfied for weeks.
Several times during levelling, if I saw somebody struggling or on the verge of dying, Iād help. Last week on my way to Onyxia, a lvl42 warriors was trying to escape from 2 ranged whelps with less than 5% of his health left; I saved him from a 5 minute corpse run and he said thanks.
First month of gameplay, with levelling, socialization, dungeon quest runs and even occasional spontaneous RP. It wasnāt the same as first time around, but it was pretty damn close.
Finishing my pre-BiS in dungeons (or rather a close fascimile, because I find greens of frozen wrath distastful), and actually knowing what I was doing instead of just wandering aimlessly and pressing need on whatever cloth dropped like I did 15 years ago.
Topping the DPS meter in an Ony pug with said prebis, and realizing that most people are still wandering aimlessly.
Getting my Mageblade, which I never managed to get in Vanilla and that fact gnawd at my gaming consciousnes ever since (and no, getting it in 12 men pug MC in TBC didnāt count dangit)
Recently it was being the top Mage dps in my guild on some fights despite being the Winterās Chill slave. You guys gonna see some things once we all go fire!
Next one is killing CāThun in BWL gear, followed by olāKT in AQ gear. I never got past Huhuran in Vanilla
Call me a min-maxer scum all you want, this is what I enjoy in this game.
I actually died while levelling for the first time in a decade. I had to ask for help. Can you imagine that? In WoW of all games. Needing to socialise and communicate.
In all seriousness though I love the fact most people who stick it out past the first few quests are actually interested in the game again. Weāre grouping up to do the harder quests, guildmates are helping each other out, and Iām inviting random strangers to groups and actually making friends to play with, instead of just soloing to 110 and joining a random āraidā group with people Iāll never see again.
This.
I was on my warlock and ambitiously summoning Myzrael in Arathi Highlands at mid-50-ish level. It was going surprisingly well until she summoned all her elementals, at which point I was pretty much doomed to a corpse-run. Out of the blue a lvl 60 warrior charged in, taunted all the mobs, kept them off me and once the fight was over he asked if I got my quest item.
Made my evening to see people being kind for non-selfish reasons like that.
I always try to pay it forward, lending a hand if I pass someone struggling with a mob. In EPL I saw a rogue doing the quest from Tirion Fordring where you need to retrieve the toy hammer and the four graverobbers spawn. He was near death, so I jumped in, dotted and feared only to realize he hadnāt tagged the named mob yet.
He got a bit mad (understandably so), but after I explained my real intentions and stuck around to help him kill again he was grateful.
Like Miylee said, itās the little things. People helping out where needed, even if they donāt get anything (loot or gold-wise) out of it themselves.
