Why was Vanilla so popular and Classic now so popular ?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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Ok, let me kick this off with what attracted me to WoW in the first place …

For the record I was a bit late to the party, when WoW vanilla launched I was running an international Society/Guild in a completely different game, if you recognize the term Society, you probably know what game I am speaking about.

So, World of Warcraft was first introduced to me by a friend and workmate who had also been playing the same game as I was where I had my Guild/Society, he told me about the size of the world and how open-ended it was compared to the game I was playing.

I started playing late 2006 just before The Burning Crusade was released, back then the game came on 5 CD’s, when Burning Crusade launched I couldn’t afford it at the time so continued with Vanilla until I got my Paycheck/Salary, I then bought the BC expansion which came on 4 CD’s and thought, this is looking good.

Back then there were not the amount of streamers that are around now, you have to remember that back then YouTube was fairly new also there was none of this Twitter/Facebook stuff around, I think MySpace was there but, I am not sure.

So, instead of Streamers we had Showcases I watched a lot of those to try to understand why this game WoW was so popular, well for a start there was a huge amount of hype around the launch date and, well, things didn’t go too well as I am sure the Vanilla players will remember but ppl loved the game, to such an extent that these showcases started to appear, I think it is fair to say that at the time, WoW took the world by storm. sorry for the long intro, I needed to explain a lot of things for the ppl that are brand new to WoW.

What do I mean by Showcases:
here is an example:-

I have a few others from back then but I don’t want to get shot by Blizzard :slight_smile:
Ok, so to wrap up this post, what attracted you to Wow in the first place for the Vanilla players and, for the new players, what attracted you to WoW Classic.

I look forward to reading your responses, please keep them clean and non-toxic

Regards Galrath(retail) and Laami(classic)

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I played a lot of Warcraft 3. I did all campaigns multiple times, I played against gamers in my city (we didn’t have Internet back then, so we played in so-called computer clubs using LAN and we dialed each other using modems and played via phone). One day I found some computer games magazine and read about WoW. It was 2008 year. I was astonished, I never heard of it before (yeah, without Internet things were not so easily known). It was my most loved universe and I could play there. Well, I spent a lot of time to find the game, it wasn’t easy, I lived in some kind of small city by today’s standards, but I’ve found it, I found subscription, I managed to get ADSL Internet and I started to play. It was awesome. I liked it so much. And, what was best, my close friends started to play along with me and we had a lot of fun. We played in late TBC (mostly leveling) and started to play somewhat seriously in WotLK. Well, I’m playing WoW since then, but I did not like the direction WoW took since Pandaria. After I’ve learned about Classic launch, I was very hyped, because that old WoW was my best experience (it was not vanilla, but I consider TBC until 60 level pretty close to vanilla). And I’m not disappointed. I’m having so much fun. I don’t know if I’ll raid in Classic, but leveling alone is the best gaming experience I’ve got in the last 10 years.

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Wow you typed that quickly, I remember the LAN parties that were around at the time, Thank you Ethly, my experience was very similar, I kinda lost interest when Cata hit, my whole game world got turned upside-down, I didn’t play for a long time, apart from checking in to new expansions when they were released.

What did you think about the Showcase I linked, I personally thought it was very funny

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Vanilla was popular because it was something new.

Classic is popular because of nostalgia.

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Yep, I have to agree with you there, however, this thread is also aimed at brand new players to WoW, and, to be honest I would love to see their responses as well

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Would you also say that chess is popular because of nostalgia?
Or that poker is still popular because of nostalgia?
Or is it perhaps another reason, perhaps they are just good games.
An even more descriptive word is timeless.

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Hmm, Timeless, I never thought about that, thank you Baldaf

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Vanilla/classic is popular because it’s a very well made game, polished, tuned just right overall - world was not super hard and not faceroll like retail, and raids were tuned for experienced players mostly, it allowed both casuals and experts enjoy the game, skill ceiling for some classes in pvp is pretty high, it looked different (cozy cartoony) from others on the market (still kinda does), has a great potential for social interactions and memorable events, very immersive and addicting, great music, lot’s of little details and RPG elements.

“New” and “Nostalgia” - obviously not. New games and MMOs were constantly flooding the market, but only the best ones people remember fondly. And you can’t go far on pure nostalgia, it’s a nice bonus but that’s about it.

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^^ This, so very very much!

Its all down to taste though and I love the taste of Vanilla. Classic, has a slightly different Vanilla flavour but still, almost? Anyway it’s the best we’re going to get right now.
As @Baldaf says, its timeless.
I want that flavour, not some “weird-assed, stick a purple feather up my bum, you cant bend it, souped up” retail version. Sorry retail lovers but I dont mean to offend you, its just how I personally feel, hope you can forgive me.

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I had been playing EQ for a couple of years and then took a break. When I was considering going back, I bumped into WoW in a store (I think that was early april 2005). Tried it, and loved it.

Now to the appeal… we were talking about it today in guildchat and I said I had always remembered how vanilla made you feel things. Classic does that again for me. It’s within its design, I find that so fascinating. The bad amplifies the good. The good is really good. It has a strong immersive quality. It promotes socializing, which again produces strong feelings. It’s not perfect but it doesn’t need it, it has a strong sense of identity which I feel in WoW has watered down over the years.

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And Tindella, I also have to agree with that, easy to pick up, a bit of hand-holding at the beginning, but guided indirectly throughout the game, encouraging teaming where appropriate, but not forcing you that way, I guess, all in all it was very well put together, on top of all of that they also had a brilliant back-story to explain everything along the way although, you were not forced to look at that either, Hmm perhaps the freedom of choice, I had never thought about that, thank you, keep the ideas coming

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Vanilla was the only version of WoW that was polished: the economy, professions, levelling, items, end game was all well laid out and carefully crafted (except for Kamildor, which was a mess)

Whilst TBC and WotLK were fun, they s*at on that whole structure and just threw new layers on top of it, ripping numerous things apart beneath.

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Thank you Silene, I remember EQ and EQ2, WoW was definitely something different. :slight_smile: I didn’t really understand it at the time, but, I liked it, bearing in mind that the whole MMORPG genre was new to me at the time.

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Friends we’re playing it so kinda had to. I was happy in DAoC

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It is popular because of the depth of the gameplay and classes plus professions are actually worth working on.
Also because the world is dangerous and any mistakes are punished with a corpse run ( speaking from a lot of experience here :wink: ).

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why don’t you take a few guesses?? i’m sure you already know the answer to your own question.

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I’d argue that Vanilla and Classic were and are both popular because they provided a product that wasn’t available at the time. Vanilla itself streamlined the concept of the MMORPG to the point where it was more accessible to a general audience. There were MMORPGS before it, but none were so easy to get into.

Classic, on the other hand, brings back the oldschool western MMORPG at a time when something like that just isn’t a thing on the MMO market. Retail, of course, still exists, but over the years it changed so much that it’s basically a different game, with a different design philosophy behind it. If that’s a good or a bad thing is an argument for another time, personally I feel both have their place.

But yeah, both Vanilla and Classic gave us something that wasn’t available at the time, which is why they are popular.

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Thank you all for your replies, it’s great reading through them. :slight_smile:, Here is another erm showcase that I am sure the vanilla players will remember, enjoy

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As with any MMO, the friends you go in with and the friends you make along the way are more important than the content itself. We went into vanilla with a strong group of friends and made more as we struggled to clear the content. Some of those vanilla-made friendships span 2,000 km and we still speak on a daily basis and meet up for a fun vacation anywhere in Europe every few years.

Vanilla (and now Classic) forces you to make connections in order to get ANYTHING of any worth done. You have to socialise and bond with people, just as success is built in the real world. It makes it feel real, not robotic. The game around us, the zones, the mobs, the atmosphere? It’s fantastic, no doubt about that. But it’s just a background to the human relationships that governed vanilla and now govern Classic.

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Yes, that’s very true, I had loads of other friends that were either playing WoW or started playing for the first time back then, quite a few from the other game that I had a Society/Guild in, some were asking me to set up a guild in WoW, this time I just decided to enjoy the experience and spare myself the headaches of running a guild in a game I barely knew. over the years I did join one or two guilds. but for right now I think I will enjoy classic for what it is, a reminder of a game I fell in love with and spent way too much time playing back then and I feel that this could well happen again in WoW classic :wink: