Wow, I'm absolutely blown away by the response to this video. I'm humbled and affirmed to see that so many people feel so similarly to me. Thank you all for your comments! Please keep them coming, I'm loving the stories. What memories or gaming moments of just playing around do you have? I'm even more buoyed and inspired by all of the stories you have shared in the comments, the vulnerable emotions you've expressed, and the personal solutions you've given and had success with to combat the feelings I have been having. There seem to be two schools of thought, and I agree with both of them. On one hand, I can point the finger at Blizzard, as this is the way they've designed things as time has gone on. But they've only designed it this way because I consume the content this way more than I did before. So really it's an indirect finger pointing at myself. On the other hand, I can point the finger directly at myself. I can combat my own feelings of "not being good enough" or "missing out" or "wasting my time", and return to true and pure "play". If I can get over that internal battle, I can recapture the magic and love and wonder and awe that is presented right in front of me. So I've been working on doing just that. I am doing some deep exploration in WoW right now, for no other purpose than to have fun. And I'm going to share that here on this channel moving forward. Join along if you'd like, and thank you all again for your comments!
Great Video! I still spend hours in Mulgore every time I play, fishing and picking flowers with my Druid while listening to the zone music. I love it and it always raises the question "Why do I grind dailys in Dragonflight to get +1 iLvl on my already very nice gear.. Great video, subbed!
I rediscovered a good bit of WoW magic by focusing on internal RP (not with anyone, just in my head) with new alts. Level 50 is where they're safe to tuck into cold-storage (delete, in case I want to un-delete later) and so far I can level a charcter past that point by fully completing two zones. A new alt gets a bit of a backstory, nothing too deep, and I try to find their motivation on which zone to complete, and why. Maybe a profession is involved somehow, or an unusual talent build. No focusing on any kind of efficiency, just immersion. E.g. My Zandalari arms warrior, whose talent setup centered on bleeds, and practically zero use of Execute. She quested through all of Zandalar and Nazmir, protecting her kingdom from the blood troll threat, trying to serve her king though he remained stubbornly in denial of the depth of the corruption around him. I've leveled several new characters like that, no heirloom gear, no flying mounts (even through the later Cata zones (Hyjal etc.)), no dungeon groups. I don't know how many total zones there are in current WoW, but if each alt dings 50 before being done with two...that's a LOT of new toons I can make without ever revisiting an area! It's been a very refreshing change of pace.
I really look forward to that series of exploration with you! ^-^ Fun and exploration for its own sake is exactly why most of us fell in love with games in the first place, and I think it's the perfect time for us all to rediscover joy and wonder.
Beautiful video, I subscribed :D I 100% agree with you and this is why I still play classic wow beside retail. I like both. I like the flashy rewards but I do need these slower paced feelings too
That quest felt like it was speaking directly to me, about the game. Used to love this place. Left long ago. Im back now and everything feels different and im sad.
Dude my dad is in his 60s and when he heard classic was coming back he asked me to buy him a subscription for his bday. Both of us played during vanilla and Burning crusade times and he said he wanted to "revive" his character. Last i checked he was level 58. He doesnt party up, he doesnt use discord, he doesnt watch youtube videos; all he does is explore, do quests, mines, smiths and will run lower level dungeons solo. I always ask him if he's bored yet every time he just says "Nope". One day I told him hes literally playing the way a youtuber would for a "challenge video" and he just laughed. He genuinely has a ton of fun from just killing mobs and questing. If you see a lone human warrior named "Gutwrencher", say hi 😊
Haha, that's me, I'm just levelling my 8th character since rejoining the game, it is such a massive world now with absolutely tons of quirky content, personally I think Rotan is just choosing to play the game that way. I lol'd last night when I came across the "human seeds quest" for the undead storyline.
The "champion" or "hero" title comes from NPCs we (allegedly) know fairly well. It's fun to do quests for characters who don't know or care who we are. "Oh, you're the savior of Azeroth? That's cute. Are you gonna go fetch me some frog eggs or not??"
"Hey, you there. Yeah you, you who's defeated Old Gods, the Lich King, "Demons", Titans, you who's saved the world over, and over, and over... Yeah, no champion title for you. No recognition from members of the world who have seen your efforts, who know your value... You're just "a part of the world... an adventurer. Just another *dude* ""
@@goalgoldI wish you were able to write your thoughts out better, because some good points are in there, but it’s bogged down by your personality lol… uhh, no insult to your personality intended 🫠
The reason I don't want to be the champion of Azeroth is because that requires more of a suspension of disbelief and is therefore less immersive than the more plausible reality of being one of millions of inhabitants of this world. Every time some quest NPC showers me with the highest praise and acts like I alone am the salvation the whole world has been waiting for, I just can't help thinking "Yeah all I did was click on all the things, pick up all the poo, pillage all the boars and murlocs, just like I was told to do and just like millions of other people did." The whole thing just smacks of participation-trophy generation entitlement mentality. It becomes meaningless after a while being handed everything for nothing and that sucks the joy out of any experience. That is not to say that I don't feel any sense of accomplishment for some of the things I have achieved in wow. Downing difficult raid bosses or soloing dungeons in current content or timing high M+ keys all feel like I have done something impressive. Getting the Battlemaster title definitely was an accomplishment and knowing that only 0.5% of players have achieved that makes me feel like some sort of champion, just not the champion of the entire universe. I do not require nor desire to have smoke blown up my ass about how great I am when it means absolutely nothing and my true greatness is actually completely overlooked by these NPCs. Its all just a bit too much and I really wish Blizz would dial it back a bit on the whole telling me how awesome I am. I know I'm awesome. I don't need to be told that by someone who doesn't know. If they could just alter course slightly in this regard I really think it would help their game tremendously.
It's still a weak argument. The major factions in dragon flight that recognize you as champion know you from other adventures. The maruuk, tuskarr and loamm treat you like a tool, does that add anything that deep? Every story in wow puts you as the observer even when you get acknowledged. Y'all just romanticizing the past instead of enjoying the now. I'd argue Old timers wanting to turn back the clock is a testament to how good the wow world is and how is hard to ignore or leave behind
It's kind of a fundamental issue that Blizzard doesn't have an answer to. Nor do I. If the player character is treated as a mighty hero, you miss out on that casual small-time adventure stuff and doing some menial stuff feels jarring. If the player character is instead treated as a random nobody, then the fact that people you have been interacting with for the better part of a decade in-universe feels equally jarring. In most games this is solved by the NPCs becoming more familiar with you as time goes on, but WoW doesn't really have that option because it's an MMO. They'd have to somehow at least double the amount of content at all times to make a "famous" and "nobody" path in all the stories depending on how much your character has been involved with the story so far, but that is completely unfeasible. Nobody has figured out a workable solution to this, so Blizzard had to just kind of grab one path and go with it.
@@Murzac I think the solution could be to take the path down the middle, which is what the base game and early expansions often went for. As in, you're still a distinguished adventurer pioneering the world (and possibly into uncharted lands), but you're only just one of the many adventurers doing the same thing. Individually you aren't necessarily _that_ important to the story, but it's you combined with all of the other adventurers alongside you that makes the difference and moves the plot forward. It's why major story events, if they're in the hands of the players, should be more large-group oriented (usually as part of a raid, notable inclusion to stuff like the Ahn'Qiraj war effort), and the less important, small-time hero deals are for parties of 5 or fewer, or even just solo quests. That isn't to say you can't have quests that earn you individual renoun for accomplishing a major task solo, even Classic had those, but they shouldn't be in scenarios where they crown you as the one-and-only person to have done something to move the expansion's story forward... that just discounts the fact that WoW is a multiplayer game in the first place.
Well this, to me, sounds like the same reason American football coaches are paid orders of magnitude higher salaries over amazing professors at colleges. This crazy world seems to care more about rock stars and hero worship than being inspired by ordinary beautiful experiences and people.
I'm 60 and a half, been playing for the better part of 20 years. I've never had so much fun in my life and found more relaxation is when I start a toon, no gold no bags, NADA, just going out and leveling and exploring.
Exactly .... started in 2004 and we just played for fun and loving the exploration :) took a long brake when the need for speed took over from ppl ...and now back again in clasic and classic catalysm :)
Same here I'm 62 and started in 07, I started losing interest with all the new stuff. I'm a classic pro and like you, I also love staring new toons and playing from scratch. I knew that the expansions were not my cup of tea when they started putting Harleys and rockets as mounts. I know it's fantasy but they should have tried to keep in a time period.
Proof that the journey is what is important. This is also the same reason that I usually delete all my characters whenever I go back to a game that I haven't played in a long time (and probably also why I burn out at the same points and take a long break? Hmm.....)
I'm in my early 70's and have been playing WoW for around 12 years. I remember when I got to Zandalar and my Troll Shaman was addressed as "Speaker of the Horde." I rolled my eyes. But from then on, it seemed like I was the only one who could save Azeroth, etc. The worst was Shadowlands, an expansion that almost made me quit. But I decided to keep playing and found that often the side quests, where I helped some farmer save his crops or got some fish for the locals to eat, were more fun. I don't want to have to keep saving Azeroth. I just wanted to be this Troll who travelled around helping people who had to fend for themselves. I've learned that WoW is sort of like a wrench that fits any nut. You can ignore the "Champion" stuff and just quest along, picking and choosing what you feel like doing that day. Happy Holidays to all (I celebrate Yule). Play the game; don't let the game play you!
I think I recall the older devs saying the main character from original Wow was the world itself rather than the player. Something along the lines of that.
@@bluebyyoufu I agree. I am a college student and don't have time to eg raid but I still have lots of fun playing just by going through the world and doing side quests and finishing storylines. I think people forget you can play the game however you want lol.
I don't remember when it started (I played up until Cataclysm), but I do remember starting to feel a little weird that the game started stroking my ego.
I remember when I played wow in 2007, and I would get nervous when I’d enter a new zone that said “Contested territory” or “Horde territory” I thought I’d stumble upon enemy players and get killed so everything I did I did while looking over my shoulder. The immersion was on another level
I started the same year and had exactly the same experience ... in fact, I gave up my original character, a paladin, and switched to rogue. Not because I wanted to gank everybody, but because I could stealth everywhere I went and felt safer!!
Literally my favorite WoW memory was in early Burning Crusade. I woke up super early before work and couldn't get back to sleep, so I hopped on my Forsaken priest alt to grind my tailoring a bit with all the materials I'd farmed on my main the day before. I was in Thunderbluff, near the bank. The server was mostly empty at that hour. My priest checked the mail, collected the materials from my main, and started fashioning bolts of cloth. As I did, the sun began to rise over Mulgore and the city, washing it all in an orange light only visible that time of day. I stopped making cloth for a minute and just looked out over the grasslands, breathtaken. I walked from the bank to the plateau's edge, took a seat, and kept crafting. It wasn't the raids, or the plot, or even my own character's personal story; it was that time I was playing as a zombie, knitting, watching the sun rise over verdant green fields. That's the memory that stuck with me more than any other.
Awesome!!! Some of my personal most cherished memories of playing WoW WotLK was just riding through the Barrens mounting my raptor, listening to the album Killers by Iron Maiden... Probably was out looking for some poor animals' fangs or killing kobolds? But ironically what stood the test of time the most... Are those tireless rides all through that desert, which seemed like a waste of time then but now has such a lovely feeling when you just remember it! Ps.: also shout out to that random guy Floyd Pinkus on Outland. The only NPC whose name I remember til today!
Still mad they yanked the TBC era servers away again from us a second time. Cancelled SUB again, most likely for good. At least I got to play TBC again from scratch a second time, and it was an absolute blast from beginning to end
I have fond memories of logging on during the holidays, enjoying my breaks from school, and sneaking around alliance major cities as a rogue. It was so cool to be able to sneak around and feel like you're infiltrating some enemy encampment, the risk of discovery around every corner. No game will bring that feeling back.
@@minotaur818 If you cant afford it, dont play it. I dont care to put $15/month + you have so many ways, to pay only with gold. Gotta stop with these dumb statements., brokass
The best moment I had in this game was when I was fishing with my blood elf in Durotar, near the ships who goes to Stranglethorn Valley. A druid Tauren came near, make a campfire and sitted at my side, starting to fish too. We talked a lot about random stuff of life, when he got sapped. I could see for a moment an ally rogue who did it. Looking the horizon up on a cliff, we saw an army from alliance marching to Orgrimmar for invade. We run like crazy to the city and start to screech in the global mapa warning for the invasion and horde players popped like hell from all directions. The fight was so amazing than horde pushed and trapped all allys inside the bank - and all started with two guys fishing far from the city and talking about life. I wish to live that moments again, was so fun!
I agree. I do miss when people played the game for fun rather than treating it like a job. I stopped playing warcraft around the time I noticed people started caring more about gear score than actually enjoying the game. Being just and adventurer trying to survive in the world while exploring it would be great.
@@millathecat00 I just may consider it! I’ve been thinking of introducing my younger brother to WoW, and I gotta admit that much of that magic lies in the older versions.
It’s been ages since I played but I recently started re-reading the early WarCraft books, the ones written around the time of WarCraft 3. I started playing WoW during the tri-horde push of the alpha. Exploring the world was amazing! Even though you were mostly restricted to certain areas for each build, you could figure out ways to explore new lands. Mountains were accessible so if you tried hard enough you could jump your way to the top and end up somewhere new. I remember seeing Medivh’s Tower for the very first time and seeing what I’d read becoming tangible. Same with the Dark Portal. There weren’t any quests, NPCs, or anything. Just a full world to walk around and explore. All my characters have now been stagnant for over 10 years and I’ve forgotten a lot, but I’d like to jump back in just to experience those times again.
My favorite memory from WoW was sitting in some remote corner of the map, listening to the rain, the waves and the calming music. I wasn’t doing anything, just appreciating the moment in a place that nobody would ever visit.
I do the same sometimes. When I`m overly stressed, or can`t seem to reset my nervous system, I start WoW and wander around until I find a nice fishing spot and just enjoy the landscape, the calmness, the music and... the peace. It really gets the job done :)
I still do that😊 I didn’t game until I was 47 years old and married my second husband. My first husband had died and my second husband thought playing a video game well originally it was Xbox and then we moved onto video games would be a good idea and I’ll never forget looking over computer screen one night and seeing elves and beautiful colors coming across the screen as his best friend showed him what a cool game this was. And I wanted this game too, lol. At the time we were both playing the original Star Wars in 2004. so here it was 2005 in February and I also had World of Warcraft and it was so different. It wasn’t boring and every time my character got ‘aggroed’ I a had an anxiety attack because it felt real, lol. I love the game. I still have my original character and I have others. I am 67. And I do like hanging out at the Ruby dragon shrine with my character sitting on the ledge next to the old guy telling his dragon story just looking out. Or doing some simple quest or just going back to do some of my favorite quests with some of my new characters because I really like this game and I’ve been playing it since 2005 and it’s the simple things about the game like my grandson telling me all of the interesting spots he finds outthat most people don’t know about because he’s curious or going back and doing quest I’ve never completed. I agree sometimes it’s just the simple things.
To me that seems more similar to as how you probably don't go play in swings anymore even though you really liked doing it as a kid. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from doing it but you still don't do it. It's just kind of how life goes.
@@barbarakrusen7777 I still do it too. Been playing since 2006, though I play much, much less now. Still have my original warrior, still love the music of the zones, and still like to lay down in a bed at an inn before logging off. It's the simple things, like you said.. After almost 18 years, Azeroth is literally the second world I have lived in for many hours of my life. I love your story, wishing you many more happy hours in WoW.
I gave up on WOW when everyone was suddenly in a rush, I couldn't even watch a cut scene i had not seen without getting booting from the group for taking too long............took all the fun out of it.
To be fair, putting cutscenes inside group content instances is just a horrible game design. Guild Wars 2 also did this with dungeons. Each dungeon has 4 different story modes with little cutscenes between bosses that are genuinely interesting but they are also long and you don't want to keep your party waiting. There's enough dialogues in solo quests anyway.
What a terrific video. You've captured feelings I've had for years but couldn't quite articulate until now. Wow was my first MMO. I started playing a few weeks after release in 2004 and I was totally blown away by the experience. I was already an adult, with young children of my own, but I was the one who felt like a kid at Christmas when I began playing. So many of my real life friends started playing at that time that I never lacked for people to do things with - and we did everything. Not just quests but also general noobing it up, because none of us had any idea how the game worked or what we were doing. A good example of what I'm talking about is a story I tell a lot. I was a low-level paladin - level 10 at most - and I was questing in Elwynn Forest. I remember coming to the bank of the river and looking across at Duskwood and seeing that there was a cemetery there. Cool, I thought. So, I crossed the river, avoided the ??-level spiders and wolves crawling all over the place and made it to Raven Hill. Another group of appropriately leveled characters must have been through the area recently, because there were very few mobs around. I made it all the way to the Necromancer's house before all the ghouls in the place started respawning. I was killed instantly and I spawned at the Spirit Healer in the middle of Raven Hill. I knew I couldn't make it back to my body to revive safely, so I revived at the Healer, taking the penalty to my stats. However, every time I stepped away from the spawn point, I got killed by one of the many undead. I revived again and again and the same thing happened, until all my gear was broken and I despaired of what to do. Would I have to create a new character? So I went onto the zone chat and asked for help. Someone asked me, "Why don't you just hearthstone out?" I didn't even remember I had a hearthstone. What an idiot! So I thanked the guy in chat, hearthed back to Goldshire and went on my way. I was dumb and embarrassed and yet that experience in Duskwood is my favorite experience in my many years of playing WoW. I'd give a lot to do something like that again, but I just don't think it's possible in modern WoW. Truth be told, it hasn't been possible in many, many years. Thanks again for your video.
It's beyond incredible how immersive early WoW was.. No quest helper yet. You actually needed to read the quests and then find your way around this huge new world. I often feel that a part of my soul will always remain in Teldrassil, start for the night elfs. Spent countless hours walking around simply exploring this dreamy forest with its colourful landscapes. The sound track still makes me feel a special kind of peace that I can't put into words. Feels like I can always go back there and all is fine. Slaying the first creatures, seeing the first mounted guards, giant trees walking around, getting lost and killed countless times in the endless cave of the Furbolgs. Needing a group to finish the cave and meeting my first buddies. Collecting a shit load of herbs for which I didn't have any use for a long time. Walking back and forth between Darnassus and some quest locations. Some people hated it equally to Ashenvalen, as the paths between quests were very long and one advances very slowly. For me it just felt like one giant world that no one actually really knows yet. Just going around in walking speed sooo much added to the experience. Taking that first ferry to a new location.. Great journey indeed. Epic open PvP in Stranglethorn Vale, Southshore, X-roads, Blackrock massacre.. Attacking cities with hundreds of other players.. Immense questline to finally be able to raid Onyxia's lair together with 40!! other people. Could go on for hours recounting epic Vanilla moments.. Part of WoWs original feeling died for me with the first flying mounts.. It killed open PvP + one flies so fast.. you don't pay attention anymore to surroundings as much. Moving around started to feel more like getting from A to B.. The slow pace made classic WoW so great.. No teleportation to a Dungeon unless a warlock + 2 would go there. Everyone riding around. It filled the world with people that later got empty as everyone just teleports.. Congrats to anyone that actually read all of this!
I feel the same way about teldrassil. It’s definitely an immersion dragon I’ve been chasing in games ever since. Trying to make a NE Druid in Hardcore was a nice, consistent, traumatic return to teldrassil. On your point of flying. I loved flight form in druid for the ability to wpvp - drop out of the sky in bear form and charge from the heavens, but I agree that it shrinks the world massively. It makes me think TBC should have had more (any?) aerial threats around Outland. Certain areas that force you to ground.
"Epic open PvP in Stranglethorn Vale, Southshore, X-roads, Blackrock massacre.. Attacking cities with hundreds of other players.. Immense questline to finally be able to raid Onyxia's lair together with 40!! other people. Could go on for hours recounting epic Vanilla moments.." I miss all of that. Vanilla was truly the best time. BC was good too. Flying mounts made PvP more fun at the beginning. But then it just became about who could do aerial moves better. I used to point the camera straight up as I mounted after getting back to my corpse so I could fly straight up fast and get away to regroup. Fun times. But the best PvP was world PvP when it happened organically. As it is now the game feels like a shopping mall. Where you just choose which designer items you want and teleport to the area to get them. There is no sense of community anymore. Its just rush rush rush.
Hey there! Thank you for you comment! I'm looking to make a follow-up video showcasing these comments with in-game footage to match, as a celebration of our favorite memories in WoW as a community. Are you open to me featuring this comment?
It's like reading my early experience. WoW at the start had a soul. Tedrassil forest and the soundtrack felt like I was teleported to some magical land. I remember eventually taking the boat across to... Dark shore(??) and being overwhelmed by feeling of dread how dark and depressing it was in compare to Tedrassil. And I knew that I was not a "little elf" anymore and I had to face the darker places. But then I got to Ashenvale and was yet again greeted by magic and wonder. This game's world was so amazing!
I miss when I could join up with a raid and just do the raid. Now it's like "LFM for ICC. Need 2 DPS and 1 Heals. Meet in Dal for gear check." and then when you get there and pass the gear check they check your achievements, and double check your stats on some random-assed website. And then, if you pass the application process you can join the raid after they spend another hour and a half checking people's shit. I shouldn't have to go through a job interview to play a 20 year old game.
So true, I miss when the raid leaders didn’t give a fuck . Yes there wipes but there were kicks, and drama . Everyone wants to just fucking one shot everything after maximum preparation, boring.
Yep. Get 40 random people, charge in, have fun. Die, almost certainly. Cool. Maybe one day you actually beat it and it's a victory of true proportions.
I used to RP walk in and around Stormwind all the time back in vanilla, I would walk around Ironforge and check out all the rooms too :) I would spend hours "playing the game" and get nothing done in terms of progression just enjoying the new things and cool places
you act like that's hard to do in dragonflight. I get nothing done in wow by spending hours slaughtering the auctiion house in stormwind now. feels great. no one is forcing you to do content you don't care about. no one is stopping you from making your own fun. I see so many statements like this, "I miss x,y, and z" when x y and z are still available and you're no longer interested in doing them. you don't miss it. if you did you would still do it.
Dude- I don't know how you did it, but you evoked such an emotional response in me. This video is now 5 months old and I just ran across it. I feel so exactly in tune with you on every level. I'm 54 years old and have played on-and-off since Vanilla. But your video is exactly WHY it has been ON-and-OFF. I have played every expansion, but after a while in each expansion I get so burned out with all the new content, new levels of talent trees, new gear, and everything you so perfectly described. I find myself playing Classic just as much or more than Retail. And those nostalgic sensations - I will NEVER forget the first time I flew into Ironforge. I was blown away by this game. And that's the thing I miss the most. I am not BLOWN AWAY anymore. I'm frustrated and confused. I know this game NOW is geared toward a different player than myself and I don't fault Blizzard for that - they have a business to run. I'm just glad I can still do a little simple grinding in Classic and actually make money in the AH for my time. It's a different game now and I don't really get to explore like I did. So, I log out and log into Classic and relive the good-ol-days. Thanks for making this video. I really connected with it and I'm glad I'm not alone.
This video really spoke to me. Some years ago I started a guild with the sole purpose of playing the game like a game and not a job. I had no addons and I encouraged a lot of new players to do the same. I just wanted to meet people and have a good time. If you are reading this and you are a new wow players just chill and play the game HOWEVER YOU WANT. Wanna be a fire mage, be a fire mage, want to run around dun morough killing leper gnomes, please DO THAT. Don't let your happiness and wonder be squashed by the elitism and cynicism of this player base. You are playing the game just right!
Ah, where were you years ago my friend! I'd have joined instantly. I've never used addons nor never will. I stopped doing dungeons and raids early on because folks were way too uptight about it and very nasty quite often. It's a game/hobby that I'd played to have fun! Not worry about perfect builds or grinding for epic gear that became junk when the next expansion came out. Keep it up!
Sadly, guilds like yours don't last long. I did the same but my guildies always fell prey to feeling inadequate when they ran with other people or they just gave into temptation since playing without any conveniences is pretty tough once you are used to them. In the end, my guildies had all gone against the basic concept of the guild by OCDing on BIS, best spec, and meters so I disbanded so they could play the way they had chosen. Hopefully, you had a better outcome.
@@ashphoenix406 I believe mine would have met a similar end. I could see the effects you mentioned already taking place. They were starting to get more focused on meters and downloading their own addons. In the end, I can't make people play the game I want them to play. If you want to play with meters and be the best go be the best, but don't be a douche when people don't meet your expectations in a video game. People in my opinion just use it as an excuse to feel better about themselves and I think that is one of the main reasons new players don't try wow. The player base can be a bit too toxic.
Recently I've returned to WoW after 10 years of absence. Back then, I've played together with my ex, we rushed forward, clicking through quests without reading them, getting achievements and running through dungeons as fast as we could. No fun. This time, I'm taking it slow, nothing and no one is chasing me, when I got to Stormwind, I ran around the town for 2 hours, looking everywhere, chatting with NPC's, when I came across a tombstone in the cemetery, I've opened up the wiki to read who the character was. Now I'm in Stranglethorn, I've transmogrified my costume, to look like a jungle explorer, I'm running around all goofy, fighting raptors and catching pets, I can't recall the last time I've had so much fun with a game (probably The Witcher 3 in 2015). WoW is phenomenal, but only, when you don't let it FOMO you, and just relax.
I came to the comments to say basically the exact same thing. I've spent the past year working on Loremaster and making an alt for each section/expac I complete so that I can at least use Chromie time to quest through each area until I'm level 60. And it's the best time I've had in WoW in... a very, very long time. Since MoP actually, when I quit because I realised I spent 90% of my time AFKing in the city hub, so I've been gone from WoW about as long as you have too. All my friends quit so it's just me now. And man is it relaxing to just play it solo. I don't care about raiding anymore. I just want to relax. And there's a lot of ways to do it honestly, but a lot of people get really bogged down with progression and raiding that they don't see it.
@@enchantedecho57 Yeah! And now Darkmoon Faire is back, and I'm having a blast :D It's funny, it's jolly, I was flying through the fiery rings, and now I have fiery wings :D
Wow.. this is like the best comment I've read so far about World of Warcraft. All my friends stopped playing with me because I decided to read the quest texts. I did like 5 quests when they did 10 in the same time. But it is so much more fun. Get 10 leather? Sounds lame but I know why I need to get them and the quest after I need some salt because I know they need the salt for the leather. Everything makes so much more sense now. When I see an npc standing somewhere alone, having a unique name I Google them and read the comments about this npc, why he's there,what's his lore etc. Wow became for me what driving my bike is : I'm not driving my bike to get to the destination. I drive my bike to drive. Arriving is just the topping of the cake.
Ya, miss the feeling of this game when first playing, played for 5yrs straight, took break, came back for a while and haven't played it in over 15 years, kinda sad. Was an awesome game at its time.
I used be a guild leader. I also was one of many raid leaders in the guild. We used to know each other in the game. Every one of us. A friday night or saturday we had some call out in the guild chat asking if people wanted to do a raid or something. There was always people ready to sign up. Not only because they needed the gear, but for the fun of it. It used to be alot of fun. I still have alot of screenshots from up when we 'finally' beat Arthas in ICC and we all are flocking around his throne. It used to be a blast That guild is long gone. People stopped playing or moved on to other servers or games. Now Im in a guld I dont even know the name of. Im a nobody in there. After hitting the highest level someone just throw a guild invitation on me and I accepted. No one is speaking in the guild chat, nothing happens, but still im cool with it. So much to do these days anyways just to keep up with the game. And the more there is to do, the more boring it somehow has become. I play when I have time. Im no longer longing for it like I use to. I used to love these simple things like shoting spiders in Evelynn forest or killing troll mobs in Dun Morogh. Whre ever step was an adventure and where I know ever corner of the map. Just running around and exploring things and killing small mobs. Today Im flying around on a huge dragon fast as lightning. Not so much on the ground no more as in the early days. And the mobs I kill today was considered elites before. A dragon here, a dragon there. No biggy. We have been killing Titans and battling old gods, so what is a little dragon in comparsing? Yes. I miss when Wow was just a game too
I miss taking group pictures at the end of the raids. People asking to wait to take the screenshot because they wanted to wear the new items they looted. I have so many stories of defeating bosses in the most goofy and inefficient ways, because we did not had any guide to do that.
Yeah, now it's you have to be there every Thursday, tuesday, wednesday, sunday, friday monday and you have to have all your stuff prepared or you will not join any raids. Because nobody cares you have a 9 to 5 job.
I know the feeling, pre-BC I was in a guild on Korialstrasz that everyone knew everyone else and guild chat was nonstop, I played for hours on end just because it was fun. Getting help on my lvl 20 lock to do the quest for my void walker because running the swamp was suicide by yourself or running strat and dire maul over and over to get pally and lock mounts for guildies. That was fun. Now when I play everything is solo even raids.
@@sonicartzldesignerclan5763 gaming has become a job that YOU pay to do now...honestly the end game of wow I came in at tbc....was just a chore not fun grinding to get epic gear to go raiding I just jacked...Theirs more to life than one game...other games and actull life...I mostly play retro now and some new games, but I see new games and how they've been ruined if its not micro transaction its a never ending game...I like a good amount of time in a game but I want a conclusion to it...playing a game to narrative completion and if I want the side stuff...but not hundreds of hours of side stuff its stupid...and now open world so big its like traveling in the real world...the balance in games for fun has gone...
I remember back in 2005 how getting a mount was a thing. Guildies would borrow gold for you to get your first mount at level 40 and it was pretty damn hard to have 90g at that time. Even harder to get an epic mount costing 900g. I was lucky enough to drop a Krol Blade at level 50 something and sell it for something like 1k gold (it was the best BOE weapon in the game). Used the money to buy my swift raptor. It was such a huge achievement. Definitely felt more imersive than nowadays.
Yep, that first mount was so hard to get. Back then I was using Thottbot no addons to level and I finally made it to level 40 and I had no money. I farmed rock elementals and sold the items to a vendor in the Badlands until I had enough gold to get my first mount. There was such a sense of accomplishment when I got that first mount. So many alt chars, so much time wasted doing random stuff not knowing how to level, etc. It took a long time for me first get to 40 and then to get the gold for the training and mount.
Ooof, I remember how I was around level 40, standing around Orgrimmar offering to boost people through dungeons for some gold. When I was about 5 - 10 gold pieces away a higher level player rode up to me, handed me the rest of the gold and told me to enjoy having a mount. I think it was an undead rogue or something similar. I was over the moon finally getting to ride around on my badass Raptor which I truly treasured. So when I needed to head back to Tanaris to level up, did I take the flight path? Hell no, I took my raptor all the way.
Reminded me of the time an epic staff called staff of Jordan I believe? dropped for me on STV, and I had sold it to someone I quested with for 2G or so, only to later discover it was worth so much more.. Ah but I'm glad if he made use of it at any case :D
Wow, I feel this so much. WoW used to be my escape-just wandering, discovering hidden spots, and getting lost in the world without caring about numbers or efficiency. It’s crazy how easy it is to get caught up in performance and min-maxing instead of just playing the game for fun. Sometimes I miss those simple, aimless adventures. Here’s to hoping we can reclaim a bit of that magic. Take care, and thanks for putting this feeling into words!
To this day, nothing beats the experience of playing WoW for the first time. Waking up in Deathknell, wandering around Tirisfal Glades discovering what happened to Lordaeron after the events of Warcraft 3. Eventually trailing into Silverpine Forest and then Hillsbrad Foothills as I explore how the undead survived and are struggling to thrive in this land they were left in. I miss old WoW so damn much. The whole "HERO, PLEASE SAVE THE WORLD. HERE'S A LEGENDARY MAGIC ITEM THAT ONLY YOU (AND EVERY OTHER PLAYER) HAVE!" just doesn't cut it for me...
When I played Horde for the first time, I chose an undead. I thought this faction has the most fascinating history. And what you described is exactly what I experienced. You were a nobody in a massive world - and that was part of the spicyness. Now you are the HESSHOAT ... the Holy-Eternal-Sacred-Super-Hero-Of-All-Times
@@julianosvonskingrad7009 Yeah, this "Oh Hero, please save the world you are nearly a God!" trope does not work for me. It's the reason I like Helldivers 2 so much. You're no ultra-elite soldier, you're just another cog in the war effort...
I hear you. My first WoW character was an undead Warlock. Exploring Tirisfal was amazing, and discovering the Undercity for the first time was one of the best early experiences I had. The best part about that was I never knew it was there until I randomly found it whilst exploring. Nowadays, everything is so railroaded that it's almost impossible to just...explore like that.
As an adult, I always struggled to sit down and play World of Warcraft again, even in it's Classic Vanilla incarnation across the different private servers I've nudged over the years. Though I have stuck to Turtle WoW these days, I realize from this video that my anxiety to play probably comes from all this min-maxing, end-game, time-efficient ideologies that took my inner child hostage. Maybe I can rediscover that simplicity, let down my expectations, and go on a simple adventure again. Oh, the joy I can imagine. I forgot that's why I play video games - to have fun. Not stress over a fantasy. Update: I've now put together a LAN party for my friends to play WoW together in the same room. We want to play every week with the sole purpose of just having fun and nothing else. Looking forward to this every Saturday when we can get together.
One of the most notable things ive seen mentioned recently is that WoW was, whilst a game, and an accessible one for its time with many positive qualities, was also many peoples first real "social media", and that impact on people is something that can never be recreated.
Now you join a group, people just plow through whatever dungeon, don't speak at all, finish, que for the next one, like why are yall playing this mmo and not talking to each other? Not talking to the other humans behind their characters? Socially stunted even in the game now!
That's the thing: no one has a clue. They can develop a game so complicated that no one has a clue-no guide, nothing. Everyone has to explore everything! Nowadays, you can find every piece of information. We need puzzles again, lots of dead ends that lead nowhere, etc. Now, you see exactly where the quest starts, where you need to go, what you need to do, and where to turn it in. They need to make a game where you only get the minimal information and are left in the dark, having to find your way back out. Players have become more skilled, so the games should become harder. But instead, they’ve made them easier, which doesn’t make sense. The better the players get, the harder the game should be. But those days won’t come back. That’s just nostalgia! You can’t turn back time.
I remember the days that if you opened a ticket, within the hour, a gamemaster would answer. And most of the time not by wsp you, but actualy sending their personal avatar to you... It was almost like ... if the gamedevelopers cared about their gamers...
If the $15 dollar a month subscription fee kept up with inflation, you would be paying $25 a month. If you play Classic, you will NOT get GMs like you used to. You're not paying for them. Even if we paid $25 a month, and got GMs back, they would all be toxic wokies who know nothing about the culture that spawned the game.
During Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria, I would about every six months or so, open a ticket for a GameMaster to deal with. But instead of a problem I was having, I would ask them to congratulate the developers and everyone else for making a spectacular game.
Man, this is so nostalgic. I think a lot of people relate to you. I remember me and my friends in 2004 buying a copy of the game, then we sat around a round table in some cafe and decided what class and race each of us would be, almost in an rp manner. Good times
There was really so much potential left on the table with vanilla. They had multiple zones that were unused, multiple parts of the book storyline werent explained. I really do not think they needed to portal us off to draenor in BC as soon as they did.
I started playing WoW two weeks after it came out. All these years later, I absolutely feel that the first 3-4 years were more fun than any year since. The first two expansions, my friend and I stood in line at Game Stop at midnight to get them. We were so excited to get home, pop in those cd’s to load it up and check out the new areas. The game was balanced and we didn’t have to worry about crazy ability rotations. The story line and quests were interesting. Gaining ten levels took almost two weeks. You felt like you really accomplished something. Everything you said was spot on! Thanks for giving me pause to reflect on how much fun I had back then and remembering all those old guildies in For The Lose on Llane.
Yeah I used to think that the games at fault. But really its our society that has changed. People have gotten used to bad games that they no longer care about the quality. Before we valued value for money etc, alot of politics in game reviews. today people are selfish and narcissist. And nobody cares about anything. Most zoomers ik have turned into antisocial doomers.
Yeah idk if it's nostalgia (probably partially) but Vanilla and BC are easily top 3 favorite periods in gaming ever. I had a really engaged guild that I made friends with a bunch of random people (something I've tried and never been able to replicate since). I think WoW was really in unexplored area of gaming and it was just something nothing will ever be able to replicate again. We didn't have 25 websites telling us how to build our characters or how we should min/max the game... we just built a real community and helped each other. If you were too young to experience it, I'm sorry, you truly missed out on one of the most unique gaming experiences that will ever exist.
This is why my motto is, "I'm here for a good time." I always keep that in mind whenever I'm playing, and I start thinking about what's "optimal" or whatever. I go with what makes me happy and what's fun to me, because that's what's important.
Throws me into a legitimate depressive spiral when I contemplate the old times playing wow. Sitting in my room, South Park on the TV. Running through hillsbrad, killing yetis with my older brother. Both of us completely unaware of how to progress or do anything meaningful. And suddenly a blue pole-arm drops, we both lose it. Fast forward to my first ever raid on my hunter. Saturday morning ZG. Struggle to log into vent, met with a bunch of older guys laughing and joking. Step into the raid absolutely dumbfounded at the scope of the place. Clear 2-3 bosses before we start perma wiping on the tiger boss or whichever. Didn’t matter, everyone was vibing, and we all went out and messed around outside Org dueling after the raid. No insta raid logging, no anger really. It was legit a game, but man it’s crazy HOW integral it was in my childhood. And honestly, it’s probably never going to be close to what it was. Really sad, gotta move on I suppose, just having a hard time not constantly falling back into these nostalgic depressive stints. SOD was a good idea, I enjoy the fact that the dev team seems to be trying, but it just feels like wotlk or even slightly retail to me. Idk man, vanilla WoW was just a great time.
You have to try and chase new experiences instead. As tough and sad as it is to realize, you can't recapture the good old days. It's impossible. But you can try to make new good old days. But the thing is that you don't know when they're happening until it's past. I'm similar to you I think. Very Nostalgic and can get depressed about it. But my only advice is to look back and treasure the memories but also allow yourself to make new good memories.
@@Kings_Crossing bro you are 100% dead on. I have a family now, we’re having a great time, I just definitely need to refocus every time I get in these stints. Life seems like it has phases, go figure. That phase of my life was great, and instead of dwelling and being depressed I have to focus on new experiences like you said. I’d bet my life on the fact that 20 years from now (if I make it that long) I’ll be looking back at this current time with nostalgia as well. Off to go hit the gym actually. Have a good day bro.
My best memory of wow was during tbc. I was fishing in a quite isolated zone and suddenly a female elf approached me and I realized that was the very same person who joined a dungeon with me days before and had fun together. We stayed 3 hours fishing and chilling and unfortunately that person left the game weeks later, but that memory is still dear to me. Streamers basically ruined the whole videogame experience. Such a shame.
I would argue that Esport wannabees ruined gaming, not so much streamers (although streamers definitely contributed). All everyone cares about now is rushing to max level, rushing to the best gear, clearing the hardest content as quickly as possible. Everyone wants to get 100 parses on the highest keys. It's pathetic. They take the game more seriously than they would a job. No one plays the game for enjoyment anymore.
@@PurplePaperPrius that's also true and also agree regards the lack of enjoyment people find in playing mmorpgs, or just a simple game. FF14 for me was the last experience and people in raids didn't even want to give new players a single minute for watching a cutscene.
I remember walking through Mulgore just visiting the little huts all over the place. I would also always make a point to find a bed in an inn and having my character actual sleep in the bed prior to logging out
You are absolutely correct. I'm a game director and dev and the design and entertainment standards have changed quite a bit in the last 20 years. Many developers and publishers are so worried about players dropping due to frustration or empty zones, that everything started to be on rails, with redundant communication of what to do and tons of progression systems to "fit every player" and not give you a single breath. Then the game starts to play you, rather than you playing the game. As a response, many players are jumping into citybuilders, metroidvanias, roguelikes and the indie scene... etc, which is our bet.
I mostly play WoW but sometimes I just want to log off and build/decorate a home in The Sims. And I don't fall for buying a bunch of xpac and "stuff" packs. I DL a lot of player-created content. I find it relaxing. No goals, no "resets," no "hitting the cap" to take advantage of every minute. Just . . . creative play. I hate the very fast-paced content drops in WoW. To me THAT makes the game feel like a job. I HATE the new FOMO elements they are putting in. (I gave up on Plunderstorm after finding out how not-at-all-fun it was).
I was at a bar several years back, chatting it up with someone who ended up being a long-time dev for a certain AAA studio. He lamented that there was this constant pressure to design around players not dropping, and he asked what game I was throwing myself into these days. When I told him it was Death Stranding, he genuinely thought I was trolling him. When he asked how t f I could possibly enjoy a game where I’m delivering packages 90% of the time, I told him flat out that it felt amazing to play a game that felt totally off the rails and unpredictable.
City builders are great not gonna lie, gamers are often creative and those types of games allow you to just do whatever you want and that's a game people like, doing what you want, instead of the game forcing you in a path, a build, a meta etc.
I've also worked as a dev and I find this comment to be spot on! Modern WoW has become so deterministic that it became authoritarian. Going off the beaten track isn't nearly as rewarding as it was on Classic. As such the product ultimately commands the player instead of the other way around. Wouldn't go as far as to say that the player *is* the product but yeah it definitely plays you.
My first character was a NE druid. Started in Teldrassil, and for the first 30 minutes, I was literally just zooming in on the trees, and squirrels and such. And the Ancient Protectors walking around everywhere. It was so epic to me. I remember hitting level 20 after about 2 weeks or so. Leveling was not an instant kind of thing. At least not to me. I also remember doing the corpse run from wetlands into Ironforge when I was level 16. Anyone else remember that, especially anyone who mained a Night Elf? Once I hit IF, my friend(who introduced me to Wow) showed me the Tram. I was blown away experiencing the Tram travel to Stormwind. And then I spent about a week in Duskwood. I remember when Stiches was making his run for the town, and 10 people had to get together to take him down. It was such an experience. I haven't experienced that kind of fun in WoW in years. I miss those times.
@@monkeynuttz3970 happened to me in stranglethorn while doing one of Nesingwary's hunts. I think i eventually just accepted the rez sickness because i was so frustrated.
brother yes, NE warrior was my first character that i still have till this day. i completely relate to the iron forge run from the boat from darkshore, and how back in the day there were no guides and no youtube videos just your homie telling you where to go and you hoping you'd find it. the tram blew my mind also, my friend and I would go back and forth about how we could possibly find a way to get into the deep sea area that you'd see in the middle of the tram path. im blessed to have experienced all of it as a kid, it was just pure unadulterated exploration and wonder im still salty that blizzard burned down teldrassil and darn, i'd fly over there and just run around if I ever felt nostalgic back in the day
This was my first WoW experience too. I was just so amazed at everything in Teldrassil. I think I recall getting a flight from some place in Teldrassil to Darnassus and back several times because I wanted to keep looking at this world from above. The music and ambience and visuals had me beyond shook. It was literally like living in a dream.
One of my first characters was a Gnome Warrior and I did the corpse run in the opposite direction to play with a Nelf friend. My very first was an Undead Warlock that ended up taking the Zepplin to Stranglethorn at no higher than level five. It was a demo account and my crappy PC was lagging like crazy as I failed to dodge tigers. Goes without saying I didn't buy the game til a few months after that.
You put it in words, I am absolutely with you on this. I loved it that my character was "just a guy", one of many, in this world. I would hang out in UC on the bridges, taking in the music and the vibes. Being a Rogue, I just had to sneak in every corner of places to explore or sit in stealth somewhere between enemies and critters, just watching the scene. My hearthstone was for A LONG time in the tavern of Brill - because I loved it. I would go offline there, a bit like "going home".(And as Brill was destro - ehm, ... rebuilt, I took that personal.) Boy, I miss all that. And I am so surprised how many of you did like those parts of WoW as well! Anyway, thank you for this video.
There are two things I remember vividly from my early TBC days. 1st story was when I met a random druid and a shammy - we all were just vibing in travel forms in Stranglethorn Vale and randomly started chatting up. We then discovered that all of us are new to the game so maybe we should start a party. We chatted for like 3 hours after that and then each week we would do "DISCOVERY" time which consisted of us going in our travel forms to various locations and mostly trying to enjoy the views with strategy planning so we all survive. The 2nd was me and my guild of casual players (my two buddies were also there) were doing parties in bootybay Inn getting smashed and talking on team speak about our plans for the week both in game and irl. Man I wish I have this back. I hope all of you folks are doing great wherever your journey took you! :)
I remember when I left Valley of Trial for the first time on my troll hunter and discovered the sea. I spent hours just swimming around those sunken ships trying to find treasure.
This is one of my strongest core memories. Swimming around echo isles collecting tiger pelts. Rushed home from school and i knew my 2006 wow fresh install would have been done updating and ready to play. Played for 7 hours that day.
@@farhanbaig404 those were the days man. I remember doing the tiger quest and stumbling on the trolls who were in the scary ruins. Felt like Indiana Jones
My memories of such are bound to Silverpine Forest. Cursed, gloomy mystic woods. Ravaged villages, crushed fortifications, with a magic bubble in the middle of the map. That was so fantastic, even if most of my discoveries were simply dead ends. No rush, no git-gut. Pure adventure to post-apocalyptic Azeroth. To "play" vanilla now in a guild I must have 2-3 spreadsheets, raid schedule, voice comm, optimized build and gear. The PvP scene has always been minmaxed to a degree, but now it's critical due to almost 20 years of datamining, research and calculation. I guess, the main issue here is, we can't slow down information spread. There always will be few, who invest their time to figure out what's "optimal" even before an update releases. And they share the info publicly. Ppl get used to listen their FOMO urges, so the info became a trend in a day. Overall atmosphere has changed since 2004. Players don't want to get fun anymore. Consumers want to be "successful" in the game.
Hey there! Thank you for you comment! I'm looking to make a follow-up video showcasing these comments with in-game footage to match, as a celebration of our favorite memories in WoW as a community. Are you open to me featuring this comment?
My first WoW character was a male orc hunter. Lol. I'm female. I was just strolling around, having fun. Fast forward, I was playing 8+ hours a day during college, healing class leader for my raiding guild, constantly grinding, grinding, farming, farming, professions, raid videos, rated PvP...I would have my guild leader calling my cell to see where I was if I was MIA. It literally became a job. I have such nostalgic memories of wandering the zones, especially at night, PRIOR to cross-server realms, where you could truly feel alone. The music, the visuals, alone in my room, totally immersed. I basically quit after the panda thing. Returned briefly for a couple other expansions. I remember thinking, after queuing for world bosses, getting lumped into "raids" with dozens of strangers I'd never see again, just to melt a boss in 3 minutes flat, collect our loot, then bail...this isn't the game I knew. This is just consumption. Impersonal. Isolating. Played for the last time in 2017. It really was a huge part of my life. Even to this day, I'll listen to some of the soundtracks. I still daydream about the experiences, the content/storylines/continents, the friends made, then seemingly long-gone overnight. For a time in my life it felt permanent; then it became totally transient, out of the blue...
CRZ really was a huge blow to the game. And yep, it arrived with Pandas. I've tried to explain why I hate it to people before but it never seems to reverberate. Back in the day you would see the same people in the world. You would get to know them even if you weren't friends. You could encounter somebody multiple times over weeks as you level separately, but together. I do enjoy parts of retail WoW's gameplay, but it is a totally different beast. No mistaking that. Boiled down and concentrated to nigh pure hamster wheel number-get-bigger gameplay. I think the whole WoW tokens thing was another big blow to the game-yness of the game. Now everything you do has a real-money value. Do you really want that power boost bad enough to not just sell that BoE and get 2 years worth of subscription time? That's a shitty proposition to pose players with. It's not fun to know that every bit of gold I spend could have been money saved in my pocket.
Yeh I keep coming back and giving it a go but it's nothing like it used to be just recently brought a month jumped on my original paladin luthor spent 2 days max lvl and was over it
This is the reason why I was so excited for both SoD & Classic. I wanted to relive how WoW felt back in the early 2000's. I too lost interest during Cataclysm before Pandaria... and with Classic, I got bored during Cataclysm again. Not that I didn't get bored of BC or WotLK toward the end of them too but I don't know, it's like the window keeps getting smaller & it's not because of a lack of content or things to do. It's because as an adult it's so much harder to 1. play often and 2. play with others often. A lot of my old buddies that I used to play with were excited for Classic & SoD. Then when the games were coming out, they didn't have enough time because of work & families & things like that. I work all the time, I'm married & when I logged in it felt like I was just playing an MMORPG solo. It was hard to get everyone on at the same time, even when trying to set-up schedules. So if you want to raid, you end up finding a group of people that play when you're available, run around with strangers & just speedrun the dungeons so everyone can roll on their gear & logout. There were so many people that would only login during the raid night & then logout immediately after the raid was finished. Like, that's not worth $15/mo. Some of it is nostalgia but a lot of it is that the immersion is gone. I can't get lost in the game anymore and I mean that both in the sense of time & direction. You can just Google or use Questie or whatever. Everything is solved. But at least the worlds felt lived in.
@@TheGreatSpiff Your line about the same people and encountering them... just left a similar comment. Vanilla and BC WoW was this unique online community... it'll never be replicated and no one will ever experience it again. It was before major social media, major investment in the gaming industry, a million websites telling you how to play... yada yada... it was just a bunch of people immersed in a world. It was peak gaming imo but I'm 40 now, so maybe that's an "old man's" take. I have never had more fun gaming than Vanilla and BC WoW though... So much fun and community connection.
You said so much of what I have been feeling. It has moved from wanting and been able to see and enjoy the world to just rushing pass it. It is like the rpg part is dying.
"smaller more meaningful bite sized stories" - you hit the nail on the head here. When it comes to WoW, I've been thinking for quite some time that "less is more" or that a smaller world with more intimate questing and player interaction is far more engaging than the humongous theme park we have to play in now. Bigger sounds good on paper, but in reality, I feel its almost safe to say OBJECTIVELY that people have more fun when they're in a smaller more recognizable, familiar and intimate world. I used to know the ins and outs of every zone and I can recall so many moments and interactions in that smaller more familiar world. The world felt very "live in" as you put it. Now it feels like I'm just passing through an overcrowded high traffic airport where nobody pays attention to anyone or anything.
The story was told to you not through cut scenes or exposition dumps but through the world itself you entered a new zone often under conflict and the quests and dungeons based around these conflicts which was like bread crumbs that all linked together at the raids for the conclusions to the stories
"Just like playing pretend, when you were a kid." From Vanilla to Cataclysm I played on Venture Company RPPVP server, and had an undead warlock named Dymentia. For ALL of that time, raiding, battleground and arena ALL took a backseat to *World PVP* on our server. Alliance and Horde each had a half dozen or so guilds that claimed a faction settlement as the "home base" and opposing factions guilds would start killing NPC guards at that base when they wanted a fight. I was in and our base was Tarren Mill. We were dedicated to protecting lowbies, and would camp Southshore for HOURS if a high level Alliance started harassing levelers. We also organized large scale world world PVP events, like fighting over Stromgarde ruins or the Thandol Span, and letting the other side reset so we could have several "matches." Our main rival was in Darkshore, and someone got a temporary ban cause we figured out how to get on the roofs and cast spells down on em where they couldn't reach us lmao. It was so fun, and my best memories of WoW, and it was the most meaningless, pointless stuff with regards to progression.
Exactly but now you a adult you will never waste your time away at pointless stuff... Not knowing is a blessing as a child. But doing that as an adult changes the blessing into ignorance
@@Desperado070 I guess, I'm now leveling an Alliance Warlock on a private Vanilla server at 1x, despite being able to level at 3x, cause I want the experience since I never played an alliance character. For some people it's about the journey, not the destination. All that being said when classic launched, I was in a sweaty raiding guild and was the Warlock tank in AQ who spent endless hours farming the Shadow resist gear. Some people can enjoy both.
I was in Thelsamar Commonwealth on Venture Co. I wasn't even a big PvPer or even level 70, but I was always taken along to world PvP and just messing around. Besides for the RP communities it doesn't feel like players make their own content in WoW anymore.
This made me happy. Thank you for making this! My first char was a human/warrior. I had no clue whatsoever what was going on and what I was doing. I loved the music in Elwynn, and the entrance into Stormwind was just magnificent. Such epic music, gave me goosebumps every time! At some point someone asked me to sign a guild charter. For some reason we had to go to Ironforge for that. I had never been outside of Elwynn/SW. We took the underground. I was hesitating... Would I ever find my way back?! The world was so big! I disliked IF because I felt lost. But when I got to the entrance, and walked out into the snowy landscape... I completely fell in love and knew I would spend some years of my life in WoW! As you say: I wanted to be part of that world, and explore. My noobness showed that when I was in Desolace, all alone in that ghastly place, when I was invited into a group to go into Maraudon. Never heard of. I had hardly ever been in a group, or an instance. I was a warrior. Could I tank? "What is a tank?", I asked? "Do you have a shield?" No, I was the proud owner some 2-handed axe or something... "Oh well, a shield might drop at the first boss" or something. Anyway, I went in. Needless to say that we did not last. Then I found myself all alone at the entrance of Maraudon and questioned my choices. I chatted a bit to one of the group. He (I presume) was very helpful. He told me that I had used not even half of my talent points, and the ones I had used were all over the place. I said I had no idea where to put them and eventually just gave up. I abandoned the poor warrior and re-rolled a mage, with whom I ended up raiding MC. Some regions were favourites, some I disliked (Gnomeregan / gnome music was irritating! Personal opinion, of course..). I loved the lore! I loved long quest lines like The Missing Diplomat! During a later run (horde this time) I was much moved by the heartrending Lament of the Highborne. Another facet of WoW (of the olden days - I never played past WotLK) that was amazing were the people you met. It took me a while to find a nice guild. We were chill, and happy.. Yes, just a happy bunch! I was surprised to find that older people played, too (I was in my early twenties and, looking back, still quite "young"). And women. And that we all could have fun, and serious conversations (this more mature guild was really just great for me!). And we enjoyed playing, and getting lost in this magnificent world. Do you remember that, while flying from Ironforge to Menethil Harbour (or Refuge Point, I can't remember..), there was this crash landing site in the high mountains? I tried to go there as a young (less than lvl 20) mage. I was joined by another chap who thought this was a fun idea. We jumped. We ran. I tried Slow Fall spell (first had to go find feathers). We tried here and there, and everywhere. I don't think we ever made it. Yet, we spent a few hours, and had a blast. Thanks to your video, lots of memories are coming back to me, for which I thank you! I have considered getting back into WoW. I tried private servers (this was before classic was released). But I found that what I am looking for is no longer there. Not in the least, because I am no longer who I was twenty years ago. And that is fine. I sometimes reminisce with my brother-in-law who also played WoW at that time (though we did not know each other, being from different continents and not meeting in-game). And that is where things stay. A happy memory (many, I should say). Also, I don't think that the little ones would allow me the time it would take to get lost in such a big world again... You're only young once!
your thoughts in this video really resonated with me! i think the best wow experience ive had in years was the time i spent playing hardcore because the necessity for consumables/crafting/caution in your approach often lent itself to a “stop and smell the roses” meandering through whatever zone i chose to level in. thrilled that i could recapture some of the feeling of wow being a slow burn thru azeroth like i got back in 2005. thanks for the short, sweet, and sincere video. i genuinely felt moved watching it!!
I hope we have this experience again someday, but I wonder if it’s just the culture now. I wish everyone could experience what it’s like when the community focuses on fun. In the early days it was like everyone was enamored with just how COOL it was to even be part of that world. I’m glad we got to be a part of it!
The time when internet was young and the world still told people they could be anything they wanted to when growing up. Just it was just 20 years ago now. But its so far gone its hard to remember. People used to let their kids run the streets till dark. Many didnt lock their doors. It was a simpler time. Now greed and shitty humans have ruined everything for everybody except the ultra rich. Life has becomes mostly a joke. A college degree doesnt even find you work anymore. The culture of humanity is dying and its reflected in games because "art imitates life"-Aristotle.
It was just another generation. Kids today just see video games as keep pushing same button and win thing now or paying to win is actually the norm now. You try and ask kids today about that they think you're weird for not paying for a victory in the game.
@@cococock2418 i disagree, 40 man raids, world bosses, the servers had to be extremely more interactive to clear content. The scale of social interactions were much larger.
@@cococock2418 VAnilla wow was great, sure it ran worst than classic but the experience was so much better. Everyone starting at zero with no knowledge of the game whatsoever is a unique experience.
Recently I was talking to some friends about when I used to play wow back in the day. And after years I realised that I was like a friendly NPC of the early to mid game zones. I liked the starting areas so much that usually I got stuck at around lvl 30-40. All that because I liked chatting with new players, helping with their group quests, showing them the way to the quest that they needed to do since there was no map tracking back then. And eventually all these new players would surpass me at lvls and I would still be back there, the friendly NPC, helping out the new guys, chatting, and protecting them from the attacking alliance since we were on a PvP server. WoW has some really nice places to sit and chat, and trade items and food! ❤
You nailed it! Similar to you, started in 2006 and didn’t know what I was doing and mainly liked to explore every nook and cranny and try to take on every quest. But that isn’t rewarded in WoW, being first to end-game is. I eventually gave in and started caring about my gear score, obsessed over talent builds, installed recount, squawkandawe etc. and really just logged in just to stay caught up on dailies and weeklies before logging right back out for work. I loved what you said about bite sized stories to explore rather than these universal, existential threats to overcome. Maybe things will go that way someday? I’d love to come back if it does and relive the magic!
WoW became so complicated now and with all these countless expansions, it doesn't even feel like WoW anymore. We miss the simplicity of it. Walking around exploring, doing quests and making new friends. That's what WoW was about.
@@Nydust people has gotten toxic in WoW in retail and the mindset is just "me, me, me, me, me" it has to be fast, you can not join a dungeon without it being blasted to bits in no time because people are in a rush. People join in group finder and they leave as soon as the last loot has been looted, saying nothing. There is no WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER spirit. It's just "LET FUCKING DO THIS FAST SO I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH YOU GUYS ANYMORE." At one point i BFA I couldn't join a single M+ as a mage because rogues took up 2 spots because they were so OP and META. The group leaders was just like. "I made thr group, 2 rogues makes it easier for me with group stealth, so bugger off, you are wasting my time.
You described the exact experience that made me fall in love with WoW back when I was trying out the game on a Cata private server. I did most of the stuff you did in terms of exploring, and I got accidentally teleported to the Blasted Lands as a lvl15ish nelf rogue. Since I had no idea what a heartstone was I ended up stealthing my way north towards the "nearest" low level alliance zone I could find on the map. That zone was Dun'Morog, of course. And since I didn't actually know the maps and paths, I ended up going trough the Swamp of Sorrows, Burning Steppes, Searing Gorge and Badlands, slowly and methodically stealthing my way around skull level mobs that would often spot me anyways That was the story of how I as a Night Elf noob found my way to Ironforge and then Stormwind. The next day the one kid at school who did play WoW told me about heartstones lol That little adventure was so much fun I can't remember most of my time raiding or doing mythic+, but I do remember my silly adventures discovering the world, getting lost and stuck, doing random stuff and leveling with the boys
That time when you'd go into a retail game store, seeing the wall plastered with World of Warcraft boxes. I'd flip open the front thingy of the game's box and be all bewildered seeing a dwarf with a flaming sword fighting a yeti. Game was exclusive to credit card users back then, so naturally I was living off of several 30 day 'trial' accounts. Went to play on a bunch of private servers, but despite all the shortcomings (bugs, missing content, etc.) compared to retail WoW, those were some of the best days of my childhood. Ended up settling for a small tight-knit Blizzlike Vanilla server, only for us to get a DMCA roundhouse kick in the face a few months later. By the time I _really_ joined retail, everyone was running AQ, whilst I was still a level 14 Night Elf Druid dancing as a bear and begging for gold in Goldshire. The kid in me actually thought that there was gold to be found in a place called 'Goldshire', but all I got was at most 50~ silver 'for my trouble'. At least my *[Lesser Wizard's Robe]* made me feel all epic and whatnot. It may be naïve to think like this, but truth be told, I blame the disappearance of 'games just being games' like these on the stakeholders and corporate greed. The ancient 'fear of missing out' method has been upgraded over the years to include crap like in-game stores, exclusive mounts/pets/collectables, game pre-orders, character boosters and battle passes, to name a few. It's not about making a game to simply be a game for the sake of being a game. No, it's about making the most buck for the least amount of effort, a classic _quantity over quality_ scenario. Logging back into World of Warcraft after being away for a while gave me a bombardment of in-game mails, telling me that content has been removed and/or changed. Campaign missions are shoved down your throat to throw you directly into the new expansion content, after which you can toss away your old (yet fancy) gear for common rags, transmog aside. Dailies and weeklies are fun if you do them once, not for a gazillionth time. LFG and LFR made it easier to find groups for certain dungeons/raids, but if you've never found the location of said dungeons/raids on your adventures by simply exploring, it's a little disappointing to not understand the story/lore behind the dungeon when you enter it. It's comparable to reading a book for the first time, but instead of starting at page 1, you start at page 200, and the book happens to be the Silmarillion. Ain't that tough luck? Either way, enough ranting from me. I'll try out the next expansion to see if it's any different and hope it'll prove me wrong. But I'll probably end up fishing anyways, like I always do. And that flaming sword I mentioned earlier? Yeah.. never got it. Too busy begging for 'gold' in Goldshire.
Man... it's like you read my mind. I am preaching to everybody I know exactly what you described in this video. For me, WoW was so exciting because all of that: No rails, just a GIANT sandbox / doll house to play with. Sure, you can't explore everything right from the start; maybe you have to gear or level up, but all in all you worded it perfectly. Thank you so much. I hope, sometime in the future, a developer will make a game like WoW 20 years ago... I really miss that.
I've seen hundreds of these types of videos talking about nostalgia and why games aren't fun anymore etc. But your short video about the subject, and WoW in particular, is the only one that I feel speaks to me. The way you spoke about looking around in the rooms and seeing new areas by accident, in-game chatting with people at locations you decided were a good place to meet up. It's exacly how I played back in the day. Some nights we wouldn't even level but just hang out in this world we were in. I also played Anarchy Online like that, we'd sit in bars and listen to the in-game music and chat. It's like we used to play like we were actually a part of the world, you'd actually look at the in-game props, furniture, architecture etc and take it all in. Now all that just feels like it's a backdrop for levelling and content. Thanks for the video!
I was recruited by a friend in MoP. We mostly sat in Orgrimmar and did Dungeons for leveling fast. I dropped my undead warrior at like lvl 72 for a worgen DK. I liked that a little better, but after the first zone went back to Dungeons and kinda quit after the first month. When Classic came out, 4 friends and I started playing together. Always quested together, ran everywhere, explored. No heavy roleplaying, but we would do things like all spit on every gnome we come across. And we looked for beatiful places to take group pictures at. We only ever got to lvl 32 before most of us dropped the game, but I still remember it as one of my best times in a MMORPG. Slow, meaningful progression with world exploration beats optimized powerleveling to get to "the point where the game actually starts" faster any day. Sometimes I look at the screenshots we took and what a great adventure it was.
@@K4113B4113 I was one of the people who just stopped playing. I still play games with these friends, just not WoW. This wasn't about friends fading out, but rather how the leveling journey of classic WoW was a great time! :D
I am in my 50's now, and between 2008 and 2018 i enjoyed wow for aaaaaallll the reasons mentioned in the video! Thanx 4 that. I used to rp in Feralas as a night elf mage and have a ton of fun and relaxation just being in this fantastic world. i really miss those days....I explored all the corners of it, enjoyed just sitting and looking at the view, or doing bg's and arenas with my brother. I hope it is still a good game and i am sure it is,but at one point not being that young and with a child, i just gave up ,Your video took me back to the time when it was just a game for fun. Thanx.
I have so many fond memories of Vanilla... spent a whole Sunday afternoon in BRD with 4 friends, clearing the whole dungeon for the fun of it. Yeah we wiped, we overpulled, somebody fell into the lava near the MC atunement. but it was so much fun. When we found out about the children of Goldshire, some guild friends and I would check in on them multiple times a day, followed them around and we were asking ourselves what this was all about. I was in on of the better guilds on our realm, everybody full T2 and we'd still run Strat almost every day with random players who felt so proud that "the big guys" would run a dungeon with them.... good times! thanks for this video
4:08 THIS!!! I don't want to be "the champion of Azeroth". I want to be just another adventurer going on a small quest inside a huge world without the world being in constant danger. Your first WoW-experience is very similar to mine; I just wandered across the Tirisfal Glades and Durotar and never made it past lvl 20 on my first character. Because leveling wasn't important to me. Exporing a lived in world was amazing, as well as meeting new people online who became RL friends as well! With today's technology the WoW Devs could make a thriving city like Suramar for every capital, but I miss the days where I could just log online and spend an entire evening just relaxing with other players near a campfire while the ingame sun went down.
Its not a game anymore its a checklist. For example quests. I used to chose which quests to do and which zone to level in. Now quests are linear, 3 at a time, and i have to finish all 3 to get the next 3.
We can thank money hungry corporations who realised games make money. Much more money than they could imagine. No game is done with love and dedication anymore, it's just a copy of eachother and everyone is racing to get the most $$$ before shutting down and opening with new clone.
I'm sorry that you are this nostalgia stricken but it's literally the same on old vanilla, tbc, wotlk etc, you have to start levelling from camp X to get quests for camp Y just to get starting quests for zone X and then repeat over and over until max level, after cataclysm they added the board to cities that tell you which zones you can start in that are appropriate for your level and it gives you multiple choices too, stop gaslighting yourself bro
I remember a few years ago, one my mom's friends had WoW ( the pandaria version) on their computer, and i asked if i could play it. At first i stumbled around, but then i realised that this game had monsters ( i had never played WoW before). And then i just walked around the map, searching for creatures and beasts and "documenting" them... it was so much fun. I remember finding the cloud serpent, the mushan, the fish people. I haven't WoW since. Man i wish i could go back
Man when I first played wow that nelf starter zone just hit so different. The music, the zone itselt, so many people running around, just pure escapism
In 2006, I failed my first year at university because of World of Warcraft. At the time, I was studying architecture, and while exploring continents, cities, and game environments, I wanted to one day create video games myself. I still dream about it, but instead of architecture, I work as a 3d artist in the game industry. I haven't played WoW since 2007-2008, I still miss playing it and that feeling.
Sorry, but you have to blame some of this on the demanding players constantly complaining about not having this and that. Does anyone remember how wow used to be? You can go to any MMO forum and see this type of post, we need to have this or This content is too easy. You are so not alone my friend. I started playing mmo's in 2001 and those first-generation games were amazing. But in 2004 wow took the genre mainstream and it hasn't been the same since.
They simply made the game for the .05% of the playerbase. They make it for the hardcore progression guilds. Blizzard forgot about the casual playerbase, the Dad, the guys and gals that work 3 jobs!
@@tipsymallard6952 not even that, i was a mythic raiding 5 years ago, prolly 4, coming back to dragonflight has been a headache and now I experience homophobia when trying to play this game out of nowhere.
@@tipsymallard6952 It's actually the opposite, they've completely made it for the casuals, its basically a single player game now that's easy as shit to gear in and level.
I love that this sentiment is so shared among us players. Each of us has a vivid memory of the “first good old days” in World of Warcraft, especially those of us who, like me, had the opportunity to start this adventure with our friends, and none of us knew anything about the game. We used to say things to each other like, “Watch out! Don't cut through the woods, because there are bandits and it's not safe. Better to follow the road when possible.” Or, “I was in that mine earlier, it took me a long time to get out, but I found a chest with this *press Z* sword in it.” It was a time when every lack in the game was filled by our imagination, and when our PC was not an agglomeration of statistics and percentages, but our very avatar within a parallel and incredible world. Those of us who played WoW back in the days when all this was possible really have something that the new generations cannot have.
beautifully put :) felt the same. I remember the time I didn't understand the word "Mail" and I thought it describes any type of armor I can not wear xD like a "ban"
This is nicely put. I feel exactly the same. I used to have a guild and we went to the in-game pub for chatting for hours. (not voice). We were happy helping each other with low level quests, talking about content they haven't explored yet, showing off our rare weapons,/gears/skills. (Talent tree was different in old time.)
I totally feel this video. Flying kills the discovery requirement and the impact of walking into a new zone initially intended by the OG devs. I was in alpha/beta in 2003/2004, played vanilla through BC, quit in 2008, and came back in 2020. I officially stopped playing in 2023 for all the reasons you listed, but mostly because I realized I can never relive those moments of awe like I did 20 years ago. I wouldn't say I like mythics and raids, but I wanted to explore and hang out in old zones because it reminded me of better times. Thanks for this video!
You should try SoD, it's the most fun I've had in the game in a long time. I think flying is fine, I think a lot of the desire to explore stems from - ironically - boredom, or just having not much to do. Retail has this problem where every gear progression track is an endless grinding treadmill that you won't finish till near the end of the season or raid tier, and then will have to start all over again next patch. Couple that with utterly boring gear that has the exact same stat allotment as the other gear, where even secondary stats barely matter these days, and the utter lack of ANYTHING to do other than daily chores out in the open world, and you get what you've been feeling, imo. I think daily quests (old as they are), are absolutely toxic to the game (though tbf I played through most of BfA, so that's probably why I feel this).
@ethanwilliams1880 I feel you on the treadmill referring to gear. Plus, being casual now, I don't fully understand all the new systems for leveling up gear. Hell, I don't even understand professions. It's also not clear what is good enchants to buy without going to icy veins or a youtube video. Blizzard just needs to make a straightforward product again with common sense progression. Make more than 6 dungeons that only gets more difficult, but not more interesting.
If you want to have that old feeling of exploration and fun, play Project 1999 if you've never played EverQuest before. Gave me the same old experience and taught me about the direction games should go in.
@Jorvalt it's bad for the game because Azeroth flying is what forced their hand into destroying the old world, and frankly what they replaced it with has never been better than the original.
My favorite memories from vanilla WoW was building a campfire and having my guild mates sit around the campfire deciding what to do next. It all just had a different feel. There was a sense of community. We even used to pose together in places like Winterspring for Christmas card photos. Nothing else has matched it, and it’s irrecoverable. Great memories, though.
There aren't enough thumbs ups, stars, or exclamation points that I can bestow. You have absolutely captured what I miss about my early days in WoW. I started a couple years after you, with the release of Wrath, but I still remember what you are describing. I spent hours of chillaxing fun just loafing around with various activities that struck my fancy. I loved fishing. Often, 2-3 of our guild were tasked (we volunteered) with fishing for the weeks raid food. We would get on early in the morning, find a fishing spot, and we'd virtual fish, sip coffee, and chat with one another. Other times I would hang out in zones where I really enjoyed the music and/or the view. Sometimes I would fly aimlessly around places like Shalozar Basin (I really like the music there). Other times we would hang out in Elwyn Forest (again, great music). Often, I would go after achievements and titles (i.e. Diplomat) at a very casual pace. It was nice that I didn't feel hyper-compelled to follow the Yellow Exclamation Point. And for all that is right and good in this world, enough of the catastrophizing and world savior nonsense. Like you, smaller, local (zone, village, etc.) stories and quest lines are more interesting. As you say, be a part of the world. In the world. Well done!
I will never forget the feeling of joy and awe I had when I first played WoW as a Blood Elf priest. The music, the Blood Elf forest, the buildings, the bestiary...Everything was magical to me and I spent countless hours just exploring every bit of the map I could. I also didn't manage to get very far in leveling up, but I wouldn't trade that for the fun I had playing it my way and taking things slow. Good times
im 40 man and i was a priest since 2004 -2015 stoped and returned in private server in lockdown covid 2020 started 21y in colege still i like wow but i get u playin with zoomers feel sad gogog kill bb ty come come bb no social no explorin all tutorials youtube gogo kill then get bored w8 next patch expa etc its adrenaline junkie game and pay to play i miss tbc
Hey there! Thank you for you comment! I'm looking to make a follow-up video showcasing these comments with in-game footage to match, as a celebration of our favorite memories in WoW as a community. Are you open to me featuring this comment?
When I got my Guild Wars 2 friends that love exploring the open world to finally try WoW was when Classic came out, and having them explore a world they had never been in reignited my passion to play to explore everything despite knowing things, and I'd simply tag along to what they found interesting so as to not try to hold them through a linear path. I think WoW should just continue to make expansive zones, and in some ways they've made it a reality; the last time I truly got lost in a map exploring all its secrets and areas off the beaten path was actually Drustvar, as there was a lot of background lore and information you had to go out of your way to find.
A next-gen Warcraft game featuring a fully fleshed out Azeroth that was realistically populated and genuinely felt lived in, with a gameplay and story focus on a smaller scale, would be incredible.
Sadly it wouldn't work the same way. You would have guides 1 week later explaining you how to perfectly play the game (i wouldn't be surprise if it would even be out before the game is released). You could decide to ignore it but you woudn't be able to stop others from min-maxing.
Part of the problem is how we've been trained to play games and derive enjoyment from how well we play them as opposed to just playing them. Gearscore, ranking, parses its all a competition now and its all most of the players today focus on.
Not "most" just the people you associate with. You are likely competitive (so am I). There are a LOT, and I mean a LOT of people in both retail and classic who don't care about any of that. They are the people who often suck at raiding, grey parse, do stupid stuff in dungeons, only use text chat, are in a leveling guild at max level, and just generally play the game however they feel at the time. They are often reviled by the "community" as noobs, bad players, casuals, etc, but they are still the silent majority.
Shoulda listened to pops when he'd come shut your game off. The problem us being a gamer. Not a person that enjoys games, but a person that LIVES games. The problem 100% is always the player, and saying anything else is an excuse to not be responsible for your own actions.
I remember playing on a trial account back in Wrath and I made a friend that brought me to SW. She navigated the city like it was nothing, but to me, it was a sprawling maze of towering buildings. Still fascinates me that I can walk through the city blindfolded now, but was absolutely bewildered as a kid.
I had completely forgotten about getting lost in cities. Thank you for reminding me about how insanely big they seemed the first few times (or how confusing they stayed in case of undercity, there is such a thing as too much symmetry)
What a beautiful video! I can totally relate to this... I have been an on/off, very mediocre player of WoW for many years. I'm preparing to go back to WoW after a 2+ year break, and I intend to do just that - walk around, take time, rediscover the game just as a game. Thank you so much for putting words into something I've been feeling for a long time. I thought it was me - because I'm an eternal beginner with pretty much no ambitions except that of having a good time and immersing myself in the wonderful world of WoW. PS: subscribed!
Frankly… this is a framing problem caused by min maxing and optimizing. We don’t play games anymore and engage in an open ended learning process with slowly and steady growth. We watch videos, hold ourselves to high standards, and grind ourselves into burnout. Impo play some indie games and stop looking at guides, you’ll start having fun again ❤
Could not agree more. Comes down to our own choices. I stopped playing games that only offer the grind years ago and went for more relaxed, usually indie, games and started to enjoy gaming again. There is enough grinding in life as it is.
Eh, I think modern retail WoW next to Wotlk is a stark difference and no amount of framing will change that objective reality. Each xpac they push the levelling journey to be a little faster, and when you remove all that you end up with a slow paced RPG. I think if someone doesn’t like the modern pacing, they should pick up a private server, or maybe they’re just done with the game.
@@TRDiscordian I literally said go play some indie games as in, don’t play wow. Wow for me is only enjoyable to push keys or raid prog, if I don’t hook into min maxing and optimizing there is no game. I totally agree there is very little creative play in modern wow.
@@jamesgphillips91 you said “frankly this is a framing problem” and I disagreed with you. I agree with this comment of course, it’s exactly what modern wow is lol.
My big engrossment experience in WoW was when my very first character, a Tauren Druid named Blawan, got to the Barrens. Mulgore was nice, don't get me wrong but the race intro said that the Barrens was my people's ancestral home and it looked like the African serengeti how cool was that?! I remember doing my bear form quest and being so engrossed, challenging and fighting the lions for no reason just to prove I was the biggest and baddest apex predator of the plains. I remember after getting cat form stalking and chasing the the herds of gazelle critters and hunting the giraffes like the King of the Jungle I was. Then my brother took sole ownership of our shared account when he joined a raiding guild in TBC, and rolled something else when I got an account of my own but I'll never forget those original memories.
Hey there! Thank you for you comment! I'm looking to make a follow-up video showcasing these comments with in-game footage to match, as a celebration of our favorite memories in WoW as a community. Are you open to me featuring this comment?
You really speak from my heart. The good times are unfortunately over and the saddest thing is that today's players will never understand what they are missing because they think it is boring or dull
@@lucasgough288 And how does that affect the overall game? The majority of WoW players never PVPed and Blizzard never gave it more attention than the one new BG or arena they add each expansion.
Games are born from competition. You think chess has survived thousands of years despite its competitiveness? You think "the superbowl" or the world cup, or Wimbledon, or State of Origin are popular because the players are "just enjoying themselves... taking it easy..."?
@@SupachargedGamingnah it’s an rpg. Intended to enjoy yourself in an adventure based game. It’s you vs the game and the competitive portion is an afterthought.
Developers in that same golden age of gaming had a different mindset, they created games with precisely what you describe in mind, just for fun. It struck me when I watched the recent Half Life doc where they brought the old dev team in for interviews. When they describe the reason for quite a few things that ended up being iconic, the reason is like "because we thought it'd be cool/fun". And that type of mentality can be found in so many old behind the scenes dvd's, clips and stuff. From games like WoW, Halo, you name it. The developers were passionate about making a fun, cool game. And that's literally why they added certain things to the game. They didn't think about the things connected to gaming today like social media, monetization, pandering to "the message", keeping players interest, etc. But it's important to remember that often it's not the devs, but rather the business suits breathing down their neck about making the games a certain way and in a certain time. That's why Elden ring was such a success, and the first game in probably near 10 years that captured me in that long lost sense of fascination and exploration. That game feels like it was made for people to have fun and explore in. And I am seeing a trend of AAA games such as Elden ring being massively popular while the cookie cutter AAA games keep underselling. So lets hope gaming can turn around yet. Indie gaming is popping off in a way that's very cool though. I have much more fun, interesting although shorter experiences with indie games than big titles.
Hell yeah man so true! I agree with Elden Ring man, i had the exact same exp with the game.. The only other game i remember like that before was Subnautica for me. I literally don't remember any other games like that in the last 10 years man.. what a shame.
The irony in praising Elden Ring for this when it tossed From's formerly tight level design out the window in favor of an oversized, barren open world full of copy-pasted fluff dungeons and "bosses" that were necessarily reduced to joke status because of the lack of a proper overarching progression curve.
@@lime148 I think the level design of the older games can still be found within Elden Rings legacy dungeons. Meaning places like Raya Lucaria, Stormveil castle, Volcano Manor, Leyndell, Haligtree etc. The massive open world obviously can't be structured like the dark souls 1 map. But I would argue they did a decent job trying. Like how you can enter siofra in 1 zone and come up in a few other zones. And how there are zones stacked on top like in Leyndell. The little copy paste dungeons don't invalidate everything else, they serve a purpose to add exploration content like most open world game dungeons. The dungeons in Skyrim, witcher, AC etc arent all unique in architecture either. I don't think they need to be.
I wondered lately wether I actually still play games or just work through to-do lists presented to me by them. You're giving me hope that it's not me, it's the game. And I felt it everytime I wanted to sit down in a game and couldn't, or when I checked the controls if there's a slow walk option. I didn't realize it was me trying to play around.
I am an older gamer (39yo) and I love the Monster Hunter series, I have started with World and then played Rise. So when I finished those games I went ahead and wanted to see how it all began so I got an emulator and started the first Monster Hunter on the PS2. And boy, the clunkiness, no direction, finding out spots where to mine, where to gather herbs etc. are everything I crave now. I can't go back to modern monster hunter any more. It's not nostalgia I am missing. I miss lack of game design, lack of quality of life. Old games feel genuine because they mimic how reality actually is. When you explore a forest, an abandoned room there are no indicators to go there, there are no arrows and points of interests. You just walk around, slowly, take in the new sights and explore without purpose. This is lost in modern games, it's not toned down, it's GONE. It's all about achievements, progress, and "endgame". They are still games, but they have condensed them down too much.
My GF introduced me to WoW back during Burning Crusade. My first character was an Undead Warlock, running through Tirisfal Glades during the Hallow's End event. I don't know how you can plan a cooler and more fun way to be emersed into a new game than that. Our guild was mostly composed of just a bunch of friends that lived locally, doing quests and raiding but not too seriously. Our guild leader was right down the street. Sense of companionship and comradery was truly exceptional and it really made the game so much fun. Over time, things didn't work out with the GF, I left the server to pursue a passion in PvP which had steadily grew in me. I took PVP really seriously and made it to the top echelons of BG's and Arena titles.... but it just felt empty. It felt like a job to always be learning the new spells and rebalancing, always trying to be on top of the new meta.. I hated that I seemed to be angry about losing more than I ever could be happy about winning. Halfway through Cata I left and never came back. This video and all of the nostalgic comments from so many of the old school players here really just hit me right in the heart. Because now, even 13 years later, I clearly understand that those silly questing lines at the edges of nowhere with your buddies... sitting by a lake fishing and listening to the rain.. farming Netherwing Eggs at 2am while jamming out to a cool new album from your favorite band.... it was the simplicity that made it everything all along. And I wish I could go back to those days and fall in love with that feeling again more than anything.
It's those HC curve clears and the FOMO that comes with them (and the gear dif) that really messes this up for people. Unfortunately, most gamers are slaves to FOMO and feeling powerful, so with how grindy it can be to do those things in retail, they don't find any time to do anything else.
I'm just beginning to embrace that. I'm not a competative person and certainly not quick to grasp all the new stuff constantly being thrown into game. Thank you for explaining that I am not alone, not a failure. The artwork and the music will stay at my top 'joy givers' for me.
I agree. I’ve been keeping a journal of my adventures in SoD so far and I’ve had a blast, making so many new friends and exploring the world trying to find new stuff. I spent 3 hours the other day questing through Searing Gorge with some random guy I found and we’re now friends. I’m gonna probably have just as much nostalgia for these moments as I do for Wow back in the day.
I would literally sell my soul to get a chance to play WOW again but with my memory wiped. To just not know anything about anything. So that at every turn there's something new to see. Something new to fight. To be amazed when I get new gear that i had to work for hard, not just be handed random stat_object#45 just for being in the game. I don't wanna be the Champion of Azeroth but a simple adventurer making his way through a magical unknown world making friends and memories along the way.
I remember being so immersed as a teen when night came. I remember trying out Tauren and swimming in the waters near Thunderbluff as the moonlight made everything glimmer. I haven't played since Draenor. I'm still upset over how bright night is now.
Blizzard explained that a dark night makes people log off. But that doesn't explain why night darkness can't just be a parameter in the game. If toys can do it, then why can't a simple graphics option do it?
you are absolutely correct in this. Most of the time of when I tried to re-play Wow in the recent years was basically just to fuel that nostalgia feeling I had deep down about the good old days with my friends (who were also my classmates and who introduced me to wow), but it almost always failed me, as it only served to help me remember it won't be the same as before. Thank you for this, I still get hit by that feeling every now and then, and videos like this helps to soothe it away.
I still play the game for fun. It's a choice. You don't HAVE to progress. I still do progression but I also still just fly around doing loops especially now with dragon riding every where. I still explore zones that I haven't been to in a while. Like having fun is literally a choice.
This is a great point. I have tried many times to come back to retail and enjoy myself the way I once did. Perhaps the newest version of the game is no longer enjoyable to me. It's a difficult fact for me to face
@@poisonated7467 there are tons of caves and Easter eggs that I've simply never found. Every time I decide to randomly explore I still find something new and I've played a very very long time. Is it the same as a brand new game? No. That doesn't mean it isn't fun just the same.
@@alyssumn3884 It does mean that. That's just micro-exploration. Exploring the little things inside the larger things. Macro-exploration in modern MMORPGs and RPGs is dead. Whens the last time you asked yourself questions like these: I wonder, what's at the end of this road? What's over that mountain? What's over that river? What's beyond this forest? Is there anything on the other side of this ocean? These questions can simply be answered by pressing 'M' instead of forcing you to explore, have an adventure, and journey to those places to learn what the answer to those questions are. So, yes, it does mean you're having less fun than you could be. Not only would you get to explore the big picture, but the smaller things inside the bigger things.
@@poisonated7467 I ask myself "I wonder what's in that cave? It's there an under water tunnel/cave here? I wonder what this random item I can pick up does? Does that book have anything that might be lore related? Exploration means many things to many people. It isn't just about finding every nook and cranny it's about finding every detail placed in said nook and cranny. Clearly these are things you don't find fun. That doesn't mean to a lot of the population they aren't. It's literally just your opinion man. As mine is mine. As the OP's is the OP's
I recall walking into Brill with my first character. I was amazed! I spent at least an hour just going around Brill and looking at stuff. It was a stunning experience! The moment that I remember very fondly 20 years later. The moment I realized what the word World in WoW meant.
I remember being lost in Orgrimmar hahahaha shit was huge… and didnt understand the map.. getting on the ship, pvp’s, dungeons, levels, skill trees, had to discover it all..
I started in BC back in the day as a blood elf and I will forever hold that feeling of wonder and amazement when I first saw Silvermoon in my heart. The sights, the music... it was perfection. I'm not really an explorer at heart, I take no joy in snooping around for the sake of it. But then and there I had a sense of discovery, that I found something that had meaning. Wandering around the city, seeing the elven ambassador showing the horde ambassadors around, it felt like a real, living city. I felt a sense of home that I never had in meatspace. There was also this discreetly hidden place near Shatttrath, a small lake and a few trees atop a small peak. You could only fly there, so it was very much out of the way for both means of travel, since it wasn't even near anything of significance and it blended in nicely with the area. It was a nice place to take people to for more private conversations which, as you said, had to happen in chat rather than over voice. I think that the lack of voice chat allowed more people to open up, since you needed only type out your thoughts, without anyone hearing your voice that could identify you as anything. I also fondly remember the old Warlock quest to get your epic mount (the burning horse). It was a fair bit of work and I had to ask my guildmates for help at the end but it was quite the ride and finally riding around on the new, extremely cool looking mount meant so much more than most other mounts I ever picked up later on.
I've just got into WoW for the first time and you've made me realise that I'm playing the game how you wish you were still playing. I'm exploring everything and reading everything and meeting everyone I can, and I'm going to try and continue to play like that for as long as I can now that I know
Wow, I'm absolutely blown away by the response to this video. I'm humbled and affirmed to see that so many people feel so similarly to me. Thank you all for your comments! Please keep them coming, I'm loving the stories.
What memories or gaming moments of just playing around do you have?
I'm even more buoyed and inspired by all of the stories you have shared in the comments, the vulnerable emotions you've expressed, and the personal solutions you've given and had success with to combat the feelings I have been having.
There seem to be two schools of thought, and I agree with both of them.
On one hand, I can point the finger at Blizzard, as this is the way they've designed things as time has gone on. But they've only designed it this way because I consume the content this way more than I did before. So really it's an indirect finger pointing at myself.
On the other hand, I can point the finger directly at myself. I can combat my own feelings of "not being good enough" or "missing out" or "wasting my time", and return to true and pure "play". If I can get over that internal battle, I can recapture the magic and love and wonder and awe that is presented right in front of me.
So I've been working on doing just that. I am doing some deep exploration in WoW right now, for no other purpose than to have fun. And I'm going to share that here on this channel moving forward.
Join along if you'd like, and thank you all again for your comments!
Great Video! I still spend hours in Mulgore every time I play, fishing and picking flowers with my Druid while listening to the zone music. I love it and it always raises the question "Why do I grind dailys in Dragonflight to get +1 iLvl on my already very nice gear..
Great video, subbed!
I rediscovered a good bit of WoW magic by focusing on internal RP (not with anyone, just in my head) with new alts. Level 50 is where they're safe to tuck into cold-storage (delete, in case I want to un-delete later) and so far I can level a charcter past that point by fully completing two zones. A new alt gets a bit of a backstory, nothing too deep, and I try to find their motivation on which zone to complete, and why. Maybe a profession is involved somehow, or an unusual talent build. No focusing on any kind of efficiency, just immersion.
E.g. My Zandalari arms warrior, whose talent setup centered on bleeds, and practically zero use of Execute. She quested through all of Zandalar and Nazmir, protecting her kingdom from the blood troll threat, trying to serve her king though he remained stubbornly in denial of the depth of the corruption around him.
I've leveled several new characters like that, no heirloom gear, no flying mounts (even through the later Cata zones (Hyjal etc.)), no dungeon groups. I don't know how many total zones there are in current WoW, but if each alt dings 50 before being done with two...that's a LOT of new toons I can make without ever revisiting an area! It's been a very refreshing change of pace.
I really look forward to that series of exploration with you! ^-^ Fun and exploration for its own sake is exactly why most of us fell in love with games in the first place, and I think it's the perfect time for us all to rediscover joy and wonder.
Beautiful video, I subscribed :D
I 100% agree with you and this is why I still play classic wow beside retail. I like both. I like the flashy rewards but I do need these slower paced feelings too
That quest felt like it was speaking directly to me, about the game.
Used to love this place. Left long ago. Im back now and everything feels different and im sad.
Dude my dad is in his 60s and when he heard classic was coming back he asked me to buy him a subscription for his bday. Both of us played during vanilla and Burning crusade times and he said he wanted to "revive" his character. Last i checked he was level 58. He doesnt party up, he doesnt use discord, he doesnt watch youtube videos; all he does is explore, do quests, mines, smiths and will run lower level dungeons solo. I always ask him if he's bored yet every time he just says "Nope". One day I told him hes literally playing the way a youtuber would for a "challenge video" and he just laughed. He genuinely has a ton of fun from just killing mobs and questing. If you see a lone human warrior named "Gutwrencher", say hi 😊
Wholesome :D
Now _that's_ the way to play. Thanks for sharing that. 😊
“Gutwrencher” that’s so cool!
Haha, that's me, I'm just levelling my 8th character since rejoining the game, it is such a massive world now with absolutely tons of quirky content, personally I think Rotan is just choosing to play the game that way. I lol'd last night when I came across the "human seeds quest" for the undead storyline.
Haha yup, exact same thing for my 70yo mother 😁👍
Best line of the video: "I want to feel like I'm part of the world again, not the champion of Azeroth"
The "champion" or "hero" title comes from NPCs we (allegedly) know fairly well. It's fun to do quests for characters who don't know or care who we are. "Oh, you're the savior of Azeroth? That's cute. Are you gonna go fetch me some frog eggs or not??"
"Hey, you there. Yeah you, you who's defeated Old Gods, the Lich King, "Demons", Titans, you who's saved the world over, and over, and over... Yeah, no champion title for you. No recognition from members of the world who have seen your efforts, who know your value... You're just "a part of the world... an adventurer. Just another *dude* ""
@@goalgoldI wish you were able to write your thoughts out better, because some good points are in there, but it’s bogged down by your personality lol… uhh, no insult to your personality intended 🫠
The reason I don't want to be the champion of Azeroth is because that requires more of a suspension of disbelief and is therefore less immersive than the more plausible reality of being one of millions of inhabitants of this world. Every time some quest NPC showers me with the highest praise and acts like I alone am the salvation the whole world has been waiting for, I just can't help thinking "Yeah all I did was click on all the things, pick up all the poo, pillage all the boars and murlocs, just like I was told to do and just like millions of other people did." The whole thing just smacks of participation-trophy generation entitlement mentality.
It becomes meaningless after a while being handed everything for nothing and that sucks the joy out of any experience. That is not to say that I don't feel any sense of accomplishment for some of the things I have achieved in wow. Downing difficult raid bosses or soloing dungeons in current content or timing high M+ keys all feel like I have done something impressive. Getting the Battlemaster title definitely was an accomplishment and knowing that only 0.5% of players have achieved that makes me feel like some sort of champion, just not the champion of the entire universe.
I do not require nor desire to have smoke blown up my ass about how great I am when it means absolutely nothing and my true greatness is actually completely overlooked by these NPCs. Its all just a bit too much and I really wish Blizz would dial it back a bit on the whole telling me how awesome I am. I know I'm awesome. I don't need to be told that by someone who doesn't know. If they could just alter course slightly in this regard I really think it would help their game tremendously.
It's still a weak argument. The major factions in dragon flight that recognize you as champion know you from other adventures. The maruuk, tuskarr and loamm treat you like a tool, does that add anything that deep? Every story in wow puts you as the observer even when you get acknowledged. Y'all just romanticizing the past instead of enjoying the now. I'd argue Old timers wanting to turn back the clock is a testament to how good the wow world is and how is hard to ignore or leave behind
Best description I've heard of modern WoW:
"You used to be a nobody doing heroic things, now you're a hero doing nothing."
Absolutely right
It's kind of a fundamental issue that Blizzard doesn't have an answer to. Nor do I. If the player character is treated as a mighty hero, you miss out on that casual small-time adventure stuff and doing some menial stuff feels jarring. If the player character is instead treated as a random nobody, then the fact that people you have been interacting with for the better part of a decade in-universe feels equally jarring. In most games this is solved by the NPCs becoming more familiar with you as time goes on, but WoW doesn't really have that option because it's an MMO. They'd have to somehow at least double the amount of content at all times to make a "famous" and "nobody" path in all the stories depending on how much your character has been involved with the story so far, but that is completely unfeasible.
Nobody has figured out a workable solution to this, so Blizzard had to just kind of grab one path and go with it.
@@Murzac I think the solution could be to take the path down the middle, which is what the base game and early expansions often went for.
As in, you're still a distinguished adventurer pioneering the world (and possibly into uncharted lands), but you're only just one of the many adventurers doing the same thing.
Individually you aren't necessarily _that_ important to the story, but it's you combined with all of the other adventurers alongside you that makes the difference and moves the plot forward. It's why major story events, if they're in the hands of the players, should be more large-group oriented (usually as part of a raid, notable inclusion to stuff like the Ahn'Qiraj war effort), and the less important, small-time hero deals are for parties of 5 or fewer, or even just solo quests.
That isn't to say you can't have quests that earn you individual renoun for accomplishing a major task solo, even Classic had those, but they shouldn't be in scenarios where they crown you as the one-and-only person to have done something to move the expansion's story forward... that just discounts the fact that WoW is a multiplayer game in the first place.
That's not true! You are a hero farming reputation, so you can finally buy useless garbage and 1 recipe you need to craft a raid item or buff.
Well this, to me, sounds like the same reason American football coaches are paid orders of magnitude higher salaries over amazing professors at colleges. This crazy world seems to care more about rock stars and hero worship than being inspired by ordinary beautiful experiences and people.
I'm 60 and a half, been playing for the better part of 20 years. I've never had so much fun in my life and found more relaxation is when I start a toon, no gold no bags, NADA, just going out and leveling and exploring.
Spoken like a true 8 year old. "I'm 60 ... and a half"
Exactly .... started in 2004 and we just played for fun and loving the exploration :) took a long brake when the need for speed took over from ppl ...and now back again in clasic and classic catalysm :)
Same here I'm 62 and started in 07, I started losing interest with all the new stuff. I'm a classic pro and like you, I also love staring new toons and playing from scratch. I knew that the expansions were not my cup of tea when they started putting Harleys and rockets as mounts. I know it's fantasy but they should have tried to keep in a time period.
Proof that the journey is what is important. This is also the same reason that I usually delete all my characters whenever I go back to a game that I haven't played in a long time (and probably also why I burn out at the same points and take a long break? Hmm.....)
I'm in my early 70's and have been playing WoW for around 12 years. I remember when I got to Zandalar and my Troll Shaman was addressed as "Speaker of the Horde." I rolled my eyes. But from then on, it seemed like I was the only one who could save Azeroth, etc. The worst was Shadowlands, an expansion that almost made me quit. But I decided to keep playing and found that often the side quests, where I helped some farmer save his crops or got some fish for the locals to eat, were more fun. I don't want to have to keep saving Azeroth. I just wanted to be this Troll who travelled around helping people who had to fend for themselves. I've learned that WoW is sort of like a wrench that fits any nut. You can ignore the "Champion" stuff and just quest along, picking and choosing what you feel like doing that day. Happy Holidays to all (I celebrate Yule). Play the game; don't let the game play you!
I think I recall the older devs saying the main character from original Wow was the world itself rather than the player. Something along the lines of that.
Yes, they did.
And it still is if you choose to play that way.
@@bluebyyoufu I agree. I am a college student and don't have time to eg raid but I still have lots of fun playing just by going through the world and doing side quests and finishing storylines. I think people forget you can play the game however you want lol.
@@bluebyyoufusorry I can't choose with linear quests and cutscenes everytime on "the story"
nah bro go do some m+ and grind that rio with toxic people 24/7
I don't remember when it started (I played up until Cataclysm), but I do remember starting to feel a little weird that the game started stroking my ego.
I remember when I played wow in 2007, and I would get nervous when I’d enter a new zone that said “Contested territory” or “Horde territory” I thought I’d stumble upon enemy players and get killed so everything I did I did while looking over my shoulder. The immersion was on another level
this!
I started the same year and had exactly the same experience ... in fact, I gave up my original character, a paladin, and switched to rogue. Not because I wanted to gank everybody, but because I could stealth everywhere I went and felt safer!!
yes! I remember warlock quests with emotion.
This cringe would come from an alliance player
@ you’re gay
Literally my favorite WoW memory was in early Burning Crusade. I woke up super early before work and couldn't get back to sleep, so I hopped on my Forsaken priest alt to grind my tailoring a bit with all the materials I'd farmed on my main the day before. I was in Thunderbluff, near the bank. The server was mostly empty at that hour. My priest checked the mail, collected the materials from my main, and started fashioning bolts of cloth. As I did, the sun began to rise over Mulgore and the city, washing it all in an orange light only visible that time of day.
I stopped making cloth for a minute and just looked out over the grasslands, breathtaken. I walked from the bank to the plateau's edge, took a seat, and kept crafting.
It wasn't the raids, or the plot, or even my own character's personal story; it was that time I was playing as a zombie, knitting, watching the sun rise over verdant green fields. That's the memory that stuck with me more than any other.
Awesome!!! Some of my personal most cherished memories of playing WoW WotLK was just riding through the Barrens mounting my raptor, listening to the album Killers by Iron Maiden... Probably was out looking for some poor animals' fangs or killing kobolds? But ironically what stood the test of time the most... Are those tireless rides all through that desert, which seemed like a waste of time then but now has such a lovely feeling when you just remember it!
Ps.: also shout out to that random guy Floyd Pinkus on Outland. The only NPC whose name I remember til today!
@@Complicaadd0rock ~ been through Tanaris on a mount with no name ~
This is beautiful
Still mad they yanked the TBC era servers away again from us a second time. Cancelled SUB again, most likely for good.
At least I got to play TBC again from scratch a second time, and it was an absolute blast from beginning to end
This was a beautiful sentiment
I have fond memories of logging on during the holidays, enjoying my breaks from school, and sneaking around alliance major cities as a rogue. It was so cool to be able to sneak around and feel like you're infiltrating some enemy encampment, the risk of discovery around every corner. No game will bring that feeling back.
The best quest in dragonflight was the one where you just sit next to a dude, looking out over a cliff, and listen to his story
Agreed
And then you remember that costs $15/month
That was such a great quest
@@minotaur818 If you cant afford it, dont play it.
I dont care to put $15/month + you have so many ways, to pay only with gold.
Gotta stop with these dumb statements., brokass
@@minotaur818 Dude is so broke, he can't even afford $15/month
Flash news: You dont need to put your money for sub.
Can't afford it ? Don't play it.
The best moment I had in this game was when I was fishing with my blood elf in Durotar, near the ships who goes to Stranglethorn Valley. A druid Tauren came near, make a campfire and sitted at my side, starting to fish too. We talked a lot about random stuff of life, when he got sapped. I could see for a moment an ally rogue who did it. Looking the horizon up on a cliff, we saw an army from alliance marching to Orgrimmar for invade. We run like crazy to the city and start to screech in the global mapa warning for the invasion and horde players popped like hell from all directions. The fight was so amazing than horde pushed and trapped all allys inside the bank - and all started with two guys fishing far from the city and talking about life. I wish to live that moments again, was so fun!
Oh man the faction raids were awesome. We were able to sneak into to Ogrimar and cause absolute chaos
I've never witnessed something like this and it must've been so epic 🥹
What an awesome story, thanks for sharing.
This is the kind of stuff MMO's were created for!
City raids are awesome lol. I've been in many.
I agree. I do miss when people played the game for fun rather than treating it like a job. I stopped playing warcraft around the time I noticed people started caring more about gear score than actually enjoying the game. Being just and adventurer trying to survive in the world while exploring it would be great.
Then play it that way. Find people likeminded.
@@Mattorzo83 Do you know how rare those people are?
@@Mattorzo83 If you can point me in the direction of those people, I'd be more than happy to do so.
@@Sanguivore join us on classic hc servers :)
@@millathecat00 I just may consider it! I’ve been thinking of introducing my younger brother to WoW, and I gotta admit that much of that magic lies in the older versions.
It’s been ages since I played but I recently started re-reading the early WarCraft books, the ones written around the time of WarCraft 3. I started playing WoW during the tri-horde push of the alpha. Exploring the world was amazing! Even though you were mostly restricted to certain areas for each build, you could figure out ways to explore new lands. Mountains were accessible so if you tried hard enough you could jump your way to the top and end up somewhere new. I remember seeing Medivh’s Tower for the very first time and seeing what I’d read becoming tangible. Same with the Dark Portal. There weren’t any quests, NPCs, or anything. Just a full world to walk around and explore. All my characters have now been stagnant for over 10 years and I’ve forgotten a lot, but I’d like to jump back in just to experience those times again.
My favorite memory from WoW was sitting in some remote corner of the map, listening to the rain, the waves and the calming music. I wasn’t doing anything, just appreciating the moment in a place that nobody would ever visit.
That's why I level up fishing on all of my characters. I main a Dwarf Hunter and I pretty much explore every area possible within my level range.
I love doing this too. In Outland, I like to find some really remote "asteroid" floating in the air and just sit there, admiring the sky artwork.
Even better with the flying mounts I would spend alot of time in the sheep farm above stormwind because it was peaceful.
I do the same sometimes. When I`m overly stressed, or can`t seem to reset my nervous system, I start WoW and wander around until I find a nice fishing spot and just enjoy the landscape, the calmness, the music and... the peace. It really gets the job done :)
Facts. Farming in wintergrasp with the ambient music playing.
I used to lay down in the bed upstairs in Goldshire Inn or whatever Inn I found in the town I was in and fall asleep before logging out, I miss that.
I still do that😊 I didn’t game until I was 47 years old and married my second husband. My first husband had died and my second husband thought playing a video game well originally it was Xbox and then we moved onto video games would be a good idea and I’ll never forget looking over computer screen one night and seeing elves and beautiful colors coming across the screen as his best friend showed him what a cool game this was. And I wanted this game too, lol. At the time we were both playing the original Star Wars in 2004. so here it was 2005 in February and I also had World of Warcraft and it was so different. It wasn’t boring and every time my character got ‘aggroed’ I a had an anxiety attack because it felt real, lol. I love the game. I still have my original character and I have others. I am 67. And I do like hanging out at the Ruby dragon shrine with my character sitting on the ledge next to the old guy telling his dragon story just looking out. Or doing some simple quest or just going back to do some of my favorite quests with some of my new characters because I really like this game and I’ve been playing it since 2005 and it’s the simple things about the game like my grandson telling me all of the interesting spots he finds outthat most people don’t know about because he’s curious or going back and doing quest I’ve never completed. I agree sometimes it’s just the simple things.
@@barbarakrusen7777 That's beautiful. Thank you for telling your story ❤ Old world of warcraft truly was magical.
To me that seems more similar to as how you probably don't go play in swings anymore even though you really liked doing it as a kid. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from doing it but you still don't do it. It's just kind of how life goes.
@@barbarakrusen7777 I still do it too. Been playing since 2006, though I play much, much less now. Still have my original warrior, still love the music of the zones, and still like to lay down in a bed at an inn before logging off. It's the simple things, like you said.. After almost 18 years, Azeroth is literally the second world I have lived in for many hours of my life.
I love your story, wishing you many more happy hours in WoW.
I have a friend who does that on Remote Realms. He goes by the name "Iamanoob" and his alt is "iamnotanoob"
I gave up on WOW when everyone was suddenly in a rush, I couldn't even watch a cut scene i had not seen without getting booting from the group for taking too long............took all the fun out of it.
To be fair, putting cutscenes inside group content instances is just a horrible game design. Guild Wars 2 also did this with dungeons. Each dungeon has 4 different story modes with little cutscenes between bosses that are genuinely interesting but they are also long and you don't want to keep your party waiting. There's enough dialogues in solo quests anyway.
@@DraconasTenZHG I think the point of the video was to discourage comparing a game based primarily on game design :)
@@DraconasTenZHG That's why I try to solo dungeons in GW2
That's why I mostly play alone at my own pace
There aren't any cutscenes in instances beyond like 15 seconds though...
What a terrific video. You've captured feelings I've had for years but couldn't quite articulate until now.
Wow was my first MMO. I started playing a few weeks after release in 2004 and I was totally blown away by the experience. I was already an adult, with young children of my own, but I was the one who felt like a kid at Christmas when I began playing. So many of my real life friends started playing at that time that I never lacked for people to do things with - and we did everything. Not just quests but also general noobing it up, because none of us had any idea how the game worked or what we were doing.
A good example of what I'm talking about is a story I tell a lot. I was a low-level paladin - level 10 at most - and I was questing in Elwynn Forest. I remember coming to the bank of the river and looking across at Duskwood and seeing that there was a cemetery there. Cool, I thought. So, I crossed the river, avoided the ??-level spiders and wolves crawling all over the place and made it to Raven Hill. Another group of appropriately leveled characters must have been through the area recently, because there were very few mobs around. I made it all the way to the Necromancer's house before all the ghouls in the place started respawning. I was killed instantly and I spawned at the Spirit Healer in the middle of Raven Hill. I knew I couldn't make it back to my body to revive safely, so I revived at the Healer, taking the penalty to my stats. However, every time I stepped away from the spawn point, I got killed by one of the many undead. I revived again and again and the same thing happened, until all my gear was broken and I despaired of what to do. Would I have to create a new character? So I went onto the zone chat and asked for help. Someone asked me, "Why don't you just hearthstone out?" I didn't even remember I had a hearthstone. What an idiot! So I thanked the guy in chat, hearthed back to Goldshire and went on my way.
I was dumb and embarrassed and yet that experience in Duskwood is my favorite experience in my many years of playing WoW. I'd give a lot to do something like that again, but I just don't think it's possible in modern WoW. Truth be told, it hasn't been possible in many, many years.
Thanks again for your video.
Mine too
It's beyond incredible how immersive early WoW was.. No quest helper yet. You actually needed to read the quests and then find your way around this huge new world.
I often feel that a part of my soul will always remain in Teldrassil, start for the night elfs. Spent countless hours walking around simply exploring this dreamy forest with its colourful landscapes. The sound track still makes me feel a special kind of peace that I can't put into words. Feels like I can always go back there and all is fine. Slaying the first creatures, seeing the first mounted guards, giant trees walking around, getting lost and killed countless times in the endless cave of the Furbolgs. Needing a group to finish the cave and meeting my first buddies. Collecting a shit load of herbs for which I didn't have any use for a long time. Walking back and forth between Darnassus and some quest locations. Some people hated it equally to Ashenvalen, as the paths between quests were very long and one advances very slowly. For me it just felt like one giant world that no one actually really knows yet. Just going around in walking speed sooo much added to the experience. Taking that first ferry to a new location.. Great journey indeed.
Epic open PvP in Stranglethorn Vale, Southshore, X-roads, Blackrock massacre.. Attacking cities with hundreds of other players..
Immense questline to finally be able to raid Onyxia's lair together with 40!! other people. Could go on for hours recounting epic Vanilla moments..
Part of WoWs original feeling died for me with the first flying mounts.. It killed open PvP + one flies so fast.. you don't pay attention anymore to surroundings as much. Moving around started to feel more like getting from A to B.. The slow pace made classic WoW so great.. No teleportation to a Dungeon unless a warlock + 2 would go there. Everyone riding around. It filled the world with people that later got empty as everyone just teleports..
Congrats to anyone that actually read all of this!
I feel the same way about teldrassil. It’s definitely an immersion dragon I’ve been chasing in games ever since. Trying to make a NE Druid in Hardcore was a nice, consistent, traumatic return to teldrassil.
On your point of flying. I loved flight form in druid for the ability to wpvp - drop out of the sky in bear form and charge from the heavens, but I agree that it shrinks the world massively.
It makes me think TBC should have had more (any?) aerial threats around Outland. Certain areas that force you to ground.
"Epic open PvP in Stranglethorn Vale, Southshore, X-roads, Blackrock massacre.. Attacking cities with hundreds of other players..
Immense questline to finally be able to raid Onyxia's lair together with 40!! other people. Could go on for hours recounting epic Vanilla moments.."
I miss all of that. Vanilla was truly the best time. BC was good too. Flying mounts made PvP more fun at the beginning. But then it just became about who could do aerial moves better. I used to point the camera straight up as I mounted after getting back to my corpse so I could fly straight up fast and get away to regroup. Fun times. But the best PvP was world PvP when it happened organically.
As it is now the game feels like a shopping mall. Where you just choose which designer items you want and teleport to the area to get them. There is no sense of community anymore. Its just rush rush rush.
Hey there! Thank you for you comment! I'm looking to make a follow-up video showcasing these comments with in-game footage to match, as a celebration of our favorite memories in WoW as a community. Are you open to me featuring this comment?
It's like reading my early experience. WoW at the start had a soul. Tedrassil forest and the soundtrack felt like I was teleported to some magical land. I remember eventually taking the boat across to... Dark shore(??) and being overwhelmed by feeling of dread how dark and depressing it was in compare to Tedrassil. And I knew that I was not a "little elf" anymore and I had to face the darker places. But then I got to Ashenvale and was yet again greeted by magic and wonder. This game's world was so amazing!
Ahhh Teldrassil… the dream land
I miss when I could join up with a raid and just do the raid. Now it's like "LFM for ICC. Need 2 DPS and 1 Heals. Meet in Dal for gear check." and then when you get there and pass the gear check they check your achievements, and double check your stats on some random-assed website. And then, if you pass the application process you can join the raid after they spend another hour and a half checking people's shit. I shouldn't have to go through a job interview to play a 20 year old game.
All of this checking just to play a game lmao the min maxing people ruined wow
So true, I miss when the raid leaders didn’t give a fuck . Yes there wipes but there were kicks, and drama . Everyone wants to just fucking one shot everything after maximum preparation, boring.
Yep.
Get 40 random people, charge in, have fun.
Die, almost certainly. Cool. Maybe one day you actually beat it and it's a victory of true proportions.
You forget to read excel before raid :-D
The gear and achievement checking was a thing back in original Wotlk also.
I used to RP walk in and around Stormwind all the time back in vanilla, I would walk around Ironforge and check out all the rooms too :) I would spend hours "playing the game" and get nothing done in terms of progression just enjoying the new things and cool places
Because it was something new… never seen before… now IF is there for 18 years… I’m pretty sure you’ve already seen all the rooms.
I remember coming home from my college lessons and just fishing for a hour to relax in Mists of Pandaria.
@@martin9202 I like to do the exact same things around the Dragon Isles too :D
There are a lot of interesting things and hidden easter eggs
you act like that's hard to do in dragonflight. I get nothing done in wow by spending hours slaughtering the auctiion house in stormwind now. feels great. no one is forcing you to do content you don't care about. no one is stopping you from making your own fun. I see so many statements like this, "I miss x,y, and z" when x y and z are still available and you're no longer interested in doing them. you don't miss it. if you did you would still do it.
Played hunter in vanilla and I spent so much time in Duskwood just 'playing' the game like you said.
Dude- I don't know how you did it, but you evoked such an emotional response in me. This video is now 5 months old and I just ran across it. I feel so exactly in tune with you on every level. I'm 54 years old and have played on-and-off since Vanilla. But your video is exactly WHY it has been ON-and-OFF. I have played every expansion, but after a while in each expansion I get so burned out with all the new content, new levels of talent trees, new gear, and everything you so perfectly described. I find myself playing Classic just as much or more than Retail. And those nostalgic sensations - I will NEVER forget the first time I flew into Ironforge. I was blown away by this game. And that's the thing I miss the most. I am not BLOWN AWAY anymore. I'm frustrated and confused. I know this game NOW is geared toward a different player than myself and I don't fault Blizzard for that - they have a business to run. I'm just glad I can still do a little simple grinding in Classic and actually make money in the AH for my time. It's a different game now and I don't really get to explore like I did. So, I log out and log into Classic and relive the good-ol-days. Thanks for making this video. I really connected with it and I'm glad I'm not alone.
This video really spoke to me.
Some years ago I started a guild with the sole purpose of playing the game like a game and not a job. I had no addons and I encouraged a lot of new players to do the same. I just wanted to meet people and have a good time. If you are reading this and you are a new wow players just chill and play the game HOWEVER YOU WANT. Wanna be a fire mage, be a fire mage, want to run around dun morough killing leper gnomes, please DO THAT. Don't let your happiness and wonder be squashed by the elitism and cynicism of this player base. You are playing the game just right!
Ah, where were you years ago my friend! I'd have joined instantly. I've never used addons nor never will. I stopped doing dungeons and raids early on because folks were way too uptight about it and very nasty quite often. It's a game/hobby that I'd played to have fun! Not worry about perfect builds or grinding for epic gear that became junk when the next expansion came out. Keep it up!
Sadly, guilds like yours don't last long. I did the same but my guildies always fell prey to feeling inadequate when they ran with other people or they just gave into temptation since playing without any conveniences is pretty tough once you are used to them. In the end, my guildies had all gone against the basic concept of the guild by OCDing on BIS, best spec, and meters so I disbanded so they could play the way they had chosen. Hopefully, you had a better outcome.
@@ashphoenix406 I believe mine would have met a similar end. I could see the effects you mentioned already taking place. They were starting to get more focused on meters and downloading their own addons.
In the end, I can't make people play the game I want them to play. If you want to play with meters and be the best go be the best, but don't be a douche when people don't meet your expectations in a video game. People in my opinion just use it as an excuse to feel better about themselves and I think that is one of the main reasons new players don't try wow. The player base can be a bit too toxic.
Do you still have that guild? I would love to join. Just sit and talk in guild chat, do dungeons in slow phaze etc
i remember getting my first riding wolf and just spend days riding around and explore the world
Same. My Black Hawkstrider will always be my favorite mount and that I still use whenever I decide to give wow “another chance”
Recently I've returned to WoW after 10 years of absence. Back then, I've played together with my ex, we rushed forward, clicking through quests without reading them, getting achievements and running through dungeons as fast as we could. No fun. This time, I'm taking it slow, nothing and no one is chasing me, when I got to Stormwind, I ran around the town for 2 hours, looking everywhere, chatting with NPC's, when I came across a tombstone in the cemetery, I've opened up the wiki to read who the character was. Now I'm in Stranglethorn, I've transmogrified my costume, to look like a jungle explorer, I'm running around all goofy, fighting raptors and catching pets, I can't recall the last time I've had so much fun with a game (probably The Witcher 3 in 2015). WoW is phenomenal, but only, when you don't let it FOMO you, and just relax.
I came to the comments to say basically the exact same thing. I've spent the past year working on Loremaster and making an alt for each section/expac I complete so that I can at least use Chromie time to quest through each area until I'm level 60. And it's the best time I've had in WoW in... a very, very long time. Since MoP actually, when I quit because I realised I spent 90% of my time AFKing in the city hub, so I've been gone from WoW about as long as you have too. All my friends quit so it's just me now. And man is it relaxing to just play it solo. I don't care about raiding anymore. I just want to relax. And there's a lot of ways to do it honestly, but a lot of people get really bogged down with progression and raiding that they don't see it.
@@enchantedecho57 Yeah! And now Darkmoon Faire is back, and I'm having a blast :D It's funny, it's jolly, I was flying through the fiery rings, and now I have fiery wings :D
This is the way.
Wow.. this is like the best comment I've read so far about World of Warcraft. All my friends stopped playing with me because I decided to read the quest texts. I did like 5 quests when they did 10 in the same time. But it is so much more fun. Get 10 leather? Sounds lame but I know why I need to get them and the quest after I need some salt because I know they need the salt for the leather. Everything makes so much more sense now. When I see an npc standing somewhere alone, having a unique name I Google them and read the comments about this npc, why he's there,what's his lore etc.
Wow became for me what driving my bike is : I'm not driving my bike to get to the destination. I drive my bike to drive. Arriving is just the topping of the cake.
Sounds like a huge waste of time
Ya, miss the feeling of this game when first playing, played for 5yrs straight, took break, came back for a while and haven't played it in over 15 years, kinda sad. Was an awesome game at its time.
I used be a guild leader. I also was one of many raid leaders in the guild.
We used to know each other in the game. Every one of us. A friday night or saturday we had some call out in the guild chat asking if people wanted to do a raid or something. There was always people ready to sign up. Not only because they needed the gear, but for the fun of it. It used to be alot of fun.
I still have alot of screenshots from up when we 'finally' beat Arthas in ICC and we all are flocking around his throne.
It used to be a blast
That guild is long gone. People stopped playing or moved on to other servers or games.
Now Im in a guld I dont even know the name of.
Im a nobody in there. After hitting the highest level someone just throw a guild invitation on me and I accepted.
No one is speaking in the guild chat, nothing happens, but still im cool with it.
So much to do these days anyways just to keep up with the game.
And the more there is to do, the more boring it somehow has become.
I play when I have time. Im no longer longing for it like I use to.
I used to love these simple things like shoting spiders in Evelynn forest or killing troll mobs in Dun Morogh. Whre ever step was an adventure and where I know ever corner of the map. Just running around and exploring things and killing small mobs.
Today Im flying around on a huge dragon fast as lightning. Not so much on the ground no more as in the early days.
And the mobs I kill today was considered elites before. A dragon here, a dragon there. No biggy. We have been killing Titans and battling old gods, so what is a little dragon in comparsing?
Yes. I miss when Wow was just a game too
we all do buddy
I miss taking group pictures at the end of the raids. People asking to wait to take the screenshot because they wanted to wear the new items they looted. I have so many stories of defeating bosses in the most goofy and inefficient ways, because we did not had any guide to do that.
Yeah, now it's you have to be there every Thursday, tuesday, wednesday, sunday, friday monday and you have to have all your stuff prepared or you will not join any raids. Because nobody cares you have a 9 to 5 job.
I miss when the world of wow actually had players in it. Now the world of world of warcraft is mostly if not completely empty.
I know the feeling, pre-BC I was in a guild on Korialstrasz that everyone knew everyone else and guild chat was nonstop, I played for hours on end just because it was fun. Getting help on my lvl 20 lock to do the quest for my void walker because running the swamp was suicide by yourself or running strat and dire maul over and over to get pally and lock mounts for guildies. That was fun. Now when I play everything is solo even raids.
This is why we love starting new characters. I love a new character until somewhere in the 20s - 30s when it starts to feel like a job.
It dosnt feel like a job
Just the way you are playing you yourself make it a job.
True🤔
@@sonicartzldesignerclan5763 the problem is it is designed to encourage you to start playing like that.
@@sonicartzldesignerclan5763 gaming has become a job that YOU pay to do now...honestly the end game of wow I came in at tbc....was just a chore not fun grinding to get epic gear to go raiding I just jacked...Theirs more to life than one game...other games and actull life...I mostly play retro now and some new games, but I see new games and how they've been ruined if its not micro transaction its a never ending game...I like a good amount of time in a game but I want a conclusion to it...playing a game to narrative completion and if I want the side stuff...but not hundreds of hours of side stuff its stupid...and now open world so big its like traveling in the real world...the balance in games for fun has gone...
That is a game design issue. If the game isn't fun until you hit 60, then they need to focus more on the leveling aspect and make it more engaging.
I remember back in 2005 how getting a mount was a thing.
Guildies would borrow gold for you to get your first mount at level 40 and it was pretty damn hard to have 90g at that time.
Even harder to get an epic mount costing 900g. I was lucky enough to drop a Krol Blade at level 50 something and sell it for something like 1k gold (it was the best BOE weapon in the game). Used the money to buy my swift raptor. It was such a huge achievement. Definitely felt more imersive than nowadays.
Yes!!!!
Yep, that first mount was so hard to get. Back then I was using Thottbot no addons to level and I finally made it to level 40 and I had no money. I farmed rock elementals and sold the items to a vendor in the Badlands until I had enough gold to get my first mount. There was such a sense of accomplishment when I got that first mount. So many alt chars, so much time wasted doing random stuff not knowing how to level, etc. It took a long time for me first get to 40 and then to get the gold for the training and mount.
he was out there selling greys to vendors for his lvl 40 mount hahahahha some heroes just wont wear anything at all right?!😂
Ooof, I remember how I was around level 40, standing around Orgrimmar offering to boost people through dungeons for some gold. When I was about 5 - 10 gold pieces away a higher level player rode up to me, handed me the rest of the gold and told me to enjoy having a mount. I think it was an undead rogue or something similar. I was over the moon finally getting to ride around on my badass Raptor which I truly treasured. So when I needed to head back to Tanaris to level up, did I take the flight path? Hell no, I took my raptor all the way.
Reminded me of the time an epic staff called staff of Jordan I believe? dropped for me on STV, and I had sold it to someone I quested with for 2G or so, only to later discover it was worth so much more.. Ah but I'm glad if he made use of it at any case :D
Wow, I feel this so much. WoW used to be my escape-just wandering, discovering hidden spots, and getting lost in the world without caring about numbers or efficiency. It’s crazy how easy it is to get caught up in performance and min-maxing instead of just playing the game for fun. Sometimes I miss those simple, aimless adventures. Here’s to hoping we can reclaim a bit of that magic. Take care, and thanks for putting this feeling into words!
To this day, nothing beats the experience of playing WoW for the first time.
Waking up in Deathknell, wandering around Tirisfal Glades discovering what happened to Lordaeron after the events of Warcraft 3. Eventually trailing into Silverpine Forest and then Hillsbrad Foothills as I explore how the undead survived and are struggling to thrive in this land they were left in.
I miss old WoW so damn much. The whole "HERO, PLEASE SAVE THE WORLD. HERE'S A LEGENDARY MAGIC ITEM THAT ONLY YOU (AND EVERY OTHER PLAYER) HAVE!" just doesn't cut it for me...
Its not about worlds or worldbuilding anymore...its about wallets and stock prices... numbers and cents.
When I played Horde for the first time, I chose an undead. I thought this faction has the most fascinating history. And what you described is exactly what I experienced. You were a nobody in a massive world - and that was part of the spicyness. Now you are the HESSHOAT ... the Holy-Eternal-Sacred-Super-Hero-Of-All-Times
@@julianosvonskingrad7009 Yeah, this "Oh Hero, please save the world you are nearly a God!" trope does not work for me.
It's the reason I like Helldivers 2 so much. You're no ultra-elite soldier, you're just another cog in the war effort...
My top 3 first time's are world of warcraft, MDMA and sex, in that order.
I hear you. My first WoW character was an undead Warlock. Exploring Tirisfal was amazing, and discovering the Undercity for the first time was one of the best early experiences I had. The best part about that was I never knew it was there until I randomly found it whilst exploring. Nowadays, everything is so railroaded that it's almost impossible to just...explore like that.
As an adult, I always struggled to sit down and play World of Warcraft again, even in it's Classic Vanilla incarnation across the different private servers I've nudged over the years. Though I have stuck to Turtle WoW these days, I realize from this video that my anxiety to play probably comes from all this min-maxing, end-game, time-efficient ideologies that took my inner child hostage.
Maybe I can rediscover that simplicity, let down my expectations, and go on a simple adventure again. Oh, the joy I can imagine. I forgot that's why I play video games - to have fun. Not stress over a fantasy.
Update: I've now put together a LAN party for my friends to play WoW together in the same room. We want to play every week with the sole purpose of just having fun and nothing else. Looking forward to this every Saturday when we can get together.
I hope you do friend. I struggle with this too. OMG I'm not doing the most efficient route, etc.
Wow are you me?
Very well put, i can definitely relate my friend ❤
Well said... for me TWoW is the only WoW experience that still does it for me.
''min-maxing, end-game, time-efficient ideologies'' Bingo
One of the most notable things ive seen mentioned recently is that WoW was, whilst a game, and an accessible one for its time with many positive qualities, was also many peoples first real "social media", and that impact on people is something that can never be recreated.
Spot on.
Barrens chat babyyyy
@@oldsaddad7274 Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
Now you join a group, people just plow through whatever dungeon, don't speak at all, finish, que for the next one, like why are yall playing this mmo and not talking to each other? Not talking to the other humans behind their characters? Socially stunted even in the game now!
@@kevinleewilliams5119 nothing to do with any of that, people have just optimized the fun out of games to maximize carrot getting
That's the thing: no one has a clue. They can develop a game so complicated that no one has a clue-no guide, nothing. Everyone has to explore everything! Nowadays, you can find every piece of information. We need puzzles again, lots of dead ends that lead nowhere, etc. Now, you see exactly where the quest starts, where you need to go, what you need to do, and where to turn it in. They need to make a game where you only get the minimal information and are left in the dark, having to find your way back out. Players have become more skilled, so the games should become harder. But instead, they’ve made them easier, which doesn’t make sense. The better the players get, the harder the game should be.
But those days won’t come back. That’s just nostalgia! You can’t turn back time.
I remember the days that if you opened a ticket, within the hour, a gamemaster would answer.
And most of the time not by wsp you, but actualy sending their personal avatar to you...
It was almost like ... if the gamedevelopers cared about their gamers...
they would actually go and meet you in game to
If the $15 dollar a month subscription fee kept up with inflation, you would be paying $25 a month.
If you play Classic, you will NOT get GMs like you used to. You're not paying for them.
Even if we paid $25 a month, and got GMs back, they would all be toxic wokies who know nothing about the culture that spawned the game.
During Cataclysm and Mists of Pandaria, I would about every six months or so, open a ticket for a GameMaster to deal with. But instead of a problem I was having, I would ask them to congratulate the developers and everyone else for making a spectacular game.
Man, this is so nostalgic. I think a lot of people relate to you. I remember me and my friends in 2004 buying a copy of the game, then we sat around a round table in some cafe and decided what class and race each of us would be, almost in an rp manner. Good times
There was really so much potential left on the table with vanilla. They had multiple zones that were unused, multiple parts of the book storyline werent explained. I really do not think they needed to portal us off to draenor in BC as soon as they did.
I am sad I never got to play classic without cata during the reboot. Oh well
I started playing WoW two weeks after it came out. All these years later, I absolutely feel that the first 3-4 years were more fun than any year since. The first two expansions, my friend and I stood in line at Game Stop at midnight to get them. We were so excited to get home, pop in those cd’s to load it up and check out the new areas. The game was balanced and we didn’t have to worry about crazy ability rotations. The story line and quests were interesting. Gaining ten levels took almost two weeks. You felt like you really accomplished something.
Everything you said was spot on! Thanks for giving me pause to reflect on how much fun I had back then and remembering all those old guildies in For The Lose on Llane.
Yeah I used to think that the games at fault. But really its our society that has changed. People have gotten used to bad games that they no longer care about the quality. Before we valued value for money etc, alot of politics in game reviews. today people are selfish and narcissist. And nobody cares about anything. Most zoomers ik have turned into antisocial doomers.
Yeah idk if it's nostalgia (probably partially) but Vanilla and BC are easily top 3 favorite periods in gaming ever. I had a really engaged guild that I made friends with a bunch of random people (something I've tried and never been able to replicate since). I think WoW was really in unexplored area of gaming and it was just something nothing will ever be able to replicate again. We didn't have 25 websites telling us how to build our characters or how we should min/max the game... we just built a real community and helped each other. If you were too young to experience it, I'm sorry, you truly missed out on one of the most unique gaming experiences that will ever exist.
just play turtle wow man it's just here and free ! the best version of wow
This is why my motto is, "I'm here for a good time." I always keep that in mind whenever I'm playing, and I start thinking about what's "optimal" or whatever. I go with what makes me happy and what's fun to me, because that's what's important.
Yeah I've been doing that, makes it so much better
Throws me into a legitimate depressive spiral when I contemplate the old times playing wow.
Sitting in my room, South Park on the TV.
Running through hillsbrad, killing yetis with my older brother. Both of us completely unaware of how to progress or do anything meaningful. And suddenly a blue pole-arm drops, we both lose it.
Fast forward to my first ever raid on my hunter. Saturday morning ZG. Struggle to log into vent, met with a bunch of older guys laughing and joking. Step into the raid absolutely dumbfounded at the scope of the place.
Clear 2-3 bosses before we start perma wiping on the tiger boss or whichever.
Didn’t matter, everyone was vibing, and we all went out and messed around outside Org dueling after the raid. No insta raid logging, no anger really.
It was legit a game, but man it’s crazy HOW integral it was in my childhood.
And honestly, it’s probably never going to be close to what it was.
Really sad, gotta move on I suppose, just having a hard time not constantly falling back into these nostalgic depressive stints.
SOD was a good idea, I enjoy the fact that the dev team seems to be trying, but it just feels like wotlk or even slightly retail to me.
Idk man, vanilla WoW was just a great time.
Play "Turtle WoW" with me. Its the best.
@@Shokisan1 You are associating a period in your life with a game. What was good was carefree life you had back then.
You have to try and chase new experiences instead. As tough and sad as it is to realize, you can't recapture the good old days. It's impossible. But you can try to make new good old days. But the thing is that you don't know when they're happening until it's past. I'm similar to you I think. Very Nostalgic and can get depressed about it. But my only advice is to look back and treasure the memories but also allow yourself to make new good memories.
@@Kings_Crossing bro you are 100% dead on.
I have a family now, we’re having a great time, I just definitely need to refocus every time I get in these stints.
Life seems like it has phases, go figure. That phase of my life was great, and instead of dwelling and being depressed I have to focus on new experiences like you said.
I’d bet my life on the fact that 20 years from now (if I make it that long) I’ll be looking back at this current time with nostalgia as well.
Off to go hit the gym actually. Have a good day bro.
@@maxpowers4436 you replied to the wrong person. Turtle wow is going on now. It's the best. No more nostalgia. I'm living the dream.
My best memory of wow was during tbc. I was fishing in a quite isolated zone and suddenly a female elf approached me and I realized that was the very same person who joined a dungeon with me days before and had fun together. We stayed 3 hours fishing and chilling and unfortunately that person left the game weeks later, but that memory is still dear to me. Streamers basically ruined the whole videogame experience. Such a shame.
I would argue that Esport wannabees ruined gaming, not so much streamers (although streamers definitely contributed). All everyone cares about now is rushing to max level, rushing to the best gear, clearing the hardest content as quickly as possible. Everyone wants to get 100 parses on the highest keys. It's pathetic. They take the game more seriously than they would a job. No one plays the game for enjoyment anymore.
@@PurplePaperPrius that's also true and also agree regards the lack of enjoyment people find in playing mmorpgs, or just a simple game. FF14 for me was the last experience and people in raids didn't even want to give new players a single minute for watching a cutscene.
I remember walking through Mulgore just visiting the little huts all over the place.
I would also always make a point to find a bed in an inn and having my character actual sleep in the bed prior to logging out
Oh yes...I forgot about that, the feels.
Yes me too!
I remember when i see the scene of it. How beautiful it was....
I still this do in Swtor sometimes. But instead I meditate.
i always slept before loggin out at razor hill...
You are absolutely correct. I'm a game director and dev and the design and entertainment standards have changed quite a bit in the last 20 years. Many developers and publishers are so worried about players dropping due to frustration or empty zones, that everything started to be on rails, with redundant communication of what to do and tons of progression systems to "fit every player" and not give you a single breath. Then the game starts to play you, rather than you playing the game.
As a response, many players are jumping into citybuilders, metroidvanias, roguelikes and the indie scene... etc, which is our bet.
I mostly play WoW but sometimes I just want to log off and build/decorate a home in The Sims. And I don't fall for buying a bunch of xpac and "stuff" packs. I DL a lot of player-created content. I find it relaxing. No goals, no "resets," no "hitting the cap" to take advantage of every minute. Just . . . creative play. I hate the very fast-paced content drops in WoW. To me THAT makes the game feel like a job. I HATE the new FOMO elements they are putting in. (I gave up on Plunderstorm after finding out how not-at-all-fun it was).
I was at a bar several years back, chatting it up with someone who ended up being a long-time dev for a certain AAA studio. He lamented that there was this constant pressure to design around players not dropping, and he asked what game I was throwing myself into these days. When I told him it was Death Stranding, he genuinely thought I was trolling him. When he asked how t f I could possibly enjoy a game where I’m delivering packages 90% of the time, I told him flat out that it felt amazing to play a game that felt totally off the rails and unpredictable.
City builders are great not gonna lie, gamers are often creative and those types of games allow you to just do whatever you want and that's a game people like, doing what you want, instead of the game forcing you in a path, a build, a meta etc.
That explains so much!
I've also worked as a dev and I find this comment to be spot on!
Modern WoW has become so deterministic that it became authoritarian.
Going off the beaten track isn't nearly as rewarding as it was on Classic.
As such the product ultimately commands the player instead of the other way around.
Wouldn't go as far as to say that the player *is* the product but yeah it definitely plays you.
My first character was a NE druid. Started in Teldrassil, and for the first 30 minutes, I was literally just zooming in on the trees, and squirrels and such. And the Ancient Protectors walking around everywhere. It was so epic to me. I remember hitting level 20 after about 2 weeks or so. Leveling was not an instant kind of thing. At least not to me. I also remember doing the corpse run from wetlands into Ironforge when I was level 16. Anyone else remember that, especially anyone who mained a Night Elf? Once I hit IF, my friend(who introduced me to Wow) showed me the Tram. I was blown away experiencing the Tram travel to Stormwind. And then I spent about a week in Duskwood. I remember when Stiches was making his run for the town, and 10 people had to get together to take him down. It was such an experience. I haven't experienced that kind of fun in WoW in years. I miss those times.
Christ remember spending a good 20 mins just to get back to your body as you've died somewhere you can't reach!
@@monkeynuttz3970 happened to me in stranglethorn while doing one of Nesingwary's hunts. I think i eventually just accepted the rez sickness because i was so frustrated.
brother yes, NE warrior was my first character that i still have till this day. i completely relate to the iron forge run from the boat from darkshore, and how back in the day there were no guides and no youtube videos just your homie telling you where to go and you hoping you'd find it. the tram blew my mind also, my friend and I would go back and forth about how we could possibly find a way to get into the deep sea area that you'd see in the middle of the tram path. im blessed to have experienced all of it as a kid, it was just pure unadulterated exploration and wonder
im still salty that blizzard burned down teldrassil and darn, i'd fly over there and just run around if I ever felt nostalgic back in the day
This was my first WoW experience too. I was just so amazed at everything in Teldrassil.
I think I recall getting a flight from some place in Teldrassil to Darnassus and back several times because I wanted to keep looking at this world from above. The music and ambience and visuals had me beyond shook. It was literally like living in a dream.
One of my first characters was a Gnome Warrior and I did the corpse run in the opposite direction to play with a Nelf friend.
My very first was an Undead Warlock that ended up taking the Zepplin to Stranglethorn at no higher than level five. It was a demo account and my crappy PC was lagging like crazy as I failed to dodge tigers. Goes without saying I didn't buy the game til a few months after that.
You put it in words, I am absolutely with you on this. I loved it that my character was "just a guy", one of many, in this world. I would hang out in UC on the bridges, taking in the music and the vibes. Being a Rogue, I just had to sneak in every corner of places to explore or sit in stealth somewhere between enemies and critters, just watching the scene.
My hearthstone was for A LONG time in the tavern of Brill - because I loved it. I would go offline there, a bit like "going home".(And as Brill was destro - ehm, ... rebuilt, I took that personal.)
Boy, I miss all that. And I am so surprised how many of you did like those parts of WoW as well!
Anyway, thank you for this video.
There are two things I remember vividly from my early TBC days.
1st story was when I met a random druid and a shammy - we all were just vibing in travel forms in Stranglethorn Vale and randomly started chatting up. We then discovered that all of us are new to the game so maybe we should start a party. We chatted for like 3 hours after that and then each week we would do "DISCOVERY" time which consisted of us going in our travel forms to various locations and mostly trying to enjoy the views with strategy planning so we all survive.
The 2nd was me and my guild of casual players (my two buddies were also there) were doing parties in bootybay Inn getting smashed and talking on team speak about our plans for the week both in game and irl.
Man I wish I have this back. I hope all of you folks are doing great wherever your journey took you! :)
Vibing ? Dude that’s new speak if u OG
I remember when I left Valley of Trial for the first time on my troll hunter and discovered the sea. I spent hours just swimming around those sunken ships trying to find treasure.
This is one of my strongest core memories. Swimming around echo isles collecting tiger pelts. Rushed home from school and i knew my 2006 wow fresh install would have been done updating and ready to play. Played for 7 hours that day.
@@farhanbaig404 those were the days man. I remember doing the tiger quest and stumbling on the trolls who were in the scary ruins. Felt like Indiana Jones
My memories of such are bound to Silverpine Forest. Cursed, gloomy mystic woods. Ravaged villages, crushed fortifications, with a magic bubble in the middle of the map. That was so fantastic, even if most of my discoveries were simply dead ends. No rush, no git-gut. Pure adventure to post-apocalyptic Azeroth.
To "play" vanilla now in a guild I must have 2-3 spreadsheets, raid schedule, voice comm, optimized build and gear. The PvP scene has always been minmaxed to a degree, but now it's critical due to almost 20 years of datamining, research and calculation.
I guess, the main issue here is, we can't slow down information spread. There always will be few, who invest their time to figure out what's "optimal" even before an update releases. And they share the info publicly. Ppl get used to listen their FOMO urges, so the info became a trend in a day.
Overall atmosphere has changed since 2004. Players don't want to get fun anymore. Consumers want to be "successful" in the game.
Hey there! Thank you for you comment! I'm looking to make a follow-up video showcasing these comments with in-game footage to match, as a celebration of our favorite memories in WoW as a community. Are you open to me featuring this comment?
@@RotanWarcraft it would be an honour 😇
My first WoW character was a male orc hunter. Lol. I'm female. I was just strolling around, having fun.
Fast forward, I was playing 8+ hours a day during college, healing class leader for my raiding guild, constantly grinding, grinding, farming, farming, professions, raid videos, rated PvP...I would have my guild leader calling my cell to see where I was if I was MIA. It literally became a job.
I have such nostalgic memories of wandering the zones, especially at night, PRIOR to cross-server realms, where you could truly feel alone. The music, the visuals, alone in my room, totally immersed.
I basically quit after the panda thing. Returned briefly for a couple other expansions. I remember thinking, after queuing for world bosses, getting lumped into "raids" with dozens of strangers I'd never see again, just to melt a boss in 3 minutes flat, collect our loot, then bail...this isn't the game I knew. This is just consumption. Impersonal. Isolating. Played for the last time in 2017.
It really was a huge part of my life. Even to this day, I'll listen to some of the soundtracks. I still daydream about the experiences, the content/storylines/continents, the friends made, then seemingly long-gone overnight.
For a time in my life it felt permanent; then it became totally transient, out of the blue...
CRZ really was a huge blow to the game. And yep, it arrived with Pandas. I've tried to explain why I hate it to people before but it never seems to reverberate. Back in the day you would see the same people in the world. You would get to know them even if you weren't friends. You could encounter somebody multiple times over weeks as you level separately, but together. I do enjoy parts of retail WoW's gameplay, but it is a totally different beast. No mistaking that. Boiled down and concentrated to nigh pure hamster wheel number-get-bigger gameplay. I think the whole WoW tokens thing was another big blow to the game-yness of the game. Now everything you do has a real-money value. Do you really want that power boost bad enough to not just sell that BoE and get 2 years worth of subscription time? That's a shitty proposition to pose players with. It's not fun to know that every bit of gold I spend could have been money saved in my pocket.
Yeh I keep coming back and giving it a go but it's nothing like it used to be just recently brought a month jumped on my original paladin luthor spent 2 days max lvl and was over it
This is the reason why I was so excited for both SoD & Classic. I wanted to relive how WoW felt back in the early 2000's. I too lost interest during Cataclysm before Pandaria... and with Classic, I got bored during Cataclysm again. Not that I didn't get bored of BC or WotLK toward the end of them too but I don't know, it's like the window keeps getting smaller & it's not because of a lack of content or things to do. It's because as an adult it's so much harder to 1. play often and 2. play with others often.
A lot of my old buddies that I used to play with were excited for Classic & SoD. Then when the games were coming out, they didn't have enough time because of work & families & things like that. I work all the time, I'm married & when I logged in it felt like I was just playing an MMORPG solo. It was hard to get everyone on at the same time, even when trying to set-up schedules. So if you want to raid, you end up finding a group of people that play when you're available, run around with strangers & just speedrun the dungeons so everyone can roll on their gear & logout. There were so many people that would only login during the raid night & then logout immediately after the raid was finished. Like, that's not worth $15/mo.
Some of it is nostalgia but a lot of it is that the immersion is gone. I can't get lost in the game anymore and I mean that both in the sense of time & direction. You can just Google or use Questie or whatever. Everything is solved. But at least the worlds felt lived in.
Do you understand you put all of that on yourself ? The game do not force you to raid or gear up ?
@@TheGreatSpiff Your line about the same people and encountering them... just left a similar comment. Vanilla and BC WoW was this unique online community... it'll never be replicated and no one will ever experience it again. It was before major social media, major investment in the gaming industry, a million websites telling you how to play... yada yada... it was just a bunch of people immersed in a world. It was peak gaming imo but I'm 40 now, so maybe that's an "old man's" take. I have never had more fun gaming than Vanilla and BC WoW though... So much fun and community connection.
You said so much of what I have been feeling. It has moved from wanting and been able to see and enjoy the world to just rushing pass it. It is like the rpg part is dying.
"smaller more meaningful bite sized stories" - you hit the nail on the head here. When it comes to WoW, I've been thinking for quite some time that "less is more" or that a smaller world with more intimate questing and player interaction is far more engaging than the humongous theme park we have to play in now. Bigger sounds good on paper, but in reality, I feel its almost safe to say OBJECTIVELY that people have more fun when they're in a smaller more recognizable, familiar and intimate world.
I used to know the ins and outs of every zone and I can recall so many moments and interactions in that smaller more familiar world. The world felt very "live in" as you put it. Now it feels like I'm just passing through an overcrowded high traffic airport where nobody pays attention to anyone or anything.
Same goes for pvp, most fun was classic or tbc in smaller fights like wsg or arathi basin, lol i think that is the name of it?
The story was told to you not through cut scenes or exposition dumps but through the world itself you entered a new zone often under conflict and the quests and dungeons based around these conflicts which was like bread crumbs that all linked together at the raids for the conclusions to the stories
"Just like playing pretend, when you were a kid."
From Vanilla to Cataclysm I played on Venture Company RPPVP server, and had an undead warlock named Dymentia.
For ALL of that time, raiding, battleground and arena ALL took a backseat to *World PVP* on our server. Alliance and Horde each had a half dozen or so guilds that claimed a faction settlement as the "home base" and opposing factions guilds would start killing NPC guards at that base when they wanted a fight. I was in and our base was Tarren Mill. We were dedicated to protecting lowbies, and would camp Southshore for HOURS if a high level Alliance started harassing levelers. We also organized large scale world world PVP events, like fighting over Stromgarde ruins or the Thandol Span, and letting the other side reset so we could have several "matches." Our main rival was in Darkshore, and someone got a temporary ban cause we figured out how to get on the roofs and cast spells down on em where they couldn't reach us lmao.
It was so fun, and my best memories of WoW, and it was the most meaningless, pointless stuff with regards to progression.
I’ve played with you at one time, I was Primaries a blood elf pally
Exactly but now you a adult you will never waste your time away at pointless stuff...
Not knowing is a blessing as a child.
But doing that as an adult changes the blessing into ignorance
@@Oldmanflyfishing Sick dude yeah I remember that name! Long time lmao
@@Desperado070 I guess, I'm now leveling an Alliance Warlock on a private Vanilla server at 1x, despite being able to level at 3x, cause I want the experience since I never played an alliance character. For some people it's about the journey, not the destination.
All that being said when classic launched, I was in a sweaty raiding guild and was the Warlock tank in AQ who spent endless hours farming the Shadow resist gear. Some people can enjoy both.
I was in Thelsamar Commonwealth on Venture Co. I wasn't even a big PvPer or even level 70, but I was always taken along to world PvP and just messing around.
Besides for the RP communities it doesn't feel like players make their own content in WoW anymore.
This made me happy. Thank you for making this!
My first char was a human/warrior. I had no clue whatsoever what was going on and what I was doing. I loved the music in Elwynn, and the entrance into Stormwind was just magnificent. Such epic music, gave me goosebumps every time!
At some point someone asked me to sign a guild charter. For some reason we had to go to Ironforge for that. I had never been outside of Elwynn/SW. We took the underground. I was hesitating... Would I ever find my way back?! The world was so big! I disliked IF because I felt lost. But when I got to the entrance, and walked out into the snowy landscape... I completely fell in love and knew I would spend some years of my life in WoW! As you say: I wanted to be part of that world, and explore.
My noobness showed that when I was in Desolace, all alone in that ghastly place, when I was invited into a group to go into Maraudon. Never heard of. I had hardly ever been in a group, or an instance. I was a warrior. Could I tank? "What is a tank?", I asked? "Do you have a shield?" No, I was the proud owner some 2-handed axe or something... "Oh well, a shield might drop at the first boss" or something. Anyway, I went in. Needless to say that we did not last. Then I found myself all alone at the entrance of Maraudon and questioned my choices. I chatted a bit to one of the group. He (I presume) was very helpful. He told me that I had used not even half of my talent points, and the ones I had used were all over the place. I said I had no idea where to put them and eventually just gave up.
I abandoned the poor warrior and re-rolled a mage, with whom I ended up raiding MC.
Some regions were favourites, some I disliked (Gnomeregan / gnome music was irritating! Personal opinion, of course..).
I loved the lore! I loved long quest lines like The Missing Diplomat! During a later run (horde this time) I was much moved by the heartrending Lament of the Highborne.
Another facet of WoW (of the olden days - I never played past WotLK) that was amazing were the people you met. It took me a while to find a nice guild. We were chill, and happy.. Yes, just a happy bunch! I was surprised to find that older people played, too (I was in my early twenties and, looking back, still quite "young"). And women. And that we all could have fun, and serious conversations (this more mature guild was really just great for me!). And we enjoyed playing, and getting lost in this magnificent world.
Do you remember that, while flying from Ironforge to Menethil Harbour (or Refuge Point, I can't remember..), there was this crash landing site in the high mountains? I tried to go there as a young (less than lvl 20) mage. I was joined by another chap who thought this was a fun idea. We jumped. We ran. I tried Slow Fall spell (first had to go find feathers). We tried here and there, and everywhere. I don't think we ever made it. Yet, we spent a few hours, and had a blast.
Thanks to your video, lots of memories are coming back to me, for which I thank you!
I have considered getting back into WoW. I tried private servers (this was before classic was released). But I found that what I am looking for is no longer there. Not in the least, because I am no longer who I was twenty years ago. And that is fine. I sometimes reminisce with my brother-in-law who also played WoW at that time (though we did not know each other, being from different continents and not meeting in-game). And that is where things stay. A happy memory (many, I should say). Also, I don't think that the little ones would allow me the time it would take to get lost in such a big world again... You're only young once!
your thoughts in this video really resonated with me! i think the best wow experience ive had in years was the time i spent playing hardcore because the necessity for consumables/crafting/caution in your approach often lent itself to a “stop and smell the roses” meandering through whatever zone i chose to level in. thrilled that i could recapture some of the feeling of wow being a slow burn thru azeroth like i got back in 2005. thanks for the short, sweet, and sincere video. i genuinely felt moved watching it!!
I feel the same, I think I will always come back playing Vanilla WoW - but always as HC, as it slows down the game like in the old times.
I hope we have this experience again someday, but I wonder if it’s just the culture now. I wish everyone could experience what it’s like when the community focuses on fun. In the early days it was like everyone was enamored with just how COOL it was to even be part of that world. I’m glad we got to be a part of it!
The time when internet was young and the world still told people they could be anything they wanted to when growing up. Just it was just 20 years ago now. But its so far gone its hard to remember. People used to let their kids run the streets till dark. Many didnt lock their doors. It was a simpler time. Now greed and shitty humans have ruined everything for everybody except the ultra rich. Life has becomes mostly a joke. A college degree doesnt even find you work anymore. The culture of humanity is dying and its reflected in games because "art imitates life"-Aristotle.
It was just another generation. Kids today just see video games as keep pushing same button and win thing now or paying to win is actually the norm now. You try and ask kids today about that they think you're weird for not paying for a victory in the game.
honestly 2019-2020 classic was the closest i got to that feeling again. I’m now nostalgic about 2004 vanilla and 2019 vanilla classic 😭😭
Vanilla wow is terrible. Tbc and wrath classic were both superior. No chNges = terrible
@@cococock2418 i disagree, 40 man raids, world bosses, the servers had to be extremely more interactive to clear content. The scale of social interactions were much larger.
@@cococock2418 Where are your official TBC and Wrath servers? Meanwhile Vanilla has Era, SoD and Hardcore. GG
@@cococock2418 VAnilla wow was great, sure it ran worst than classic but the experience was so much better. Everyone starting at zero with no knowledge of the game whatsoever is a unique experience.
This. I was enjoying it so much but now it's back to Cata zones and if I wanted that I'd play retail.
Recently I was talking to some friends about when I used to play wow back in the day. And after years I realised that I was like a friendly NPC of the early to mid game zones. I liked the starting areas so much that usually I got stuck at around lvl 30-40. All that because I liked chatting with new players, helping with their group quests, showing them the way to the quest that they needed to do since there was no map tracking back then. And eventually all these new players would surpass me at lvls and I would still be back there, the friendly NPC, helping out the new guys, chatting, and protecting them from the attacking alliance since we were on a PvP server.
WoW has some really nice places to sit and chat, and trade items and food! ❤
You nailed it! Similar to you, started in 2006 and didn’t know what I was doing and mainly liked to explore every nook and cranny and try to take on every quest. But that isn’t rewarded in WoW, being first to end-game is. I eventually gave in and started caring about my gear score, obsessed over talent builds, installed recount, squawkandawe etc. and really just logged in just to stay caught up on dailies and weeklies before logging right back out for work. I loved what you said about bite sized stories to explore rather than these universal, existential threats to overcome. Maybe things will go that way someday? I’d love to come back if it does and relive the magic!
WoW became so complicated now and with all these countless expansions, it doesn't even feel like WoW anymore. We miss the simplicity of it. Walking around exploring, doing quests and making new friends. That's what WoW was about.
you can still fucking do that. like what
was
@@mihailnikoloff2554 you can still Go exploring, do quests and enjoy the atmosphere. Nobody Forced you to Play Heavy Raids etc
@@Nydust people has gotten toxic in WoW in retail and the mindset is just "me, me, me, me, me" it has to be fast, you can not join a dungeon without it being blasted to bits in no time because people are in a rush. People join in group finder and they leave as soon as the last loot has been looted, saying nothing. There is no WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER spirit. It's just "LET FUCKING DO THIS FAST SO I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH YOU GUYS ANYMORE."
At one point i BFA I couldn't join a single M+ as a mage because rogues took up 2 spots because they were so OP and META. The group leaders was just like. "I made thr group, 2 rogues makes it easier for me with group stealth, so bugger off, you are wasting my time.
@@MRFREAK177Maybe you could have made a group yourself
You described the exact experience that made me fall in love with WoW back when I was trying out the game on a Cata private server. I did most of the stuff you did in terms of exploring, and I got accidentally teleported to the Blasted Lands as a lvl15ish nelf rogue. Since I had no idea what a heartstone was I ended up stealthing my way north towards the "nearest" low level alliance zone I could find on the map. That zone was Dun'Morog, of course. And since I didn't actually know the maps and paths, I ended up going trough the Swamp of Sorrows, Burning Steppes, Searing Gorge and Badlands, slowly and methodically stealthing my way around skull level mobs that would often spot me anyways
That was the story of how I as a Night Elf noob found my way to Ironforge and then Stormwind. The next day the one kid at school who did play WoW told me about heartstones lol
That little adventure was so much fun
I can't remember most of my time raiding or doing mythic+, but I do remember my silly adventures discovering the world, getting lost and stuck, doing random stuff and leveling with the boys
did the same :D
That time when you'd go into a retail game store, seeing the wall plastered with World of Warcraft boxes. I'd flip open the front thingy of the game's box and be all bewildered seeing a dwarf with a flaming sword fighting a yeti.
Game was exclusive to credit card users back then, so naturally I was living off of several 30 day 'trial' accounts. Went to play on a bunch of private servers, but despite all the shortcomings (bugs, missing content, etc.) compared to retail WoW, those were some of the best days of my childhood. Ended up settling for a small tight-knit Blizzlike Vanilla server, only for us to get a DMCA roundhouse kick in the face a few months later.
By the time I _really_ joined retail, everyone was running AQ, whilst I was still a level 14 Night Elf Druid dancing as a bear and begging for gold in Goldshire. The kid in me actually thought that there was gold to be found in a place called 'Goldshire', but all I got was at most 50~ silver 'for my trouble'. At least my *[Lesser Wizard's Robe]* made me feel all epic and whatnot.
It may be naïve to think like this, but truth be told, I blame the disappearance of 'games just being games' like these on the stakeholders and corporate greed. The ancient 'fear of missing out' method has been upgraded over the years to include crap like in-game stores, exclusive mounts/pets/collectables, game pre-orders, character boosters and battle passes, to name a few. It's not about making a game to simply be a game for the sake of being a game. No, it's about making the most buck for the least amount of effort, a classic _quantity over quality_ scenario.
Logging back into World of Warcraft after being away for a while gave me a bombardment of in-game mails, telling me that content has been removed and/or changed. Campaign missions are shoved down your throat to throw you directly into the new expansion content, after which you can toss away your old (yet fancy) gear for common rags, transmog aside. Dailies and weeklies are fun if you do them once, not for a gazillionth time. LFG and LFR made it easier to find groups for certain dungeons/raids, but if you've never found the location of said dungeons/raids on your adventures by simply exploring, it's a little disappointing to not understand the story/lore behind the dungeon when you enter it. It's comparable to reading a book for the first time, but instead of starting at page 1, you start at page 200, and the book happens to be the Silmarillion. Ain't that tough luck?
Either way, enough ranting from me. I'll try out the next expansion to see if it's any different and hope it'll prove me wrong. But I'll probably end up fishing anyways, like I always do.
And that flaming sword I mentioned earlier? Yeah.. never got it. Too busy begging for 'gold' in Goldshire.
Man... it's like you read my mind. I am preaching to everybody I know exactly what you described in this video.
For me, WoW was so exciting because all of that: No rails, just a GIANT sandbox / doll house to play with. Sure, you can't explore everything right from the start; maybe you have to gear or level up, but all in all you worded it perfectly.
Thank you so much. I hope, sometime in the future, a developer will make a game like WoW 20 years ago... I really miss that.
I've seen hundreds of these types of videos talking about nostalgia and why games aren't fun anymore etc. But your short video about the subject, and WoW in particular, is the only one that I feel speaks to me. The way you spoke about looking around in the rooms and seeing new areas by accident, in-game chatting with people at locations you decided were a good place to meet up. It's exacly how I played back in the day. Some nights we wouldn't even level but just hang out in this world we were in. I also played Anarchy Online like that, we'd sit in bars and listen to the in-game music and chat. It's like we used to play like we were actually a part of the world, you'd actually look at the in-game props, furniture, architecture etc and take it all in. Now all that just feels like it's a backdrop for levelling and content. Thanks for the video!
You summarized what a lot of us are feeling, I am a burnt out wow raider that is sick of the grind. Thank you very much for presenting this.
I was recruited by a friend in MoP. We mostly sat in Orgrimmar and did Dungeons for leveling fast. I dropped my undead warrior at like lvl 72 for a worgen DK. I liked that a little better, but after the first zone went back to Dungeons and kinda quit after the first month.
When Classic came out, 4 friends and I started playing together. Always quested together, ran everywhere, explored. No heavy roleplaying, but we would do things like all spit on every gnome we come across. And we looked for beatiful places to take group pictures at. We only ever got to lvl 32 before most of us dropped the game, but I still remember it as one of my best times in a MMORPG.
Slow, meaningful progression with world exploration beats optimized powerleveling to get to "the point where the game actually starts" faster any day. Sometimes I look at the screenshots we took and what a great adventure it was.
I hear you man. It's too bad when friends just stop playing. Nothing you can do. Life moves on unfortunately.
@@K4113B4113 I was one of the people who just stopped playing. I still play games with these friends, just not WoW. This wasn't about friends fading out, but rather how the leveling journey of classic WoW was a great time! :D
I am in my 50's now, and between 2008 and 2018 i enjoyed wow for aaaaaallll the reasons mentioned in the video! Thanx 4 that. I used to rp in Feralas as a night elf mage and have a ton of fun and relaxation just being in this fantastic world. i really miss those days....I explored all the corners of it, enjoyed just sitting and looking at the view, or doing bg's and arenas with my brother. I hope it is still a good game and i am sure it is,but at one point not being that young and with a child, i just gave up ,Your video took me back to the time when it was just a game for fun. Thanx.
I have so many fond memories of Vanilla... spent a whole Sunday afternoon in BRD with 4 friends, clearing the whole dungeon for the fun of it. Yeah we wiped, we overpulled, somebody fell into the lava near the MC atunement. but it was so much fun. When we found out about the children of Goldshire, some guild friends and I would check in on them multiple times a day, followed them around and we were asking ourselves what this was all about. I was in on of the better guilds on our realm, everybody full T2 and we'd still run Strat almost every day with random players who felt so proud that "the big guys" would run a dungeon with them.... good times! thanks for this video
4:08 THIS!!! I don't want to be "the champion of Azeroth". I want to be just another adventurer going on a small quest inside a huge world without the world being in constant danger. Your first WoW-experience is very similar to mine; I just wandered across the Tirisfal Glades and Durotar and never made it past lvl 20 on my first character. Because leveling wasn't important to me. Exporing a lived in world was amazing, as well as meeting new people online who became RL friends as well! With today's technology the WoW Devs could make a thriving city like Suramar for every capital, but I miss the days where I could just log online and spend an entire evening just relaxing with other players near a campfire while the ingame sun went down.
Its not a game anymore its a checklist. For example quests. I used to chose which quests to do and which zone to level in. Now quests are linear, 3 at a time, and i have to finish all 3 to get the next 3.
Well said. "Its not a game anymore its a checklist" what a powerful statement.
Sadly the case for many games these days.
Checklist... How have I never called it that? Absolute perfect description.
We can thank money hungry corporations who realised games make money. Much more money than they could imagine.
No game is done with love and dedication anymore, it's just a copy of eachother and everyone is racing to get the most $$$ before shutting down and opening with new clone.
I'm sorry that you are this nostalgia stricken but it's literally the same on old vanilla, tbc, wotlk etc, you have to start levelling from camp X to get quests for camp Y just to get starting quests for zone X and then repeat over and over until max level, after cataclysm they added the board to cities that tell you which zones you can start in that are appropriate for your level and it gives you multiple choices too, stop gaslighting yourself bro
I remember a few years ago, one my mom's friends had WoW ( the pandaria version) on their computer, and i asked if i could play it. At first i stumbled around, but then i realised that this game had monsters ( i had never played WoW before). And then i just walked around the map, searching for creatures and beasts and "documenting" them... it was so much fun. I remember finding the cloud serpent, the mushan, the fish people. I haven't WoW since. Man i wish i could go back
Man when I first played wow that nelf starter zone just hit so different. The music, the zone itselt, so many people running around, just pure escapism
In 2006, I failed my first year at university because of World of Warcraft. At the time, I was studying architecture, and while exploring continents, cities, and game environments, I wanted to one day create video games myself. I still dream about it, but instead of architecture, I work as a 3d artist in the game industry. I haven't played WoW since 2007-2008, I still miss playing it and that feeling.
they do have classic
Sorry, but you have to blame some of this on the demanding players constantly complaining about not having this and that. Does anyone remember how wow used to be? You can go to any MMO forum and see this type of post, we need to have this or This content is too easy. You are so not alone my friend. I started playing mmo's in 2001 and those first-generation games were amazing. But in 2004 wow took the genre mainstream and it hasn't been the same since.
wow is fine
They simply made the game for the .05% of the playerbase. They make it for the hardcore progression guilds. Blizzard forgot about the casual playerbase, the Dad, the guys and gals that work 3 jobs!
@@tipsymallard6952 not even that, i was a mythic raiding 5 years ago, prolly 4, coming back to dragonflight has been a headache and now I experience homophobia when trying to play this game out of nowhere.
Legit the vocal playerbase is the worst
@@tipsymallard6952 It's actually the opposite, they've completely made it for the casuals, its basically a single player game now that's easy as shit to gear in and level.
Beautiful video. I think this essay captures what we’re all thinking when we say, “we miss vanilla WoW.”
I love that this sentiment is so shared among us players. Each of us has a vivid memory of the “first good old days” in World of Warcraft, especially those of us who, like me, had the opportunity to start this adventure with our friends, and none of us knew anything about the game. We used to say things to each other like, “Watch out! Don't cut through the woods, because there are bandits and it's not safe. Better to follow the road when possible.” Or, “I was in that mine earlier, it took me a long time to get out, but I found a chest with this *press Z* sword in it.” It was a time when every lack in the game was filled by our imagination, and when our PC was not an agglomeration of statistics and percentages, but our very avatar within a parallel and incredible world. Those of us who played WoW back in the days when all this was possible really have something that the new generations cannot have.
beautifully put :) felt the same. I remember the time I didn't understand the word "Mail" and I thought it describes any type of armor I can not wear xD like a "ban"
This is nicely put. I feel exactly the same. I used to have a guild and we went to the in-game pub for chatting for hours. (not voice). We were happy helping each other with low level quests, talking about content they haven't explored yet, showing off our rare weapons,/gears/skills. (Talent tree was different in old time.)
I totally feel this video. Flying kills the discovery requirement and the impact of walking into a new zone initially intended by the OG devs. I was in alpha/beta in 2003/2004, played vanilla through BC, quit in 2008, and came back in 2020. I officially stopped playing in 2023 for all the reasons you listed, but mostly because I realized I can never relive those moments of awe like I did 20 years ago. I wouldn't say I like mythics and raids, but I wanted to explore and hang out in old zones because it reminded me of better times. Thanks for this video!
You should try SoD, it's the most fun I've had in the game in a long time. I think flying is fine, I think a lot of the desire to explore stems from - ironically - boredom, or just having not much to do. Retail has this problem where every gear progression track is an endless grinding treadmill that you won't finish till near the end of the season or raid tier, and then will have to start all over again next patch. Couple that with utterly boring gear that has the exact same stat allotment as the other gear, where even secondary stats barely matter these days, and the utter lack of ANYTHING to do other than daily chores out in the open world, and you get what you've been feeling, imo. I think daily quests (old as they are), are absolutely toxic to the game (though tbf I played through most of BfA, so that's probably why I feel this).
@ethanwilliams1880 I feel you on the treadmill referring to gear. Plus, being casual now, I don't fully understand all the new systems for leveling up gear. Hell, I don't even understand professions. It's also not clear what is good enchants to buy without going to icy veins or a youtube video.
Blizzard just needs to make a straightforward product again with common sense progression. Make more than 6 dungeons that only gets more difficult, but not more interesting.
People for some reason have bought into the Blizzard lie about flying being bad for the game when it certainly wasn't a problem in TBC or Wrath.
If you want to have that old feeling of exploration and fun, play Project 1999 if you've never played EverQuest before. Gave me the same old experience and taught me about the direction games should go in.
@Jorvalt it's bad for the game because Azeroth flying is what forced their hand into destroying the old world, and frankly what they replaced it with has never been better than the original.
My favorite memories from vanilla WoW was building a campfire and having my guild mates sit around the campfire deciding what to do next. It all just had a different feel. There was a sense of community. We even used to pose together in places like Winterspring for Christmas card photos. Nothing else has matched it, and it’s irrecoverable. Great memories, though.
There aren't enough thumbs ups, stars, or exclamation points that I can bestow. You have absolutely captured what I miss about my early days in WoW. I started a couple years after you, with the release of Wrath, but I still remember what you are describing. I spent hours of chillaxing fun just loafing around with various activities that struck my fancy. I loved fishing. Often, 2-3 of our guild were tasked (we volunteered) with fishing for the weeks raid food. We would get on early in the morning, find a fishing spot, and we'd virtual fish, sip coffee, and chat with one another.
Other times I would hang out in zones where I really enjoyed the music and/or the view. Sometimes I would fly aimlessly around places like Shalozar Basin (I really like the music there). Other times we would hang out in Elwyn Forest (again, great music). Often, I would go after achievements and titles (i.e. Diplomat) at a very casual pace. It was nice that I didn't feel hyper-compelled to follow the Yellow Exclamation Point.
And for all that is right and good in this world, enough of the catastrophizing and world savior nonsense. Like you, smaller, local (zone, village, etc.) stories and quest lines are more interesting. As you say, be a part of the world. In the world.
Well done!
I will never forget the feeling of joy and awe I had when I first played WoW as a Blood Elf priest. The music, the Blood Elf forest, the buildings, the bestiary...Everything was magical to me and I spent countless hours just exploring every bit of the map I could. I also didn't manage to get very far in leveling up, but I wouldn't trade that for the fun I had playing it my way and taking things slow. Good times
im 40 man and i was a priest since 2004 -2015 stoped and returned in private server in lockdown covid 2020 started 21y in colege still i like wow but i get u playin with zoomers feel sad gogog kill bb ty come come bb no social no explorin all tutorials youtube gogo kill then get bored w8 next patch expa etc its adrenaline junkie game and pay to play i miss tbc
Hey there! Thank you for you comment! I'm looking to make a follow-up video showcasing these comments with in-game footage to match, as a celebration of our favorite memories in WoW as a community. Are you open to me featuring this comment?
@@RotanWarcraft Of course yeah !
I will always love my Blood Elf Warlock more than anything else available.
@@abissioutis190 "but i get u playin with zoomers feel sad gogog kill bb ty come come bb no social no explorin"
I don't know how to read that.
When I got my Guild Wars 2 friends that love exploring the open world to finally try WoW was when Classic came out, and having them explore a world they had never been in reignited my passion to play to explore everything despite knowing things, and I'd simply tag along to what they found interesting so as to not try to hold them through a linear path. I think WoW should just continue to make expansive zones, and in some ways they've made it a reality; the last time I truly got lost in a map exploring all its secrets and areas off the beaten path was actually Drustvar, as there was a lot of background lore and information you had to go out of your way to find.
"Alright, time's up. Let's do this. Leeeeeroooooyyyy Jennnnnnkinnnnsss!"
A next-gen Warcraft game featuring a fully fleshed out Azeroth that was realistically populated and genuinely felt lived in, with a gameplay and story focus on a smaller scale, would be incredible.
Sadly it wouldn't work the same way. You would have guides 1 week later explaining you how to perfectly play the game (i wouldn't be surprise if it would even be out before the game is released). You could decide to ignore it but you woudn't be able to stop others from min-maxing.
I see it as a sort of RDO version of WoW.
That would be great.
@nuclease2739 play wow, but never look up anything, the game gets 10x better.
Bold of you to think modern Blizzard will listen to any of this
@@kevinleewilliams5119 i agree, i was lucky enough to play vanilla wow back in the days. Best gaming experience i've ever had.
Part of the problem is how we've been trained to play games and derive enjoyment from how well we play them as opposed to just playing them.
Gearscore, ranking, parses its all a competition now and its all most of the players today focus on.
Not "most" just the people you associate with. You are likely competitive (so am I). There are a LOT, and I mean a LOT of people in both retail and classic who don't care about any of that. They are the people who often suck at raiding, grey parse, do stupid stuff in dungeons, only use text chat, are in a leveling guild at max level, and just generally play the game however they feel at the time. They are often reviled by the "community" as noobs, bad players, casuals, etc, but they are still the silent majority.
@@ethanwilliams1880 thanks for the insightful "well ackshullly" post.
Shoulda listened to pops when he'd come shut your game off. The problem us being a gamer. Not a person that enjoys games, but a person that LIVES games.
The problem 100% is always the player, and saying anything else is an excuse to not be responsible for your own actions.
@@joe8133 No you misunderstand me. I am saying that gamers on average do not play to enjoy they play to enjoy how they perform.
Competition is inherently destructive. See Alfie Kohn's "No Contest".
I remember playing on a trial account back in Wrath and I made a friend that brought me to SW. She navigated the city like it was nothing, but to me, it was a sprawling maze of towering buildings. Still fascinates me that I can walk through the city blindfolded now, but was absolutely bewildered as a kid.
I had completely forgotten about getting lost in cities. Thank you for reminding me about how insanely big they seemed the first few times (or how confusing they stayed in case of undercity, there is such a thing as too much symmetry)
What a beautiful video! I can totally relate to this... I have been an on/off, very mediocre player of WoW for many years. I'm preparing to go back to WoW after a 2+ year break, and I intend to do just that - walk around, take time, rediscover the game just as a game.
Thank you so much for putting words into something I've been feeling for a long time. I thought it was me - because I'm an eternal beginner with pretty much no ambitions except that of having a good time and immersing myself in the wonderful world of WoW.
PS: subscribed!
it used to be so easy to get lost in WoW and I loved it!
Now people have mods and built in mods that tell you where to go. Like ugh...
Frankly… this is a framing problem caused by min maxing and optimizing. We don’t play games anymore and engage in an open ended learning process with slowly and steady growth. We watch videos, hold ourselves to high standards, and grind ourselves into burnout. Impo play some indie games and stop looking at guides, you’ll start having fun again ❤
Could not agree more. Comes down to our own choices. I stopped playing games that only offer the grind years ago and went for more relaxed, usually indie, games and started to enjoy gaming again. There is enough grinding in life as it is.
This is so true, I stopped using guides and games are so much more fun when you're not minmaxing everything to death.
Eh, I think modern retail WoW next to Wotlk is a stark difference and no amount of framing will change that objective reality. Each xpac they push the levelling journey to be a little faster, and when you remove all that you end up with a slow paced RPG.
I think if someone doesn’t like the modern pacing, they should pick up a private server, or maybe they’re just done with the game.
@@TRDiscordian I literally said go play some indie games as in, don’t play wow. Wow for me is only enjoyable to push keys or raid prog, if I don’t hook into min maxing and optimizing there is no game. I totally agree there is very little creative play in modern wow.
@@jamesgphillips91 you said “frankly this is a framing problem” and I disagreed with you. I agree with this comment of course, it’s exactly what modern wow is lol.
My big engrossment experience in WoW was when my very first character, a Tauren Druid named Blawan, got to the Barrens. Mulgore was nice, don't get me wrong but the race intro said that the Barrens was my people's ancestral home and it looked like the African serengeti how cool was that?! I remember doing my bear form quest and being so engrossed, challenging and fighting the lions for no reason just to prove I was the biggest and baddest apex predator of the plains. I remember after getting cat form stalking and chasing the the herds of gazelle critters and hunting the giraffes like the King of the Jungle I was.
Then my brother took sole ownership of our shared account when he joined a raiding guild in TBC, and rolled something else when I got an account of my own but I'll never forget those original memories.
Hey there! Thank you for you comment! I'm looking to make a follow-up video showcasing these comments with in-game footage to match, as a celebration of our favorite memories in WoW as a community. Are you open to me featuring this comment?
You really speak from my heart. The good times are unfortunately over and the saddest thing is that today's players will never understand what they are missing because they think it is boring or dull
Competitiveness destroyed games.
Its okay for some types of games like arcade games but for rpgs its the death sentence
I think of a stereo typical wow pvp main, grossly toxic and hyper competitive.
@@lucasgough288 And how does that affect the overall game? The majority of WoW players never PVPed and Blizzard never gave it more attention than the one new BG or arena they add each expansion.
Games are born from competition. You think chess has survived thousands of years despite its competitiveness? You think "the superbowl" or the world cup, or Wimbledon, or State of Origin are popular because the players are "just enjoying themselves... taking it easy..."?
@@SupachargedGamingnah it’s an rpg. Intended to enjoy yourself in an adventure based game. It’s you vs the game and the competitive portion is an afterthought.
Developers in that same golden age of gaming had a different mindset, they created games with precisely what you describe in mind, just for fun. It struck me when I watched the recent Half Life doc where they brought the old dev team in for interviews. When they describe the reason for quite a few things that ended up being iconic, the reason is like "because we thought it'd be cool/fun". And that type of mentality can be found in so many old behind the scenes dvd's, clips and stuff. From games like WoW, Halo, you name it. The developers were passionate about making a fun, cool game. And that's literally why they added certain things to the game. They didn't think about the things connected to gaming today like social media, monetization, pandering to "the message", keeping players interest, etc. But it's important to remember that often it's not the devs, but rather the business suits breathing down their neck about making the games a certain way and in a certain time.
That's why Elden ring was such a success, and the first game in probably near 10 years that captured me in that long lost sense of fascination and exploration. That game feels like it was made for people to have fun and explore in. And I am seeing a trend of AAA games such as Elden ring being massively popular while the cookie cutter AAA games keep underselling. So lets hope gaming can turn around yet. Indie gaming is popping off in a way that's very cool though. I have much more fun, interesting although shorter experiences with indie games than big titles.
Hell yeah man so true!
I agree with Elden Ring man, i had the exact same exp with the game..
The only other game i remember like that before was Subnautica for me.
I literally don't remember any other games like that in the last 10 years man.. what a shame.
@@pun15h3r. What did you think of Subnautica 2 man?
The irony in praising Elden Ring for this when it tossed From's formerly tight level design out the window in favor of an oversized, barren open world full of copy-pasted fluff dungeons and "bosses" that were necessarily reduced to joke status because of the lack of a proper overarching progression curve.
@@lime148 I think the level design of the older games can still be found within Elden Rings legacy dungeons. Meaning places like Raya Lucaria, Stormveil castle, Volcano Manor, Leyndell, Haligtree etc. The massive open world obviously can't be structured like the dark souls 1 map. But I would argue they did a decent job trying. Like how you can enter siofra in 1 zone and come up in a few other zones. And how there are zones stacked on top like in Leyndell. The little copy paste dungeons don't invalidate everything else, they serve a purpose to add exploration content like most open world game dungeons. The dungeons in Skyrim, witcher, AC etc arent all unique in architecture either. I don't think they need to be.
The kinds of people who created Vanilla get cancelled today. Keep that in mind.
I wondered lately wether I actually still play games or just work through to-do lists presented to me by them. You're giving me hope that it's not me, it's the game. And I felt it everytime I wanted to sit down in a game and couldn't, or when I checked the controls if there's a slow walk option. I didn't realize it was me trying to play around.
I am an older gamer (39yo) and I love the Monster Hunter series, I have started with World and then played Rise. So when I finished those games I went ahead and wanted to see how it all began so I got an emulator and started the first Monster Hunter on the PS2. And boy, the clunkiness, no direction, finding out spots where to mine, where to gather herbs etc. are everything I crave now. I can't go back to modern monster hunter any more. It's not nostalgia I am missing. I miss lack of game design, lack of quality of life. Old games feel genuine because they mimic how reality actually is. When you explore a forest, an abandoned room there are no indicators to go there, there are no arrows and points of interests. You just walk around, slowly, take in the new sights and explore without purpose. This is lost in modern games, it's not toned down, it's GONE. It's all about achievements, progress, and "endgame". They are still games, but they have condensed them down too much.
My GF introduced me to WoW back during Burning Crusade. My first character was an Undead Warlock, running through Tirisfal Glades during the Hallow's End event. I don't know how you can plan a cooler and more fun way to be emersed into a new game than that. Our guild was mostly composed of just a bunch of friends that lived locally, doing quests and raiding but not too seriously. Our guild leader was right down the street. Sense of companionship and comradery was truly exceptional and it really made the game so much fun.
Over time, things didn't work out with the GF, I left the server to pursue a passion in PvP which had steadily grew in me. I took PVP really seriously and made it to the top echelons of BG's and Arena titles.... but it just felt empty. It felt like a job to always be learning the new spells and rebalancing, always trying to be on top of the new meta.. I hated that I seemed to be angry about losing more than I ever could be happy about winning. Halfway through Cata I left and never came back.
This video and all of the nostalgic comments from so many of the old school players here really just hit me right in the heart. Because now, even 13 years later, I clearly understand that those silly questing lines at the edges of nowhere with your buddies... sitting by a lake fishing and listening to the rain.. farming Netherwing Eggs at 2am while jamming out to a cool new album from your favorite band.... it was the simplicity that made it everything all along. And I wish I could go back to those days and fall in love with that feeling again more than anything.
You can still have childlike fun in WoW. It's a mindset to chill when playing and enjoy the little things and then pay for HC curve clears 👍😂
It's those HC curve clears and the FOMO that comes with them (and the gear dif) that really messes this up for people. Unfortunately, most gamers are slaves to FOMO and feeling powerful, so with how grindy it can be to do those things in retail, they don't find any time to do anything else.
I'm just beginning to embrace that. I'm not a competative person and certainly not quick to grasp all the new stuff constantly being thrown into game. Thank you for explaining that I am not alone, not a failure. The artwork and the music will stay at my top 'joy givers' for me.
I agree. I’ve been keeping a journal of my adventures in SoD so far and I’ve had a blast, making so many new friends and exploring the world trying to find new stuff. I spent 3 hours the other day questing through Searing Gorge with some random guy I found and we’re now friends. I’m gonna probably have just as much nostalgia for these moments as I do for Wow back in the day.
I would literally sell my soul to get a chance to play WOW again but with my memory wiped. To just not know anything about anything. So that at every turn there's something new to see. Something new to fight. To be amazed when I get new gear that i had to work for hard, not just be handed random stat_object#45 just for being in the game. I don't wanna be the Champion of Azeroth but a simple adventurer making his way through a magical unknown world making friends and memories along the way.
I remember being so immersed as a teen when night came. I remember trying out Tauren and swimming in the waters near Thunderbluff as the moonlight made everything glimmer. I haven't played since Draenor. I'm still upset over how bright night is now.
Blizzard explained that a dark night makes people log off. But that doesn't explain why night darkness can't just be a parameter in the game. If toys can do it, then why can't a simple graphics option do it?
@@Trazynn "a dark night makes people log off"
Ya, it couldn't be because go to bed at night 🙄
you are absolutely correct in this. Most of the time of when I tried to re-play Wow in the recent years was basically just to fuel that nostalgia feeling I had deep down about the good old days with my friends (who were also my classmates and who introduced me to wow), but it almost always failed me, as it only served to help me remember it won't be the same as before.
Thank you for this, I still get hit by that feeling every now and then, and videos like this helps to soothe it away.
I still play the game for fun. It's a choice. You don't HAVE to progress. I still do progression but I also still just fly around doing loops especially now with dragon riding every where. I still explore zones that I haven't been to in a while. Like having fun is literally a choice.
This is a great point. I have tried many times to come back to retail and enjoy myself the way I once did. Perhaps the newest version of the game is no longer enjoyable to me. It's a difficult fact for me to face
You can hardly call it exploring when the map is just given to you.
@@poisonated7467 there are tons of caves and Easter eggs that I've simply never found. Every time I decide to randomly explore I still find something new and I've played a very very long time. Is it the same as a brand new game? No. That doesn't mean it isn't fun just the same.
@@alyssumn3884 It does mean that. That's just micro-exploration. Exploring the little things inside the larger things. Macro-exploration in modern MMORPGs and RPGs is dead. Whens the last time you asked yourself questions like these:
I wonder, what's at the end of this road? What's over that mountain? What's over that river? What's beyond this forest? Is there anything on the other side of this ocean? These questions can simply be answered by pressing 'M' instead of forcing you to explore, have an adventure, and journey to those places to learn what the answer to those questions are.
So, yes, it does mean you're having less fun than you could be. Not only would you get to explore the big picture, but the smaller things inside the bigger things.
@@poisonated7467 I ask myself "I wonder what's in that cave? It's there an under water tunnel/cave here? I wonder what this random item I can pick up does? Does that book have anything that might be lore related? Exploration means many things to many people. It isn't just about finding every nook and cranny it's about finding every detail placed in said nook and cranny. Clearly these are things you don't find fun. That doesn't mean to a lot of the population they aren't. It's literally just your opinion man. As mine is mine. As the OP's is the OP's
I recall walking into Brill with my first character.
I was amazed!
I spent at least an hour just going around Brill and looking at stuff.
It was a stunning experience!
The moment that I remember very fondly 20 years later.
The moment I realized what the word World in WoW meant.
Doe me it was elwynn/ westfall
I remember being lost in Orgrimmar hahahaha shit was huge… and didnt understand the map.. getting on the ship, pvp’s, dungeons, levels, skill trees, had to discover it all..
I started in BC back in the day as a blood elf and I will forever hold that feeling of wonder and amazement when I first saw Silvermoon in my heart. The sights, the music... it was perfection. I'm not really an explorer at heart, I take no joy in snooping around for the sake of it. But then and there I had a sense of discovery, that I found something that had meaning. Wandering around the city, seeing the elven ambassador showing the horde ambassadors around, it felt like a real, living city. I felt a sense of home that I never had in meatspace.
There was also this discreetly hidden place near Shatttrath, a small lake and a few trees atop a small peak. You could only fly there, so it was very much out of the way for both means of travel, since it wasn't even near anything of significance and it blended in nicely with the area. It was a nice place to take people to for more private conversations which, as you said, had to happen in chat rather than over voice. I think that the lack of voice chat allowed more people to open up, since you needed only type out your thoughts, without anyone hearing your voice that could identify you as anything.
I also fondly remember the old Warlock quest to get your epic mount (the burning horse). It was a fair bit of work and I had to ask my guildmates for help at the end but it was quite the ride and finally riding around on the new, extremely cool looking mount meant so much more than most other mounts I ever picked up later on.
I've just got into WoW for the first time and you've made me realise that I'm playing the game how you wish you were still playing. I'm exploring everything and reading everything and meeting everyone I can, and I'm going to try and continue to play like that for as long as I can now that I know