World of Warcraft: Current Year

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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Not at all. I may be mixing up who's arguing what viewpoints... but you never felt most of vanilla's bugs and you said that dailies shouldn't gate the content needed to advance in any area of the game. Vanilla didn't have dailies but there wasn't anything else to do but raid from a character advancement perspective. The dungeons are the same as they are now (obsolete from a gear perspective once raids are available except for rare vanity drops), crafted equipment is in a similar place (thought alchemy and enchanting are better due to the consumable nature), pvp was... southshore or the megalithic AV matches (and the bots with them). The notable difference is that the rep grinds are assisted by dailies in WoD where Vanilla was turning in endless amounts of drops from specific mobs or grinding specific mobs.

Fuck I even collected pets when they were still click-item-to-summon because there wasn't anything else to do.
Well, firstly the argument wasn't that I longed to go back to the days of yore. It was that dailies were fine as originally implemented (supplemental advancement) and suck as implemented today. If a reputation only takes 5 hours to grind I'm only getting 5 hours worth of content whether I do it all in one day or am blocked by a once a day 20 minute quest for X number of days. They artificially force me to log in for X number of days to get my reward without adding any additional gameplay/content. Rep grinds haven't really been assisted by dailies in a long time, they've been blocked by them.

Secondly, there was a ton of stuff to do in WoW for a player like me.

I farmed a lot of reputations. I farmed for rare tradeskilling mats/patterns (I was probably the only person on my server who could buy mana potions from vendors and make mooncloth bags for a very long time). I made a tradeskill alt army. I farmed a lot of gold via gathering and rare drops. I did a lot of dungeons on my various alts. I played on a PVP server and did the High Warlord/Grand Marshall grind three times (never made it all the way, but made it to rank 13 once and rank 12 twice). I rolled characters on both alliance and horde to see all the questlines and leveling experience. I even did a lot of level 19 and level 29 pvp which was a shitload of fun if you took the time to farm the best gear/enchants for those level ranges. I learned how to solo a lot of things for good drops to make money.

And the rewards you get from the reps today are all the same exact shit with a different skin. Mundane, cosmetic rewards whereas back in vanilla you actually got some pretty unique/cool shit that you could actually make money off of. Mooncloth bags are still the only bags in the game that do not bind on equip, I have like 40 of them to give to alts still to this day.

It's a little bit of a fib to say I stopped raiding completely. I still raided though didn't do 40 man content anymore. I still did Zul'Gurub and AQ 20 once in a while.

I never felt like there was nothing to do and I played A LOT. Too much in fact. I was the first level 60 on my server as a mage and the closest person when I dinged was like level 51.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
I was in a bleeding edge raid guild in vanilla and for the most part stuff was pretty decent I felt. Yeah there were some bugs but they generally got cleaned up rather quickly. The biggest two that stick out to me is AV banners crashing instances and BWL gate not opening. I actually somewhat liked the drakes being bugged because it made the DPS be super, super careful about their threat. Even if it made the fights last forever. But it was Blizzard's first MMO and it was pretty clear they were still fumbling through figuring it all out. But like Khane said the actual base game was fairly solid. It was just raid mechanics that sometimes got shipped out buggy.
 

Caeden

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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I miss TBC and WotLK from time to time. Then I remember how inconvenient real raiding was versus the story mode I do now.

If I had a wishlist:

- story told in meaningful, hard 5 man content
- instance raids gone, intead outdoor mobs that are a mix of competed for or shared tag with same faction. These could share loot tables with harder 5 mans but they might be easier than said 5s to make up for the organization and competition challenge
- hard overworld on par with vanilla mobs
- limited dailies tied to shared faction hub or city.
-more group quests and random elites with a gw2-Esque approach to grouping
- scaling for all zones in the world with weaker but useful stopgap loot at a lower drop rate

I would like factions to be dropped in some situations, but if not then design something related to deep, meaningful open world faction competition for mobs and resources.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
These days WoW is more in-tune with what I want. I can log in (well I could ... I don't have a sub) and do something in a short timeframe to accomplish something (eg; a daily) and then log out. Anymore I don't want to sit at a computer taking 30 minutes to form a group and 2 hours to clear some content. I quit when TBC came out because back then I did want the experience of taking 30 minutes to group up and clearing for hours. But I'm not so nostalgic to realize I wouldn't do that shit anymore.
 

Caeden

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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Honestly, that's why me and the couple of guys n gal from my old raiding guild that still play together usually hit up d3 during seasons. Easy to just group. We aren't pushing leaderboards, just going for the cosmetics and stash. People can tap out at any time. We drink and cut up about the old days for an hour or two here and there. It works well.
 

PatrickStar

Trakanon Raider
1,529
558
The loot animation bug persisted through a couple expansions if I recall. I also enjoyed the gryphon bug where players would remain mounted on a gryphon after landing at a flight master. It happened to me a couple times but it seemed purely cosmetic; I was stuck on the ground at normal run speed. But I saw at least one player who kept the flying speed and was zooming around all over Westfall at like 500% run speed.
I got that bug with the Gyphon. It was GD epic to fly around. I stayed logged on from Friday to Sunday (just before raid that night) to keep it going. I could land and interact with NPCs. This happened several weeks after our server opened the AQ gates. I got to fly everywhere and explore the entire known map. I never tried zoning into an instance for fear it would go away. And sure enough when I zoned into AQ40 that night it went away.

Then during WOTLK I got the bug in Malygos where I stayed on the drake after a wipe. Needless to say we got to phase 3 in record time on the next pull. I just stacked that damage dot and sumbitch finished phase 2 in about 10 seconds. Ironically I got all the threat and was the first to die in phase 3 since my drake was taking the vast majority of the damage.
 

Ao-

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Well, firstly the argument wasn't that I longed to go back to the days of yore. It was that dailies were fine as originally implemented (supplemental advancement) and suck as implemented today. If a reputation only takes 5 hours to grind I'm only getting 5 hours worth of content whether I do it all in one day or am blocked by a once a day 20 minute quest for X number of days. They artificially force me to log in for X number of days to get my reward without adding any additional gameplay/content. Rep grinds haven't really been assisted by dailies in a long time, they've been blocked by them.
So WoD reps are blocked by dailies?
Arakkoa Outcasts - Faction - World of Warcraft- Level 100 mobs give rep, feel free to grind that out.
Frostwolf Orcs - Faction - World of Warcraft- Level 100 mobs in the daily quest area give rep but don't require the dailies for rep, feel free to grind that out.
Laughing Skull Orcs - Faction - World of Warcraft- No dailies, grinding only...
Steamwheedle Preservation Society - Faction - World of Warcraft- BoA drops from mobs, no dailies required

The Saberstalkers - Faction - World of Warcraft- Dailies can help/subsistute, but grinding is basically required (and it's required for flying)
Vols Headhunters - Faction - World of Warcraft- Dailies or one-time quests only, cosmetic items and some superflous shipyard stuff (required for flying)
Order of the Awakened - Faction - World of Warcraft- Needed for flying and 3 cosmetic items (one of which can be purchased/sold on the AH) - Dailies only

5/7 don't require dailies, so you really only need to do dailies to get flying (which was/is a shitty requirement). I ground out saberstalkers in an afternoon, though I need to go finish to exalted for the rewards.

Secondly, there was a ton of stuff to do in WoW for a player like me.

I farmed a lot of reputations. I farmed for rare tradeskilling mats/patterns (I was probably the only person on my server who could buy mana potions from vendors and make mooncloth bags for a very long time). I made a tradeskill alt army. I farmed a lot of gold via gathering and rare drops. I did a lot of dungeons on my various alts. I played on a PVP server and did the High Warlord/Grand Marshall grind three times (never made it all the way, but made it to rank 13 once and rank 12 twice). I rolled characters on both alliance and horde to see all the questlines and leveling experience. I even did a lot of level 19 and level 29 pvp which was a shitload of fun if you took the time to farm the best gear/enchants for those level ranges. I learned how to solo a lot of things for good drops to make money.

And the rewards you get from the reps today are all the same exact shit with a different skin. Mundane, cosmetic rewards whereas back in vanilla you actually got some pretty unique/cool shit that you could actually make money off of. Mooncloth bags are still the only bags in the game that do not bind on equip, I have like 40 of them to give to alts still to this day.

It's a little bit of a fib to say I stopped raiding completely. I still raided though didn't do 40 man content anymore. I still did Zul'Gurub and AQ 20 once in a while.

I never felt like there was nothing to do and I played A LOT. Too much in fact. I was the first level 60 on my server as a mage and the closest person when I dinged was like level 51.
Mooncloth only? You mean the only tailoring bag, right?

Clefthoof Hide Satchel - Item - World of Warcraft
Travelers Backpack - Item - World of Warcraft

Though it's faster to just make some netherweave bags and mail them (though I only run 3-4 characters around at any given point in time, and now I just mail the hexweave bags).


I also did the same grinds: I multiple gathering alts setup and two different characters maxed with thorium brotherhood (one for enchanting+blacksmithing, the other for leatherworking and tailoring). I ground out the furbolg rep, etc. Beyond a couple of quest choices, once you had a few characters on each faction maxed, it isn't new content. You're seeing the same stuff over and over again. The PVP grind is now conquest points for mounts and gear (rather than being time focused and conspiring with the rest of your server mates on who would get GM).

I honestly think you're longing for the style of play from vanilla because you've missed how much of it sucked due to how long ago it actually was.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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You'll have to forgive me for not realizing they put in a non bind on equip bag in WoD and I had forgotten about traveler's backpacks (I'm pretty sure those were BoE originally). And it might be easier to make Netherweave bags now, but those didn't exist in vanilla and that's when I made all my Mooncloth bags.

And once again, I never said I longed for vanilla and wanted to go back and I never said all reps were blocked by dailies... not even once. You clearly are just hearing what you want to hear. I said nothing should be blocked by dailies, at all. Ever. It's a stupid mechanic.

And correct me if I'm wrong but of all the reps you listed that you can actually grind out, only saberstalkers has dailies associated with it. The other have no dailies at all. So I was speaking in terms too broad, there still are a few areas of the game where dailies are supplemental, but there are still way too many areas where dailies are blocking mechanisms instead of mechanisms to ease a grind or offer a supplemental/alternate way to advance for particular rewards.

You seem to have some weird agenda to discredit me.
 

Tantrik

Golden Knight of the Realm
384
115
You don't HAVE to do dailies for any of the WoD reps. Legion medallions level all of them up and can be bought/sold on the AH.
 

Ao-

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You'll have to forgive me for not realizing they put in a non bind on equip bag in WoD and I had forgotten about traveler's backpacks (I'm pretty sure those were BoE originally). And it might be easier to make Netherweave bags now, but those didn't exist in vanilla and that's when I made all my Mooncloth bags.

And once again, I never said I longed for vanilla and wanted to go back and I never said all reps were blocked by dailies... not even once. You clearly are just hearing what you want to hear. I said nothing should be blocked by dailies, at all. Ever. It's a stupid mechanic.

And correct me if I'm wrong but of all the reps you listed that you can actually grind out, only saberstalkers has dailies associated with it. The other have no dailies at all. So I was speaking in terms too broad, there still are a few areas of the game where dailies are supplemental, but there are still way too many areas where dailies are blocking mechanisms instead of mechanisms to ease a grind or offer a supplemental/alternate way to advance for particular rewards.

You seem to have some weird agenda to discredit me.
No, that post came out more negative than it should have, I'm sorry for that.

The point was that the majority of reps aren't blocked by dailies. You listed a great deal of activities that you accomplished during Vanilla as play styles that suit you (that I interpreted from your post as you not viewing them as available now), and I don't believe most of them are blocked by daily quests. Are there things gated by dailies; yes, and quite of few of them shouldn't be gated in that manner (fuck flying being gated behind daily rep grind, thank god it's only once-per-account). The watering down of tradeskills with the garrison is something that Blizzard [hopefully] knows they fucked up with.
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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Right and I'm not arguing that WoD is shit, there's nothing to do, or any of that (well WoD is a turd but not because of dailies). I'm saying I hate how Blizzard tends to use dailies. I hate when they do gate shit behind dailies with no other means of advancement and that seems to be the overwhelming trend when they implement them. Seems like they either implement dailies and make that your only way of advancing, or let you grind and don't implement dailies at all. There is very little middle ground.

I'm not comparing anything to vanilla and not saying anything about eras of WoW and comparing WoD as a whole to them. I'm talking strictly about dailies, in any era, that block content. I just hate them and wish they would go away as I don't see any redeeming quality. That list of vanilla activities was just a response to your original post asking me what I did in vanilla because you said there was nothing to do outside of raiding/rep grinding. It wasn't a comparison or list of things I can't do now. Just last night I grinded out my lorewalkers rep and FINALLY got my vial of the sands recipe (after 21 canopic jars).

Yes Tantrik you can buy medallions but they sell for 4k each on my server and you need 18 of them to get flying, so 72k gold. I have the gold to do that on my server now but didn't when I was doing those stupid dailies.

I have what is probably an irrational hatred for dailies because of how they've been implemented and maybe I'm exaggerating how often they block content but I just can't stand them. They should never block content.
 

Ao-

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I don't think they want to do a middle ground because most of time the fastest method is chosen. Sabertooth is a perfect example of that. I'd hop into a group, someone would summon the bosses, we'd kill them, run around, someone would leave the group, someone would join in, we'd summon the bosses, etc.

The stables "daily" quests pissed me off just because I got them out of sync so I had to skip days to get them all on the same boss (or the largest groups on the same boss).
 

Khane

Got something right about marriage
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I forgot to do my Harrison Jones daily on my Paladin yesterday. Hurrah for having to wait 6 days to get him now!
 

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
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Good thing I just started HFC 3 weeks ago

we already cleared normal
frown.png
 

Ao-

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the "highmaul and blackrock are the same tier" bullshit is the biggest 'fuck you' moment I had during launch.