Great vid on why Vanilla WoW questing was remembered

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvGX3gnarck

I'm not saying that this is anything new to the Devs, but it's a great watch to remind us why we get so attached to the leveling process, when it is done well.

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Depraved

i dont think it was done well. it was soo boring. they just made it like that to slow people down...
if it was that good, why did it change later on?

Ludullu

Sounds like old L2. And I bet like a lot of old mmos as well.

I like that kind of design, but I doubt that current gaming populous would. Oldtimers will whine that they have 10 kids to feed, while those 10 kids will whine that they don't have a tiktok running alongside the game's screen to keep their attention on the quest window. Oh, and any "gamers" will just skip any and all reading, because they'll just look up how to do stuff, because it's ALL ABOUT THE OPTIMIZATION BABYYYYY

GrappLr

These arguments are insane to me, when we literally see that there's 10x as much hype around Classic WoW than there is about Retail WoW. And Classic is the definition of slow paced leveling.

And there's even more hype for HC WoW, which is literally only leveling.

Ludullu

GrappLr wrote: »

These arguments are insane to me, when we literally see that there's 10x as much hype around Classic WoW than there is about Retail WoW. And Classic is the definition of slow paced leveling.

And there's even more hype for HC WoW, which is literally only leveling.

You know why there's hype for that? Because it's all nostalgia. It's repetition of the same old quests, the same old leveling spots, the same old gear acquisition methods.

I know this because I've been playing on "classic" version of L2 for 2/3 of my 12 years of playing it. People simply know what to do and like to do it over and over again. And afaik Classic WoW is also way easier than current version, so anyone who's shit at the game right now might be slightly better in classic.

GrappLr

NiKr wrote: »

GrappLr wrote: »

These arguments are insane to me, when we literally see that there's 10x as much hype around Classic WoW than there is about Retail WoW. And Classic is the definition of slow paced leveling.

And there's even more hype for HC WoW, which is literally only leveling.

You know why there's hype for that? Because it's all nostalgia. It's repetition of the same old quests, the same old leveling spots, the same old gear acquisition methods.

I know this because I've been playing on "classic" version of L2 for 2/3 of my 12 years of playing it. People simply know what to do and like to do it over and over again. And afaik Classic WoW is also way easier than current version, so anyone who's shit at the game right now might be slightly better in classic.

Brother, that's what people said when Classic first launched. That was literally more than 4 years ago. And it's still strong.

It's a better game.

And I say this as someone who never played WoW decades ago. I first played both Classic and Retail relatively close to each other. Retail sucks compared to Classic.

Now, I'm aware this is somewhat subjective, and some people prefer Retail. But I'm definitely not one of them, and I think most people waiting for AoC are also not.

Ludullu

GrappLr wrote: »

Brother, that's what people said when Classic first launched. That was literally more than 4 years ago. And it's still strong.

And from what I've heard people have been lukewarm on the later updates to classic and are now asking for classic+, because they're getting tired of replaying the same stuff over and over again (again, same situation as L2 private servers experienced).

And the entire HC version of the game is literally "play this starting cycle over and over".

I'm sure classic (vanilla) is a better version of wow than the current one. That's literally the reason why WoW exploded in the first place. But I'd be really interested in seeing how many newcomers stayed in the game for a very long time after the first waves of oldtimer hype died down.

Are they still playing? Which version of classic are they playing, if they are? And how many such players are left in the game?

Even if progress is reaaaaally slow, I'd imagine 4 years of proper gameplay should've let you hit the ceiling, right? So what are all of those players doing in the game now?

I'm asking all these questions for WoW, because I know all the answers for L2. People would hit a certain lvl of progress and would go look for a new private server that was just about to open, because they wanted to perfect their progression methods to a point where they'd always "win" in the end. And this would be repeated for YEARS by the same people, and this was back in early 10s.

Now I'm simply seeing the same thing happen on official servers of WoW (cause I think smth semi-similar was happening with private servers there as well?). So it's nothing knew to me.

GrappLr

NiKr wrote: »

GrappLr wrote: »

Brother, that's what people said when Classic first launched. That was literally more than 4 years ago. And it's still strong.

And from what I've heard people have been lukewarm on the later updates to classic and are now asking for classic+, because they're getting tired of replaying the same stuff over and over again (again, same situation as L2 private servers experienced).

And the entire HC version of the game is literally "play this starting cycle over and over".

I'm sure classic (vanilla) is a better version of wow than the current one. That's literally the reason why WoW exploded in the first place. But I'd be really interested in seeing how many newcomers stayed in the game for a very long time after the first waves of oldtimer hype died down.

Are they still playing? Which version of classic are they playing, if they are? And how many such players are left in the game?

Even if progress is reaaaaally slow, I'd imagine 4 years of proper gameplay should've let you hit the ceiling, right? So what are all of those players doing in the game now?

I'm asking all these questions for WoW, because I know all the answers for L2. People would hit a certain lvl of progress and would go look for a new private server that was just about to open, because they wanted to perfect their progression methods to a point where they'd always "win" in the end. And this would be repeated for YEARS by the same people, and this was back in early 10s.

Now I'm simply seeing the same thing happen on official servers of WoW (cause I think smth semi-similar was happening with private servers there as well?). So it's nothing knew to me.

Yeah, that's exactly how it is. People wait for new fresh starts once they "beat" the game. Classic WoW runs out of content after a year easily for most people.

But that's where expansions happen, and what every MMO does. AoC will have expansions.

My point is, you were arguing that the modern approach is more popular, and I'm saying that Classic WoW is a good counterpoint to that, that people actually do prefer the older approach.

What do you think makes Classic a better game than Retail?

Ludullu

GrappLr wrote: »

What do you think makes Classic a better game than Retail?

I wouldn't know because my only experience with WoW is ~50 hours of Classic gameplay. And any knowledge outside of that was aggregated from Asmon's streams/reactions/chat.

I think it's a combo of good original game and nostalgia that builds the hype for others.

GrappLr

NiKr wrote: »

GrappLr wrote: »

What do you think makes Classic a better game than Retail?

I wouldn't know because my only experience with WoW is ~50 hours of Classic gameplay. And any knowledge outside of that was aggregated from Asmon's streams/reactions/chat.

I think it's a combo of good original game and nostalgia that builds the hype for others.

Ok, then better question, what makes Retail a bad game in comparison?

One aspect of what makes Retail bad is they try to make it accessible for everyone. Got 3 minutes to play a week? Sure, we have something for you. Oh, you want to turn your brain off but not suffer any negative consequences? We got you!

Ludullu

GrappLr wrote: »

One aspect of what makes Retail bad is they try to make it accessible for everyone. Got 3 minutes to play a week? Sure, we have something for you. Oh, you want to turn your brain off but not suffer any negative consequences? We got you!

This depends on how meaningful that gameplay is. And how brainless the actions are.

I'd prefer if Ashes had both short-time and brainless content. I just don't want it to be all that meaningful. Doing a short quest/task that gives you something small could be enough content for someone who only has 10 minutes to spare, but the impact of that content is miniscule. Killing some super easy soloable mobs (or picking up flowers) is a brainless activity w/ super low risk of negative consequences, but the loot/xp gains are also non-existent.

But both of those actions should be possible in Ashes, because even hardcore players might not have too much time one day or just want to completely shut off their brain, but still want to play the game.

The game will already weed out anyone who always doesn't have time or wants to always be brainless, because you'll need to travel to your POIs and majority of mobs will be hard (and death penalties exist). To me, even classic wow was brainless enough, or at least you could play it brainlessly and still progress. Mainly because compared to other games at the time WoW was seen as the casual mmo, which was also the reason for its success.

Extrapolate that to our times and you have yourself the super casuals with 10 minutes of brainless gameplay a day. Ashes is not targeting them as their audience, but it could still have some gameplay that they could participate in. And it would then be their own decision if that gameplay is worth $15/m.

CROW3

I think nostalgia and novelty have a lot to do with shaping why Vanilla quests were good.

I liked the slower leveling speed, the lore, the tie in to a broader arcing storyline, and the weird humor. It was a solid formula to camouflage a fairly homogeneous set of tasks: kill x things, go to this point, deliver y to z, escort NPC from a to b.

WoW had a better mixture of these ingredients than EQ2 for me, which made it a better experience, and defined where my $$ went.

GrappLr

NiKr wrote: »

GrappLr wrote: »

One aspect of what makes Retail bad is they try to make it accessible for everyone. Got 3 minutes to play a week? Sure, we have something for you. Oh, you want to turn your brain off but not suffer any negative consequences? We got you!

This depends on how meaningful that gameplay is. And how brainless the actions are.

I'd prefer if Ashes had both short-time and brainless content. I just don't want it to be all that meaningful. Doing a short quest/task that gives you something small could be enough content for someone who only has 10 minutes to spare, but the impact of that content is miniscule. Killing some super easy soloable mobs (or picking up flowers) is a brainless activity w/ super low risk of negative consequences, but the loot/xp gains are also non-existent.

But both of those actions should be possible in Ashes, because even hardcore players might not have too much time one day or just want to completely shut off their brain, but still want to play the game.

The game will already weed out anyone who always doesn't have time or wants to always be brainless, because you'll need to travel to your POIs and majority of mobs will be hard (and death penalties exist). To me, even classic wow was brainless enough, or at least you could play it brainlessly and still progress. Mainly because compared to other games at the time WoW was seen as the casual mmo, which was also the reason for its success.

Extrapolate that to our times and you have yourself the super casuals with 10 minutes of brainless gameplay a day. Ashes is not targeting them as their audience, but it could still have some gameplay that they could participate in. And it would then be their own decision if that gameplay is worth $15/m.

I'm not trying to say that every single piece of content should be designed to be 30+ minutes. I'm saying that, in the kind of MMORPG I want to play, it's designed around longer gaming sessions in mind.

Obviously some quests might be fast, obviously some activities might be fast. But the average session should be considered 1h+

Depraved

GrappLr wrote: »

These arguments are insane to me, when we literally see that there's 10x as much hype around Classic WoW than there is about Retail WoW. And Classic is the definition of slow paced leveling.

And there's even more hype for HC WoW, which is literally only leveling.

yes but which version has more players? thats the key part.
only a handful of people liked it, not the majority.

Mag7spy

I'm seeing a pattern, people need to move out of the past and embrace some modern gameplay, or want things to just be better. I'm not even looking at leveling but the idea of those older games and saying their questing is good is kind of a joke. Questing is pretty braindead kill mobs, collect items, skin something, do dungeon and having those elements dolled up to feel different.

Only mmorpg i cared about questing is star wars the the old republic because I felt like I had control of the story and it pulled me in more. And that game still had trash questing it was just the story.

So 100% nostalgia, amazing at the time the game came out. By todays standards questing is compete trash and people are bored + nostalgia loving the ip and their memories. I'm not even going to sugar coat it when I say it is bad.

*last edit

Release that game, remove the memories and IP I guarantee you no one is playing it.

darthaden

Steven has already said multiple times leveling will take time. I think he said something around 2-3 months for the average player to hit level cap, not too far off from Classic WOW without using a leveling guide for an average casual player.

Enigmatic Sage

Mag7spy wrote: »

I'm seeing a pattern, people need to move out of the past and embrace some modern gameplay, or want things to just be better. I'm not even looking at leveling but the idea of those older games and saying their questing is good is kind of a joke. Questing is pretty braindead kill mobs, collect items, skin something, do dungeon and having those elements dolled up to feel different.

Only mmorpg i cared about questing is star wars the the old republic because I felt like I had control of the story and it pulled me in more. And that game still had trash questing it was just the story.

So 100% nostalgia, amazing at the time the game came out. By todays standards questing is compete trash and people are bored + nostalgia loving the ip and their memories. I'm not even going to sugar coat it when I say it is bad.

*last edit

Release that game, remove the memories and IP I guarantee you no one is playing it.

It could also be because you're used to "braindead" questing from playing "modern" games with braindead questing. One thing I enjoyed about the questing in SWTOR was the story and the choices you got to make a long the way for different dialogues and what not depending on class and light or dark implications.

I enjoyed vanilla wow at the time but I don't care to play classic more due to replacing those great memories i made. Preying on consumers with nostalgia is one of their marketing tools lol but it will never change the fact of how soulless the game is at it's core due to turning it into a theme park game in retail with MTX, P2W, BOOSTS, CARRIES ETC. To say retail wow is better is subjective because the demographics and target audiences are a lot different these days. Retail could be better but it's not the same game made by gamers for gamers. Even Metzen isn't going to "fix" the game and i got nothing against him. He may be able to guide the story and what not in a better direction with the cards he is dealt but to think he is going to fix the game is delusional nostalgia manipulation.

The IP of warcraft still appeals to many especially if you grew up with it, but the game isn't what it was which is the problem.

EDIT:

blizzard lost over 80% of their max total active subscribers from wotlk to current. Many players i knew left because of what the game was becoming, life happening and even the market saturating with more MMORPG's but it doesn't excuse the fact that the design choices from when activision acquired them influenced them to where they are today. The more subscriptions they lost, the more MTX and whatnot got implemented. MOP was a big breaking point for them as some "loyalists" stuck around through cataclysm which is still dwindling.

Veeshan

i had a good chuckle every time he said mobs were strong in WoW coming from Everquest where a lvl 1 mob can 1v1 solo at times

Anyway on topic here i dont think it necessarily quests that made it memorable Vanilla WoW was the start of a major shift in development direction when it came to MMORPG let me explain

Old school MMO like Everquest, Runescape and so on design philosophy was making a world where players exist in

Compared to modern day MMO where there design philosophy is player first and world later.

Old school mmo vanilla wow and before felt like you were in a world not in a game, nowadays everything is so streamline and stripped anything that could be a inconvenience from the world which made the world feel like a game and not the feeling of being in a different world.

The removal of inconviences i think was what killed the magic of MMORPG world WoW was the beginning of the end of the magic of MMORPG, they added a couple of conviences that older games didnt have and with every expansion/patch they slowly removed more and more inconviences and all game companies also follows this path and the magic that was once there is no longer there anymore.

Ashes of creation seems to be branching off and modernising the oldschool MMO and i hoping they manage to capture the magic once again with creation a world over a game.

Veeshan

Depraved wrote: »

i dont think it was done well. it was soo boring. they just made it like that to slow people down...
if it was that good, why did it change later on?

its not the quests that did it older games game design were creating a living world that players exsists in where modern games are all about making games not a world.
They stripped the inconviences out of the game and tbh thats what gave MMORPG the magic they once had Vanilla wow was the turning point here where the started taking out inconveniences every patch and the magic of the world started dieing slowly

Solvryn

I dont remember the quests in retail WoW being that good, I remember them being quests and usually boring. Kill X mob a million times gets old quick.

What I do remember of retail questing is how much more full of people the world was, even though the world was static and boring.

Songcaller

I came from SWG where levelling was completely different prior to CU2 to Vanilla WoW and my oh my did I detest WoW's style of levelling.

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