Very astute and comprehensive analysis, here. I'm tempted to send it to some friends of mine who have recently gotten back into WoW in a big way. They keep trying to get me to play, promising that Classic is "Just like you remember", but the thing is A) it's not, and I know it's not because I have dabbled with it before and B) even if it was, I'm a different person than I was before and the gaming scene is an entirely different place. I watched one of my friends play it a week or two ago, and, sure, it looks convincingly like Vanilla WoW as I remember it (and completely unlike what I've seen on Retail WoW, where everyone just idles in the new big city of the expansion waiting to queue into dungeons), with all the activity and players in Stormwind, but looking through the world chat... it's not. Everything you list here is a completely valid reason that the game was better years ago, but I think the time and place and the people who played it were what made it so special, and those are certainly not replicable factors. It's kind of sad to admit that things will never be that way again, but in a way, it's also what made it so special; the fact it happened once and never will again, and we were lucky enough to be there to experience it. And, honestly, for as depressing as that epiphany can be when one first has it, it's not nearly as depressing as trying to desperately brute force the magic into happening again.
Having played classic both on Blizzard and private servers before that, I can say that it is really is a better game, even in current year. Players who missed it in 2004-2007 often say this., even though it is very much a solved game.
However, you can't really go back. Instead, we should focus on having new experiences that make us feel the same way.
I get nostalgic over WoW too, but there is no going back for me. I don't even play games as much as I used to. I simply don't have the time. I do miss that aspect of my twenties, when it seemed that I had all the time in the world. Problem is, I wasted it.
I was addicted to Dark Age of Camelot. Many of the advantages you listed also applied to this awesome game. I also still have frieds that I made when playing this game 20 years ago. When WoW came out I was already burned out on MMOs, so I only played it for one year before returning to DAoC. My second stint with DAoC was also more or less sporadic as I lost interest into the grind and other things became more important.
DAoC was a great game, but only played it on the downslide after WoW, when I was just dabbling in other games to see what was up. I liked the three factions, but it wasn't as active as before.
The three factions and the resulting mass PVP battles including sieges were the most awesome part of the game. I remember that we tried to catch the opposing keepers of the castles by surprise by attacking in the early morning at the weekend when everybody was still sleeping. There was also an awesome leveling spot for high level characters where you had to flee in regular intervals as a huge dragon was making his scripted round through the area. If only one character did not keep the correct distance to the dragon it would result in a total wipe of all attending characters.
Addendum: as a big fan of PvP, I started my WoW career on a PVP server. The fun was short-lived though. When traveling with air transport animals there were a lot of campers at the target site. As soon as I was landing I was immidiately killed, which kind of sucked. Never made it to the instanced PvP fights but based on what I was reading they also sucked in comparison to DAoC.
Damn but I miss those early days, never got addicted like others but I was very proud back then of my lv 44 Blood-Elf Paladin. Simpler times. I liked the world-building, and really enjoyed the writing up until Lich King. After Wrath there just didn't seem a point, the story was over.
After Wrath we went from adventuring in an established world to experiencing a world (and story) moving forward. That muted the feelings of exploration of a dangerous and ancient world.
Yeah, my teen siblings and I all played it. I dated my husband on WoW. My brother and his wife wound up running a fairly famous guild called Scarlet Menace. I remember flipping through their binder where they kept detailed spreadsheets of DKP earnings and just laughing in disbelief. It was hardcore. But yeah, after Wrath, things changed. Gear score came in. I went from being a competent holy priest to not being allowed to play dungeons and raids because my gear score was too low. But how else was I to gear up? I dabbled in Cata because of the worgen, and played a little Pandaria, hugely over leveled the content, and quit out of boredom.
I knew at least three couples who met playing WoW, and I'm still friends with several of them. It makes sense - shared experiences are how we develop bonds. Unfortunately I don't see that happening again with modern design. There's just no room and culture for it. It's odd though as I feel like our current culture could really use something like that again.
As a young man it was a sort of monumental moment to be promoted to class officer and later to officer of our guild. Real life has consolidated things so much that too few positions of authority are available, especially to men (we live in Mouse Utopia). Digital life gave me that feeling of organizing and leading other people, helping them to maximize their potential, and most of all of being *trusted* in a way that I could repay with affirmation of that trust. It meant a lot to me at the time and always will.
Gaming - and especially earlyish 2000s MMORPGs as a peak form of gaming with their large guilds - offer surrogate realities that resemble the tribe vs. nature format that used to be available to people but no longer are. I believe that humans and protohumans have been on the ground for 3 million years and so it is a very strange and different time in these last 10,000 or 1,000 or 100 years and it does not offer us what we need.
Very astute and comprehensive analysis, here. I'm tempted to send it to some friends of mine who have recently gotten back into WoW in a big way. They keep trying to get me to play, promising that Classic is "Just like you remember", but the thing is A) it's not, and I know it's not because I have dabbled with it before and B) even if it was, I'm a different person than I was before and the gaming scene is an entirely different place. I watched one of my friends play it a week or two ago, and, sure, it looks convincingly like Vanilla WoW as I remember it (and completely unlike what I've seen on Retail WoW, where everyone just idles in the new big city of the expansion waiting to queue into dungeons), with all the activity and players in Stormwind, but looking through the world chat... it's not. Everything you list here is a completely valid reason that the game was better years ago, but I think the time and place and the people who played it were what made it so special, and those are certainly not replicable factors. It's kind of sad to admit that things will never be that way again, but in a way, it's also what made it so special; the fact it happened once and never will again, and we were lucky enough to be there to experience it. And, honestly, for as depressing as that epiphany can be when one first has it, it's not nearly as depressing as trying to desperately brute force the magic into happening again.
Having played classic both on Blizzard and private servers before that, I can say that it is really is a better game, even in current year. Players who missed it in 2004-2007 often say this., even though it is very much a solved game.
However, you can't really go back. Instead, we should focus on having new experiences that make us feel the same way.
I get nostalgic over WoW too, but there is no going back for me. I don't even play games as much as I used to. I simply don't have the time. I do miss that aspect of my twenties, when it seemed that I had all the time in the world. Problem is, I wasted it.
I was addicted to Dark Age of Camelot. Many of the advantages you listed also applied to this awesome game. I also still have frieds that I made when playing this game 20 years ago. When WoW came out I was already burned out on MMOs, so I only played it for one year before returning to DAoC. My second stint with DAoC was also more or less sporadic as I lost interest into the grind and other things became more important.
DAoC was a great game, but only played it on the downslide after WoW, when I was just dabbling in other games to see what was up. I liked the three factions, but it wasn't as active as before.
The three factions and the resulting mass PVP battles including sieges were the most awesome part of the game. I remember that we tried to catch the opposing keepers of the castles by surprise by attacking in the early morning at the weekend when everybody was still sleeping. There was also an awesome leveling spot for high level characters where you had to flee in regular intervals as a huge dragon was making his scripted round through the area. If only one character did not keep the correct distance to the dragon it would result in a total wipe of all attending characters.
Addendum: as a big fan of PvP, I started my WoW career on a PVP server. The fun was short-lived though. When traveling with air transport animals there were a lot of campers at the target site. As soon as I was landing I was immidiately killed, which kind of sucked. Never made it to the instanced PvP fights but based on what I was reading they also sucked in comparison to DAoC.
Damn but I miss those early days, never got addicted like others but I was very proud back then of my lv 44 Blood-Elf Paladin. Simpler times. I liked the world-building, and really enjoyed the writing up until Lich King. After Wrath there just didn't seem a point, the story was over.
After Wrath we went from adventuring in an established world to experiencing a world (and story) moving forward. That muted the feelings of exploration of a dangerous and ancient world.
Agreed
Yeah, my teen siblings and I all played it. I dated my husband on WoW. My brother and his wife wound up running a fairly famous guild called Scarlet Menace. I remember flipping through their binder where they kept detailed spreadsheets of DKP earnings and just laughing in disbelief. It was hardcore. But yeah, after Wrath, things changed. Gear score came in. I went from being a competent holy priest to not being allowed to play dungeons and raids because my gear score was too low. But how else was I to gear up? I dabbled in Cata because of the worgen, and played a little Pandaria, hugely over leveled the content, and quit out of boredom.
I knew at least three couples who met playing WoW, and I'm still friends with several of them. It makes sense - shared experiences are how we develop bonds. Unfortunately I don't see that happening again with modern design. There's just no room and culture for it. It's odd though as I feel like our current culture could really use something like that again.
As a young man it was a sort of monumental moment to be promoted to class officer and later to officer of our guild. Real life has consolidated things so much that too few positions of authority are available, especially to men (we live in Mouse Utopia). Digital life gave me that feeling of organizing and leading other people, helping them to maximize their potential, and most of all of being *trusted* in a way that I could repay with affirmation of that trust. It meant a lot to me at the time and always will.
I felt the same being the guild leader.
Gaming - and especially earlyish 2000s MMORPGs as a peak form of gaming with their large guilds - offer surrogate realities that resemble the tribe vs. nature format that used to be available to people but no longer are. I believe that humans and protohumans have been on the ground for 3 million years and so it is a very strange and different time in these last 10,000 or 1,000 or 100 years and it does not offer us what we need.