Now, I know what you're thinking, this is just another !!*tard looking at vanilla WoW with rose colored glasses. I'm not one of those people. I know WoW has made huge improvements since vanilla. But one thing anybody who played Pre-BC can attest to, is that the sense of community has plummeted. In vanilla WoW, you really felt like you were part of a community with everyone on your realm. Now, it feels more like you're just playing a single player RPG with millions of other people.

I think that's the main thing these Pre-BC apologists are missing.

I think the sense of community started going downhill with cross-realm battlegrounds.

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Now, I know what you're thinking, this is just another !!*tard looking at vanilla WoW with rose colored glasses. I'm not one of those people. I know WoW has made huge improvements since vanilla. But one thing anybody who played Pre-BC can attest to, is that the sense of community has plummeted. In vanilla WoW, you really felt like you were part of a community with everyone on your realm. Now, it feels more like you're just playing a single player RPG with millions of other people.

I think that's the main thing these Pre-BC apologists are missing.

I think the sense of community started going downhill with cross-realm battlegrounds.

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Actually in vanilla WoW, we used to see complaints on a daily basis about how the game lacks a strong sense of community. Players would cite that this was mostly in part because WoW had drawn in the "battle.net kiddies". The fact is you are remembering differently, though some things have changed. Many people have found their individual communities and also have a deeper understanding of every aspect of the game -- which impacts one's behavior and approach.

The people you're likely to connect in this game with are other experienced players, who doubtfully are going to be looking for help, friends, or anything outside of what already exists in the community they've built for themselves.

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But you could argue that people could point out who was who because of their PvP rank or the distinct appearance of their character through their gear and whatnot.

I can't make that distinction anymore.

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You could argue that, but then I'd wonder what you were talking about. :P

I don't believe the game's community was strengthened by being able to identify PvP rank or gear (in vanilla wow there was significantly less art than now, making the look of each player that much more homogenized).

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I don't know about all that. Back in the day I used to be able to name the top 5 guilds on both sides of my realm. I used to be able to name guild leaders and players. Several of us knew each other at least from within context of the game. Playing BGs was more fun because you'd have bragging rights about other people on your server.

I certainly felt more community love back then than now, but I suppose I've lost interest in the game since then too, so it might just be correlational.

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I think many people can still do that, I know I can. It sounds to me what interests you these days has changed. I mean, why couldn't you know those things. You can go and look them up right now and have that knowledge within five minutes time.

Often times when people change, even slightly, their view of the world changes and the things around them look somewhat different -- the natural assumption is to believe the world has changed.

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That's funny, because back in vanilla WoW everyone looked different. There were three tier systems, the dungeon sets 1 and 1.5, and many other sets that were unique in their own way. Many blues from the 60 instances had their own skin, unlike now when the same skin is reused over and over. Say what you want about Vanilla WoW, but one of the best features was the fact that everyone looked different. Saying something different is just absurd.

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It's just funny to me you say that, given one of the larger complaints during the era of vanilla wow was how little options there were available in terms of unique looking gear. Also, your example happens to point out all the gear added after 9 major content patches.

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It didnt seem to get better, we may have had those complaints back then, but seeing how the gear turned out, I can safely say I was wrong and wish for it to be how it use to be.

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Well then, I look forward to talking with you in a couple years at which time you'll realize you were wrong now. :D

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And within another 5 minutes time it will have changed, because guilds are blowing up and reforming faster than before. Getting 25 people in this game on the same page takes a little leverage sometimes and handing out gear as door prizes isn't doing anything to support the notion that it requires a group effort to get things done.

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The top raiding guilds on realms don't change that often, which is why when one disbands or splits it's a huge deal and often a 50 page thread on your realm forum. On my primary realm 3/5 of the top end guilds were the top end guilds since the game launched and raiding began.

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That statement doesn't really say that things have improved in that timeline. If I remember correctly, the complaint back in the beginning of WoW was that gear didn't look "cool" until the tier raiding level. I don't recall a mass community movement regarding gear not looking "unique". If anything, gear was incredibly unique at that level, so much so that complaints began forming about looking like a clown and less like a hero.

All your statement above implies is that gear design is going to become even more of a copy/paste/recolor event than it is right now, and it only serves to show that the art direction will continue to devolve until the playerbase looks back fondly at the design choices right now when compared with what we will have then.

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Firstly, you're quoting and debating a joke I made. Second, I can most definitely assure you as one who has been charged with watching the behavior of this community since the game originally launched, people did take great issue with gear available at end-game, level 60 -- and how there weren't many options to look different than players of your same class.

In any case, the discussion of old world gear is a digression from the main topic at hand. The community of this game will always change somewhat over time, but an individual's perception of change will likely be much more dramatic, especially when the individual changes.

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Also, it is really really sad and disappointing to see people like Kalgan in the past and Eyonix now, literally bash Vanilla WoW. I know you were there, I know you were one of us, but come on.

Vanilla WoW is the reason WoW is what it is today, you know this. Yet, there is a strain of anger directed towards posters that actually value Vanilla.

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I'm really not sure what made you believe that I was angry (or even slightly frustrated), or that I am bashing Vanilla WoW. I've been playing the game since an internal build pre-dating even the alpha stage became available -- roughly eight years ago. I've always enjoyed this game, even when the it was in an extremely rudimentary state with only three zones existing. Did I enjoy the game more at launch than when I first began playing? Yes. Did I enjoy the game more when Burning Crusade released? Yes. Do I enjoy the game more now than when Burning Crusade released?

Absolutely.

"Vanilla WoW" threads are typically made without much introspection.

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I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations..... wikipedia

I know it's a burden, but being a Blue poster you don't have the luxury of sweeping generalizations on this scale. There are plenty of "Vanilla WoW" posts that are a direct reporting of conscious inner thoughts and desires that are not only about "real-time WoW" but are relevant opinions about the state of the game.

Now that you've made your way back to this thread, I was wondering if you'd care to comment about the thoughts expressed on page 10, my original post ITT. It seems like Blizzard is offering some good changes with a handful of bad changes held behind their backs. Some of the changes I've really liked such as the change from 40-25 man raids. No discussion necessary there IMO. Good change. However the fact that you're trying to sell T9 (for example) as something new and exciting when it's been done before or the fact that you're releasing 5 new bosses with varied levels of difficulty instead of 12+ bosses full of unique fights etc etc. etc.

Okay so I'm repeating myself. Do you really believe that players look different from each other now as oppposed to several years ago? Or perhaps we could reach a middle ground where you admit that Blizzard hasn't done as good a job at keeping models on active players unique as they'd like and I'll admit that maybe you didn't even have a chance because of the sheer number of players who play, their respective skill levels, available wow related information sources online, and the greatly increased accessibility to the greatly reduced amount of unique content.

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I do understand its meaning, and I think too often people think and behave in a way without always fully understanding themselves. If you don't understand or recognize feelings and thoughts that's changed about yourself, impacting how you view the things around you (WoW in this case), your ability to compare past to present will be somewhat crippled.

Now you're moving back to the topic of gear which isn't the point of this discussion, but rather a sub-point that came up when I had originally addressed a specific statement.

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so are classic servers still outa the question? Oh and did u check out my list of ideas of how it could work where costs are concerned?

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No plans for classic realms at this time, but in patch 3.2, level 60 players can turn experience off and enjoy level 60 end-game as it is now. That's as close as you'll get to classic realms, at least for the time being.

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Interesting statement by the blue, you dont rule out classic servers in the future.

As in you didnt say never.

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I tend to avoid using words on these forums that may not stand the test of time. We don't have plans now, but that could certainly change later on.