How the 10th anniversary and WoD reminds us the good old days really weren't

Count how many times you've heard any of these lines?
  • "Back in Vanilla it was better with 40 mans"
  • "You don't know hardcore until you raided in Vanilla."
  • "If you played Vanilla then X or Y and Z"
Well, Blizz brought back a whole bunch of Vanilla things.  Less abilities.  No reforging.  No flying. And they brought back Molten Core.

I think people had fond memories of Molten Core.  Or they had forgotten how many HOURS it took to do Molten Core.  Everyone is so used to being OP in it now as they farm MC for pets and legendaries that when they went back to see Molten Core as it was in it's glory days, they realised how fun was probably not the best word to describe it.

These days in LFR it takes a couple of hours to do Molten Core - in the first few days of MC LFR opening it took 3-4 hours and people just wanted it to be over.  The lure of pets and mounts kept people in till the end though but I bet I wasn't the only person wishing I could get in towards the end of the run.

On an interview with Convert to Raid, Hazzikostas and Zierhut said this about Molten Core:
  • The revised Molten Core experience was not meant to be done more than once.
  • They wanted to make sure it stayed faithful to the old experience. While 5 minute curses may not be added to the game today, it was an important part of experiencing MC.
  • Some mechanics were adjusted as it was near impossible for 40 random people to get through them. The aggro radius on Golemagg was one of them.
  • We probably won't see any other old school raids come into the LFR format.
Well, if you really want those rare drops you'll be doing MC more than once!

So, that killed any nostalgia for it.  Even Godmother said the same thing recently about her experience in Molten Core - I was fortunate to go in a guild group twice and a premade once, and I also did one random which was definitely not as fun as a preformed group.  There are a lot of people who never saw Vanilla WoW and their first time seeing MC in all it's glory, 5 min curses and magic debuffs (that instant reapplication of the damned debuffs, gotta love that), massive agro radiuses and all the other fun things we remember about the place.  I still haven't got the enchant but I have the pet (but would like to get a pet for a friend) so I am still going there but that's just once a week.


Tarren Mill vs Southshore is the other anniversary event, commemorating those days long ago before the multiple BGs of world PvP.  I don't think I ever did that in Vanilla and having only ventured once into the 10th anniversary BG and an abyssmal loss after a long battle, I felt like strangling people. It really does need team play, and people forget that throwing themselves against the enemy and dying actually makes them win faster as they rack up kills.  I shall have to try again some other time, but I felt like my evening in there had been a waste - unlike MC there is no mount or pet or special enchant, there is just honour and glory and ... yeah well that's about it, really.

And you know what, I have not heard anyone saying how wonderful Vanilla was ever since WoD was released.  One of my guildies said "The best thing about Vanilla was when they released Burning Crusade."

I can't even rustle up interest in MC on the weekend anymore - I think everyone is of the feeling "You only need to do MC once", just like the devs said.  I might run one on the last Saturday before it's gone for good, in case there's anyone that hasn't done it yet for whatever reason we can do it.  And have yet another chance at that pet.

Comments

  1. MC has always been my favourite raid, because it was the first one I ever went into as a fresh level 60. The thing people don't see now, is that creatures in vanilla MC were massive. They were twice the size of the ones now. It was epic, and awe inspiring to walk into that huge cavern and see those massive giants blocking your way. We raided MC on Sunday. All of Sunday. We had a lunch break for an hour it took that long to clear when we first started out. I had to get online 30 minutes early, empty my bags out and start making individual food and water for 40 people (with the other mages of course). That is a lot.

    The thing is - it felt epic - everything was an effort, I felt I appreciated it more. I appreciated my raid team more because they were my first group - they were important to me. I wanted to be friends with them, to learn from them, help them, decurse them. I didn't care about the loot or anything, I was just having fun working with people. (Nothing has changed on that front). I didn't mind my one job on Shazz was to decurse. That was my role as a mage which let the team down. I didn't mind that I was one of the people that had to sheep on domo instead of DPS. That was my job as a mage.

    I felt important, I had jobs. I feel with everyone needing to be able to do everything now - everyone has CC, buffs, AOE tranking/healing - you lose that sense of purpose and so now when people have a job to do they don't want to because they lose out on meters.

    I would like to do MC a couple more times for the pet as well...but not sure I have the time :(

    xoxo
    Dragonray

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  2. I would love to do MC on some alts, I would love to get the pet as an avid pet collector and battler, but I can not and will not endure MC again. I guess I will buy tiny for 45K, which is the going price on my server.

    The players in my guild that were there for the original version said it holds very true to the MC they remember. Super easy tank and spank no mechanics involved bosses with lots of little jobs for everyone to do. But today's go go go crowd with trash that can actually kill you easy in a random setting does not make for a very good mix.

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