Breakfast topic: The good old days
by Amanda Dean 
Dec 12th 2008 at 8:00AM
I've been playing World of Warcraft for nearly three of it's four year run. It's kind of amazing to me to see how things have changed over time. Many of the adjustments have been by player suggestions, and most of them for the good. The folks I've been playing with lately don't have nearly as much time in the game. I find myself reminiscing and thinking about the way things were, and telling them how good they have it now. Some things I remember least fondly are:- Single-server battlegrounds, and sometimes waiting hours for a queue.
- The old battleground ranking system, with one High Warlord per server.
- 40-man instances, if you think keeping 25 people in line is challenging, give this one a go.
- Epic ground mounts for 1000 gold in a time when cash did not flow so freely.
- Horde had no Paladins and Alliance had no Shamans.
- Before the report feature, I got a whisper message from a gold spammer about every thirty seconds.
- Many more limitations on where mounts were allowed.
Sometimes it's fun to read old WoW Insider posts, and remember what we were all excited and angry about in thee past. I'm sure many of our readers have been playing for as long as I have and some considerably longer. Walk with me down memory lane, which little annoyances were you glad to see go?
Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Breakfast Topics, Leveling
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 12)
Jademalo Dec 12th 2008 8:05AM
Old AV. R.I.P
El_Scorch0 Dec 12th 2008 8:13AM
Amen to that...
Also, you can tack on the Southshore/TM epic battles for nothing but glory and honor (none of that welfare epic nonsense).
Knucker Dec 12th 2008 8:12AM
I agree. The new AV is nice, but sometimes you miss the epic hour long battles.
MacGyver Dec 12th 2008 8:13AM
Yep, that and I miss the massive Hillsbrad battles :(
Everything you did was more of an adventure. Nowadays it's just running through like a train heading for Epixvillage. Oh how I enjoyed walking around in Feralas and Azshara, with not a soul nearby, late at night.
Komeiv Dec 13th 2008 1:19PM
For sure! I remember when 5-8 hour AV was a common thing.
Balius Dec 12th 2008 8:27AM
Hour long? I'm pretty sure one AV on Malygos never ended, new players just swapped in when the old ones collapsed from exhaustion.
I'm CERTAIN that there was one that lasted over 14 hours on that server.
Nathanyel Dec 12th 2008 8:50AM
> Everything you did was more of an adventure.
That's true, but not really caused by the changes made to the game, but rather your experience with the game - new players can still experience that feeling you described.
KenMo Dec 12th 2008 9:08AM
"Oh how I enjoyed walking around in Feralas and Azshara, with not a soul nearby, late at night."
It's like that now... at any time of the day! :P
Magnox Dec 12th 2008 9:11AM
Yes, a welcome goodbye to the old A.V.
I remember logging in playing for an hour in the old A.V.
Then having to log to take the wife shopping. Coming back over 8hrs later to log back in to the same A.V.
The new one may be tuned to get Epic's out to players faster but at least you can finish a whole game.
Eternauta Dec 12th 2008 9:59AM
@6:
That's not exactly true, because, as things are now, even if you're new to the game, it's probably that your friends/guild will press you to rush through the entire Azeroth/Outland content as fast as you can, so you can play the "real game" with them in Northrend at lvl 80 (that is: the race for epixx).
New players can't experience the same that some of us did a couple years ago because "The Old World" is a ghost town. You can't find groups for instances like Maraudon, UBRS, and let's not mention 40-man raids like ahn'qiraj.
cranberryzero Dec 12th 2008 10:39AM
Yeah, that's the thing I miss the most. I understand why they shortened AV, but now it's just silly... it takes 10-15 minutes and there's no real ending... you're fighting and it's done.
I miss fighting fiercely in AV for hours at a time, go to bed and sleep 8 hours, wake up and pick up in the same epic AV and fight another few hours until it's done. There really needs to be some equivalent in the current game for those people who just love that sort of thing.
And I love... god what was his name... that giant troll that lived in the middle graveyard... killing him as he was killing both you and your allies and your enemies indiscriminately was a blast.
Skya Dec 12th 2008 11:15AM
I still get all sentimental when I think about the old AV's that used to only end with weekly maintenance. 6 hours of queuing to get in and then hours of endless battles around the Snowfall graveyard - Korrak the Bloodrager anyone?. The worst thing Blizzard ever did to AV was remove most of the NPC's. The repeatable quests there used to mean so much more too, you used to only get one of each item when looting anything, none of this x20 that you get now. Then there were the race specific drops - Orc's tooth, Tauren Hoof etc.
I remember once getting into AV just as I was about to logout for the night, I ended up staying there until gone 7am and got over 2200 HK's in the process.
brstyles Dec 12th 2008 11:41AM
How about the little nuances that we used to endure like flight paths not being connected. If you wanted to fly from one end of Kalimdor to the next you would be dropped at each flight master and have to buy a flight to the next stop the entire way.
ben_man587 Dec 12th 2008 11:43AM
Sometimes I miss the old AV. I remember going in and out of the epic 48-hour Feathermoon AV battle.
kabuki Dec 12th 2008 12:39PM
The longest AV on record was 53 hours and 42 minutes long, and took place on the Earthen Ring server.
JDM Dec 12th 2008 1:30PM
I'm sure I'm a minority, but I really, really miss the old AV matches. You know, the ones that ended in 3-5 hours if you were lucky, and way, way back when could even go for several -days-. Those were truly epic, and I miss them dearly.
sickbox Dec 14th 2008 6:06PM
AV has lost all meaning you dont even have enough time to get Lok out anymore :,(
tanker Dec 12th 2008 8:11AM
Constantly having to spam Shield Block as a warrior tank :(
Drakur Dec 12th 2008 1:11PM
The most annoying thing at start was only one AH for each faction.
IF for alliance and Orgrimar for Horde, imagine starting a NE at the begin of the game with no mages high lvl to teleport you or any lock to summon you.
:D
Elenwe Dec 12th 2008 8:11AM
5 minute Pally buffs for a 40-man raid...so glad that's changed.