well before world of warcraft came out i used to play diablo 2 online so i was quite familiar with battle.net/online mmos(idk if you can call diablo 2 an mmo...).I was not new to grinding, and tedious leveling.Why?Because i did it before. Its those who never played a rpg online always complain on forums "vanilla is tough,i am boss, you are not, yada yada yada". No.It wasnt tough(sure it had some aspects).Diablo 2 had it tougher,even tougher then classic raids,say,to gear a full hammerdin.But enough of diablo twos, back on topic
there was a mount i helped my older brother grind, we shared an account. Before,before everything.Keep in mind gold was VERY hard to make,people were new. Sure, you could have ripped someone off,or started on a high population realm. Those like me who got offered a low population realm had if different.(daggerspine) I basically had to vendor sell EVERYTHING and collect 5-10 silver from mobs to get 500gold i think(i am not sure how much it costs anymore).Sure,there was my older brother too,but he usually left all the boring stuff to me and i swear what i did maybe 70% of the farming for it.So,the word "grinding" already started
What many players did not realize is what you had barely any quests in 50-60 areas,and i can assure you that.The way you did leveling was simple(akin to diablo 2); by killing regular mobs.Over ,and over,and over.Sure,it was tedious,but after ~3 hours of nonstop killing you would level,guaranteed.The more levels you would gain, the bigger the exp bar got. Dont let these idiots on wow forums fool you,it did not take 2 months to get to 60. I think we got the game when it came out, along with other stuff, and it only took us like 3 weeks to get to 60.But then again we were 2 people, me and my older brother, and we would take breaks between each other.
What you see now is a very ,well buffed itemization.Items sucked,and alot back then.A lvl 20 bow you are using right now is equal to like a lvl 40 quest item you would get back then. And i swear,say on my college essay which is due tomorrow what bosses used to drop green items.No kidding.Not every single boss dropeed a blue i clearly remember, they dropped green stuff too because i remember equipping it.Speaking of poor itemization, items had like spirit and str, this kind of thing.You get the picture.
I didnt get into raiding because my older brother didnt allow me to,he said i would screw up,so i cant comment there.
Well,and i guess you trials missed the pre-cata expirience.I remember quests being more fun and lore-worthy(altrough i can give 2 shits about lore and rping,it is still interesting to read what the npcs say frm time to time)
i remember paladins being very,very OP and warriors sucking at least at low level.At first i told my brother to roll a warrior,like the diablo 2 barbarian,i remember to this day the launch screen when we first opened the box.After like 5 minutes of gameplay my brother said "this sucks" we need another class. He picked paladin because he always played a diablo 2 hammerdin paladin before that.And he couldnt be anymore wrong.
oh and speaking of hunter pets when the game came out i dont even remember them having any abilties cept like 4-5.Its much different now,pretty sure they had different pet buffs prior to even wotlk or bc i think.I can rant on and on about this stuff idk if it matters
We had to quit like sometime in the end of Vanilla because we could keep up paying 2 subs,1 for wow and another for our xbox360(yes xbox 360 came out in like middle of vanilla)
i asked my brother what e-mail did he use on his previous account,and he said what he didnt remember.I tried to find payment records but if i remember we used the walmart pre-paid cards and my parent's credit card...
sob,i am sure there are lots of valuables on that old account.My brother no longer plays any video games, which is a shame too.
