It’s not strange to remember gear if you worked for it. I will probably always remember my Breastplate of the Chromatic Flight because for that quest I needed an item that had a 0.5% drop rate in UBRS (back when it was a raid instance), so I spent weeks organizing raids for UBRS runs (and twice other players who couldn’t even use a Chromatic Carapice snake it from me because it was the first epic anything that they saw — do the math on how many runs it took to see that 0.5% drop 3 times). That quest had me up in Western Plaguelands where I had to collect 100 drops of blood, and every time you grab one you have to fight an elite mob sole. Other people had seen Chromie around but she didn’t have any quests, or they saw the blood drops or the Chromatic Carapice, so they’d ask me about what quest I was doing that needed all that.
And after doing an epic quest line that took weeks and literally hundreds of UBRS raids to finish, I had basically the only DPS warrior plate chest that existed for years (since all the endgame plate was loaded with tank stats).
So yeah, that item was significant. The epic weapon quests were significant. Heck — I bet anyone who played a warrior back then remembers their Whirlwind weapon and that was a level 30 rare. It wasn’t just because of the item itself, but what it took to get it.
We went from being generic heroes/explorers to being the one who must save the world. Its too much. Let us be kust regular soldiers again fighting for a just cause
Did you just admit retails fallacy in trying to defend it in a sideways fashion? Clearly one feels more special by your justification.
Retail gear, ALL of it:
Primary stat
Stamina
Secondary 1
Secondary 2
ZZzzzZz
Items in Classic have very special properties and designs. You know what item it is because it’s unique, and not one of a million other copies.
Bonereavers edge has a chance to proc up to 3 stacks of a buff that causes each attack to ignore 700 armor, has a unique, arbitrary amount of stamina, and 1% crit. Legendary items are truly legendary in that they’re rare, scarce, and unique. The game is filled with neat items that you know when you see them, and decide you want it.
Retail has automated everything apparently so they can lay off employees and pretend the game is being developed when really it’s an advanced state of maintenance mode. Players like you allow them to stay lazy and profitable for less than they’re capable of.
I get the OP’s point: once upon a time, we chased a specific raid item, sometimes for months. Sometimes, like in my wife’s case, you become Ahab chasing the white whale, except the whale is “Gurthalak, Voice of the Deeps” which she finally got the week before MoP came out (lawl).
But I get it. It feels like items that had a unique look, unique proc, unique ability, etc. have been thrown out in favor of a randomized loot matrix. Your BoS isn’t JUST the item, it’s the item with just the right rolls, forging, corruption, etc, etc. and figuring out what your actual BoS is is something we turn to 3rd party websites for as you could dump hours into researching the perfect combo of rolls for different items and still not come up with the correct answer.
I remember getting the pendulum of doom on my warrior at 39 and wrecking lv 60 farmer bot hunter faces right off.
I remember the salt I got from other players, followed by grudging respect when I would enter Alterac Valley at 51 for the IBS, but would actively contribute to winning the BG instead of just sitting there going “durr, let’s kill korrack!”
I remember replacing it with an Obsidian Edged blade which initially looked like a candidate for a little blue pill commerical until they switched the graphic.
Meanwhile, Final Fantasy XIV, which is very balanced, polished, streamlined… I can’t remember the name of one item. You know why? Because every new patch is the exact same as the last, with a new instance or two to run, and gear that is slightly higher item level. The stats are all pretty much the exact same, so you don’t even need to look. higher iLVL > lower iLVL. That’s it. Someone help me contain my excitement at the prospect of going from an iLVL 210 -> iLVL 215 weapon. oh FRICKING YAY!
You definitely aren’t the only one who feels this way.
Years ago back when ZAM Magazine was around and a gaming journalist/Wow-player named Mike B. aka “Fony”; who covered quite a bit of World of Warcraft in his show the BFF report during the later 2000’s; - i recall him stating something like this: (and i am paraphrasing now):
Mike B:
“I feel like Warcraft is slowly losing something that is sacred about completing content challenges.”
I don’t remember his exact word for word sentence, but I remember what we was talking about, so please don’t quote that, i can’t even find that video anymore so i can cite it properly. D:
But he was referring to challenges in content like PvP- but i got the sense he meant a lot more as he later on would begin poking fun at things like how easy it was to get achievements in a later GamebreakerTV series called BlizzBlues
I personally do not dislike or hate where we are right now in Warcraft, but i certainly do not love it either;
*it feels like the game years ago started being developed with a “sigh” rather then a “smile”
*I took parts of that last phrase from Super Bunnyhop, he has some pretty awesome quotes. He was talking about a completely different game, but i felt like the sentence would be very fitting for something like Warcraft as well.
Sorry but this is a ridiculous post. You are comparing gear from all expansions to date vs Classic which is just 1 game 0 expansions. I can’t remember any gear names on my Mage in Classic as we speak. I didn’t really know any gear name from Vanilla on except the tier piece names and a few weapon names.
You sound like you are reaching really hard here to rip on WoW and to say “This feels like a betrayal to everything I love about this game.” cracks me up because of how dramatic you are.
I am very glad the game is in the state it is vs Vanilla. Yeah I loved Vanilla… back then. MMOs weren’t common and basically only had a few where the populations were very small. IE. SWG maxed at just under 300k subs. But yeah, WoW was new and very easy to pick up and play vs like UO. So myself and I am sure others, had no problem putting in the many hours into the game and grinding so much to know the gear names.
I could care less now what the gear names are. Why someone is so attached to something like that is beyond me. But either way, I can name as much gear in retail as I could in Vanilla. You just need to stop reaching and trying to think of anything to rip on the game.
You will see it some day. More people wake up with time. It took me time too. It’s something you don’t want to believe, like when your parents suggest, “Santa clause might not be real.”
One day you’ll get burned by the lazy currency farmers that run blizzard.
Oh, and nobody is reaching. They just don’t care to write essays. If you want essays on this topic search YouTube for the words you can’t bare to utter here. Or google it. The truth is out there, and I believe you can find it. Raise your expectations to where they used to be.
People play classic for the bragging right of putting “work” into an abstract accomplishment in a binary realm. Their egos are tied to that accomplishment. They mention nothing of fun. Just that they “worked harder” and that’s kind of sad to feel like you need to “work” in a game to feel a sense of accomplishment. Have fun instead.
I think if you pay attention you’ll come to find ‘they’ are having fun, and mentioning it.
You see but a glimpse of the overall story in these forums. Nobody wants to come in here and write you an essay just because you don’t look at other people’s perspectives than your own. It’s out there I you want to see why people wish retail was something more.
The first post in this thread was an essay. I did not demand an essay. I just noticed: nowhere is the word “fun” mentioned. Just the sense of accomplishment the OP felt in obtaining gear. Maybe I don’t know what gear I have on because I’m too busy having fun with the content in retail rather than sitting in the same zone for 20 hours farming the same mob over and over just to be able to have +1 fire protection… But that thought didn’t cross OP’s mind?
OK then what’s the problem? Are you upset that you can’t get any prestige from doing things that are routine now, that nearly everyone is capable of obtaining? You don’t feel special enough in spending your time here? I’m going to go out on a limb and say you are a BC baby who felt like they missed out on Vanilla, so you raise its value for nostalgia reasons.
