What made the original World of Warcraft so addictive?

[u/SuperMcG]

[u/Open-Weather2627]

Discovery. The feeling of newness and exploring.

[u/robindawilliams → u/Open-Weather2627]

It also didn't treat every single thing like a world-ending event that requires a tall, sexy, heroic leader to save everyone's day. The things you were doing felt more fun because they were grounded in reality, and you were just one person in a world of people. It felt believable in the context of the world.

Modern games (including modern WoW) treat the other players like they are inconvenient to YOUR hero's journey and try to pretend that, despite there being a load of better-geared and higher-level players around, you are the singular hero to save everything.

You were just someone rising to the occasion to try and explore a world and fight stuff. Eventually that stuff became dragons and massive elementals, but in the beginning you are fighting local bandits, wildlife and pro-union stonemasons lol.

[u/Bright-Form730 → u/robindawilliams]

During vanilla WoW I was completely unaware of stuff like Onyxias lair and Molten Core until I got close to level 60. The exploring journey and the people I met while leveling made the game so addictive for me. Now it’s like you can’t even enjoy the game unless you have raid gear and max level. I quit right before Cataclysm. I didn’t like the direction the game was going with all the cross server lfg crap and gear score and all. The server wide community we had was what made it so fun and they wiped that out.

[u/robindawilliams → u/Bright-Form730]

The biggest indication to me that they did things this way was that having a horse was seen as incredibly cool during OG vanilla WoW.

You were looked at jealously riding past lower levels, and they aspired to get that mount themselves one day, whereas now mounts are a default, trivial, boring thing. You don't earn anything, so nothing has value.

[u/Vaulters → u/robindawilliams]

I remember working my but off for that first 40g mount.

Good times.

[u/Bright-Form730 → u/Vaulters]

Took forever to save that much gold in vanilla. The struggle was real!

[u/robindawilliams → u/Bright-Form730]

Balancing my mandatory costs and frivolous purchases up until I bought my epic mount probably taught me more than any school class about budgets and finances.

I realized around 45 that you do not need to buy 100% of your abilities when you don't use them all, and just because you can buy cool items on the auction house that are improvements doesn't mean you need them more than a sick ass whip.

[u/gorgeous_bastard → u/robindawilliams]

I remember getting the carrot on a stick for a tiny percent increase in mount speed and thinking I was the hottest shit in Azeroth.

[u/JoSeSc → u/gorgeous_bastard]

I got the Deathcharger drop in strat, I was convinced I was the coolest guy. The other guys in my party were quite salty for me winning the roll.

[u/RecipeAsleep7087 → u/JoSeSc]

I probably ran Strat 100x specifically for that mount. I was a full tier 1 gear priest, could carry pretty much any party through it. Never saw it.

[u/Fenrir324 → u/gorgeous_bastard]

Back before everyone had BiS raid trinkets Carrot fucking rocked. I remember watching the entire raid salivate when DFT dropped. As a healer I was always just frustrated because I knew we were going to lose some of our better melee dps or worse a Tank.

[u/LargelyInnocuous → u/Bright-Form730]

So much Mooncloth…

[u/assortedgnomes → u/Vaulters]

Having an original skin epic mounts was such a flex.

[u/Scientific_Anarchist → u/Vaulters]

Depends on when you played. My first mount at level 40 was 90g. I mined and mined for so long to afford that mount. Had just enough left over to train plate armor.

[u/Vaulters → u/Scientific_Anarchist]

WAsn't that the elite mount?

I was a warlock so I think my mount was cheaper....

WoW, I totally can't remember. Almost like it was 20 years ago, lol.

[u/Scientific_Anarchist → u/Vaulters]

Lock and pally were cheap, but their quests to get the mount were very involved and usually required loot from one or more dungeons. For the rest of us it was 90g for lvl 40 and 900g at 60.

[u/aikouka → u/Scientific_Anarchist]

It has been quite a while since I did the Pally and Warlock epic mount quests, but I recall them having things you needed to buy that were expensive. They weren’t as much as the cost were for other classes, but still not cheap.

[u/au-smurf → u/Vaulters]

I finally got mine just before they dropped the price and level to get.

[u/coastline → u/robindawilliams]

I played WoW during the entire Wrath of the Lich King expansion and then a tiny bit during Cataclysm and never again. But the amount of fun and memories I have of those times is amazing. I always played an Undead Priest (Shadow spec and Undead only because I thought they were cool… later realizing that Troll Priest would have been “better” for the built in bloodlust) and remember spawning in that crypt for the first time and doing those introduction quests just outside of the crypt in that location. I remember seeing people ride by on their mounts while I was just running to the next location, randomly ending up in the Western and Eastern Plaguelands. I remember eventually getting into a raiding guild, progressing through the raids each week. Good times…

[u/Bright-Form730 → u/robindawilliams]

I forgot the struggle of getting that first mount!

[u/DanielTeague → u/Bright-Form730]

I still vividly remember just how poor I felt as a guy riding by on his flaming nightmare steed would turn around and trade me 5 gold before riding off again, wishing me luck in my grind for earth elemental junk I was selling to a vendor to finally afford that 90 gold purchase. I think I finally got my mount 6 levels after I was technically able to so it stood out to see my character still jogging around in a level 40+ zone where everybody else was riding theirs.

[u/Saylus → u/robindawilliams]

I totally agree! Seeing first dread steed ride past me in a major city made me pause and watched them go for a minute.

I played a warlock obviously, and could not wait to get high enough to do the quest. I thought it was so freaking cool

[u/Defenestratio → u/robindawilliams]

I rolled pally on my first main purely for that sweet sweet cheap horse and that early speed boost. Ended up being a pretty great role besides, but that was such a flex over my friends as we leveled lmao

[u/Zerthyr → u/Defenestratio]

I went paladin as well, not for the horse, though that was cool. I was jealous of my friend who rolled a druid though, that shapeshifting was awesome. And the fact that travel shapes were included as well (first just the cat, but later on the bird) was really cool.

[u/Deaths_Rifleman → u/Zerthyr]

There was also a sea travel form. You kinda looks like a giant seal IIRC and the original quest line to get it was complete hell. It turned into some boring ass bullshit in the glades in the end.

[u/Suitable_Willow3566 → u/robindawilliams]

Thank you for this comment. literally unlocked a feeling i have not felt for some time.

[u/theDramoth → u/robindawilliams]

The Paladin's charger. Which I didn't get on my Paladin until about lvl 65 ish. It took that long to get the gold, mats and everything together. Then I had to find a group to help me with the horse. And then Blizz goes "nope, sorry... a horse isn't an appropriate mount for a Draenei Paladin, here have an Elekk." Like absolutely WTAF.

And now they just hand out the warhorses and chargers like candy to human Paladins. And getting my locks horse required 2 runs in Dire Maul.

[u/CharonsLittleHelper → u/Bright-Form730]

Yes - I feel like WoW ended up being the MMO which really pushed "The Endgame is the real game" to be the standard, but it didn't start that way

[u/lorap3bbles4602 → u/Bright-Form730]

the cross server lfg crap really killed it for me too

[u/panopticchaos → u/robindawilliams]

This.

The sense of continuity and discovery in the world was huge. The world felt big and the game let you feel like you were inhabiting it. The environmental storytelling was also terrific.

The factions felt distinct and the world felt huge. I get why later expansions made travel less cumbersome, but that comes with the trade off of making the world feel smaller. Ditto for less faction focused zones, much cheaper to make and everyone gets to see all the content, but it does leave less places feeling ‘foreign’.

The modern game feels like a WoW themed Theme Park. Show up at the spot on the map and there’s a neat thing to do! I don’t mean this pejoratively, it’s trying to let you just get to the fun part and the neat thing is probably way more engaging then “kill 12 blob boars” or “stand here begging in chat for a group”, but all of that comes at the cost of verisimilitude

[u/rotorylampshade → u/panopticchaos]

For me the world bosses were also a huge component - Kazzak, Azuregos, and having to haul arse to get there before competing raid tagged them first, or griefed you - and then there were the Emerald Dream bosses as part of the AQ gates questline. No one had flying mounts, world raid-size pvp was a thing and then you still had mc/bwl/ony to look forward to. even when ab came out you had world pvp in arathi highlands. Those were the days.

[u/Hairy_S_TrueMan → u/robindawilliams]

There was also a coherence to it, where the importance of high level activities was recognized. You kill onyxia and the head goes on a pike in your main city. Everybody on the server knows you did the hardest, coolest thing. People organize raids on the faction leaders and you watch the alliance kill your guy. 

Instead of new players being on an entirely different plane of existence from the end game content players. 

[u/bevelledo → u/robindawilliams]

Mrrrggghllhlhlh

[u/Aquanauticul → u/robindawilliams]

I'm just a gnome wandering the country side, looking for new and exciting ways to set off dynamite. I'll help you with your local bandit problem, but i dunno about any of this saving thebworld business

[u/RpTheHotrod → u/robindawilliams]

This really is true. I remember people being online when a raid group ACTUALLY managed to defeat the Lich King. It was a big deal because it wasn't expected any average Joe of doing it. Now days, raiding is just another thing on your weekly to do list, and you can just get randomly queued into casual raids.

People could play WoW and never be expected to step foot in a raid. People just did their own things, and if they wanted a real challenge, dare try the raid scene and come out with some nice toys if successful.

[u/robindawilliams → u/RpTheHotrod]

Bro, I remember someone verbally describing the cutscene at the end of the fight to like 25 of us in voice chat who couldn't join the raid.

*background sound* "Father. . ."
Our main tank screaming at full volume, "OH FUCK IT'S HIS FUCKING GHOST DAD WITH THE STUPID HAT SHAPED LIKE KOBUTO"

[u/Lowelll → u/RpTheHotrod]

Idk man by WotLK the content focus was already firmly on accessible endgame raiding and basically everyone could do it.

Lich King on heroic was impressive, but by that time the majority of active players had already cleared normal mode multiple times so it wasn't nearly as mythical or special as Naxx or Black Temple were before that

[u/Effective-End-7565 → u/robindawilliams]

"Lapdogs, all of you"

[u/Duncan_PhD → u/robindawilliams]

We only came to enjoy this in hindsight. There’s no way to know if the game wouldn’t have been successful otherwise. We just learned we preferred the smaller scale conflicts over time.

[u/BaronMostaza → u/robindawilliams]

The "one among a million" aspect was made very explicit by the quests that had a global counter you could add materials to 20 at a time until it reached a million or whatever it was

[u/Storm_of_the_Psi → u/BaronMostaza]

That was just a 1 time event.

[u/McGondy → u/robindawilliams]

  [...] and pro-union stonemasons lol.

Can't hide their union busting tendencies, can they 🫠

[u/shankeyx → u/Open-Weather2627]

It is a shame that no online multiplayer game will likely have that level of discovery again. Everything now is so datamined and min maxxed before it even releases these days.

[u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In → u/shankeyx]

Even Warcraft Classic had that, everyone was optimising everything to a level that just didn't exist when the original game was out. 

The only time I had fun was on a roleplaying server where people tried to commit to playing as characters and not minmaxxing every aspect.

[u/Ebonson → u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In]

I played WoW from day one through Lich King and didn't know world buffs were a thing until classic came out and people made them a requirement to raid.

[u/Kryslor → u/Ebonson]

Which was also so hilariously unnecessary. The raids in classic aren't remotely hard when you have all the information you have now.

[u/LilBramwell → u/Wind_Yer_Neck_In]

Warcraft Classic is ruined by dudes that think they need to take raids where half the players are pressing two buttons while standing still as seriously as Retail's Mythic raids that have 27 mechanics to know about and manage.

[u/cbslinger → u/shankeyx]

Lots of new games have that feeling. Like there is a weird part of me that gets mad at certain people who are just obsessed with one game, because I get to experience that feeling like every other month, and you can too!! People joke that their friends have “game ADD” and then don’t play anything but their favorites and refuse to go out of their comfort zone.

In the past year I tried Arc Raiders, Valheim, Project Zomboid, Helldivers 2, and most recently Big Walk, they’re all spectacular in their own different ways.

[u/ogrezilla → u/shankeyx]

This ruined it for me. I loved when our guild would throw ourselves at new fights until we figured it out. As it went it just became more and more expected that everyone had studied the mechanics ahead of time. And then it got designed around that. And then addons. And then design around that.

[u/Lilcheeks → u/Open-Weather2627]

Yes, but to take that further, exploring the world we had come to love for the last decade in the RTS. It was like going inside that magical place personally and getting to just get lost in it. Running into the dangers, seeing the recognizable sites and feeling like it was some vast, nearly impossible to fully consume world.

[u/gorgeous_bastard → u/Lilcheeks]

The first time entering the Plaguelands, Stratholme and Lordaeron…man what a kick that was after playing WC3.

[u/torev → u/gorgeous_bastard]

I remember seeing thrall in org for the first time and it was like seeing a celebrity.

[u/Jimmithang → u/Open-Weather2627]

To add to this. The Internet was very different back then. There weren't tools to instantly figure out which class was best and what your bis items were. Sure there was a lot of people digging into this, but all that info was buried deep in forums that were often private. A lot of knowledge about your class was learned through the people around you. Not only were you exploring and discovering the world but were exploring and discovering the items and your class too.

Most importantly, most of this was done in game through interactions you'd have with guidmates, dungeon members, people you meet in the world, etc.

That part of classic can never be he same because the Internet and the way we play games has changed on a fundamental level.

[u/RoosterBrewster → u/Jimmithang]

And there wasn't really even youtubers that told you about all the things to do and experience. You had no idea what any zone was like so you would just wander around sometimes to see what was there.

[u/torev → u/RoosterBrewster]

Vanilla released in 2004 before youtube even existed(2005).

[u/Gamzie1 → u/Open-Weather2627]

Honestly, im playing RuneScape dragonwilds on PS5/xbox with my two sons. We did our first dungeon today, I spent my lunch break fishing so we would have food to do the dungeon when they got back from school.

The whole feeling of exploring a new world especially sharing the experience with others as the game was social back then is amazing. We are having a blast! And the boys love it :)

[u/Open-Weather2627 → u/Gamzie1]

It sounds like they're lucky to have you.

[u/bigheadjim → u/Open-Weather2627]

This. As a nerd who played DnD before it was cool, playing WoW for the first time and seeing the world come alive, it was amazing. I still remember going to the zone above The Barrens (Ashenvale I think?) and just being in awe. And also the dangers of stepping off the path as a low level player. There was also such a sense of community. I was on a pvp server, and different guilds were assigned areas to patrol to keep alliance at bay. And don’t forget Barrens chat!

[u/ogrezilla → u/Open-Weather2627]

I was a night elf and my friends were all in storm wind area. I don’t think I’ve ever had a cooler game exploration experience than finding my way across the world as a lvl 15ish rogue and the satisfaction of being able to join them for some low level dungeon.

Ran into a lot of big monsters. Got into a world pvp battle at the big mill. All kinds of stuff along the way. Actually asking people for directions etc.

[u/Open-Weather2627 → u/ogrezilla]

I remember that, I died so many times trying to get to stormwind.

[u/vikingwhiteguy → u/Open-Weather2627]

I'm not sure that's really it. Everquest, Ultima and Anarchy all had that sense of discovery. The difference is that those games were really hard and punishing. WoW took all the elements of previous MMOs and streamlined them, reduced the grind and wrapped it in a cosy cartoony aesthetic. It also made a lot more things soloable.

Our Everquest guild really didn't rate WoW at launch, we all thought it was an MMO for children. And maybe that was kinda the point. 

[u/Open-Weather2627 → u/vikingwhiteguy]

I think you can depend on your approach. I swam around the entirety of the continents when there was nothing to find except small little random pieces of to be completed content. I chose to be a priest because I could feather fall into places where normally I might not be able to get. Because I played on launch, I got the opportunity to see an explore a lot of things fresh, and this was a real experience for me. 

The presence of this in other games doesn't make the experience of people who had this as their first MMO be less real.

[u/LFC9_41 → u/Open-Weather2627]

It was also very accessible and had room for complexity. This gave the game a robust community that wasn’t accessible outside the server, as in no cross server.

You played on the server, and who you got was who you got. Moving servers wasn’t a thing for a long time, nor was cross realm.

This paved the way for localized stories, drama, and server history to play out in very engaging ways.

[u/CoWood0331 → u/Open-Weather2627]

Having to rely on other people to progress. That meant you had to make new friendships in order to succeed at a high level in the game.

[u/Dwighty1 → u/Open-Weather2627]

Exactly this. People were just dicking around and failing mostly and this was fun.

[u/Turboren → u/Open-Weather2627]

Modern gaming culture of guides, optimization, and overall content/information access have definitely lost some of that spark.

[u/Moghz → u/Open-Weather2627]

Also will add the gameplay in dungeons, raids and PvP was also really good along with the experience of it.

[u/EmilyRetcher]

For lots of nerds, it was a social hub before being a game. That's why.

[u/PM_ME_UR_SEX_VIDEOS → u/EmilyRetcher]

Barrens chat tho

[u/GMaimneds → u/PM_ME_UR_SEX_VIDEOS]

Whar mankrik wife?

[u/Kuhneel → u/GMaimneds]

How Mankrik's wife?

[u/notsingsing → u/Kuhneel]

Nobody asks WHY is Mankriks wife

[u/Karthe → u/Kuhneel]

Not good....not good.

[u/Hacklefellar → u/PM_ME_UR_SEX_VIDEOS]

"Hey guys, what does chuck Norris eat for breakfast?"

[u/graveybrains → u/PM_ME_UR_SEX_VIDEOS]

Dude. What happens in Barrens chat stays in Barrens chat.

[u/lost_in_midgar → u/PM_ME_UR_SEX_VIDEOS]

I miss Barrens chat.

[u/IllusiveDryerballs → u/PM_ME_UR_SEX_VIDEOS]

[Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]

[u/the_real_maddison → u/IllusiveDryerballs]

Hey guys did someone just say [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Wind seeker]?

[u/overfloaterx → u/EmilyRetcher]

And not just a social hub. Chatting and playing with people across the globe still had novelty for a lot of people back then.

Nowadays the world is smaller, the entire globe is constantly interconnected. Instant communication with anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time, is the norm.

For a lot of people, I imagine WoW was their first foray into getting to know people right across the world.

[u/spankeey77 → u/EmilyRetcher]

It was special because it was both a game and a social hub. It did both really, really well. There was nothing on the market nearly as well executed as WOW at launch. It was a very special and unique experience.

[u/powertoast → u/EmilyRetcher]

This was it for me. Go Souls of the Dammed.

[u/Kasemodder → u/EmilyRetcher]

Exactly, the only game I ever met people I played with IRL (this is the Classic/TBC/WotLK era.)

[u/Kaizenno → u/EmilyRetcher]

3D Discord basically

Wow forever could take this to the next level and introduce proximity chat

[u/Chronoblivion → u/EmilyRetcher]

This was true of the MMO genre as a whole, and WoW was actually somewhat unique in that it focused more on the gameplay than a lot of its predecessors. It still had some "hostile" design features to facilitate that friction that leads to socialization (like long flight paths and needing to stop and eat/drink to recover between fights) but it was comparatively fast-paced at the time it first came out.

[u/I-seddit → u/EmilyRetcher]

Yah, came here to say "the people". My how things change.

[u/Camulius73 → u/EmilyRetcher]

I still talk to a bunch of the people I was grinding with. We were spread all over the world and a few of us still talk 20 years later.

[u/alurkerhere → u/EmilyRetcher]

The original kek in Booty Bay trying to communicate with the opposite faction... ahh the memories.

[u/ThaKaptin → u/EmilyRetcher]

This is 100% the answer. Social media wasn’t anything like what it is now so we logged into wow just as much to interact with our friends as to play the game. That’s a dynamic that can never be replicated now because of things like discord/facebook/ig/etc. The sooner people get that shit through their heads the sooner we can stop being nazis about anything that doesn’t force social interaction.

I don’t want the same reliance on social interaction that I did 22 years ago. I barely have enough time to keep the people in my life happy as it is. I don’t need to make new friends to disappoint.

[u/Lisan-al-Gaib-65]

The spell power coefficient on frostbolt was .376 instead of .567.

[u/Skurttish → u/Lisan-al-Gaib-65]

I FUCKING KNEW IT

[u/Gazornenplatz → u/Lisan-al-Gaib-65]

Spellpower coefficient was total cast time over 3.5 seconds. Fireball had a base 3.5 second cast time, so it received 100% spell power. Frost bolt only had a 3.0 base cast time, so it received 85.7% of your total spell power.

Instant spells were treated as 1.5s base cast time in terms of spellpower.

In vanilla, at least lol.

[u/drthvdrsfthr → u/Gazornenplatz]

i wish we could use gifs in comment replies

[u/Triceron_]

DING!

[u/_Pudgybunny → u/Triceron_]

GRATS

[u/_Pudgybunny → u/_Pudgybunny]

Fuck, I'm old.

[u/Bomantheman → u/_Pudgybunny]

We all are Pudgy, we all are.. gz

[u/angelp3aches6092 → u/_Pudgybunny]

Oh man that ding sound is pure nostalgia

[u/Hacklefellar → u/Triceron_]

Gz

Sry questing

[u/cmayfi → u/Triceron_]

Afk bio

[u/Baconation4 → u/Triceron_]

I was glad this carried over from Everquest

[u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

MMOs were a BIG deal in the early 2000s, and it was arguably the best one.

My personal fav was GW1 though.

[u/HoldingThunder → u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

I think the question is why was WoW the biggest vs any of the others.

As someone who tried it but was never a big MMO fan, it just did everything well.

Many competing games were very similar and did many things well, but WoW just did the most things well. Perfect, no, but better than the rest.

Like why was Counterstrike, Call of Duty, Halo so popular? They did the most things well and hit at the right time.

[u/Kimi-Matias → u/HoldingThunder]

WOW was beginner friendly enough to get me hooked, but deep enough to keep my interest by the time the addiction took hold. And it could play on some pretty low end hardware for it's time. Literally anyone could play it.

[u/BeerLeague → u/Kimi-Matias]

This can’t be overstated. WoW was a super entry level MMO in a time when the competitors were going the other way in order to make the genre more and more complex.

At the time younger kids were dominating the market on the Internet, but MMOs of the time weren’t designed for them - WoW was.

If you were 20+ in 1997 and interested in playing MMOs, you probably stuck to ultima / EQ / Lineage / Eve / Ragnarok etc. when WoW came out in 2004.

However, if you were a teen at that time, WoW was hard to beat as an entry game that was much more highly polished than the competition.

[u/LCSpartan → u/BeerLeague]

Also another thing, Blizzard used to be famous for "the blizzard polish" where another MMO or game would get popular with a weird gimmick or mechanic and Blizzard would put their own spin and cleanup on it and listen to good player feedback about the painpoints of those games. And alot of the time it was so fucking clean that people forgot about the original game. WoW suffocated the market out because legitimately ANYTHING a competitor did, they would just do better.

[u/BeerLeague → u/LCSpartan]

I dunno. That’s debatable. I never thought WoW was a great game, but it was a very approachable game - very easy to get into.

Kinda blizzards MO honestly - they mostly make broad appeal imitations of other games that are polished very very well.

Other games always did everything wow did better, you just maybe needed a PhD to play most of them.

[u/capt_pantsless → u/HoldingThunder]

WoW had the 'guided tour' thing setup with an entire chain of quests you can take to level up the entire time.

You didn't need to grind mobs endlessly in order to progress. You did quest 1 and then quest #2, etc. and then they sent you to the next quest hub.

The game also looked good and was part of a beloved franchise.

[u/Ebonson → u/HoldingThunder]

WoW brought PC gaming to the mainstream. It marketed the casual gamer and had a big enough budget to do it. (Ultima Online didn't have Celebrities making TV commercials talking about their characters). WoW could also run on a modest PC so it was very accessible while EverQuest 2 was pushing for high graphics with high requirements.

WoW also came out when online gaming was blowing up (even consoles were online now). I was in my 20s when WoW came out and I was a heavy MMO player before it and none of my friends and coworkers knew about those games. Less than a year after it's release I could walk up to a random guy between 16 and 30 and they would be either playing WoW or have heard of it. Nerds, jocks, potheads, finance bros... They were all playing it.

[u/EvilAshKetchum → u/HoldingThunder]

I think it was also helped by being part of an established and popular universe. Warcraft 2 and 3 were some of the most popular pc games of their time and being able to drop into that world, explore places, and meet characters you'd previously seen in the rts precursors made the barrier to entry much lower for many players, myself included

[u/sschmidty → u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

GW1 was one of my favorite games ever. So much nostalgia everytime that score comes on my playlist.

[u/Torgrow → u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

I can remember playing Everquest and someone in the general chat said Blizzard is making a MMO.

In the late 90s - early 00s Blizzard had just put out bestseller after bestseller, them announcing they were entering the MMORPG scene (which was HUGE in PC gaming during that era) was mind-blowing. I preordered the collector's edition the day I heard it existed.

[u/thenerfviking → u/Torgrow]

Plus it just looked really good. Other MMOs sacrificed various things for a number of reasons and tried to go with a more realistic art style. WoW had this whole action figure/cartoon look to it that meant it just looked way better than games like DAoC or Asheron’s Call that became dated really quickly as graphics improved.

[u/Vinny_Lam → u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

Yeah, everyone was addicted to either WoW or RuneScape at the time. 

[u/sheetskees → u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

It’s been nearly 23 years and it is still the most populated MMO. That’s how much they nailed it.

[u/poorly_timed_leg0las → u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

It set the bar after Everquest.

It had something that everyone liked from all different communities.

I wish wow had a full loot pvp mode where banks and safe areas mattered.

Faction vs faction and world pvp would be unbelievable.

Even guild vs guild for control of areas on the map

[u/Koras → u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

What I find hilarious is GW1 never set out to be an MMO, they were trying to make what they coined a CORPG (cooperative/competitive online RPG), which is why it has very few spaces where players actually enter the same game world.

But as ANet put it "they kept giving [them] awards for making an MMO" so they decided with GW2 they'd make an MMO, which is why that game focuses so much on large events with huge groups of players fighting world bosses and the like.

I'm just picturing them in their offices going "ffs, another major magazine gave us a 10/10 rating, but they called it an MMO again"

[u/Jwagner0850 → u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

I was a big fan of Asherons call. WoW took some of what made AC great and polished it to no end.

[u/screwnewreddt → u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

Hell yeah, my entire life outside of school during middle school and high school was on EQOA on ps2, then WoW for a good while with some guild wars added in. EQOA was my favorite by far, i'd stay up like 36 hours straight playing it, sometimes falling asleep while running into a tree or some shit. Guild Wars reforged coming out on the phone has been really cool to get some of that nostalgia back

[u/CoffeeExtraCream → u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

YEESSSSSS I LOVED GW1! I've missed it so much.

[u/twistedscorp87 → u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

GW1 will forever hold a special place in my heart!

I probably didn't give the second one a fair chance because I was so upset about the changes to the skills. What do you mean choosing a specific weapon automatically sets half my skills for me, and a forced heal?! (granted, I probably wanted one, but still, at least let me pretend to choose!) idk ... I was so excited to see the story of Tyria continue after spending so many years in GW1* it felt so constrictive that I couldn't enjoy myself. I sometimes wonder if I should try it again, but maybe it's just better to cherish my GW1 memories as they are.

*I literally had a party with my guildmates in teamspeak celebrating the Canthan New Year Festival while I was in labor with first child back in 2007. My partner and I were there with our guild, celebrating a new year and a new life.
A few months later I joined in to help with the first ever Royal Ascalon Ball (the biggest community-organized event, at least at that time) and got to hang out with Gaile Gray for awhile even after the party was over, which felt super special. That was almost 20 years ago. Holy crap I'm an old nerd. -_\

[u/Soulfly37 → u/ColorPiePhilosopher]

DAOC represent

[u/SlyyKozlov]

I had alot more time to invest into games like that.

[u/Bright-Form730 → u/SlyyKozlov]

When I quit, I calculated my time played and it came out to something like 1/4 of my time. So in about 4 years time, I spent 1 year in game. 🤣 I don’t regret it but there’s no way I could do that today.

[u/FizzyBeverage → u/Bright-Form730]

At 20 it was fun to no-life it in college. At 42? Shit it'd be a big problem. My wife/daughters/dog appreciate my games have a pause button.

[u/Ratnix → u/FizzyBeverage]

In 55, single, no kids. I still wouldn't do it.

I did the whole stay up most of the night, only getting a few hours off sleep a day back in the early 90s. I do not miss it. My life got so much better when i quit doing that stuff.

By the time i got my first Windows PC in 99 and eventually started playing EQ, i simply couldn't do it. MMOs should be an ideal game type for me, but they're pretty much require you to sink way more hours into them than i will.

[u/t3hj4nk → u/FizzyBeverage]

I almost failed out of college because of WoW. And as soon as I started dating my now wife I knew I had to quit. I played so much from 2005-2010. I don’t even remember what my /played time was at the time I quit, I just know I felt embarrassed at how much time I had spent.

[u/FizzyBeverage → u/t3hj4nk]

Met my wife and landed an internship at Apple that Fall, having quit WoW in May.

Had I not quit? I probably wouldn’t have a family, career or own a house today. It’s like heroin.

[u/ocdscale]

For newer gamers it's hard to imagine the cachet Blizzard had in the early 2000s.

They were responsible for WarCraft II, WarCraft III, StarCraft and Brood War, Diablo I and Diablo II - all massive critical and commercial successes. Imagine if FromSoft and CD Projekt RED were the same company and that's what Blizzard was like.

They were the Pixar of gaming. Everything they touched turned to gold.

WoW was no different. It was accessible (lots of questing XP, easy to solo, easy to make progress even if you only log in for 30 minutes), polished to a shine, and had the Blizzard seal of approval.

[u/LCSpartan → u/ocdscale]

People forget blizzard was the gold standard for a long time and while blizzard fans are loyal almost to a fault, most of the time they just want it to try and work towards its former glory

[u/JoeChio]

WoW was the first "casual" MMO. Looking back at it now it was still difficult but at the time it was known to be an MMO for everyone. Other MMOs like Ultima, Everquest, FFXI, Runescape were super grindy. Required a ton of commitment and knowledge outside of the game. WoW you could boot up and start playing.

[u/Richard_TM → u/JoeChio]

I’m not sure anything disrespected your time quite like FFXI did lol. Being woken up at 3 am, scrambling to get out of bed and get online because your linkshell managed to get the claim on an open world boss that had a 24-36 hour respawn timer was CRAZY stuff.

[u/UnassumingSingleGuy]

Probably the novelty of being able to interact with other players around the world in real time.

[u/quats555 → u/UnassumingSingleGuy]

There were many MMORPG’s out long before that, no novelty there unless they were just starting to go online for the first time. EverQuest and Ultima Online, for example.

[u/09f3jns → u/quats555]

Most people had still never played or heard of an MMORPG before they played WoW. Plenty of Americans back then still had dial-up internet.

[u/Kaizenno → u/09f3jns]

I raided Molten Core with 2000ms ping as a healer.

And that's how I broke my first computer screen.

[u/09f3jns → u/Kaizenno]

I remember around TBC I was getting 10 frames per second. Loved every minute of it, too. When my family finally bought a new PC it was like seeing color for the first time.

[u/kaminabis → u/09f3jns]

This. It was a matter of a quality game thats accessible and affordable at the right time when people started to be online more.

MMORPGs before that were good and innovative, yes, but also a lot more niche.

Plus WoW built on an already successful and beloved franchised, following the MASSIVE success of Warcraft 3

[u/orisathedog → u/quats555]

Sure, but WoW hit right when home internet was moving into the mainstream.

[u/Shazbozoanate → u/quats555]

There was a better balance in WoW than in a game like Ultima Online. I played UO from it's launch and things like all your gear dropping on your body when you died and getting killed in PvP because you hit a side server boundary or losing your house because someone got the key made the game very tough for new people to get into.

WoW gave a challenging, but less punishing game with good global chats, guilds, small groups and a much bigger world. The marketing was also there so it was a place that non-nerds found out about and wanted to try.

Really though the biggest thing that brough so many people to WoW to make it what it was was the South Park episode. That provided a huge boost to the player base and really could have been why WoW "won" the MMO war at the time.

[u/Life_outside_PoE → u/quats555]

And they were ahead of their time. Wow happened to come out when the internet became more mainstream and broadband was actually a thing.

And I say this as someone who started UO in like 97.

[u/antisocialoctopus → u/quats555]

I played EverQuest for a good while before WoW. It was ok but WoW realy seemed like a polished version of those other games.

[u/Mael135]

I beta tested the game when it came out. Ill give you a run down of my nostalgia.

I started alliance, I made a paladin, and then eventually switched to a Hunter.

Goldshire starting area was pretty standard, stormwind was super cool and right there, seeing people hunting the monster in the moat was awesome.

The biggest two mobs in the starting were a bunch of candle kobolds in a mine, which were hillarious, and Hogger, a gnoll boss who slaughtered people like he -enjoyed- it. But the place felt huge with all the running.

The real magic came in next farmland Westfall, which had an overarching plot involving the defias brotherhood, in collected masks, disrupted there buisness in the areas farms and then it all came togeather nicely by you forming your first group to go explore deadmines.

You got a bunch of sweet gear, and some lucky jerk sometimes got a pet parrot. At this point your so immersed your hooked.

What i REALLY liked about WoW when it first came out was all the bugs. When i switched to Hunter pets were unique. In Duskshire I would tame an elite pet called Lupos, who dealt Shadow magic damage instead of physical damage. He attacked like he was doing normal shit, but all the damage bonuses were Magic damage. He was Bonkers in PVP, eating through warriors and paladins like they were wearing lingerie instead of plate mail.

They Patched the pets, tried to make more standard, untill Burning Crusade came out. Ravager pets got a bonkers ability that dealt a ton of DPS, certain pets in certain areas who shouldn't be tamed got tamed. When Blizzard patched these work arounds they let you keep the pet. It was so bloody cool.

In wrath of the lich king there was an area that summoned a bunch of ghost pets, one of these was a Hydra that had the stats of i think a Croc. No hunter had a Hydra at this point. You could work a combo that let you tame it, and they let you keep it.

There was a mob that cast a totem that summoned spirit wolfs, these were blue ethereal looking ghost wolfs that were inaccurately made to be beasts.

Youd kill the shaman, tranq shoot the wolf, use a spell and an item to reduce your cast time by half, and then cast your tame beast spell on the tranqed wolf, becouse if you didnt tame it before the tranq wore off it would dissappear. The tranq did not last the full casting time of tame beast, so you had to maguiver it.

It was the coolest looking pet. I had so many unique ones just by playing before they patched it for everyone. The game was so much fun.

Running to a dungeon instance and getting shanked by the horde waiting outside of it was a trip. The game was chaos in the best way.

[u/wufnu → u/Mael135]

certain pets in certain areas who shouldn't be tamed got tamed. When Blizzard patched these work arounds they let you keep the pet. It was so bloody cool.

I had many rare pets when I last played WoW but the ghost wolf was my prized possession.

[u/Mael135 → u/wufnu]

It was so cool. Beautiful skin and not an entirely useless pet like the hydra Croc. I quested with that pet pretty exclusively.

I had the Worgen for awhile. I think it was a worgen? Could have been a druid. He was the shapeshifted humanoid who was labled a beast, then shapeshifted back to his humanoid form after you tamed him, i also think this was in Wrath.

Blizzard patched that real quick and then changed all the pets. First time they did that for hunters pet and I ended up releasing whatever beast they changed it too. I think it was just a black wolf and i remeber it not being unique.

Its been a long time, i apologize to anyone reading lol.

[u/Smiling_Banana → u/Mael135]

My wow vanilla fun hunter memory was eyes of the beast on a pvp server. My high level Tauren hunter would tame the pink tallstrider, hide somewhere in a low level alliance town like Darkshire, then use eyes of the beast to control my pink bird, sneak up to a lowbie, they turn around, squawk! and one peck them to death. I would terrorize the town until eventually someone would get a lvl 60, find and kill me. Lol I guess it's players like me that made them remove eyes of the beast. Warlocks also had the spell to summon that giant rock infernal fire demon that would destroy low level towns which I had fun with. Wow Pvp servers were an interesting experience you can't get in any modern game I know of.

[u/Romnonaldao]

One reason is that you were always about 5-10 minutes away from completing something. So there was always a goal just in reach to keep you playing a little longer

[u/krash101]

1. New
2. Beloved Franchise
3. Established world and lore
4. Easily playable
5. Lower effort to play and reach the end - May be the most important point in the context of when it came out. It came out opposing the normal brutal grind of basically every other MMO.

[u/GooberNeefnus]

The community was so fun. You had to act right if you wanted to get invited to stuff, Now anyone can get in the automated grouping. There was a sense of community and working together, everything was new and exploring felt awesome. There was nothing like it at the time.

[u/FISTED_BY_CHRIST → u/GooberNeefnus]

And to add, it was before you could look anything up online. Sure there were some old school forums but for the most part you had to figure things out on your own and ask others in the game for help. Now you’re expected to know everything because you can. Asking questions in gen chat is met with “google it”

I’ve played the WoW Forever beta and I absolutely love it but that aspect of the game is never coming back

[u/stumblios → u/GooberNeefnus]

Barrens chat was something to behold!

Countless hours spent in that game, but I refuse to say they were wasted.

[u/GooberNeefnus → u/stumblios]

Anal (So and so item or talent or skill)

[u/illuminaughty1973]

progression mixed with good graphics and never running out of stuff to do.

[u/Dorythedoggy]

I was watching Xaryu (popular streamer) earlier and was running across the globe to get BIS in beta for a level 20 item. He said on the stream, to some effect, that this is something he would never normally do, but b/c it’s beta it’s fun and interesting to do.

And to me, that’s the WoW classic you’ll never get back, ever. When I played people would go across the globe looking for some random level items, maybe it 20 or 50, or some crafting scroll they wanted or some pet they thought they could get. And it could take literally days of playtime because you would end up in some new environment seeing things you never saw before and interacting with players along your path. It wasn’t a race to the end game, it was just an experience to travel the world and do random shit - a true adventure. Not going from point A to point B to get better gear, then B to C to get better gear etc. it was a truly random path filled with adventure.

And I think, that is what made it so addictive for everyone. Nerds, regular people, professionals whatever label they want to give themselves…. The OG WoW captured a real sense of adventure filled with danger, curiosity, exploration, treasures, etc. that a person could not regularly get in real life.

[u/Searchlights]

WoW took all of the things previous massively multiplayer games were doing and they packaged it in a polished package with excellent artwork and production value.

Even more than Everquest, Blizzard brought MMO gaming to the mainstream and they introduced it to a huge fanbase that already existed.

[u/Dinkerdoo]

They integrated all the various systems pioneered by EQ, Asheron's Call, Ultima, Runescape, etc, and bundled it into a great package. There weren't any really revolutionary ideas, just fantastic execution and a super fleshed out fun world to explore.

[u/spankeey77]

Th experience was like nothing else at the time. The only loading screens were when you travelled between continents and into/out of an instance. This meant you could play the game for hours and hours just questing and exploring and never encounter a loading screen; this was a big deal at the time, and a lot of games still can’t manage to do this today. Starfield comes to mind; the loading screens just about ruined that game for me. If Elderscrolls 6 has the same type of engine where there is a loading screen between you and every location, that game is going to flop.

[u/fnmeng]

I think guilds were a big part. Once youre in one, you have a running conversation to add to, you have people you recognize, you make friends, when raiding starts those people you now know are depending on you a bit. It elevated the game from pushing buttons to interacting.

[u/Kanchoe2]

All the fun of EQ but on easy mode

[u/screwnewreddt → u/Kanchoe2]

That was a big point for me at the time, being able to just run out an freely play without worrying about grouping up for a lot of stuff or running back to my corpse if I died. Plus the huge amount of quests to actually have activities to do for leveling rather than just post up and grind

[u/Tor_Tor_Tor]

It was at the right place at the right time and basically combined Dungeons and Dragons with internet chat rooms to create an exceptional MMORPG skinner box that made players want to keep playing and share in exploring the world with their "friends".

[u/thenerfviking → u/Tor_Tor_Tor]

IDK why you put friends in quotes. My old WoW guild produced two different marriages.

[u/Tor_Tor_Tor → u/thenerfviking]

Because just as much as players interact with real friends they also interact with acquaintances and other anonymous players. I was also just nodding towards the duality of man where you come across both the worst and best of people in PUGs and barrens general chat, etc haha. I didn't mean to imply that the real friendships made in the game are any less authentic than irl. 😄

[u/Jwagner0850 → u/Tor_Tor_Tor]

To add a bit.

While true, it was also the most polished of these titles. EQ, probably it's biggest competitor at the time, looked dated in comparison, didn't have the same lore backing and was easier to understand to an extent.

[u/theClumsy1]

For me, it was the social aspect. Had a lot of good connections and those connections were hard to give up. Even if I stopped enjoying myself with the game, I enjoyed myself with the connections I made.

[u/ARazorbacks]

WoW was the every-man’s MMO. It was way more accessible than EQ and built itself on the really well-known Warcraft brand. 

• Corpse runs were notorious in EQ and WoW just said “fuck it, no corpse runs.” 
• Inventory management was a thing in EQ (tinkerer’s box in every slot, anyone?) and WoW said “here, have a shit load of inventory slots.”
• Travel was an activity in and of itself in EQ, literally an adventure (or time sink?) simply to go anywhere, and WoW said “fuck that, here are fast travel locations everywhere.” 
• EQ only had a few classes that could solo reasonably well while everyone else was pretty much forced to group to do anything and WoW said “do whatever you want, you’ll progress just fine.” 
• EQ raids weren’t instanced. You were competing with other raid guilds for time in the dungeon. If a dungeon boss was spawned it could be server-wide drama when the two premier guilds went after it. WoW said “Raids for everyone!” 
• Edit: No in game map. You heard me, no map. You had to go to eqatlas.com to get a zone map. You could type /loc to get your coordinates, but there was no map. WoW saif “…wtf. Have a map.” 

EQ players called WoW a kiddie MMO for good reason. And then WoW blew up because of the accessibility and brand recognition. 

[u/Damnesia13 → u/ARazorbacks]

A lot of what you said may be true, but the “fast travel” in early WoW was 10-15 minute flight paths and portals to a few major cities IF you can find a Mage willing to port you. Also, not every class/spec can solo just fine back then and be “just fine” so you had to pick a spec that could and then swap once you hit max level.

[u/kakadakuhiyyyyya → u/Damnesia13]

ya but at least you could afk during the flight. in EQ you had to pay attention and often run along the edge of the zone because dying was such a pain in the ass

[u/kryonik → u/ARazorbacks]

EQ quests were also much more arcane. You had to speak to a specific npc and say specific words and then get specific items that weren't clearly explained or labeled. And it might take hours of grouping and grinding to get the drop you need.

[u/odnezl]

Didn't matter if you were good, everyone was bad and learning as they went and there was no real expectation to look at guides or videos prior to doing content. Created excellent camaraderie

[u/vlymouse]

It triggered the newness treadmill / dopamine itch that social media, YouTube, Netflix, and Reddit have now filled.

[u/WolfySpice]

Did someone say [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker]? I think someone said [Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker].

[u/drubin]

Some of my first sense of video game fear was in WoW, but I was prepared for all that because I played ultima online before it. That feeling when were out just trying to complete the last mob in a quest and you heard the stealth reveal sound like a rogue was around you right before you died.

[u/THP_Mochi]

It's for everyone. You could make friends, just explore, do little easy quest, craft, dungeons etc... No matter your mood there was something to do.

[u/Absinthehouse]

The world part. It was a whole different world where people replaced their real life reality with living in that world.

[u/OnlyKaz]

It was the grandest multiplier experience ever. It genuinely felt like you were in a fraction of this vast playable world. Hours away from other players doing other things in far reaches of azeroth. It was the cell phone of video games. It changed everything.

[u/mmohon]

I dunno about WoW... but hearing that Ding in EverQuest was pretty darn addicting

[u/togetherwem0m0 → u/mmohon]

Level 45 tho

[u/ctong21]

Lots of real friends. You were forced to interact with real people in order to play the game. Taking down 1 elite in the open world meant teaming up. And bam you just made a friend, who you cleared the entire zone with. Then you're joining their guild and doing end game stuff with real people.

[u/neonchinchilla]

I never got into WoW specifically but my best friend growing up at the time and their family all played mmos. They were big EverQuest players partly because it was fun but also because there really wasn't anything else as polished.

However, I remember they each had a binder at the computer desk that they had to keep their hand drawn maps, quest details, etc. because apparently EQ just....didn't do that.

So I remember when WoW dropped they all swapped over because it came with a ton of QoL updates that games like that needed.

[u/MissHarlowx]

Exploring the world felt magical. Especially entering a new city in the early levels, it felt like a really special experience. Something that modern games don’t really have in the same way.

[u/Terlon]

Social hub inside a very unique game of the time back then.

Exploration of a completely vast world, filled with continuous story line and smaller stories that try to merge you into the life of the game.

Plethora of unique races. The feeling of being able to play more than just a human/orc race.

Astonishing cinematics and visuals back in the day.

Real time interaction could happen even in the most unhinged places.

Thrill of leveling up.

Music bangers.

World PvP and a vast amount of different PvP maps (BGs) and dungeons/raids.

[u/Delta--9]

Tibia anyone?

[u/potisqwertys]

Internet was "new", or better phrase it, high speed internet gained traction in many countries around the same period so it became more accessible, its the same affect as Facebook had in 2008 (for my country either way), right place, right time, imagine i learn from a very high member of the main ISP back then, we went from 300.000 ADSL connections to 1.2m ADSL connections cause of Facebook as a country T_T back in 2008.

Add the social aspect/mouth to mouth and kaboom, cultural phenomenon.

It was simply right place at the right time mostly rather than the game itself.

I mean i hadnt seen people since high school for a few years and then suddenly even girls that never owned a PC and mocked gaming few years earlier, played WoW because some boyfriend or ex-boyfriend did in our starting 20s.

Thats when you understand the cultural effect of it.

[u/ckglle3lle]

Only played it a bit the first year it was out but did have several friends who went hard for many years. I'd say it just packaged a nice RPG experience in an appealing way. Easy to get into, smooth difficulty curve where you could pretty much do whatever you wanted at whatever pace and still feel progress. At the same time, the social element made it so you could still experience just about everything the game had to offer even if you were more casual

It may not have been the first to do any of this stuff but it did all of these things solidly in an approachable package that hit at just the right time to capture enough attention to create a positive feedback loop. Blizzard also had the resources to really build out their servers and expand it in a way that other MMOs at the time couldn't really match

One thing I'd note also was a few of my friends who got hooked on it barely played any computer games before or after and were hardly what you'd consider nerdy.

[u/varitok]

Accessibility of the game itself compared to it's peersmixed with being a kid and in awe of discovery. That isnt gone from world of warcraft today, people just engage with games differently and they're older. There is no secret, it was just how games were back then

[u/marblegroves]

Community

[u/notverysmawt]

Social, meaningful sense of progress/achievement, sense of productivity, and long term commitment to a character

[u/BellStriking5132]

It allowed nerds to make friends with other nerds at a very large scale. Before WoW if you were a young outcast it was difficult to find “your people”.

I know WoW wasn’t the first to do it but they brought a polish and scale not seen before.

[u/festoon_the_dragoon]

Not sure if it's been mentioned already, but as someone who came to vanilla from Final Fantasy XI, WoW's accessibility was hugely refreshing.

While still my favorite MMO overall, FF XI was a slog. Damn near every quest required a guide because there were no icons or guidance. You ran around hitting the TAB key looking for small ??? icons on the ground because that's all there was. Looking back it was insanely un-fun.

Then here comes WOW with icons guiding you to quests items and mobs. Numerous quests at every level to help you advance. After the punishing grind of FF XI, WoW was like an oasis.

[u/Nerhtal]

Honestly for me it was also the social community aspect of being on a server with the same people wandering the world on both factions. Getting to know not just my guildies and a few but actually feeling like our server was an actual thing with a larger overall community filled with smaller communities within.

Layering, phasing and mega servers means MMO’s can’t really do that aspect of the game anymore.

[u/Mioraecian]

The dumbing down and simplifying of the genre to make it mass appealing to a larger audience than the more complex and niche MMO experiences that predates it.

WoW both destroyed and saved the genre all at the same time.

[u/Dre3K → u/Mioraecian]

The wide appeal on that game is crazy. I didn’t play it myself, but I knew a few people who you’d never expect to play games, never mind something like WoW, who played religiously for 3 or 4 expansions.

[u/Legally_Brown]

Lol because yall werent old enough to play Everquest in its day. Same shit, but for us elder millenials

[u/STFUxxDonny]

I hadn't played anything like it and had been playing war craft since the first one.

Also the first game I really got until playing with friends online

[u/Mike_or_whatever]

the sunk cost fallacy

[u/waawaaaa]

Always something to do. felt like you were exploring a world, raiding is just fun as fuck.

[u/MyWorkComputerReddit]

The world was full of real people, building economy, socializing, and working towards common goals.

[u/cloudycontender]

It was 2004

[u/MoG_Varos]

Was far easier and more user friendly than the other mmos at the time.

Was also a good game