I'm typing on a stupid tablet that won't let me directly reply, but I played both Guild Wars 1 (loved it) and Guild Wars 2 (not as much).

I only would want to do kind of like a single player tour of some of these MMOs to see what all the fuss is about. I don't quite have the ability to devote enough time to find people to regularly play with or the scheduling ability to do so.

Why am I replying to this fool? Fool makes me laugh...

Anyway...

I paid for a 6 month subscription so figured I'd give them time to make improvements and actually implement meaningful RvR/PvP and level-up in the meantime (errr, though it only took like, 3 weeks to max at that point...and, cause, ya know, I specifically joined a PvP server in the promise of it having fun PvP, which it didn't.) For those curious, I was a DPS Tauren Shock Shaman who kicked major ass but no one liked DPS shamans at that point and they'd always wine that I wasn't a protector. Lame-ass build-babies.

Obviously through those 6 months things just went more and more downhill and the truth about the game revealed itself, if I'd quit after 3 months I might have been like "hmmm, I wonder how it's changed" and gone back at some point. As it was, I was done for good.

I just miss the beauty that was Frost tree for mages in vanilla (and to a lesser degree in BC, but completely gone by Wrath). Soloing Dire Maul; picking up forty or fifty mobs at once and kiting them all down. With a good connection, and some practice, frost mages were PvE gods. Grab three Un'Goro Guardians and kite them in a circle, picking off the lesser spawns.

Granted, some of that is nostalgia glasses. I was playing vanilla WoW with some good friends, so part (maybe a big part, considering the dreary bore of raiding in vanilla when it was Molten Core or bust, before BWL and Naxx) of the memories are of the people, not the game. But I do miss a bunch of the things that came with the original rules.

Up yours!!!!

Aah, Tarren Mill. The memories, the constant battles, the....oh fuck, we crashed the server! lol

They are actually viable for tanking trash groups if you have the right build, and having one in the raid in the same group with the main tank is recommended because of auras. Eh. Yes, and no. Depends on what quest, what level they are, what build you have, what class you are. It's kind of like saying water can boil. Yes, water can boil, but it does so at different temperatures in different pressures. Yes. Yes, it does. And it sucks. But that feeling when you finally get it tho. There are a few exceptions if I remember correctly, one being Stranglethorn Vale on Horde side.

If you're only 30, wait til you get the pally epic mount quest at lvl 40. IIRC it's pretty grueling and very expensive.

Of the two classes that had it I preferred the warlock mount quest.


For most of my vanilla/TBC time I soloed, other than the occasional dungeon run. A number of harder areas were still very fun. I started on a pvp server, but had a much better experience when I moved to pve - at that point the exploration/questing/leveling were what interested me most.

I started playing pvp more in later expacs as they watered down the leveling more and more.

You can solo most of the content. If you do not mind, you can also do instances if you are a bit higher then the expected level (about 10-15 levels, depending on gear and class). Raid instances can be more tricky t solo, but if you have the patience you can also out-level them until.your character is high enough. You can not solo endgame raids. (Orbepic dungeons). So you can see about.95% of all content soloing.

FWIW, you can "play" WOW for free.

A free demo account will let you run up to lvl 20, and you can do all the instances/BGs/zones up to that level. I still do that from time to time. It's enough to give the flavor of the whole thing, in any case.

There's a 20 lvl cap, a 10g money cap, and you can't use the AH or mail system, but aside from that you can see the environments/classes/etc.

Wow... you mentioned getting a party was a little tougher... are you able to do MC vanilla? I loved the 40 man raids, they were tough though, as everyone when we started them had to pay attention and play up to snuff or it was going to be a wipe... Our little guild got SO lucky we downed Ragnaros on our second "real" raid (one that wasn't just a build up some fire gear and learn the minor bosses raid) Of Course, after that we failed about 6x in a row.. frustrating!
IMO the game was never the same after the Burning Crusade expansion. The starting green gear was as good/better than raid gear from the original game, they got rid of the bigger raids and things just got more craptastic as it went. I quit release day of Cata, was burnt out and didn't want anything to do with it. (also most of my old friends had left by then)
I soloed a LOT back then... started with a Forsaken rogue (Funny I don't remember my original server...ummm... Zul'Jin? ... had to quit it after I had hit 60 because of connection /overcrowding issues)
As far as the Mounts I had one of the first 5 or so Forsaken level 60 mounts. It was awesome sitting in Orgrimmar while everyone /whistled etc at Dread the Rogue.
After that we moved to Thrall and alliance side... which is where i stayed until Cata.

I am 30 and I managed to do dungeons regularly with a guild I am in.

No one is ready for 40 man raiding a lot of the guild is still leveling.

Do tell? Is it possible to buy the whole series on sale somewhere and play it on a private server solo?

I used to play World of Warcraft quite a bit. Started during the Burning Crusade and played up to Wrath of the Lich King.
I just started playing again and got to Orgrimmar to do some Lightning Lizard hunting in the canyons there, like I used to do years ago... but It's flooded, completely flooded... and they're dead, all of them... dead!
I have but one humble question: WHAT HAPPENED?! I used to waste hours doing that, and now I can't anymore :P

...oh yeah, is it just me or did the game get a lot easier? It seems that enemies have to be 10 or so levels higher than you to be a challenge, but before there seemed to be more of a challenge, even at the low level starting quests?

The game is a lot easier, esp. at low levels. Mana regens much faster without needing to drink much if ever, you get more abilities sooner, and there's less of the "murloc" death swarm effect where you couldn't snare/kill enemies fast enough to stop them from fleeing into a larger pack.

Now you're probably only going to die if you seriously screw up, or you go afk. Not to mention that if you have heirloom gear you're ridiculously OP pretty much all the way up.

So it's not me! Now I'm considering doing what Elmofongo has done and use a vanilla private server, this easier version seems to get boring a little faster that what it originally did :P

My brother and I were going into high level dungeons for a more of a challenge ...and wiping them out relatively quickly in the process.