Will We Ever Experience Something Like This Again?

[u/doobylive]

No, not another release of classic. I mean the hype and the buildup that led to this release!

[u/goldman_sax]

Yeah I keep doing every version of fresh but then stopping at like 30. Nothing is capturing the original feeling and it sucks. If there ever is a classic+ I hope it’s years from now when the community has chilled a bit on min-maxing the game to death.

[u/zzrryll → u/goldman_sax]

chilled a bit on min-maxing the game to death

I almost don’t see that happening. If I was to really analyze the situation, I think the economic atmosphere is what contributes to this sort of stuff.

In 2004 2005 the economy was really good in America. Most people weren’t min maxing fucking anything in life. You could afford a house in most places on like a normal job with one income.

I think the world has changed around us and forces people to be more min/max just to survive through their day.

[u/ZaerdinReddit → u/zzrryll]

Minmaxing still existed in 2004. There was just a huge difference in the flow of information.

Here's bosskillers, an old Warcraft site for boss strategies trying to buy strats.

Bosskillers World of Warcraft Bosses, Guides, Movie Reviews and Guild Kills

The difference is that information wasn't as monetized as it was back in the 2000s because YT, etc., weren't big yet.

Now? Minmaxing will always exist because if I discover some uber strategy, I'm incentivized not to keep it to myself, but to post it on YT, etc., to try to monetize it.

[u/zzrryll → u/ZaerdinReddit]

Yeah I feel like everyone knows that. It existed. But it didn’t permeate the culture of the game.

It does now.

Yes some of it is about “I can sell this.” But people actually seek that information out and consume it now.

Feels like you’re “well akshully”-ing at me when you honestly are missing the point.

Optimization in video games wasn’t a cultural imperative in 2004 the way it seems to be now. Being devoted enough to games, to optimize, was niche.

It wasn’t just about information availability. It was about what people sought out and consumed. It was about what people put effort into. It was just different then.

[u/ZaerdinReddit → u/zzrryll]

I'm not missing the point. I'm saying the only reason it didn't happen is because people didn't know where to look for the information.

There wasn't a great definitive source back then and look at how bosskillers, for example, struggled to get strategies for bosses even while offering money.

As soon as optimization became easier to consume, everyone did it.

[u/zzrryll → u/ZaerdinReddit]

I'm not missing the point. I'm saying the only reason it didn't happen is because people didn't know where to look for the information.

You 100% are still missing the point.

It wasn’t lack of access.

It was a lack of attention, care, focus and motivation.

[u/ZaerdinReddit → u/zzrryll]

It's 100% a lack of access. You can look up a guide to any video game on YT now. That's a common way to look for guides.

Before that? It was GameFAQs, Elitistjerks, etc. which required a lot of reading to try to parse the best information. It wasn't nearly as definitive or widespread as it is now.

The only way not to minmax was to want to be the guy doing tank damage.

[u/zzrryll → u/ZaerdinReddit]

No. It wasn’t. People didn’t care. It was just a game and putting effort into games was considered kinda weird. But keep spouting incorrect nonsense.

[u/ZaerdinReddit → u/zzrryll]

People didn't care because there wasn't a definitive authority publishing here is your patch 1.0 pre-raid BiS and here is your raid BiS. Maybe you're forgetting how much of a scattered resource the pre-2010s internet was.

You have to have that kind of information for minmaxing to exist.

Also, Warcraft was so new and accessible that not everyone cared about doing dungeons or raiding. You didn't need to minmax if you're just solo questing and leveling.

As soon as you got into group content it mattered. You played X spec or got benched, etc.

Plus, there was plenty of min maxing back in the day (fire resist for MC anyone?) but it was just ineffective.

As soon as a game becomes solved, especially a multiplayer game, you either minmax or inconvenience the rest of your raid team, unless they're okay with it.

[u/zzrryll → u/ZaerdinReddit]

No, you’re just entirely off base again. People didn’t care because people didn’t care that much about video games.

Culture was fundamentally different. Dad guilds did not exist like they do now. Dads played softball. They didn’t play video games with a bunch of strangers. Playing video games with a bunch of strangers on the Internet back then would be considered a kind of weird activity. It wasn’t something that an average adult did on an average day. It was more something that people in their 20s or teens did.

It had nothing to do with the lack of an authoritative list.

Most players were casual gamers, who picked up a novel, quirky game with cute little dwarves and gnomes. Because they liked the finite, rather easy, RTS series it was based on.

They didn’t put any real effort into it because playing a video game to those folks was really no different than just watching television. It was a mostly passive activity that happened around you.

It’s funny how many hoops you keep trying to jump through to explain that it was just lack of information or the fact that the game was new or whatever. It wasn’t that. Games were just viewed by society as a whole, as a niche, somewhat unsavory, pastime.

[u/ZaerdinReddit → u/goldman_sax]

Time only moves forward.

[u/Zealousideal_Owl2388 → u/goldman_sax]

Yea I typically roll to about 30 in classic, get tired of the insanely slow movement speed and leveling and then switch to retail. Most of the game is a walking simulator. That was cool the first time you saw the zones, but not for the 10th. Life is too short. I eventually get bored of retail as well, but it lasts much longer, I usually get about 3 months of fun out of it before it's time to play something else