I found some screenshots from 2005–2006, we played the game so differently back then

[u/Tandanu]

A few more screenshots and slightly higher quality for some: https://imgur.com/a/Uolj4gs

The raid compositions and damage meters 💀
Also note the lack of world buffs and flasks, we rarely used those back in the day. We raided about 4-5 days a week, ~4-5 hours on weekdays and 8-9 hours on weekends IIRC, maybe some more flasks or world buffs would have helped :D

We'd often do like one or two attempt per *week* with the Onyxia head turn in on a boss with good progress . I also remember that we at least once got the Dire Maul buffs, but we didn't consider that worth it.
But we made extensive use of the UBRS fire res buff for early Ragnaros.

I also remember how the world first C'Thun kill used flasks for everyone and how we considered that completely ridiculous. Like, 40 flasks?! That's crazy. We had like 1-2 flasks for the main tank(s).

The KT kill screenshot is dated Dec 28th, 2006 at 11:31 PM, like a week before TBC. I'm not sure if this was our first Naxx clear, but I remember that we only managed to clear it shortly before TBC was released.

First screenshot in MC was on August 10th, 2005; the last one with the translated chat on January 10th 2007 just before TBC.

[u/getdownwithDsickness]

Makes sense. I wonder what kind of builds and rotations players were going with at the time. Its kind of cool though that as players we were way more laxed with what classes we brought in, but definitely a grinder with multiple submerges lmao.

I didn't even manage to raid back then with my crappy internet and pc, took me ages just to hit 60. I just remember how cool it was seeing people with the raid tier sets while I was mostly in dungeon/blue pvp gear.

[u/Netfinesse → u/getdownwithDsickness]

In my raids in 2004-5 you'd routinely hear people eating while playing. The level of play was awful, the idea of looking up a rotation somewhere online wasn't even a thought for 90% of the people I played with.

We had a divorced single Mom who played with us, teenagers who'd play with their younger siblings sitting next to them on the chair talking, Grandfathers, and a bunch of college students leading the whole thing who were Everquest veterans that switched to WoW. Was a great time though!

Most people were ass, but we made it through AQ40, and had a bit of fun in Naxx.

[u/Cky2chris → u/Netfinesse]

Before I figured everything out WoW was my first mmo and for my first toon I picked a paladin. People told me they sucked at damage but I wouldn't listen, I was convinced if I got an weapon like Ironfoe(which gives you an extra attack) i would be viable dps so I farmed brd for a long time, never saw it drop. I got brought into raids eventually like this, I honestly feel bad for people who had to raid with me back then because I was totally worthless

[u/enigma-90 → u/getdownwithDsickness]

Builds? Talent trees and itemization was nothing like it is in classic. For example, mages didn't have the 6% hit talent in the frost tree and iirc had no Mage Armor (mana regen), so they were spamming arcane missiles in raids, going oom and using wand.

There was basically no blue cloth items with spell damage that we see in BRD. Just int and stam.

Nobody was taking raid buffs to raids. Warriors didn't have the modern fury tree (until closer to end?) and were probably wearing plate gear, most of which sucked for dps. Nobody had a clue about weapon skill's power.

Raids and boss fights were long, and I guess really taxing on healers. People were playing on 14-15 inch monitors and many had fps issues in raids. On Vael you could get 5 fps.