Gryz
Golden Member
- Aug 28, 2010
- 1,551
- 203
- 106
When WoW released (Nov 2004), the dungeons would have no player limit. A raid-group could enter any dungeon, and all raid-members could enter at the same time.
This meant that you could have 40 man inside Scholomance, Stratholme, BlackRock Spire (LBRS and UBRS are really just one dungeon). Very quickly after release, Blizzard changed that. They would only let 10 players inside Scholomance and Stratholme. And 15 players inside BRS. This was done before the European release of WoW (Feb 2005). When I started playing, you could already not enter with 40 players anymore.
When Dire Maul was released (March 2005), you could enter only with 5 players.
When Scholo and Strat we limited to 10 players, people who do 3 types of runs.
1) bring 10 players, trying to make it easier
2) do a class run, one player of each class. this would make it worthwhile for everyone to try and get their T0 items.
3) do a 5-man run for the quests
You can't do normal quests in a raid-group. So you never could do your dungeon-quests with 6-10 players. You had to enter with 5 players. And that was quite a challenge. (Maybe not when you're already in T1 gear. But when you just dinged 60, and had a mix of green and blue gear, Scholo and Strat were quite hard).
We used to run UBRS with 15 people (the max). And I think you could do quests with 15 people in UBRS. And you needed all 15. Because most players weren't very experienced yet. Didn't know their class very well. Minmaxing wasn't popular yet. There were no websites yet where you could read how to gear your character. It was awesome. Runs used to last close to 2 hours or more sometimes. Drakkisath was a formidable endboss. And everyone wanted their T0 chest. I never got my Shadowcraft chest. (I didn't care. I liked my Cadaverous chest much better. 40 Attackpower !!). (BTW, it's amazing I still remember all the gear I had in vanilla, and the names of the items. Too be honest, I can't remember a single set or piece of gear or even the name of my MH weapons after 2010). I did get the Dal'Rend set !
A year after release (spring 2006 or so), Blizzard decided to put in something for the non-raiders. So they introduced T0.5 gear. You had to do quests in 5-man dungeons (and in UBRS). I think that was the point where they simplified UBRS, and made it a 10-man dungeon. But by that time I was already in AQ40 (I left the oldies guild for 2-3 months, and joined the top Horde guild on the server. We got into Naxx. But the drama was too big with all the kids, and the guild blew up. That's when I stopped and came back 3 months into TBC).
I was in a small guild (15 or 20 players), and we 5-manned those dungeons to slowly improve our gear. We hoped to grow and do raiding some day. But the guild blew up before we got bigger. I then joined a fun guild. Minimum age was 25y. So the average age was way above 30 years old. That guild grew to over 100 people in vanilla, and maybe 250 people in TBC and WLK. However, they had so many bad players, it took a long time for them to get raiding. They did kill Ragnaros and 2 bosses in BWL, but never got further. In TBC we actually split of a team of the better/more serious players. And we did kill Illidan and got into Sunwell (that was pretty good at the time, especially on our server). All great fun.
After WLK I played maybe 4 months of Cataclysm. And 9 months of Pandoria. (Mists was actually a pretty good expansion, I thought). I played the first month of WoD. And quit. And not been back yet. I was planning to return for the last month of Legion. But I now doubt that will ever happen. I have great memories of WoW in 2005-2010 (till Crusaders' Coliseum in Aug 2009. That was the end of WoW for me). But I doubt WoW will ever be any good again.
This meant that you could have 40 man inside Scholomance, Stratholme, BlackRock Spire (LBRS and UBRS are really just one dungeon). Very quickly after release, Blizzard changed that. They would only let 10 players inside Scholomance and Stratholme. And 15 players inside BRS. This was done before the European release of WoW (Feb 2005). When I started playing, you could already not enter with 40 players anymore.
When Dire Maul was released (March 2005), you could enter only with 5 players.
When Scholo and Strat we limited to 10 players, people who do 3 types of runs.
1) bring 10 players, trying to make it easier
2) do a class run, one player of each class. this would make it worthwhile for everyone to try and get their T0 items.
3) do a 5-man run for the quests
You can't do normal quests in a raid-group. So you never could do your dungeon-quests with 6-10 players. You had to enter with 5 players. And that was quite a challenge. (Maybe not when you're already in T1 gear. But when you just dinged 60, and had a mix of green and blue gear, Scholo and Strat were quite hard).
We used to run UBRS with 15 people (the max). And I think you could do quests with 15 people in UBRS. And you needed all 15. Because most players weren't very experienced yet. Didn't know their class very well. Minmaxing wasn't popular yet. There were no websites yet where you could read how to gear your character. It was awesome. Runs used to last close to 2 hours or more sometimes. Drakkisath was a formidable endboss. And everyone wanted their T0 chest. I never got my Shadowcraft chest. (I didn't care. I liked my Cadaverous chest much better. 40 Attackpower !!). (BTW, it's amazing I still remember all the gear I had in vanilla, and the names of the items. Too be honest, I can't remember a single set or piece of gear or even the name of my MH weapons after 2010). I did get the Dal'Rend set !
A year after release (spring 2006 or so), Blizzard decided to put in something for the non-raiders. So they introduced T0.5 gear. You had to do quests in 5-man dungeons (and in UBRS). I think that was the point where they simplified UBRS, and made it a 10-man dungeon. But by that time I was already in AQ40 (I left the oldies guild for 2-3 months, and joined the top Horde guild on the server. We got into Naxx. But the drama was too big with all the kids, and the guild blew up. That's when I stopped and came back 3 months into TBC).
I was in a small guild (15 or 20 players), and we 5-manned those dungeons to slowly improve our gear. We hoped to grow and do raiding some day. But the guild blew up before we got bigger. I then joined a fun guild. Minimum age was 25y. So the average age was way above 30 years old. That guild grew to over 100 people in vanilla, and maybe 250 people in TBC and WLK. However, they had so many bad players, it took a long time for them to get raiding. They did kill Ragnaros and 2 bosses in BWL, but never got further. In TBC we actually split of a team of the better/more serious players. And we did kill Illidan and got into Sunwell (that was pretty good at the time, especially on our server). All great fun.
After WLK I played maybe 4 months of Cataclysm. And 9 months of Pandoria. (Mists was actually a pretty good expansion, I thought). I played the first month of WoD. And quit. And not been back yet. I was planning to return for the last month of Legion. But I now doubt that will ever happen. I have great memories of WoW in 2005-2010 (till Crusaders' Coliseum in Aug 2009. That was the end of WoW for me). But I doubt WoW will ever be any good again.
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