This happened a while ago, but I didn't talk about it then 'cause I didn't exist yet.
Molten Core. Molten Core went live on Day One, November 23, 2004. Back then, there weren't no Lothos Riftwalker. No attunement. Only way in were through the portal near the back of Blackrock Depths. So, ya hads fer ta fly ta .... where the hell them first raiders fly to, before Thorium Point were opened in 1.5? Anywho, ya flew there (no summoning stones, remember). Then, ya'd mount up (most likelies on a 60% mount), ride ta the mountain, dismount, walk down the chain, shlog yer way through the Dark Iron Dwarves outside the instance (what woulda been elite in them days, and onlies about ten levels lower than you), then shlog yer way through more dwarves inside the instance ta the bridge, jump inta the lava, swim ta the first island, heal, swim ta the next island, heal, until ya finally reached MC. Back in them days, the lava hurt. Ain't like now.
What about Ritual of Summoning? I wanna say what that didn't work in instances originallies, but that could be me memory playin' tricks on me. I ain't sure, and me research were inconclusive. Even if'n it did, ya still woulda had fer ta wait fer the 'lock and some buddies ta do the dwarvenshloggin', and then summon everyone, and then "oops not enough shards". And great googly moogly whatta crapton of a tax on warlocks. If it worked. Which I ain't sure it did.
So how long did all this take? I figger about half an hour, give er take, once ya got ta the mountain. Half an hour every raid night, killin' lower-level dwarves an' swimmin' in lava, not gettin' loot or DKP or honin' yer skills or doin' anythin' constructive or interestin' or fun. All because Blizz thought it was cool fer ta put an instance inside an instance. In March 2005 they realized it were a stupid an' put Lothos out there so's ya only had fer ta dwarvenschlog the once. BWL has a portal inside UBRS, but there were also the Orb of Command attunement available the day that went live (patch 1.6). Apparentlies Naxx were also gonna have a portal inside Strat, but that done got 86'd.
How many buggers did the full-on dwarvenshlog? Prolly not many, since it were only a few months and just levelin' ta 60 took a while. When ya looks at the amount of time it saved, Patch 1.3 were one of the biggest, earliest nerfs in the history of Azeroth raiding, yet I suspects when some bugger says "raidin' ain't the way it were intended fer ta be no mores" that they ain't meanin' this time-wastin' silliness. Nostalgia, she's a pretty piece of wimmenzflesh with legs what go all the way up, but she'll lie her arse off in yer ear if'n ya lets her.
8 comments:
Yeah, I'm sure that portal and the end of Strat seemed like a great idea until Summer Intern #5 brought up that Naxx was a 40-man and Strat was a 5-man, so, uh, eight sycnronized Strat runs at once?
I wonder if Summer Intern #5 got hired at that point, or quietly sent home for the rest of the season?
Kayeri was in her mid-40's when BC dropped, so I never had that joy.
I do remember being extremely proud of soloing an elite mob of my own level as a resto druid.
I remember being thrilled to get my travel form at 30 so slogging back and forth across the full length of Duskwood took a little less time.
I remember I only had about 75 gold when I hit 40... my guild master's wife gave me the last 25 gold I needed for my mount. It was 90 gold for training and 9 for the mount back then, right?
Ah, the memories... people should realize they've got it pretty good these days... =)
@Grimm
Early on, Strat was raidable. Patch 1.3 reduced the max group size ta 10 (dunno what the cap was before), but if'n they'd stuck with the plan I expects all 40 coulda gone in at once. Just woulda been very crowded...
@Kayeri
If'n I remembers right, in vanilla the level 60 training an' mount would set ya back about 1000g. The 500 or so we paid in TBC were plenties, tyvm.
Der Schlitterbahn?! Ich liebe der Schlitterbahn! More to the point, the kids lieb'd der Schlitterbahn when we were in South Padre. My wallet did not lieb that place at all.
My first real raiding experience was ICC, but hearing these stories, I do not envy the progession guilds that existed back in the day. A 30-minute slog just to get to the raid is a bit much, IMHO.
As I recall, both BRS and Strat were 15 man raids way back when in the early days. Also, I dwarvenschlogged. Many, many times. Lothos was a dream come true, though his original incarnation put a portal in the window beside him you had to jump through that didn't work half the time. It took several patches to make it so Lothos himself did the teleporting.
Warlock's couldn't summon into an instance and no closet then just one at a time and one shard at a time. 100g for 60% mount and 1K for non paladin non warlock epic mounts. Quest items needed to buy etc. made cost similar for those classes. Yeah the good old broke days lol
I <3 you Ratters!
I'm not old enough to remember those bad old good old days but I do remember being part of a pugged 40 man ZG run each week and spending probably an hour at least just waiting for the raid to get organised and calling it a good time.
By level 60, I'd been selling herbs devotedly on the AH for a dozen levels and I didn't need help for that one, thank goodness!! Oh, how I farmed those herbs... After that, I didn't herb for weeks unless the sucker was right in front of me...
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