When World of Warcraft launched in November 2004 is was new, it was shiny, but it really wasn’t as polished or infallible as people think of it today.  Aside from WoW’s launch issues, which mostly stemmed from Blizzard not anticipating the demand, WoW had issues that crop up in most contemporary MMOs.

WoW was evolving constantly back then, and surprisingly continues to evolve regularly even today.  There were itemization issues, stat issues, and content issues.  End-game wasn’t clearly defined.  PvP was anything but defined.  It was clear that Blizzard was learning like the rest of us how their future would unfold. I was there for all of it.

I remember playing and having discussions in general chat with the other players about raids.  All we knew at the time was that there was a raid.  Looking back at the 40-man raids of WoW’s launch and all they entailed, then looking at the raid finder experience of today, it’s truly mind blowing how WoW has evolved.  If you played the entire time, you’re even more aware of how many changes the raiding system has gone through and different systems/mechanics/features/implementations the content has seen over the years.

Then there’s the PvP system, which started out … actually it didn’t.  There wasn’t a “PvP system”.   There weren’t battlegrounds, rewards, titles, or gear.  It was just the ability to kill other players in zones like Hillsbrad.  Evolving just like raids, PvP has gone through countless changes over the years.

What am I getting at by giving you this history lesson? (more…)