Seculartwo wrote:
Example: I'd been playing since a few months before BC was released and it took me forever to finally get up the nerve to attempt a raid. I spent the whole time learning my hunter and getting used to 5man situations; Hell it took me a good year just to get the nerve to do a 5man cos I simply didn't want to fail and be known as a huntard on my server. No LFD, so you once had to worry about your reputation on your realm (but WoW hasn't changed much right?). My first raid was finally Mag, in half green gear and half 5man blues. No clue about DPS meters, omen or any of that crap. I pulled enough DPS and had the skill to get invited to my first real raid which was Kara, the highest raid content at that time. It wasn't my gear that got me in the raid, it was my skill. Now-a-days, there's no way in Hell something like that would happen because the game has become more gearcentric than it was in the past.
Well, for one thing, the "in half greens, half blues" argument isn't valid for early TBC, simply because the combat stats were still so entirely messed up that some greens were actually considered BiS before raids. I remember green quest boots on my druid, along with some other strange things.
Skill was secondary in TBC. More important was being of the right class. Unless you were hunter, mage, or rogue, you simply wouldn't get into a dungeon group as dps because of the obsession with CC. Even more so towards the end, when heroic Magister's Terrace or Sunwell were the places to go to. Especially Sunwell became infamous for class stacking.
Even Kara as an entry level raid was class dependant. No killing Moroes unless you had plenty of CC. No killing Nightbane if all you had was a druid tank and your priest happened to be of the wrong race and lacking Fear Ward (which was then given to all sometime later). That it was possible towards the end wasn't a matter of improved skills, but simply being overgeared thanks to the badge vendor and running 25s on the side.
Oh yeah, I was so damn awesome and skilled. I managed to weave in Steady Shots in between Autos while running the cookie cutter 41/20 BM build. I was an amazing healer, because I found out how to spam FoL or Chain Heal, and even managed to keep Lifebloom ticking on 3+ people.
Measured at today's standards, the game was utterly dumb and stupid. It was challenging at the time, but the skills required to play this type of game simply improved over the years. It's still the same damn thing since vanilla, though.
They cut a lot of the BS and removed fillers, and in turn added stuff like dailies, arena, and battlegrounds amongst other things. Other than that?
Get to max level. Gear up. Go raid and push buttons in the right order. Get more gear. Go raid more. Get bored. Roll an alt. Repeat.
If anything, the game has slightly increased in depth, just not nearly as fast and as much to keep up with those playing it.