Agreed that WOW was never Old School as many claim it to have been. Old school to me is Asheron's Call and Lineage
Some people thought it was old school because it was alot of players first MMO and they didnt know any better....THose of us that came from EQ1, AC, and some of the other older MMOs found WoW quite easy.
Are you implying that Old School has to be complicated? Maybe some people cannot accept that Old School mechanics can be
actually fun therefore they feel the need to remove Vanilla WoW from that
category to prove their point. But make no mistake Vanilla WoW was an Old School game, a modern (at the time) Old School Game. I made a perfect example of the difference between Vanilla WoW (Old School) and the new WoW (New School) in my OP.
Not only I think it is Old School, but I also think it was the most hardcore game (vanilla) there was even more than EQ, and I know many of you disagree with it, they consider it Casual because everyone says that, but if you actually played the game you cannot deny that the game was anything but casual. I played both EQ and WoW extensively and all I can say is that I would spent days without sleeping playing WoW, it never happened with EQ.
I played old and new and new gives a lot more options than the old MMO's did. More to pick from, group friendly, solo friendly, lots of different types of content so just pick what you want, and a market full of MMO's so you can pick what you want from as many as you want. If you want old school, it's still around so enjoy.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I started playing WoW late during Vanilla, quit at the start of WoD. Played tons of MMOs in between and since. I would say that years ago (and this holds true for other games besides WoW now, also) classes were simply more unique, and imho there was more utility to be had across all of them, really. Things like stuns and CC, and removal of them, were precious.
Nowadays, every class has essentially one good role, one or two "meta" builds that require the least amount of thought, and you perform that role exactly like any other class; you just look differently whilst doing so. Just look at how much WoW has been dumbed down in terms of the number of available skills and the removal of much of the aforementioned utility (imho, ofc). I realize the argument about "bloated" skill bars has some merit, but just because some folks don't want to use all of their tools, refuse to use them, or don't have the skill to do so, doesn't mean those tools shouldn't be available to highly skilled players. Yet much of that has been taken away in favor of the shortened, easier play style the OP described, and again, WoW is far from the only case of that.
Unfortunately, we will most likely not see a return to mechanics that required teamwork and careful play. They are too "difficult" and everybody doesn't "win", so naturally they are unwelcome in modern society. I wonder how many "bullying" complaints/lawsuits have been filed during the past several years by people who got beaten by others in PvP...
ESO's dungeons require teamwork and coordination. It is a great marriage between old school and new school group design. Bless Online is another fine example of a new MMO taking queues from the older games by making the Dungeons varied, interesting and hard. They require every single person to know what they need to do or you will wipe. Castle Sieges are flat out amazing in the game. One even underwater. Gloria Victis is coming along fine and offers a fine example of a newly designed game catering to the siege warfare crowd. Attacking a castle reminds me of those wonderful DAoC days. Black Death is another fine example of a virtual world game not tied to level tread milling. I think there are games out there that require the type of gameplay that some people say they want people just have to look beyond the big names.
ESO dungeons are nothing more than a zerg fest, and they are worse than GW2's dungeons in my opinion. ESO is also just another shallow single player MMO with the usual instanced dungeons and pvp to go with it. It actually is a pretty boring game. and is a real tarnish on the entire Elder Scrolls series.
Are you saying that because they really are "zerg fests" or because they don't use arcaic holy trinity system? Or perhaps it seems like zerg fest because you are unfamiliar with the dynamics in ESO or GW2?
I've certainly encountered many players who can't seem to grasp combat without a dedicated tank or a dedicated healer. They declare combat without them as chaos. They get frustrated and give up far too soon.
Why do you think the trinity is an "archaic" system, I'm interested as to why you think this?
WoW was the start of the mainstream MMORPG's. Sorry to break it to you but it wasn't old school, never been and never will be. They are the 1st to have sped up the lvling, introduced the hand holding quest hub treadmills, the over use of instances, the dumb color coding of gears, etc... Not old school at all.
I agree nilla WoW was the beginning of the end. WoW pretty much destroyed the tight knit community of MMO gaming by making into the Call of Duty of MMOs.
Every new MMO pretty much followed suit in an effort to chase those WoW like profits. Take ESO for example, they could have made that game a more sandbox game like the single player RPG, instead they made it into a linear boring quest grinder with set classes and really not much content outside of questing, dungeons, and instanced PVP. I look at BDO, and I think man that is the Elder Scrolls MMO we should have had.
Open world with other activities other than the same old shallow questing, with boring crafting and shallow dungeons that people just rush you through. You can't even enjoy the story in ESO dungeons since people just have the "let's blast this out" mindset.
I think that the difference today is that people are placing a premium value on their time. Back in "the day" there were limited options for players, so investing significant amounts of time into something that would yield very marginal returns on your time felt satisfying. However, these days people have more to do with their time. There are, literally, no limits to how you could spend 8 hour of free time per day. Nearly every game, single player or otherwise, these days has some sort of end game content or open-ended game design which allows you to occupy tens or hundreds of hours after the game is done. The reality is that there are 3 or 4 games which I, personally, value enough to spend an hour or more per day on it. So if you were to introduce a game with a dungeon with mobs who are made artificially difficult just to increase the time I need to spend in there, it's actually more annoying than anything else. Spending hours clearing trash isn't my idea of a good time. As far as I'm concerned, I would be satisfied if they did away with trash entirely and increased the challenge of the bosses themselves. Personally, I find zero satisfaction in clearing trash.
WoW was the start of the mainstream MMORPG's. Sorry to break it to you but it wasn't old school, never been and never will be. They are the 1st to have sped up the lvling, introduced the hand holding quest hub treadmills, the over use of instances, the dumb color coding of gears, etc... Not old school at all.
If you played WoW you played it very casually......Vanilla WoW was Old School. Just because it wasn't a photo copy of EQ doesn't make it less Old School. Some people seems to have problem accepting that the Old School concept can progress and evolve, that's what Blizzard did in 2004. That's why Old School gets a bad reputation, because people think that its tenets are set in stone, and cannot evolve.
I played WoW 5 years as an hardcore player and watched the game shifting from an Old School hardcore game to a New school casual game...I lived that shift. Vanilla WoW was a different game from WOTLK WoW, that's why Vanilla Server are so popular, because it's a game that no longer exist and cannot find playing today WoW. Log on in one of the Vanilla Server and play any dungeon, then log on in Live WoW and play the same dungeon, you'll understand what I am talking about. The first thing you'll notice is how slow your XP bar moves compared to Live WoW, but that's certainly not the only difference, I explained another difference in my OP, but there are plenty more.
I think that the difference today is that people are placing a premium value on their time. Back in "the day" there were limited options for players, so investing significant amounts of time into something that would yield very marginal returns on your time felt satisfying. However, these days people have more to do with their time. There are, literally, no limits to how you could spend 8 hour of free time per day. Nearly every game, single player or otherwise, these days has some sort of end game content or open-ended game design which allows you to occupy tens or hundreds of hours after the game is done. The reality is that there are 3 or 4 games which I, personally, value enough to spend an hour or more per day on it. So if you were to introduce a game with a dungeon with mobs who are made artificially difficult just to increase the time I need to spend in there, it's actually more annoying than anything else. Spending hours clearing trash isn't my idea of a good time. As far as I'm concerned, I would be satisfied if they did away with trash entirely and increased the challenge of the bosses themselves. Personally, I find zero satisfaction in clearing trash.
Trash came into being as an MMO thing when games started going AOE crazy. For a while it was more of an Eastern vs. Western MMO thing but now they all do it. That is also one of the key differences between old-school and new.
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― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Dude, whatever floats your boat... But its wasn't old school at all. Not going to argue with you though. I shared my 2 coppers on the matter. If you enjoyed it, that's fine. Now Good day sir.
I took my time explaining why WoW is an old School, in my OP and my other posts. You just claim WoW is not Old School writing one liners. If you want to support your claim you need to put a little bit more effort otherwise you might as well say that pigs fly because you say so. Not really a good argument is it?
Personally, by far the most discourage me new mmos in anti social concept. Mostly you see a lot of people, while nobody talks,noone play with one another,...I do not understand what's the point of playing such ''online game.'' Ironically is this mostly the case by mmos, which should be the most social games, but with the time they offer more solo offline experience as something else. Yesterday I installed Elder Scrolls Online, I played it for about an hour, whole the time I had a feeling I am playing an offline game.
I started playing WoW late during Vanilla, quit at the start of WoD. Played tons of MMOs in between and since. I would say that years ago (and this holds true for other games besides WoW now, also) classes were simply more unique, and imho there was more utility to be had across all of them, really. Things like stuns and CC, and removal of them, were precious.
Nowadays, every class has essentially one good role, one or two "meta" builds that require the least amount of thought, and you perform that role exactly like any other class; you just look differently whilst doing so. Just look at how much WoW has been dumbed down in terms of the number of available skills and the removal of much of the aforementioned utility (imho, ofc). I realize the argument about "bloated" skill bars has some merit, but just because some folks don't want to use all of their tools, refuse to use them, or don't have the skill to do so, doesn't mean those tools shouldn't be available to highly skilled players. Yet much of that has been taken away in favor of the shortened, easier play style the OP described, and again, WoW is far from the only case of that.
Unfortunately, we will most likely not see a return to mechanics that required teamwork and careful play. They are too "difficult" and everybody doesn't "win", so naturally they are unwelcome in modern society. I wonder how many "bullying" complaints/lawsuits have been filed during the past several years by people who got beaten by others in PvP...
ESO's dungeons require teamwork and coordination. It is a great marriage between old school and new school group design. Bless Online is another fine example of a new MMO taking queues from the older games by making the Dungeons varied, interesting and hard. They require every single person to know what they need to do or you will wipe. Castle Sieges are flat out amazing in the game. One even underwater. Gloria Victis is coming along fine and offers a fine example of a newly designed game catering to the siege warfare crowd. Attacking a castle reminds me of those wonderful DAoC days. Black Death is another fine example of a virtual world game not tied to level tread milling. I think there are games out there that require the type of gameplay that some people say they want people just have to look beyond the big names.
ESO dungeons are nothing more than a zerg fest, and they are worse than GW2's dungeons in my opinion. ESO is also just another shallow single player MMO with the usual instanced dungeons and pvp to go with it. It actually is a pretty boring game. and is a real tarnish on the entire Elder Scrolls series.
Are you saying that because they really are "zerg fests" or because they don't use arcaic holy trinity system? Or perhaps it seems like zerg fest because you are unfamiliar with the dynamics in ESO or GW2?
I've certainly encountered many players who can't seem to grasp combat without a dedicated tank or a dedicated healer. They declare combat without them as chaos. They get frustrated and give up far too soon.
Why do you think the trinity is an "archaic" system, I'm interested as to why you think this?
It started with players exploiting the simple AI games had way back when. Then came taunt and other aggro manipulation mechanics. Virtually every MMORPG uses tank 'n' spank combat in one form or another. Very few don't have the traditional tank or healer.
Holy trinity, or tank 'n' spank, is not really a "tactic" though. Its a formula. And the encounters are designed with that formula in mind. Every encounter can be beaten if you stick to the formula. If you deviate from the formula, you are doomed.
Are you not bored to tears yet? Aren't we done with exploiting piss poor AI by now? I feel like the most interesting time I have in games like these is when someone makes a mistake and the tank loses aggro. Or when too many mobs are pulled. In other words: every time you have to improvise and THINK what to do next.
Can we have some genuine tactics and cooperation for a change? Is it too much to ask? Would it be too hard for you guys? I, for one, applaud developers who break the mold and try something different. Anything's better than what we've had for the past 20 years.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Personally, by far the most discourage me new mmos in anti social concept. Mostly you see a lot of people, while nobody talks,noone play with one another,...I do not understand what's the point of playing such ''online game.'' Ironically is this mostly the case by mmos, which should be the most social games, but with the time they offer more solo offline experience as something else. Yesterday I installed Elder Scrolls Online, I played it for about an hour, whole the time I had a feeling I am playing an offline game.
I disagree that mmos are more inherently anti-social. Much of the social aspects of old school mmos were completely artificial and forced. Since so many old mmos used forced grouping mechanics, just to level up, the social aspect of the game developed around just being nice enough to get invited and not kicked from groups. Did many people make lifetime friends out of this artificial social aspect? Yup! Is it the best way to do things? Not by a mile.
Where the anti social aspects in mmos comes into play now, is that so many communities are completely toxic. WoW is a prime example of this. It's better to not say anything, than it is to risk pissing someone off and getting vote kicked. However, with the advent of World Quests in Legion, I have found that the chat in the general area has become more friendly. Open tagging means no kill stealing or even competing for quest mobs. You are now generally happy to see others in the same area as you while doing these quests. It has made for a better open world experience. Dungeon's are even much of a requirement for things outside of some quests, and I can easily get those done with my guild. So the whole environment is much better for me.
You go look at games like GW2, and you see a far friendly community as a whole. The entire PvE portion of the game, from the ground up, has been about cooperation. ANet further reinforced the cooperation by adding biggest xp gains to bigger group events, initially. You also got xp for rezzing downed players, etc. In the HoTs maps, there are extremely rewarding meta events that need an entire map to come together to complete. Outside of a few instances, they have been mostly positive experiences for me. GW2 is probably the most social mmo in the modern era. Not because I need a group to get 99% of everything done, but because the game has always been about cooperation.
Well i don't want to ruin the premise of the thread but i am a stickler to detail.
Wow has NEVER been an old school mmorpg.it has ALWAYS been exactly what every other newer mmorpg is right now...a LINEAR questing game with ?'s all over the place,hand holding all over the place. To me old school is discovery,NO hand holding,NO ?'s.
For further argument sake .Wow is an ok guinnea pig because it is a giant notable game in the market,but it is a NEW School design and not old school.
A better comparison might be the transition between EQ1 and EQ2.The reason i mention the two SOE games is because SOE was always the leader in advancing technology and the overall scope of mmorpg design.Blizzard makes games EASY and accessible,they are not out there to design a grand game but instead a popular one that allows tons..millions of players to easily join.
Since people get their jimmies wrestled when i mention a certain game ,i won't instead i will say that old days people asked lots of questions,now a days every single player looks for and VEE lines directly for the yellow ? over the npc's head and that is a really sad way to design a game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Even at the best, groups operate under the same driving philosophy in both old school and modern games. That is, the group has a single damage point, one character (tank) whose job is to absorb the target's damage, with a healer to keep the tank alive and a specialist to reduce the number of active targets to one. Everyone else contributes damage in order to kill the target before the system breaks down (the tank dies, the healer runs out of mana, a second target mob becomes active, or one of these critical positions disconnects or becomes unavailable). The model for combat has remained the same since I started playing EQ1 in May of 1999. Every MMORPG I've played since then has implemented this same combat model in some form or another.
At some point, this rather simple (and unrealistic) paradigm will need to change for the genre to make significant strides forward. That will require adjustments to mindsets on both the developer and player sides of the equation. It's anyone's guess as to which side may end up being more resistant to this kind of change.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Well i don't want to ruin the premise of the thread but i am a stickler to detail.
Wow has NEVER been an old school mmorpg.it has ALWAYS been exactly what every other newer mmorpg is right now...a LINEAR questing game with ?'s all over the place,hand holding all over the place. To me old school is discovery,NO hand holding,NO ?'s.
Mhhhhh......no. An Old School game can be anything, Sandbox PvP (UO), PvP (DaoC), PvE (EQ), Themepark (WoW) You guys need to read my OP thoroughly. Old School has nothing to do with Linearity, Freedom, PvP, PvE, or Sandbox specifically. It's a certain mechanic, whether intended or not, that make the game harder to master because requires more player interactions than other games to achieve goals, requires more strategy, awareness and personal skills, on top of gaming skills. You couldn't just steam roll content like you do in today MMOs, the mechanics didn't allow you to do that.
And again today WoW is not Old School by any means, only Vanilla WoW was Old School and Blizzard killed it with WOTLK (BC was transitional), that's why I chose WoW as an example. It's like one of those makeover programs where you can see the before and the after. If today WoW players where made to play Vanilla, majority of them would hate it, because it was basically another game, the only thing unchanged are the graphics, and the Hub System.
Everything else was different: - Group Dynamic I talked about it in the OP - Transport There were no Teleports except for Mages (and limited), and no instant teleport to Dungeons. You had to walk everywhere, other only options were, using the boat, zeppelin, or really slow mounts (no flying). - Crafting You had to craft the best gear in special Forges (Ex. Deep down Molten Core) or acquire special recipes by buying it from vendors inside Dungeons after raising their faction. So crafting was tied to Group content (not solo), if you didn't raid Molten Core or run Dungeons often you could not craft that specific item. - Quests There were many more group quests you could not complete by yourself, you needed help from at least another player or two. - Dungeons They were hard, even trash mobs hit hard those days, and they were generally much bigger and required more time and strategy to complete. Today you can run a Dungeon in 15-20 mins (Even in Hard Mode), back then it would take between 40 to 60 minutes - Raids They were huge. You could not complete them in a single sit, you had to go back 4-5 times to finish it, and they were unforgiving. Very few Guilds could actually complete them. I am sure I am forgetting something, it has been years since I played Vanilla
If you really want to summarize Old School games with few keywords, those would be: Time-sink, Slow Leveling, Slow Combat, Challenging, Player Interdependence, Socializing, Strategy, Group. So you can see why Old School is not for everyone, this is a concept that denies instant gratification. You had to put effort and time to achieve anything.
Comments
Maybe some people cannot accept that Old School mechanics can be actually fun therefore they feel the need to remove Vanilla WoW from that category to prove their point.
But make no mistake Vanilla WoW was an Old School game, a modern (at the time) Old School Game.
I made a perfect example of the difference between Vanilla WoW (Old School) and the new WoW (New School) in my OP.
Not only I think it is Old School, but I also think it was the most hardcore game (vanilla) there was even more than EQ, and I know many of you disagree with it, they consider it Casual because everyone says that, but if you actually played the game you cannot deny that the game was anything but casual.
I played both EQ and WoW extensively and all I can say is that I would spent days without sleeping playing WoW, it never happened with EQ.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Every new MMO pretty much followed suit in an effort to chase those WoW like profits. Take ESO for example, they could have made that game a more sandbox game like the single player RPG, instead they made it into a linear boring quest grinder with set classes and really not much content outside of questing, dungeons, and instanced PVP. I look at BDO, and I think man that is the Elder Scrolls MMO we should have had.
Open world with other activities other than the same old shallow questing, with boring crafting and shallow dungeons that people just rush you through. You can't even enjoy the story in ESO dungeons since people just have the "let's blast this out" mindset.
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Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
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Just because it wasn't a photo copy of EQ doesn't make it less Old School.
Some people seems to have problem accepting that the Old School concept can progress and evolve, that's what Blizzard did in 2004.
That's why Old School gets a bad reputation, because people think that its tenets are set in stone, and cannot evolve.
I played WoW 5 years as an hardcore player and watched the game shifting from an Old School hardcore game to a New school casual game...I lived that shift.
Vanilla WoW was a different game from WOTLK WoW, that's why Vanilla Server are so popular, because it's a game that no longer exist and cannot find playing today WoW.
Log on in one of the Vanilla Server and play any dungeon, then log on in Live WoW and play the same dungeon, you'll understand what I am talking about.
The first thing you'll notice is how slow your XP bar moves compared to Live WoW, but that's certainly not the only difference, I explained another difference in my OP, but there are plenty more.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
You just claim WoW is not Old School writing one liners.
If you want to support your claim you need to put a little bit more effort otherwise you might as well say that pigs fly because you say so.
Not really a good argument is it?
Holy trinity, or tank 'n' spank, is not really a "tactic" though. Its a formula. And the encounters are designed with that formula in mind. Every encounter can be beaten if you stick to the formula. If you deviate from the formula, you are doomed.
Are you not bored to tears yet? Aren't we done with exploiting piss poor AI by now? I feel like the most interesting time I have in games like these is when someone makes a mistake and the tank loses aggro. Or when too many mobs are pulled. In other words: every time you have to improvise and THINK what to do next.
Can we have some genuine tactics and cooperation for a change? Is it too much to ask? Would it be too hard for you guys? I, for one, applaud developers who break the mold and try something different. Anything's better than what we've had for the past 20 years.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Where the anti social aspects in mmos comes into play now, is that so many communities are completely toxic. WoW is a prime example of this. It's better to not say anything, than it is to risk pissing someone off and getting vote kicked. However, with the advent of World Quests in Legion, I have found that the chat in the general area has become more friendly. Open tagging means no kill stealing or even competing for quest mobs. You are now generally happy to see others in the same area as you while doing these quests. It has made for a better open world experience. Dungeon's are even much of a requirement for things outside of some quests, and I can easily get those done with my guild. So the whole environment is much better for me.
You go look at games like GW2, and you see a far friendly community as a whole. The entire PvE portion of the game, from the ground up, has been about cooperation. ANet further reinforced the cooperation by adding biggest xp gains to bigger group events, initially. You also got xp for rezzing downed players, etc. In the HoTs maps, there are extremely rewarding meta events that need an entire map to come together to complete. Outside of a few instances, they have been mostly positive experiences for me. GW2 is probably the most social mmo in the modern era. Not because I need a group to get 99% of everything done, but because the game has always been about cooperation.
Wow has NEVER been an old school mmorpg.it has ALWAYS been exactly what every other newer mmorpg is right now...a LINEAR questing game with ?'s all over the place,hand holding all over the place.
To me old school is discovery,NO hand holding,NO ?'s.
For further argument sake .Wow is an ok guinnea pig because it is a giant notable game in the market,but it is a NEW School design and not old school.
A better comparison might be the transition between EQ1 and EQ2.The reason i mention the two SOE games is because SOE was always the leader in advancing technology and the overall scope of mmorpg design.Blizzard makes games EASY and accessible,they are not out there to design a grand game but instead a popular one that allows tons..millions of players to easily join.
Since people get their jimmies wrestled when i mention a certain game ,i won't instead i will say that old days people asked lots of questions,now a days every single player looks for and VEE lines directly for the yellow ? over the npc's head and that is a really sad way to design a game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
At some point, this rather simple (and unrealistic) paradigm will need to change for the genre to make significant strides forward. That will require adjustments to mindsets on both the developer and player sides of the equation. It's anyone's guess as to which side may end up being more resistant to this kind of change.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
An Old School game can be anything, Sandbox PvP (UO), PvP (DaoC), PvE (EQ), Themepark (WoW)
You guys need to read my OP thoroughly.
Old School has nothing to do with Linearity, Freedom, PvP, PvE, or Sandbox specifically.
It's a certain mechanic, whether intended or not, that make the game harder to master because requires more player interactions than other games to achieve goals, requires more strategy, awareness and personal skills, on top of gaming skills.
You couldn't just steam roll content like you do in today MMOs, the mechanics didn't allow you to do that.
And again today WoW is not Old School by any means, only Vanilla WoW was Old School and Blizzard killed it with WOTLK (BC was transitional), that's why I chose WoW as an example.
It's like one of those makeover programs where you can see the before and the after.
If today WoW players where made to play Vanilla, majority of them would hate it, because it was basically another game, the only thing unchanged are the graphics, and the Hub System.
Everything else was different:
- Group Dynamic I talked about it in the OP
- Transport There were no Teleports except for Mages (and limited), and no instant teleport to Dungeons.
You had to walk everywhere, other only options were, using the boat, zeppelin, or really slow mounts (no flying).
- Crafting You had to craft the best gear in special Forges (Ex. Deep down Molten Core) or acquire special recipes by buying it from vendors inside Dungeons after raising their faction. So crafting was tied to Group content (not solo), if you didn't raid Molten Core or run Dungeons often you could not craft that specific item.
- Quests There were many more group quests you could not complete by yourself, you needed help from at least another player or two.
- Dungeons They were hard, even trash mobs hit hard those days, and they were generally much bigger and required more time and strategy to complete. Today you can run a Dungeon in 15-20 mins (Even in Hard Mode), back then it would take between 40 to 60 minutes
- Raids They were huge. You could not complete them in a single sit, you had to go back 4-5 times to finish it, and they were unforgiving. Very few Guilds could actually complete them.
I am sure I am forgetting something, it has been years since I played Vanilla
If you really want to summarize Old School games with few keywords, those would be: Time-sink, Slow Leveling, Slow Combat, Challenging, Player Interdependence, Socializing, Strategy, Group.
So you can see why Old School is not for everyone, this is a concept that denies instant gratification.
You had to put effort and time to achieve anything.