I've played World Of Warcraft for about 10 years now, albeit off and on at times. Played through every expansion and seen the game evolve over time. Its unbelievable to me that the game remains as popular as it is, despite its age and expensive subscription fee, yet I also understand it. Once your a WoW player, there is always something about new content that makes you want to come right back to it.
Let me start with my retrospective view of Vanilla WoW. First of all.
THIS
Yeah, that was an everyday thing. Back in the days when server lag destroyed mages, Rogues one-shotted healers, and hunters could kite every world boss they wanted to. Oh, and real world bosses. Those were a thing to. (I know that the Sha of Anger etc is a world boss, it just doesn't count when that boss is a pushover tank and spank) On that note, I can reminisce about the many times that a hunter would kite Kazzak or a world dragon halfway across the world into cities, in which case the boss often became invulnerable, forcing a GM to physically remove them from the area. Vanilla WoW was craziness and bugs galore, and it was also one HELL of a grind.
Let me start with leveling. Starting a new character in Vanilla WoW was one hell of an adventure, though some would argue that it was also torture. Now, before I give my opinion, it should be noted that I HATE leveling. Not because it isn't a fun experience, but simply because I prefer endgame content. On that note, leveling in Vanilla was indeed torture. First off, it took a LONG time to ding past level 15. This wasn't as much to needing more experience as being a me being a noob and pulling 400,000,000,000 murlocs in Redridge. Oh I can hear it now, you pull one mob and suddenly AAAAUGHIBRRRGUBUGBUBGBUBURGLE!!!!!
Despite that, if you competent enough to not die to every other mob, the grind was still long and even with power leveling it would take well over a week to get a character to level 60. Then there was money! Getting a mount wasn't an available option until level 40. Even then the mount cost over 400 gold, which back then was a relatively large amount of money. Especially for someone who is level 40 and new to the game. So on top of having a much more difficult time killing mobs, gaining experience, and gathering gear, you had to walk around for most of your leveling experience. (Thank god for flight paths!) Essentially, leveling was a pain in the ass, but at the same time also had a much more social aspect. There's something about gathering a group of friends or random people you found chilling in Sentinel Hill or questing and actually, get this, "walking" to a dungeon; only to spend hours in there trying to clear bosses with your shitty grey level gear that I miss. Given, I probably hated it at the time. But this is in retrospect dammit! Now on to end game content!
Okay, so Vanilla PVE endgame is something to shudder about. People literally lost their lives to this game because of how much time and commitment it took. Lets all take a second and honor those who died of morbid obesity due to the 50+ hours a week they spent grinding gear for raids....................Stereotypes aside, it actually was a major grind, though that made it no less epic. 40 man raids were intense. When new content was released it became a global competition to see which of the top guilds could down the bosses first. In a way it still is like this, though I feel like the competition isn't quite what it used to be. Instead of clearing raid content in a few weeks in MOP, it took months in vanilla. The process of gearing 40 people based on individual gear drops, professions, and faction gear was nothing short of a marathon. Here's a clip from Naxxramas 40 man KT, which might I add took over 5 or 6 months for the first kill.
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NOW ON TO PVP! Player vs Player was restricted to the awesomeness of World PVP until Battlegrounds entered the scene. World PVP used to flourish, from massive battles in the Hillbrad Foothills, and Arathi Highlands, to the city invasions that at one time met fierce resistance. It was epic, and granted a sense of faction pride that I feel like has been largely lost in today's game. Simply ganking somebody who is leveling an alt could create chain reaction which resulted in massive battle in some of the most random places. For a time blizzard also introduced objective based world PVP in areas such as the Eastern Plaguelands. Strategic towers were introduced that could be captured and held by either faction. When one faction held a certain number of towers everyone on the winning factions side would be given a buff while they were in the region. Blizzard inevitably saw the fondness players had for killing each other in the world and thought, hey! Why don't we add objective based PVP instances? and so battlegrounds were born. The big three; Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, and Alterac Valley. All of which I feel still haven't been topped yet. The fun thing that a lot of people don't know or have forgotten about, is that all of the battlegrounds used to be in server. They also required you actually go to your factions battlecamp (for lack of a better word) in order to que for the battleground. So that means, at least for the Alliance, in order to que for a Warsong Gulch batter, you would have to literally go to Ashenvale, go to Nightsong Woods, find the inconveniently placed Silverwing Grove, and hang out until your que popped. For Arathi Basin, Refuge Point was where the battleground master was located, which wasn't so bad as it was also the central Alliance quest hub in the region and had a flight path. For the Alterac Valley Camp, it required you to fly to Southshore, and it was a relatively straight shot into the Alterac Mountains from there. 
The fun thing about it all being in server, was that you knew many of the people you were fighting. There could be guild rivalries taken into battlegrounds, or even just fighting people you've seen before instead of a bunch of random names. If you were on a populated server the que times weren't always to bad. It also provided an opportunity to practice by dueling other people who were also waiting for the battle to begin. Sometimes a leader would arise and there would even be talk of strategy for the battleground. Speaking of strategy, I want to highlight what Alterac Valley USED TO BE. It was insane, especially compared to the "run past each other and go straight to Drek'Thar/Vanndar Stormpike" monotony that it is now. In Vanilla, Alterac Valley didn't have a reinforcement count, the battle went on until either Drek'Thar, or Vanndar Stormpike was dead. At times, this could take DAYS. It was all out war. Here are just some of the features that used to be common in an Alterac Valley battle that aren't seen anymore. 1. Raid Boss 2. Upgraded Guards, 3. Wing Commanders 4. Cavalry Battalion 5. Battles for Mines 6. Balinda/Galvangar actually being defended 7. Towers/Bunkers being actively defended 8. Warlocks could use summoning portals in the BG 9. Several other removed features such as the troll village in the south.
Did you know that each faction had a raid boss that they could summon if they collected enough orbs and brought it to their druids/shamans? That you could upgrade guards to actually be able to do something by collecting armor scraps?, that there is a cavalry charge if you collect rams/frostwolves and supplies from the mines? There is SO MUCH in Alterac Valley that reinforcements have ruined. Given the honor gain was a bit slow due to the 48+ hour battles that took place, but that wasn't the point. The point is that it was EPIC, and I miss it. Now, I suppose I should note that I'm not saying WoW isn't fun anymore, because it is. This is just one part of vanilla that I personally wish that they would have kept or even improved upon. I miss it! Here is a video of vanilla AV.
Note: I know the second video is MOP. Many of the features are still there, they just rarely ever get used due to the fast depletion of the each sides resources.
The last thing I would really like to touch upon about Vanilla would have to a few of the race/class specific abilities that were removed over the evolution of the game. For example, as a Night elf Priest, I had an ability called starshards. Only that class/race combination had access to that ability. Similar to how Undead could practically breathe underwater, because you know...their dead. And generally dead things don't have to breathe. Here is a list of Priest/race abilities that were available until Burning Crusade. http://www.wowwiki.com/Priest_racial_abilities. Though I actually agree with Blizzards removal of these abilities, I do think it was an interesting concept and worth noting.
The Burning Crusade
Now on to TBC! We'll cover The Burning Crusade in a similar format to Vanilla, though I'll do my best not to reiterate information. TBC to me was the time when the game really started to grow competitive in the PVP scene. The addition of flying mounts were thought by many to have stifled world PVP, though I'd beg to differ. Raiding was reduced to 25 man, though the difficulty largely remained to same, and competition in the PVE scene remained fierce. Sanctuaries were introduced and perhaps the most significant addition to the game was Arena. But hey! in the spirit of things, lets start with leveling!
Leveling in the beginning of Burning Crusade was an extremely drawn out process. Though the new regions, factions, and questing were exciting; grinding for hours on end just for one level was no less grueling. Shortly after release Blizzard in all their mercy released an experience boost to ease the process. The world PVP at the beginning of any expansion is always amazing,
