Blizzard recently allowed a portion of its player base to play around with something that is both new and old—a modern looking version of classic World of Warcraft. Players seemed to have fun!

Whether this was in spite of or because of the hardcore, hostile environments of days of yore isn’t quite clear. At this point, I would guess that there’s something beyond pure nostalgia that leads these players to enjoy themselves. Sure, some of them will get bored and move on, but there is something undeniably charming about classic massively multiplayer RPGs.

Here are five ways in which old MMOs were considerably more badass than their modern day equivalents.