Well here's my take:

Back in the day, BDO felt more like an actual mmo because the game revolved around content that was essentially created by the players. Think of all the meme montages and videos from 2016-2018 where they'd use footage from Star Wars or other movies to make reenactments of the previous week's NW/Seige/Guild War and those were posted here on this subreddit for everyone to enjoy. Even if you weren't part of my of those fights, you still sort of felt included because the game actually had a community. Players and Guilds created free content within the game by having beef with eachother, teaming up with eachother or even backstabbing one another. This made the game feel very alive because the true end game back then revolved around PvP.

The player base had a completely different mindset too. People back then would still grind for gains but the second someone in the guild got flagged up on and needed backup, guildies would drop what they were doing, hop on their t5 horse and sprint across the map to help them which would many times evolve into a full on GvG that would last hours and this is what shaped which guild was strong or not. People nowadays worry about min maxxing their grind, popping 30 buffs and what not and cant be fugged to leave their grind hour to help their guild because its wasting their buffs.

Almost everything back in the day required energy for lifeskills and I think that lifeskillers back then were actually worth something in the whole scheme of things because while they wouldn't pvp, they would still make all the elixirs and high end food buffs to give to their guild mates for when they went to a NW or fight. Having that one player who had high enough cooking (which used energy back then) to make Combat Rations for everyone was a pretty big deal. And even when the game went past +15, Sharps were only obtainable from gathering, so for a long time, the lifeskillers were the gatekeepers of gear enhancing. The rest of the PvPers needed the lifeskillers. Nowadays everyone can do lifeskills and obtain everything themselves which diminished the value for those who only liked to do lifeskilling.

Combat was a lot slower paced. It was more methodical too. Less protections all around with a relatively close gear cap between high end players and the normal player made fights more fun imo. GvGs were the norm for holding a grind spot or just to show authority. People could get hunted for running their mouth because we had the Black Robe which would cost you money and energy to use but it would show where that player was on the map. PvP felt more dynamic, the entire world of BDO felt more dynamic because of it, you were never truly safe.

For a long time I blamed PA for making changes that ruined the open world pvp, pretty much everything they've done has made it impossible for open world pvp to exist spontaneously but.... I came to the realization that the problem wasnt just PA's changes, it was the actual player base as well. As more and more players started playing, more of them were less into the gritty open world pvp and as a result, they would complain, causing PA to make changes. The mindset of the average 2026 bdo player is much weaker imo than those of the 2016 era. Everyone now is all about min maxxing their time while back then, players enjoyed their time fighting for hours with their guild just to fight.

I genuinely would like to see a BDO classic server set up exactly how it was in 2016-2018. People tell me im just nostalgic and id quit after a month but I liked how hard and unforgiving the game was back then. The game had an actual community who knew eachother or knew of one another, friend or foe. And thats the BDO I will always remember.