Just let it melt in your mouth: It’s been more than 12 years since World of Warcraft was published. Many of us have been native to Azeroth from the beginning. Of course, a lot has happened since then – and let’s be honest: The pink one has taken over a huge part, because in Classic, Vanilla, call it what you want, many things weren’t as sparkling as they are today. A review.
Do you remember “Then”? When World of Warcraft was released? Many veterans, including us, immediately get excited when asked this question and do not miss an opportunity to draw attention to the fact that everything was better back then. That’s true…in some respects, but not in all.
Of course, the role played by rose-colored glasses in this case should not be underestimated, because it is now well known that we prefer to remember beautiful things, which is often wrong, or at least “falsified”.
World of Warcraft: When we think about the past, we get way too sentimental
It cannot be denied that a lot has happened in World of Warcraft since the classic content, or vanilla, the origin or whatever you want to call it.
Some things are not what we originally imagined, but many things have also changed for the better. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t want to spoil the original World of Warcraft – nothing is further from our minds. Nevertheless, we just want to introduce you to a few points that will remind you of the challenges we actually had to deal with “back then”.
Teachers for professions stood in instances
Already forgotten, right? In fact, every now and then you had to gather brave warriors around you just to learn a few new templates or recipes. For example, the Enchanting trainer for a skill above 150 – it was in Uldaman. If it clicks again for you, you will surely remember why this job was torture and why the enchanters on the servers were paid handsomely for their jobs.
Shamans and Paladins were faction bound
Whether that is good or bad remains to be seen. At least from the point of view of the story it is understandable. However, with newer content came more flexibility. It wasn’t until Burning Crusade that the Horde could enjoy playing a palad… sorry, blood knight, and unlike the draenei, the Alliance could choose a shaman.
The first mount was available at level 40
Now, thanks to heirlooms and more experience points per quest, you’re 40 quicker than writing your character’s name (yes, we mean you Accent rowdies!) but back then it really took off. In addition, there is the fact that the gold for the mounts is now also thrown back. In Classic times, however, you were only on foot up to level 40 – and beyond that due to a lack of gold. And that was just the “normal” mount. The epic happened at 60.
And 40 again: Raids with fewer players were almost pointless
Even if it was an experience that is second to none when, after weeks of trying, a raid boss finally lay in the dust: Organizing a 40-man raid, farming elixir and potion materials and also dealing with loot ninjas in the raid again has no one fun.
Walk through half of world history during quests
You certainly know the quests in which you get an item that is intended for an NPC somewhere in JWD (way out there). Today that’s no problem. You simply mount your mount, ride or fly and in a few minutes the quest reward will be in your pocket. In Classic times you were sometimes sent from one continent to the next. So first go to a capital, wait for the zeppelin or the ship in Ratschet, cross over and then lace up your hiking boots again. These quests were the only logical explanation as to why your characters were so lean or fit.
Lockpicking could only be skilled with chests
Were you a villain in vanilla content and maxed out your lockpicking skills? We tip our hat. After all, that meant you traveled the world and depended on treasure chests. That was the only way to level this skill. Thank goodness the engineers came up with the idea of making practice locks at some point.
BONUS: Skill Ranks
It wasn’t always like it is today, where you select a spell from your talent tree as you level up and then just master it. For Classic, there were still ranks for the various spells, most of which had also completely “spammed” the spell book and wanted to be manually dragged into the action bar. As a result, you sometimes wondered in instances why the healing was somehow lower than expected – or you were suddenly out of mana. Was because you had the wrong rank in the bar.
What other points can you think of that have simply gotten better today than they were in the Classic days? Tell us in the comments!
What is WoW Classic?
World of Warcraft Classic is a true recreation of the original WoW as you know it from 2006. All parts of the game – from combat mechanics and talent trees to character models and zones – have been recreated, contributing to the authentic experience.
Getting Started
All players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or game time on their accounts have access toWoW Classic at no additional cost.
- Open the Blizzard Battle.net Desktop App and select World of Warcraft from the menu.
- Select World of Warcraft Classic from the Version menu. If you have more than one World of Warcraft account, you’ll see a second Account drop-down list. In this column, select the active account you want to play with.
- Click the Install button. The progress bar will tell you when your game is ready to play.
- Click the Play button when the installation is complete.
You will need to select the realm you want to play on from several different realm types. Make sure you choose the same realm as your friends – in World of Warcraft Classic, you can only group with characters that are on the same realm as you!
Heroes&WIKI, WoW Classic, World of Warcraft Classic, WoW ClassicSpecial, WoW ClassicSpecials
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