Since the last Blizzcon it is clear: Blizzard will release official servers for World of Warcraft: Classic. But what was it like back then in Azeroth? Whether it’s raids, PvP, professions, classes or leveling, we’ll tell you how World of Warcraft played almost 13 years ago.
Blizzard has heard the pleas of the community! Those responsible around CEO Mike Morhaime want to provide official Classic servers for World of Warcraft (buy now). But how was it almost 13 years ago in Azeroth? Or to put it another way: What can we expect on the official vanilla realm? We dug into our memories and dug up all the details about the leveling phase, raids, and PvP area of Classic WoW. Whether it’s old talent trees, long paths or epic battles in the Alterac Valley – on the following pages you can find out how WoW played in the early days.
Info from September 29: This article was first published on January 11, 2018. On the occasion of the announcement of the playable WoW Classic demo for all virtual ticket holders, we have increased our WoW Classic special once again.
WoW: Classic – classes, races, socials.
Anyone who wanted to create a hero in Classic WoW had significantly less choice than today. Worgen, Goblins and Pandaren were just as rare as Demon Hunters, Death Knights or Monks. Only Alliance members were allowed to create a Paladin, while the Horde was happy to have exclusive Shamans. Even human hunters, troll druids or tauren priests (and some other combinations) were forbidden back then. Of course, the classes themselves have also changed a lot over the years. Here are just a few highlights: Important class mechanics – such as the use of shaman totems, the druid’s shapeshifting, or the summoning of demonic servants elemental to warlocks – were learned by heroes through special quests, others were via codex books dropped by enemies.
Even in the high-level realm, there were tasks through which individual classes could earn powerful rewards. Of course, the priest’s blessing/banishing staff combo or the epic hunter’s bow Rhok’delar immediately come to mind. Otherwise, classes learned their abilities, which came with several ranks, directly from the teacher if they met the level requirements – for a small fee, mind you.
WoW: Classic – The good old talent trees
Today’s talent matrix didn’t exist in Classic WoW yet, instead all classes (including druids) had three talent trees each, on which a maximum of 51 points could be distributed – starting at level 10, one of these points was given with each level increase. You were allowed to distribute the points freely among the three trees, but you had to work your way down each tree from top to bottom: Only when you had placed five points in a row could you use the row below.
Most players pursued the goal of activating the last, often particularly powerful talent of a tree with 31 points and distributing the remaining counters sensibly among the other trees. However, there were exceptions, such as the 21/8/22 build of many PvP rogues. By the way, anyone who wanted to reskill back then had to go to the respective class teacher and pay a fee for the service.
WoW: Classic – Reagents and Ammo
At that time, the classes played individually not only because they had access to special mechanics and abilities, they also used special reagents for their spells. Mages needed runes to open portals, paladins consumed symbols of kings when casting their boons. When druids wanted to revive a player, they used a maple seed to do so, rogues needed blinding powder made by fadeleaf to blind their victim. Hunters, in turn, had their quivers or pouches filled with ammunition for their ranged weapon. If the supply ran out mid-fight, they had to resort to the melee club, which otherwise served to boost their stats (although they also had a few melee abilities).
Other front-line soldiers, such as rogues or warriors, used ranged weapons when you wanted to specifically pull opponents who could not reach victims in close combat or when you needed to generate as little threat as possible. It was also important that warlocks always kept enough soul shards in the soul bag. Because they needed them to summon demons, bring in other players and produce health and soul stones.
WoW: Classic – Strike by strike to the master
Unlike today, the classic characters weren’t just allowed to put on a weapon and make deep dents in enemy breastplates like a big guy. The weapon skills had to be increased blow by blow. Hit value was also important, as it affected how often attacks went wrong. Tanks, on the other hand, had to reach a certain defense value in order to stop being critically hit. There were also resistances for different types of damage such as fire, frost or nature. With some raid bosses, you had to specifically boost a type of resistance to even have a chance of winning.
And then there was the issue of threat management, which was much more important then than it is now. At times, damage dealers had to slow down and use wands or ranged weapons to allow the tank to retain aggro. There were opportunities for mockery, but they worked differently than today. At that time, having the tank “refueled” for a sufficiently long time was a necessity that saved virtual lives.
WoW: Classic – committed community
In Classic WoW, there weren’t as many twinks lying around as there are today, which was not only due to the high amount of time you had to invest in a character, but also because there were no catch-up mechanics in Azeroth that made the leveling process noticeably easier. In addition, Blizzard did not offer paid server changes or name changes. On top of that, each server was a small island with its own independent community. There were no cross-server raids, battlegrounds or zones. If you did something with other players, they always came from the same server as your own alter ego. The community feeling was strengthened by the fact that in Classic all players were in Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, more continents were not accessible.
So there was something going on around the clock in Orgrimmar and Stormwind. The same was true of the city gates, where dozens of players often duelled. The result of all this: You could assign a character to each player, there was only one Creep, one Ixx, one Mortov on Dun Morogh. If you were online regularly over a long period of time, you eventually knew the members of the PvP core groups and progress raids, the noses of the most important guild leaders, and most likely had even made a name for yourself.
WoW: Classic: How good was the class balance?
When we think back to Classic WoW, we think of rogues who could defeat almost any class in a duel with a level 1 dagger and no clothes. We remember priests who could take over NPCs and use them to take out players in droves, or paladins who could even briefly bring the world boss Kazzak to his knees single-handedly thanks to Reckoning. Then there were the dreaded Shamans, who wreaked havoc with two-handed weapons and Wind Wrath, and the tanks in raids, which were almost exclusively embodied by Warriors. Most classes had only one playstyle that was really good. Shadow Priests, Balance Druids, or Elemental Shamans were almost as rare in Azeroth as Legendary Item owners. So no, the class balance was anything but good back then.
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!
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