7 Things You Should Know (Or Remember) About Classic WoW

Table of Contents Introduction

1. Leveling Will Be Slow. Really Slow.
2. You’re Going to Need Friends.
3. You’ll Be Flat Broke
4. You Will Get Lost
5. You. Will. Die.
6. You Might Actually Hate It
7. But You’re Probably Going toLove It

Zygor Wow Guide

Introduction Note:For the sake of this article, I will be using 3 different terms to describe different iterations of World of Warcraft. ‘Vanilla’ refers to the original World of Warcraft experience released in 2004. ‘Retail’ refers to the more recent content. ‘Classic’ refers to the upcoming “remaster” of the original2004 World of Warcraft in the current engine. During last year’s BlizzCon, Blizzard announced that it would be bringing Vanilla WoW back to the player base at large in the form of World of Warcraft: Classic. Recently, Blizzard released a demo for Virtual Ticket holders and BlizzCon 2018 goers for WoW Classic. Players could choose from any of the available races and classes in Vanilla WoW and level from 15 to 19 in either the Barrens or West fall. Being lucky enough to go to BlizzCon this year, I was able to play the demo for WoW Classic. I must say, having played the original Vanilla WoW in 2004, I can confidently say that Blizzard is going for an authentic Classic experience. There are very little changes other than making the game work for modern systems. With the demo came an announcement thatClassic is coming very soon. They announced a Summer 2019 release date, surprising many. With Summer coming just around the corner, I’ve decided to put together a list of things that you might want to keep in mind, whether you’re just coming back to nostalgic Classic WoW or trying it out for the very first time.

 1  Leveling Will Be Slow.Really Slow.

I remember talking to my friends at the very beginning of Vanilla and comparing times to hit level 10 and having 6 hours bean impressive time to beat. That’s the very start of the game, and it only got slower from there. Instead of thinking days or weeks to hit max level, think months. Around 250 hours of playtime to hit level 60 is considered a good time. Never mind how long it would take you if you didn’t know where to grind, what quests to get, or (heaven forbid) you didn’t have enough gold to get a mount at level 40. To me, though, leveling wasn’t just the necessary evil to get to the juicy endgame content that it is in retail WoW. It was a journey. For some people,leveling was the only thing people experienced in Vanilla, and I think that’s a good thing. The grind is coming back to WoW, and that’s something people can get excited about.

2. You’re Going to Need Friends.

Back in Vanilla, there was no dungeon finder.There was no raid finder. Hell, there wasn’t even a Looking For Group tool.Classic WoW is not going to be any different. Though the demo did have aLooking For Group window, Blizzard confirmed at BlizzCon that this was indeed an artifact left over from the current UI and not something they were planning on implementing in Classic. No, in Classic, you’re going to need to use that Trade chat in the capital cities to look for members for your dungeon group. More importantly, it will be very important to gather a strong group of friends as you level up in Azeroth. Joining a guild that is more than just a collection of people wanting guild buffs will be important, because if you ever want to step foot into a raid, you are going to need 39 other people to go with you to experience it fully. So go ahead and add that priest that sticks around for the 2 hours you spend wiping in Dire Maul West even though he only needed the first boss to your friends list. Add anyone and everyone you think will be helpful to you in the future, because that’s what an MMORPG should belike.

3. You’ll Be Flat Broke

If you enjoy racing around the World ofWarcraft at 310% movement speed, soaring through the air on dragons and elementals, you better be ready to put some serious farming in for Classic. In order to get a 100% movement speed mount, you will need upwards of 900 gold,which may not seem like a lot, but trust me – it is. Remember that part where leveling to max level could take months? Well, imagine that same amount of time grinding, but instead of grinding different mobs and a few quests along the way, it’s the same mobs over and over and over. That’s what it will take to make gold in Classic. And what’s even better is that you will need to farm in order to be keep up – training skills cost so much in Vanilla that people went the entire period not training skills they didn’t think they needed just to penny pinch enough so that they might be able to afford their ever elusive mount. Don’t even get me started on grinding professions. Get used to the feeling of always needing just a little bit more gold than you have, because it’s coming.

4. You Will Get Lost

One thing is for certain no matter how much you think you remember about Vanilla, you will encounter the inevitable feeling of being completely unaware of where you should go, or what you should do next. Thankfully, by the time Classic releases there will be significant resources available in order to help you along the way. The quest chains in Vanilla were long, arduous, and confusing most of the time, and many times a trip to Thottbot was the only way to figure out exactly where you needed to go. Even some of the necessary quest lines to do endgame content had you going all over Azeroth (looking at you, Onyxia key chain) multiple times just to complete. Believe me when I say that in Classic WoW, knowledge is power.

5. You. Will. Die.

One thing that is unquestionable aboutVanilla WoW is just how lethal it was. Unlike it’s competitor at the time,EverQuest, it did not punish you by removing experience when you died. Instead,WoW offered a punishment in the form of a sometimes lengthy corpse run toreturn to the land of the living. In exchange, WoW has many, many opportunities for you to place your head directly into the dirt. Mobs frequently came in packs of 3 or more, when taking on 2 at a time was a challenge for just about every class. Level differences could be upwards of 10 levels or more inside of a zone, and with aggro radiuses being much higher than what they are in retail,a monster 10 levels higher than you could basically come out of nowhere and one shot you, sending you straight to the graveyard in a hurry. There is a pretty good chance that you will wipe in any given dungeon or raid that you enter, and instead of being ported back to the beginning alive, you can look forward to a nice long corpse run in addition to the 10% durability loss. This created a much less face roll style of play, with careful planning needed to avoid those costly deaths.

6. You Might Actually Hate It

If you’ve never experienced Vanilla WoWbefore, or retail WoW is your only experience with MMOs, you might be in for a rude awakening. Vanilla was grindy, brutal, and confusing, a fact that seems to be forgotten by people that only ever view it with rose-colored glasses. If putting 200+ hours into a game and still not reaching max level doesn’t sound like your idea of a fun time, then Classic might not be the game for you. If you really enjoy Retail WoW’s casual systems and can’t imagine it without them,then Classic probably isn’t for you. If transmog, battle pets, garrisons, andWorld Quests are the only things you enjoy in WoW, then Classic probably isn’t for you. There are many, many reasons not to try out Classic WoW, but even more reasons to play them, which leads me to my last point…

7. But You’re Probably Going to Love It

There’s a good reason why World of Warcraftbecame the absolute sensation that it was 13 years ago. Millions of people whohad never played an MMO before suddenly found themselves addicted to this gamewhich had earned it the lovable title “World of WarCrack”. Many people think that WoW has lost that charm, that it’s too little, too late for the old soldier and that it won’t be able to regain that same feeling it inspired in so many. I think that some of this is true. However, all of that stuff that I mentioned up there? I know it might seem like a lot of that was negative – slow leveling, grindy gameplay, lethal monsters, but in my opinion, that is what made Vanilla WoW great. It was a grind, sure, but a fun one. It set out this huge challenge in front of you that took months to conquer but once you did it felt oh-so-good. Not only that, but you then had all these new challenges that required tons of cooperation from your fellow gamer that inspired friendships that still last to this day for me.In Vanilla, with great challenge came great reward, and very seldom did you ever see it otherwise. I sincerely hope that if you’ve never playedVanilla WoW that you give Classic WoW a try. It will seem different, maybe even a little boring at first without the constant stream of rewards you might be used to in Retail, but the game design of Vanilla is sneaky like that. It might not seem like you’re getting much done, but you’ll be sitting there thinking about whether you can go for 2 levels after work instead of just 1, or when you should start saving for your ground mount now or later, and you’ll realize what so many people realized 13 years ago – you’re hooked. Outside resource

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyFN01p2xLo