i miss when WoW was just a game. 

Wow, I'm absolutely blown away by the response to this video. I'm humbled and affirmed to see that so many people feel so similarly to me. Thank you all for your comments! Please keep them coming, I'm loving the stories. What memories or gaming moments of just playing around do you have? I'm even more buoyed and inspired by all of the stories you have shared in the comments, the vulnerable emotions you've expressed, and the personal solutions you've given and had success with to combat the feelings I have been having. There seem to be two schools of thought, and I agree with both of them. On one hand, I can point the finger at Blizzard, as this is the way they've designed things as time has gone on. But they've only designed it this way because I consume the content this way more than I did before. So really it's an indirect finger pointing at myself. On the other hand, I can point the finger directly at myself. I can combat my own feelings of "not being good enough" or "missing out" or "wasting my time", and return to true and pure "play". If I can get over that internal battle, I can recapture the magic and love and wonder and awe that is presented right in front of me. So I've been working on doing just that. I am doing some deep exploration in WoW right now, for no other purpose than to have fun. And I'm going to share that here on this channel moving forward. Join along if you'd like, and thank you all again for your comments!

Best line of the video: "I want to feel like I'm part of the world again, not the champion of Azeroth"

Dude my dad is in his 60s and when he heard classic was coming back he asked me to buy him a subscription for his bday. Both of us played during vanilla and Burning crusade times and he said he wanted to "revive" his character. Last i checked he was level 58. He doesnt party up, he doesnt use discord, he doesnt watch youtube videos; all he does is explore, do quests, mines, smiths and will run lower level dungeons solo. I always ask him if he's bored yet every time he just says "Nope". One day I told him hes literally playing the way a youtuber would for a "challenge video" and he just laughed. He genuinely has a ton of fun from just killing mobs and questing. If you see a lone human warrior named "Gutwrencher", say hi 😊

Best description I've heard of modern WoW: "You used to be a nobody doing heroic things, now you're a hero doing nothing."

My first WoW character was a male orc hunter. Lol. I'm female. I was just strolling around, having fun. Fast forward, I was playing 8+ hours a day during college, healing class leader for my raiding guild, constantly grinding, grinding, farming, farming, professions, raid videos, rated PvP...I would have my guild leader calling my cell to see where I was if I was MIA. It literally became a job. I have such nostalgic memories of wandering the zones, especially at night, PRIOR to cross-server realms, where you could truly feel alone. The music, the visuals, alone in my room, totally immersed. I basically quit after the panda thing. Returned briefly for a couple other expansions. I remember thinking, after queuing for world bosses, getting lumped into "raids" with dozens of strangers I'd never see again, just to melt a boss in 3 minutes flat, collect our loot, then bail...this isn't the game I knew. This is just consumption. Impersonal. Isolating. Played for the last time in 2017. It really was a huge part of my life. Even to this day, I'll listen to some of the soundtracks. I still daydream about the experiences, the content/storylines/continents, the friends made, then seemingly long-gone overnight. For a time in my life it felt permanent; then it became totally transient, out of the blue...

The best quest in dragonflight was the one where you just sit next to a dude, looking out over a cliff, and listen to his story

I think I recall the older devs saying the main character from original Wow was the world itself rather than the player. Something along the lines of that.

Literally my favorite WoW memory was in early Burning Crusade. I woke up super early before work and couldn't get back to sleep, so I hopped on my Forsaken priest alt to grind my tailoring a bit with all the materials I'd farmed on my main the day before. I was in Thunderbluff, near the bank. The server was mostly empty at that hour. My priest checked the mail, collected the materials from my main, and started fashioning bolts of cloth. As I did, the sun began to rise over Mulgore and the city, washing it all in an orange light only visible that time of day. I stopped making cloth for a minute and just looked out over the grasslands, breathtaken. I walked from the bank to the plateau's edge, took a seat, and kept crafting. It wasn't the raids, or the plot, or even my own character's personal story; it was that time I was playing as a zombie, knitting, watching the sun rise over verdant green fields. That's the memory that stuck with me more than any other.

I started playing WoW two weeks after it came out. All these years later, I absolutely feel that the first 3-4 years were more fun than any year since. The first two expansions, my friend and I stood in line at Game Stop at midnight to get them. We were so excited to get home, pop in those cd’s to load it up and check out the new areas. The game was balanced and we didn’t have to worry about crazy ability rotations. The story line and quests were interesting. Gaining ten levels took almost two weeks. You felt like you really accomplished something. Everything you said was spot on! Thanks for giving me pause to reflect on how much fun I had back then and remembering all those old guildies in For The Lose on Llane.

My favorite memory from WoW was sitting in some remote corner of the map, listening to the rain, the waves and the calming music. I wasn’t doing anything, just appreciating the moment in a place that nobody would ever visit.

The best moment I had in this game was when I was fishing with my blood elf in Durotar, near the ships who goes to Stranglethorn Valley. A druid Tauren came near, make a campfire and sitted at my side, starting to fish too. We talked a lot about random stuff of life, when he got sapped. I could see for a moment an ally rogue who did it. Looking the horizon up on a cliff, we saw an army from alliance marching to Orgrimmar for invade. We run like crazy to the city and start to screech in the global mapa warning for the invasion and horde players popped like hell from all directions. The fight was so amazing than horde pushed and trapped all allys inside the bank - and all started with two guys fishing far from the city and talking about life. I wish to live that moments again, was so fun!

It's beyond incredible how immersive early WoW was.. No quest helper yet. You actually needed to read the quests and then find your way around this huge new world. I often feel that a part of my soul will always remain in Teldrassil, start for the night elfs. Spent countless hours walking around simply exploring this dreamy forest with its colourful landscapes. The sound track still makes me feel a special kind of peace that I can't put into words. Feels like I can always go back there and all is fine. Slaying the first creatures, seeing the first mounted guards, giant trees walking around, getting lost and killed countless times in the endless cave of the Furbolgs. Needing a group to finish the cave and meeting my first buddies. Collecting a shit load of herbs for which I didn't have any use for a long time. Walking back and forth between Darnassus and some quest locations. Some people hated it equally to Ashenvalen, as the paths between quests were very long and one advances very slowly. For me it just felt like one giant world that no one actually really knows yet. Just going around in walking speed sooo much added to the experience. Taking that first ferry to a new location.. Great journey indeed. Epic open PvP in Stranglethorn Vale, Southshore, X-roads, Blackrock massacre.. Attacking cities with hundreds of other players.. Immense questline to finally be able to raid Onyxia's lair together with 40!! other people. Could go on for hours recounting epic Vanilla moments.. Part of WoWs original feeling died for me with the first flying mounts.. It killed open PvP + one flies so fast.. you don't pay attention anymore to surroundings as much. Moving around started to feel more like getting from A to B.. The slow pace made classic WoW so great.. No teleportation to a Dungeon unless a warlock + 2 would go there. Everyone riding around. It filled the world with people that later got empty as everyone just teleports.. Congrats to anyone that actually read all of this!

My GF introduced me to WoW back during Burning Crusade. My first character was an Undead Warlock, running through Tirisfal Glades during the Hallow's End event. I don't know how you can plan a cooler and more fun way to be emersed into a new game than that. Our guild was mostly composed of just a bunch of friends that lived locally, doing quests and raiding but not too seriously. Our guild leader was right down the street. Sense of companionship and comradery was truly exceptional and it really made the game so much fun. Over time, things didn't work out with the GF, I left the server to pursue a passion in PvP which had steadily grew in me. I took PVP really seriously and made it to the top echelons of BG's and Arena titles.... but it just felt empty. It felt like a job to always be learning the new spells and rebalancing, always trying to be on top of the new meta.. I hated that I seemed to be angry about losing more than I ever could be happy about winning. Halfway through Cata I left and never came back. This video and all of the nostalgic comments from so many of the old school players here really just hit me right in the heart. Because now, even 13 years later, I clearly understand that those silly questing lines at the edges of nowhere with your buddies... sitting by a lake fishing and listening to the rain.. farming Netherwing Eggs at 2am while jamming out to a cool new album from your favorite band.... it was the simplicity that made it everything all along. And I wish I could go back to those days and fall in love with that feeling again more than anything.

I used to lay down in the bed upstairs in Goldshire Inn or whatever Inn I found in the town I was in and fall asleep before logging out, I miss that.

I miss when I could join up with a raid and just do the raid. Now it's like "LFM for ICC. Need 2 DPS and 1 Heals. Meet in Dal for gear check." and then when you get there and pass the gear check they check your achievements, and double check your stats on some random-assed website. And then, if you pass the application process you can join the raid after they spend another hour and a half checking people's shit. I shouldn't have to go through a job interview to play a 20 year old game.

I gave up on WOW when everyone was suddenly in a rush, I couldn't even watch a cut scene i had not seen without getting booting from the group for taking too long............took all the fun out of it.

This made me happy. Thank you for making this! My first char was a human/warrior. I had no clue whatsoever what was going on and what I was doing. I loved the music in Elwynn, and the entrance into Stormwind was just magnificent. Such epic music, gave me goosebumps every time! At some point someone asked me to sign a guild charter. For some reason we had to go to Ironforge for that. I had never been outside of Elwynn/SW. We took the underground. I was hesitating... Would I ever find my way back?! The world was so big! I disliked IF because I felt lost. But when I got to the entrance, and walked out into the snowy landscape... I completely fell in love and knew I would spend some years of my life in WoW! As you say: I wanted to be part of that world, and explore. My noobness showed that when I was in Desolace, all alone in that ghastly place, when I was invited into a group to go into Maraudon. Never heard of. I had hardly ever been in a group, or an instance. I was a warrior. Could I tank? "What is a tank?", I asked? "Do you have a shield?" No, I was the proud owner some 2-handed axe or something... "Oh well, a shield might drop at the first boss" or something. Anyway, I went in. Needless to say that we did not last. Then I found myself all alone at the entrance of Maraudon and questioned my choices. I chatted a bit to one of the group. He (I presume) was very helpful. He told me that I had used not even half of my talent points, and the ones I had used were all over the place. I said I had no idea where to put them and eventually just gave up. I abandoned the poor warrior and re-rolled a mage, with whom I ended up raiding MC. Some regions were favourites, some I disliked (Gnomeregan / gnome music was irritating! Personal opinion, of course..). I loved the lore! I loved long quest lines like The Missing Diplomat! During a later run (horde this time) I was much moved by the heartrending Lament of the Highborne. Another facet of WoW (of the olden days - I never played past WotLK) that was amazing were the people you met. It took me a while to find a nice guild. We were chill, and happy.. Yes, just a happy bunch! I was surprised to find that older people played, too (I was in my early twenties and, looking back, still quite "young"). And women. And that we all could have fun, and serious conversations (this more mature guild was really just great for me!). And we enjoyed playing, and getting lost in this magnificent world. Do you remember that, while flying from Ironforge to Menethil Harbour (or Refuge Point, I can't remember..), there was this crash landing site in the high mountains? I tried to go there as a young (less than lvl 20) mage. I was joined by another chap who thought this was a fun idea. We jumped. We ran. I tried Slow Fall spell (first had to go find feathers). We tried here and there, and everywhere. I don't think we ever made it. Yet, we spent a few hours, and had a blast. Thanks to your video, lots of memories are coming back to me, for which I thank you! I have considered getting back into WoW. I tried private servers (this was before classic was released). But I found that what I am looking for is no longer there. Not in the least, because I am no longer who I was twenty years ago. And that is fine. I sometimes reminisce with my brother-in-law who also played WoW at that time (though we did not know each other, being from different continents and not meeting in-game). And that is where things stay. A happy memory (many, I should say). Also, I don't think that the little ones would allow me the time it would take to get lost in such a big world again... You're only young once!

I used to RP walk in and around Stormwind all the time back in vanilla, I would walk around Ironforge and check out all the rooms too :) I would spend hours "playing the game" and get nothing done in terms of progression just enjoying the new things and cool places

To this day, nothing beats the experience of playing WoW for the first time. Waking up in Deathknell, wandering around Tirisfal Glades discovering what happened to Lordaeron after the events of Warcraft 3. Eventually trailing into Silverpine Forest and then Hillsbrad Foothills as I explore how the undead survived and are struggling to thrive in this land they were left in. I miss old WoW so damn much. The whole "HERO, PLEASE SAVE THE WORLD. HERE'S A LEGENDARY MAGIC ITEM THAT ONLY YOU (AND EVERY OTHER PLAYER) HAVE!" just doesn't cut it for me...

Recently I've returned to WoW after 10 years of absence. Back then, I've played together with my ex, we rushed forward, clicking through quests without reading them, getting achievements and running through dungeons as fast as we could. No fun. This time, I'm taking it slow, nothing and no one is chasing me, when I got to Stormwind, I ran around the town for 2 hours, looking everywhere, chatting with NPC's, when I came across a tombstone in the cemetery, I've opened up the wiki to read who the character was. Now I'm in Stranglethorn, I've transmogrified my costume, to look like a jungle explorer, I'm running around all goofy, fighting raptors and catching pets, I can't recall the last time I've had so much fun with a game (probably The Witcher 3 in 2015). WoW is phenomenal, but only, when you don't let it FOMO you, and just relax.

I played WOW shortly after launch. If a rouge caused a dungeon wipe we would stay grouped, explain aggro and healing and try again. I'd level a healer to 25ish then start a new healing character. The reason was I enjoyed playing with players learning the game. Healing for fire mages that fireballed before the tank got aggro made the mob battle unpredictable and challenging. And when a warrior tank explained to me why I shouldn't "bubble" him or add HOTs right away I was appreciative. We'd tell the DPS addict how to work as a team and I learned to trust good tanks. But everyone was cool. Teaching was part of the game. "Google meta build or we won't play with you" didn't exist. The internet allowed for the most fun a video game could offer. And the internet also destroyed the experience with "get good before you play". Learning together was what made WOW the game it was. No one will ever experience that again.

i remember getting my first riding wolf and just spend days riding around and explore the world

I used be a guild leader. I also was one of many raid leaders in the guild. We used to know each other in the game. Every one of us. A friday night or saturday we had some call out in the guild chat asking if people wanted to do a raid or something. There was always people ready to sign up. Not only because they needed the gear, but for the fun of it. It used to be alot of fun. I still have alot of screenshots from up when we 'finally' beat Arthas in ICC and we all are flocking around his throne. It used to be a blast That guild is long gone. People stopped playing or moved on to other servers or games. Now Im in a guld I dont even know the name of. Im a nobody in there. After hitting the highest level someone just throw a guild invitation on me and I accepted. No one is speaking in the guild chat, nothing happens, but still im cool with it. So much to do these days anyways just to keep up with the game. And the more there is to do, the more boring it somehow has become. I play when I have time. Im no longer longing for it like I use to. I used to love these simple things like shoting spiders in Evelynn forest or killing troll mobs in Dun Morogh. Whre ever step was an adventure and where I know ever corner of the map. Just running around and exploring things and killing small mobs. Today Im flying around on a huge dragon fast as lightning. Not so much on the ground no more as in the early days. And the mobs I kill today was considered elites before. A dragon here, a dragon there. No biggy. We have been killing Titans and battling old gods, so what is a little dragon in comparsing? Yes. I miss when Wow was just a game too

As an adult, I always struggled to sit down and play World of Warcraft again, even in it's Classic Vanilla incarnation across the different private servers I've nudged over the years. Though I have stuck to Turtle WoW these days, I realize from this video that my anxiety to play probably comes from all this min-maxing, end-game, time-efficient ideologies that took my inner child hostage. Maybe I can rediscover that simplicity, let down my expectations, and go on a simple adventure again. Oh, the joy I can imagine. I forgot that's why I play video games - to have fun. Not stress over a fantasy. Update: I've now put together a LAN party for my friends to play WoW together in the same room. We want to play every week with the sole purpose of just having fun and nothing else. Looking forward to this every Saturday when we can get together.

I remember when I played wow in 2007, and I would get nervous when I’d enter a new zone that said “Contested territory” or “Horde territory” I thought I’d stumble upon enemy players and get killed so everything I did I did while looking over my shoulder. The immersion was on another level

This video really spoke to me. Some years ago I started a guild with the sole purpose of playing the game like a game and not a job. I had no addons and I encouraged a lot of new players to do the same. I just wanted to meet people and have a good time. If you are reading this and you are a new wow players just chill and play the game HOWEVER YOU WANT. Wanna be a fire mage, be a fire mage, want to run around dun morough killing leper gnomes, please DO THAT. Don't let your happiness and wonder be squashed by the elitism and cynicism of this player base. You are playing the game just right!

One of the most notable things ive seen mentioned recently is that WoW was, whilst a game, and an accessible one for its time with many positive qualities, was also many peoples first real "social media", and that impact on people is something that can never be recreated.

This is why we love starting new characters. I love a new character until somewhere in the 20s - 30s when it starts to feel like a job.

Vanilla is in my biased mind the greatest game ever created. The sheer depth, quality and quantity in this game is mindboggling to me. I don’t understand how they did it. There’s never been a game that has grasped me like that. Amazing zone and dungeon designs, great UI and immersive quests and you have the freedom to do things when and how you want. A dungeon like BRD is like the coolest thing ever. The most insane thing is I’ve put thousands of hours into classic alone and have probably seen only over half of the alliance quests and never any of the hordes. There’s so much more content to discover and see… For it’s time and honestly still today it’s just one of the best MMO experiences you can get.

I remember back in 2005 how getting a mount was a thing. Guildies would borrow gold for you to get your first mount at level 40 and it was pretty damn hard to have 90g at that time. Even harder to get an epic mount costing 900g. I was lucky enough to drop a Krol Blade at level 50 something and sell it for something like 1k gold (it was the best BOE weapon in the game). Used the money to buy my swift raptor. It was such a huge achievement. Definitely felt more imersive than nowadays.

In 2006, I failed my first year at university because of World of Warcraft. At the time, I was studying architecture, and while exploring continents, cities, and game environments, I wanted to one day create video games myself. I still dream about it, but instead of architecture, I work as a 3d artist in the game industry. I haven't played WoW since 2007-2008, I still miss playing it and that feeling.

WoW became so complicated now and with all these countless expansions, it doesn't even feel like WoW anymore. We miss the simplicity of it. Walking around exploring, doing quests and making new friends. That's what WoW was about.

I remember the days that if you opened a ticket, within the hour, a gamemaster would answer. And most of the time not by wsp you, but actualy sending their personal avatar to you... It was almost like ... if the gamedevelopers cared about their gamers...

I remember walking through Mulgore just visiting the little huts all over the place. I would also always make a point to find a bed in an inn and having my character actual sleep in the bed prior to logging out

My first character was a NE druid. Started in Teldrassil, and for the first 30 minutes, I was literally just zooming in on the trees, and squirrels and such. And the Ancient Protectors walking around everywhere. It was so epic to me. I remember hitting level 20 after about 2 weeks or so. Leveling was not an instant kind of thing. At least not to me. I also remember doing the corpse run from wetlands into Ironforge when I was level 16. Anyone else remember that, especially anyone who mained a Night Elf? Once I hit IF, my friend(who introduced me to Wow) showed me the Tram. I was blown away experiencing the Tram travel to Stormwind. And then I spent about a week in Duskwood. I remember when Stiches was making his run for the town, and 10 people had to get together to take him down. It was such an experience. I haven't experienced that kind of fun in WoW in years. I miss those times.

This is why my motto is, "I'm here for a good time." I always keep that in mind whenever I'm playing, and I start thinking about what's "optimal" or whatever. I go with what makes me happy and what's fun to me, because that's what's important.

I miss the days when i were low level, exploring Westfall and doing some quest, looking the landscape, hearing the music. feeling like a small dot in the universe.

I agree. I do miss when people played the game for fun rather than treating it like a job. I stopped playing warcraft around the time I noticed people started caring more about gear score than actually enjoying the game. Being just and adventurer trying to survive in the world while exploring it would be great.

There are two things I remember vividly from my early TBC days. 1st story was when I met a random druid and a shammy - we all were just vibing in travel forms in Stranglethorn Vale and randomly started chatting up. We then discovered that all of us are new to the game so maybe we should start a party. We chatted for like 3 hours after that and then each week we would do "DISCOVERY" time which consisted of us going in our travel forms to various locations and mostly trying to enjoy the views with strategy planning so we all survive. The 2nd was me and my guild of casual players (my two buddies were also there) were doing parties in bootybay Inn getting smashed and talking on team speak about our plans for the week both in game and irl. Man I wish I have this back. I hope all of you folks are doing great wherever your journey took you! :)

"smaller more meaningful bite sized stories" - you hit the nail on the head here. When it comes to WoW, I've been thinking for quite some time that "less is more" or that a smaller world with more intimate questing and player interaction is far more engaging than the humongous theme park we have to play in now. Bigger sounds good on paper, but in reality, I feel its almost safe to say OBJECTIVELY that people have more fun when they're in a smaller more recognizable, familiar and intimate world. I used to know the ins and outs of every zone and I can recall so many moments and interactions in that smaller more familiar world. The world felt very "live in" as you put it. Now it feels like I'm just passing through an overcrowded high traffic airport where nobody pays attention to anyone or anything.

I played WoW from early 2007 till the end of 2008. I restarted for BAF in 2018, nearly 10 years later. Two things I noticed: 1. Everything got a mechanic. Looking for a dungeon group for example. I was used to travel into a large city and write "LFG" (looking for group) on the market. I had to interact with players and it was immersive af. We raided a dungeon and afterwards were dancing naked in the taverns of Booty Bay and became best friends. 2. Today, you are always the "super duper hero of all times". With a lot of cringy new cutscenes. I am pretty sure they did this to satisfy the 15 years old wannabe-special kiddos, but it actually made me feel weird and I stopped feeling part of this world. In The Elder Scrolls Online for example, there is this quest for the Aldmeri Dominion. You have to save and help the Queen of the High Elves and afterwards you are her bestie and she calls you immediately (and constantly) "my friend" and shares every national top tier secret with you. I really disliked that. And WoW is like this 99% of its time.

honestly 2019-2020 classic was the closest i got to that feeling again. I’m now nostalgic about 2004 vanilla and 2019 vanilla classic 😭😭

Man, this is so nostalgic. I think a lot of people relate to you. I remember me and my friends in 2004 buying a copy of the game, then we sat around a round table in some cafe and decided what class and race each of us would be, almost in an rp manner. Good times

"Just like playing pretend, when you were a kid." From Vanilla to Cataclysm I played on Venture Company RPPVP server, and had an undead warlock named Dymentia. For ALL of that time, raiding, battleground and arena ALL took a backseat to *World PVP* on our server. Alliance and Horde each had a half dozen or so guilds that claimed a faction settlement as the "home base" and opposing factions guilds would start killing NPC guards at that base when they wanted a fight. I was in and our base was Tarren Mill. We were dedicated to protecting lowbies, and would camp Southshore for HOURS if a high level Alliance started harassing levelers. We also organized large scale world world PVP events, like fighting over Stromgarde ruins or the Thandol Span, and letting the other side reset so we could have several "matches." Our main rival was in Darkshore, and someone got a temporary ban cause we figured out how to get on the roofs and cast spells down on em where they couldn't reach us lmao. It was so fun, and my best memories of WoW, and it was the most meaningless, pointless stuff with regards to progression.

When Classic came out it really put things into perspective for me. I felt more attached to my new character by like lvl 30 than I had felt to any of my retail characters in probably 10 years. I was more immersed in the game just running low level dungeons while levelling than in any Mythic raid ever. This continued from the start of Classic all the way through TBC. Among the best experiences I've ever had with WoW. I had almost forgot that the game once had soul and meaning rather than just being an endless treadmill of player engagement and FOMO.

4:08 THIS!!! I don't want to be "the champion of Azeroth". I want to be just another adventurer going on a small quest inside a huge world without the world being in constant danger. Your first WoW-experience is very similar to mine; I just wandered across the Tirisfal Glades and Durotar and never made it past lvl 20 on my first character. Because leveling wasn't important to me. Exporing a lived in world was amazing, as well as meeting new people online who became RL friends as well! With today's technology the WoW Devs could make a thriving city like Suramar for every capital, but I miss the days where I could just log online and spend an entire evening just relaxing with other players near a campfire while the ingame sun went down.

You described the exact experience that made me fall in love with WoW back when I was trying out the game on a Cata private server. I did most of the stuff you did in terms of exploring, and I got accidentally teleported to the Blasted Lands as a lvl15ish nelf rogue. Since I had no idea what a heartstone was I ended up stealthing my way north towards the "nearest" low level alliance zone I could find on the map. That zone was Dun'Morog, of course. And since I didn't actually know the maps and paths, I ended up going trough the Swamp of Sorrows, Burning Steppes, Searing Gorge and Badlands, slowly and methodically stealthing my way around skull level mobs that would often spot me anyways That was the story of how I as a Night Elf noob found my way to Ironforge and then Stormwind. The next day the one kid at school who did play WoW told me about heartstones lol That little adventure was so much fun I can't remember most of my time raiding or doing mythic+, but I do remember my silly adventures discovering the world, getting lost and stuck, doing random stuff and leveling with the boys

Recently I was talking to some friends about when I used to play wow back in the day. And after years I realised that I was like a friendly NPC of the early to mid game zones. I liked the starting areas so much that usually I got stuck at around lvl 30-40. All that because I liked chatting with new players, helping with their group quests, showing them the way to the quest that they needed to do since there was no map tracking back then. And eventually all these new players would surpass me at lvls and I would still be back there, the friendly NPC, helping out the new guys, chatting, and protecting them from the attacking alliance since we were on a PvP server. WoW has some really nice places to sit and chat, and trade items and food! ❤

I wish Classic WoW would periodically start a new server to re-enter into the actual classic level 60 experience.

I will never forget the feeling of joy and awe I had when I first played WoW as a Blood Elf priest. The music, the Blood Elf forest, the buildings, the bestiary...Everything was magical to me and I spent countless hours just exploring every bit of the map I could. I also didn't manage to get very far in leveling up, but I wouldn't trade that for the fun I had playing it my way and taking things slow. Good times

I remember when I left Valley of Trial for the first time on my troll hunter and discovered the sea. I spent hours just swimming around those sunken ships trying to find treasure.

I‘m 44 years and i always played games just for the fun of it. For exploring. For adventure. For story. Trophys and Gamerscore? I don’t mind. The rarest secret? If its on the way, okay. To be the best? For what? For impress people, most of them little kids? KD? Who the F mind? Does anybody go through the lobby and giving props for KD or the most creative player card? It’s all man-made pressure. I only play to enjoy.

I love that this sentiment is so shared among us players. Each of us has a vivid memory of the “first good old days” in World of Warcraft, especially those of us who, like me, had the opportunity to start this adventure with our friends, and none of us knew anything about the game. We used to say things to each other like, “Watch out! Don't cut through the woods, because there are bandits and it's not safe. Better to follow the road when possible.” Or, “I was in that mine earlier, it took me a long time to get out, but I found a chest with this *press Z* sword in it.” It was a time when every lack in the game was filled by our imagination, and when our PC was not an agglomeration of statistics and percentages, but our very avatar within a parallel and incredible world. Those of us who played WoW back in the days when all this was possible really have something that the new generations cannot have.

You are absolutely correct. I'm a game director and dev and the design and entertainment standards have changed quite a bit in the last 20 years. Many developers and publishers are so worried about players dropping due to frustration or empty zones, that everything started to be on rails, with redundant communication of what to do and tons of progression systems to "fit every player" and not give you a single breath. Then the game starts to play you, rather than you playing the game. As a response, many players are jumping into citybuilders, metroidvanias, roguelikes and the indie scene... etc, which is our bet.

I hope we have this experience again someday, but I wonder if it’s just the culture now. I wish everyone could experience what it’s like when the community focuses on fun. In the early days it was like everyone was enamored with just how COOL it was to even be part of that world. I’m glad we got to be a part of it!

your thoughts in this video really resonated with me! i think the best wow experience ive had in years was the time i spent playing hardcore because the necessity for consumables/crafting/caution in your approach often lent itself to a “stop and smell the roses” meandering through whatever zone i chose to level in. thrilled that i could recapture some of the feeling of wow being a slow burn thru azeroth like i got back in 2005. thanks for the short, sweet, and sincere video. i genuinely felt moved watching it!!

Competitiveness destroyed games.

Man when I first played wow that nelf starter zone just hit so different. The music, the zone itselt, so many people running around, just pure escapism

Part of the problem is how we've been trained to play games and derive enjoyment from how well we play them as opposed to just playing them. Gearscore, ranking, parses its all a competition now and its all most of the players today focus on.

My favorite memory was very early on when my alliance friend wanted help with some quest that took him all the way across to Kalimdor. It was my first time going over there by boat and I had no idea what we were really doing since I didn't have the same quest. We managed to wander through the Barrens and the Stonetalon Mountains, completely ignorant of where we were and somehow didn't encounter a single Horde player, along the way, but as we wandered on foot into Desolace and saw the huge Horde banner, my friend panicked and thought we should turn back. We were on a server where you could turn PvP off, so we were not in any danger, yet due to our innocence/ignorance, we were genuinely afraid that we'd be killed. There is no way to get that innocence back. Simply exploring and discovering the world on foot for the first time was amazing.

That time when you'd go into a retail game store, seeing the wall plastered with World of Warcraft boxes. I'd flip open the front thingy of the game's box and be all bewildered seeing a dwarf with a flaming sword fighting a yeti. Game was exclusive to credit card users back then, so naturally I was living off of several 30 day 'trial' accounts. Went to play on a bunch of private servers, but despite all the shortcomings (bugs, missing content, etc.) compared to retail WoW, those were some of the best days of my childhood. Ended up settling for a small tight-knit Blizzlike Vanilla server, only for us to get a DMCA roundhouse kick in the face a few months later. By the time I _really_ joined retail, everyone was running AQ, whilst I was still a level 14 Night Elf Druid dancing as a bear and begging for gold in Goldshire. The kid in me actually thought that there was gold to be found in a place called 'Goldshire', but all I got was at most 50~ silver 'for my trouble'. At least my *[Lesser Wizard's Robe]* made me feel all epic and whatnot. It may be naïve to think like this, but truth be told, I blame the disappearance of 'games just being games' like these on the stakeholders and corporate greed. The ancient 'fear of missing out' method has been upgraded over the years to include crap like in-game stores, exclusive mounts/pets/collectables, game pre-orders, character boosters and battle passes, to name a few. It's not about making a game to simply be a game for the sake of being a game. No, it's about making the most buck for the least amount of effort, a classic _quantity over quality_ scenario. Logging back into World of Warcraft after being away for a while gave me a bombardment of in-game mails, telling me that content has been removed and/or changed. Campaign missions are shoved down your throat to throw you directly into the new expansion content, after which you can toss away your old (yet fancy) gear for common rags, transmog aside. Dailies and weeklies are fun if you do them once, not for a gazillionth time. LFG and LFR made it easier to find groups for certain dungeons/raids, but if you've never found the location of said dungeons/raids on your adventures by simply exploring, it's a little disappointing to not understand the story/lore behind the dungeon when you enter it. It's comparable to reading a book for the first time, but instead of starting at page 1, you start at page 200, and the book happens to be the Silmarillion. Ain't that tough luck? Either way, enough ranting from me. I'll try out the next expansion to see if it's any different and hope it'll prove me wrong. But I'll probably end up fishing anyways, like I always do. And that flaming sword I mentioned earlier? Yeah.. never got it. Too busy begging for 'gold' in Goldshire.

I have so many fond memories of Vanilla... spent a whole Sunday afternoon in BRD with 4 friends, clearing the whole dungeon for the fun of it. Yeah we wiped, we overpulled, somebody fell into the lava near the MC atunement. but it was so much fun. When we found out about the children of Goldshire, some guild friends and I would check in on them multiple times a day, followed them around and we were asking ourselves what this was all about. I was in on of the better guilds on our realm, everybody full T2 and we'd still run Strat almost every day with random players who felt so proud that "the big guys" would run a dungeon with them.... good times! thanks for this video

You summarized what a lot of us are feeling, I am a burnt out wow raider that is sick of the grind. Thank you very much for presenting this.

my brother was 5 years older than me and we both played wow. he mostly played to see how fast he could get to level cap and farmed for gear and money. i played for the fun of it. i rp’d and explored and just chilled in capital cities. i used to walk places for the fun of it. i made a lot of friends in guilds, and was super generous by giving out crafted bags and enchantments. i frequently used to revisit starting areas with crafted armor with enchantments and just pick a level 5 character and give them a full set of greens. it always made their day, and it gave me joy to help others on their journey. i miss those days. i stopped playing about 4 years ago after 15 years, and i always go back to the wow music and ambiance channels for a bit of nostalgia. i miss when it was just a game too. i miss when i played it for the fun of it.

There aren't enough thumbs ups, stars, or exclamation points that I can bestow. You have absolutely captured what I miss about my early days in WoW. I started a couple years after you, with the release of Wrath, but I still remember what you are describing. I spent hours of chillaxing fun just loafing around with various activities that struck my fancy. I loved fishing. Often, 2-3 of our guild were tasked (we volunteered) with fishing for the weeks raid food. We would get on early in the morning, find a fishing spot, and we'd virtual fish, sip coffee, and chat with one another. Other times I would hang out in zones where I really enjoyed the music and/or the view. Sometimes I would fly aimlessly around places like Shalozar Basin (I really like the music there). Other times we would hang out in Elwyn Forest (again, great music). Often, I would go after achievements and titles (i.e. Diplomat) at a very casual pace. It was nice that I didn't feel hyper-compelled to follow the Yellow Exclamation Point. And for all that is right and good in this world, enough of the catastrophizing and world savior nonsense. Like you, smaller, local (zone, village, etc.) stories and quest lines are more interesting. As you say, be a part of the world. In the world. Well done!

Frankly… this is a framing problem caused by min maxing and optimizing. We don’t play games anymore and engage in an open ended learning process with slowly and steady growth. We watch videos, hold ourselves to high standards, and grind ourselves into burnout. Impo play some indie games and stop looking at guides, you’ll start having fun again ❤

Sorry, but you have to blame some of this on the demanding players constantly complaining about not having this and that. Does anyone remember how wow used to be? You can go to any MMO forum and see this type of post, we need to have this or This content is too easy. You are so not alone my friend. I started playing mmo's in 2001 and those first-generation games were amazing. But in 2004 wow took the genre mainstream and it hasn't been the same since.

Flying mounts gave us freedom to explore, but also took away the longing to do it. I used to love to explore, stumbling across great finds like the shack on the western edge of Eastern Kingdom, North of westfall, or teaching folks how to get to the dwarven airstrip, the game used to be filled with such scale and wonder.

I was recruited by a friend in MoP. We mostly sat in Orgrimmar and did Dungeons for leveling fast. I dropped my undead warrior at like lvl 72 for a worgen DK. I liked that a little better, but after the first zone went back to Dungeons and kinda quit after the first month. When Classic came out, 4 friends and I started playing together. Always quested together, ran everywhere, explored. No heavy roleplaying, but we would do things like all spit on every gnome we come across. And we looked for beatiful places to take group pictures at. We only ever got to lvl 32 before most of us dropped the game, but I still remember it as one of my best times in a MMORPG. Slow, meaningful progression with world exploration beats optimized powerleveling to get to "the point where the game actually starts" faster any day. Sometimes I look at the screenshots we took and what a great adventure it was.

I miss vanilla. Don't want Season of Discovery, don't want Classic TBC/WOTLK/CATA. I miss vanilla.

Its not a game anymore its a checklist. For example quests. I used to chose which quests to do and which zone to level in. Now quests are linear, 3 at a time, and i have to finish all 3 to get the next 3.

I've run a leveling guild for over 4 years in Classic. We have guild rules: #1 - Play when you can (no pressure), #2 - Have fun, #3 - Help when you can. Casual is a stretch for our players. But, we have a great bunch of people that love to get together and run anything from older dungeons and raids to guild achievements in Cata Classic. BTW, one of my son called me DAD. Die and Discover - I so enjoy exploring, getting a haircut for the first time, checking out all there is to share and experiencing the wonder of the world. It can still be fun (we also join in raids on a weekly basis...).

A next-gen Warcraft game featuring a fully fleshed out Azeroth that was realistically populated and genuinely felt lived in, with a gameplay and story focus on a smaller scale, would be incredible.

My big engrossment experience in WoW was when my very first character, a Tauren Druid named Blawan, got to the Barrens. Mulgore was nice, don't get me wrong but the race intro said that the Barrens was my people's ancestral home and it looked like the African serengeti how cool was that?! I remember doing my bear form quest and being so engrossed, challenging and fighting the lions for no reason just to prove I was the biggest and baddest apex predator of the plains. I remember after getting cat form stalking and chasing the the herds of gazelle critters and hunting the giraffes like the King of the Jungle I was. Then my brother took sole ownership of our shared account when he joined a raiding guild in TBC, and rolled something else when I got an account of my own but I'll never forget those original memories.

I created an entire leveling challenge in retail WoW just to experience WoW as a game again. I was blown away at the immersive potential and enjoyment that WoW's core audience and developers have forgotten about.

The new content is mostly like if you were always the protagonist of a movie script. It does not build on the free exploration of the world, but puts you in the front line of what is happening.

it used to be so easy to get lost in WoW and I loved it!

I would literally sell my soul to get a chance to play WOW again but with my memory wiped. To just not know anything about anything. So that at every turn there's something new to see. Something new to fight. To be amazed when I get new gear that i had to work for hard, not just be handed random stat_object#45 just for being in the game. I don't wanna be the Champion of Azeroth but a simple adventurer making his way through a magical unknown world making friends and memories along the way.

When I got my Guild Wars 2 friends that love exploring the open world to finally try WoW was when Classic came out, and having them explore a world they had never been in reignited my passion to play to explore everything despite knowing things, and I'd simply tag along to what they found interesting so as to not try to hold them through a linear path. I think WoW should just continue to make expansive zones, and in some ways they've made it a reality; the last time I truly got lost in a map exploring all its secrets and areas off the beaten path was actually Drustvar, as there was a lot of background lore and information you had to go out of your way to find.

I started in 2007, months before Lich King was released. I had the best time in the game. Never played an MMO before : I discovered by myself and weeks later I was raiding karazhan. I was so much fun.... I stopped at Cataclysm because I felt something was lost and the fun wasn't there anymore. But I have so many great memories, especially the many tries we did before we were the first to take down Algalon on our server, the launching of Lich King (I took days off work just to enjoy it) or the moment I had enough gold to buy a (very) slow mount.

I remember playing on a trial account back in Wrath and I made a friend that brought me to SW. She navigated the city like it was nothing, but to me, it was a sprawling maze of towering buildings. Still fascinates me that I can walk through the city blindfolded now, but was absolutely bewildered as a kid.

This is nicely put. I feel exactly the same. I used to have a guild and we went to the in-game pub for chatting for hours. (not voice). We were happy helping each other with low level quests, talking about content they haven't explored yet, showing off our rare weapons,/gears/skills. (Talent tree was different in old time.)

Logging into an MMO used to feel like you opening up a portal to another world. I still remember the feeling of logging in to WoW in that first year and finding myself in a busy capital city. It was magical.

I still play the game for fun. It's a choice. You don't HAVE to progress. I still do progression but I also still just fly around doing loops especially now with dragon riding every where. I still explore zones that I haven't been to in a while. Like having fun is literally a choice.

Developers in that same golden age of gaming had a different mindset, they created games with precisely what you describe in mind, just for fun. It struck me when I watched the recent Half Life doc where they brought the old dev team in for interviews. When they describe the reason for quite a few things that ended up being iconic, the reason is like "because we thought it'd be cool/fun". And that type of mentality can be found in so many old behind the scenes dvd's, clips and stuff. From games like WoW, Halo, you name it. The developers were passionate about making a fun, cool game. And that's literally why they added certain things to the game. They didn't think about the things connected to gaming today like social media, monetization, pandering to "the message", keeping players interest, etc. But it's important to remember that often it's not the devs, but rather the business suits breathing down their neck about making the games a certain way and in a certain time. That's why Elden ring was such a success, and the first game in probably near 10 years that captured me in that long lost sense of fascination and exploration. That game feels like it was made for people to have fun and explore in. And I am seeing a trend of AAA games such as Elden ring being massively popular while the cookie cutter AAA games keep underselling. So lets hope gaming can turn around yet. Indie gaming is popping off in a way that's very cool though. I have much more fun, interesting although shorter experiences with indie games than big titles.

I remember being so immersed as a teen when night came. I remember trying out Tauren and swimming in the waters near Thunderbluff as the moonlight made everything glimmer. I haven't played since Draenor. I'm still upset over how bright night is now.

I have just started WoW as a new player; I'm a Night Elf Druid, the cool scenery with the trees and the waterfalls is so fun to explore. I just hit level 20, so I can wildshape into a bird now and I've been having so much fun flying around doing all these quests for my people! So I think you're right, I'm currently just exploring at my own pace, but there is defo still that sense of adventure for me; that must be what you're missing now, just given the time you've spent in the world. I really enjoyed this perspective!

Thank you for reminding me of the old days when I played a hunter, because all my friends said that was the easiest to play when learning the game, everything you said in this video, reminded me how special that first experience was. I specifically remembered when I was handing in the nesingwary quest in outlands, and this druid appeared and changed forms and flew away. I had to quickly /w him because I wanted to know how he did that. Since that day I've mained druid. The good old days we're the best 😢

I recall walking into Brill with my first character. I was amazed! I spent at least an hour just going around Brill and looking at stuff. It was a stunning experience! The moment that I remember very fondly 20 years later. The moment I realized what the word World in WoW meant.

I wondered lately wether I actually still play games or just work through to-do lists presented to me by them. You're giving me hope that it's not me, it's the game. And I felt it everytime I wanted to sit down in a game and couldn't, or when I checked the controls if there's a slow walk option. I didn't realize it was me trying to play around.

I think part of it was early vanilla WoW was right before the explosion of wiki articles, and the ability to look up everything about everything with 1 search phrase. You didn't go into WoW with everything COMPLETELY fleshed out and discovered. Sure there was a strategy guide, and the beginnings of things like thottbot and allakhazam, but nowhere near how it is today. Every single 1 and 0 of the code has already been analyzed, mapped out, optimized for consumption, etc before expansions are even released. I feel like that's why exploring the older n64, playstation, etc, games felt so enthralling, because you were kind of on your own like everyone else.

There was no better feeling than arriving home from school, and meeting some of my classmates in IF to do some questing together. Vanilla WoW had a charm and feeling that it's almost impossible to replicate. Just listening to the music made me nostalgic.

I tried to play retail so many times, but i just couldn't last very long, something feels completely off, and everything feels so boring and not important. Classic on the other hand, even if I do absolutely nothing, just wondering around, I got something out of it, the music, the atmosphere, the pacing, the scale of the world, it's all so wonderful and meaningful ( ... well at least most of it)

I used to play wow, now I play Stardew Valley... it's incredible

There was really so much potential left on the table with vanilla. They had multiple zones that were unused, multiple parts of the book storyline werent explained. I really do not think they needed to portal us off to draenor in BC as soon as they did.

My wife and I played Classic when it first came out, and the difference to Retail was staggering. We'd hang out in Thunderbluff or take a long walk up to Winterspring. It felt adventuresome, it felt vast. Everything was a risk, so everything was a story. I'm a big fan of feeling a long way from home in games. Dark Souls does this well, No Mans Sky has its moments... but a lot of modern games dilute this feeling with mechanisms like ubiquitous fast travel. How can Elden Ring give you the same lonely, desperate feeling Dark Souls gave you when you stumbled on Ash Lake, when all you need to do is teleport back to a bonfire and replenish your supplies? How can you feel accomplishment at completing a quest when all you did was follow the glowing GPS marker and clicked F to interact? I want to feel as if I've traveled somewhere, that I've undertaken a journey with meaning and cost. I'm tired of playing open world games that are just flashy interfaces for level select menus.

I started in BC back in the day as a blood elf and I will forever hold that feeling of wonder and amazement when I first saw Silvermoon in my heart. The sights, the music... it was perfection. I'm not really an explorer at heart, I take no joy in snooping around for the sake of it. But then and there I had a sense of discovery, that I found something that had meaning. Wandering around the city, seeing the elven ambassador showing the horde ambassadors around, it felt like a real, living city. I felt a sense of home that I never had in meatspace. There was also this discreetly hidden place near Shatttrath, a small lake and a few trees atop a small peak. You could only fly there, so it was very much out of the way for both means of travel, since it wasn't even near anything of significance and it blended in nicely with the area. It was a nice place to take people to for more private conversations which, as you said, had to happen in chat rather than over voice. I think that the lack of voice chat allowed more people to open up, since you needed only type out your thoughts, without anyone hearing your voice that could identify you as anything. I also fondly remember the old Warlock quest to get your epic mount (the burning horse). It was a fair bit of work and I had to ask my guildmates for help at the end but it was quite the ride and finally riding around on the new, extremely cool looking mount meant so much more than most other mounts I ever picked up later on.

Walljumping up the mountain of ironforge just to see the little details added. There was so much to explore without pressure. If you do this now, there will be a few ppl crying... we have nothing to do. I miss the old times Edit: i remember in tbc when i thought: how awesome would it be to fly on a dragon with a friend to that mountain and just adore the view..

I played it a few months after it came out. I remember the effort it took to simply gain 1 level each time, and the excitement of getting a new skill. Seeing people on mounts and the then seemingly ridiculous amount of gold i'd need to save to get one, but you just explored and hacked your way through the grind and when you got enough gold for the mount, you hesitated a little, because it took you so long to accumulatee it, hahaha, but that soon passed and you bought the mount and suddenly you were fast and free! But, ultimately, along with new people I met along the way, we all joined the same guild and the magic then really started as suddenly you had 60 or more friends and 40 man raids. What a truly glorious and memorable time it was. All boundaries of age and nationality disappeared. We were one big family.

I think you can never replicate doing something again for the first time.