Classic WoW Vanilla Era Servers are seeing a big boom in players right now. This is why now is the time for you to return to one of the greatest games ever made!
The amount of time it takes, as well as gold scarcity as a lower level player makes it feel much better. It says a lot about rewards in games when you consider that mounts are everywhere in Retail and come in all shapes and sizes, yet a simple horse in Vanilla feels more impactful when you get your first one!
@@GnarStarkuhm, I don't even remember if my phone had a camera in 2005. If it did, pretty sure you would not be able to tell that there was a horse in a picture of a screen
I started fresh a few weeks ago, myself. No rushing, levling proffessions, farming gold for mount and pre-bis BoEs while enjoying my journey. I'm now lvl44 on my druid, got my mount done, and have 2 pre-raid gearpieces I can soon equip. I can't stress enough to say how rewarding it's been so far.
I started from fresh a month ago due to missing out the first wave of classic at release. I haven't had this fun in WoW since Legion and having the feeling to have a "cap" when it comes to game feels also great. I know that Naxx is the end. I don't have to worry about a patch 0.5 patch that will reduce all my gear to trash.
This is well put. Probably worth a mention that the zone content while leveling is generally good too. You can comfortably clear the majority of any zone's quests with an appropriately leveled character within a few-hour grind. It has a way of feeling just different enough to work and the stories from each zone were enjoyable on their own terms, if you stopped to smell the flowers. There's some areas of improvement and some clear gaps in quest content from 1-60, but that's about all I'd want them to add. I'd accept new raids for end game, but like you said, the end game is sorta secondary now and that's okay.
I agree, I would say that the Alliance levelling content is far superior to that of the Horde a lot of the time from my most recent experience. I've just completed Duskwood and I was amazed by how good and interactive the questing felt given how old the zone is.
I went back to classic yesterday. The nostalgia is real. Taking my time. Leveling professions and not stressing out that I need that end game content. I have also found the players are so much more chill. Everybody has been super friendly and helpful. It’s going to be hard logging back into retail wow.
A friend got me into WoW in 2004 when it started, my first mmorpg. We played and had a guild till about 2014 and had enough. It evolved into a rush to max level for end game content... rubbish. The fun was sufficiently sucked out. Thanks for posting this vid @Vulgrin! I think I'll be going back into the noodle (Perenolde server) and have some actual fun again 😊
Honestly that would be great, retail just became total shit 3 days ago, sweating in wotlk just isnt worth it, hc not my thing too many unnecessary rules but i would definatelly play fresh classic or new season of mastery.... guess we'll have warmanes new progressive realm towaeda the end of the year
@@Vourne In the starter and early zones, sure, but its not that bad later on. I also prefer that over dead feeling servers. There is absolutely no reason to play classic right now, except for the better client.
Players: I miss classic wow. That's where the community was at. Everyone was social back then Also players: don't talk to me. Run the dungeon as fast as possible and move onto the next quest.
Honestly, my only problem with era is that i can't find a guild to do runs with. There's either speedrunners or gdkp while the rest are struggling to get full raid group without pugs. I understand that some people like the convenience of gdkp but it kinda blows the classic experience for the rest
Vanilla is honestly just a massive game on it's own, expansions did their best to try and expand the game but in actuality they closed it off more than ever before. The origin story of a character remained the exact same all the way to cataclysm, where certain elements and quests changed due to zones changing, but then from cataclysm onwards, the origin story has never changed, yet has with each subsequent expansion become more and more insignificant. All you did leading up to dragon isles does not matter at all because there are glaring holes in your story leading up to the dragon isles. What keeps you rooted in Classic Era is that from level 1 to 60, all you do is connected, you even earn reputation towards relevant factions while you are still below level 10, and you start building up professions so you can capitalize on the value they produce when you reach higher levels - your weapon/defense skill(s) increase through manual labor all the way from lvl 1 to 60, you build a solid foundation for your endgame to sit comfortably on top of. Dragonflight (and any of the past 3-4 expansions) has been a skyscraper with the lower floors just being vertical steel beams stacked on top of each other with an elevator attached and then suddenly there's this massive half finished construction on the top that's made to be temporary and can be ripped off when the next floor needs to be built on top.
Amen brother. Played original Vanilla and various expansions. Couldn't agree more that WoW's soul got lost somewhere between the end of Wrath (Minus Arthas' death) and Cataclysm. Just started again and got multiple characters (none of which are 60) because, as you said, the destination IS the journey. Good video!
Thanks man, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Enjoy that journey! Best thing about Vanilla is the people you meet along the way who you end up playing other games with when you take a break anyway!
Blizzard ceased being Blizzard after Wrath and Activision is part of the reason for that, from then on, it went from amazing to "It's OK, it's alright" ever since.
Originally I jumped on the classic wow train a bit late, and levelling was quite dead. It was hard to find groups etc. I am now playing again and am only level 41 and it is very easy to find groups for dungeons and quests, and every area I level in has other players running around. Makes things much more fun and interesting.
Well said! And agreed - WoW really is one of the, if not THE, best game ever made. What other game has this amount of staying power and attracts this volume of players 20 years later? It’s incredible
It is, the art style is timeless, the world is expansive and it sets up an environment where new memories are always there to be made. I'm glad you enjoyed the video man, thanks for your support!
I love the slower pace of vanilla, and the ability to forge your own path, tell your own story. You're not the "Speaker of the Horde" (along with all the other player characters basically waiting in line for this "special title") -- you're literally one of the little RTS units, but the top-down perspective has become 3D. I love that openness, and playing on a Vanilla + servier, where there's fun new things to explore, but it's still Vanilla, just makes it better. In my server, Turtle WoW, I just joined a new guild that takes this philosophy to the max - "Story Mode". We have fun, unique events, like RP walking from just outside Ogrimmar (so our Alliance guildies can take part and not get killed by guards) all the way to Gadgetzan. A few days later, we had our own guild fishing tournament with prizes. It's really fun!
I would love to jump back in but my experience was a tad diferrent. I leveled my character to 60 through the then closing SoM servers and when I transferred over to an Era realm everyone was expecting you to have some gear so you can jump to ZG and farm endgame gear to eventually do Naxx. It would be really cool, if there was a movement/guild that went full on newbie style and farmed dungeons-> MC-> BWL-> etc to actually make you feel like playing vanilla again. Everything seems to be on fast track these days.
Yep, that's why i quit Classic wow because everyone seemed to be minmaxing to the smallest detail which never existed in Vanilla Wow. The only exceptions were the actual hardcore quilds that were the best in their server. I would definitely recommend finding a guild that are experiencing Vanilla for the first time...
I have been getting into retail and I've been having a ton of fun, but it is a little sad that there's not a ton of ppl talking to eachother and making friends. I had this moment in kul tiras where me and this other rogue got stomped by this rare we both needed to kill for a quest, so we worked together on it and killed it and it felt awesome, and i definitely want to give vanilla classic wow a try soon.
One of the main reasons why I play Vanilla is that I love the virtual world approach to the game. In retail, because of the streamlined design philosophy, there really is little reason to talk to anyone, which is a damn shame.
@@vulgrin9573 Yeah, I have mainly been playing retail in order to collect transmogs because I love customization in games, and to play with friends. In the couple hours I played so far of vanilla, i already talked to way more random ppl than I have in retail, as well as joining a cool guild. I have really been enjoying retail and classic vanilla, but I completely understand when ppl say that they are basically completely different games now.
Excellent video! It's so true. I play retail, classic wrath and classic and this video is so accurate. Creating a hero and exploring the world is much more fun than being a champion and being funnelled through a story.
I remember when i first play WOW . I was fortunate enough to play it early on before any expansions. It was an entire year of pure magic. I did little else for an entire year . Then the expansions started coming out. It remained pretty true for a little while but than began to change for the worse. and like everything else the more they try to please everyone and make things better it just goes downhill until the innocent beauty of WOW was lost. this is awesome that they have this.
The best part of vanilla to me, is how much you have to do before raids. Getting the money for the mounts, getting professions to actually play a big role in the world around you, running all the late game dungeons and quests looking to get the preraid BIS, on top of how much time is put into leveling. Even for hunters for example, theres a ton of fun in upgrading your pet skills by taming new pets and looking for rare pets. I never really got into wow heavy when it was in the BC stage of the game back in the day, so its nice that i managed to find so much fun out it now. Being as i never stuck with WOW I find retail impossible to get started in. It just seems so overbloated but classic feels like i know exactly how to get going when i start a new character.
very interesting video about this game. I also think its a good thing the game has a clear simple path of what to do for endgame and that there is an end to the game.
Currently on the PVP cluster for EU, really big population, over 34k ally chars seen through my playthrough and around 6k horde. it's huge and so many pugs/guilds running raids.
I’m still going. My Priest is now 30 and I’m still enjoying it. I’m not rushing, rather trying to complete every quest I can find. There’s people everywhere, helping, questing and ganking. The world is alive, the AH is full. I now have 40g despite levelling up all my professions and hoping to be able to afford my mount at 40. It’ll be a challenge but that’s why it’s so fun. I took a look at retail but it just seems like an incomprehensible mess. Classic remains the more meaningful and therefore superior game in my view.
Im on the fence doing WOTLK classic despite ICC dropping soon as I never got to finish or play anything in it past the first zone as I was getting married at the time. But the thought of Classic era again is super tempting and too.
If you're really keen on Wrath Classic I suggest you try that out first man, Vanilla will always be here, it's not like I'm on a fresh server or anything. Try Wrath and if you get tired of ICC, give Classic Era a try :)
When classic released, I went HAM on it, until Ulduar. Been playing Dragonflight but honestly, it's been long enough for me that I think I'm ready for another vanilla
some very good points I am someone who played wow early days back in the summer of 2000 500 wow had only been out about eight months at that point in time I was still fairly fresh when you say things like there is no wrong way to play the game as long as you’re having fun I feel like this is true to appoint. if you want to really MinnMax your character and play as they did back in the day in an Optimal Way,, Warriors would pretty much always be tanks. Holidays are pretty much always healers druids are pretty much always healers. shaman pretty much always healers. Warlocks are only really needed for one or two spots at the most Eno or high end dungeon same thing with shadow crates. They aren’t even required if somebody just happens to have one and there’s a spot being not taken by somebody else that is more valuable than you will be able to go. The reason this is is because during original vanilla wow there were certain caps on debuffs. for no reason at all, of course, nowadays, it probably doesn’t even matter anymore. You could probably go in with just about anything and face roll whatever it really doesn’t matter anymore.
Me and my friends are all playing in whitemane and having a blast with not worrying about anything just chilling and lvling haven’t had this much fun since the first time I played back in tbc
I only came back to era to help out an old guild member with something, and iv had a blast playing. so as long as the comunity is the way it is, im not quitting :)
Having played vanilla on private servers since 2013, classic since 2019 and everything retail has put out since 2008, I would say that the current vanilla era community is among the best, most friendly and active that it's ever been. I think when people see WoW in a difficult position, they often return to vanilla and have a much more positive attitude to the social side of the game because they realise what a gem it is
I had this exact conversation last night! Me and my gf just left our mains around lvl 70 to try diff chars and we're low levels but loving so much the process. No rush to "get" to the higher levels.
I am leveling an Alliance on Mankrik and they are the nicest people ever. If you stand outside Deadmines there are constant 60s offering to run you thru the dungeon for free.
Hit the nail on the head on every point. The one thing that can't be relived though is the first time experience of exploring a vast seemless 3D fantasy world with seemingly endless paths, among thousands of other people. The evolution from offline 2D platformers on Windows 95 to this was just mind-boggling.
I completely agree. I had to wait 4 days for wow to download and patch and stepping into an actual virtual world for the first time was the most unique feeling I have ever experienced in a game
@@vulgrin9573 Yep, quick caveat on the "seemless" aspect though: the first computer I used to play WoW needed like 5 min to load in each zone, but at least there weren't built in loading screens between zones lol
I'm going to make a video soon about how Cataclysm will completely change Classic. For now I am happy with the direction of Vanilla and hopefully it will lead to new fresh content (though I don't trust Blizzard to deliver)
I play warrior on Pagle classic and when WB drops you really see how many ppl there its really nice to see, at one point my server was almost dead and now raiding is back in full force :)
Honest question: Would i be able to run Classic on a laptop w integrated graphics? I know its technically a really old game, but I couldn't really find anything concrete on how this version of it was optimized. I would love to play again, I'm just not in a place to buy a PC for that purpose.
I still use a laptop at the moment, though I really need to upgrade to a decent PC if I'm going to do more work on this channel. With that being said, I've used integrated graphics for Classic and Pservers before, with the settings tuned to their original low levels and it worked fine.
Vanilla wow is fun no matter what year. I just started a new mage . Every 2 years vanilla calls my name and even if quit for a year or so . I just get excited to play again after time passed.
I think one thing wow should have done to increase this feeling of online community, is for example, the first realm group that defeats a raid boss becomes canon lore wise, i mean that people become canon in a way that they build statues of them, they are recognized as the saviors of azeroth, others can still farm gear, do the boss, etc the same way as it is now, but the first group that did it becomes oficially recognized as the canon saviors of azeroth, so, you don't end up playing a game where you are the savior of azeroth, saving azeroth again for the 100000 time, that breaks innmersion, its supposed to be a living world, we can't all be the saviors. and i don't really think is hard to make, maybe its unfair because of course not everyone of us has the time to become the first ones, but i think that is a way to respect the lore of the community, and when people look at someone portraying the title 'The Kingslayer' would actually mean somenthing, i get it, everyone wants to be the savior, the goat, the number 1. but you are playing an mmorpg, go play a singler player game if you want that experience, there is plenty of options out there, i think wow is an unique oportunity to develop this sense of 'online community' so devs can take some priviledges in order to maintain and encourage that social feeling
Hey man! Thanks for the run, you did a great job! I hope you're enjoying the game and if you're ever needing another questionable dps for a dungeon, just hit me up :)
made sure to clone when I could just so I could go back, been playing a bit and it has been on and off, but still logging in now and then, sadly Hydraxian Waterlords ended up beeing not linked to the PVE cluster, so it has mostly just been a lot of HC players and a few of us that remained there.
don't forget to install some addon for your journey, i recommend you to having addon called Global Ignore List (GII) it is 1 of best addon for the game completely eliminate flood chat caused by Mage booster in the game, the spam chat quiet annoying when you wanted to make up some group for dungeon in chat but end up flooded by the spammers...
Can someone explain or maybe link a video to this comment: I want to start WoW for my first time, but I am big on plot & story wanting to play from ep. 1 - end chronologically. Should I start retail or classic? And if I start classic can I move my character to retail when I'm ready?
For you to experience the original game, you need to play Classic Era WoW. You can't access the original version of the game in Retail Wow due to the world being revamped in the Cataclysm expansion which released in 2010. If your main goal is to work through the expansions as best as possible, I would start with Classic, then go to retail, but honestly you will have a hard time fully experiencing all the different expansions because the only "current content" versions of the game where you will encounter lots of players on your journey are Classic Era, Wrath Classic (so currently quite far into the 2nd expansion of the game) and retail which is in the current Dragonflight expansion, released last year. Quite a long answer but I hope this helps!
Right now, PVP is trash out of 80. Basically you have horde/alliance (depends on server) locking their experience at the last level of every level bracket, twinking themselves out and just stomping and farming everyone for honor. Blizzard seriously needs to remove the ability to pause experience gain, it is killing pvp.
I think the hardcore servers stimulated the resurgence of the classic era servers. If you die in Hardcore, you can transfer your character over to a normal server and continue on leveling.
Classic WSG is my favorite form of pvp in all of WoW. As a battleground, every class has a potential role. There are bad specs, but no bad classes. You don't feel pressured to reroll just because your favorite class is low tier in the current xpac.
I think they went for more of a "rock, paper, scissors" approach in Vanilla personally. Classes counter other classes. It didn't necessarily work, but I like the intention. Personally my favourite kind of pvp will always be world pvp. I know it's not balanced, that it doesn't have the same clear objectives of a battleground, but I just love how it adds to the immersive world in Vanilla!
My greatest experience in gaming is with World of Warcraft vanilla. You are correct, it is the greatest game ever made. If I didn't have a family with 3 kids I would be playing it right now.
If Blizzard by accident added areas that almost were reaady before BC launched - I would play and then there are the thing with blood elves zone - if the burnig crusade never happened then that zone Silvermoon would be filled with hostile Blood eleves to any faction and there would be no teleport to undercity and i guess the mobs a npcs would be in 45-60 range , No boat to dranei island and no dranei? I assume there could be an outpost and a boat with goblin crew shipping values
Maan, you made me want to start again. Classic WoW is the only version I’ve ever truly enjoyed. What UK server do you play in? Or any UK server recommendations?
I play on Firemaw EU mate, as do all my other UK and EU based friends. It has a good, balanced population for both alliance and Horde, highly recommended
i would love if there was an option to have retail models. i wonder though has there been any news of a wow classic 2? i heard shobek talk about it. Like they were going to announce it today i believe
Honestly, I think I’m an altoholic in current wow because it’s so easy to level. It’s a rush to the end. I miss when I first started at the very end of bc. I was questing in the open world. It was great.
I always had the altoholic problem in retail and it was a combination of the super fast levelling as you say, but also how shallow classes feel. Mechanically they're far more involved than in Vanilla, but to me they lack immersion. I have never felt a real connection to a class in retail since maybe Cata. Briefly that returned in Legion, but only superficially.
im downloading classic right now, any servers to suggest? As the reason i quit the 2019 classic was that I started late, was an empty server and was Z E R O fun solo lvling in an empty world as a warrior.
I wish there was less 60s ganking there… As for changes - I’d love a slight balance update to make the meme classes more valuable in endgame. Also, add new 5/10m dungeons for 60. And maybe reduce the respec cost.
I've been having an mmo urge, and after finding the leveling experience in eso to be painfully trivial, classic wow is sounding more and more like the game for me.
Classic WoW combines an approach to levelling which rewards hard work, teamwork and dedication to your character - with a truly enormous, colourful world. For example, I've just started a quest chain which has had me travel across half a dozen zones to uncover a plot to kidnap a king, and I'm not even half way through the levelling process. Give it a shot and you might just love it!
Played when classic released. The black lotus grind for my epic mount was real. around 800 gold in an all nighter sesh in Burning steppes. Shoutout to Wild Turkey. Then circa the release of Burning Crusade. Farmed my epic flying before i even hit 70. Shit load of world pvp / mining and herbing. Was pre bis for kara then stopped 😢 Recently started again on retail after a year + break from wow. Not sure how I'd go with another classic journey. Was still leveling alts and such in my off time from my main. You have to relevel or? Since i brought them into BC, at least my main anyway. So Not sure how i'd go again. Really good experience and I'd highly reccomend the whole game. Hit hard like it did as a kid, cept I had more of an idea. For example I had to farm gold for flying, well into being 70. Ended up borrowing somegold. Then with this time around having epic ready to go was insane for me. Then with classic wow, was running around STV for weeks once i got my mount. Was so happy, and I was a hunter, using aspect of the cheetah :P Quite funny looking back. Nice vid dude, glad you're having fun. Twinking was another fun experience through the classic xpacs also! Edit: STV Story is me as a kid playing the game. Having an idea and being more mature helps for sure. Ignorant bliss was real. Edit:Edit: Biggest issue with classic wow is raiding. Thats where its murky as. Especially pugging. (Naturally). The attunement grind is the worst.
Honestly for fresh vanilla classic content, they could probably just make some fresh servers, rework some boss mechanics, and change up (by adding new items) or randomize the loot tables to where BiS is different
2-3 questions. 1)Private servers or Retail? 2)What server if player want to play? 3)Region? If EU - server? US- server? \\ Alliance - Horde? Balanced servers? Thanks!
Great Video , I see a lot of these classic fan videos and I can understand why I'm not sure if I really want to play Cata classic , In my very own opinion I'd love to see a wow 2 with Hyjal and Uldam in it , stretch to max level 60 , as a TBC player playing classic Vanilla in 2019 just made the game make sense , everything from even First Aid made sense and everything has its uses , you have gear you deserved to have for ages . guild chat sometimes went on for ages where really good players would dish out advice to newbs I feel invested in the game for almost a year , every item of gear feels special when I first got it , the gold I made was mine , I farmed in Wetlands on Welps for fire resistance potions for months to pay for my mount , whilst some guys moaning that a gold seller is ripping him off lol . Legion was great , however everything does not feel as time invested as Classic does . I'd start again ,. as one classic fan video said maybe have 2 servers just rotate through the 3 expansions
I'm considering coming back for this, but since I would be playing on a PvP server and mostly doing battlegrounds, how is the state of PvP and BGs? Bots were 95% of players in BGs in Wrath Classic so I quit. I worry I'd waste my time getting back into it if PvP with Vanilla Era is all bots or if it ruins world PvP. Anyone have experience on the PvP situation on Whitemane?
