It has almost been a month since BlizzCon 2017 and frankly I am still going a bit crazy over all of the announcements! On this past Tuesday, the 28th, we saw the final raid of Legion open for normal and heroic difficulties and a new expansion is in the near future. So, you would think the World of Warcraft community would be focused on the here and now. Nope! Like every player out there, our minds are on another announcement: Blizzard is in the process of creating a World of Warcraft Classic Server. The Classic Server would be separate from normal servers and would feature the original World Of Warcraft content. Now if you live under a rock and missed this or need just a small reminder of what’s going on, I’ve included the trailer below.
Now that Blizzard has gotten everyone hooked with a promise of Classic Servers (there’s no release date at this time and almost no information) the debate has moved from “should we have them” to “what will be available on this servers”. With such little information from Blizzard, the community has been filled with theories of what they will include. Now, I am no Vanilla baby (I started playing just prior to the release of Cataclysm), but what I want is as close to as pure form Vanilla as we can possibly get. You can check out the WoW Classic Forum page to see what type of discussions are going on and even add your two cents.
The biggest debate I see and the one I agree with, at least, is the idea that Blizzard should add in basic quality of life updates that came well after Vanilla. To give you an idea of what they are asking for I have put together a list of some of the quality of life updates that were not in Vanilla.
- Class Balancing: Totally not a thing in Vanilla. If you wanted to tank, you played a Warrior. If you wanted to play a Druid, you healed. You also didn’t switch around between specialization like we do today because you had to redo your ENTIRE talent tree. Plus doing this cost gold, gold that was so hard to come by.
- Lack of Gold: Speaking of gold, did you know that it was super hard to make any gold in Vanilla WoW? Plus whatever you did make you spent upgrade spells or buying new spells as you leveled. On top of that, the cost of mounts were outrageous!
- Mount Riding Level: Did you know you had to be level 40 to learn riding? Even if you had the gold to purchase the riding skill, you probably didn’t have the gold to purchase a mount to use. My husband, who played in Vanilla, actually had a guild mate loan him the gold in return for collecting herbs!
- Learning Spells: Isn’t it great how once you hit a new level, your new spell just appears in your spell book? Not in Vanilla! Not only did you have to go back to a central hub to find a class trainer, you had to pay for these spells! Also they were ranked and you had to pay for higher ranks. There was no spell scaling with level in Vanilla. That Rank 1 spell will have the same damage regardless of your level!
- Auction Houses: In Vanilla, the auction houses between Stormwind and Ironforge or Orgrimmar and Undercity were not connected. None of the auction houses were connected! That meant if you wanted to find something particular on the auction house you had to check each one of them separately.
- Flight Paths: You think not being able to use a mount till level 40 was bad? Just wait until you have to use a flight path. There is no flying directly from Stormwind to Ironforge and going afk (away from computer), it would drop you off at the next flight path and you would need to talk to another flight master to continue on. Thinking about this makes me regret every being upset about the flight time from north to south Kalimdor!
- Playable Races/Classes: I know it might be a bit obvious, but I did read in a few forum posts that people were asking about their current class and races being on the Vanilla servers. Sorry to all the Blood Elf Horde-loving Monks out there. No can do. When Vanilla was released the only playable races were the Humans, Night Elves, Dwarfs, and Gnomes for the Alliance and the Orcs, Undead, Tauren, and the Trolls for the Horde. Also your Deathknights, Monks, and Demon Hunters won’t be making an appearance either since they were released in later expansions!
- Leveling: In WoW today with heirlooms and looking for groups, leveling has become one of the easiest things in game. It is possible to hit max level in a day or two depending on your dedication and the amount of heirlooms you toss on your character. Back in Vanilla is took weeks or months to level and each new level felt like a real achievement since it took so much work!
- Looking For Group: Speaking of dungeons…no Looking for Group or Looking for Raid! This nifty tool wasn’t introduced until later expansions. To find a group to run a dungeon you either found members from your guild or went to a major hub to advertise. Then once you had your group everyone had to make their way to the dungeon before you could start.
Related: Blizzard Announces New Esports Venue BLIZZARD ARENA LOS ANGELES
I know this makes Vanilla WoW sound just terrible and believe me there are tons more, but it wasn’t! Players at the time didn’t know about all these things and still had fun! If I wanted any of these quality of life updates, I would just pop onto a normal server and start a new character from scratch and level my way through the Vanilla zones. That is not the case with Classic Servers. I want to experience the level grind, working for enough gold to buy a mount, and finding other players to run dungeons with by advertising my group in chat!
Now I am not sure everyone feels this way, or it wouldn’t be a debate! Feel free to comment below with what you think should be included on the Classic Servers. Are you a purist or are you open to some quality of life updates and if so which ones?
Who I Am: A nerd by the strictest definition. I enjoy diving straight into my favorite fandoms without a care in the world. I live on video/board games, fantasy movies and TV, and all things geeky.
- Saturday Morning Webtoons: PAW-THER KNOWS BEST and LIVING WITH MAGICIANS - September 14, 2024
- Tavern Talk Thursday: Fantasy Recipes Fit for Adventure - September 12, 2024
- Saturday Morning Webtoons: DON’T READ THIS and MANNY - September 7, 2024
