World of Warcraft: Classic
Genre: MMORPG
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment
Platform(s): Windows, MacOS
From karate kicking panda bears and time traveling orcs, to winged elves and vengeance spurned demons, World of Warcraft has definitely kept it interesting with each new expansion pack they release. With the latest installment, Battle for Azeroth, the hard earned trust between both factions after defeating the Legion has been shattered, pitting the “boy king” Anduin and Banshee Queen against one another once more.
However, if rep grinding and mundane world quests have got you down don’t worry; vanilla WoW is back, baby. The best part? If you already have a WoW account, Classic is free to download.
For those unaware or asking “wtf is vanilla WoW,” it means World of Warcraft before the expansions and graphic upgrades. We’re talking pre-BC (Burning Crusade). That’s right folks, there are no Blood Elves or Draenei (at least not playable ones), no Death Knights or Demon Hunters.
Not even – gasp! – Horde paladins!
For those like myself who were around from the beginning, this is a nightmare/dream come true. Nothing was more gratifying than guild raiding Molten Core at 2 o’clock in the morning, laughing hysterically (usually in frenzied frustration) as we wiped for the 5th time on Majordomo. On a side note, my Giantstalker gear did NOT drop that night, thank you very much…
Anyways… Classic is exactly that, classic Warcraft. It’s bringing back the roots of the game to include original character models and faction races as well as certain raids (Molten Core included). This means that both Alliance and Horde are down to their original 4 race choices;
Alliance – Human, Dwarf, Night Elf, and Gnome
Horde – Orc, Tauren, Undead (Forsaken), and Troll
Luckily enough I (and many other players) had the chance to create a character on one of the 3 realms offered on August 8th as a “test run”. Players were able to log on and play Classic for the weekend, complete quests, and even level up (ding!) these toons. However, come that Monday these realms were to be wiped and your character deleted.
So after whipping up a troll warrior I started to dabble a little bit. The starting area was packed to say the least, but thankfully I had no issue with lag at all. I did notice, however, that the option of quest tracking wasn’t available, even with the option checked off in my interface.
Quest tracking allows you to easily locate quest objectives on your mini-map as well as off to the side of your screen so you’re not wandering around for hours trying to find that NPC you were supposed to talk to. I’m not sure if this was because I was in a test realm or simply some fluke of the system. Quest givers were also vacant on the mini-map which usually show up as a gold exclamation point (this was the same for turning in a quest, which is identifiable by a gold question mark).
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| Standard (i.e. add-on free) mini-map |
They also improved support for widescreen monitors, so instead of the everything looking stretched and distorted in widescreen, it’ll look like it did on your old school screen used to, just bigger (and better).
Despite these hiccups the game ran smoothly with little to no lag. It was fun running around with a hundred or so other players, sharing quest objectives and just generally having a good time.
One thing is for certain, leveling won’t be as easy as it has been. With no heirloom items to up your experience gain it’s back to dungeon and quest grinding. And remember how annoying it was to run everywhere until you hit level 40 and got your mount? Oh yeah, that’s happening. No more level 20 riding skills or chauffeur mounts.
Blizzard also stated the original skill trees are being implemented into Classic. Gone are the tiered talent bars as we know it. Don’t know what a skill tree is? Oh my little noob, you have NO idea what you’re getting into…
BAM! Here you go, a classic Hunter tree:
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| Please check out Blizzard Watch for a complete breakdown of the skill trees |
World of Warcraft: Classic releases worldwide on Tuesday, August 27th at 00:01 CEST, but until then here is a list of confirmed realms from wowhead.com
(The following information was taken from the WoW Head website.)
Realms in the Americas will be:
Realm Name Type Time Zone
Atiesh Normal Pacific
Mankrik Normal Eastern
Myzrael Normal Pacific
Pagle Normal Eastern
Faerlina PvP Eastern
Fairbanks PvP Pacific
Herod PvP Eastern
Thalnos PvP Eastern
Whitemane PvP Pacific
Bloodsail
Buccaneers RP Eastern
Grobbulus RP-PvP Pacific
Oceanic realms will be:
Arugal PvP Australian Eastern
Remulos Normal Australian Eastern
EU Realms will be:
Realm Name Type Language
Golemagg PvP English
Hydraxian
Waterlords RP English
Mirage Raceway Normal English
Pyrewood Village Normal English
Shazzrah PvP English
Zandalar Tribe RP-PvP English
Auberdine Normal French
Sulfuron PvP French
Everlook Normal German
Lucifron PvP German
Хроми (Chromie) Normal Russian
Пламегор PvP Russian
(Flamegor)
All I know is it’ll be nice to visit the Undercity and Teldrassil in one piece again!
(For the Horde! …ahem #sorrynotsorry)
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