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Welcome to the Classic World of Warcraft
Well.
Vanilla servers. Who would have thought.
I would have loved this, once. A lot of my fondest memories of the game are from vanilla, though I preferred Burning Crusade. I stopped playing halfway through Cataclysm, and everything I've seen since then has convinced for me that it was the right choice. Druids have changed beyond recognition for me and I'm not at all interested in where they took the story.
But, I remember the lure of the world. I remember running down back roads looking for quests, and gathering a rag-tag band and delving into Scholomance and Stratholme. I remember stealthing into Upper Blackrock Spire, and using alchemy to fund my friends' and my mounts. I remember the run from Teldrassil to Ironforge to pick up all the flight points, and killing undead for Argent Dawn reputation. I remember delving into Zul'Gurub with a raid alliance and facing (and being murdered by) Hakkar the Soulflayer. I remember the druid quests for mounts, and spending time in out-of-the-way corners of the world, in Azshara and Un'Goro Crater. I remember winning the fishing contest on my birthday, the very first time I competed. I remember getting a frostsaber.
I also remember standing around for an hour trying to get a fifth party member for a dungeon. I remember being turned down for playing a balance druid, and spending hours killing random enemies to scrape up enough gold for an epic mount. I remember Molten Core requiring hours of painstaking grinding up of fire resist gear. I remember each class having maybe one viable spec (two for warriors), and any class that was able to heal having to heal. I remember hunters despawning their pets due to pathing problems and pet survivability. I remember having to pay money to swap between healing and DPS specs, and then again to swap back. I remember hitting 60 and, for large portions of time, having basically nothing I could do without getting another 19 or 39 other people to do it with me.
I don't think I'm going back. Maybe briefly, as a tourist.
There's no money in it, but what I really want is "World of Warcraft: Director's Cut," a version of vanilla WoW with all the content they were planning on including but had to cut for time. Finishing quests like The Missing Diplomat that just trail off, and zones like Silithus, Azshara, Dustwallow Marsh, and Arathi Highlands that got very little development. Put in Azshara Crater battleground. Make Karazhan the next raid after Naxxramas like it was meant to be. Atiesh, the legendary staff from Naxx, has the ability to teleport to Karazhan, and Karazhan itself is a perfect bridge between Naxxramas and Burning Crusade. At the bottom are undead and spooky ghosts, but as the raiders ascend the tower things get stranger and stranger until at the top they face the mastermind--Malchezzar, a prince of the Eredar. Mix all this in with some quality of life improvements that don't change the substance of the experience like dual specs and quests showing on the minimap, and I would be back in a flash.
They're not going to do that, though. I wish them luck with what they do. All the pirate servers show it's popular, but as the former player of a balance druid, I remember a lot of bad mixed in with the good. I played plenty of WoW, and while they can bring back the game, they can't bring back the person I was when I came to it, or the people I came to it with. It would not be the same.
Vanilla servers. Who would have thought.
I would have loved this, once. A lot of my fondest memories of the game are from vanilla, though I preferred Burning Crusade. I stopped playing halfway through Cataclysm, and everything I've seen since then has convinced for me that it was the right choice. Druids have changed beyond recognition for me and I'm not at all interested in where they took the story.
But, I remember the lure of the world. I remember running down back roads looking for quests, and gathering a rag-tag band and delving into Scholomance and Stratholme. I remember stealthing into Upper Blackrock Spire, and using alchemy to fund my friends' and my mounts. I remember the run from Teldrassil to Ironforge to pick up all the flight points, and killing undead for Argent Dawn reputation. I remember delving into Zul'Gurub with a raid alliance and facing (and being murdered by) Hakkar the Soulflayer. I remember the druid quests for mounts, and spending time in out-of-the-way corners of the world, in Azshara and Un'Goro Crater. I remember winning the fishing contest on my birthday, the very first time I competed. I remember getting a frostsaber.
I also remember standing around for an hour trying to get a fifth party member for a dungeon. I remember being turned down for playing a balance druid, and spending hours killing random enemies to scrape up enough gold for an epic mount. I remember Molten Core requiring hours of painstaking grinding up of fire resist gear. I remember each class having maybe one viable spec (two for warriors), and any class that was able to heal having to heal. I remember hunters despawning their pets due to pathing problems and pet survivability. I remember having to pay money to swap between healing and DPS specs, and then again to swap back. I remember hitting 60 and, for large portions of time, having basically nothing I could do without getting another 19 or 39 other people to do it with me.
I don't think I'm going back. Maybe briefly, as a tourist.
There's no money in it, but what I really want is "World of Warcraft: Director's Cut," a version of vanilla WoW with all the content they were planning on including but had to cut for time. Finishing quests like The Missing Diplomat that just trail off, and zones like Silithus, Azshara, Dustwallow Marsh, and Arathi Highlands that got very little development. Put in Azshara Crater battleground. Make Karazhan the next raid after Naxxramas like it was meant to be. Atiesh, the legendary staff from Naxx, has the ability to teleport to Karazhan, and Karazhan itself is a perfect bridge between Naxxramas and Burning Crusade. At the bottom are undead and spooky ghosts, but as the raiders ascend the tower things get stranger and stranger until at the top they face the mastermind--Malchezzar, a prince of the Eredar. Mix all this in with some quality of life improvements that don't change the substance of the experience like dual specs and quests showing on the minimap, and I would be back in a flash.
They're not going to do that, though. I wish them luck with what they do. All the pirate servers show it's popular, but as the former player of a balance druid, I remember a lot of bad mixed in with the good. I played plenty of WoW, and while they can bring back the game, they can't bring back the person I was when I came to it, or the people I came to it with. It would not be the same.