Do we know everything about Vanilla WoW?

I see a ton of arguments about how Classic WoW is going to be bad because we know everything about the game. I'd like to look into that argument and break down if it's true or not. Join along. Let me know if you guys think Vanilla WoW is all known. Do you agree or disagree with me? Thanks for watching!

[lurkylemur]

Age 12, back in vanilla I started off playing a NE rogue on my bros account. Levelled him to 54, and then got my own account. So starting all over again, I went horde this time and played an Orc hunter. Got him to level 60 and mainly pvp'd and dueled outside orgrimmar. I then became an altaholic, creating every class and levelling; a rogue (again, human this time), a warrior, a priest and a mage to level 60.

By this time, TBC was on the horizon. I barely touched raiding, perhaps going into MC twice, BWL once and the catapillar boss in aq, never stepped into naxx (didn't even know where the entrance was). I dabbled in dungeon runs now and then, but I mainly pvp'ed. Still, I had a ton of fun, even though I essentially missed out on this huge portion of the game which was raiding. I had crap gear on all my characters, apart from a few blue pvp pieces. But I still enjoyed gradually progressing towards my next piece of pvp gear, or hoping to get a dungeon/world drop, or crafting that next piece of gear for myself.

Vanilla and tbc in particular had so much longevity to them. I could have easily enjoyed vanilla for another 2 years (or more even) without a tbc launch. I would essentially level every class up to max, pvp my heart out and gradually progress my professions and get geared through occasional dungeons and raids. Then afterwards, I'd go on another server and level on the opposite faction all over again every single class and race. And throughout that whole experience I'd play each class with different talents, adding even more play time.

I think a lot of players are in the same boat here. There's a lot of content they didn't experience and want to experience. Whether that be more raiding, pvping, skilling up different professions, trying out a new class, spec and play style. An individual player's experience of a game is not done until they themselves have done all the content they want to do.

That's why I want to encourage new players or returning players like myself to avoid using addons and guides. You're experience will be diminished greatly if you do. It's like spoilers to a movie. Or someone telling you what's going to happen next, right as you're watching the story unfold. A huge part of vanilla was and is figuring out stuff for yourself or together with friends. To play a game, simply to look up a guide on how to do this or that? It's so sad.

So, new and returning players. I sincerely encourage you to play without addons, play without guides, you do not need them. Don't let elitist players ruin your experience or force you into playing a certain way. Play however the hell you want to play. Figure things out for yourself, make friends and have fun.

[woodybrush]

I hope they won't change it, would still be new for me as a wotlk starter

[Foxhoundxx]

Love the comment about "not visiting Egypt because other people did it" >.< … LMAO … Great Video, Thanks

[armyofthesun]

Hey! Great video!
I agree with you especially that the Blizz developers themselves said in some interview in about 2006 that there were 12 quests in database in Vanilla WoW that no one ever accepted and completed. Good example of a quest that could easily be missed is "CLUCK!" which required spamming "chicken" emote to a chicken in Wetlands.
Who knows how many things we missed in Vanilla. It was out only for a year and the massive BOOM for WoW started with The Burning Crusade.
So yeah. When Classic comes out I'm gonna spam emotes to npcs and run around as a ghost just to find secrets :D
Keep up the good work mate :)

[craghack]

Can you explain a little more how having: Inaccurate exp from quests, procs rates being uncertain, armor values maybe being off, some bugs happening etc. etc. mean that we can't know basically anything relevant about classic?


Like, people know the quests, people know what reputation is required, people know what talents to use, people know what prebis gear to get, people know how to deal with encounters, people know enough to clear naxx 2 hours after it comes out. Ironfoe maybe being good maybe being useless does not mean we do not know ironfoe is a rare drop from emperor in BRD, doing a lava run is the fastest way to get to him, you can recruit rogues who want HoJ to fill group, and we know what all the bosses/mobs do on the way there. What we don't know is if doing all this a hundred times is worth it or not, but the absolute second we know if Ironfoe is good or not (when we get the % proc rate) we know EVERYTHING.


So how exactly does small differences nullify what information we already have? Sure we might not know a complete 100.0000% of the game, but knowing 99.99% of it and instantly filling the rest up with classic doesn't make the game a fresh experience in anyway and the whole "we know everything so the game is gonna be boring" argument still stands.

[nathanbrady]

I had played a bit in vanilla, but played BC and WotLK heavily. I was not interested in raiding at all, but enjoyed the depth and complexity of the game, like the abundance choices in the talent tree (I was furious when Blizzard took away my holy/disc hybrid pvp priest). I tried playing a few times in Cata, but just couldn't get into it. I tried Panderia, and found the game so watered down, I only lasted a couple days.
As a casual player who took time experiencing content rather than bum rushing max level and diving head first into raiding, the rate at which major patches and expansions were rendering older content irrelevant, I felt as though I was missing out on the game itself trying to keep pace with my guildies.
Blizzard isn't targeting the hardcore raiders with Classic; they're targeting people like me. I dream of a WoW universe where you can play through, and stay in, each expansion as long as you desire. Dedicated servers for Vanilla, Burning Crusade, etc.
I'm stoked for Classic. Myself and players like me don't view getting to 60 as a slow grind, but each long level as actually experiencing and playing the game. I liked finishing off a zone, but not being strong enough for the next zone in the chain and having to travel the world to find another zone more level appropriate. Like hitting the Barrens for a little after Silverpine but before Hillsbrad.

[TheZombieCurryKid]

Well, it's out, MC is cleared in the first 5 days with 20 people in greens, exactly as I said it would happen.


We do know everything about vanilla, it's been solved for the last 15 years on private servers with leaked server code, ok?

[travisowljr]

I like how you added Leroy Jenkins as your "real" example. hahaha! XD

[Jkg]

Man I really enjoy your content. And your editing is really good. Your videos are helping with my classic anticipation haha. Good stuff as always.

[Xiumian]

nice video, i think many of us are just lost without any MMO to play in the current game climate, and we know and love old wow. whether it's Vanilla / TBC / WOTLK we enjoyed it back then and don't now

[noctusowl]

After almost 15 years I still find little corners in the map I never explored before. Can't wait for classic.

[RheaStorm]

They also said there were quests that were never completed or things that were never found in the old game so to have-all-that back to explore again(Hopefully) means we'll get genuinely new things that no one ever found before.

[trifuse]

This video is right on and I have to add one thing that really bothers me: From years of playing retail wow vanilla -> cata and years playing and developing on vanilla servers. Servers like Nost had so many minor bugs that add up, the content was completely watered down which made it much easier than it was back in vanilla.

[tormstorm]

I think a more direct comparison would be to the release of Old School Runescape. The game was taken from an old backup of the game and brought back to life. But like in Runescape, WoW Classic isn’t going to be the same as it was back in the day. People know a lot more about the game, even though they might not know everything, but because of that the game can never become the same as it once was. People are going to rush the game much more than they used to, which is exactly the same that happened with Old School Runescape, and after a while the game will become stale. Unless you realize that the game will not become the same as it once was, and that it shouldn’t only try to be that, but it should evolve from that state into something unique. This is what happened in Old School Runescape in the form of large content updates, bug fixes and quality of life updates, but keeping the core gameplay, sound and graphics. This has made the game into something truly unique that a lot of people are very happy with, and believe that Blizzard should take some inspiration from this, and after a good amount of time start updating and evolving the game into something unique.

[nainmayoudavich]

Project 1999 was a masterpiece of ''classic mmo revival'' because Everquest noted EVERYTHING in patch notes.

[TheZombieCurryKid]

Nah, current private server data was given by a Blizzard employee to private servers, we already know everything about vanilla. Ironfoe will never be garbage because it drops in BRD and the dps is so good for pre raid that it's better then anything outside of raids except maybe the dagger from ubrs, depending on the proc rate of that, and so it doesn't really matter what the proc rate is, you want to get it while doing brd.


Also, wow classes are like 1/100th the complexity of a starcraft army. Playing a wow character is like controlling 3 different units at a time in Starcraft.


The person saying that people have been playing vanilla for 15+ years lol...


On the private servers I've played on all my friends that I have played with, all the guilds I was in, are dead. Some wrathbabies that have never played come in with fake nostalgia from watching their older bro play after school, play for about 3 months, and then get bored of it. The same thing will happen with Classic.

[cbuster]

I love coming across smaller channels like this that make or talk about classic wow! Keep it up!

[Jaz_zo]

The game just was mad fun. Ofc you wont have the surprise effect you had when you first played it but you will have:
- Open world raids
-A new active community that starts the game from 0
-The chance to play new class-race combinations
-THE OLD WOW FEELING
etc.

I could go on but i think most get the gist. That surprise effect lasted for how long? Probably till level 20 but by then you was hooked by the mechanics and atmosphere of the game.

[Hafaechaes]

Thank you for this video!


Another aspect I would like to mention is misconceptions. So many things that are just "known" are wrong, not just because parroting is easy, but also for reasons like the math behind it being quite hard.


One example would be how to compare mp5 and +healing. I lost count of the amount of times someone asked in chat how to compare the two stats and someone answered: "You're a shaman, just stack mp5" or "mp5 for long fights, +healing for short fights". In reality, the answer is complicated but beautiful, because it depends on your personal playstyle.

[codeboy_henry]

Totally agree, wonder what month it will release?