Blizzard announced the development of World of Warcraft Classic (aka ‘vanilla WoW‘) during BlizzCon 2017. This is great news for a large fanbase of World of Warcraft. We can only wonder how similar Blizzards launch of World of Warcraft Classic will be to what we know as true vanilla WoW.
World of Warcraft Classic experience
Many are wondering how true will Blizzard stay to the original experience of vanilla World of Warcraft. It is likely that some changes will take place to sort out any bugs and the like that were still present in the later patches of vanilla WoW. Others would also like to see graphical enhancement made to the game, such as the new character models. However, no changes, not even fixed bugs, is desired by many of the vanilla WoW fanbase. What are your opinions regarding this? Feel free to comment below.
Server technology
In early 2012, Blizzard auctioned off their original server blades in a charity event. These hardware components were part of the core for the servers at launch of World of Warcraft in 2004, and until the end of Wrath of the Lich King in 2010. At BlizzCon they joked about needing these back now that they’ve announced World of Warcraft Classic.
Perhaps they would want them all back. World of Warcraft initially launched in November 2004. Server technology and gameplay has changed a lot since then, and updating the classic WoW to the new infrastructure might take some time. This is after all not going to be just an emulator of vanilla WoW, but a live retail version by Blizzard. Let’s hope for an authentic vanilla World of Warcraft experience when Classic launches.
Update: WoW Classic launch and beta
In a recent news update Blizzard announced a global launch for World of Warcraft Classic set to August 27, 2019. Along with this, anyone with an active World of Warcraft subscription can create their characters and reserve their character names August 13.
Many are looking forward to return to, or experience for the first time, the glory days of World of Warcraft. The now ongoing closed beta can attest to that as it’s reaching massive popularity on Twitch.tv. To opt in for the WoW Classic beta you can update your Battle.net Beta Profile Settings (found via Games & Subscriptions @ Battle.net).
If you’re like me however and don’t have the World of Warcraft Classic beta, perhaps reminiscing vanilla WoW on private servers can be of interest in the meantime.