WoW Classic was released almost exactly a year ago, yesterday, on August 26th, the vanilla edition celebrated its first birthday. Congratulations to Classic and the developers alike for choosing to listen to the community (otherwise there would be no Classic now) and we look back on turbulent months.
“Classic servers will flop – and we players are to blame” – that was my thesis at the end of 2017, and how wrong I was at the time. On the contrary, the player rush to the vanilla new edition at the launch on August 26, 2019 and beyond clearly exceeded the expectations of Blizzard developers. The quarterly figures from Activision Blizzard read very positively, thanks to Classic, and even now the numerous servers are so well populated that every dragon’s head delivery in Orgrimmar mutates into a lag show.
But WoW (buy now) Classic not only torpedoed my thesis, WoW Classic also managed to pull me under my spell again and lure me to Azeroth almost every day with great enthusiasm – at the expense of Battle for Azeroth, various other games on the Mountain of Joy and everyone amount of sleep. If someone had told me that a little over a year ago…
A special reissue
WoW Classic is particularly exciting because this is not just any new edition of a dusty gaming classic whose implementation was decided by some business people and with which those responsible want to rake in easy money with little effort. On the contrary, those responsible in California had to be pushed for months and years to take on this project.
And the whole story only really got rolling after the forced burial of the private server Nostalrius . Petitions here, forum posts with countless comments there. Plus the support of former Blizzard developers like Mark Kern . From a “You think you do, but you don’t!” eventually became a “we’ll think about it.” and finally an “I love the taste of vanilla.”
We saw very clearly that the developers didn’t really believe in the success of Classic even after that, when far too few servers were offered for the first name reservation phase. We had to fight for German servers, for an RP server, for enough space for all Classic enthusiasts. Yes, we players have put a lot of sweat, passion and nerves into the implementation of this classic experience.
The community makes the difference
For me personally, Classic is certainly above all a nostalgia trip to dig into the good memories of 2005 and 2006. At the same time, I experience Azeroth completely differently than back then, invest less time, but get more out of the game. Was able to lay three raid bosses with Viscidus, Ouro and C’Thun, which I couldn’t defeat with my guild at the time. I’ve now completed the Tier 0.5 quest line for the first time, I’m about to get the head of Thresherbringer to tackle the Scepter quest for the first time (but comfortably), and also with phase 6 uncompleted challenges are coming to the servers (Naxxramas!) .
But there is another reason why I have so, so, so much fun with Classic: the community! Certainly there are great people in Battle for Azeroth to have a good time with. The sticking point is that in BfA you don’t necessarily have to team up with other people to be able to master many of the challenges. A large part of the content is designed for quickly achievable sense of achievement and short gaming sessions. The names of the players to whom you are randomly assigned are lost in the anonymous Crossrealm universe.
Classic feels very different with its in-server communities. Let’s say something about the guilds and character names. If someone misbehaves completely, they end up blacklisted in the server discord. Almost every day I go around the house with guildmates: we do dungeons, raids, wind stones in Silithus, pull twinks together or help each other with farming, and at the same time chat in the voice about God and the world. In other words: I’m finally playing WoW again the way I played WoW in the first few years, and an important reason for this is that Classic creates the framework conditions to promote this community togetherness.
Happy Birthday Classic!
Yesterday, August 26th, Classic turned one year. How time flies, Happy Birthday! And what a year that was. Featuring long queues, phasing stages, bot wars, the dramatic opening of Ahn’Qiraj , and many more moments worth noting or discussing. For my part, I’m very grateful that Blizzard responded to the community’s request and implemented the vanilla remake, not perfect, certainly, but good enough.
What is WoW Classic?
World of Warcraft Classic is a true recreation of the original WoW as you know it from 2006. All parts of the game – from combat mechanics and talent trees to character models and zones – have been recreated, contributing to the authentic experience.
Getting Started
All players with an active World of Warcraft subscription or game time on their accounts have access toWoW Classic at no additional cost.
- Open the Blizzard Battle.net Desktop App and select World of Warcraft from the menu.
- Select World of Warcraft Classic from the Version menu. If you have more than one World of Warcraft account, you’ll see a second Account drop-down list. In this column, select the active account you want to play with.
- Click the Install button. The progress bar will tell you when your game is ready to play.
- Click the Play button when the installation is complete.
You will need to select the realm you want to play on from several different realm types. Make sure you choose the same realm as your friends – in World of Warcraft Classic, you can only group with characters that are on the same realm as you!
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