Blizzard Announces World of Warcraft Classic, Official Vanilla Server

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World of Warcraft Classic, the official "vanilla" server from Blizzard, is currently in development. The news comes via today's BlizzCon 2017 opening ceremony livestream, where executive producer J. Allen Brack was on hand to give the details.

Blizzard has been clearly been listening to World of Warcraft fans over the years. Access to legacy game content is something they've been clamoring for since the Burning Crusade expansion launched in 2007. It made serious changes to WoWas we knew it, making certain areas inaccessible to players, in addition to other significant alterations. When 2010's Cataclysm expansion debuted, it made further cuts that ensured new players would never truly be able to experience the same WoW that others did back in 2004.

Fans had been working on several solutions for the issue before, creating their own private "vanilla" versions of the game that reflected the way it was before the new expansions released. Blizzard had been shutting these servers down in the name of copyright claims, but it appears there could have been a secondary reason here, because World of Warcraft Classic has been in development for a while now.

There's currently no release date for World of Warcraft Classic, but we'll likely be hearing more about the server as we head into 2018. For veteran WoW players, the seventh complete expansion, World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth, is on the way as well, which will further explore the lore behind the rivalry of both Horde and Alliance factions.

Brittany Vincent
17 Comments Comment from the forums
  • takeshi7
    This had better work on my PowerPC Mac. Otherwise it's not really the vanilla WoW experience.
    Reply
  • Wolfshadw
    Got all excited and then a tiny piece of me died. I misread the article title and was thinking of the original Warcraft: Orcs and Humans!

    :sigh:

    -Wolf sends
    Reply
  • smackndh
    They need to amke sure that all the new addons dont work as well
    Reply
  • Martell1977
    The most fun I ever had in WoW was on Kharazan runs with the guild I was in. That raid was just awesome.Then WoLK came out and the gear level up so high I can clear it alone on my hunter.

    Sold my account about 2 weeks before Cata dropped and am all the happier for it. IMO, they destroyed the hunter by making the resource system like a rogue...which was the main reason I didn't like the rogue.
    Reply
  • jossrik
    I miss the 40 man raids. I'll be interested to see how vanilla they keep it, It wasn't very casual player friendly to begin with.
    Reply
  • Borisblade7
    I play the living crap out of a private WotLK server for the past 5 years. So this is cool to see. I have played some on Nostalrius back when it first launched (private vanilla server) and it was cool. But you really learn how bad people's rose colored glasses have made them forget just how bad the game actually was. Many classes had just one spec that actually worked, and so much of the game was just a complete unfun pain in the ass. Its cool to some extent, but it had sooooooo many problems that people forget about. The pvp was a hot mess with most classes having but one usable spec, not good, just usable, and for many it was heal or nothing. The scaling was horrible, balance terrible, and it was a contest of who could kill who in under 5 secs first, if not nearly global them at high gear levels. And dont get me started on the rank system that was purely based on amount of continuous, non stop playtime and nothing more. The questing was also terrible with sparse content at best as you leveled up further, making grinding on just mobs a real thing. Again, some aspects were cool, but it was overshadowed by so many problems that it will be hard to keep current players interested in a game riddled with issues in 2017. Burning Crusade was really where the game should have been at launch, vanilla was like a very long beta.
    Reply
  • Martell1977
    @Borisblade7 - Agreed, BC was probably the sweet spot for the game. They balanced things a bit, eased up on raid difficulty a bit and the game was fun. Only down side was darinei and blood elves, which IMO was a massive mistake.
    I really liked that you have to gain reputation with different factions to get into heroics and get certain things. It meant that people actually had to learn heir class before jumping into a heroic or raid. Getting the key to Khara or that Orc heroic (forget the name) was a long quest chain, but it made getting it all the better.
    Every class had a purpose and the heroics/raids weren't massive cluster f***s. I remember having to actually get good at trapping with my hunter for certain Heroics and most Raids.
    Reply
  • berezini
    Kara is a BC raid not Vanilla... Martell1977
    Reply
  • kenjitamura
    I wonder if they're going to take a "remastered" approach to this. Where the classes, mechanics, levels, maps, etc. are all vanilla but it will be using the modern day graphics and engine optimizations.
    Reply
  • Martell1977
    20343529 said:
    Kara is a BC raid not Vanilla... Martell1977

    I know, I just brought it up because BC was a lot more fun to me. They missed the mark by 1 xpac, lol. But, they will never be able to please everyone. I played WoW for 4 months after launch, then lost interest. Went back after BC and stayed until 2 weeks before Cata.

    I play Ultima Online on a freeshard now. No quests and total freedom to do whatever you want, when you want. Started as a swordsman but decided you don't like it? Just change skills and train. No need to make a new char to try other roles.
    http://ultima-shards.com/
    Reply