The year-long wait has paid off. Blizzard has relaunched «World of Warcraft» in its original format. Even I gave in to the nostalgia. The 15-year-old game was more fun than I expected. But I'm not going to stick with it.
I ran around a bit and everything felt completely familiar, like I'd never been away. The graphics are simple, but they've aged incredibly well. My skill bar was still very empty because, apart from two attacks, my hunter hadn't done a lot. I deliberately sought out the same character as I used to have. I found having a fat, slow bull as a hunter absurd then too.
Like riding a bike
The community makes the difference
Even when I was on a quest, I was increasingly struck by how helpful most players were. Especially when it came to dealing with mobs and all waiting for respawning in the same place, it took barely five seconds for a group invitation to pop up on the screen. And when a wizard ran past me and a trading window suddenly popped up giving me 20 bottles of Mana regeneration, I was convinced: the players are what makes you feel so at home in WoW.
As a child, I wasn't allowed to have any consoles. It was only with the arrival of the family's 486 PC that the magical world of gaming opened up to me. Today, I'm overcompensating accordingly. Only a lack of time and money prevents me from trying out every game there is and decorating my shelf with rare retro consoles.
Opinion
This is a subjective opinion of the editorial team. It doesn't necessarily reflect the position of the company.
I was at home. I stood with my tauren hunter in Camp Narache, the starting town for the muscular, bovine humanoids. The music on the login screen gave me goosebumps and real flashbacks. An NPC was standing in front of me with a yellow exclamation mark above his head. But he was hard to make out in the crowd of other players who had also just started. It was like 15 years ago when I played «World of Warcraft» for the first time – including horrendous loading times. There are no lags now though.
I've always liked the tauren terrtitory.
The game principle came back to me immediately. I even noticed how my fingers automatically looked for the shortcuts, which hadn't even been provided yet because my character had only reached level one. But this is no surprise, as I ended up playing WoW relentlessly until the first expansion pack «Burning Crusade» was released. That first weekend, my mates and I barely closed our eyes because we just couldn't stop. When it came to the 40-player «Molten Core» raid, which quickly swallowed up half a day, «World of Warcraft» became more work than fun.
Unfortunately, I've never managed to take on Ragnaros with my guild.
But my level 1 hunter and I were still a long way off that. The toughest opponents in the Mulgore starting zone are level 10 characters. Describing the quests of the past as not particularly imaginative would be pretty diplomatic. It's almost entirely down to which mobs (enemies) you kill. Either because that's the whole task or because you need a drop from them, such as wolf paws. If you think that every wolf has at least four of them, you're mistaken. You'll be delighted when each one drops one, and even that is a rare event. «World of Warcraft» was really strange in this respect. From bones to hearts and whole skulls, there's clearly an unusual genetic defect in Azeroth which enables animals to do without vital organs or body parts. But it's not too bad. I mean the quest system, not the defect. You just have to grind and it's the most efficient way to level up quickly.
Since WoW, I've tried out plenty of MMORPGs, but none managed to hold my attention for long. After a few hours with WoW Classic, I had a hunch why this was: the community. Whether it was «Age of Conan», «Guild Wars» or «The Lord of the Rings Online», the games felt solitary despite thousands of other gamers. In WoW, however, I leaped into a quest where I had to follow a ghost wolf for five minutes at the same time as an unknown druid because she was doing the exact same quest and we had nothing better to do. We flapped our arms and looked like two overweight birds that were struggling to take off. The community feel is what sets WoW apart.
It can even be fun with a noob like Simon Balissat.
You sense it even more when you head into the Barrens as a Horde player. In this vast wasteland, where every task involves minutes of walking, the chat is as lively as if the original WoW had never disappeared into thin air. Master tailor Deedix was plugging his woolen bags, a Rogue was looking for a group for the Wailing Caverns and someone was asking where to find Mankrik's Wife for the hundredth time. The tone in the chat is (mostly) surprisingly friendly and relaxed. People joke and mess around, but you always get help if you need it. When a player complains that the game is much harder than normal WoW, the chat fills with laughter. «This IS normal WoW», reply around ten players. About a dozen players were doubling up with laughter in front of their PCs.
The Barrens might not be the most exciting region, but I like it nevertheless.
Along with the positive feel created by the buzzing community, the familiarity of the world gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Quests in WoW Classic didn't yet have markers to tell you exactly where you need to go. You were just given a vague direction. But I'm pleased to say that I still knew exactly where to find the thunder lizard or which oasis to go to for fungal spores. This means that the flow of the game is never disrupted. As I share my home office with my wife, I regaled her with anecdotes about each quest non-stop. Every hill and barn has associated memories.
My first ever character was an undead warlock, so I'm also very fond of Silverpine Forest.
What I haven't missed, however, is the sluggishness of the gameplay. On the one hand, it was quite nice to be able to listen to podcasts or watch a video at the same time. But on the other, the drawn-out walking routes became tedious over time. And if, like me, you kick the bucket regularly, you'll have to keep heading back to your corpse from a distant graveyard. Even the battles are far from dynamic. You always click through the same sequences, regardless of the opponent. Variety is scarce. Even new equipment is extremely limited in the first 20 hours. If I hadn't bought a new gun at the auction house, I would still be tickling opponents under the armpits with a level 4 weapon.
Then I was off again.
I've played «World of Warcraft» more than any other game. But after going cold turkey, I no longer felt the attraction to go back. Only the curiosity remained about whether the original fascination was still there. After around 25 minutes, I can definitely say that it was. The sensational soundtrack which, along with the monotonous yet motivating gameplay, virtually sent me into a trance. The level design, which makes the world look amazingly consistent, even after 15 years. And, of course, the nostalgia that holds everything together. «World of Warcraft» is full of good memories. And yet my trip to Shadowfang Keep with my colleague Simon for our digitec plays series was my last adventure in Azeroth for now. And it really was like coming home. Home to my parents. Where I grew up. You like coming back. You feel at home. But after a few hours, you're done and you're happy when you can leave again. With this in mind: see you later, WoW, or maybe never again. For the Horde and, for my part, for the Alliance.
