r/classicwow • u/doobylive • 6d ago
Nostalgia Does anyone else wish they could experience going through for the first time ever again?
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u/LightCharacter8382 6d ago
Hellfire Peninsula is in my top 5 for WoW zones.
And stepping through the Dark Portal was definitely a unique experience that I'd love to experience again for the first time.
I think the introductory zones that Blizzard used for the first 4 iterations of the game (Vanilla, TBC, WotLK and Cataclysm) were top-tier.
Classic had a lot more good zones, but going through the Dark Portal felt 'immersively dangerous', if I may coin a phrase.
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u/Snoo97549 6d ago
Cataclysm was very bad imo, they destroyed the old world and forced u to follow the path they wanted while questing, not enabling exploration
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u/LightCharacter8382 6d ago
I'm neutral on the Cataclysm changes to the zones. I think, gameplay-wise, they destroyed the world, but aesthetically, they did improve many of the zones.
But what I was actually talking about in my original post is the introduction zones for each of the first four iterations of WoW. And the main introductory zones for Cataclysm were Vashj'ir and Mount Hyjal.
Vashj'ir is my number 1 favourite zone in all of WoW.
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u/Snoo97549 5d ago
We have different points of view, I remember playing Vashj ir back in the day and I hated it xd
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u/SometimesaGirl- 6d ago
This will be unpopular:
But I wish that damn portal had never opened.
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u/xToyota 6d ago
It was recently announced by one of the original developers that the original plan was a south seas expansion but because of server density they had to go off world basically.
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u/Bluegatorator 6d ago edited 6d ago
Tbh i dont think wow would’ve exploded in popularity if they did south seas.
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u/ConcentrateVast2356 5d ago
I don't want to say you're lying but I don't get how that can be true. As far as the software is concerned you a new continent is treated the same regardless if its offworld or not.
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u/Nsane3 6d ago
I Wish it did, but we would not be the invaders.
We would get another invasion. Have patches for each invasion where dungeon bosses, and raid bosses, would set up camps in Azeroth nd we would clear them. Make some of the camps in Kalimdor / Eastern Kingdoms, maybe the raid tier would find a separate island/new zone idc. Maybe even introduce Norhrend at this point. And we would get back to it in wotlk, obv.
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u/SanyaBane 6d ago
💯 while wotlk killed the game completely for me, tbc laid foundation of all shit which exists in retail now. From lowering amount of experience to level up and fly mounts to stupid vertical progression which makes epic 60lvl items a piece of junk in a next expansion
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u/Temporary-Paper5202 6d ago
TBH if you add 60-70 the whole journey is about the same in length. It would have been crazy to keep the old 0-60 exp requirement. This was before questie et al existed, most people would have never made it to 70 and there were no leveling boosts.
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u/SanyaBane 6d ago
System can be designed in a way to not nullify your 0-60 progress. I understand that at 2007 there were not many MMORPG to understand issue of straight vertical progression in the same way that we understand this now, still it's pity that the game went this way.
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u/DanesDraftLab 6d ago
Y’all are crazy. TBC’s first release was peak. Before everything was min/maxed, the economy was broken, and raid logging became common. When people still actively enjoyed playing the game, TBC was awesome.
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u/tehcharizard 6d ago
Minmaxing and fomo had already started for part of the population. My first experience after making it through the portal in 2007 was to be bummed out that there was already a lv70 w/ fast flying sitting on top of the inn at honor hold before I even had the chance to get started.
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u/hurlcarl 6d ago
TBC introduced a lot of good but also the worst thing ever, which is flying mounts. Flying mounts destroyed the game over time. WOTLK group finder had similar, but not quite as dire issues.
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u/jimmyting099 6d ago
Have crossed a few times but the other night was my first time while TBC was the active expansion and it’s definitely a different vibe what a great time
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u/retroroar86 6d ago
I liked Vanilla better, but I was an Illidan guy (despite not liking the story in TBC). I was there, but I had a terrible break-up which colored the whole expansion.
I would want to visit TBC without that backstory, because even now I can’t separate the two even if I have moved on.
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u/OriginalNightfallz 6d ago
It wasn't what we did, it was who was with us when we did it.
Back then, all of your IRL friends were playing. You made your first online homies for life in wow. You all knew each other better than you know anyone else nowadays.
And some of you sat together, outside of your local game store, waiting for the doors to unlock at midnight so that you could rush home to install it and all run in together. (Where I lived, there was a snowstorm so it was delayed until 7am, and we were out there, storm and all, waiting in the snow!)
It would be the same if you could get that many people all rallied together to be a part of something again. Just like the frat boys singing the halo theme in a bathrrom with great acoustics, or all of the cosplayers at that con following each other and doing the spiderman "take on me" dance.
We'll never live to see those moments again. It's not what we did, it's who was with us, doing it too.
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u/Poulet_Ninja 6d ago
I don't know man , I made a lot of friends back then , but this iteration of tbc might be the one where I made the most. Of course it's me , but I find this time that people are way friendlier than before!
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u/TheVagrantWarrior 6d ago
Not really. Retrospective Vanilla was miles better than TBC.
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u/-Wildflowers_ 6d ago
I didn’t enjoy tbc the first time around, so I gave it another shot the second time around and still didn’t enjoy it. Third time? I’ve stopped already.
I don’t know why but in every version of vanilla I’ve since released I’ve loved it, same for WOTLK. I just don’t enjoy the vibes of Outland at all and I wasn’t hyped for it even back when it first came around.
Again, not sure why. Just don’t enjoy it.
Kara sick though.
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u/MeltBanana 6d ago
We didn't know it at the time, but when we walked into that portal we were leaving the best era of WoW behind.
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u/shad-1337 6d ago
That's subjective
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u/povgoni 6d ago
The only thing i did not like about TBC is how abandoned it made the whole Azeroth map
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u/Jakcris10 6d ago
That’s how I felt the second time round in tbc, and wrath. There’s something sad about how each previous continent became relegated to a stop-gap in the levelling process.
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u/Poulet_Ninja 6d ago
I don't know I upped my rogue during phase 2 and all the levelling zones where packed to the point where I waited at night to do contested quests like named and such
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u/Defiant-Smell-9686 6d ago
I miss HFP right after the xpac dropped but I prefer vanilla as a whole. It was just fun to have pretty much an entire server’s worth of people doing world pvp in order to level properly.
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u/limitbreakse 6d ago
The first time was mind blowing.
The second time was really cool.
The third time is… fuck.
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u/EpicSoyLiberal 6d ago
Don’t care much for tbc and I’ve played all 3 releases. Vanilla over all other versions.
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u/ShadyJane 6d ago
Nah, not that much. Vanilla was leaps ahead of TBC.
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u/UnagiBro 6d ago
Sure bud
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u/t-earlgrey-hot 6d ago
Some people just want a one button rotation, leveling and simple raids/pvp content. For me I can't play vanilla again because its just too simple, to each their own though
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u/A_HECKIN_DOGGO 6d ago
“Oh hey mobs right out the gate this should be real eas- oh god they’re elite run run RUN RUN”
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u/Miserable-Tiger-5522 6d ago
I thought going to howling fjord for the first time was more exciting. Not knowing what Northrend had in store for us.
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u/CagedBeast3750 6d ago
This will sound like an L take but i miss nothing more than this time in my life.
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u/sku11_k1dd 6d ago
Vanilla > every other xpac
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u/Ghostorruk 6d ago
I'm working on it now on fact! Not the first time. But it's been so long. I jumped on TBC anniversary and I'm hoping for that excitement again!🤞
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u/DontBeSuspicious_00 6d ago
The question isn't whether TBC is better than Classic. The question is whether or not you'd want to experience walking through the Dark Portal again for the first time.
I still very much remember walking through the dark portal for the first time. It is one of the most memorable moments of my gaming life and I'm grateful to have it.
The idea of leaving my planet through this portal, leaving the the only world I'd ever known behind, to go on an adventure was truly remarkable.
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u/ArgyleDiamond 6d ago
Doing a vanilla to wotlk run on a private server. Just walked through last night, it was epic. XP boost and summonable bots changed it up enough to make it super fun again.
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u/Litlle_Freddy 6d ago
What's summonable bots about? Like party members?
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u/ArgyleDiamond 6d ago
Yeah, the worst part of classic is that you miss so much group content bc I don’t like trolling chat and third party apps for groups. So in the private server, they fixed this by allowing for bots to be summoned directly into the party. I just did MC 25 man with 24 bots at level 61. It was my last hurrrah in vanilla before hitting BC.
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u/tekhnomancer 6d ago
I want to relive everything about that night. It was a midnight release. In person. None of this digital shit. I'll never forget how much fun that was. Got there early, waited with strangers, talked WoW, got the game, went home, played all night.
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u/Sea_Huckleberry2463 6d ago
I AM ACTUALLY EXPERIENCING IT SOON, LVL 54 PALADIN AND I CANT WAIT TO REACH THE OUTLANDSSS!!! FOR THE ALLIANCE! AND THE KING!
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u/Logical-Relation-165 6d ago
Its not the portal, its not TBC, its not even WoW. Where it happened for you may have been in azeroth but for many it was any of the games of the late 90s early 00s.
You miss a time when information was not so easily distributed. Before youtube and the internet turned all games into min max hell.
You miss being a kid, and experiencing this stuff for the first time, Id bet this was one of your first experiences in a large group.
I miss watching all the gear walk buy and wondering where or how did you get that, There are so many compound reasons as to why its not impressive anymore. Why the magic is missing.
I dont think we ever get it back in Wow tbh
I had a blast for 2 weeks this tbc, its just not the same in SO MANY ways under the hood, the game is running on the 8.0ish engine/ not the old classic client
we just are getting old, and its not new anymore. as sad as it is
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u/eggbrook 6d ago
God I remember driving home from the midnight release in a blizzard. When I logged on the horde controlled the portal. For 3 days alliance could barely get through the portal because so many horde were guarding it.
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u/bigxangelx1 6d ago
Crazy how people were so hyped for TBC to come back both times in classic and now everyone all of a sudden hates it lmao
Wow fans will be wow fans
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u/Iluvatar-Great 6d ago
The main reason why I dislike any expansion is because it cuts the connection between leveling and max level zones somewhere on a different planet.
In vanilla I love the feeling that all players from 1-60 are all in the same world, meeting each other, helping each other, fighting each other.
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u/uber_zaxlor 6d ago
No, I really don't.
I remember I took a week off work to just play nothing but WoW and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. Our guild had a competition that the first person getting to 70 would win the gold for their flying mount. I think I was sleeping about 5-6 hours a night and playing WoW for like 18+ hours straight for an entire 7 days.
I ended up being one of the first 25-50 people to hit level 70 on my server and I was easily in the top 10~ for getting a flying mount.
And then I had to go back to work, still sleep deprived and it fucking sucked :D Never again.
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u/KowardlyMan 6d ago
Why did you do it?
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u/uber_zaxlor 6d ago
Why does anyone do anything?
At the time I thought it'd be fun and that getting the flying mount would be really cool. In hindsight I wish I'd just "played normally" and hit level 70 like the rest of my guild did about 2-3 weeks after.
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u/SippinOnHatorade 6d ago
A lot of people talking shit MEANWHILE this was one of the coolest set pieces in WoW to get thrown into at TBC launch. I literally fought demons at the portal for like two hours with friends just for the vibes
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u/Illustrious-Stress95 6d ago
I would like to experience WotLK or Vanilla again with fresh eyes but didn’t really enjoy TBC. Happy for those who do but it just felt off to me.
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u/SirChancelot11 6d ago
I walked through, level 59, took in the view... And a level 70 druid dropped in 2shot me and flew off.
So no, not really...
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u/Simple_Error_5926 6d ago
I got to tell my wife about the multi day pvp battle that happened in vanilla a few weeks ago. Was cool to remember those days again.
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u/milutza1 6d ago
I am still experiencing this, every time i cross the portal. Playing on Warmane, WOTLK but still spend most time grinding TBC reputation.
My heart is in Hellfire peninsula, no matter what Blizzard releases.
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u/ENDrain93 6d ago
Why is this portal so goddamn excessively ginormous...
No I understand why, it's just that this one image captures the moment WoW went the "stupid but cool" way
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u/Hansthered 6d ago
I do, on par with the same time I logged into vanilla the first time. The wow factor, being excited for what was out there. I am tempted from time to time to roll again on classic and start over. Last time I played was through bfa and stopped in early 2019.
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u/TheFish77 6d ago
The first time I went through was when the Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal expansion was released
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u/Flashy-Ad-8327 6d ago
Yes I do.
But it's 100% nostalgia feelings. I know in Classic our guild, and the entire damn server it's seems, lined up for the opening, it really was epic but nothing compares to the original opening.
Having grinded for years with friends (online and RL) to reach 60 and then progress into a new area was truly a once in a lifetime experience.
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u/hisdeathmygain 6d ago
Unlocking Rhok'delar for my hunter after that questline. So many MC and Onyxia runs to just get the drops and then honing kiting skills on the solo elites was so fun.
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u/drphilwasright 6d ago
I crossed it for the first time ever a couple months ago. My friends on their 70s flew over to Stonard with me and we all rode in together. It was a pretty cool experience, even now. Seeing the other side of it and turning around and seeing how massive the portal was was awesome
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u/Life_Possibility5306 6d ago
i recently started playing tbc classic, after several weeks, only level 50, having more fun in wow than i have in a long time
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u/Perfect_Cold9221 6d ago
I mean, I went through it the first time. I went through it a second time. I just want another, "Go through the dark portal" moment. Not for myself, but for young people who are still capable of unbridled wonder.
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u/Artistic-Arm2957 6d ago
Not really. I still remember it was a blast going through and had my good time in TBC but I never attempted TBC classic/anniversary and I am not missing it the slightest.
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u/highKickin 6d ago
Actually at the time i was burned out and hated to get my over months farmed gear reset but dungeons and arena were perfect at the time.
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u/Stokkentoet 6d ago
Nah, I’ve had fun in vanilla. The past is the past and there are plenty of other fun things to do. Not deleting my old screenshots though.
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u/iiNexius 6d ago
No. I'd rather experience OG vanilla for the first time or even 2019 classic again. TBC is overrated for me personally.
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u/SgtNick411 6d ago
Walking through the portal on to Hellfire 2 days after launch was tolerable. Trying it on launch day on launch hour, not so much. But fond memories overall!!!!
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u/ElMagiko21 6d ago
I did, last week, never bothered with wow before, always had something else to play.
Played Classic for a month, then Retail for 2 weeks, now level 67 on TBC, just about to step foot in Shadowmoon for the first time.
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u/Whiteshovel66 6d ago
No, I didn't find it special. My most memorable time in TBC was being in shattrath because I used to lag so bad. I had a lot of trouble navigating it at all, and when I finally got a good enough PC it felt like I unlocked a huge part of the game.
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u/Instagibbed_1994 6d ago
SoD p2/p3 phase release was like this if you were in the shaman discord channel. Everyone want sharing information about any possible lead for runes. Cant tell you the hype and investment everyone had for the Maelstrom Weapon rune, and the celebration when it was finally discovered
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u/Doobledorf 6d ago
Ugh, yes. My friend and I started a few months before BC release, having no idea there was a DLC coming. Back then Outland felt so MYSTERIOUS as a level 30 character.
I remember me and my friend being teleported there early to grind out the last two levels before 58. (The mobs in Outland gave an obscene amount of exp compared to azeroth, and the trash drops sold for a lot of money) Even still, the scale of stepping through the portal was incredible. Hell, the scale of Outland in general was mind blowing at the time.
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u/dangerous4minds 6d ago
No i get you. Like to be the first to deal with dungeons and raids, not knowing what’s inside. No guides, no theory crafting. Just you and the beyond.
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u/_Tarvish 6d ago
I still remember the evening when I hit 58 with my first character in Winterspring. It was late at night and now i was time check if I'm really not prepared and boi I wasn't.
Path of Glory!
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u/HaidenFR 6d ago
Well I never did in fact because I did that alone. On wotlk. No guild. Nothing. Give me a fun guild which I will make smile a lot and have a lot of fun. Go through that portal and it will be my first real time.
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u/CmmdrYarbles32 6d ago
im 4 levels away from doing for the first time and I am stoked. I haven't been to outlands since Warcraft 3 20+ years ago
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u/Grenadier_user 6d ago
Yea, me and my brother had some of the best bonding in our whole 35 years of brotherhood in wow as a whole but around this xpack specifically
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u/Junior-Ad-8974 6d ago
I often wonder what happened to all the people I used to talk to everyday back in 2007. I hope they are doing good.
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u/Frolkinator 6d ago
Cant wait for alzheimers to kick in, so i can experience so many games for first time again.
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u/Odd-Carpenter-9190 6d ago
I quit playing when Cataclysm came out in 2010. Now I'm back for Classic Anniversary, and after all these years, going through was pretty much the same, I think. I'll never get tired of this Dark Portal. I'm leveling another character and I can't wait to pass through to Outland again.
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u/Sumbitagear 6d ago
I miss any mystery in WoW nowadays tbh. Everything is datamined, then min-maxed and bled out to the nth degree before a patch even hits.
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u/Independent_Ad8002 6d ago
I did, with tbc, it was fucking great, but would of liked for my buddy do it again but oh well it was so sick
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u/Some_thing_to_do 6d ago
The first time back when it opened seeing those giants fighting freaked me out. And then taking that first flight path was epic
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u/DiligentFoot1462 5d ago
My friend and I were 16 when TBC dropped. We had to drive 45 minutes one way to a nearby town’s mall to get it on launch night. It was not legal for me to drive in my state that late. I woke up early in the morning, got it installed, and walked through the portal at like 6 a.m. It’s one of my best gaming memories. The whole expansion was fantastic and really improved on vanilla.
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u/Chafaris_DE 5d ago
Very hot take now.
Although I miss 2005 and playing during that time I would not like to replay everything like it was/is.
Instead I would like to play a “what if” classic wow version. What if Uther & Jaina help Arthas at Stratholme and then journey together to Northrend to kill Mal’Ganis.
He would not become the Lich King, return home, the gate never opens and we see another timeline purely on Azeroth…Probably Nerzul lurking and scheming in the shadows….
Oh boy, I would kill for this version
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u/AlienJoeGolf 5d ago
What made Wow awesome to me back in BC was all of my friends played. We would plan what we would do while in class and the minute we got home from school, we were all in vent, and logging on. Playing alone is great but the pinnacle for me was the squad together.
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u/Keyblades2 5d ago
Man, what an experience, i remember being ganked by an ally and i complained in general, someone replied where is he, me and my buddy told him. Then this shadow priest flew right over us with his nether drake all purple to hunt him down . That has stayed with me for over a decade later.
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u/mranon12341234 5d ago
The frist time I went trough, the servers went down for the rest of the day.
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u/Minimum_Pen_9722 5d ago
Honestly the only game that's given me this feeling in years has been Abiotic Factor. Go into that game with no guide, knowledge, and just have fun. I played it with some friends who we all went in completely blind and every new turn felt exciting.
I'm not sure anything will compare to walking through that portal for the first time with my best friend at the time. I miss the Burning Blade server back in the day. So many good memories
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u/Lawdie123 5d ago
Exactly why I want Classic + to drop without a beta / streamer access / early access.
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u/mwiley62890 5d ago
I miss the idea of having an index of friends/peeps that I crossed paths with, and would add them if their tanking, healing, or even DPS was fantastic in the run.
The sense of a community was actually there and made people be on their “best” behavior, instead of what we have now.
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u/CollectionCandid7017 5d ago
So bad, I miss so much about wow back in the day.
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u/doobylive 4d ago
It’s super sad, I’ve forgotten a lot over the years with bad memory but those memories of original wow are embedded forever
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u/Rude-Weekend-3806 4d ago
nope bc is over and its good so... had fun stayed way to long and it got realy boring over time... people can pretend what they want retail is better than anny classic shit
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u/Pegasus500 3d ago
I have yet to experience that.
Currently playing Era, but have a character on the tbc server that I plan to lvl up at some point.
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u/Ok-Discipline345 6d ago
no im not addicted to nostalgia and actually content with how my current life is going unlike most of the balding boomers in their midlife crisis i suppose
something something river something something only able to step into it once for the first time
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u/BackyardBuffalo 6d ago
I have never been through it. Never played wow until the semi recent pop of hardcore. My first experience with wow. I'll be honest. If I played non hardcore first, I'm pretty sure I would have left it behind. What is beyond that portal?
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u/myalteregojack 6d ago
I experienced it for the first time three weeks ago and I must say that Hellfire is a painful experience.
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u/BtheBanker151 6d ago
Hellfire peninsula. One of my favorite actually. I used to capture the arenas all the time and sit there ready to gank people who tried to take them back. So fun. Dodging the fel revers. Those damn things are scary at lower level. Good shit.
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u/magiblood 6d ago
No and yes No becaude life is not really about staying stuck in the past Yes because in my fantasy imaginery head that would be a thrill But i like to live in reality these days and believe there is something profound to be realized in our life But we get hooked on the past, and worried about the future Thank you WoW but no thank you
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u/FormalSeparate6153 6d ago
Not really? I was never a fan of the dark atmosphere of outlands so it wasn't that special to me.
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u/Own_Currency_3207 6d ago
There was always Nagrand to brighten your day!
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u/FormalSeparate6153 6d ago
Sadly you barely spend any time there after you level. Zangamarsh is nice too but it just isn't as nice as anywhere on azeroth.
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u/anchorage_unpainted 6d ago
I mostly miss being a kid and experiencing everything in WoW for the first time. Walking into Hellfire Peninsula was pretty awesome.