Download Ever Legion for free! everlegion.onelink.me/8OY7/WillE Use the redeem code ELAnniv1st to get a special bonus worths $100, and join the amazing anniversary events before they expire.
this feels a bit incomplete regarding the furbolgs as you can get exalted with timbermaw hold and when you complete the quest to kill the demon corrupting the furbolgs in winterfall village, you get a quest to be the envoy to the horde where thrall announces a shout-out for your accomplishment and declares the timbermaw furbolgs an ally of the horde.
For anyone wondering where the Azshara furbolg gate leads, it's to a huge underground cave complex called Barrow deeps that's below whole Hyjal. You actually visit it in Warcraft 3 campaign.
Aesthetically, it seems odd for the night elven druids to slumber in a place where the entrance appears to be architecturally human. However, the presence of furbolgs supports the idea.
I guess it must overlooked by a lot of people the the Timbermaws are the only furbolgs who resisted to the corruption because they're the one Malfurion and Tyrande helped in that wc3 mission.
When I was leveling through classic (my first experience with WoW) I always loved finding small things hidden away and scrapped content. A few things I'd like to mention: -Uldaman quest that takes you to the gates of Uldum surrounded by stone giants, a crack in the gate, but leads nowhere. -Tel'abim -Quel'thalas, the one accessible in vanilla. -The Wildhammer do appear before cata. Shadowmoon in Outland -The hints at Pandaria with the bridge in the Swamp of Sorrows and turtles in SoS and Darkshore. -Almost completely unused area in the islands off of southeast stranglethorn.
Although I can't remember where I found this. Almost 100% positive I dug something up about those turtles you mention being naga mounts, not panda mounts. I'm pretty sure it was something in game that mentioned it too.
yeah in darkshore you collect the remains of a skeletal turtle with the saddle that looks like a panda saddle, but its revealed in quest text to be a naga mount
@Mycenaea chinese inspired architecture, models found nowhere else in the game. its environmental storytelling that a panda visiting SoS. darkshore quests i think also mentions the turtles coming from strange lands. (remember the big turtle with all the pandas on it)
THIS video exemplifies why I think you have the current best wow content. EVERYTHING you mention you also SHOW in the video, even the Pyrewood Villagers switching to their worgen forms (I don't even know how you can record that without just staying there for a while waiting for sundown) I applaud you sir
"I don't even know how you can record that without just staying there for a while waiting for sundown" Called hosting a local private server, you can even see the gm ability / macros on the bar. Most nice production wow content creators use such for visuals
It’s cool how you first meet problematic furbolgs in NE starting zone at ~5 level and then this theme is developed up to 50+ levels. There are many things like that, this was one of the most important parts of classic wow: really well done chekhovs guns across the world
Man that's so true. I miss that feeling of rational, planned-out storytelling. Now it's just 2 years of emergent random crap that ignores or retcons the established lore, then they drop it and move on to the next 2 year cycle.
Token could work if it would be a ingame feature. where players pay 10k gold for ingame subscription. but since the token is generated from think air because of blizzard greed that totally destroys the game and make any time investment and playing the game meaningless. ameks items 3x more expensive etc etc
My favorite one of those is Silithid that are all over Kalimdor, even from the earlier zones (Barrens being the lowest one I can think of), foreshadoing the penultimate raid of the base game. Really, really interesting.
@@unterschichtblog yes! I remember wondering who they are, because I didn’t recognise them from Warcraft. And also this half buried giant “elefant” skull in dark shores. And then it turns out this all is connected. So awesome.
Remember the baby gryphon you save from the cage in the old questline in the Hinterlands? Sharpbeak? He is all grown up and makes his return in Zaralek caves all these years later. 😊
Sharpbeak is just a shady conman, the minute you rescue him, he flies back 'to get captured' again.. i guess he shares the loot of fallen adventures with those Vilebranch
@@blackelton7127 The goblins of Booty Bay also belong to the Steamwheedle Cartel. The goblins in this region are affiliated with the Blackwater Raiders and run Booty Bay as something of a joint venture.
15:40 one thing I like about Turtle Wow is they add a Gryphon mount as an exalted reward for the Wildhammer clan. It works just like a normal mount though, but looks like it’s flying close to the surface
I just started playing hc on turtlewow and I dont understand: Is Mysteries of Azeroth its completely own expansion with own raids and such, or is it just an addition to classic content?
@@vegard7020 It's just an addition to classic content. New zones, quests, dungeons etc. Apparently they plan to add new raids eventually, but everyone says they've been saying that for years so I doubt we'd see it anytime soon. I've only played there for a couple months
Way back when I played vanilla, it was so exciting running across stuff that seemed to have no purpose. I remember being in Tanaris and came across the entrance to Caverns of Time before it was a thing. As a level 60, there was an unknown level elite dragon that would 1 shot you. Then there was also Uldum.
Thanks for this video, WillE. It honestly makes me want to come back and play WoW Classic. I played retail from March 2005 Vanilla WoW through June 2022 Shadowlands. I finally stopped playing in June of 2022 after playing over that 17-year window. Seeing this footage of the "old world" of WoW really brings back special memories. So many of those memories are burned into my mind and are very vivid. I think that Vanilla WoW was the best gaming experience I've ever had in my life. I'm 39 years old now, but I was playing Vanilla WoW during my undergraduate years as a student. I am tempted to come back and play Classic WoW, but I'm not sure I want to do that again. I would need to have one person I know play with me rather than go in alone. One of my big turnoffs about retail WoW was the ever-increasing raid difficulty of mythic raid content. As a GM and raid leader for 15 years (2007-2022), this job became increasingly difficult. I don't miss it, or at least most of it. Ha. We achieved multiple CEs over the years, but it became real, serious work, not a game. That's really a shame. Even for the average raider who had no managerial or leadership responsibilities, the process of delving deep into a mythic raid tier became exhausting. That hurts guilds, teams, and community. It's toxic for the game itself.
Let's not forget the unfinished instance of Karazhan's Crypt, located just outside the tower. A place that was designed... well, in a such a disturbing way it veered toward the Rated M category. And Blizzard hasn't even touched it since. Just left it there.
Another one that would be cool is the other side of the city in Blackrock Depths. When you enter the dungeon, turn left, then take another left and right your way to the big fire golem boss, there is a giant door behind him. Back when they were making the dungeon that door was meant to go to the other side of the dungeon. BRD was actually meant to be twice as big, which is just insane. It would be done like UBRS, made into a 10 man raid inside a 5 man dungeon.
Content like this is why turtle wow is so successful. They've released so much custom content that still makes a lot of sense in the wow world, like Tel'Abim and Karazhan Crypts. They're also releasing their own version of Gilneas soon
yes but people want that official, not just a fan made even when fanmade is good, also turtle wow compare to any of the official server have a low playerbase but for private server is good, also favorite thing of player base wow is complain about the game XDD, i can perfectly imagine blizz contract the same poeple who made turtle wow for make offfical vanilla + and someone ever will be complain about that XDDD, and some content dont have anysense, i will preffer they focus more on novels, books, comics story than just custom
@@jorgecarvajal5385 Turtle wow does have a huge playerbase though, there are literally thousands, up to 5k everyday on a SINGLE server to the point where it's considered a problem, meanwhile on official classic servers there are only a couple hundred on a good day. But yeah, people don't complain about the implementation of custom content turtle wow has done, since they're not blizzard and are doing more than most servers anyway. I disagree with stories told through books and novels being a good thing, that's the main reason wow's story sucks, because you literally can't experience the full story in game and have to buy books to even follow through with the story.
Experiencing Vanilla WoW was absolutely amazing. Never before had a game captivated me like that. And never again it will because in this day and age, you know too much about a game before it is out. And until something truly new comes along, it’s already been there. Truly one of the greatest games to have ever existed.
As someone who really enjoyed Warcraft 3, I always wished to see more of Dalaran in WoW Classic. It was such a major location in W3 with Kel'Thuzad summoning Archimonde, Illidan trying to destroy Ice crown with the eye of Sargeras from there, Kael'Thas struggling with Garithos, getting locked up in the dungeons and then freed an lead to the Outland by Vashj and Illidan. It even had a "Raid-like" Dungeon level in W3, so why not explore that again in WoW? Instead we just have this giant purple blob :D
Only for it to be used as a tiny city in wrath of the lich king. I mean I don't even hate Dalaran in wrath but that's also because I tell myself this is not the exact same Dalaran that was destroyed by Arthas. It's just hilarious how small they made it when it was supposed to be some major city, greater than Stormwind or Orgrimmar even.
I thought Under City was going to be under the ruins of DAlaran, because in WC3 the sewer beasts are from Dalaran. Magically cleaned sewers seems better than poop filler Lorderon ones too.
I would love to see them do a classic plus where they flesh out these areas with new raids, pvp, and quest content in the spirit of classic. It would make development cost cheaper and would probably get a lot of people playing seeing as how classic is going through a big resurgence organically.
Opening up these areas, introducing new dungeons, raids and battlegrounds based on unfinished content would be so cool. Even just finishing off unfinished storylines, where you are left scratching your head because they abruptly end, would be very welcome.
It would be great if some of this could flesh out the level 40+ stretch. The last few solo levels in Vanilla Classic reminded me that you could "complete" some zones without even a full level to show for it. You end up sitting around and grinding some of the time just to get the XP needed to move on to the next zone. Having a few extra caves, quest chains, and an extra zone or two would be huge for getting over that last hurdle.
@yawanoc I agree. One thing the game needs is extra quests and maybe an extra dungeon to help during that slow level stretch. Especially because when you hit 50 so much is available for you to do that the last stretch becomes fun because there's so many dungeons you have that can be repeated for BIS gear, end game quests and attunement. 40 to 50 was the worst slog but the game could use extra quests throughout to flesh out zones more in general. Always felt like there was so many zones where you would only spend a level or two and bypass so many cool places where there's no questing objectives.
Well the sad thing is that the people who have been working on those unfinished things dont work at blizzard anymore. And i think that if the current blizzard employee would finish those things its gonna be pretty underwhelming or look waay too futuristic 😅. And they also have forgotten long time what those placed were intended to be
On the note of Hinterlands, specifically the Wildhammer Dwarves, there's a Horde equivalent that could easily be added if Blizzard wanted to do something with it, the Revantusk tribe, it, like the wildhammer dwarves, was a reputation back in Classic but didn't last as long being removed in patch 1.11, the troll tribe didn't fair as well as the dwarves did, their areas are just used as a quest hubs and the reputation never got re-added later like the Wildhammer reputation did in cata. Definitely feels like they wanted to do something there but it was cut since each faction had a reputation there.
I remember hearing that Hyjal was going to be an end game zone with dragons fighting demons. They could still do something like this if they are going towards a Classic+ route.
Yes! Hyjal as a playable, explorable zone with a heap of content would just be one element of Classic+ that a lot of people would be super pumped about. And, as WillE mentioned, Dragon Isles was on the original map and could make for another very cool Classic+ zone.
it would be really cool if they did a huge legion invasion that had all the factions come together to fight them... then it would be cool if they added the dragon isles and you could play as a dragon, fly like a dragon and see the land the dragons came from, that would be neat. then it would be crazy if we went to northrend and saw what happened to arthus after W3.... [this post is satire]
@@maruraba1478 Man... don't you get it? People want new content in the spirit of vanilla wow. The spirit which they deviated from after vanilla, then even more so after wrath. Dragonflight Daycare is NOT the kind of wow content we want, we want cool fugly badass drakonids and low poly textured models. Simple combat, thematic abilities, a depth to the design.
Your video inspired me to start a new classic era char. Honestly blown away by how busy the server is. Genuinely never seen stormwind this busy. Been getting groups in the open world so easily as well. Didn’t think I could feel that classic feel again!
Token could work if it would be a ingame feature. where players pay 10k gold for ingame subscription. but since the token is generated from think air because of blizzard greed that totally destroys the game and make any time investment and playing the game meaningless. ameks items 3x more expensive etc etc
I believe that the Ashbringer quest line should have been a quest line which reign through three different sets of expansions . Firstly, as it's stated going to SM and hearing the story about Mograine's 2nd son who is located in Outlands, then you head to Outlands and find his son. He orders you to go into Sunwell, defeat Muru, and purify one of his shards (Because the Ashbringer's core is believed to be made from one of Naaru's crystals). After you purify it, Darion (on outlands) finally orders you to go to Northrend and try to purify it. You go through the expansion and in Ulduar the Dwarfs help you make the blade it self, finally perhaps at the end of TOGC or perhaps in ICC you imbue the light into the sword’s mold and combine it with the purified Muru’s Crystal/Shard, you create a reforged ashbringer.
Turtle WoW has done an incredible job reviving a lot of this content that was originally scrapped. IMO, Turtle WoW is currently the best version of Vanilla+ we have access to.
@@ChrisGlad1 not likely. The server's been up since 2018, and it's based in Eastern Europe. I'm sure if it *could* have been taken down, it would have been already.
This and the hardcore features in Turtle WoW is one of the only reasons I'm playing WoW again. Turtle WoW has added so much Vanilla+ content already and can't wait for the new dungeons and zones coming soon as well.
They were super ambitious, having to cut so much stuff: from Karazhan to Azshara being a very unfinished zone. It would be so cool to see everything that is hinted at, glimpsed or imagined, coming to life as continued storylines, further raids and unlocking areas and faction rewards. Classic+ would be so cool if it brought closure in so many areas while providing a new 60-70 experience that takes a whole lot of players' desires and turns them into gameplay elements.
What I and many speculated they would do with 90% of these zones was disappointing to underwhelming. If you played in the original days of the 2000s, you could see the standard and trend of Blizzards game design then. They retained much of the spirit to the story and plots of Warcraft 3. After years of WoW, scope creep and getting carried away and massive deviations from the original world, story and title just seemed the norm. They would utterly destroy a character like Kael'Thas or Malygos just to answer "wouldn't he make a cool raid boss", or "let's throw this into the game (or keep it out of the game) for (lazy formed) PvP reasons"; Or the fact they made Blood Elves part of the Horde was a massive reach just to give the horde a "pretty race", and man did they go extra on it with the males... But beyond that, it hinted a lot of open world, a lot of mystery and a lot to develop in the less so linear ways of old. There was a sort of authenticity to things, later it felt like I could tell content creators treated it like a job, not a passion and created what seemed overly formulaic experiences that get old doing it all again once level 70 or 80+.
@@MicrocosmicExperienceTo be fair they do use trickery in vanilla too. Think about the entrance to every major city, they all have some bend you have to go through. This is is where the zone file you were in unloads and the city loads. Once you know about that bend shape, you’ll see it everywhere in classic and beyond
@@dosboss6272 which intuitively makes sense, because those of us who played back then could well remember the intense lag and often outright crashes and disconnects which would often occur upon entering cities, and the reprieve in lag as you left. Those big texture loads were murder on computers of the day which often had 4gb or less of ram, video cards with 1gb or less of vram, and of course, old, slow platter HDs.
@@dosboss6272 wait you mean like in storm wind between the bridge (whit the 4 statues and the other gate) and the Portcullis behind that NPC on a horse and trade district? but dont storm wind begin at the outer walls?
Love this type of content! This is what made the world so huge and magical back in the day before wowhead and youtube answered every question before anyone even tried to explore it themselves.
I got up to revered with Wildhammer Dwarves before TBC came out. I was really bummed when they removed the rep, and even more bummed when my rep did not count for the new Wildhammer rep in a later expansion.
the great thing about early WOW is that it was an actual 'World' of warcraft. everything wasnt completely equal and balanced with a completely similar leveling path and exact same rewards at the same levels. The problem after Cata is they made everything equal and the same throughout all factions and races, and they gave us, not 'World' of warcraft, but 'Video Game' of warcraft, which we already had, where each faction starts with 1 town hall and 2 workers, and everything is 'equal', which is to say 'boring'. The best MMO worldbuilding requires you to make different factions and races with UNIQUE experiences and not just 'balance' the game, totally destroying being interesting and having unique character.
I remember being a kid during TBC and going on a trek through Kalimdor as a dwarf. Went on the boat to Auberdine, got off, went through the thousand needles, barrens and ratchet and back. I had so much fun just exploring the world. I just got back into Classic and decided to do it again.
What if the Azshara gate lead to that one gate in Mt. Hyjal that uses the Onyxia model and would serve as an alternative entrance/Hyjal raid like Blackrock Mountain having an upper and lower half?
A few points of interest were mentioned by you that I haven't heard anyone talk about in there "cut content" videos. I didn't know Furbolgs were guarding a gate way out in Azshara. Classic has a real good oportunity to reinvent the game if they can make some changes now that players have experienced the old game as fully as they possibly could.
Coming across those hidden, seemingly forgotten and empty locations while playing Classic made the world feel so much more substantial and real. I felt as though I was stepping into a world with a long and mysterious history. I really appreciated this subtle environmental storytelling, inviting me to go beyond quest objectives and wander aimlessly for hours. Thank you so much for your video 🥰
Timbermaw Hold was supposed lead to a raid during Vanilla called Barrow Deeps (a location in Warcraft III). Unfortunately it still has never seen the light of day, just like many raid entrance locations around Azeroth that never led to the raids they were supposed to be the entrances to...
Barrows Deep is supposed to hold villains all of the caliber of Illidan. It's not so strange it can't be used casually. Not that I care, having never played past wrath anyway. But still, in my headcanon Barrows Deep is basically some sort of Hell. It should represent that. At the same time, not everything is supposed to get raided. :P It's insane to think they really went all the way to even Kiljaeden. Let alone Sargeras.
I had a buddy ask me a couple of years ago about how I felt about earlier wow (we had started talking about wow classic since WoTLK classic was on the horizon) and after I explained to him that I'm the opposite of most people nowadays it seems in that I specifically look for a game that will ask me to spend hundreds or thousands of hours progressing through it and one that demands my full attention while I'm playing, I gushed on my personal experience with vanilla, BC, WoTLK, Cata, and Pandaria. I can't quite make a verbatim statement, but BASICALLY what I told him was "the way I remember the level of interest I had in WOW back then was as follows: I spent days of my time leveling, collecting supplies, and planning JUST to be able to explore zones without having to worry about dying. When you like a world so much that you can sit and devour hundreds of pages of lore on it and then go spend significant time gaining power just to safely explore that world; it's a safe bet that it's at least a somewhat enjoyable world.
Your idea about the scarlet raid and the reforged ashbringer is great. That’s the direction they should have gone. I truly feel like the burning crusade was a turn for the worse overall in the way that they approached expansions. It was fun don’t get me wrong. But they should have used the vanilla world longer..
I just don't think the standardized MMO expansion format really is what's best for the genre at all tbh. With the time it takes to develop each one, and the marketing hype the shareholders demand around the release, the devs are kinda locked in and forced to always create tougher content, more evil monsters and more marketable villains in order to sell, always expanding the game vertically but rarely horizontally. Then you end up with barren main continents and a bunch of theme park islands full of demon edgelords from space, instead of developing things like the stuff mentioned in this video.
Ages ago in the tricky-to-enter open-world Mount Hyjal in vanilla, I managed to get in and came across some construction barricades with blinking orange lights with the words "Under Construction" written on them.
Unfinished content adds to the mystery and makes classic so cool. Following xpacs felt like products, fully polished. Classic was a huge mysterious interesting world. It wasn't a video game. A magic blizzard has never recaptured.
I love videos like this. There's just something really interesting about the mystery behind things being left in the game despite being cut, little hints to what could have been that haven't been outright explained by the devs. Especially in older games like this, it adds some interesting mystery. It's also why I wish they would go the Oldschool Runescape route and go their own way. Stop after WotLK and make new content in the Classic style that was never in the retail version.
Love the 'minor curiosities' just off the beaten path stuff from Classic. Wanted to highlight another in a series of half-finished quests: Dragon 'Loyalty' Tests. Every dragon faction, when you're introduced to them, would give you an oathstone - and you'd be asked to hand it back to them as a sort of introduction and proof that you're trustworthy. This happens for the red dragonflight via Belnistrasz in Razorfen Downs, and for the green dragonflight via Itharius in an incomplete questline involving Eranikus' shade. And this practice is even mentioned in Day of the Dragon between Ronin and Deathwing. I'd like to think we would have gotten something similar with the other two flights, but we interact very little with the blue flight, and it requires a MONSTER of a reputation grind to even have a conversation with the Bronze.
It's cool how the idea of "Forging a new ashbringer" still made it into the game in a sense with the Ashbringer alt skin in Legion, with the questline taking you through all the hints that were originally scattered in Classic.
That was the biggest treat for me in legion. Had a blast doing that questline and seeing all the crazy rumors and connections people had made over the years become reality.
13:32 - I'd like to point out one thing - in the DK starting quest Darion gives the Corrupted Ashbringer to Tirion who then turns it back into the normal Ashbringer and uses that until Legion where it's either passed on to the player paladin or Liadrin. Darion uses a totally different weapon after that.
what i love most about the vanilla world is that there are secrets everywhere. you need an antidote for someone poisoned? questgiver isnt sure what to do, but his mentor lives on the other continent. go ask him. that guy has an idea, but you need to head to a far away location where its rumored that something can cure even the meanest stuff. if you take later versions of wow, the solution is always convienently placed right around the corner. there is a curse on this town? no problem, kill 20 mobs, gather 5 whatnots and visit 3 shrines that are all placed right there. quest done, the next one sends you just a little bit further. yes, you do have to travel a lot for those classic quests, but the feeling of putting work in and discovering the whole world is so good. it gives everything a bit of mistery. it doesnt feel like its something minor the questgiver or some minion couldve done while you take care of important stuff.
I always thought the Furbolg gate in Azshara was their first attempt at connecting to Winterspring, but scrapped it and built the connection from Felwood to Winterspring instead.
@Azshara-gate: i would say this was just meant as again another entrance to hyjal similar to how in winterspring there was this cave with the metal grid blocking the way to the supposed tunnel to hyjal. as "the mountain" azshara is leaning against _is_ the hyjal mountain, it would make sense that you could go from there to the remains of the tree, especially since the furbolg are kinda its guardian (wasnt there even a blocked tunnel in timbermaw hold that insinuated a way to hyjal?)
Eranikus and the Emerald Dream. You used to be able to take his Chained Essence to his brother in the Swamp of Sorrows - quest just ends till he is used as a plot device with Malfurion in the Moonglade. Uldum. Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. Stormwind Suburbs "The Return of Zul'jin" from the Hinterlands prophecy which was butchered for a raid boss The dimension the Worgen are really from dealing with the Scythe of Selune and the Satyrs The original purpose of the Emerald Portals before becoming raid bosses The Nether Dragonflight originally being used to heal Malygos and restore his sanity before.... raid boss. Karazhan and the Dark Riders, as well as that entire external area with the floating bodies. You were suppose to enter Karazhan from the top, fight through it to the bottom, than go from the bottom to the top in a mirror world. The Dark Riders were suppose to be being led by Teron Gorefiend. I thought a cool rep reward would of been to unlock the race as playable.
The idea that we either get bonus levels (remember no hit rating just %) for bonus talent points and better weapon skills would be awesome classic+ content.
Everyone talks about how mana cost is the big issue for many caster classes, what about class chains that give you these things. Maybe even dungeon/raid enchants that give you +talent points or reduced mana cost as a stat?
It would actually be really cool if in Classic+ we got the Worgen on the Alliance, the Furbolg on the Horde, and the Goblins as a neutral race similar to Pandas. Because it makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever that the greediest race on Azeroth would lock themselves out of half of the world's wealth by swearing allegiance to Thrall.
the whole ashbringer theories/research back in vanilla was amazing to see at the time, the dopefish wow exploration video is still cemented in my mind when i think of oldschool WoW , so many crazy zones that you didn't know existed or were unreleased , fun times
Crazy Idea: For Mount Hyjal, there are 2 ways I could see going about it. The logical way and the fun way. 1. Have players work with the Cenarion Circle to restore the Elven Haven as a place where Druids can live and work with both Horde and Alliance to bring about an alliance. 2. The FUN option, have it be a player fortress. Allow players to rebuild the area like they built Garrisons, but on a much larger scale. Sure, this isn't at all realistic, but it'd be dope.
It's all we love in Classic : The world is so big and full of mysteries... If we could have the Holy Ashbringer... If we could restaure Stormwind's King If we could unlock new races (worgens etc. tho I'm not a fan) The world is full of potential
One Avenue they could do for a classic+ or even a 'wow 2' reboot would be to simply advance the storylines in all the old zones as if they'd been completed in classic. It would be so neat to see stuff like the bridge in redridge get fixed, stromgarde cleared out and reoccupied, quillboar dens cleared out (but maybe more crop up in other areas), RFK cleared out but burning blade moving somewhere else, progress made in plaguelands but ground lost elsewhere or the forsaken claim it as their own, etc etc. New people in the stockades relevant to new stories. Progress/setbacks in gnomeregan. The fate of the scarlet crusade and SM; maybe abandoned but a new stronghold built elsewhere. So many storylines where you could see the small deeds of oast adventurers realized but other dangers emerged over time. And of course put in unfinished zones mentioned here which make sense in that context. Id just like a version which is thematically familiar but 'smaller' like classic was in scope and grandiosity. New storylines and characters, new nooks and crannies to discover that dont necessarily have any gameplay or story purpose but are left to the imagination, but a more or less familiar world. Maybe set it 50-100 years in the future cannonically so that the heroes and adventurers we played are old/retired or gone and only some fuzzy memory of them remains, but overshadowed by the pressing issues of the day.
i really liked the Gilneas assets, and after trying the Worgen race i was majorly disappointed to see a possible new capital city abandoned... at least they brought back somewhat similar moods with Revendreth and Kul Tiras
Similarly to how the Darkspear Tribe of trolls are the ones that team up with the horde, I think that's how we approach the Goblins joining the horde too. It's not the entire race of Goblins that joined the horde, just the ones out of Kezan. The Steamwheedle Goblins are something separate, in my mind. That's how I view Goblins also being neutral and also apart of the Horde at the same time. Two different factions of Goblins.
@@JJJBunney001 That’s a weird way of saying you agree with me? I’m just trying to help them understand the differences between different tribes or factions of races
I love videos like this! I think if blizzard or a private server did a V+ realm with all this scrapped content added and expanded upon, as well as some better balancing of the original classes with some added spells, this could make for some fantastic replayability. I would play that server in a heartbeat
Willie, would really nice to see a video talking about weapon progression. Idk if weapon by weapon of every class would b entertaining, but an overall ideal of weapon leveling with some showcases would. Cheers mate.
Im pretty sure someone found through some mining that Azhara was first made to be a BG a la Alterac valley or wintergrasp, but it was scrapped and just made into the zone, or something like that
In a way this is why vanilla was so special. It all adds to the mysteries and intrigue of the world. I'm afraid if they fleshed these zones we would lose that.
I'd love to see a "finished" version of classic: at the very least retrofit the added quests in TBC and WotLK, but also add more quests for the Wildhammer faction, add more to Azshara (maybe finish the furlbog areas there and add quests for them), finish the questline that starts with the trinket from Sunken Temple, and so on.
My theory on the Furbolg Tunnel is that it would have been how the players would get to Mount Hyjal. Winterspring borders this zone and there was some work done on it. Hyjal would have likely been an end-game zone because of its lore importance.
Willie this was a heater of a video!!! I got so pumped listening to everything. If they did suramar type questing in classic in gilneas I would cry from happiness.
I just went to the furbolg gate in Azshara, and while on retail, it got a bit of an update along with a rename "Blackmaw Hold", we know what's there. A simple hold with a few small wings.
All I ever wanted was to adventure in Azeroth. Instead Blizzard made me a hero of the alliance and the VIP of every faction. They have a huge potential to just branch the story of the WoW from classic and build out the world the way it should be. Tack on raid tiers above Naxx, update the graphics, and create more world to explore.
Incredible video! Another thing to dive into was the Uldaman quest chain that took you to the gates guarded by stone giants in the southern part of Tanaris , dead end quest that I’ve always wanted more from. Later expansion shows it being the gate to Uldum
I remember a GM finding a friend and I inside Hyjal when it was unfinished and they teleported us to a small island and gave us a warning. Trying to get to hidden areas like that and the IF airfield was so much fun. :)
If you want to know about the huge demon altar there is a quest linked with it and it's about bringing back a dead Night Elf who fights a demon lord. Yes, it is still in the game and is uncut.
Actually a cool thing about the Ashbringer/Scarlet Crusade raid idea is that back in Classic there was an zone for the Scarlet Monastery which was the entire zone with no loading screens. Since it was originally going to be one GIANT instance like BRD. I used to work on a private server that had a custom Scarlet Crusade raid on it using the zone during TBC. They could just use that and add new bosses who've taken up the mantles of the OG Scarlet Monastery. Sorta like they did later when they added the new bosses.
There is a blocked gate inside of Timbermaw Hold in the tunnel leading to Moonglade suggesting there might have been a plan to make an entrance in northern Darkshore into Timbermaw Hold.
Vanilla WoW was, much more than anything that came after, a massive D & D campaign where they said "here is your canvas for the next couple years, go paint. There are almost no encounters with massive lore implications to the franchise. It's low-level adventuring for new adventurers where, maybe, one day, you will have a prayer of confronting a full-grown dragon or Elemental Lord.
@@mikeoxlong3676 I don't think anyone would be able to recreate it. In all came together at a time when they were still operating at peak creativity, had the example of Everquest to rely and streamline, and also coincided with people getting high speed internet in their homes.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the instance portal at the end of Stratholme.. was it supposed to be the original in-dungeon entrance to Naxxramas (like MC and BWL) or to another raid?
I managed to get into Mount Hyjal on my warrior. Was so cool to explore it! Same with the grave under Karazhan. Can't do that type of exploring anymore. :(
Wasnt there a giant ass door/gate East of Deadmines, that was rumored to eventually have the ship from deadmines leave and become a quest hub. I think I read it on some reddit post years years ago, but it was discovered during Cata when you could fly around. probably not exactly what you are getting at, but still interesting there is a door/gate outside of Deadmines
Download Ever Legion for free! everlegion.onelink.me/8OY7/WillE
Use the redeem code ELAnniv1st to get a special bonus worths $100, and join the amazing anniversary events before they expire.
L-legion?
worth*
this feels a bit incomplete regarding the furbolgs as you can get exalted with timbermaw hold and when you complete the quest to kill the demon corrupting the furbolgs in winterfall village, you get a quest to be the envoy to the horde where thrall announces a shout-out for your accomplishment and declares the timbermaw furbolgs an ally of the horde.
Aah yes an ad so heavily scripted and moderated, that it sounds so god damned forced. I see a new cancer like raid coming from this thing
how about no
For anyone wondering where the Azshara furbolg gate leads, it's to a huge underground cave complex called Barrow deeps that's below whole Hyjal. You actually visit it in Warcraft 3 campaign.
Oooh... OOOOOOOH! This dude connected 2 dots! Nicely done, ma frend! :O
Aesthetically, it seems odd for the night elven druids to slumber in a place where the entrance appears to be architecturally human. However, the presence of furbolgs supports the idea.
@@H25Invicta The gate using that model is most likely just because it is unfinished content.
@@senismarsenis9678im sorry your parents didnt love you, its ok
I guess it must overlooked by a lot of people the the Timbermaws are the only furbolgs who resisted to the corruption because they're the one Malfurion and Tyrande helped in that wc3 mission.
When I was leveling through classic (my first experience with WoW) I always loved finding small things hidden away and scrapped content. A few things I'd like to mention:
-Uldaman quest that takes you to the gates of Uldum surrounded by stone giants, a crack in the gate, but leads nowhere.
-Tel'abim
-Quel'thalas, the one accessible in vanilla.
-The Wildhammer do appear before cata. Shadowmoon in Outland
-The hints at Pandaria with the bridge in the Swamp of Sorrows and turtles in SoS and Darkshore.
-Almost completely unused area in the islands off of southeast stranglethorn.
Although I can't remember where I found this. Almost 100% positive I dug something up about those turtles you mention being naga mounts, not panda mounts. I'm pretty sure it was something in game that mentioned it too.
yeah in darkshore you collect the remains of a skeletal turtle with the saddle that looks like a panda saddle, but its revealed in quest text to be a naga mount
How are the things you mentioned hints at Pandaria?
@Mycenaea chinese inspired architecture, models found nowhere else in the game. its environmental storytelling that a panda visiting SoS. darkshore quests i think also mentions the turtles coming from strange lands. (remember the big turtle with all the pandas on it)
@@Gingor1 yeah that's it
THIS video exemplifies why I think you have the current best wow content. EVERYTHING you mention you also SHOW in the video, even the Pyrewood Villagers switching to their worgen forms (I don't even know how you can record that without just staying there for a while waiting for sundown)
I applaud you sir
Get a room
@@Brucey69 you're opposed to men building other men up in a positive way? 🤔 toxic.
@@BrewmasterBubbli supporting each other is fine, but this dude is straight jerking off the creator
"I don't even know how you can record that without just staying there for a while waiting for sundown" Called hosting a local private server, you can even see the gm ability / macros on the bar. Most nice production wow content creators use such for visuals
It’s cool how you first meet problematic furbolgs in NE starting zone at ~5 level and then this theme is developed up to 50+ levels. There are many things like that, this was one of the most important parts of classic wow: really well done chekhovs guns across the world
Man that's so true. I miss that feeling of rational, planned-out storytelling. Now it's just 2 years of emergent random crap that ignores or retcons the established lore, then they drop it and move on to the next 2 year cycle.
@@Prawnsly exactly! This always feels like another filler episode. Maybe
Token could work if it would be a ingame feature. where players pay 10k gold for ingame subscription. but since the token is generated from think air because of blizzard greed that totally destroys the game and make any time investment and playing the game meaningless. ameks items 3x more expensive etc etc
My favorite one of those is Silithid that are all over Kalimdor, even from the earlier zones (Barrens being the lowest one I can think of), foreshadoing the penultimate raid of the base game. Really, really interesting.
@@unterschichtblog yes! I remember wondering who they are, because I didn’t recognise them from Warcraft. And also this half buried giant “elefant” skull in dark shores. And then it turns out this all is connected. So awesome.
Remember the baby gryphon you save from the cage in the old questline in the Hinterlands? Sharpbeak?
He is all grown up and makes his return in Zaralek caves all these years later. 😊
Sharpbeak is just a shady conman, the minute you rescue him, he flies back 'to get captured' again.. i guess he shares the loot of fallen adventures with those Vilebranch
the goblins that join the horde in cata aren't the same ones from the steamwheedle cartel, they're from the bilgewater cartel
Sailboat goblins
Weren’t the goblins from booty bay originally sailors too? I think they were Blackwater Raiders?
@@blackelton7127 The goblins of Booty Bay also belong to the Steamwheedle Cartel. The goblins in this region are affiliated with the Blackwater Raiders and run Booty Bay as something of a joint venture.
15:40 one thing I like about Turtle Wow is they add a Gryphon mount as an exalted reward for the Wildhammer clan. It works just like a normal mount though, but looks like it’s flying close to the surface
I just started playing hc on turtlewow and I dont understand: Is Mysteries of Azeroth its completely own expansion with own raids and such, or is it just an addition to classic content?
@@vegard7020 It's just an addition to classic content. New zones, quests, dungeons etc. Apparently they plan to add new raids eventually, but everyone says they've been saying that for years so I doubt we'd see it anytime soon. I've only played there for a couple months
Way back when I played vanilla, it was so exciting running across stuff that seemed to have no purpose. I remember being in Tanaris and came across the entrance to Caverns of Time before it was a thing. As a level 60, there was an unknown level elite dragon that would 1 shot you. Then there was also Uldum.
It became a full thing with AQ release and the big dragon near the entrance was actually a quest NPC you got your epic ring from.
Thanks for this video, WillE. It honestly makes me want to come back and play WoW Classic. I played retail from March 2005 Vanilla WoW through June 2022 Shadowlands. I finally stopped playing in June of 2022 after playing over that 17-year window. Seeing this footage of the "old world" of WoW really brings back special memories. So many of those memories are burned into my mind and are very vivid. I think that Vanilla WoW was the best gaming experience I've ever had in my life. I'm 39 years old now, but I was playing Vanilla WoW during my undergraduate years as a student. I am tempted to come back and play Classic WoW, but I'm not sure I want to do that again. I would need to have one person I know play with me rather than go in alone. One of my big turnoffs about retail WoW was the ever-increasing raid difficulty of mythic raid content. As a GM and raid leader for 15 years (2007-2022), this job became increasingly difficult. I don't miss it, or at least most of it. Ha. We achieved multiple CEs over the years, but it became real, serious work, not a game. That's really a shame. Even for the average raider who had no managerial or leadership responsibilities, the process of delving deep into a mythic raid tier became exhausting. That hurts guilds, teams, and community. It's toxic for the game itself.
Let's not forget the unfinished instance of Karazhan's Crypt, located just outside the tower.
A place that was designed... well, in a such a disturbing way it veered toward the Rated M category.
And Blizzard hasn't even touched it since. Just left it there.
Another one that would be cool is the other side of the city in Blackrock Depths. When you enter the dungeon, turn left, then take another left and right your way to the big fire golem boss, there is a giant door behind him. Back when they were making the dungeon that door was meant to go to the other side of the dungeon. BRD was actually meant to be twice as big, which is just insane. It would be done like UBRS, made into a 10 man raid inside a 5 man dungeon.
That is honestly the part i am the most curious about too. I really hope we will ever get to know what the plans were from the original developers
Content like this is why turtle wow is so successful. They've released so much custom content that still makes a lot of sense in the wow world, like Tel'Abim and Karazhan Crypts. They're also releasing their own version of Gilneas soon
yes but people want that official, not just a fan made even when fanmade is good, also turtle wow compare to any of the official server have a low playerbase but for private server is good, also favorite thing of player base wow is complain about the game XDD, i can perfectly imagine blizz contract the same poeple who made turtle wow for make offfical vanilla + and someone ever will be complain about that XDDD, and some content dont have anysense, i will preffer they focus more on novels, books, comics story than just custom
@@jorgecarvajal5385 Turtle wow does have a huge playerbase though, there are literally thousands, up to 5k everyday on a SINGLE server to the point where it's considered a problem, meanwhile on official classic servers there are only a couple hundred on a good day. But yeah, people don't complain about the implementation of custom content turtle wow has done, since they're not blizzard and are doing more than most servers anyway. I disagree with stories told through books and novels being a good thing, that's the main reason wow's story sucks, because you literally can't experience the full story in game and have to buy books to even follow through with the story.
@@Conandusits sad to see too, blizzard could easily pull triple that number if theu did it themselves but they just dont care
@@Conandus ill never see the fun in spending time on a private server which will eventually get shutdown
One day Blizard will shut down WoW servers. It's basically the same thing.@@djurius
Experiencing Vanilla WoW was absolutely amazing. Never before had a game captivated me like that. And never again it will because in this day and age, you know too much about a game before it is out. And until something truly new comes along, it’s already been there. Truly one of the greatest games to have ever existed.
As someone who really enjoyed Warcraft 3, I always wished to see more of Dalaran in WoW Classic. It was such a major location in W3 with Kel'Thuzad summoning Archimonde, Illidan trying to destroy Ice crown with the eye of Sargeras from there, Kael'Thas struggling with Garithos, getting locked up in the dungeons and then freed an lead to the Outland by Vashj and Illidan. It even had a "Raid-like" Dungeon level in W3, so why not explore that again in WoW? Instead we just have this giant purple blob :D
This is actually a great idea for classic +
Only for it to be used as a tiny city in wrath of the lich king. I mean I don't even hate Dalaran in wrath but that's also because I tell myself this is not the exact same Dalaran that was destroyed by Arthas. It's just hilarious how small they made it when it was supposed to be some major city, greater than Stormwind or Orgrimmar even.
I thought Under City was going to be under the ruins of DAlaran, because in WC3 the sewer beasts are from Dalaran. Magically cleaned sewers seems better than poop filler Lorderon ones too.
the expansion formula and "only endgame matters" mentality destroyed this game.
I would love to see them do a classic plus where they flesh out these areas with new raids, pvp, and quest content in the spirit of classic. It would make development cost cheaper and would probably get a lot of people playing seeing as how classic is going through a big resurgence organically.
Opening up these areas, introducing new dungeons, raids and battlegrounds based on unfinished content would be so cool. Even just finishing off unfinished storylines, where you are left scratching your head because they abruptly end, would be very welcome.
turtle wow already exists
It would be great if some of this could flesh out the level 40+ stretch. The last few solo levels in Vanilla Classic reminded me that you could "complete" some zones without even a full level to show for it. You end up sitting around and grinding some of the time just to get the XP needed to move on to the next zone. Having a few extra caves, quest chains, and an extra zone or two would be huge for getting over that last hurdle.
@yawanoc I agree. One thing the game needs is extra quests and maybe an extra dungeon to help during that slow level stretch. Especially because when you hit 50 so much is available for you to do that the last stretch becomes fun because there's so many dungeons you have that can be repeated for BIS gear, end game quests and attunement. 40 to 50 was the worst slog but the game could use extra quests throughout to flesh out zones more in general. Always felt like there was so many zones where you would only spend a level or two and bypass so many cool places where there's no questing objectives.
Well the sad thing is that the people who have been working on those unfinished things dont work at blizzard anymore. And i think that if the current blizzard employee would finish those things its gonna be pretty underwhelming or look waay too futuristic 😅. And they also have forgotten long time what those placed were intended to be
On the note of Hinterlands, specifically the Wildhammer Dwarves, there's a Horde equivalent that could easily be added if Blizzard wanted to do something with it, the Revantusk tribe, it, like the wildhammer dwarves, was a reputation back in Classic but didn't last as long being removed in patch 1.11, the troll tribe didn't fair as well as the dwarves did, their areas are just used as a quest hubs and the reputation never got re-added later like the Wildhammer reputation did in cata.
Definitely feels like they wanted to do something there but it was cut since each faction had a reputation there.
I remember hearing that Hyjal was going to be an end game zone with dragons fighting demons. They could still do something like this if they are going towards a Classic+ route.
Yes! Hyjal as a playable, explorable zone with a heap of content would just be one element of Classic+ that a lot of people would be super pumped about. And, as WillE mentioned, Dragon Isles was on the original map and could make for another very cool Classic+ zone.
it would be really cool if they did a huge legion invasion that had all the factions come together to fight them... then it would be cool if they added the dragon isles and you could play as a dragon, fly like a dragon and see the land the dragons came from, that would be neat. then it would be crazy if we went to northrend and saw what happened to arthus after W3.... [this post is satire]
@@Geckomayhem "Hyjal as a playable, explorable zone" ... LOL it exists, you just dont wanna play it for some reason.
@@maruraba1478 Man... don't you get it? People want new content in the spirit of vanilla wow. The spirit which they deviated from after vanilla, then even more so after wrath.
Dragonflight Daycare is NOT the kind of wow content we want, we want cool fugly badass drakonids and low poly textured models. Simple combat, thematic abilities, a depth to the design.
Turtle wow did hyjal and it is honestly great.
Your video inspired me to start a new classic era char. Honestly blown away by how busy the server is. Genuinely never seen stormwind this busy. Been getting groups in the open world so easily as well. Didn’t think I could feel that classic feel again!
What server? Only busy one for me is the hc server?
@@MrJcock12 firemaw
Get the voice over addon
Token could work if it would be a ingame feature. where players pay 10k gold for ingame subscription. but since the token is generated from think air because of blizzard greed that totally destroys the game and make any time investment and playing the game meaningless. ameks items 3x more expensive etc etc
Why would you even support Blizzard at this point?
I believe that the Ashbringer quest line should have been a quest line which reign through three different sets of expansions . Firstly, as it's stated going to SM and hearing the story about Mograine's 2nd son who is located in Outlands, then you head to Outlands and find his son. He orders you to go into Sunwell, defeat Muru, and purify one of his shards (Because the Ashbringer's core is believed to be made from one of Naaru's crystals). After you purify it, Darion (on outlands) finally orders you to go to Northrend and try to purify it. You go through the expansion and in Ulduar the Dwarfs help you make the blade it self, finally perhaps at the end of TOGC or perhaps in ICC you imbue the light into the sword’s mold and combine it with the purified Muru’s Crystal/Shard, you create a reforged ashbringer.
Turtle WoW has done an incredible job reviving a lot of this content that was originally scrapped. IMO, Turtle WoW is currently the best version of Vanilla+ we have access to.
Agreed. I love Turtle WoW! Just got Plainsrunning on my Tauren Hunter and it's so fun!
I’m sure they’re gonna put a cease and desist order soon
@@ChrisGlad1 not likely. The server's been up since 2018, and it's based in Eastern Europe. I'm sure if it *could* have been taken down, it would have been already.
This and the hardcore features in Turtle WoW is one of the only reasons I'm playing WoW again. Turtle WoW has added so much Vanilla+ content already and can't wait for the new dungeons and zones coming soon as well.
project epoch seems to be going into better direction
I still wonder about the Twilight Grove gate and that Dragon in the Duskwood.
They were super ambitious, having to cut so much stuff: from Karazhan to Azshara being a very unfinished zone. It would be so cool to see everything that is hinted at, glimpsed or imagined, coming to life as continued storylines, further raids and unlocking areas and faction rewards. Classic+ would be so cool if it brought closure in so many areas while providing a new 60-70 experience that takes a whole lot of players' desires and turns them into gameplay elements.
What I and many speculated they would do with 90% of these zones was disappointing to underwhelming. If you played in the original days of the 2000s, you could see the standard and trend of Blizzards game design then. They retained much of the spirit to the story and plots of Warcraft 3. After years of WoW, scope creep and getting carried away and massive deviations from the original world, story and title just seemed the norm. They would utterly destroy a character like Kael'Thas or Malygos just to answer "wouldn't he make a cool raid boss", or "let's throw this into the game (or keep it out of the game) for (lazy formed) PvP reasons"; Or the fact they made Blood Elves part of the Horde was a massive reach just to give the horde a "pretty race", and man did they go extra on it with the males...
But beyond that, it hinted a lot of open world, a lot of mystery and a lot to develop in the less so linear ways of old. There was a sort of authenticity to things, later it felt like I could tell content creators treated it like a job, not a passion and created what seemed overly formulaic experiences that get old doing it all again once level 70 or 80+.
Its amazing they made such a huge world with NO LOADING SCREENS in 2006. Unbelievable almost.
Let me blow your mind even more. It was released in 2004.
and yet in 2019 they had to add hidden loading screens to every zone called "phase lines."
@@MicrocosmicExperienceTo be fair they do use trickery in vanilla too. Think about the entrance to every major city, they all have some bend you have to go through. This is is where the zone file you were in unloads and the city loads. Once you know about that bend shape, you’ll see it everywhere in classic and beyond
@@dosboss6272 which intuitively makes sense, because those of us who played back then could well remember the intense lag and often outright crashes and disconnects which would often occur upon entering cities, and the reprieve in lag as you left. Those big texture loads were murder on computers of the day which often had 4gb or less of ram, video cards with 1gb or less of vram, and of course, old, slow platter HDs.
@@dosboss6272 wait you mean like in storm wind between the bridge (whit the 4 statues and the other gate) and the Portcullis behind that NPC on a horse and trade district?
but dont storm wind begin at the outer walls?
this video aged well :)
Love this type of content! This is what made the world so huge and magical back in the day before wowhead and youtube answered every question before anyone even tried to explore it themselves.
Yep because there are so many content creators it is 100% already explored and explained before you even reach those parts
I got up to revered with Wildhammer Dwarves before TBC came out. I was really bummed when they removed the rep, and even more bummed when my rep did not count for the new Wildhammer rep in a later expansion.
the great thing about early WOW is that it was an actual 'World' of warcraft. everything wasnt completely equal and balanced with a completely similar leveling path and exact same rewards at the same levels. The problem after Cata is they made everything equal and the same throughout all factions and races, and they gave us, not 'World' of warcraft, but 'Video Game' of warcraft, which we already had, where each faction starts with 1 town hall and 2 workers, and everything is 'equal', which is to say 'boring'. The best MMO worldbuilding requires you to make different factions and races with UNIQUE experiences and not just 'balance' the game, totally destroying being interesting and having unique character.
I remember being a kid during TBC and going on a trek through Kalimdor as a dwarf. Went on the boat to Auberdine, got off, went through the thousand needles, barrens and ratchet and back. I had so much fun just exploring the world. I just got back into Classic and decided to do it again.
What if the Azshara gate lead to that one gate in Mt. Hyjal that uses the Onyxia model and would serve as an alternative entrance/Hyjal raid like Blackrock Mountain having an upper and lower half?
I imagined that furbolg door was just the entrance to the caves of the druids of the claw from W3
A few points of interest were mentioned by you that I haven't heard anyone talk about in there "cut content" videos. I didn't know Furbolgs were guarding a gate way out in Azshara. Classic has a real good oportunity to reinvent the game if they can make some changes now that players have experienced the old game as fully as they possibly could.
Coming across those hidden, seemingly forgotten and empty locations while playing Classic made the world feel so much more substantial and real. I felt as though I was stepping into a world with a long and mysterious history. I really appreciated this subtle environmental storytelling, inviting me to go beyond quest objectives and wander aimlessly for hours. Thank you so much for your video 🥰
Timbermaw Hold was supposed lead to a raid during Vanilla called Barrow Deeps (a location in Warcraft III). Unfortunately it still has never seen the light of day, just like many raid entrance locations around Azeroth that never led to the raids they were supposed to be the entrances to...
Just curious do you have any other examples?
Barrows Deep is supposed to hold villains all of the caliber of Illidan. It's not so strange it can't be used casually. Not that I care, having never played past wrath anyway. But still, in my headcanon Barrows Deep is basically some sort of Hell. It should represent that. At the same time, not everything is supposed to get raided. :P It's insane to think they really went all the way to even Kiljaeden. Let alone Sargeras.
I had a buddy ask me a couple of years ago about how I felt about earlier wow (we had started talking about wow classic since WoTLK classic was on the horizon) and after I explained to him that I'm the opposite of most people nowadays it seems in that I specifically look for a game that will ask me to spend hundreds or thousands of hours progressing through it and one that demands my full attention while I'm playing, I gushed on my personal experience with vanilla, BC, WoTLK, Cata, and Pandaria.
I can't quite make a verbatim statement, but BASICALLY what I told him was "the way I remember the level of interest I had in WOW back then was as follows: I spent days of my time leveling, collecting supplies, and planning JUST to be able to explore zones without having to worry about dying. When you like a world so much that you can sit and devour hundreds of pages of lore on it and then go spend significant time gaining power just to safely explore that world; it's a safe bet that it's at least a somewhat enjoyable world.
Your idea about the scarlet raid and the reforged ashbringer is great. That’s the direction they should have gone. I truly feel like the burning crusade was a turn for the worse overall in the way that they approached expansions. It was fun don’t get me wrong. But they should have used the vanilla world longer..
I just don't think the standardized MMO expansion format really is what's best for the genre at all tbh. With the time it takes to develop each one, and the marketing hype the shareholders demand around the release, the devs are kinda locked in and forced to always create tougher content, more evil monsters and more marketable villains in order to sell, always expanding the game vertically but rarely horizontally. Then you end up with barren main continents and a bunch of theme park islands full of demon edgelords from space, instead of developing things like the stuff mentioned in this video.
Ppl who mark sponsored segments in Rerevanced - the real MVPs
Too true
Turtle WoW welcomes you with most of those things
If they ever do Classic + they should rework on the places on the map you cant go to. It would be awesome to see Hyjal
Ages ago in the tricky-to-enter open-world Mount Hyjal in vanilla, I managed to get in and came across some construction barricades with blinking orange lights with the words "Under Construction" written on them.
Unfinished content adds to the mystery and makes classic so cool. Following xpacs felt like products, fully polished.
Classic was a huge mysterious interesting world. It wasn't a video game.
A magic blizzard has never recaptured.
I love videos like this. There's just something really interesting about the mystery behind things being left in the game despite being cut, little hints to what could have been that haven't been outright explained by the devs. Especially in older games like this, it adds some interesting mystery.
It's also why I wish they would go the Oldschool Runescape route and go their own way. Stop after WotLK and make new content in the Classic style that was never in the retail version.
Fully explore more "But what if X didnt happen" would be sweet
One of the great things about Vanilla imo is that a lot of things were left to the imagination.
Love the 'minor curiosities' just off the beaten path stuff from Classic. Wanted to highlight another in a series of half-finished quests: Dragon 'Loyalty' Tests. Every dragon faction, when you're introduced to them, would give you an oathstone - and you'd be asked to hand it back to them as a sort of introduction and proof that you're trustworthy. This happens for the red dragonflight via Belnistrasz in Razorfen Downs, and for the green dragonflight via Itharius in an incomplete questline involving Eranikus' shade. And this practice is even mentioned in Day of the Dragon between Ronin and Deathwing. I'd like to think we would have gotten something similar with the other two flights, but we interact very little with the blue flight, and it requires a MONSTER of a reputation grind to even have a conversation with the Bronze.
It's cool how the idea of "Forging a new ashbringer" still made it into the game in a sense with the Ashbringer alt skin in Legion, with the questline taking you through all the hints that were originally scattered in Classic.
That was the biggest treat for me in legion. Had a blast doing that questline and seeing all the crazy rumors and connections people had made over the years become reality.
13:32 - I'd like to point out one thing - in the DK starting quest Darion gives the Corrupted Ashbringer to Tirion who then turns it back into the normal Ashbringer and uses that until Legion where it's either passed on to the player paladin or Liadrin. Darion uses a totally different weapon after that.
Whats cool is the ashbringer story and a lot of other parts like gilneas is exactly what Turtle WoW is doing right now.
You forgot the part of darkshore that got updated in battle for azeroth, it shows the full statue
what i love most about the vanilla world is that there are secrets everywhere. you need an antidote for someone poisoned?
questgiver isnt sure what to do, but his mentor lives on the other continent. go ask him.
that guy has an idea, but you need to head to a far away location where its rumored that something can cure even the meanest stuff.
if you take later versions of wow, the solution is always convienently placed right around the corner.
there is a curse on this town? no problem, kill 20 mobs, gather 5 whatnots and visit 3 shrines that are all placed right there.
quest done, the next one sends you just a little bit further.
yes, you do have to travel a lot for those classic quests, but the feeling of putting work in and discovering the whole world is so good.
it gives everything a bit of mistery.
it doesnt feel like its something minor the questgiver or some minion couldve done while you take care of important stuff.
Currently watching this while leveling my hunter on era. Keep up the classic content!
I always thought the Furbolg gate in Azshara was their first attempt at connecting to Winterspring, but scrapped it and built the connection from Felwood to Winterspring instead.
@Azshara-gate: i would say this was just meant as again another entrance to hyjal similar to how in winterspring there was this cave with the metal grid blocking the way to the supposed tunnel to hyjal. as "the mountain" azshara is leaning against _is_ the hyjal mountain, it would make sense that you could go from there to the remains of the tree, especially since the furbolg are kinda its guardian (wasnt there even a blocked tunnel in timbermaw hold that insinuated a way to hyjal?)
Eranikus and the Emerald Dream. You used to be able to take his Chained Essence to his brother in the Swamp of Sorrows - quest just ends till he is used as a plot device with Malfurion in the Moonglade.
Uldum.
Gates of Ahn'Qiraj.
Stormwind Suburbs
"The Return of Zul'jin" from the Hinterlands prophecy which was butchered for a raid boss
The dimension the Worgen are really from dealing with the Scythe of Selune and the Satyrs
The original purpose of the Emerald Portals before becoming raid bosses
The Nether Dragonflight originally being used to heal Malygos and restore his sanity before.... raid boss.
Karazhan and the Dark Riders, as well as that entire external area with the floating bodies. You were suppose to enter Karazhan from the top, fight through it to the bottom, than go from the bottom to the top in a mirror world. The Dark Riders were suppose to be being led by Teron Gorefiend.
I thought a cool rep reward would of been to unlock the race as playable.
The idea that we either get bonus levels (remember no hit rating just %) for bonus talent points and better weapon skills would be awesome classic+ content.
Everyone talks about how mana cost is the big issue for many caster classes, what about class chains that give you these things. Maybe even dungeon/raid enchants that give you +talent points or reduced mana cost as a stat?
Just like Diablo and parangons points ?
It would actually be really cool if in Classic+ we got the Worgen on the Alliance, the Furbolg on the Horde, and the Goblins as a neutral race similar to Pandas. Because it makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever that the greediest race on Azeroth would lock themselves out of half of the world's wealth by swearing allegiance to Thrall.
Yeah but it was only a single cartel that pledge allegiance, even then lorewise they still do business with both factions
I think the Goblins, Ogres, Ethereals, and Aarakocra should make a 3rd neutral faction. Cash is king after all.
I would like to see the neutral faction grow and lead to peace.
Furbolgs would look kind dumb in gear I think
I would love to see Furbolg
the whole ashbringer theories/research back in vanilla was amazing to see at the time, the dopefish wow exploration video is still cemented in my mind when i think of oldschool WoW , so many crazy zones that you didn't know existed or were unreleased , fun times
Watching this after Gilneas and Hyjal were added on Turtle WoW
This dude reminds me of dangerdolan when he used to make WoW vids back in the day. With that being said this vid is awesome and im def subbing
Crazy Idea: For Mount Hyjal, there are 2 ways I could see going about it. The logical way and the fun way.
1. Have players work with the Cenarion Circle to restore the Elven Haven as a place where Druids can live and work with both Horde and Alliance to bring about an alliance.
2. The FUN option, have it be a player fortress. Allow players to rebuild the area like they built Garrisons, but on a much larger scale. Sure, this isn't at all realistic, but it'd be dope.
I like how 90% of these cut content or potential ideas have been implemented in TurtleWoW lol
It's all we love in Classic : The world is so big and full of mysteries...
If we could have the Holy Ashbringer...
If we could restaure Stormwind's King
If we could unlock new races (worgens etc. tho I'm not a fan)
The world is full of potential
One Avenue they could do for a classic+ or even a 'wow 2' reboot would be to simply advance the storylines in all the old zones as if they'd been completed in classic. It would be so neat to see stuff like the bridge in redridge get fixed, stromgarde cleared out and reoccupied, quillboar dens cleared out (but maybe more crop up in other areas), RFK cleared out but burning blade moving somewhere else, progress made in plaguelands but ground lost elsewhere or the forsaken claim it as their own, etc etc. New people in the stockades relevant to new stories. Progress/setbacks in gnomeregan. The fate of the scarlet crusade and SM; maybe abandoned but a new stronghold built elsewhere. So many storylines where you could see the small deeds of oast adventurers realized but other dangers emerged over time.
And of course put in unfinished zones mentioned here which make sense in that context. Id just like a version which is thematically familiar but 'smaller' like classic was in scope and grandiosity. New storylines and characters, new nooks and crannies to discover that dont necessarily have any gameplay or story purpose but are left to the imagination, but a more or less familiar world. Maybe set it 50-100 years in the future cannonically so that the heroes and adventurers we played are old/retired or gone and only some fuzzy memory of them remains, but overshadowed by the pressing issues of the day.
Scarlet Crusade raid or instance. How about an entire expansion with that theme instead?
That Dragon Isles concept art actually has a model and was in the game, but was inaccessible and wasn't textured.
i really liked the Gilneas assets, and after trying the Worgen race i was majorly disappointed to see a possible new capital city abandoned... at least they brought back somewhat similar moods with Revendreth and Kul Tiras
Similarly to how the Darkspear Tribe of trolls are the ones that team up with the horde, I think that's how we approach the Goblins joining the horde too. It's not the entire race of Goblins that joined the horde, just the ones out of Kezan. The Steamwheedle Goblins are something separate, in my mind. That's how I view Goblins also being neutral and also apart of the Horde at the same time. Two different factions of Goblins.
This is canon
Isn't that sort of explicitly stated? Same as how the bilgewater are enemies of the horde?
@@JJJBunney001 That’s a weird way of saying you agree with me? I’m just trying to help them understand the differences between different tribes or factions of races
I love videos like this! I think if blizzard or a private server did a V+ realm with all this scrapped content added and expanded upon, as well as some better balancing of the original classes with some added spells, this could make for some fantastic replayability. I would play that server in a heartbeat
Turtle WoW is probably what you're looking for then
I wonder if they will actually utilize these tunnels with the release of War Within. Seems highly likely.
Now ya'll just wait until WillE covers the Turtle WoW server with all those online and working as OG Blizzard intended.
Willie, would really nice to see a video talking about weapon progression. Idk if weapon by weapon of every class would b entertaining, but an overall ideal of weapon leveling with some showcases would. Cheers mate.
Im pretty sure someone found through some mining that Azhara was first made to be a BG a la Alterac valley or wintergrasp, but it was scrapped and just made into the zone, or something like that
In a way this is why vanilla was so special. It all adds to the mysteries and intrigue of the world. I'm afraid if they fleshed these zones we would lose that.
I'd love to see a "finished" version of classic: at the very least retrofit the added quests in TBC and WotLK, but also add more quests for the Wildhammer faction, add more to Azshara (maybe finish the furlbog areas there and add quests for them), finish the questline that starts with the trinket from Sunken Temple, and so on.
My theory on the Furbolg Tunnel is that it would have been how the players would get to Mount Hyjal. Winterspring borders this zone and there was some work done on it. Hyjal would have likely been an end-game zone because of its lore importance.
Willie this was a heater of a video!!! I got so pumped listening to everything. If they did suramar type questing in classic in gilneas I would cry from happiness.
I just went to the furbolg gate in Azshara, and while on retail, it got a bit of an update along with a rename "Blackmaw Hold", we know what's there. A simple hold with a few small wings.
Centaur factions were probably a design idea in Vanilla that was further developed with the Aldor & Scryers in TBC.
I never knew that those mobs in Silverpine and Westfall changed depending on the time of day. That's so cool
All I ever wanted was to adventure in Azeroth. Instead Blizzard made me a hero of the alliance and the VIP of every faction. They have a huge potential to just branch the story of the WoW from classic and build out the world the way it should be. Tack on raid tiers above Naxx, update the graphics, and create more world to explore.
Incredible video! Another thing to dive into was the Uldaman quest chain that took you to the gates guarded by stone giants in the southern part of Tanaris , dead end quest that I’ve always wanted more from. Later expansion shows it being the gate to Uldum
Seeing all these classic areas, and hearing the OG login screen music hit me with some hard nostalgia.
I remember a GM finding a friend and I inside Hyjal when it was unfinished and they teleported us to a small island and gave us a warning. Trying to get to hidden areas like that and the IF airfield was so much fun. :)
Love these kinds of vids! I don’t play classic at all anymore (loving DF) but came back to the channel for this one.
If you want to know about the huge demon altar there is a quest linked with it and it's about bringing back a dead Night Elf who fights a demon lord. Yes, it is still in the game and is uncut.
Turning attention to my favorite unused stuff in classic, top notch video
I like how each time a new iteration of classic comes out, the same videos get redone by the same channels over and over again
Actually a cool thing about the Ashbringer/Scarlet Crusade raid idea is that back in Classic there was an zone for the Scarlet Monastery which was the entire zone with no loading screens. Since it was originally going to be one GIANT instance like BRD. I used to work on a private server that had a custom Scarlet Crusade raid on it using the zone during TBC. They could just use that and add new bosses who've taken up the mantles of the OG Scarlet Monastery. Sorta like they did later when they added the new bosses.
I love the fact that Turtle Wow will bring all of this content to their game 😍😍😍🙏
Unused areas and closed off gates etc just gave such a sense of mystery that we'll never get again
Btw, turtlewow is trying to implement many of these features! Love this server 🐢
Seeing some of these threads pulled in SoD would be super cool
Just not going to talk about the SW gate with the green portal behind it?
There is a blocked gate inside of Timbermaw Hold in the tunnel leading to Moonglade suggesting there might have been a plan to make an entrance in northern Darkshore into Timbermaw Hold.
Vanilla WoW was, much more than anything that came after, a massive D & D campaign where they said "here is your canvas for the next couple years, go paint. There are almost no encounters with massive lore implications to the franchise. It's low-level adventuring for new adventurers where, maybe, one day, you will have a prayer of confronting a full-grown dragon or Elemental Lord.
It was magical in a way blizzard never was able to recreate.
@@mikeoxlong3676 I don't think anyone would be able to recreate it. In all came together at a time when they were still operating at peak creativity, had the example of Everquest to rely and streamline, and also coincided with people getting high speed internet in their homes.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the instance portal at the end of Stratholme.. was it supposed to be the original in-dungeon entrance to Naxxramas (like MC and BWL) or to another raid?
Yes Naxx is floating above it behind the portal
I think that many of the mentioned content adds to the over all mystery and 'décor' or the world of Warcraft.
I managed to get into Mount Hyjal on my warrior. Was so cool to explore it!
Same with the grave under Karazhan. Can't do that type of exploring anymore. :(
Wasnt there a giant ass door/gate East of Deadmines, that was rumored to eventually have the ship from deadmines leave and become a quest hub. I think I read it on some reddit post years years ago, but it was discovered during Cata when you could fly around. probably not exactly what you are getting at, but still interesting there is a door/gate outside of Deadmines
Wow i actually thought i knew everything but i was never aware of that furbolg cave; great video!