I took so long to make this video, that a couple of these locations actually made it into Season of Discovery! I really think they've nailed it with their rune quests - expect me to cover them in some way soon :)
I have yet to see a compilation (not of short clips, but a thurough one) of all the "new" stuff, they added to SoD. Everything I seem to hear is "Oh this random npc now drops a new questitem, that starts a more or less interesting questline that gives a new ability at the end". That doesn't sound too exciting for me, but people keep praising it, so I'd be really glad if someone would actually do such a thing. No intention to hint at you, since your content has a vastly different style than this hunting after being the first to show of the newest stuff, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
@@Yormolch I definitely plan to cover SoD's "best bits" very soon! But the list of small changes made is quite exhaustive, so I'll leave that in the hands of others :P
You left out my favourite place. The little farm overlooking the Wetlands. You can get there from the dwarven airfield with careful drops or slowfall. There is also the cabin with Defias above the Mirror Lake waterfall in Elwyn. Most players miss it although it has easy access. And there is the bugged world under Stormwind. And the Hellfire "preview" under the Blasted Lands but that one I never managed to get to.
14:00 I'd give people tours to the airfield! It's one of my fondest memories, gathering a group and going on a hike through the mountains. We'd put on a show for people flying by, wave and dance :D
There's actually a spot somewhere up in the mountains where you can slow fall and jump off and you will end up on top of Ironforge bank. Me and my buddy did it during Wrath and we started summoning other Horde up there lmao!
I did the same but for the dancing troll village. Best part was I had never actually gone to the place before. I just felt like going there with a crew after watching a video so I asked people if they wanted to discover it with me. Was a real old-school adventure
I really like how laid back your experience of the game feels. WoW, especially current, feels so busy with so many tasks to do, that I'm usually sprinting from objective to objective. I really enjoy this chance to slow down and pay attention to the details in the world, even ones with no lore significance.
@@tyrous1743 Sorry, but no. It's not just a matter of mindset, the entire game design philosophy has changed. Maps are not designed with this playstyle in mind, they are much more of theme parks carefully prepared to be filled with quests and world quests, squished and compressed together as to be as convenient grind islands as possible, travel and exploration has been reduced to an afterthought because players have long complained that they don't want to do that and simply want to get from one quest hub to another, rendering out other means of playstyle obsolete. Most side quests are reduced to 30 minute bite sized pieces as to not lose players attention, and theres barely any mystery or room for speculation left as everything needs to be explained and/or shown to the player directly. You simply cannot play this game like you used to in classic no more, be it from the story, world, exploration, or gameplay perspective.
Thanks for making this lovely video. I played WoW from March of 2005 through June of 2022. Our guild was a Horde guild named Obsidian Spur, originally on Sargeras up through Mists of Pandaria, and then we moved the guild to Thrall where it still resides. My name was Wretchedmist, undead priest and GM of our guild. Looking back now, I feel extremely fortunate to be part of that player base who played the original Vanilla WoW. I know all of the locations in this video, and it really made me feel good to go back in time here and relive these places through your video. I remember when we first went to Alcaz island and went into the prison area. We found King Varian Wrynn in there, and if I recall he was a yellow NPC back then. I think we went there with one of our rogues, which makes sense with the Defias Brotherhood quest chain. I still have the screenshots somewhere from 2005-2006 or whenever that was. This was a time when fantasy was a key part of WoW. Going slow, stopping and looking, theory crafting, exploring the world, imagining, being present. The game was way, way more about living the fantasy in conjunction with the dungeons, raids, pvp, farming, etc. This element of WoW no longer exists, nor has it for many years. It's much less about guilds and community, and that's not just due to the game's age, but intentional game design changes made by the company over years. Death by a thousand cuts. It brings sadness to my heart about the game I once loved so much. I don't know if I'll ever come back. If I do, it will be as a casual. Raiding - especially mythic raiding - had become so tedious, requiring immense energy, effort, and time as guild master and raid leader. Extreme boss tuning, hundreds of wipes, scripted CD usage, 10-15-minute fights, countless one-shot mechanics and raid-wiping mechanics, mandatory high parsing requirements, high player turnover, the influence of e-sports, the list goes on and on. I tip my hat to all players who are having a blast in Classic WoW and Season of Discovery. You're playing the best iterations of WoW (outside of original Vanilla) that create the opportunities for this community, guild, and fantasy again.
sadly nothing after vanilla matched the quality of the world. every expansion is just few new zones and a lot less dungeons and raids than what vanilla had. the insane amount of content is just unreal. it feels like vanilla was made by completely different ppl
I love stuff like this. It's honestly probably the reason why classic WoW has hooked me in a way that a lot of other mmo's didn't. The scope of the world was just massive especially for the time and all the little hideaways in-between were great to just stumble upon. Immediately I'm reminded of the unmarked grave in Duskwood behind Darkshire and the existence of The Unseen in Raven Hill. I loved all the little oddities that weren't quest important or even significant in the grand scheme but were cool, like the twin colossals in Feralas or the dwarven farmhouses strewn about.
The entire "Room of Upside-down Sinners" and the upside down underwater corpses in it are a direct reference to a movie called Big Trouble in Little China, straight down to the name. This is something I don't see get mentioned a lot when people talk about Karazhan Crypts.
5:00 No Man's Landing purpose was explained at some point (I believe it was John Staats, former dev of WoW and author of "The WoW Diary"): In WoW every zone is an instance of its own, and when near borders not only the player but NPCs, objects spells, etc. are seamlessly seen and interacted between instances; that was such an engineering achievement, but before this was made the whole continent of Eastern Kingdoms was a single instance and implied that, due to rounding errors when calculating the coordinates, the further you were from the middle point, you'd suffer from blinks, misalignments and such (namely Booty Bay or Stranglethorn Vale were unplayable). No Man's Landing happens to be in the middle of the North-to-South axis and was a safe place before the zone system was properly implemented.The actual spawn point where characters are placed when entering the continent is under the world, south of Southshore.
Idk if this is just here say and rumor: but I heard that very early on into the live game it was the "debug spawn" for already existing characters that the server "lost" in one way or another. Maybe because of it being a safe zone during that early time for servers you mentioned, it would make the most sense to spawn lost characters there, thus lowering the chance the server loses them on repeat? The by far most common way have the server lose a character is if something goes wrong with cross continental travel. Usually, if someone's PC is just slow enough to load in to the new zone, just as the boat/Zeppelin they're on has gone into the loading zone again, causing it to loop until the server doesn't know where the character should be. This happened to me a lot in legion lol, but ofc that just sent me to the faction specific debug spawns of sentinel Hill and cross roads. Again, can't confirm but I remember hearing that for a super brief time in wrath, if a DK death gripped someone in the same spell batch as the booty bay ship they were on brought them to the loading screen, it would drag the gripped player to that landing. So perhaps since that 0x0 coordinate was safe, they made it debug spawn, and thus made it so when you were using transit originally, for a brief moment it considered you there?
@@literallynobody9769 I do wonder whats Kalimdors equivalent of No mans landing. also from what I remmber whit the DK death grip you only needed to pull someone off the boat when you was standing on the Botty bay dock or the other way around. I think you needed to be on the boat and the other person on the dock. as that would bug out the position (because the game would move you from a world location (zone) to a local location (boat), the game dont ask where your are on the world when your on a boat it ask you where you are on the boat (prevents jittering when your on a moving item). the DK Death grip bugs it out and sends the player to the permanent boat copy under Arathi Highlands.
@@Zack_Wester yeah I think your recollection of that bug is better than mine haha. Crazy to see someone reply to my ramblings haha, thanks! Honestly yeah I do wonder what Kalimdors was, Honestly maybe it was just the same xroads grave yard? Since it's pretty central, maybe that would explain why nobody thought it was too weird because it was already a place in use?
@@Zack_Wester The thing is that there's no equivalent of No Man's Landing because by the time Kalimdor was implemented (EK was made much earlier) the new zone instance system already was in place and there was no need for such place. The spawn point from a transport you're commenting exists but it's not related to No Man's Landing, although it was mistaken for long because they're similar concepts. Again, I cited the source, this was explained by one of the developers. I do have a recent screenshot of the underground spawn for transports just South of the Sludge Fields in Hillsbrad.
Quick correction on 18:10 you CAN actually find one of these at the warrior berserk stance quest on the island just off the barrens. It’s what you stand on in the middle of dueling circle. Other than that, awesome video!
Correct me if I'm wrong because this is a nearly 20 year old memory but isn't there a small opening underwater near the grate that allows you to swim under it? Pretty sure there's a Frenzy fish there that attacks you as well
Man i love the smooth and chilling character of your videos. Its like a friend telling a story like back in the day when the game was much more of a fantastic mistery!
The Dwarven Farm has been my favorite hidden area for years. It's so quiet and peaceful and almost otherworldly. I think that's what makes some of these places so special.
I was a cata baby, so a lot of these little corners of Azeroth that were reworked are still so fascinating to me. The thing that made me fall in love with wow was the atmosphere and just existing in the world. I remember just walking around Darkshore and taking in all the different variations in the scenery, wondering what these ruins were for, or why the climate is the way it is, and I feel like your videos do a good job of catering to that wonder I felt. Keep up the lovely work!
I'm very surprised you mentioned that Wetlands farm but not the larger village in the Wetlands hills. There's Ironforge NPCs that you can ask directions and a fun signpost pointing directions to "This Way" and "That Way"
I love videos like these! One of my most memorable moments in Vanilla wow years ago was climbing up to Mount Hyjal through a series of pretty nutty wall climbings and finding Archimondes skeleton still clinging to the world tree as well as a whole uninhabited zone which looks VERY different to what they brought in for Cataclysm.
EXCELLENT vid. I instantly subbed when I saw the title alone, and it didn't disappoint. I've watched this like five times so far! Stories and places in old games is great stuff. Thanks!!
I'm so glad that SoD brings us to therefore unknown and unused locations that are just kind of there. Makes me feel like a kid playing wow for the first time again. And I hope many of the here mentioned will get a time in the limelight
These places and others like them were part of what made it feel like WORLD of Warcraft. God I miss the sense of exploration that came with playing this game for the first time, almost 20 years ago now...
i miss playing the original potco so much, i almost cried when i heard it. i know theres a private server reboot but u can never replicate a place and a time (they did a great job tho)
Brilliant video, some good memories of exploration here. A couple of my favourites not mentioned in the video were the hidden Wetlands farm with the hallway that leads underneath the map that ends with a drop into an out-of-bounds killbox, and a place I took to calling Stonetalon plateau. If you could find your way up the hills south of Ashenvale, you eventually come across a huge featureless gap in the mountains. I just liked how weird they were. So many hidden things in the old game!
This was such a wonderfully made video! Clear love and passion for the source, and I really liked the clean, understated editing style. And thanks for putting the music sources in the description as well!
Something else cool I found at the Ironforge Airfield while exploring in SoD, is that there is a Stormpike Guard NPC on the northern side. Next to her(?) are a couple of Gryphon roosts that you usually only see at flight paths. You can also jump down a waterfall on the northern side to enter the Wetlands, into a mountain farm of some sort. You can see this while questing in the zone, so it's cool to be able to have a look around up close. P.S. Great vid!
from there you can also enter one of the buildings, one of which inside ends into a white void, with an epic mount and slowfall from noggenfogger potion, you can jump into the void and float all the way back to ironforge , ending in old iron forge
Majula theme was perfect for Purgation Isle, especially with that shot of the bonfire. More content in a game is often better but for an MMORPG it's really special to have disused or questless zones and points of interest. Not everything needs an explanation or a purpose and sometimes finding your own special little pointless spot in the world is its own reward. I used to chill in that creepy little Tauren town south of Silithus on the coast all the time. Not exactly an unknown spot but a spooky little spot where you could just chill.
Great format. Very good use of music to set a mood and you're very relaxing to listen to. Would love to see more of this concept - there's a lot of overlooked areas like this in the game, though perhaps not as hidden, in TBC, Wrath and beyond. Off the top of my head, the mahjong table in Jade Forest where two skeletons are locked in an endless match. Good stuff.
I think I've genuinely been to ALL of these locations... I don't play WoW anymore, but I used to religiously, and this was trip down memory lane. Thanks!
This is so cool! Real nostalgia for the days on my first character on my big brothers acc when i was barely able to play the game. A lot of time i was just walking around finding places like this, sometimes it was just random houses i thought would be cool to make my home. Please make a second part, i could watch this forever!! I can think of the hidden tauren village outside on the coast of tanaris, found that place by accident and was amazed
Watched both these WoW episodes back-to-back, then the next recommendation is a video on Silverlight. Man, you know how to play on my nostalgia. Instant sub.
thanks for revisit of the old classic world. Current day internet prevents us from having these mysteries in games that made us wonder and kept our fantasies busy.
A note about Newman's Landing: In phase two of Season of Discovery, it was updated to have a quest event for the Sheath of Light Paladin rune. You investigate the last known whereabouts of a Scarlet Crusade defector and have to kill an assassin from the Crusade to continue. A nice addition to get people out into the world more.
Excellent work Verigan! Your scripts paired with the visual shots and the RPG soundtracks are always so captivating! :D Can't wait for the videos about "The Scepter of the Shifting Sands" & "Scholomance / The Barov Family"!
Love the video's topic, love the music, love your narration! I haven't played this game in years but nostalgia keeps me hooked and videos like yours are exactly my cup of tea, I don't know much about the new lore or gameplay so these little videos make me so happy
Some of these areas have been made accessible in Turtle WoW: 1. The Karazhan Crypts are now a max-level dungeon, and parts of the tower itself are now a Classic raid (as it was supposed to be) 2. Off the coast of Taranis is the new both-faction playable zone, Tel'Abrim, with a bunch of banana-themed quests. 3.. Shatterspear Village, the "dancing troll village" has been replaced by a full-fledged, Horde-aligned Forest Troll city, where the Reventusk and Amani have set up shop in Kalimdor. Horde players get a portal from Ogrimmar to access it, you can grind rep with the new faction, and have the option to make your playable Troll character Forest-troll green if you want. 4. Alliance players get a flight point to Ironforge Airfield. I don't think there are any quests up there just yet (except for a holiday quest which was a pain, though not impossible, to reach with a Horde toon), but there probably will be later. 5. I don't know if there's anything at the Arathi farm, but now I want to go and look! Turtle WoW also has new quests, new towns and quest hubs in older zones, entirely new zones and dungeons, and you have the choice to play as Goblin (for Horde) or High Elf (for Alliance), all while keeping that Classic feel and the max level is still 60, keeping all content relevant. I highly recommend the server to everyone who wanted an actual Classic + experience!
The arathi farm is a guild base for thunderbrew ale, and i highly recommend you give it a visit. Thunderbrew has a lot of gms amongst their ranks so that specific guild base have some features that you wont find anywhere else, no spoilers.
On the classic map, there was a small house waaaaay on the south coast of Silithus. Had to hoof it all the way from Tanaris to find it. I have NEVER seen anyone talk about this place. Shame my old drive died with the screenshots on it. There was also a couple huts between Mulgore and the Barrens on top of the mountains that's visible from a flight path but accessible via some careful jumps. Another place nobody ever talked about visiting.
the feeling you capture is really unlike any other wow videos ive seen. none can truly take me back to summers of the late 00s like these. i remember swimming up the side of westfall to find newmans landing the first time, my friends and i decreed it our new clubhouse for guild meetings, not that we’d have much to say haha
that's universal. everywhere around the world, kids put in a lot of effort to make the most remote and secret hideout, only to discover it's completely useless, and that all the fun was in the journey getting there
Great video. Reminds me of my burning crusade days. I played WoW from release up until end of lich king months before cataclysm. I loved using bugs to get to places you were not supposed to get to. I went to every corner of the map reaching all of these places. Some amazing scenery if you are willing to take the time for a great adventure. Long live Dopefish the greatest exploiter of them all.
Well presented and informative video. Stuff like this is a good reminder why Vanilla was so epic, nowadays too many people focus on speedrunning to 60 and getting through the raid content. The original game design was rich in lore, stories and zone design. Something about the Night Elf statue in Azshara reminded me of how the game designers would use art design on a larger scale to make the game feel epic. Another good example is Dire Maul.
When Death Knights became available a group of us made our way to Iron forge Peak and used their Death grip ability to slingshot ourselves to Arathi Highlands lol. We would Duel the Death Knight and a Mage would cast slowfall. Only the priests could make it without dying though since their Slowfall actually lasted long enough to not plummet to our deaths. Great times.
I remember the old Ironforge, because I was in the vanilla beta and it really is the old Ironforge before they redesigned it into what it was in 2004 launch, and is in Classic. That room with the purple crystals had the king in it, I think, and honestly it was a pretty bad city to go to. Every Alliance player hung out in SW instead, until they redesigned it and tried to make IF the big Alliance hub for high level players. It's honestly got a bit of a creepy atmosphere to me. I guess it's the sense of going deep into the cavernous earth. Might've also been that it was super easy to fall down into those pits and die if you were careless, and have to use the spirit healer. The main thing I remember is, the throne room in Classic wasn't there in earlier beta builds, so there was some quest that took you down to that room with the crystals. I also remember them saying Hyjal, Emerald Dream and Karazahn were going to be some level 60 endgame content on the beta forums near the end of the beta.
Love the choice in using the Hawke's Family OST from Dragon Age 2 in the last section of the vid. Really fit the cozy vibe and "taking life one day at a time" line. Gave goosebumps.
4:33 This is actually mentioned in a Q&A on the WoW subreddit from 5 years ago with John Staats "AMA - Former WOW developers Kevin Jordan (classes and spells), John Staats (dungeons and instants), David Ray (database, Wowedit, tools)" Quotation from it's mention "I think naming all the half-built microdungeons around Karazhan. Rooms in dungeons can be named, and I often put temporary names as suggestions to the lore team. -- I overheard the localization team asking Chris Metzen about the meaning of "The Hell of the Upside Down Sinners" (a Big Trouble in Little China reference, didja see it?--it was a beauty) and Chris didn't get the reference. "What the fuck?! I don't know WHERE that is, but I didn't approve of it!" The name was a VERY unWarcraft-sounding name, and Mezten wasn't happy that someone on the team had made it a part of his universe. When I heard the exchange outside my office...and I shrunk into my seat. I decided not to fess up to it because these areas were cut out of the game. They weren't hurting the IP, and that no one would see them (yeah, right)."
Love these kinds of videos. Even after 20 years this game still captivates people and the world Blizzard made in the early 2000s is really something special.
I love the dwarf city bits sticking outside the mountains all over khaz modan, they look cozy and strong at the same time. I remember seeing them go far when I was younger and thinking wow ironforge is massive
getting out of bounds was one of my favorite pastimes in older WoW, and indeed every MMO. I'd gotten up into the rafters in the Undercity, which was a fun time.
This brings back fond memories of playing the game when I was younger. I would love to re-experience those. I may go back to wow one day and play casually. I would love to check out some of these locations. Azshara looks like somewhere I would love to live in real life!
As always, love the video! It's these hidden things in an open world which make me love fantasy, so thank you for making a video on it. Definitely gives me an urge to play WoW again. I also don't think you are reading into the statue on the Isle too much, it seems very much like a possibility, given the wine glass is a focal point in the statue, and with the purpose of the Isle. Unless the Isle had a previous purpose before it was used for the Banished. Interesting to think about.
I have fond memories of exploring all these locations pre-TBC back when I was in high school. I remember spending way too much time swimming as far as I could around the coast line of each continent looking for secrets, and when I found the path from Loch Modan up to Ironforge's peak I charged people to take them there lol.
Outside of Ironforge and to the right of the entrance, we used to lock fear, mage sheep and blink through the side of the mountain. You could run across the map a short distance and end up on a ledge above the bank. Inside of Ironforge, there's a spot where you could jump up on a low ledge and do the same to get through the wall and end up underneath Ironforge and explore Old Ironforge. There was also an easy way to get underneath Orgrimmar from outside the walls. You could run around underneath the city and annoy the Horde. Inside Stormwind, you could go to the opening that leads from the Trade District toward the Mage Quarter, jump up on a ledge by the torch and get inside the map, but that one was annoyingly difficult. Before expansions, you could scale the side of a mountain in Red Ridge and get on top of the mountains. The map wasn't developed, but you could run all over the place up there. Flying took away a lot of mysterious places that only a few managed to get to.
I have always loved exploration videos like this, going to places that weren't meant to be seen. Some of my favorite places were the landing and shatter spear, and ones not mentioned being the cave on the outside of Silithus that you have to swim to from either Seralas or Tanaris, and the well known elven ruins with a landing that you reach from swimming from Tirisfall. The latter of which was a place where the group of people I RPed with held a wedding and will always be a good memory. Other places if you're able to get there is a hidden venture co mill and a random crypt in stone talon, and the back side of Uldum in Tanaris, which oddly just has a bunch of fires burning around in a flat land.
Right in the nostalgia. I'll never forget being fascinated by Deadwind Pass, and then when they placed skull level enemies outside pre TBC I found I could kite them on my Hunter to get some lvl 60+ greens. I really do miss those days.
The Arathi Farm at the end is where you go to get your Waist of Time transmog after a long painful questline, dont wanna spoil too much but you click a potato there for a long time, its also where you get a rune for most classes in SoD P2 but there is a boat near the bridge that takes you there I loved the video, just wanted to make this little note
That theory of the new players born on newmans landing is actually true, I've seen it in work before during the launch of classic, and both factions spawn there
That track from the early Harry Potter games threw me right back! Appreciate the effort you put into making these videos mate. WoW really does have a special experience to give a slower or more RP-focussed player that's hard to match.
Great video. I really liked all the 'eye candy' flight path areas in the Classic world, especially when flying in Kalimdor (that one little valley with the tent in Stonetalon, the various ruins scattered throughout Desolace to name a few). Hopefully SoD will make all of these areas accessible and relevant at some point as they're fully fleshed out and have a lot of potential for use. There's also that tomb in the Badlands that has a skeleton sitting on a throne. Feels like they could put a future rune in there à la the elite lich in Duskwood.
Thanks for this blast of the past. There is something about the vanilla world that has such a messy care to it. Someone spent time making these places some lost their purpose while others are setdressing. And yet others, in these far out of the way places, seem like a creator making something for themselves and others to discover.
Man I love Azeroth and I miss the days of exploring the world like this, rarely ever happens these days with us just flying everywhere. Anyways thanks for the amazing video, I always wondered what Acatraz island was about and Karazahn crypt’s definitely has to be one of the creepiest and most mysterious places in WoW!
Lands End Beach actually has a Quest "Cuergos hidden treasure". It's an evil quest xD Also that HORRID Szepter Questline! I love it, it's peak original WoW content and because I was alone on a private Server, I could only do the first quarter of it, without a proper raid group. Looking forward to you revealing the rest of the questline to me :D The runic Circle on Alcaz Isle was explained in the "Varian Wrynn Comic Book Series". It's the place where Onyxias followers conducted a ritual to split Varian in two, kill his warrior soul and use the remaining weak part as a puppet.
Thank you for the time and effort you out into this video. Many of these locations took me back to a simpler time when I was a chuld maybe 9-12 just exploring. The leveling and grind took the backseat. This Wonderful littke world with something new to find behind every turn. Some of these were even new to me. Blew my mind. Took me back in a way that only wow has been abke to do. Cudos
Always a pleasure when you release a new video. My RP guild had it's unofficial headquarters in an abandoned cottage somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where there was no content for players. Always loved that about wow.
i've seen many locations that i either saw ingame or through other WoW videos, but the Isle is a spot I've never seen before! so this was a pleasant surprise. that and hearing Dragon Age II soundtrack towards the end. an amazing ost that pulls at my heartstrings lol
Great stuff! After doing the rune quests in Season of Discovery and visiting a couple of the places you mentioned in the video, having no prior knowledge of these places I did wonder if they were created specifically for SoD or if they just used them. Glad to see it was the second option!
World of Warcraft was one of the few games that felt real and endless to me. Like the world exists regardless of us players, with all these mysterious and inaccessible locations. The game world was always larger than what one player could explore, and I love it. No matter how long I play, there's always more to it than I know.
Another cosy video to fall asleep to, thanks Verigan! Can't wait for the sceptre questline video, it's gonna be amazing :O ! Below i will share some of my own experiences and thoughts on these locations and others like it, but it will be quite long, so if you don't have time to read it, have a nice day mr./ms. comment reader! Story 1: I started playing WoW when i was fairly young, and played it with my mom, dad and brother all the time. It would've been around early Wrath. We all made dwarves and gnomes, as that would allow for the most variety in looks and class, while we would still be spawning together. If i remember right, we could play with 3 at the same time, having 2 laptops for my mom and dads work, while also having a home computer (Lucky!). After having played for a while, my dad really wanted to play a human instead, so he made a new character and was now tasked with getting over to Dun Morogh, all the way from Elwynn forest. As we had no idea what way to go, we decided that the only clear way we could see was just to swim along the Western coast of the continent until we reached the presumed dun Morogh coastline. It was an extremely long swim and we just sat there, watching my dad swim through 3 zones worth of sea. When we saw that we reached the part of the map where the promised dwarven coastline should've been, we were devasted, thinking that all of our time was spent for nothing. But then! At just the right time, we saw a small dock in the distance! We got very excited, but were also confused at the same time. The cliffs were still blocking any entrance into dun Morogh, so what was this dock doing here? As we watched, my dads character climbed up onto the small patch of land, which i now know is called Newman's Landing. Here it could rest for a little while and just watch the ocean. It was at this point that we thought of something: Why would this tiny piece of civilization be here, if not for the exact purpose that we are using it for?! For us, the dock marked some kind of milestone on our journey. Maybe a halfway point, or maybe at the very least just a marker that this journey was not completely impossible. The long swim ended with my dad getting all the way up to Menethil Harbor, which meant he still had to go all the way through the Wetlands and Loch Modan, but he did it. We got to play together in Dun Morogh as a group of two gnomes, a dwarf and a human, and we were so proud of that accomplishment! Literally the next day, as we were exploring Ironforge, I discovered the Deeprun Tram in Tinkertown. We laughed our asses off when we realised how trivial that arduous journey had become xd, but atleast it gave me a memory that i will hopefully never forget. Thought 1: I really love when games have unmarked areas like this that are pretty isolated. If they serve absolutely no actual gameplay purpose, even better! It makes the discovery of them very personal and allows you to connect your individual feelings to the event. A quest guiding you somewhere epic or mysterious is also very cool, but if you find something completely by accident, it makes you feel like a true explorer or adventurer. I had this feeling a lot when exploring in Elden ring, as that game has so many actual secrets to find, while also not guiding you a lot, so even main events or areas can feel like you accidentally "stumbled into them". Story 2: This story takes place a bit later, when i had already switched to playing my dwarf character in Cataclysm. With the release of flying for Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, i spent a lot of time just flying around, seeing what i could find. One day, i stumbled upon the farm on the coast of Arathi Highlands. I don't think it was even marked on the map back then. I was amazed that such a big chunk of land would be there without any actual directions to it, but it was. I immediately formed a connection to that place. It became my main logout spot for the rest of Cataclysm, as i could just take the portal to Twilight Highlands and fly from there. Usually i would just hang there and look around for a few minutes before logging off, even though i didn't have that much time to play as my parents didn't allow me to play more than about an hour a day, and only on certain days of the week. Sometimes, i would just fish there, or "play" with my hunter pets. This really felt like my in-game home, as it was usually just me there and it so happens that my main was a dwarf, like the style of the farm. I think I only remember meeting someone else there once. I just /waved at them and they waved back, and that was it. idk, I kinda just really liked that spot :p. Thought 2: I think the Vanilla WoW world really started my fascination with exploration in video games. They really made it a world that felt cool to explore besides also providing a good MMO experience. I like how things that are meant for only specific players, like class specific quests, are just out there in the open world as opposed to a more instance based system. One of my favourites is a branch sticking out at the north part of teldrassil, allowing you to look down at the side of the massive world tree. it's guarded by a satyr that's quite high level for the area, and it spawns a bunch of adds to kill you. At the time I just thought it was like that, cus why wouldn't such a cool place be guarded by a powerful boss? It was only until 2019 classic servers that i realised it was actually a spot for a lvl 10 rogues quest, and the boss spawns the adds, cause youre supposed to go invisible and steal from him lol. But even now, when I make an elf in any version of the game I still check out that spot and try to kill that satyr, even though i don't need to do it. Just really felt like writing this, as this type of video makes me think of my early childhood. If you have any stories like this, feel free to leave some replies if you want, i'll try and read any if they come trough. Thanks again Verigan for the outstanding work and to anyone who reads this: Have a nice day/night!
thanks for the nostalgia. I started WoW at launch. I quit playing for good during battle for azeroth. I liked how in the old game not everything had to have a purpose, places could just exist for players to see. burning crusade had some of it as well but after that, blizzard seems to have switched to a everything-has-to-be-densely-packed philosophy where everything has its place in the questline. just go through the quests and you'll see everything, no room for exploration anymore.
Some of these have been used in SOD already, the only one I know of being the last one in this video. I really hope they make use of more of them, because these were some of my favorite places to go growing up
![[#2024MAMA] ROSÉ (로제), Bruno Mars - APT. | Mnet 241122 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dgGqD28J6aQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I took so long to make this video, that a couple of these locations actually made it into Season of Discovery! I really think they've nailed it with their rune quests - expect me to cover them in some way soon :)
18:10 you can find the same hole/grate at the island off the coast of barrens where you go to get berserker stance as warr. Its a neat location.
I have yet to see a compilation (not of short clips, but a thurough one) of all the "new" stuff, they added to SoD. Everything I seem to hear is "Oh this random npc now drops a new questitem, that starts a more or less interesting questline that gives a new ability at the end". That doesn't sound too exciting for me, but people keep praising it, so I'd be really glad if someone would actually do such a thing. No intention to hint at you, since your content has a vastly different style than this hunting after being the first to show of the newest stuff, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
@@Yormolch I definitely plan to cover SoD's "best bits" very soon! But the list of small changes made is quite exhaustive, so I'll leave that in the hands of others :P
Deadwind has fish in vanilla that are rare
You left out my favourite place. The little farm overlooking the Wetlands. You can get there from the dwarven airfield with careful drops or slowfall.
There is also the cabin with Defias above the Mirror Lake waterfall in Elwyn. Most players miss it although it has easy access. And there is the bugged world under Stormwind. And the Hellfire "preview" under the Blasted Lands but that one I never managed to get to.
I appreciate that you talk about the entire crypt, not just the spooky hanging bodies
spoopy
Agreed.
That picture of a bowl of fruit at the end is truly beautiful
Hahaha at first I didn't understand
LOL
Brilliant
Kek
14:00 I'd give people tours to the airfield! It's one of my fondest memories, gathering a group and going on a hike through the mountains. We'd put on a show for people flying by, wave and dance :D
thats really cool!
the good ole days, my cousin and i used to love jumping up the mountain and hanging out up there. brings back so many good memories
There's actually a spot somewhere up in the mountains where you can slow fall and jump off and you will end up on top of Ironforge bank. Me and my buddy did it during Wrath and we started summoning other Horde up there lmao!
You could fall through the floor in Ironforge bank aswell. There was a ton of unused stuff there@@dangusprime
I did the same but for the dancing troll village. Best part was I had never actually gone to the place before. I just felt like going there with a crew after watching a video so I asked people if they wanted to discover it with me. Was a real old-school adventure
I really like how laid back your experience of the game feels. WoW, especially current, feels so busy with so many tasks to do, that I'm usually sprinting from objective to objective. I really enjoy this chance to slow down and pay attention to the details in the world, even ones with no lore significance.
thanks matey! its always nice to appreciate the little things :)
tryhards ruined the mmo experience
Sorry to say.. but that's your own mindset doing that to you. Plenty of people play the game the way it was meant to be played.
Truly, this is what made WoW so great in it's time. Not the rush to 60.
@@tyrous1743 Sorry, but no. It's not just a matter of mindset, the entire game design philosophy has changed.
Maps are not designed with this playstyle in mind, they are much more of theme parks carefully prepared to be filled with quests and world quests, squished and compressed together as to be as convenient grind islands as possible, travel and exploration has been reduced to an afterthought because players have long complained that they don't want to do that and simply want to get from one quest hub to another, rendering out other means of playstyle obsolete.
Most side quests are reduced to 30 minute bite sized pieces as to not lose players attention, and theres barely any mystery or room for speculation left as everything needs to be explained and/or shown to the player directly.
You simply cannot play this game like you used to in classic no more, be it from the story, world, exploration, or gameplay perspective.
Thanks for making this lovely video. I played WoW from March of 2005 through June of 2022. Our guild was a Horde guild named Obsidian Spur, originally on Sargeras up through Mists of Pandaria, and then we moved the guild to Thrall where it still resides. My name was Wretchedmist, undead priest and GM of our guild. Looking back now, I feel extremely fortunate to be part of that player base who played the original Vanilla WoW. I know all of the locations in this video, and it really made me feel good to go back in time here and relive these places through your video. I remember when we first went to Alcaz island and went into the prison area. We found King Varian Wrynn in there, and if I recall he was a yellow NPC back then. I think we went there with one of our rogues, which makes sense with the Defias Brotherhood quest chain. I still have the screenshots somewhere from 2005-2006 or whenever that was.
This was a time when fantasy was a key part of WoW. Going slow, stopping and looking, theory crafting, exploring the world, imagining, being present. The game was way, way more about living the fantasy in conjunction with the dungeons, raids, pvp, farming, etc. This element of WoW no longer exists, nor has it for many years. It's much less about guilds and community, and that's not just due to the game's age, but intentional game design changes made by the company over years. Death by a thousand cuts. It brings sadness to my heart about the game I once loved so much. I don't know if I'll ever come back. If I do, it will be as a casual. Raiding - especially mythic raiding - had become so tedious, requiring immense energy, effort, and time as guild master and raid leader. Extreme boss tuning, hundreds of wipes, scripted CD usage, 10-15-minute fights, countless one-shot mechanics and raid-wiping mechanics, mandatory high parsing requirements, high player turnover, the influence of e-sports, the list goes on and on. I tip my hat to all players who are having a blast in Classic WoW and Season of Discovery. You're playing the best iterations of WoW (outside of original Vanilla) that create the opportunities for this community, guild, and fantasy again.
Thank you for sharing!
@@Veriganic Thank you for the reply, and thank you for making this video and content.
Thanks for always highlighting what made vanilla WoW so cool - the huge open world, the seemingly "useless" areas, the meandering questlines.
sadly nothing after vanilla matched the quality of the world. every expansion is just few new zones and a lot less dungeons and raids than what vanilla had. the insane amount of content is just unreal. it feels like vanilla was made by completely different ppl
I love stuff like this. It's honestly probably the reason why classic WoW has hooked me in a way that a lot of other mmo's didn't. The scope of the world was just massive especially for the time and all the little hideaways in-between were great to just stumble upon. Immediately I'm reminded of the unmarked grave in Duskwood behind Darkshire and the existence of The Unseen in Raven Hill. I loved all the little oddities that weren't quest important or even significant in the grand scheme but were cool, like the twin colossals in Feralas or the dwarven farmhouses strewn about.
The entire "Room of Upside-down Sinners" and the upside down underwater corpses in it are a direct reference to a movie called Big Trouble in Little China, straight down to the name. This is something I don't see get mentioned a lot when people talk about Karazhan Crypts.
I spent so much time exploring and wall walking when I was a kid. I loved finding these sorts of places in game.
5:00 No Man's Landing purpose was explained at some point (I believe it was John Staats, former dev of WoW and author of "The WoW Diary"): In WoW every zone is an instance of its own, and when near borders not only the player but NPCs, objects spells, etc. are seamlessly seen and interacted between instances; that was such an engineering achievement, but before this was made the whole continent of Eastern Kingdoms was a single instance and implied that, due to rounding errors when calculating the coordinates, the further you were from the middle point, you'd suffer from blinks, misalignments and such (namely Booty Bay or Stranglethorn Vale were unplayable). No Man's Landing happens to be in the middle of the North-to-South axis and was a safe place before the zone system was properly implemented.The actual spawn point where characters are placed when entering the continent is under the world, south of Southshore.
Idk if this is just here say and rumor: but I heard that very early on into the live game it was the "debug spawn" for already existing characters that the server "lost" in one way or another.
Maybe because of it being a safe zone during that early time for servers you mentioned, it would make the most sense to spawn lost characters there, thus lowering the chance the server loses them on repeat?
The by far most common way have the server lose a character is if something goes wrong with cross continental travel. Usually, if someone's PC is just slow enough to load in to the new zone, just as the boat/Zeppelin they're on has gone into the loading zone again, causing it to loop until the server doesn't know where the character should be. This happened to me a lot in legion lol, but ofc that just sent me to the faction specific debug spawns of sentinel Hill and cross roads.
Again, can't confirm but I remember hearing that for a super brief time in wrath, if a DK death gripped someone in the same spell batch as the booty bay ship they were on brought them to the loading screen, it would drag the gripped player to that landing.
So perhaps since that 0x0 coordinate was safe, they made it debug spawn, and thus made it so when you were using transit originally, for a brief moment it considered you there?
@@literallynobody9769 I do wonder whats Kalimdors equivalent of No mans landing.
also from what I remmber whit the DK death grip you only needed to pull someone off the boat when you was standing on the Botty bay dock or the other way around.
I think you needed to be on the boat and the other person on the dock.
as that would bug out the position (because the game would move you from a world location (zone) to a local location (boat), the game dont ask where your are on the world when your on a boat it ask you where you are on the boat (prevents jittering when your on a moving item).
the DK Death grip bugs it out and sends the player to the permanent boat copy under Arathi Highlands.
@@Zack_Wester yeah I think your recollection of that bug is better than mine haha.
Crazy to see someone reply to my ramblings haha, thanks!
Honestly yeah I do wonder what Kalimdors was, Honestly maybe it was just the same xroads grave yard? Since it's pretty central, maybe that would explain why nobody thought it was too weird because it was already a place in use?
@@Zack_Wester The thing is that there's no equivalent of No Man's Landing because by the time Kalimdor was implemented (EK was made much earlier) the new zone instance system already was in place and there was no need for such place.
The spawn point from a transport you're commenting exists but it's not related to No Man's Landing, although it was mistaken for long because they're similar concepts. Again, I cited the source, this was explained by one of the developers.
I do have a recent screenshot of the underground spawn for transports just South of the Sludge Fields in Hillsbrad.
Quick correction on 18:10 you CAN actually find one of these at the warrior berserk stance quest on the island just off the barrens. It’s what you stand on in the middle of dueling circle. Other than that, awesome video!
oh thanks, didn't know!
Correct me if I'm wrong because this is a nearly 20 year old memory but isn't there a small opening underwater near the grate that allows you to swim under it? Pretty sure there's a Frenzy fish there that attacks you as well
Yep. Lower level fish tunnel you can swim through.
Man i love the smooth and chilling character of your videos. Its like a friend telling a story like back in the day when the game was much more of a fantastic mistery!
Glad you enjoy it!
Ι was going to write the same thing more or less. Interesting and cool story telling from days past, gives a quite nostalgic vibe.
The Dwarven Farm has been my favorite hidden area for years. It's so quiet and peaceful and almost otherworldly. I think that's what makes some of these places so special.
That is one of my favorite places too. I love to just go there and relax. ☺️
I was a cata baby, so a lot of these little corners of Azeroth that were reworked are still so fascinating to me. The thing that made me fall in love with wow was the atmosphere and just existing in the world. I remember just walking around Darkshore and taking in all the different variations in the scenery, wondering what these ruins were for, or why the climate is the way it is, and I feel like your videos do a good job of catering to that wonder I felt. Keep up the lovely work!
I'm very surprised you mentioned that Wetlands farm but not the larger village in the Wetlands hills. There's Ironforge NPCs that you can ask directions and a fun signpost pointing directions to "This Way" and "That Way"
It was definitely considered - just didn't make the cut. Maybe another time :)
I love videos like these! One of my most memorable moments in Vanilla wow years ago was climbing up to Mount Hyjal through a series of pretty nutty wall climbings and finding Archimondes skeleton still clinging to the world tree as well as a whole uninhabited zone which looks VERY different to what they brought in for Cataclysm.
EXCELLENT vid. I instantly subbed when I saw the title alone, and it didn't disappoint. I've watched this like five times so far! Stories and places in old games is great stuff. Thanks!!
All of your videos are a gift, meditations on the peaceful serenity in the games you enjoy. Thank you for sharing your time with us
I'm so glad that SoD brings us to therefore unknown and unused locations that are just kind of there. Makes me feel like a kid playing wow for the first time again. And I hope many of the here mentioned will get a time in the limelight
These places and others like them were part of what made it feel like WORLD of Warcraft. God I miss the sense of exploration that came with playing this game for the first time, almost 20 years ago now...
The Pirates of the Caribbean Online music... that really brought me back. Great video!
i miss playing the original potco so much, i almost cried when i heard it. i know theres a private server reboot but u can never replicate a place and a time (they did a great job tho)
Brilliant video, some good memories of exploration here.
A couple of my favourites not mentioned in the video were the hidden Wetlands farm with the hallway that leads underneath the map that ends with a drop into an out-of-bounds killbox, and a place I took to calling Stonetalon plateau. If you could find your way up the hills south of Ashenvale, you eventually come across a huge featureless gap in the mountains. I just liked how weird they were.
So many hidden things in the old game!
This was such a wonderfully made video! Clear love and passion for the source, and I really liked the clean, understated editing style. And thanks for putting the music sources in the description as well!
Something else cool I found at the Ironforge Airfield while exploring in SoD, is that there is a Stormpike Guard NPC on the northern side. Next to her(?) are a couple of Gryphon roosts that you usually only see at flight paths.
You can also jump down a waterfall on the northern side to enter the Wetlands, into a mountain farm of some sort. You can see this while questing in the zone, so it's cool to be able to have a look around up close.
P.S. Great vid!
It's because originally it was going to be a flight point. That was going to be an additional questing area during pre-bc.
from there you can also enter one of the buildings, one of which inside ends into a white void, with an epic mount and slowfall from noggenfogger potion, you can jump into the void and float all the way back to ironforge , ending in old iron forge
I have to admit, you managed to play on the few remaining strings of my love for World of Warcraft. Nice video, thank you.
Majula theme was perfect for Purgation Isle, especially with that shot of the bonfire. More content in a game is often better but for an MMORPG it's really special to have disused or questless zones and points of interest. Not everything needs an explanation or a purpose and sometimes finding your own special little pointless spot in the world is its own reward. I used to chill in that creepy little Tauren town south of Silithus on the coast all the time. Not exactly an unknown spot but a spooky little spot where you could just chill.
Great format. Very good use of music to set a mood and you're very relaxing to listen to. Would love to see more of this concept - there's a lot of overlooked areas like this in the game, though perhaps not as hidden, in TBC, Wrath and beyond. Off the top of my head, the mahjong table in Jade Forest where two skeletons are locked in an endless match.
Good stuff.
8:28 The Pirates of the Caribbean Online music!! Bravo!
I think I've genuinely been to ALL of these locations... I don't play WoW anymore, but I used to religiously, and this was trip down memory lane. Thanks!
This has been one of my favorite parts of playing WoW since I was a kid.
This is so cool! Real nostalgia for the days on my first character on my big brothers acc when i was barely able to play the game. A lot of time i was just walking around finding places like this, sometimes it was just random houses i thought would be cool to make my home. Please make a second part, i could watch this forever!! I can think of the hidden tauren village outside on the coast of tanaris, found that place by accident and was amazed
Watched both these WoW episodes back-to-back, then the next recommendation is a video on Silverlight. Man, you know how to play on my nostalgia. Instant sub.
thanks for revisit of the old classic world. Current day internet prevents us from having these mysteries in games that made us wonder and kept our fantasies busy.
A note about Newman's Landing: In phase two of Season of Discovery, it was updated to have a quest event for the Sheath of Light Paladin rune. You investigate the last known whereabouts of a Scarlet Crusade defector and have to kill an assassin from the Crusade to continue. A nice addition to get people out into the world more.
Your videos have renewed my interest in WoW. They really take me back to when I used to play with my friends and brother.
Running around the Crypt is one of my personal highlights in Vanilla and Classic.
13:52 no, you're reading into it just enough. I quite like the theories people made about places
Excellent work Verigan! Your scripts paired with the visual shots and the RPG soundtracks are always so captivating! :D
Can't wait for the videos about "The Scepter of the Shifting Sands" & "Scholomance / The Barov Family"!
Love the video's topic, love the music, love your narration!
I haven't played this game in years but nostalgia keeps me hooked and videos like yours are exactly my cup of tea, I don't know much about the new lore or gameplay so these little videos make me so happy
I wish I discovered this video on its release! The TH-cam algorithm finally brought me here today, very well done video!
Some of these areas have been made accessible in Turtle WoW:
1. The Karazhan Crypts are now a max-level dungeon, and parts of the tower itself are now a Classic raid (as it was supposed to be)
2. Off the coast of Taranis is the new both-faction playable zone, Tel'Abrim, with a bunch of banana-themed quests.
3.. Shatterspear Village, the "dancing troll village" has been replaced by a full-fledged, Horde-aligned Forest Troll city, where the Reventusk and Amani have set up shop in Kalimdor. Horde players get a portal from Ogrimmar to access it, you can grind rep with the new faction, and have the option to make your playable Troll character Forest-troll green if you want.
4. Alliance players get a flight point to Ironforge Airfield. I don't think there are any quests up there just yet (except for a holiday quest which was a pain, though not impossible, to reach with a Horde toon), but there probably will be later.
5. I don't know if there's anything at the Arathi farm, but now I want to go and look!
Turtle WoW also has new quests, new towns and quest hubs in older zones, entirely new zones and dungeons, and you have the choice to play as Goblin (for Horde) or High Elf (for Alliance), all while keeping that Classic feel and the max level is still 60, keeping all content relevant. I highly recommend the server to everyone who wanted an actual Classic + experience!
hey do I need any attunements to play high elf?
@@dustypaint Nope. You can pick High Elf off the bat, just for signing up for Turtle WoW.
I'm glad you mentioned Turtle WoW! I knew private servers existed, but I didn't know about this! 😀
The arathi farm is a guild base for thunderbrew ale, and i highly recommend you give it a visit. Thunderbrew has a lot of gms amongst their ranks so that specific guild base have some features that you wont find anywhere else, no spoilers.
its probably the best private server ever made by insane fans on vanilla. adding tons of completely new content and even music
On the classic map, there was a small house waaaaay on the south coast of Silithus. Had to hoof it all the way from Tanaris to find it.
I have NEVER seen anyone talk about this place. Shame my old drive died with the screenshots on it.
There was also a couple huts between Mulgore and the Barrens on top of the mountains that's visible from a flight path but accessible via some careful jumps. Another place nobody ever talked about visiting.
I remember this place!
11:45 the Majula music hit me right in the feels... :-)
the feeling you capture is really unlike any other wow videos ive seen. none can truly take me back to summers of the late 00s like these. i remember swimming up the side of westfall to find newmans landing the first time, my friends and i decreed it our new clubhouse for guild meetings, not that we’d have much to say haha
that's universal. everywhere around the world, kids put in a lot of effort to make the most remote and secret hideout, only to discover it's completely useless, and that all the fun was in the journey getting there
Great video. Reminds me of my burning crusade days. I played WoW from release up until end of lich king months before cataclysm. I loved using bugs to get to places you were not supposed to get to. I went to every corner of the map reaching all of these places. Some amazing scenery if you are willing to take the time for a great adventure. Long live Dopefish the greatest exploiter of them all.
Been to most of those places years ago, when I was active, but still I gone trough whole vid because of beautiful nostalgic narration, thanks
That farm at the end is related to the secret belt item called "Waist of Time". The item was added in BFA, though.
Well presented and informative video. Stuff like this is a good reminder why Vanilla was so epic, nowadays too many people focus on speedrunning to 60 and getting through the raid content. The original game design was rich in lore, stories and zone design. Something about the Night Elf statue in Azshara reminded me of how the game designers would use art design on a larger scale to make the game feel epic. Another good example is Dire Maul.
When Death Knights became available a group of us made our way to Iron forge Peak and used their Death grip ability to slingshot ourselves to Arathi Highlands lol. We would Duel the Death Knight and a Mage would cast slowfall. Only the priests could make it without dying though since their Slowfall actually lasted long enough to not plummet to our deaths. Great times.
I remember the old Ironforge, because I was in the vanilla beta and it really is the old Ironforge before they redesigned it into what it was in 2004 launch, and is in Classic. That room with the purple crystals had the king in it, I think, and honestly it was a pretty bad city to go to. Every Alliance player hung out in SW instead, until they redesigned it and tried to make IF the big Alliance hub for high level players. It's honestly got a bit of a creepy atmosphere to me. I guess it's the sense of going deep into the cavernous earth. Might've also been that it was super easy to fall down into those pits and die if you were careless, and have to use the spirit healer. The main thing I remember is, the throne room in Classic wasn't there in earlier beta builds, so there was some quest that took you down to that room with the crystals.
I also remember them saying Hyjal, Emerald Dream and Karazahn were going to be some level 60 endgame content on the beta forums near the end of the beta.
Fishing up peacebloom above Elwynn waterfall from the 'school of fish' was always a cool thing to show people back in the day.
Love the choice in using the Hawke's Family OST from Dragon Age 2 in the last section of the vid. Really fit the cozy vibe and "taking life one day at a time" line. Gave goosebumps.
The dark souls 2 majula music hit me like a beautiful brick wall the moment it came on. Thank you for the fantasic video
I was taken aback by the Eternal Ring OST background music while watching this. I'm so glad someone remembers that game!
The Pirates Online music at 8:40 or so brings back so many memories thank you very much 🙌🙌
Great video! Always interesting to see people really exploring the World of Warcraft to find this stuff.
Thanks for this. I played WoW when it first came out. I was a kid when Warcraft Orcs and Humans first came out lol.
I loved the nostalgia.
4:33 This is actually mentioned in a Q&A on the WoW subreddit from 5 years ago with John Staats "AMA - Former WOW developers Kevin Jordan (classes and spells), John Staats (dungeons and instants), David Ray (database, Wowedit, tools)"
Quotation from it's mention
"I think naming all the half-built microdungeons around Karazhan. Rooms in dungeons can be named, and I often put temporary names as suggestions to the lore team. -- I overheard the localization team asking Chris Metzen about the meaning of "The Hell of the Upside Down Sinners" (a Big Trouble in Little China reference, didja see it?--it was a beauty) and Chris didn't get the reference. "What the fuck?! I don't know WHERE that is, but I didn't approve of it!" The name was a VERY unWarcraft-sounding name, and Mezten wasn't happy that someone on the team had made it a part of his universe. When I heard the exchange outside my office...and I shrunk into my seat. I decided not to fess up to it because these areas were cut out of the game. They weren't hurting the IP, and that no one would see them (yeah, right)."
Love these kinds of videos. Even after 20 years this game still captivates people and the world Blizzard made in the early 2000s is really something special.
I get Hayven vibes from this. Good video.
Great video! I have swum all the coasts and there are some pretty neat things out in the middle of nowhere along the coasts
I love the dwarf city bits sticking outside the mountains all over khaz modan, they look cozy and strong at the same time. I remember seeing them go far when I was younger and thinking wow ironforge is massive
Great vid! Hoping for even more of these to be featured in SoD! :D
getting out of bounds was one of my favorite pastimes in older WoW, and indeed every MMO. I'd gotten up into the rafters in the Undercity, which was a fun time.
This brings back fond memories of playing the game when I was younger. I would love to re-experience those. I may go back to wow one day and play casually. I would love to check out some of these locations. Azshara looks like somewhere I would love to live in real life!
As always, love the video! It's these hidden things in an open world which make me love fantasy, so thank you for making a video on it. Definitely gives me an urge to play WoW again. I also don't think you are reading into the statue on the Isle too much, it seems very much like a possibility, given the wine glass is a focal point in the statue, and with the purpose of the Isle. Unless the Isle had a previous purpose before it was used for the Banished. Interesting to think about.
Yaaass! Very excited for the Scepter of the Shifting Sands vid!
Excellent music choice. I enjoyed the osrs track and the Majula theme particularly.
I have fond memories of exploring all these locations pre-TBC back when I was in high school. I remember spending way too much time swimming as far as I could around the coast line of each continent looking for secrets, and when I found the path from Loch Modan up to Ironforge's peak I charged people to take them there lol.
Lovely video! Thanks for bringing us back to Azeroth and places some of us have never been to :)
Outside of Ironforge and to the right of the entrance, we used to lock fear, mage sheep and blink through the side of the mountain. You could run across the map a short distance and end up on a ledge above the bank.
Inside of Ironforge, there's a spot where you could jump up on a low ledge and do the same to get through the wall and end up underneath Ironforge and explore Old Ironforge.
There was also an easy way to get underneath Orgrimmar from outside the walls. You could run around underneath the city and annoy the Horde.
Inside Stormwind, you could go to the opening that leads from the Trade District toward the Mage Quarter, jump up on a ledge by the torch and get inside the map, but that one was annoyingly difficult.
Before expansions, you could scale the side of a mountain in Red Ridge and get on top of the mountains. The map wasn't developed, but you could run all over the place up there.
Flying took away a lot of mysterious places that only a few managed to get to.
I have always loved exploration videos like this, going to places that weren't meant to be seen. Some of my favorite places were the landing and shatter spear, and ones not mentioned being the cave on the outside of Silithus that you have to swim to from either Seralas or Tanaris, and the well known elven ruins with a landing that you reach from swimming from Tirisfall. The latter of which was a place where the group of people I RPed with held a wedding and will always be a good memory. Other places if you're able to get there is a hidden venture co mill and a random crypt in stone talon, and the back side of Uldum in Tanaris, which oddly just has a bunch of fires burning around in a flat land.
Right in the nostalgia. I'll never forget being fascinated by Deadwind Pass, and then when they placed skull level enemies outside pre TBC I found I could kite them on my Hunter to get some lvl 60+ greens. I really do miss those days.
The Arathi Farm at the end is where you go to get your Waist of Time transmog after a long painful questline, dont wanna spoil too much but you click a potato there for a long time, its also where you get a rune for most classes in SoD P2 but there is a boat near the bridge that takes you there
I loved the video, just wanted to make this little note
Not during classic...
That theory of the new players born on newmans landing is actually true, I've seen it in work before during the launch of classic, and both factions spawn there
That track from the early Harry Potter games threw me right back! Appreciate the effort you put into making these videos mate. WoW really does have a special experience to give a slower or more RP-focussed player that's hard to match.
Great video. I really liked all the 'eye candy' flight path areas in the Classic world, especially when flying in Kalimdor (that one little valley with the tent in Stonetalon, the various ruins scattered throughout Desolace to name a few). Hopefully SoD will make all of these areas accessible and relevant at some point as they're fully fleshed out and have a lot of potential for use.
There's also that tomb in the Badlands that has a skeleton sitting on a throne. Feels like they could put a future rune in there à la the elite lich in Duskwood.
Thanks for this blast of the past. There is something about the vanilla world that has such a messy care to it. Someone spent time making these places some lost their purpose while others are setdressing. And yet others, in these far out of the way places, seem like a creator making something for themselves and others to discover.
That Reach transition was beautiful brother.
Man I love Azeroth and I miss the days of exploring the world like this, rarely ever happens these days with us just flying everywhere. Anyways thanks for the amazing video, I always wondered what Acatraz island was about and Karazahn crypt’s definitely has to be one of the creepiest and most mysterious places in WoW!
Lands End Beach actually has a Quest "Cuergos hidden treasure". It's an evil quest xD
Also that HORRID Szepter Questline! I love it, it's peak original WoW content and because I was alone on a private Server, I could only do the first quarter of it, without a proper raid group. Looking forward to you revealing the rest of the questline to me :D
The runic Circle on Alcaz Isle was explained in the "Varian Wrynn Comic Book Series". It's the place where Onyxias followers conducted a ritual to split Varian in two, kill his warrior soul and use the remaining weak part as a puppet.
Very good choices in background music. I hear Preservation from OSRS - then boom, the dark souls 2 Majula theme
Amazing! Using this video to teach friends of mine some English, love your clear storytelling and pronunciation!
What a fantastic video! You put so much work and research into this and it shows. I can never get tired of videos like this
Thank you for the time and effort you out into this video. Many of these locations took me back to a simpler time when I was a chuld maybe 9-12 just exploring. The leveling and grind took the backseat. This Wonderful littke world with something new to find behind every turn. Some of these were even new to me. Blew my mind. Took me back in a way that only wow has been abke to do. Cudos
Always a pleasure when you release a new video. My RP guild had it's unofficial headquarters in an abandoned cottage somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where there was no content for players. Always loved that about wow.
Sounds like westfall.
These places what makes WoW amazing. Playing for 19 years now, I will never regret my playtime.
What a great video! The algorythm did well for once. Looking forward to new ones
i've seen many locations that i either saw ingame or through other WoW videos, but the Isle is a spot I've never seen before! so this was a pleasant surprise. that and hearing Dragon Age II soundtrack towards the end. an amazing ost that pulls at my heartstrings lol
Great stuff!
After doing the rune quests in Season of Discovery and visiting a couple of the places you mentioned in the video, having no prior knowledge of these places I did wonder if they were created specifically for SoD or if they just used them.
Glad to see it was the second option!
World of Warcraft was one of the few games that felt real and endless to me. Like the world exists regardless of us players, with all these mysterious and inaccessible locations. The game world was always larger than what one player could explore, and I love it. No matter how long I play, there's always more to it than I know.
Another cosy video to fall asleep to, thanks Verigan! Can't wait for the sceptre questline video, it's gonna be amazing :O !
Below i will share some of my own experiences and thoughts on these locations and others like it, but it will be quite long, so if you don't have time to read it, have a nice day mr./ms. comment reader!
Story 1:
I started playing WoW when i was fairly young, and played it with my mom, dad and brother all the time. It would've been around early Wrath. We all made dwarves and gnomes, as that would allow for the most variety in looks and class, while we would still be spawning together. If i remember right, we could play with 3 at the same time, having 2 laptops for my mom and dads work, while also having a home computer (Lucky!).
After having played for a while, my dad really wanted to play a human instead, so he made a new character and was now tasked with getting over to Dun Morogh, all the way from Elwynn forest. As we had no idea what way to go, we decided that the only clear way we could see was just to swim along the Western coast of the continent until we reached the presumed dun Morogh coastline. It was an extremely long swim and we just sat there, watching my dad swim through 3 zones worth of sea. When we saw that we reached the part of the map where the promised dwarven coastline should've been, we were devasted, thinking that all of our time was spent for nothing.
But then! At just the right time, we saw a small dock in the distance! We got very excited, but were also confused at the same time. The cliffs were still blocking any entrance into dun Morogh, so what was this dock doing here? As we watched, my dads character climbed up onto the small patch of land, which i now know is called Newman's Landing. Here it could rest for a little while and just watch the ocean. It was at this point that we thought of something: Why would this tiny piece of civilization be here, if not for the exact purpose that we are using it for?! For us, the dock marked some kind of milestone on our journey. Maybe a halfway point, or maybe at the very least just a marker that this journey was not completely impossible.
The long swim ended with my dad getting all the way up to Menethil Harbor, which meant he still had to go all the way through the Wetlands and Loch Modan, but he did it. We got to play together in Dun Morogh as a group of two gnomes, a dwarf and a human, and we were so proud of that accomplishment!
Literally the next day, as we were exploring Ironforge, I discovered the Deeprun Tram in Tinkertown. We laughed our asses off when we realised how trivial that arduous journey had become xd, but atleast it gave me a memory that i will hopefully never forget.
Thought 1:
I really love when games have unmarked areas like this that are pretty isolated. If they serve absolutely no actual gameplay purpose, even better! It makes the discovery of them very personal and allows you to connect your individual feelings to the event. A quest guiding you somewhere epic or mysterious is also very cool, but if you find something completely by accident, it makes you feel like a true explorer or adventurer. I had this feeling a lot when exploring in Elden ring, as that game has so many actual secrets to find, while also not guiding you a lot, so even main events or areas can feel like you accidentally "stumbled into them".
Story 2:
This story takes place a bit later, when i had already switched to playing my dwarf character in Cataclysm. With the release of flying for Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, i spent a lot of time just flying around, seeing what i could find. One day, i stumbled upon the farm on the coast of Arathi Highlands. I don't think it was even marked on the map back then. I was amazed that such a big chunk of land would be there without any actual directions to it, but it was.
I immediately formed a connection to that place. It became my main logout spot for the rest of Cataclysm, as i could just take the portal to Twilight Highlands and fly from there. Usually i would just hang there and look around for a few minutes before logging off, even though i didn't have that much time to play as my parents didn't allow me to play more than about an hour a day, and only on certain days of the week. Sometimes, i would just fish there, or "play" with my hunter pets.
This really felt like my in-game home, as it was usually just me there and it so happens that my main was a dwarf, like the style of the farm. I think I only remember meeting someone else there once. I just /waved at them and they waved back, and that was it. idk, I kinda just really liked that spot :p.
Thought 2:
I think the Vanilla WoW world really started my fascination with exploration in video games. They really made it a world that felt cool to explore besides also providing a good MMO experience. I like how things that are meant for only specific players, like class specific quests, are just out there in the open world as opposed to a more instance based system.
One of my favourites is a branch sticking out at the north part of teldrassil, allowing you to look down at the side of the massive world tree. it's guarded by a satyr that's quite high level for the area, and it spawns a bunch of adds to kill you. At the time I just thought it was like that, cus why wouldn't such a cool place be guarded by a powerful boss? It was only until 2019 classic servers that i realised it was actually a spot for a lvl 10 rogues quest, and the boss spawns the adds, cause youre supposed to go invisible and steal from him lol. But even now, when I make an elf in any version of the game I still check out that spot and try to kill that satyr, even though i don't need to do it.
Just really felt like writing this, as this type of video makes me think of my early childhood. If you have any stories like this, feel free to leave some replies if you want, i'll try and read any if they come trough. Thanks again Verigan for the outstanding work and to anyone who reads this: Have a nice day/night!
I expected to know most of these, but surprisingly there were several I'd never seen/heard of. pretty neat stuff.
danke für deine herausragende arbeit , grüße aus Darnassus
thanks for the nostalgia. I started WoW at launch. I quit playing for good during battle for azeroth. I liked how in the old game not everything had to have a purpose, places could just exist for players to see. burning crusade had some of it as well but after that, blizzard seems to have switched to a everything-has-to-be-densely-packed philosophy where everything has its place in the questline. just go through the quests and you'll see everything, no room for exploration anymore.
Some of these have been used in SOD already, the only one I know of being the last one in this video. I really hope they make use of more of them, because these were some of my favorite places to go growing up
Great video. Just sat back and enjoyed it like a mini movie.
Another fantastic video. I hope this blows up more!
Wonderfully written. 20 minutes flew by.