yea walking around andorhal and infected grain storages was such a nice experience, ive probably spend more time retracing arthas footsteps than actually playing the gamelol
Before Burning Crusade, my guild had a tradition where we took characters who just leveled up to 50, and ran them through the questlines starting in the Bulwark. We had a tank and healer, equipped with Tier 1-3 raiding gear plus 1-3 level 50 characters. We would run them around, killing mobs, defusing Plague cauldrons, and eventually cleaning out Andorhal with the new guys. In a couple of hours, we'd get them 3-4 levels, and a significant chunk of Argent Dawn rep. It was a good way to teach them teamwork, and good habits for running 5-man dungeons. All of which became irrelevant as the game changed with later expansions, but at the time, it was a good way to get to know your guild.
I recommend everyone to download the addon called NPC Time for WoW. Get that, go to old zones and see how long some mobs have been alive. Highest I've seen was one mob who was alive for 7 days, tells you enough about a zone.
Nostalgia is so blinding for players of World of Warcraft in its early years. It's far and away, objectively a much better game today than it ever has been.
I've never heard this change to Andorhal talked about before, interesting how unknown this very old version is. I started 6 months after vanilla came out, so this version of Andorhal was a complete unknown to me.
This is the first video about this change, if I'm not mistaken. I saw it on an old changelog or wiki page once, and I was fascinated because the only way to see this change was looking at old alpha minimaps or trying the alpha client.
One of the reasons it is so mysterious is because its actually the "Ruins of Andy Warhol". The developers condensed it to the Ruins of "Andorhal" to leave it up to the players to discover it.
Well, the old version of Andorhal existed through to Cataclysm. Until that point, WPL was still a lvl 50 questing zone that honestly... no one quested in because there were barely any quests leading into WPL as a zone, Andorhal itself was devoid of any major questlines until later, and EPL started at 53 so there wasn't much reason to go or stay in WPL. I think the Tier .5 (Dungeon Heroic) set had something dragging you there, but that was about it. Very little else except some breadcrumbs, which was a shame given how expansive the area was and the fact that it was right outside of Scholomance. They could have done so much with it prior to Cata.
It should be noted Cataclysm Andorhal was like level 35, not 60. It was very, very common to level through there in the Cataclysm era! WPL and EPL got brought down to like 35-40 and 40-45 or something, specifically to reduce the congestion of level 60 zones.
dunno what kinda cataclysm you played but almost nobody leveled anymore by the time cata hit and the people who did usually blasted through it with the dungeon finder.
Yep. WPL started at lvl 50. Alliance had a grand total of 1 quest line that even led you into the zone (not sure about Horde). Then you zoned out to EPL at 53, and went there to start farming scourgestones and build that Argent Dawn rep. I know the zones got reworked for level in Cata, but I forget when the dungeons (Scholo and Strat) got fully reworked. Like I know UBRS got worked over in WoD, but it also got leveled up at the same time. There was the Dead Strat partial rework that happened for the Arthas relived memories in CoT, I think that turned into completely split dungeons later. Scholo had a similar rework done to it... I wanna say during Legion? It was Alliance's first big encounter with Lillian Voss, that's for sure. Plus it made it into whichever TW event, while neither Strat side ever did.
I wish we could one day get anther Time Travel expansion where we go back to the Time where Places like this Lordaeron and Stratholme for example are still functioning Citys
They’re about to make Lorederon a full thing for the Foresaken who changed their banner and are identifying as citizens of lorderon (members of the horde) and not just have it be Undercity I think they should revamp virtually all of eastern kingdoms and Kalimdor for the next 3 expansions while we fight whatever cosmological force they’ll have us fighting. Flesh out old zones update most of the abandoned zones and give them more purpose and stuff to do there
This is what Blizzard should do after Season of Discovery: show us stuff we've never seen before. See stuff as it was in the game before we knew it as Vanilla. Andorhal, Lordaeron, Strathome (before Arthas). So many zones could be seen as if they were new. It would be a one-off thing, of course, But it would be fun to see all of that. Either go that route Or just expand on the current story in the vanilla timeline for a real Classic+ experience.
@@Baskl757 It's not like they can't just make it a separate instance and leave the dungeon intact, but that takes time and money, something we know blizz doesn't have.
I haven’t played WoW in atleast 5 years but I love this comment. Playing Runescape has a nostalgic aesthetic. But upgrading and leaving my friends and brother behind to jump to WoW right before Wrath, I felt dumb for not getting to it sooner. Back then it was peak in so many ways. When the South Park episode came out I felt so seen and still love that episode to this day.
That was a good trip down memory lane. I did not have a guild back then, so only got lucky to summon Araj once back then when I came upon a group who had already done several of the towers. The game was so much grittier back then. Not nearly as toxic, either.
@@brandonkellner2920 my guess is the min-max elitist mindset WoW players have nowadays. I started playing in mid TBC around Christmas 2007 so I didn't experience original Vanilla, but I don't remember original WOTLK's playerbase being nearly as toxic as Classic Wrath has been. Sure there were sweaty tryhards back then too, but today's WoW player is all about the "GO GO GO!!!" efficiency over enjoyment that has been brought over from the current retail mindset with speedruns being the big thing. The original TBC and Wrath releases were way more enjoyable to me than Classic has been due to guilds turning raiding into a 2nd stressful job basically, not to mention GDKP which in my opinion ruins the game since many like myself who refuse to buy gold get left behind.
@@YNRChewmiester So elitism. I played in Vanilla and Classic, and the view on the game was very different. Classic players focused pretty much only on raiding, while back in vanilla, raiding was seen as something only no life players cared about. Towards the end of vanilla, it got way more focus on the forums because they kept making the early raids easier and easier, but in the early days, 99% of players didn't care about it. So I can see what you're saying. But I was thinking toxicity was just generally abusive behavior or language, and I think the players 20 years ago were way worse, and it's not even close.
This is a thing which happens in every game ever if it survives long enough. The game originally tends to have new players who don't expect other players to know anything either and everyone is just trying to have fun experiencing it for the first time. Once the game is fully and reduntantly solved you're simply wrong if you're not a min-max elitist type. You're wrong if you're not fishing in the right place to maximize AH profit. You're wrong if you play the wrong class and spec. You shouldn't be leveling playing quests, It's more efficient for a mage to boost you; that sort of thing. That was barely a thing in original classic because players wanted to see the content and wanted to learn to play with other players in dungeons and they just wanted to have fun. Rushing to 60 and playing through raid dungeons was not the goal; fun was the goal and raiding was something which happened naturally, or didn't. Don't get me wrong, I know why people in AQ40 or whatever vet other players' damage output, choices etc to make sure they don't ruin everyone elses fun; what I don't get is why people do it in easy dungeons and non-dungeon content. Scholo with any half-way decent player combination and skill is just rote and boring after the 20th time; it's even less fun playing with people in raid gear who are only there for the dark runes or AD rep. Scholo is still fun playing with an idiotic group composition like 3 warriors, a druid healer in greens and a rogue. "wait, what do we do with those mobs that turn into ghosts that don't take physical damage? - How many trinkets you got? - I got some bombs. - We can sap one and burn down one of them. - Thunderclap is magic damage isn't it?"`. Think of it as hard mode playing with suboptimal classes and figuring out a way to do it anyway. You don't remember the 30th time you played scholo with a competent group; you remember the time someone got knocked down to Rattlegore; or when you managed to hold things toghether with low level/incompetent/bad class combos somehow. But the min-max elitists aren't there for that. It's their 100th scholo run in 2 weeks and they care about efficient rep farming or dark runes per hour. They feel like pulling their hair out sitting through "baby's first Scholo" with new players. I think that's the core of "toxicity". A clash between different types of players with different goals who don't understand each other and would rather not play with each other. From what I remember from original classic, players with rude in a different way. You could have people throwing an epic hissy fit over finding a green or whatever in some chest. That's not really a thing now because players now know that green doesn't matter; they know their best in slot at different levels; they know the quest rewards from dungeons and so on and have them planned out 20 levels in advance so they can level efficiently; random greens don't matter.
I was one of lucky no-lifers that got to experience this - and yes your frames went from 60+ to 10-20 was awful..... however I found my first Krol Blade in a chest there! so also good memories!
The OG Andorhal was better. This is one of the earliest memories I have playing this game. I remember the walls that were there, people used to scale on top of them and shoot down from the top. I remember cheesing mobs from on top of the wall also, they would just evade. I remember they did a huge terrain pass over the game because there was so much mob evading and terrain hopping, climbing the wall on Org, getting up into trees, etc. Even I was able to climb on top of the Waterfall in the out of bounds area in Warsong Gulch, I don't think they fixed it until they completely revamped the BG. There were logs in ZG you could jump on top of to evade and reset everything.
I remember running ZG after some members of guilds who stood on a log or wall during the first boss fight to avoid damage were banned. When my guild would run it we were scrupulous about how we spent time on that wall, as much as the mods had said we could.
I actually had no idea this was a thing. It's so interesting that it was an actual city in the game but was removed later on. I wonder how many people still remember the old version or stumbled upon it once in 2004 and then 15 years later when they went through the area felt like they had a Mandela effect and Andorhal looked entirely different.
@@BlackMant1s same man. I remember seeing someone play wow during vanilla iirc and i saw that person was in some 1 boss 40 man raid with a demon like onyxias lair. Only to during classic discover that raid never existed. I just assumed it was removed from the game and nobody talks about it because nobody cared about it. Weirdest thing is I have somewhat clear memories of it (I guarantee it wasnt molten core)
it’s hard to imagine that very many people actually even saw it in this form given how short lived it was and how long it took people back then to hit level 60. I’m fairly certain there was no thottbot or allakazham yet at that point, so I’d be willing to bet less than 1% of the player base at that point had even stepped foot into WPL by the one month mark
Well that explains alot. I played on release and hit 60 about 2 weeks in. I remember the OG Andorhol and doing quests there when I was nearing 60. It changed, but I hadn't ever mentally connected that the two places were the same. I just always remembered there was this city in the Plague lands I could never find again, and never knew what happened to it.
Plaugelands were a HUGE part of the Vanilla and Classic storylines. Fond memories of farming there and world PVP. Anyone that played WC3 experienced WoW in a very different way than the kids who signed up in the last 15 yeasrs
Maybe it’s because I started as a Forsaken but plaguelands content I always found very peaceful and satisfying. I never did the elite priest quest out there but I’ll always respect a player that could run that one solo
Oh yeah, old old Andorhal. I remember it very well as I started WoW in closed Beta and leveled fast enoguh after release to go to Andorhal aka Lag City. It was laggy, had strong enemies and a lot of patrols and, iirc, Shades who could see through your stealth. It was painful, and yet I'm glad I had this experience.
Andorhal - yes! I knew I'm not completely crazy for remembering it being way, way different. Thank you! I've been trying for years to see some footage from that area.
That really takes me back. I remember going through all that on my paladin back in the day so I could get the key and finish the questline for his charger mount inside the dungeon. Scholomance itself was different back then and I remember there were forums online about how to bypass the locked door without going through the questline to get the key on your alts if they weren't a rogue or a blacksmith. They were mostly about how to kill your own character so you could respawn on the other side of the door. Warlocks had to go there for their felsteed mount too. Sometimes I wish they had made the charger and felsteed mounts look slightly nicer or different for those of us that had to do the quest chains back in the day for those mounts. I also remember Chillwind Camp was one of the places Horde players liked farming honor points on PVP servers. I used to dread having to fly there because half the time I'd get ganked and camped the moment my taxi landed. There was a LOT of world PVP in Andorhal, like a minature Southshore vs Terren Mill. They should dust it off and make 'Old Andorhal' an arena map or small battleground.
Thats pretty cool. I vaguely remembered it, and then when you went over the crystals - I had flash backs of doing it then. Then, when you showed the old city in 1.1, I had flash backs of running around the outside of the walls because it was so deadly to me. Cant recall if it was because I was lower level or if the mobs were just that strong in there. Very cool. Thanks for video!
I remember going out of my way to do typically ignored zones like this due primarily to a lot of solo playing. If you werent running instances with a lot of consistancy, sometimes you just didn't get enough EXP to level up sustainably. So, do every quest in every zone unless you feel like doing boring mob grinds. Tried to finish everything before I got to outlands and I still think I almost ran out of zone quests before I hit level 70. I noticed in playing vanilla zones later on with alts that a lot of the elite mobs were nerfed to regular mobs, probably because people were not playing the content as much and it was harder to get groups.
I remember watching my brother playing his holy paladin and soloing almost any quest the game threw at him. Despite dungeon quests but I'm not gonna lie he was able to solo certain dungeon quests too if it didn't require too much
ive played this game for 20 years and i have deepdived into lore and the development of the game multiple times, but i have never heard of this before, very interesting and such a cool trivia, more of this 👍👍👍
I remember reading the old patch notes for 1.4 some years back and seeing that they made this change. I always wondered what it looked like before. It’s awesome that you were able to showcase this.
I got the game for Christmas way back in 2004, and the crystals summoning Araj feels very familiar to me. That said, I never saw the original version of the city, I wish I had, it looked really cool.
30 years later and lordaeron is still the only country/nation/Kingdom with the highest number of cities- undercity/capital city, stratholme, andorhal, heathglen. Only the combined khaz modan nation can come close to this with ironforge, gnomeregan, grim batol and shadowforge. And even then its a gnome + multiple dwarven nations situation... Amazing how stormwind with it's dominance over the lore of warcraft for atleast 18 years, still only possess a single city. Multiple towns and fortresses sure, but only one city.
I only started playing in BC times and stopped at Cata. The only reasons to go to the plague lands, scholo and strat was farming for the paladin mount and later getting the quest achievements. Always felt like such an empty area to me. Cool to get some context on what it used to be and how popular/important it was!
I earned the Loremaster title pre-Cataclysm, which required me to scour every corner of Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms to find old dead-end quests. My time in the Plaguelands was one of the more enjoyable parts of this grind; the creepy vibes were excellent and the quest chains were actually fun to do (Unlike Winterspring/Silithus).
The Western and Eastern Plaguelands were the best experience in the entire game for me. I loved the quests in Andorhal and Scholomance, there was a foreboding atmosphere that I liked and I felt was the game's signature design. I always preffered to quest there since it reminded me of the story of Warcraft 3. These days... the areas are now a shadow of their former selves. No more foreboding atmosphere, no more mysterious gnome questgiver, no more undead threat. A shame.
Its weird how a private server currently in development (Epoch) just mentioned they're including the original Andorhal, walls, crystals et all, funny how these things work out. Andorhal has a weird special place in my heart given what it is, always liked it until Wrath - and then I enjoyed the Cata version. Would be interesting if SoD did something special with it, but the scope of it makes it unlikely.
Absolutely loved the plaguelands, brutal zone that ruthlessly killed players with it's insane mob density and nasty debuffs. You came out of the other end a harder tougher player than when you went in.
I vaguely remember doing crystals in the towers, but I wasn't playing vanilla at that point, so I am guessing I must have played on a private server that added that in, but I can't for the life of me think of which. It must have been one of those short-lived ones.
i remember using my warlock void to tank that whole area.... it was the only way to get it done solo pretty well. but it was all about timing and being patient.
I started playing just before Cata came out, and I've always been confused why I remembered Andorhal differently everytime I went through it with an alt. Now I know I'm not mad.
I played beta - wrath then returned for legion - bfa. I remember this place well I got 60 the first month and this was a popular place to grind out argent dawn tokens. At that time the pvp server I was on had an unofficial truce between horde and alliance, since the reward system had not yet been implemented. A lot of zones were changed during the early game. A lot of quests and mobs were not in the original launch. I use to use the tunnel from fordrings cabin as a short cut in the plague lands boy was I surprised when they added the crypt spiders 😂
Such memories...remember my first character in TBC (Undead Warlock) and i decided to explore the plaguelands without knowing the level of mobs...so a spider bites me and instakilled near the bulwark 😅
Interesting, I completely missed that one, despite having played the game since the US release. (But then again, I started again from scratch as soon as the game was released in the EU, and when I finally got to level 50ish, Andorhal had been overhauled by then.)
Goddamn, I remember that area from nearly twenty years ago! I only played through it once I think. Because I was a single character player until after the BC. But still... I remember my lock struggling through the area (I was what the guy might call a "bad" player at that time...).
I did play the vanilla WOW beta and get to 60 there, and then buy the game in December of 2004. But damn if I ever really saw this old version of Andorhol. Mainly I remember it from the WC3 Human campaign. I do have a lot of memories of Araj the Summoner and the other elites there aggroing and killing people trying to ride through though!
I remember doing the 4 crystals to get the Scholomance Key for my first character to hit 60. Don't remember Chromie though, but memory is faulty like that.
How do get these older versions of wow and run them? I would love to boot up a 1.1 version of WoW and walk around Andorhal. I have been playing since the open beta, but I definitely didn’t make it to Andorhal prior to the change. The version most of us know is the one I remember, not the city version.
Retail has 0 immersion when it comes to these things, great video but just reminded me once again how much I dislike the zones, buildings and "new" models of retail.
I can see why having to destroy objects to summon a boss mob would cause problems. if more than one group is doing the quest, whoever is second is SOL until things spawn back, which absolutely blows.
I have an unrelated question : does anyone remember a staff being sold by the naaru in Shattrath City that looked like a naaru itself very much like the holy priest legion artifact "T'ure". I have vivid memories of seeing it during wotlk but I can't seem to find any trace of it anymore. Have I imagined it ?
I could have sworn I saw the same type of staff around TBC/WoTLK, but after looking at what the quartermasters sell, I couldn't find any evidence of them selling staves. The closest staves I could find to a naaru-looking staff from TBC are the Exodar Life-Staff, the Nexus Key, and the Crystalheart Pulse-Staff. I'll keep looking, though.
@Opalline14 I'm pretty sure it was sold by the naaru G'eras in Shattrath City. It's driving mad, to think that this may be a Mandela effect, I just need to know if it existed or not 😫
I thought the elites in the base of the tower were to up the difficulty for those trying to set the torches to the tower. seems it was more than that. nice to know.
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 85 | คู่เอก "ยอดเหล็กเพชร vs ผึ้งหลวง"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Qq_19bnnxEo/mqdefault.jpg)
![[ENGSUB] UNPRODUCTIVE DAY ใช้ชีวิต (เปื่อยๆ) ด้วยกัน 1 วัน! | OUROAD CLOSEFRiEND SS2 EP.9](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pyYKZ3kra9w/mqdefault.jpg)
Visiting and questin in the plaguelands after growing up with Warcraft 3 was such a magical thing.
Do you remember Tyr's Hand? It looks exactly like some W3 base :D
Bro yes! I love it so much.
yea walking around andorhal and infected grain storages was such a nice experience, ive probably spend more time retracing arthas footsteps than actually playing the gamelol
@@erurainon6842 in TBC Deatholme in Ghostlands looks like a typical WCIII undead base (And in WotLK Scourgeholme in Icecrown)
@@balobaev I'll check it next time ill be playing :D Im sure we would find plenty.
Before Burning Crusade, my guild had a tradition where we took characters who just leveled up to 50, and ran them through the questlines starting in the Bulwark. We had a tank and healer, equipped with Tier 1-3 raiding gear plus 1-3 level 50 characters. We would run them around, killing mobs, defusing Plague cauldrons, and eventually cleaning out Andorhal with the new guys. In a couple of hours, we'd get them 3-4 levels, and a significant chunk of Argent Dawn rep. It was a good way to teach them teamwork, and good habits for running 5-man dungeons.
All of which became irrelevant as the game changed with later expansions, but at the time, it was a good way to get to know your guild.
🥹
such a warm memories
I miss those days! Chatting with my guild mates on Ventrilo and just goofing around. 😊
I recommend everyone to download the addon called NPC Time for WoW. Get that, go to old zones and see how long some mobs have been alive. Highest I've seen was one mob who was alive for 7 days, tells you enough about a zone.
i wonder if server maintenance resets it
Go to bloodmyst Isle and tell us who is the oldest npc there
@@Silly_Illidan Currently 2 days and 18 hours is what I see. I presume servers been reset :p.
@@Okan195 holy crap! Ppl still go to vector coil? Amazing
Did u check this on hardcore? Or retail?
That's the max possible
Great place to farm Argent Dawn rep back in the day. The general vibe of the vanilla Plaguelands is incomparable.
Hands down the best zone in the game for me
I just started leveling in classic just to go there.
Nostalgia is so blinding for players of World of Warcraft in its early years. It's far and away, objectively a much better game today than it ever has been.
Ah, the plaguelands. With Welcome Bear and Surprise Spider. Good times.
I member Anderhal in the vanilla days, it was always packed with players questing. Getting into a good group for Araj was a challenge.
I've never heard this change to Andorhal talked about before, interesting how unknown this very old version is. I started 6 months after vanilla came out, so this version of Andorhal was a complete unknown to me.
This is the first video about this change, if I'm not mistaken. I saw it on an old changelog or wiki page once, and I was fascinated because the only way to see this change was looking at old alpha minimaps or trying the alpha client.
One of the reasons it is so mysterious is because its actually the "Ruins of Andy Warhol". The developers condensed it to the Ruins of "Andorhal" to leave it up to the players to discover it.
Well, the old version of Andorhal existed through to Cataclysm. Until that point, WPL was still a lvl 50 questing zone that honestly... no one quested in because there were barely any quests leading into WPL as a zone, Andorhal itself was devoid of any major questlines until later, and EPL started at 53 so there wasn't much reason to go or stay in WPL. I think the Tier .5 (Dungeon Heroic) set had something dragging you there, but that was about it. Very little else except some breadcrumbs, which was a shame given how expansive the area was and the fact that it was right outside of Scholomance. They could have done so much with it prior to Cata.
It should be noted Cataclysm Andorhal was like level 35, not 60. It was very, very common to level through there in the Cataclysm era! WPL and EPL got brought down to like 35-40 and 40-45 or something, specifically to reduce the congestion of level 60 zones.
Thank you for this. Thought I was losing my mind.
dunno what kinda cataclysm you played but almost nobody leveled anymore by the time cata hit and the people who did usually blasted through it with the dungeon finder.
I remember this. Cataclysm really took a shit on any remaining vanilla aspects.
Yep. WPL started at lvl 50. Alliance had a grand total of 1 quest line that even led you into the zone (not sure about Horde). Then you zoned out to EPL at 53, and went there to start farming scourgestones and build that Argent Dawn rep. I know the zones got reworked for level in Cata, but I forget when the dungeons (Scholo and Strat) got fully reworked. Like I know UBRS got worked over in WoD, but it also got leveled up at the same time. There was the Dead Strat partial rework that happened for the Arthas relived memories in CoT, I think that turned into completely split dungeons later. Scholo had a similar rework done to it... I wanna say during Legion? It was Alliance's first big encounter with Lillian Voss, that's for sure. Plus it made it into whichever TW event, while neither Strat side ever did.
I wish we could one day get anther Time Travel expansion where we go back to the Time where Places like this Lordaeron and Stratholme for example are still functioning Citys
They’re about to make Lorederon a full thing for the Foresaken who changed their banner and are identifying as citizens of lorderon (members of the horde) and not just have it be Undercity
I think they should revamp virtually all of eastern kingdoms and Kalimdor for the next 3 expansions while we fight whatever cosmological force they’ll have us fighting. Flesh out old zones update most of the abandoned zones and give them more purpose and stuff to do there
Basically just make a warcraft 2 themed expansion then
Wow usually does poorly with these concepts by e.g. turning everyone into Humans and not for example elves into high-elves.
This is what Blizzard should do after Season of Discovery: show us stuff we've never seen before. See stuff as it was in the game before we knew it as Vanilla. Andorhal, Lordaeron, Strathome (before Arthas). So many zones could be seen as if they were new. It would be a one-off thing, of course, But it would be fun to see all of that. Either go that route Or just expand on the current story in the vanilla timeline for a real Classic+ experience.
That's a great idea and would love to see that happen surely
Kept thinking they were going to continue with rebuilding at a later time but its been years and, Blizz being Blizz, left it alone again...
Blizz: We're finally giving Gilneas back!
Players: What about Gnomeragon?
Blizz: What's that?
@@cujoedaman I've wanted to see gnomergan as a major city for so long
@@Baskl757 It's not like they can't just make it a separate instance and leave the dungeon intact, but that takes time and money, something we know blizz doesn't have.
Meanwhile Silvermoon and Exodar still being dead, old graphics, un-flyable cities
@@cujoedaman They do have lots of that, what the execs lack is love for the game and respect for the old zones.
Man... I don't feel this kind of nostalgia towards my home town of birth... When it comes to WoW towns and locations, my throat starts to cramp up.
It was an amazing time I'm glad I was alive and able to have a solid experience during😢 my heart hurts for the amazing times I had while playing
I haven’t played WoW in atleast 5 years but I love this comment. Playing Runescape has a nostalgic aesthetic. But upgrading and leaving my friends and brother behind to jump to WoW right before Wrath, I felt dumb for not getting to it sooner. Back then it was peak in so many ways. When the South Park episode came out I felt so seen and still love that episode to this day.
That was a good trip down memory lane. I did not have a guild back then, so only got lucky to summon Araj once back then when I came upon a group who had already done several of the towers. The game was so much grittier back then. Not nearly as toxic, either.
I am just asking honestly, why do you think the game is more toxic now? Can you give some examples?
@@brandonkellner2920 my guess is the min-max elitist mindset WoW players have nowadays. I started playing in mid TBC around Christmas 2007 so I didn't experience original Vanilla, but I don't remember original WOTLK's playerbase being nearly as toxic as Classic Wrath has been. Sure there were sweaty tryhards back then too, but today's WoW player is all about the "GO GO GO!!!" efficiency over enjoyment that has been brought over from the current retail mindset with speedruns being the big thing. The original TBC and Wrath releases were way more enjoyable to me than Classic has been due to guilds turning raiding into a 2nd stressful job basically, not to mention GDKP which in my opinion ruins the game since many like myself who refuse to buy gold get left behind.
@@YNRChewmiester So elitism. I played in Vanilla and Classic, and the view on the game was very different. Classic players focused pretty much only on raiding, while back in vanilla, raiding was seen as something only no life players cared about. Towards the end of vanilla, it got way more focus on the forums because they kept making the early raids easier and easier, but in the early days, 99% of players didn't care about it.
So I can see what you're saying. But I was thinking toxicity was just generally abusive behavior or language, and I think the players 20 years ago were way worse, and it's not even close.
This is a thing which happens in every game ever if it survives long enough. The game originally tends to have new players who don't expect other players to know anything either and everyone is just trying to have fun experiencing it for the first time. Once the game is fully and reduntantly solved you're simply wrong if you're not a min-max elitist type. You're wrong if you're not fishing in the right place to maximize AH profit. You're wrong if you play the wrong class and spec. You shouldn't be leveling playing quests, It's more efficient for a mage to boost you; that sort of thing.
That was barely a thing in original classic because players wanted to see the content and wanted to learn to play with other players in dungeons and they just wanted to have fun. Rushing to 60 and playing through raid dungeons was not the goal; fun was the goal and raiding was something which happened naturally, or didn't. Don't get me wrong, I know why people in AQ40 or whatever vet other players' damage output, choices etc to make sure they don't ruin everyone elses fun; what I don't get is why people do it in easy dungeons and non-dungeon content.
Scholo with any half-way decent player combination and skill is just rote and boring after the 20th time; it's even less fun playing with people in raid gear who are only there for the dark runes or AD rep. Scholo is still fun playing with an idiotic group composition like 3 warriors, a druid healer in greens and a rogue. "wait, what do we do with those mobs that turn into ghosts that don't take physical damage? - How many trinkets you got? - I got some bombs. - We can sap one and burn down one of them. - Thunderclap is magic damage isn't it?"`. Think of it as hard mode playing with suboptimal classes and figuring out a way to do it anyway. You don't remember the 30th time you played scholo with a competent group; you remember the time someone got knocked down to Rattlegore; or when you managed to hold things toghether with low level/incompetent/bad class combos somehow.
But the min-max elitists aren't there for that. It's their 100th scholo run in 2 weeks and they care about efficient rep farming or dark runes per hour. They feel like pulling their hair out sitting through "baby's first Scholo" with new players.
I think that's the core of "toxicity". A clash between different types of players with different goals who don't understand each other and would rather not play with each other.
From what I remember from original classic, players with rude in a different way. You could have people throwing an epic hissy fit over finding a green or whatever in some chest. That's not really a thing now because players now know that green doesn't matter; they know their best in slot at different levels; they know the quest rewards from dungeons and so on and have them planned out 20 levels in advance so they can level efficiently; random greens don't matter.
@@soylentgreenb not enough likes :)
I was one of lucky no-lifers that got to experience this - and yes your frames went from 60+ to 10-20 was awful..... however I found my first Krol Blade in a chest there! so also good memories!
Thought I had already watched this video and commented based on your icon. Lol
The OG Andorhal was better. This is one of the earliest memories I have playing this game. I remember the walls that were there, people used to scale on top of them and shoot down from the top. I remember cheesing mobs from on top of the wall also, they would just evade. I remember they did a huge terrain pass over the game because there was so much mob evading and terrain hopping, climbing the wall on Org, getting up into trees, etc. Even I was able to climb on top of the Waterfall in the out of bounds area in Warsong Gulch, I don't think they fixed it until they completely revamped the BG. There were logs in ZG you could jump on top of to evade and reset everything.
I remember running ZG after some members of guilds who stood on a log or wall during the first boss fight to avoid damage were banned. When my guild would run it we were scrupulous about how we spent time on that wall, as much as the mods had said we could.
In the strategy game Azeroth Wars, Andorhal was always the most important city to hold against the scourge as the North Alliance. God i miss that game
I loved that map so much even though I sucked at it. I usually played as the Fel Horde so I didn't piss off a teammate with how bad I was lol.
that was a good map before clown Sebas ruined it
I actually had no idea this was a thing. It's so interesting that it was an actual city in the game but was removed later on. I wonder how many people still remember the old version or stumbled upon it once in 2004 and then 15 years later when they went through the area felt like they had a Mandela effect and Andorhal looked entirely different.
i feel this way about way too many locations in WoW
@@BlackMant1s same man. I remember seeing someone play wow during vanilla iirc and i saw that person was in some 1 boss 40 man raid with a demon like onyxias lair.
Only to during classic discover that raid never existed. I just assumed it was removed from the game and nobody talks about it because nobody cared about it. Weirdest thing is I have somewhat clear memories of it (I guarantee it wasnt molten core)
@@idkdontask7142 It sounds like you're describing Mag's lair from Burning Crusade.
it’s hard to imagine that very many people actually even saw it in this form given how short lived it was and how long it took people back then to hit level 60. I’m fairly certain there was no thottbot or allakazham yet at that point, so I’d be willing to bet less than 1% of the player base at that point had even stepped foot into WPL by the one month mark
You're just miss remembering expansions. They never changed anything in the raids; the demon was TBC.@@idkdontask7142
Also: Old Stratholme > Stormwind
Its superior in every respect and actually looks like a medieval city
Well that explains alot. I played on release and hit 60 about 2 weeks in. I remember the OG Andorhol and doing quests there when I was nearing 60. It changed, but I hadn't ever mentally connected that the two places were the same. I just always remembered there was this city in the Plague lands I could never find again, and never knew what happened to it.
Plaugelands were a HUGE part of the Vanilla and Classic storylines. Fond memories of farming there and world PVP. Anyone that played WC3 experienced WoW in a very different way than the kids who signed up in the last 15 yeasrs
Instant subscribe! Keep up the great work, brother.
Strong Hayven Games vibes, which is no small compliment! Subscribed! Thank you! - Elysium
Im honored! Glad you like them :)
Maybe it’s because I started as a Forsaken but plaguelands content I always found very peaceful and satisfying. I never did the elite priest quest out there but I’ll always respect a player that could run that one solo
cool content. its amazing people still come up with interesting things to discuss in the game.
Oh yeah, old old Andorhal. I remember it very well as I started WoW in closed Beta and leveled fast enoguh after release to go to Andorhal aka Lag City. It was laggy, had strong enemies and a lot of patrols and, iirc, Shades who could see through your stealth. It was painful, and yet I'm glad I had this experience.
had no idea about this, very cool video!
Andorhal - yes! I knew I'm not completely crazy for remembering it being way, way different. Thank you! I've been trying for years to see some footage from that area.
Thank you for this tidbit. Just when I thought I knew everything there was to know about the game, I have the pleasure of learning something new.
Fedt at høre en dansk stemme nørde lore :) . Tusind tak
That really takes me back. I remember going through all that on my paladin back in the day so I could get the key and finish the questline for his charger mount inside the dungeon. Scholomance itself was different back then and I remember there were forums online about how to bypass the locked door without going through the questline to get the key on your alts if they weren't a rogue or a blacksmith. They were mostly about how to kill your own character so you could respawn on the other side of the door. Warlocks had to go there for their felsteed mount too. Sometimes I wish they had made the charger and felsteed mounts look slightly nicer or different for those of us that had to do the quest chains back in the day for those mounts. I also remember Chillwind Camp was one of the places Horde players liked farming honor points on PVP servers. I used to dread having to fly there because half the time I'd get ganked and camped the moment my taxi landed. There was a LOT of world PVP in Andorhal, like a minature Southshore vs Terren Mill. They should dust it off and make 'Old Andorhal' an arena map or small battleground.
Man I miss farming scourgestones in Andorhal and Corin's Crossing back in the day! The overall vibe of vanilla Plaguelands is unmatched to this day!
Thats pretty cool. I vaguely remembered it, and then when you went over the crystals - I had flash backs of doing it then. Then, when you showed the old city in 1.1, I had flash backs of running around the outside of the walls because it was so deadly to me. Cant recall if it was because I was lower level or if the mobs were just that strong in there. Very cool. Thanks for video!
I remember going out of my way to do typically ignored zones like this due primarily to a lot of solo playing. If you werent running instances with a lot of consistancy, sometimes you just didn't get enough EXP to level up sustainably. So, do every quest in every zone unless you feel like doing boring mob grinds.
Tried to finish everything before I got to outlands and I still think I almost ran out of zone quests before I hit level 70.
I noticed in playing vanilla zones later on with alts that a lot of the elite mobs were nerfed to regular mobs, probably because people were not playing the content as much and it was harder to get groups.
thank you for another great video
Thanks a lot, happy you like them!
Thx!! Love your storytelling and learning about wow history. Make more of these please!
I had no idea it was different, all this time. I started in 2006.
I remember watching my brother playing his holy paladin and soloing almost any quest the game threw at him. Despite dungeon quests but I'm not gonna lie he was able to solo certain dungeon quests too if it didn't require too much
ive played this game for 20 years and i have deepdived into lore and the development of the game multiple times, but i have never heard of this before, very interesting and such a cool trivia, more of this 👍👍👍
Thanks for showing the older contents. Brings back memories of being on my hunter and my warrior.
I remember reading the old patch notes for 1.4 some years back and seeing that they made this change. I always wondered what it looked like before. It’s awesome that you were able to showcase this.
Wow, even after so many years I’m still learning new stuff about Wow. Great video!
I got the game for Christmas way back in 2004, and the crystals summoning Araj feels very familiar to me. That said, I never saw the original version of the city, I wish I had, it looked really cool.
30 years later and lordaeron is still the only country/nation/Kingdom with the highest number of cities- undercity/capital city, stratholme, andorhal, heathglen.
Only the combined khaz modan nation can come close to this with ironforge, gnomeregan, grim batol and shadowforge. And even then its a gnome + multiple dwarven nations situation...
Amazing how stormwind with it's dominance over the lore of warcraft for atleast 18 years, still only possess a single city. Multiple towns and fortresses sure, but only one city.
I only started playing in BC times and stopped at Cata. The only reasons to go to the plague lands, scholo and strat was farming for the paladin mount and later getting the quest achievements. Always felt like such an empty area to me. Cool to get some context on what it used to be and how popular/important it was!
ever since i saw andorhal, and quested in it it felt unfinished, something was missing.
now...20 years laters i know why, thank you for this.
I earned the Loremaster title pre-Cataclysm, which required me to scour every corner of Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms to find old dead-end quests. My time in the Plaguelands was one of the more enjoyable parts of this grind; the creepy vibes were excellent and the quest chains were actually fun to do (Unlike Winterspring/Silithus).
Yooooo memory unlocked bro! I know I joined a few Araj raids back in the day! I had totally forgotten about it!
Wow, that Wowhead comment at 6:21 was made be me! It's been a loooong time.
I KNEW Andorhal used to have walls! Thank you for proving I'm not crazy
Lore like this makes it even harder to believe that WoW has become so terrible nowadays...
Love the vibe a quality of your videos, don’t change ur mic or anything ever.
Nice! Keep up the good work!
The Western and Eastern Plaguelands were the best experience in the entire game for me. I loved the quests in Andorhal and Scholomance, there was a foreboding atmosphere that I liked and I felt was the game's signature design.
I always preffered to quest there since it reminded me of the story of Warcraft 3.
These days... the areas are now a shadow of their former selves. No more foreboding atmosphere, no more mysterious gnome questgiver, no more undead threat.
A shame.
I remember the original Andorhal from vanilla WoW. I wasn't able to raid back then so I tended to farm the city
another great video. had no idea about this, love your channel grats on 3k subs
Its weird how a private server currently in development (Epoch) just mentioned they're including the original Andorhal, walls, crystals et all, funny how these things work out.
Andorhal has a weird special place in my heart given what it is, always liked it until Wrath - and then I enjoyed the Cata version. Would be interesting if SoD did something special with it, but the scope of it makes it unlikely.
Absolutely loved the plaguelands, brutal zone that ruthlessly killed players with it's insane mob density and nasty debuffs. You came out of the other end a harder tougher player than when you went in.
cataclysm was such a turning point for wow in general its when we had the first mass exodus of players
Very interesting!
I remember those days well lol. That area was ROUGH when you were leveling up around it lol.
bro had no idea this existed, great vid
I indeed had no idea about this! Cool trivia!
I never knew any of this! Great video
I remember Anderhal back in its original form, i loved going there. was so disappointed when they changed it.
Wait they got rid of this??? I remember doing this/playing this years ago
I vaguely remember doing crystals in the towers, but I wasn't playing vanilla at that point, so I am guessing I must have played on a private server that added that in, but I can't for the life of me think of which. It must have been one of those short-lived ones.
i remember using my warlock void to tank that whole area.... it was the only way to get it done solo pretty well. but it was all about timing and being patient.
I started playing just before Cata came out, and I've always been confused why I remembered Andorhal differently everytime I went through it with an alt. Now I know I'm not mad.
Thanks for the memories
great vid man keep it up
I played beta - wrath then returned for legion - bfa. I remember this place well I got 60 the first month and this was a popular place to grind out argent dawn tokens. At that time the pvp server I was on had an unofficial truce between horde and alliance, since the reward system had not yet been implemented. A lot of zones were changed during the early game. A lot of quests and mobs were not in the original launch. I use to use the tunnel from fordrings cabin as a short cut in the plague lands boy was I surprised when they added the crypt spiders 😂
i must have just barely missed those questing hubs because i always got all my quests from the bulwark
This looks so much better than the copy pasted burned houses.
I actually remember doing the crystal version and summoning the Summoner.
Such memories...remember my first character in TBC (Undead Warlock) and i decided to explore the plaguelands without knowing the level of mobs...so a spider bites me and instakilled near the bulwark 😅
Interesting, I completely missed that one, despite having played the game since the US release.
(But then again, I started again from scratch as soon as the game was released in the EU, and when I finally got to level 50ish, Andorhal had been overhauled by then.)
Goddamn, I remember that area from nearly twenty years ago! I only played through it once I think. Because I was a single character player until after the BC. But still... I remember my lock struggling through the area (I was what the guy might call a "bad" player at that time...).
Omg, I can remember those crystals!
I remember the original Andorhal with the walls. It was rare to see players there, place was a death trap.
Kæææææft, du er klart fra Danmark - men virkelig god video :)
Glad for at du kunne lide den
sick vid bro
I did play the vanilla WOW beta and get to 60 there, and then buy the game in December of 2004. But damn if I ever really saw this old version of Andorhol. Mainly I remember it from the WC3 Human campaign. I do have a lot of memories of Araj the Summoner and the other elites there aggroing and killing people trying to ride through though!
God damn searing ghouls still give me PTSD as a warrior
I remember doing the 4 crystals to get the Scholomance Key for my first character to hit 60. Don't remember Chromie though, but memory is faulty like that.
How do get these older versions of wow and run them? I would love to boot up a 1.1 version of WoW and walk around Andorhal. I have been playing since the open beta, but I definitely didn’t make it to Andorhal prior to the change. The version most of us know is the one I remember, not the city version.
I don't know if Ive been to andorhal outside of classic. I can usually farm dungeon xp to move on to further expacs when there are expacs.
Yep remember doing all this when I was on my way to get this 2 handed weapon called the warblade of caerdarrow
Andorhal, now that takes me back.
Wow yes when I was leveling I went into outland as soon as I hit 58 Never looking back . So lots of is missed this
I want WoW prequel "expansion" that is set during the troll wars and allows players to explore such cities
Jesus, I remember those crystals.....good times back then.
Retail has 0 immersion when it comes to these things, great video but just reminded me once again how much I dislike the zones, buildings and "new" models of retail.
I remember running through that scourge town on the way to lights hope..good luck 😂😂😂
Was a really nice place and interesting area sadly dropped like many places 😢
I can see why having to destroy objects to summon a boss mob would cause problems. if more than one group is doing the quest, whoever is second is SOL until things spawn back, which absolutely blows.
We farmed this area non stop. I got the epic chestpiece from chromie pre MC being open.
i remember all the original stuff i played the game from the start
I have an unrelated question : does anyone remember a staff being sold by the naaru in Shattrath City that looked like a naaru itself very much like the holy priest legion artifact "T'ure". I have vivid memories of seeing it during wotlk but I can't seem to find any trace of it anymore. Have I imagined it ?
I could have sworn I saw the same type of staff around TBC/WoTLK, but after looking at what the quartermasters sell, I couldn't find any evidence of them selling staves. The closest staves I could find to a naaru-looking staff from TBC are the Exodar Life-Staff, the Nexus Key, and the Crystalheart Pulse-Staff. I'll keep looking, though.
@Opalline14 I'm pretty sure it was sold by the naaru G'eras in Shattrath City. It's driving mad, to think that this may be a Mandela effect, I just need to know if it existed or not 😫
the weapons sold by G’eras were exclusively for the off-hand slot.
sold armor as well, but no staff.
@@Anachronos97it never was.
I thought the elites in the base of the tower were to up the difficulty for those trying to set the torches to the tower.
seems it was more than that. nice to know.
Just proves my point that adding buildings and overhauling the world isn't hard. Could of made wow classic+ like this