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WoW Archivist: Recapping classic World of Warcraft
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? Who is etched into WoW's history? What secrets does the game still hold? The Archivist has come a long way. We've just about wrapped up the chronological history of classic World of Warcraft. Sure, there are still bits and bobs that have gone unexplored for now ("The Ashbringer ...") but we've covered every single major patch from the World of Warcraft from prerelease all the way up through the final raid tier of level 60 content. The next time we tackle a set of patch notes, we'll be firmly in The Burning Crusade territory. Exciting, isn't it? Before we leap into that sweet, sweet Burning Crusade, let's recap what we've covered already, starting way back in July 2009.
WoW Archivist: World of Warcraft beta patch 0.12
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. World of Warcraft's beta patch 0.12 marked the final pre-release patch of the game. Patch 1.1 was the official release candidate, but this was the final cycle of the beta. Some highlights from this patch include: The item durability system was implemented. You could no longer complete standard quests in a raid group. Scholomance and Ragefire Chasm were implemented. Let's discuss, shall we?
WoW Archivist: World of Warcraft beta patch 0.11
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. Last week, we took a break from patch notes to tackle a reader request: The Gates of Ahn'Qiraj. This week, it's back to patch notes, and we'll be looking at beta patch 0.11 from September 2004. The beta started to wind down at this point, but the game still wasn't quite feature complete -- even with the launch of the game only a month out. Some highlights from this patch include: Revamped model system The addition of loot options that brought the group looting system mostly in line with what we have today Undead players' ability to speak Common revoked, given Gutterspeak Onward!
WoW Archivist: World of Warcraft beta patch 0.9
The WoW Archivist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. Do any of you vanilla WoW players remember how terrifying Teremus the Devourer used to be? He was among the very first world bosses, and boy was he annoying. He was immune to fire damage, frost damage, and magic-based DoTs. Seriously? Immune to fire, frost and DoTs? Yeah, he was brutal. It was perfectly normal to find him rampaging through Stormwind thanks to a friendly hunter kiting him to town. You have patch 0.9 (Aug. 17, 2004) to thank for Teremus' rather ... aggressive nature. He was in the game world before that, but he would leave you alone as long as you left him alone. As of patch 0.9, he turned into a lowbie ganking machine. Other patch 0.9 highlights: Hunters opened up for play testing -- yes, after mages and warriors were given talent trees. And they could use shields. Priests and rogues received the first iteration of their talent trees. Micro-dungeon redesigns were put in. "What the heck is a micro-dungeon?" I hear you ask. Well, let me tell you!
WoW Archaeologist: World of Warcraft beta patch 0.8
The WoW Archaeologist explores the secrets of World of Warcraft's past. What did the game look like years ago? What secrets does the game still hold? If you enjoyed Patches of Yesteryear, you're going to love this. Patch 0.8 was released to World of Warcraft beta servers in July 2004. The game was still taking shape at that point in time, but development of the base product had come far enough that Blizzard could finally start adding additional layers of complexity. Warriors and mages were the first classes to receive talent trees, and that happened in this patch. Other notable additions in patch 0.8 include ... Players who died in PvP against a player or PvP-flagged NPC had to wait in time-out for 2 minutes before they could resurrect via corpse retrieval. The level cap was raised to 50. Sunken Temple and Razorfen Downs were opened and itemized. Rogues lost the ability to use bucklers (shields). Tauren were given the Plainsrunning ability. Follow us behind the cut for the full patch 0.8 patch notes and discussion of the highlights!
