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Back in my day, it was all about patch 1.2
Patch 5.2 this, patch 5.2 that! Back in my day, we had real patches. Or rather, we had the very first content patch for the game -- patch 1.2. Daily quest hubs? Dailies didn't even exist back then. No, you got a dungeon -- a single dungeon -- and you liked it. And there was none of this silly heroic nonsense, either. All we needed was someplace to run in and smash a few centaur and we were perfectly happy. But seriously, it's actually kind of odd to think about, because I remember that very first patch with utter clarity. It was still 2004, less than a month after the game itself had been released -- and I had just gotten the hang of playing a druid, more or less. Well, I figured out what talent points were for, anyway. Hint: It wasn't just the game congratulating me for leveling up. I was such a noob back then.
WoW Archivist: World of Warcraft patch 1.2
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. Patch 1.2 was World of Warcraft's very first post-release content patch, way back in December of 2004. It was officially released on Dec. 18, less than a month after the release of the game. Patch 1.2's crown jewel was Maraudon, the first instance ever added to the game after its launch. You may all hate Maraudon now, but back in 2004, that twisty hellhole was the cat's pajamas. Patch 1.2 also included: Winter Veil The ability to turn off your helm and cloak A nerf to Daze The Great Kodo Nerf of '04 Let's dust off the patch 1.2 tome together, shall we?
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!
